Open Writing

'I've just been told that you're the daughter of Pete Brane ... but you'll have to remind me what he's famous for.'

'Was famous for, you mean. He's been dead five years.'

'Oh, I am sorry.'

'Well, I'm not,' she said. 'He was a total and utter bastard.'

'But that's not why he was famous, was it? Otherwise every -'

'No, he was a writer... on second thoughts, no, he wasn't... you can't call someone a writer who writes only one book, can you? Actually he didn't write it as such ... I mean, he had a ghost writer who did all the real work .. My father just droned on about his hippy life in the sixties and this chap, Frank Moser, took it all down and turned it into proper English. It was called Flat Out.'

'Ah, yes, a best seller, wasn't it? Not that I've read it... Wasn't it supposed to be the British answer to Jack Kerouac's On The Road?'

'Well, that's what it said on the blurb - and the reviewers fell for it... They were probably all stoned when they read it, if they did read it. Anyway, the proceeds paid for me to go to private school.'

'And now look at you . . . the state you're in. Dire's the word.'

'You don't have to insult me like that. I can't cope with insults... What are you going to do with me?'

'Well, it's our policy always to prosecute shoplifters, as you must know.'

'Please let me go. If you let me go I promise I won't ever again -'

'Oh, but you will. Don't deceive yourself. You'll be fine for a few weeks and then you'll be back on the booze - and back here thieving.'

'Please don't... I won't be back, ever, I promise ... I really do.'

*
A man came up to her in the street and said, 'You're Pete Brane's daughter, aren't you? . . . Well, I'm Frank Moser. . . Come on, let me buy you a drink.'

'No thanks,' she wanted to say.