Alex
Hargreaves first heard the name Vernon Crane at one of his
publisher’s parties.
The
next morning, after he had made tea for Karen and taken it up to her
he Googled the name and found a few sites referring to a children’s
author who had died in 1943.
Sitting
in the kitchen he thought back to the night before but couldn’t
remember much. The party had been held under London Bridge. A series
of tunnels converted into a venue. As they were leaving, someone
took him to one side, drew him into the shadows, asked him in a
whisper: have you ever heard of Vernon Crane?
Whoever
that was Alex must have trusted their judgement enough to remember the
name, but apart from Facebook profiles and this one reference to a
dead author he couldn't see much that was likely to be relevant to
him.
His
head began thumping, his hangover coming on. Glancing up at the clock
he saw it was still only 7:30. He had woken up early, still drunk and
decided to go back to bed. His Barbour jacket was lying on the sofa
and he picked it up and went through the pockets. There was a flier
for future events at the club folded up in the inside pocket. He'd
scribbled down a website address www.vernonscranium.com
He
typed the address in and clicked enter. There was a black page with a
message and three links.
“A
page dedicated to the life and work of Vernon
Crane.”
The
links were all dead.
He
clicked on the email address and sent a message to
paulaadanor5@gmail.com.
Hi
Paula
My
name is Alex Hargreaves. I’m a London based novelist and writer who
has just published his first book Corrigan’s Century. A friend
passed on your website address to me. I’m very interested in
learning more about Vernon Crane, but unfortunately the links on the
page are all broken. I wonder if you could tell me where I might be
able to get more info.
Best,
Alex
Hargreaves,
The rest of the weekend passed pleasantly enough. On the Saturday evening they went out for Vietnamese food with friends and on the Sunday to his parent's place for lunch. They said they had read the reviews for Corrigan’s Century and felt they had largely been positive. His father said that if he had listened to the critics’ views on his first play he would have given up there and then.
Karen
went to bed early as she had work the next day. Alex was restless and
sat down to watch a DVD from I.C.A. online but he found it hard to concentrate. He deliberately put his
phone down on the floor next to the sofa, out of reach, but twenty
minutes into The Colour of Pomegranates he decided to check his
messages. There was a reply from Paula Adanor.
RE
Vernon Crane.
Hi
Alex.
Thanks
for getting in touch. I didn’t realise those links were broken,
anyway that website’s quite old (2005. Internet stone age.) You
know it’s so weird/typical that you emailed me yesterday, on what
was/would have been Vernon’s forty fourth birthday. Are you thinking of
writing a piece on him? I knew it was just a matter of time. Who
mentioned Vernon to you? The person you really want to talk to is
David Gillespie. If you need any more information please feel free to
get back to me. It’s so funny, the idea that Vernon might get known
after all this time, but he was brilliant and so sweet and troubled
and it’s just such a tragedy (or maybe not from his perspective, I
firmly believe he’s still out there somewhere) that he’s not
around anymore.
I’m
London-based too so if you want a coffee and a chat, I’m sure we
can arrange something. Though as a working mum I don’t have an
awful lot of free time as you can imagine.
Best,
Paula
He
had a mountain of work still to get through that he’d been putting
off, deadlines for book, film and music reviews, opinion and comment
pieces looming, not to mention the long article he needed to finish
off on the enduring influence of Paul Henry Garigs' work for the
Guardian. And of course he should be focusing on the next novel too.
Immediately
he felt depressed. The next novel. He had some ideas he had
been playing around with but he didn't like any of them. They felt
stale, generic, contrived. But he had to produce something. He was
contractually obliged.
Plus,
there was several things in the e-mail that intrigued him.
After
all this time. Brilliant. So Sweet. A tragedy. His instincts told him
that here was a scoop, of a sort. Maybe.
It
also occurred to Alex that he didn’t even know what Crane had been
involved in. He wondered how to phrase his email back.
Paula,
To
be honest at this point I know absolutely nothing about Vernon or his
work, just that a friend recommended I check him out. Any chance of
filling in the rather large blanks for me (in fact all I have at the
moment are blanks!)
Very Best,
Alex
The
email he got back sketched out Crane’s life.
He
was born in Barrow in Furness in 1970,
attended Manchester University for a year before dropping out, was
heavily involved in writing and music-making through the late
eighties and the early nineties up to his disappearance and
probable suicide in 1996. He published a series of short stories in
various fanzines and underground magazines. With his friend David
Gillespie he also wrote and produced a large number of different
electronic based pieces of music, much of it put out on ultra obscure
labels or distributed privately on cassette among friends. With the
advent of the Internet it became possible for his friends
to start collecting his work and putting it online which is perhaps
how someone got to know about it and pass the information on to Alex.
All
of this was of great interest to Alex Hargreaves. He sent back an
e-mail asking if Paula had any photographs of Crane. She replied that
she did but that she would have to dig them out, they were in a box
somewhere, and she really ought to go and get them, open up that box,
even though it brought back painful memories because there was all
kinds of stuff in there, letters he’d written her, an old ideas’
book of his, cassettes filled with music he’d made and sound
collages and field recordings. All stuff which she should really find
some way of uploading. She said she’d get back to him in a day or
two and meanwhile here was David Gillespie’s e-mail address.
He
sent a message
Hi David
My
name is Alex Hargreaves, a London based novelist and journalist. I
have been corresponding with Paula Adanor about Vernon Crane, whose
work I’m very keen to track down and have a look at/listen to with a
view to writing a piece on him for a major publication. Paula tells
me that there are several sites connected to Vernon and his work out there but I’m having trouble tracking any of this down. I know that
you’re responsible for the online curating of Vernon’s work and I
wonder if you could point me in the direction of some of the stuff
you’ve been uploading.
Best,
Alex
Hargreaves
Alex
got out of his chair to make more coffee and when he returned to the
sofa he already had a response:
Dear
Alex.
Go
fuck yourself.
Best,
David.
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