The book of other people - By Zadie Smith Page 0,1

squished into a novel, or styled to fit the taste of a certain magazine, or designed in such a way as to please the kind of people who pay your rent. In The Book of Other People we find writers not only trying on different skins but also unlikely styles and variant attitudes, wandering into landscapes one would not have placed them in previously. I recommend them to you with the proviso that their order is simply alphabetical (by character). Each reader should line them up as they like.

The beneficiary of this book is 826 New York,1 a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting students aged six to eighteen with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write. So The Book of Other People represents real people making fictional people work for real people - a rare example of fictional people pulling their own weight for once.

Zadie Smith

6 March 2007

Rome

Judith Castle

David Mitchell

‘Hello? Judith Castle?’

‘This is she.’

‘My name’s Leo Dunbar. I’m Oliver’s - ’

‘Oliver’s brother! Oh, I’ve heard bucketloads about you, Leo!’

‘Uh . . . likewise, Judith. Look, I’m - ’

‘All rapturous, I trust?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘What Olly’s told you. About little old moi. All rapturous, I trust?’

‘Look, Judith, I have . . . some, well, some rather dreadful tidings.’

‘Oh, I know! And let me tell you, I’m spitting kittens about it.’

‘You . . . know?’

‘It’s all over the news, of course.’

‘What?’

‘A national rail strike is national news, Leo! The very weekend I’m due to come down to Lyme Regis and consummate my relationship with Olly, those bloody train drivers go on strike! It’ll be back to the seventies, spiralling inflation, Saturday Night Fever and uppity Arabs all over again, mark my words. These things go in cycles. Still, no union bully is going to stand between your brother and me. Now I do drive, but motorways bring on my migraine, as Olly has doubtless explained. Are you driving up to fetch me, or is he?’

‘Judith, my news was a little different.’

‘Spit it out, then.’

‘Oliver’s . . . dead, actually, Judith . . . Judith? Are you there?’

‘But our suite is already booked. A de luxe double. The girl at, at, at the Hotel Excalibur took my credit card number. It’s all confirmed. I told Oliver yesterday. Olly wasn’t dead then. He wasn’t even ill.’

‘It was a hit-and-run. He went to buy a bag of frozen peas, but never made it back. The ambulanceman said he was . . . the ambulanceman said Oliver would have been dead before he landed.’

‘But this is . . . outrageous . . .’

‘We can’t believe it ourselves.’

‘This is . . . well . . . your brother . . . when’s the funeral?’

‘The funeral?’

‘Olly and I were lovers, Leo! How can I not come to the funeral?’

‘I’m . . . I’m afraid we’ve already had the funeral.’

‘Already?’

‘This morning. Very low-key. I tipped his ashes off the Cobb.’

‘Off the what?’

‘The Cobb. The sea-wall at Lyme Regis.’

‘Oh. The Cobb. Yes. Olly promised to take me there . . . for the sunset. Tomorrow night. The sunset. Oh. This is all . . . so . . . so . . . dead?’

‘Dead.’

‘The very least I can do is to come and help out.’

‘Judith, you’re an angel, and Olly spoke about you in the fondest possible terms, but, if I can be frank, best not to. Everything’s very . . . intense. You understand, don’t you? There’re relatives to be told, an ex-wife, and then the business to be wound up, solicitors . . . mountains of paperwork . . . insurance, wills, powers of attorney . . . a thousand-and-one things . . . it just never stops . . .’

Camilla’s holidaying in Portugal with her father and Fancy-Piece. I got through to her voicemail and left the bare bones of my tragedy. Watering my tomato plants calmed me, until I spotted some green-fly. The vile little things got a good drenching with aphid killer. Then it was the turn of those ants who have colonized my patio. Kettle after kettle after kettle I boiled, until their bodies covered the crazy paving like a spilt canister of commas. Suddenly I found myself sitting in the conservatory with Evita playing at an unpleasant volume. Olly admitted that Sir Andrew turns out a fine tune. It was one of the last things he said to me. ‘Another Suitcase in Another Hall’ came on and suddenly my eyes streamed, unstoppably. This weekend was to have