BY JAMES BEMBRIDGE

‘Just write,’ my editor said.

What a load of Woman’s-Weekly-self-helping bollocks.

Did Monet just paint? Did Whitney Houston just sing?  Did Jemma Jameson just wiggle that tremendous arse of hers? I think not. That arse made men pawns to her star, just as my writing will make –

‘You’re disgusting!’ some small, hen-faced woman says, and I realise I’m thinking aloud again – in Bloomsbury Street of all places.

The fact of the matter is, I’ve had a bad bout of writer’s block, and my friend Andrew promised to cure it. Cure it. As if one ill man can cure another.

‘Jimmy lad!’ Andrew wheezes from the door of his townhouse apartment.

We hug and I tell Andrew he is looking well, noticing him sporting new broken blood vessels for the occasion.

‘Margaret’s pension came through in the end, so I thought I’d splurge,’ He says, waving about a bottle of single malt.

He pats my shoulder and looks at me like he and I were party to some unspoken conspiracy.

‘Oh, er, she’s in the bedroom,’ he adds with a tone of indifference.

Margaret is always in the bedroom.

‘That’s just it – nothing.’  I  tell him when he asks what’s on my mind.

‘Whenever my editor takes me somewhere, it’s like he’s taking a wayward child to parents’ evening. I need to make him proud, Andrew. I need… I need a miracle.’

He throws me a look that almost looks like a lucid one.

‘Ah, a Christmas miracle.’ He then leans forward and, with an excited quiver, says, ‘I told you about that one I had with the Bali girl, didn’t I?’

‘In unforgettable detail,’ I reply sharply, hoping to cut this thread of conversation short.

‘Legs like a gazelle she had. Legs like a gazelle.’

His mind is wandering, and his drool-streaked jowls give away where his mind might have wandered.

‘Does Margaret not open her letters?’ I ask, looking at a pile of them behind the door.

‘Legs like a gazelle, she had.’

On the tube home, I see faces turned against a bloodied one. A fight has broken, and someone ought to do something about it.

‘Just write,’ the editor said.

I come toward the victim, hoping to capture in print the marks printed on his face. Not that he has much of a face to speak of at this point.

‘A dough of blood and cartilage.’  Watching the thug knead it, I think it not a bad line. Like Corinis hoped to return to Apollo, inspiration returns to me.

A bloodied man, a frightened crowd – a Christmas miracle.

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James Bembridge is Deputy Editor of Country Squire Magazine.