The Right Man by Nigel Planer Read Free Book Online Page B

immediately to mind. However, we’d got this far into the water,
so we had to swim or choke.
    Neil
was talking rather a lot now roused, and Marc sat quietly listening, with that
little curly smile people have when they are the ones who can pull the plug on
you. Evidently, Neil’s ‘right man’ was also going to be like the elves in the
night — you know, the ones who help the shoemaker to meet his deadlines by
nocturnally doing all his mending. He was going to secretly fix this woman’s
fridge for her, or darn her clothes, or help get her children off drugs, I don’t
know. Neil’s point being, if I understood it correctly, which is unlikely, that
no matter how much a man may think he is trying to help a woman, in the end he
is only interested in power over her. Possibly a valid one, but it didn’t
inspire one to think of Neil’s name embossed in silver on paperbacks in airport
bookshops. Marc Linsey’s attention was evaporating.
    Neil
was in need of some good-luck elves himself, but none had been forthcoming. His
first deadline had come and gone without really a murmur from this affable and
lunch-providing editor. People are always late, we said. Ben Elton is probably
late, we said. Probably even Martin Amis is late. When, last September, Neil
had delivered a few thousand words only, of unpublishable masturbatory
fantasies without a gag in sight, slight alarm bells began to sound. I
intercepted, and that draft, if you can call it that, had never appeared on
Marc Linsey’s desk. Thankfully, Neil had accepted my position.
    I had
tried, but not over-hard, to distract him by finding him work elsewhere, but he
seemed to have become obsessed with the thing. He’d stopped ringing in for
work. Always a bad sign. I tried to move the conversation on to the hopefully
less contentious subject of the proposed title.
    ‘You
don’t understand,’ said Neil between gulps of Chardonnay. ‘It’s got nothing to
do with looking for Mr Right or singles bars or anything like that.’ Oh. Pity,
I thought. ‘It’s a psychological term and it’s sometimes used in the profiling
of serial killers. A right man is someone who has to be right whatever happens.
Like Peter Sutcliffe thinking he was a saint saving all those women he banged
over the head with a hammer.’ The wine was making him garrulous, or maybe he’d
had a couple of drinks already before coming into town. Either way, the lunch
was definitely not going the way I would have liked.
    ‘Maybe
you should just call it Right Man?’ I offered, with my helpful
raised-eyebrow look. ‘Too many books have a “the” in the title. Too many first
books by TV comedians. The Liar, The Gun Seller, The Gobbler, The Tosser …’
I ran out.
    ‘So
this guy is a serial killer, right? I mean, he’s a serial killer, is he? That’s
right?’ said Marc, looking marginally more interested.
    ‘No, he’s
not,’ said Neil, becoming a tad aggressive now. ‘No, no, no, no, no. It’s like
a complex, you know? A right-man complex. It’s about a man who can’t see that
he is damaged, so he thinks the world must be. It’s sometimes called the Roman
Emperor Syndrome.’
    ‘That’s
quite a good title,’ said Marc.
    ‘Or
just Roman Emperor Syndrome,’ I said, trying to make sense of my own
logic. ‘I mean, it’s not The Crime and the Punishment, is it? It’s
not The Pride and the Prejudice.’
    Neil
was not touching his pasta, but had poured himself another glass. The
conversation had veered a long way from where I wanted it to go.
    ‘So
where does fixing this woman’s fridge fit in?’ asked Marc with barbed
innocence.
    ‘I’m
trying to show that when a man thinks he’s caring for a woman, he is in fact
patronizing and manipulating her. That there’s not much difference between
chivalry and violent abuse,’ said Neil, whazooming straight over Marc Linsey’s
beautifully coiffed head, and mine too, if I’m an honest bunny.
    Neil’s
cheeks were burning and his heart rate was