Muse

He often lied about his job because no-one would believe the truth. It was far easier to just give them a flat, appraising stare and say something like "Bailiff" or "tax accountant" and end the discussion then and there. Most people quickly backed off after that and that suited him just fine.

I mean, who'd believe the truth? Just look at him: six-foot four of shaven-headed, tattooed surliness. He seemed more likely to be a mugger than a Muse.

It was hard work to be honest, but someone had to do it. People thought that a Muse was just a metaphor, an anthropomorphic personification of artistic inspiration that just "happened". A fickle moment that struck out of the blue.

Utter bollocks.

Giving someone a tiny, perfect seed of inspiration was a matter of psychology, subtlety and above all, timing. So even though it looked as though he was spending three-quarters of his time doing nothing, he was actually waiting for precisely the right moment to say precisely the right thing to precisely the right person.

Last week, for example, he'd stood outside a pub in Islington for forty-five minutes with a bunch of tulips before presenting them to a small, rumpled fifty-ish man as he wobbled his way out.

"Be happy" he'd said to the man, "She'd want you to be happy". Then he turned smartly on his heel and walked off, leaving the man blinking at the flowers, the scent of them waking long-forgotten pain and love within him. That evening the small, rumpled man would go home and write what would become one of the most moving and heartfelt elegiac poems of the 21st century.

The week before that he'd had to deliberately bump into a promising young playwright on his way home and start an argument about the irrelevance of iambic pentameter. The week before THAT, he'd "accidentally" left a rambling, seemingly incoherent message on the mobile of a woman in Prague who'd later go on to develop a breakthrough in the treatment of Alzheimer’s.

So yes, it was tricky work with odd hours and little thanks, but at least the pay was decent…