Over the next few hours I sneezed, coughed and wheezed my way through James' single-minded dictation as the re-writing of the first chapter commenced and a shortened, vastly changed first chapter began to emerge. Most agitating was the first page, which I had used to map out the islands to the reader, but James disregarded in favour of a brief line about how I was bored and had received a call from David, a 70-year-old retired lawyer in Edinburgh who claimed to have known some of the people involved in the scandalous case of satanic child sex abuse that never was.  

“Leave more questions than answers, and that’s what we get,” James pointed to the screen, having read my thoughts.

“Should I make some lunch?” I felt pleased with myself, even if a fraud.

“No, I’ll make soup for you and fry some bacon for me. Oh, and you’ll have to call in sick before you eat, so you sound worse.”

“But…”

“…No buts. It’s what you want, dick-head.”

So, James cooked, I called my manager and as I’d not been sick in almost a year, and did feel ill, I had cover for Monday and sat back, pleased I had the next three days off and listened to James reciting poems from Wordsworth to G M Brown while cooking lunch.

“You keep thinking,” James said while taking out food from the oven, yet the smell of the food, from God knows where, was too alluring, and I had a suspicion James would just carry on telling me what to write.

“Where did you get the bacon?” I asked as he brought it through on plates.

“The oven, dick head,” grinned James and handed me a bowl of broth.

“Cheers,” is all I could muster and tucked in to the soup between sporadic coughs.

At some point as I lay back in my chair and James sparked up his pipe, I had to ask, “Is this a dream?”

“...Life’s a dream and if you’re lucky you’ll wake up before it ends,” James prophetically sighed through another cloud of shag-smoke.

“I don’t usually…?”

“…But I love it,” James smiled as though daring me to complain about the smoke, “...Right!" James clapped his hands in malicious triumph, glaring in to my weaker stare and making those three or fours seconds seem like hours. For some, random, reason, he seemed like he wanted to smash my face in. 

"...Where were we?” James looked to the screen and belligerently sighing, and I sighed within. 

When we regained our work, the job flowed through ever-intriguing events that made the story gripping and turned David in to a shadowing figure, on a quest against a mysterious questions from inquisitive locals e Islands that seemed to be lurking behind kind faces and finely locals.

“I wonder if people will believe David’s…”

“…Capable of jumping around. Yes, now more coffee.”

“I don’t understand how…”

“…because the scandal from the past turns out to be true…”

“…No! I can’t accept that! No!” My personal emotions got the better of me and all the work I'd put in to representing the honest side of the innocent locals.

“Ha! That’s why you work’s shit!”

“I just can’t…” I began, flustered by the insult.

“…It’s fiction, you idiot!” James laughed, as though I’d missed the point all along.

“Why do you have to…?”

“…because every long, boring monologue should be cut down to clear, simple points, that’s why,” James triumphantly read the question.

“I thought if I kept as close to the truth…”

“…What truth? It’s almost forty years ago, since the inquiry and most of those directly affected are dead!”

“Well, yes, but…”

“…And if,” James grinned, “we shift a little from the poor innocent community narrative, and stir up a little bit of controversy,” James winked.

“You know, when I visited…”

“…Three years back, you met those that had helped defend the community and wallowed,” James waved an insulting hand as he took a puff, “in the sense of local community camaraderie, from those who still remember and the few that took part?”

“I guess you…”

“…Think you’re emotionally attached to the place? Yes, you are. You want to paint the people in the best possible light,” smiled James with a tone of insult, “but that’s boring. Readers know there’s a devil inside of all of us and should it be uncovered in the most unlikely place, then,” James grinned, "all the better..."

“...So, what will we…”

“…We will, over the next few hours, deepen the plot, tangle the thread; introduce a darker side to all those welcoming people. But first, more coffee.”

“You like coffee?” I asked, yet still unsure of James' motives.

“Here to help you write a book that can sell, dick head,” grinned James with annoying familiarity.