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The first two chapters - A Cure for Solitude
'A superb book that unveils the story of two loners; Dominik, brought up behind the iron curtain, salvaging what he can from life, and Alex, a Londoner, witnessing the scars of communism for the first time. Blends the sensibilities of Greene with the pace of Ammaniti.'
Foyles bookshop, St.Pancras International
Jason Shelley's Grey Love - an urban love story set in London
'Jason Shelley's work has a lingering profoundness which is subtle and powerfully indirect. A contemporary interpretive approach
to poetry not seen often and usually discovered far too late. Grey Love, a modern day lexicon of subjective every day observation
will leave most readers questioning the smaller details in life. I was moved by the attention to the intimate detail of sometimes
mundane situation, this observation of what we may take for granted is gigantic in it's outlook on our too often transient
and disposable culture.'Waterstone's Bookshop, 203 Piccadilly, London
This morning she observed her ankle;
She compared it to her other ankle.
She did this in bed.
She lifted her ankles into the air.
I looked at her ankles and her legs.
For a few brief moments she held them in the air.
Then she put them back under the covers.
untitled
Billy calls me from downstairs.
Jason, he says.
It is Judith on the phone. I act to go down.
I make it clear that I am on my mobile phone.
He says, I'll tell her you'll call her back.
I call her back as soon as I can.
The call is better than I expect.
She is in the bath.
She says, can she call me back.
She calls me back.
She says she was wet when I called.
I grab a stall.
I sit down. The call is better than I expect.
Billy says bye.
He is studying.
He goes.
I talk.
She smokes a cigarette.
She doesn't like the new shelf put in her kitchen.
It seems we're hooked.
Get rid of it. Calm yourself. Don't freak out.
Get rid of that stuff that makes you nervous, that makes your head throb, your face pale, that makes you look frightening.
And people think, look there is another mad man on the streets not knowing what to do with himself.
It is as simple as this.
Now I am going out. I am buying a sandwich from the Seven Eleven to eat. I am hungry. My body will take it in like a metal dustbin.
Blue, black hair.
Piercing.
Pale face.
Pale skin.
We go to the chip shop.
We buy fish and chips
And share it.
We watch our pennies.
We have homes.
We pay rent.
what is underneath the celebrity
We get a bus in the morning.
monday morning.
She is going to work.
"It takes too long," she says.
"It only took twenty minutes from where I was before."
"More back then." I said.
She laughs.
"When I have to come in to work for my eight o'clock shift, there'll be more traffic than this."
I tell her there won't be.
"The cat messed by the door," she said.
She says that because she's trying to find reasons why she shouldn't have moved in.
We get near to her work. She buys some breakfast. Do you want some, she says. I say no. She gets to work dead on time.
thursday
In the evening I met a girl I know in the French House.
She invited me to her house. I went there.
She offered me some Red Stripe which I didn't want. Instead I had some coffee.
We stayed up late listening to music. She was a musician.
She offered me a smoke.
I didn't smoke anything because I had to get up for work in the morning.
sea
There is no point in imagining the sea.
I have seen it.
I know what it is like.
I don't want to go and see it again.
Not at the moment, anyway.
Airport observation
Men on their own are creepy.
Women on their own are creepy.
If they stare at somebody when not on their own that is not creepy.
Men and women can feel insecure on their own.
People on their own
There is a certain performance
Or style, involved in being
On your own in public places.
untitled
a. First thoughts on the aeroplane
To make it as a writer
Would mean I'd be lonely.
Being a writer would be
Lonely and thrilling.
b. Overheard conversation
One air stewardess said
To the other that she
Wanted to get back
Quickly so she could go
To sleep.
c. Last Part of Flight to Athens
Once you've been on
Holiday for a week and
You are taking a flight
Marking the beginning
Of the second you
Start thinking less about
what you do at work
And, more how important your
Work is. In conversation
You listen well to what
Other people do.
Films, nowadays
They're always about
Desperate circumstances.
Things are not always
Like that.
He says sitting in the
Airport of his holiday
Destination.
silent sunset
Sun is low above
Mountains on horizon.
Occasional car passes
In background.
Hear birds and an aeroplane.
Water silent but for the
Quiet ripple every second.
An ant on my hand
I pick up a rock and
Throw it into the water.
It breaks the silence.
p25
Jack talks about the cold weather
It is about 6pm. I don't know what is wrong with me at times like these. Why on Earth I stayed in today, I do not know. Well, I didn't stay in, I went to the supermarket. That was a trip I was pleased with. Suddenly I feel many things crashing down on my head. I'm thinking I have to pay back my debts. The time I pay back what I pay out each month would be a great time. I'm here with a packet of frozen peas on my knee, with a table full of books, feeling sorry for myself. The books are my books, written by me and assembled by me.
Why might I feel sorry for myself? Well, the closest people I know did not telephone me when they said they would. Is it too much for someone to do, to do something they said they'd do? - telephone. It isn't too much to ask.
Those great writers were good because they could look at a place and say to themselves, this is the right kind of place. They could set up a couple of characters then write about the place.
I've got a place. It has just one bedroom, a kitchen, a bathroom and a lounge. A place, all mine. All mine, ready to worry about repayments, about the wall falling down. I'd worry about how to decorate it. Maybe someone could live there with me.
I had a severe headache, earlier. I'm feeling much better. I'm writing with a clearer head. I still feel sick. The tea I'm drinking could come back at any time.
The good thing about me is that I feel settled. I feel settled enough to write. I don't know why that is. It might have something to do with a conversation with my bank manager, yesterday. It might have something to do with that.
More likely, it might have something to do with making a breakthrough last night. I sat down and tapped away on my computer. I was putting together something that looked to be the start of a novel. Problem was that that outburst, last night, led to the start of my terrible headache, today. What had happened was that I had looked at a computer screen too late at night.
Jack, late February, early March
This cold man is very, very cold. For some reason she is feeling very, very guilty about what is going on. That isn't all that good at all. I suppose what we're doing is going down to Cornwall for a weekend, which is okay. But we're not going, now. Unfortunately not. The severe feeling of guilt she has is overwhelming. The way I'm feeling now is good. I feel as though I can fill one page after another with good stuff after good stuff. And it is all because I don't have anyone. I have got someone. She is a woman unhappy with her life.
9/4/03
Got a bit of a headache today. I came up with a good title yesterday/last night (which was connected to what I said to her about watching trash t.v.). I think that definitely would make a good title for the book. It is necessary now, to go ahead and make the damn thing. Then make another one. I have big problems with writing, on a daily basis. Often I think, gosh you are a small fellow ( I should use that in my favour. Perhaps have a little fight with the rest of the world).
I think that person we're thinking about is okay but I don't want to spend all my fighting time making her like me. I don't want that to be the way things are. I find that what is motivating her in life is that feeling she has, that there is an urgency to
25th July 2000 Tuesday
Jason Shelley writing as Jason Shelley
London Bridge
Dear nobody
I am on the train to Brighton. The train is an express. It stops first at Croydon, then goes all the way to Brighton. It stops at Gatwick.
There is a nun sitting opposite me. If she weren't doing what I'm going
to tell you she is doing, I wouldn't have mentioned her. She is eating an apple with a knife and a paper napkin which she has on her lap. My first thoughts when I saw her do this were, if I were her I wouldn't need a knife and napkin. I would gobble up the apple with my hand and mouth.
I bought my ticket at London Bridge. I was lucky enough to find my train left at 12.40pm from platform 5. I had finished buying my ticket at 12.36. That left me a comfortable 4 minutes to get to the platform. To tell you the truth, I feel rotten again. I feel run down. I felt like this before I flew to Athens. There it took me a whole week to shake off a strange virus.
I tend to pick up this virus if I spend too much time on my own. When I have company that I like, I am fine. This company that I mention, is people that are similar to myself. They are struggling, poverty stricken people. If I am with a successful person I feel uncomfortable. I suppose all people feel good with people they have things in common with.
The virus takes me by surprise. It takes me down. When I have it, all things can get to me. I think I am a failure for one reason, or the other; I have no strength to defend myself when under attack. I get aches and pains until something good happens. When that happens the aches and pains go away.
On the way to the train station I came up with a conclusion about myself. When I thought of it I knew I wanted to make a note of it, when I got on the train. I know what causes my falling. It happened the same at Paul's apartment, when I stayed there at Christmas time. It is staring into the air, it is nothing; having no social interactions, no other stimulation. I'm not sure that I got it in my flat in Stockwell (there I had painted my flat yellow). There I got a different kind of bad depression.
I felt worse and worse, last night, on my own. I attempted to salvage myself. It couldn't be done. My body had no energy. It got to a point where all I could do was slump back into that body. By that time, at 11.30pm, I got a call. It was a wrong number, it must have been.
I called it back. No connection. I rang the number six more times. The sixth time I connected. Hello, hello, I said. No reply. That person wasn't paying for the call. Therefore they could have stayed on the line forever and ever. I thought I could hear the person breathing. I could definitely hear the t.v. The sound was faint, in the background. I wanted to get out of my bed, turn my t.v. on and see what channel they were watching. I couldn't be bothered. Instead I disconnected the call and sent a text message, which she or he replied to. He or she said, who r u then? To this I gave not an answer but three questions, to which they did not respond.
I've had no texts since.
The nun next to me peeled her apple and ate it. She carefully put aside the core and the skin.
As I was saying, I fall down. I'm almost dead. The call from the secret person almost revived me. There wasn't anybody talking on the other end. I need to have things in my life that give me energy, that stop me from falling down. I know I shouldn't stay in my flat, alone. In Paul's place I'd sit facing the wall, facing nothing, I'd sink. I should go out at lunchtimes. Should go out to literary lunches at the Savoy. Should get myself out of it. Have a break, come back, have a break, come back?
The leg is getting better. Walworth Road is a downright pigsty. I'll speak to Ulku, from the Turkish supermarket. We'll take breaks together, sometime soon.
Watching t.v. and other stuff
I have a strong desire to break that window, over there. I want to break it big time.
I don't know what was going on, yesterday, at my brother's house.
Now, and for a long time, I'll write down a lot. It was a terrible day yesterday. Yesterday was terrible. Today, I feel surprisingly calm, which is strange. I know that I am not going out with any young people. Why that is I do not know. I've got to get out with my mates and do things. My brother goes out with people from his work but doesn't call me. When he had his last day that time, that was very odd. Now, he has a 36" Sony t.v. is also very odd. For some reason things are running away without us. Things are running away. There isn't much we can do about that except get up go. There isn't much we can do about that except get up go to work, do all the other things we do, like pick up the post and a number of other things I won't mention now.
Yesterday, I received a great deal of discouragement. The discouragement I received did not make me feel happy. I liked it at brother's house. My brother and his wife put their bottles of wine on the table. We drank the wine then cleared up.
Christine went and sat over the park, yesterday. She got annoyed because the people playing cricket kept whacking the cricket ball over near her, which made her leave.
If my leg wasn't killing me I could do a whole lot more stuff.
Iceland
Outside. Three people.
Old lady speaking to younger lady looking after
Man with mental disability.
Man is smacked around head by
Lady looking after him.
Older lady looks one quarter shocked.
I go into Iceland.
I buy my shopping.
At back of checkout
Small child in pram
Throws his red mittens at my feet.
I pick them up and give them back.
Buy
limited
edition
Grey Love
while
stocks
last!
Jason Shelley meets Ben Stiller
, Grey Love, and the actor, best known for comedy films like Meet the Parents, accepted a copy.Jason, who attended the Deanes School and Westwood Primary, said: "I was with my agent after doing a book signing. We were sitting near a woman we later realised was Monica Lewinsky when Ben came in with his wife.My agent asked a waitress to give him a copy of the book and he came over and had a chat. He seemed quite an amusing guy."Grey Love was published in 2003, to critical acclaim, after the success of Jason's fson is currently photographs as part of an installation in Butterfly Walk, Cairst poetry anthology, No Looking Back camberwell, with British artist Sarah Lucas.The artwork by Vishal Shah, for his latest title, The Romance, an episode in the life a young writer was exhibited a.s part of the Threads exhibition, in April and Jason Shelley - New York encounter Actor Ben Stiller - coffee meeting
Picture: Maxine Clarke Courtesy of Katherine Legge, Evening Echo, Southend-on-sea
