Sitting here in my study, working on this book for the last four years, growing a little squalid in my habits, feeling I’m finally getting the hang of the man as I reach the last half (by which I mean, of course, the first half) of his life, the table and floor covered in photocopies of articles about prison food, glue-sniffing, joyriding, ram-raiding, suicide, and manuals on drawing, and the thesaurus, the thesaurus, the thesaurus, I am often appalled by Stuart. The Unmentionable Crime appalls me. His behaviour in prison appalls me. At this point I get sick of the whole project, wonder why I bother, go off, get drunk, stomp about this study with its flower-covered throws, round carpet, pink fan on the wall, think, ‘There, idiot, another year wasted. Stupid man.’ Then I wake up in the morning and think, ‘Hey, might as well start again.’ I can’t hope to justify or explain Stuart, I realise, nursing my headache: just staple him to the page. Stuart has specific conditions for talking about the Unmentionable Crime.
