An exclusive extract from my new novel, Class Work.

Martin gave his coat and satchel to a small brunette with a lumpy figure and scanned the crowd for someone he recognised. He saw a few familiar faces from the Groucho and the Supplement and a woman that he couldn’t place who was staring at him fiercely. Publicity, probably, although he couldn’t remember which event or which encounter. It wasn’t the one who had thrown herself at him after the last launch party at the September Gallery, he was sure of that, she’d had blonde hair and a red dress. He took a glass of champagne from the waiter and ducked behind the coat rail, pretending to tie his shoes He hoped she wasn’t expecting to make a scene. That was all he needed.
‘I say, Martin! What are you doing down there?’
He looked up to see Henry Sharp, sometime editor of the Literary Review standing over him, his foppish fringe falling into his eyes.
‘Cassandra’s over there! She’s just been telling me all about your promotion.’
Martin stood up looked over Henry’s thinning hair into the throng. Cassandra was most certainly there, regal in a black cocktail frock, a subtle blue flower tucked into her hair. And the publicity girl seemed to have disappeared into the crowd, thank god.
‘Professor eh? Rather well done I say.’
‘Thank you Henry.’ Martin hadn’t thought of East Albion for weeks. He knew he would have to go down there next week but was putting off looking at the piles of envelopes Cassandra had put on his desk. He had spent all day rewriting a paragraph that he thought might make the beginning of the new novel only to end up deleting it in a fit of pique at about five thirty.
‘You’ve done very well with that job. We literary types need a port in the storm don’t you think?’ Henry flicked his head over his shoulder at a grungy looking young man in dirty jeans and with straggly, greasy hair, who was holding court to a giggling circle of blonde publicity girls.
‘Irwin’s here. He just got another six figure deal for a book about his drug habit.’ He hissed in a stage whisper.
‘Looks like he’s still on them too, he’s got disgusting fingernails.’
Martin felt his ulcer twinge. Irwin McKenzie was an ex-offender turned chronicler of working class Edinburgh. Although not exactly a rival, his books had had notably more commercial success than Martin could ever dream of. His characters were drunks and scammers and addicts and prostitutes, and based on real people he used to know, before his novels got made into movies and he bought a flat in Fulham and a farm in Ireland. He seemed to really live life, like a rock star or something, he didn’t labour away for years behind his desk for a few hundred pages of exquisitely wrought prose, he wrote novels in two weeks, Kerouac-style with the aid of lots of pharmaceuticals.
‘Martin?’
‘Eh?’
'You drifted off.’
‘Oh. Yes. Sorry Henry. Long day.’ Martin felt his energy seeping through his shoes.
‘Ah. Yes. Das kinder. I know all about that.’ Henry’s longtime girlfriend had recently given birth to twins.
‘How are they?’
‘Well, you know how it is, up all night feeding and changing.’
Martin sighed. ‘Oh yes.’ He gave him a clap on the back. ‘Courage my friend.’
‘In fact I’m on my way out. I promised I’d be back by seven thirty and it’s eight already.’
Martin was disappointed, he had half hoped he could get away with skulking in the corner with Henry and not have to stand next to Cassandra and be shown up by her dazzling light. He could see her coiling around the party like a plume of smoke. He needed a drink.
He squeezed his way around the walls to the bar at the back of the room. Here there were pretty waitresses serving glasses of warm white wine. He could see man of the hour Hanif Salman in the corner with his hot-shot agent and last year’s Booker winner. He thought perhaps he should make his way towards them mutter some obligatory congratulations, be seen. But for once he didn’t want to be visible. Written up in Londoner’s Diary, snapped with some famous chums for the Bookseller. He made his way outside to the courtyard garden, which was packed with smokers, but at least in the gathering dusk it was easier to lurk and drink wine without having to concentrate on everything he said.
‘Hello Martin! Or should I say Professor Martin.’ He turned round. Nicholas Thomas from the Standard. Fuck.
Nicholas Thomas from the Standard used to date Cassandra way back in day before Martin had even met her. And as a consequence, whenever they met in public Nicholas always treated Martin as if they had some kind of familial relationship. If he were a different kind of man, perhaps the man that Cassandra secretly wanted him to be, he would have punched Nicholas’s lights out a long time ago. Instead, for the sake of good politics he tolerated him and firmly grabbed his offered hand.
‘Nicholas.’
‘What are you doing out here?’
‘Just getting a little air.’
‘Hard day at the office? Cassandra’s been telling us all about your promotion.’
‘Oh?’ Martin studied Nicholas’s long nose and pinched forehead and thinning sandy hair and wondered what it was about some of the self-styled critics that made them look so, well, critical.
‘So how is your little Creative Writing course? Discovered any new talent? Sounds like the seventh circle of hell to me. Dusty profs and spotty students and all that hot air. Can’t say I’ve ever wanted to live inside a campus novel. Dreary as faded corduroy.’ Nicholas burst a pistachio shell with his fingernails. ‘Still, I suppose it’s a relief to Cassandra now you’ve got a proper salary coming in. What’s the going rate for a Prof these days?’
One day, Martin resolved, he really would punch Nicholas Thomas. He took a deep breath and counted the seconds, imagining the satisfying connection his fist would make with that classical nose that looked as if it were permanently smelling shit. Knock him flying, properly, blood everywhere, he might even get a kick to the ribs before some of the others restrained him and he was ejected from the gathering and bundled into a taxi with an hysterical Cassandra who would be mortified by the social shame and the column inches not to mention the threat of criminal charges which Nicholas would be sure to pursue . . .
‘Martin? You all right?’
‘Oh. Yes, fine. Thanks.’ He managed a watery smile.
‘Anyway, as I was saying, I don’t really think it’s possible to teach . . .’
But he was interrupted by the arrival of Tony Long, a film director who had recently won some big prize. Smoking an ostentatious smelling cheroot and wearing a black and white jacket with inky Moschino branding all over it.
Nicholas rearranged his face, his eyebrows lifted, his lips curled in a smile. ‘Tony. Great to see you.’
Squashed into a corner under some metal stairs with Nicolas and Tony blocking his escape, Martin’s awkwardness was further compounded by the fact that Nicholas had now turned his back on him and he was forced into staring out at the party through the gaps in the metal stairs. He could see a throng of people all smoking, drinking, glittering under the outdoor lighting. There were photographs being taken, cards being exchanged, deals initiated. And for a moment he felt a sense of extreme alienation from his life. He no longer really knew who these people were to him or what he was doing there. When he saw Cassandra, hovering by the doorway, unlit cigarette dangling between her manicured fingers he knew he had to make his escape.
‘Excuse me.’ He pushed Nicholas in the back, making him stumble and spill his drink over Tony’s jacket.
‘Fuck!’ Tony took a step back. ‘Careful.’
‘Sorry. Sorry.’ Martin didn’t look back. ‘I need some air.’
‘But you’re already outside.’ He heard Nicholas say, but he didn’t bother to reply.
He took the most direct route through the courtyard to the front door without stopping for his bag and coat. In the alleyway, out of the crush, the October air was cooling, moist with the promise of rain. He leant against the wall and took grateful gulps of air.
‘How’re ye? Alright there?’
‘Eh?’ Martin looked up, Irwin Mackenzie was looking at him, not unkindly, from behind the straggles of his fringe.
‘Oh. OK thanks.’
‘A wee bit too much of the auld wine, eh?’
‘Yeah.’ Martin wondered vaguely why he wasn’t surrounded by his entourage.
‘Aye. Ahm no cut out to be wi em yuppie wankers. All that, yoo hoo kiss kiss, meks me wantae boak.’
‘Oh.’ Martin wasn’t exactly sure what he just said, but it sounded like he was fed up with the party too.
Irwin unbuttoned the pocket of his denim jacket and took out a packet of Embassy cigarettes. ‘Wantae smoke?’
‘Thanks.’
‘Good man.’ But instead of offering him a cigarette, Irwin took out a large joint from his Embassy packet.
‘Ah goat this oaf a Rasta in Brixton. White Widow. Finest Bob Hope yie can get.’
Martin was initially a little perturbed by the prospect of smoking illegal drugs in the street. But for the first time that evening he felt a small flutter of something, excitement? Vitality? He wasn’t sure.
Irwin lit his spliff and took a deep drag. ‘Ahhhhh. Ah gie'd it the full bhoona.’
He passed it to Martin who paused before he took a short quick puff which made him immediately start coughing. ‘Tek it easy pal. Tek long slow puffs, eh?’ Martin tried again, this time keeping the smoke in his lungs until his legs started to turn soft.
‘What’s your name, pal?’ Irwin’s voice seemed as if it were coming from underwater.
‘Martin, er Martin Wooden.’
‘Oh aye, so what do yie do Martin?’
‘I’m a writer. I write books.’ He handed the joint back to Irwin. He felt woozy and ill and his stomach was churning as if he were experiencing heavy turbulence.
‘Aye? Are yie now?’ Irwin was suddenly enthusiastically shaking his hand. ‘Ah’ve just published a book n aw.’
‘Oh.’ Martin didn’t know what to say.
‘Aye. Their aw big balloons doon here I tell yie. Four hundred grand! Ah’m no eejit, ah know it isnae worth that much!’
‘What’s it about?’
But Martin couldn’t make out his reply. Something about drug monkeys and Ibiza and Scotland . . . ‘Hey pal, you OK?’
He was most certainly not OK, in fact, he was sure, as she started to slide down the wall, that he was about to die.
‘Hey Martin! Dinnae do this to me, man. Breathe deep.’
But the drug had done something very funny to his head. Irwin seemed to be waving at him from far far above him. He was aware that he was trying to speak, but all that emerged was a kind of groan. His lips felt thick and unnatural, and–
‘Martin! Martin!’ She was shaking his shoulder. ‘Are you all right? Wake up!’ For once she sounded genuinely concerned.
‘Cassandra?’ His eyes would only open into little slits. He could see legs, and trousers, other people outside, no sign of Irwin. He had no idea how long he had been passed out.
‘Martin! What have you done?’
He was overwhelmed with the urge to laugh at this question. The absurdity of it, what had he done? And what do you do? And how do you do what you do? He thought this last question to be rather profound and tried to fumble in his pocket for a piece of paper to write it on, except his hand just encountered the ground and a pool of sticky residue.
‘Egh.’
‘Martin. You’ve been sick.’ Cassandra was holding him by the shoulders now and speaking to him very slowly. ‘I’ve got a taxi coming. Can you stand up? Do you think you can do that for me?’ A glass of water appeared which she made him drink.
In a few hours, the fuzz in his head would clear and be replaced by an intense paranoia about what had just happened, but for the moment, he gripped on to Cassandras hand, and because he couldn’t remember Irwin’s name kept asking where the drug monkey was over and over again.

©Julia Bell 2011