HOW TO WRITE A COMIC NOVEL

Part 1

I am sitting on a bench in St James’ Park absent-mindedly watching the pelicans grooming one another. Such comical clumsiness combined with such grace.

‘A bit like you…’

I jump. The words belong to an unkempt sepulchral gentleman, sitting with his face tilted to the sun on an adjoining bench. How has he heard what I’m thinking? I close my eyes, fully expecting him to be gone when I open them. Real people can’t read your thoughts. Not in St James’s Park.

But he is still here when I switch my face back on. ‘By you I mean comic novelists in general,’ he says. ‘Which is what I want you to help me to become.’

I peer at him. He is drained of colour. Anyone would think he’s the one who’s seen a ghost. Despite his uncombed appearance he has an air of used-up eminence. Probably an old Etonian. Or an Oxford don.

‘Why do you want to write a comic novel?’ I ask.

‘Because it’s the final hurdle for me. I’ve tried writing everything else. Philosophy, history, yoga, fashion, mindfulness, thrillers, whodunnits, fantasies, spy fiction, children’s stories . . .’

‘And you’ve left comic writing to the end…. Why?’

‘I have no sense of humour.’

Even the pelicans laugh.

‘And you no longer see having no sense of humour as a disqualification?’

‘It won’t be if you can teach me how to acquire one.’

‘It might be a bit late.’

‘I read something you wrote recently about the comedy you like best being cruel, offensive and with half an eye on death. I have both eyes on death and am sick of being thought innocuous. All I need is a nudge from you. Will you take me on as your pupil in the black arts of comic writing?’

I shrug. ‘When you put it so nicely, how can I refuse?’

And my scale of charges? Very reasonable, I assure him.

He says he’ll recommend me to his friends. I exchange sardonic glances with the pelicans. ‘By the time we’re finished,’ I tell him, ‘you’ll have no friends. . .’

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