Bronte's Inferno X (No, I Said)

Enoch gave me an old-fashioned look and Girt gave a low, rumbling growl.

‘Don’t tell me you’d rather be famous?’

‘Why not?’

‘You spend a lot of time hiding behind noms-de-toile, for someone who wants to be famous. I mean, Mickey Bulgakov? Puh-lease!”

I wondered what a nom-de-toile was. It must have shown on my face.

‘I always think toilette would be a better word for the web, don’t you?’ Enoch raised one eyebrow, à la Roger Moore.

‘I’d rather be both. Rich and famous.’

‘That’s not the deal,’ he said. ‘Have you heard of Justin James?’

‘No. It sounds like a boy band member.’

Enoch guffawed, ‘Might well have been at one time, sometimes they called him James the Just.’

I heard the faint tinkle of a very small bell.

‘His brother was much more famous. Still is, although he’s dead, we think. Justin James is unbelievably rich though. He gets royalties from half of the best selling book in the world. People think Saul Damask wrote most of it, after he changed his name. He was a thug though, even afterwards. Not keen on women as I recall.’

Enoch took out a big fat doobie and lit it, as though he was some big-shot Hollywood producer lighting a cigar, instead of a fat man on a wooden bench at a village cricket ground.

‘I really do wish I had taken the offer. I’m tired of wandering. And being a one-book wonder. Me and Harper Lee. Famous, right? Not rich though. Comfortable, at best.’

‘You must be more than comfortable, if you can afford to feed that dog.’ I looked down at Girt, who was salivating.

‘He gets his own food. He’s famous for it.’

‘Famous, eh. None of his paw-prints on a contract then?’

Enoch took another puff and offered me the joint. I shook my head. It was about time I told him I’d never heard of him. So I did.

‘But, but you’re the guy who wrote Kyphotic Hall… You put me in it. You must have heard of me?’

‘I’m sure I didn’t, although there was an Enoch.’

‘Well, there we are then.’ He blew some mary-jane smoke in my face.

‘You’re a little tall. This Enoch was a person of restricted growth.’

‘Based on me then?’ His bottom lip protruded.

‘He was a scientist. Although more the type found in monster movies. Are you of a scientific bent, Enoch?’

‘I don’t think much of science. It’s all people trying to prove stuff that other scientists say is wrong. I prefer religion and superstition, you know where you are with those. What you believe is right and everyone else is wrong. Am I right?’

‘No,’ I said.