A Ladder to the Sky

by John Boyne

  ‘The what?’ I asked, uncertain how that sentence was going to end.

  ‘Well, the love that you share. It’s obvious to everyone how good you are together.’

  I felt incredibly touched by this remark and, to my surprise, felt tears form behind my eyes.

  ‘I assume you’re here to talk about Rebecca,’ I said, looking up again at last.

  ‘Yes. Have you talked to her lately?’

  ‘Not much,’ I admitted. ‘I went over to see her shortly before we left for Norwich but I haven’t heard from her since then.’

  ‘So you’ve met Arjan, then?’

  ‘Well, he was there,’ I said. ‘So, yes.’

  ‘What did you think?’

  I glanced across the room to the tables where my students were drinking and laughing and, as much as I loved Robert, I longed to be in their company, talking about writing, rather than sitting here, caught up in a family drama.

  ‘He seems friendly enough,’ I said. ‘It does feel a bit soon for her to be shacked up with someone else, of course, but he was quite pleasant, I thought. I’m sorry, I know you probably want me to say something else but—’

  ‘Actually, no,’ he said, interrupting me.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No, he’s living with my two boys so of course I’d prefer if he was a good guy. I’ve met him myself, you know. I wanted to hate him but couldn’t. Rebecca will grow bored of him in time, though.’

  ‘I think so too,’ I said. ‘Look, do you want me to be honest? Arjan is … well, he’s fit, isn’t he? And young. But he’s too nice. Either she’ll get tired of him or he’ll get sick of her bullying and walk away. I suspect that beneath the kind façade there’s a strong backbone, and anyone who gets caught up with my sister would need one of those.’

  ‘You don’t think that I have a backbone?’

  ‘That’s not what I said.’

  ‘It’s what you implied.’

  I put my glass down and reached out to take his hand. As I did so, I noticed my angry Polish student Maja glancing over at me. She knew that Robert wasn’t my husband, of course, and perhaps she was wondering why I was touching him.

  ‘I’m not your enemy, Robert,’ I said quietly.

  ‘No, I know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘So look, why don’t you tell me why you came to see me?’

  ‘To ask a favour.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘I want you to talk to Rebecca for me.’

  I closed my eyes for a moment. I’d hoped that wasn’t what he was going to say. ‘Do I have to?’ I asked.

  ‘I need you to. She won’t take my calls any more.’

  ‘Well, what do you want me to say to her?’

  ‘You could start by asking her why she won’t take my calls any more.’

  ‘And after that?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought that far ahead.’

  ‘Oh great,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I think we need an intermediary of some sort.’

  ‘Perhaps. But do you really think I’m the best person for the job? She hates me.’

  ‘She doesn’t hate you.’

  ‘Oh, come on.’

  ‘She may not be your biggest fan, but—’

  ‘She told me that she thought my novel was shit. I believe her actual phrase was a work of blush-making vulgarity. The words are emblazoned on my memory.’

  ‘She’s jealous of your success, that’s all.’

  ‘Good, I’m glad.’

  ‘You should take it as a compliment.’

  ‘Well, I don’t.’

  ‘Edith, please. She won’t let me see the boys.’

  ‘Well, that’s not fair,’ I admitted. ‘But shouldn’t you just speak to a solicitor? Wouldn’t that be easier? Find out what your rights are?’

  ‘I don’t want to go down that road just yet,’ he said. ‘The moment we start getting legal is the moment that things get completely out of hand. I want to appeal to her better nature.’

  ‘Ah, you see, that’s where you’re making your mistake.’

  ‘I just think if someone could tell her how important it is to me to be a good father, how important it is for me to be a positive influence on the boys, then she might behave a bit more—’

  ‘Like a human being?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  I sighed. It was obvious that Rebecca was treating Robert appallingly. I was going to say as much but that’s when the door to the grad bar opened and you walked in.

  You glanced around, your gaze settling on the students, and you scanned the group, expecting to see me among their number. Only when you looked around the rest of the room did you notice the two of us together and you raised an eyebrow in surprise before walking over.

  ‘Robert,’ you said, throwing an arm around him. ‘This is a surprise.’

  ‘Yes, I called in on Edith’s class unexpectedly. Things have been a bit rotten at home, as you know. I thought I could do with a little advice.’

  You nodded and asked what we were drinking before making your way to the bar. I could sense in the way you carried yourself that you weren’t happy, and I immediately felt uncomfortable, unable now to concentrate on what Robert was saying. I looked in your direction but you had your back to me. Our eyes met in the mirror behind the bar, however, and there was something in your expression that made me feel guilty, as if I’d let you down in some way.

  I wasn’t quite sure what I’d done wrong but I knew that, whatever it was, you would hold it against me for a while yet.

  3. November

  It wasn’t my idea to invite you to talk to the students and, if I’m honest, I assumed that you’d refuse anyway. No, this particular notion had been dreamed up by Maja, who approached me after class one day, claiming not only to be a great fan of Two Germans but even more of The Treehouse, which I thought a peculiar statement. I promised to put it to you but warned her that you were unlikely to say yes. To my surprise, however, you agreed immediately.

  A date was set and I spent that morning reading the stories that had been submitted for workshop later in the week and feeling a strange anxiety at the pit of my stomach that I found hard to understand. You came to my office around three thirty, the first time you’d been there, and spent your time examining the books that had been left behind on the shelves by the writer whose maternity leave I was covering. You took a few out and made disparaging comments about their authors.

  ‘Is that a new shirt?’ I asked as we made our way towards the classroom shortly before your talk was due to begin. ‘And new jeans? Have you bought all new clothes for today?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ you said, and I looked away from you because you were blushing and seeing people embarrassed has always made me embarrassed too. They were new clothes, of course. I couldn’t decide whether the fact that you were making such an effort for a group of aspiring writers was endearing or pathetic. Did you want to impress them that badly?

  When we walked in, I noticed how the students – my students – looked at you with more reverence than they’d ever shown towards me. I don’t think I’m being paranoid, Maurice, when I say that it was as if they believed that, finally, a real writer had come to speak to them, simply because you happened to have a penis. Even the girls, who all liked to pretend that they were such staunch feminists, looked at you with more respect than they ever did me. Especially the girls, actually.

  I began by introducing you, mentioning the names of both your published novels, and made some predictable joke about how easy it had been to persuade you to visit as we were sleeping together. Without any preamble, you reached for a copy of The Treehouse – you always favoured it over Two Germans – and read from a section of the book near the centre, where a young boy collapses through the floorboards of the titular building and hangs there for most of the afternoon until a passing farmer arrives to save him. When you were finished, they applauded ecstatically and I could see from the expression on your face how much their appr
oval meant to you.

  ‘I’m not going to ask Maurice any questions,’ I said when they quietened down. ‘I already know everything there is to know about him.’

  ‘Not quite everything,’ you said, to laughter.

  ‘So, I’ll leave it to all of you instead.’

  Maja started the questioning, as I knew she would. She had spent the entire reading staring at you, as if you were the Second Coming of Christ, and it was obvious from the expression on her face that she found you highly attractive. I’d like to say that she was undressing you with her eyes but it would probably be more truthful to say that she was stripping you naked and falling to her knees to fellate you. I can’t recall what she asked but I remember you took her question as simply a starting point for a monologue about the current state of the literary world, which, in your view, was appalling. I tuned out, thinking about where we might go for dinner afterwards. And yes, I allowed my eyes to rest on one of the boys, Nicholas Bray, who was very young but very cute and who I’d fancied from the start.

  Several more questions were asked before Garrett Colby raised his hand and you turned to him with a look that said you recognized him from somewhere but couldn’t quite remember where.

  ‘I wondered whether you could tell us what you’re working on at the moment,’ he asked, and you shook your head.

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ you told him. ‘As I told you before, Garrett, I prefer not to talk about work in progress. Just in case.’

  ‘Just in case what?’

  ‘Just in case someone steals my idea.’

  ‘But an idea is just an idea,’ he countered. ‘You could outline The Great Gatsby for us all right now and it’s not as if any of us could just sit down and write it.’

  ‘No,’ you agreed. ‘But still, I’d prefer not to.’

  ‘Of course, this leads us to a bigger question, doesn’t it?’ said Garrett.

  ‘Does it?’

  ‘Yes. The concept of literary ownership itself, or even literary theft. Of whether our stories belong to us at all.’

  ‘I don’t quite see what you’re getting at,’ you said, but I could see where he was going and wondered how he had the nerve. Looking back, it was pretty rude of him to treat a visiting writer like this, let alone one who had achieved the success that you’d achieved.

  ‘Well, take Two Germans,’ continued Garrett. ‘It wasn’t really your idea, was it? You were simply telling Erich Ackermann’s story and presenting it as a work of fiction.’

  ‘But it is a work of fiction,’ you insisted. ‘Not everything in that book is exactly as Erich detailed it to me. I took what he told me about his own life, embellished some details, ignored a few others. There were several things he told me about Oskar Gött, for example, that might have influenced the reader’s opinion of that character, but I chose not to write about them as I had a very particular idea of how I wanted to present the relationship between the two boys.’

  ‘What sort of things?’ he asked.

  ‘I’d rather not go into all that,’ you said. ‘Once I start down that road I become obliged to talk about every aspect of the story and to separate Erich’s personal history from my own creation. Ultimately, it’s a novel and you should treat it as such. Don’t expect facts in fiction. That’s not what novels are about.’

  ‘Then what are they about?’ asked handsome Nicholas, piping up now.

  ‘I’ve often wondered that myself,’ you said with a smile. ‘I don’t really know, if I’m honest with you. I only know that I enjoy reading them. And writing them.’

  ‘So you are working on something new, then?’ asked Garrett, persistent little Garrett.

  ‘I said so, didn’t I?’

  ‘No, you said that you never talk about work in progress.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But there is a work in progress, then? It’s just that it’s been such a long time since The Treehouse.’

  Sitting next to me, I could feel you growing uncomfortable in your chair, and you took a long time to answer.

  ‘You’re the one writing the children’s book about the talking animals, aren’t you?’ you asked eventually.

  ‘It’s not a children’s book,’ replied Garrett. ‘The whole thing’s an allegory. It’s not the fact that the animals speak that matters, it’s what they have to say. Like in Animal Farm.’

  ‘You’re comparing your work to Orwell’s?’ you asked, laughing now.

  ‘No, of course not,’ said Garrett, growing a little more flustered. ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘It’s what you implied,’ interrupted Maja.

  Garrett rolled his eyes and delivered a loud sigh. The two students had clashed several times in workshop and Maja seemed to take pleasure in bringing him down to earth.

  ‘Look, some novels take a long time to write,’ you said, getting back to the original question. ‘When it’s ready, it will be ready. Until then I don’t have a lot more to say on the subject other than I hope to publish it within the next …’ You paused for a moment and stared up towards the ceiling. ‘Within the next two years.’

  I turned to look at you and tried to keep the surprise off my face. But I was delighted that you were thinking in these terms at last. Perhaps Norwich, I decided, was having a positive effect on both of us.

  There were a few more questions and then we all retired for a drink to the grad bar, where you ordered pizzas for the students and made sure to spend a little time with each group, as if you were doing them a tremendous favour by granting them your wisdom.

  ‘Have you read any of it?’ asked Nicholas, my crush, coming over to where I stood by the window and handing me a glass of white wine.

  ‘Any of what?’ I asked.

  ‘Your husband’s new novel.’

  I shook my head and took a moment to appreciate his good looks. He was about eight years younger than me – twenty-three – with short dark hair that looked impossibly clean and a boyish face. I imagined that when he was a child he would have been a Just William sort, always getting into mischief but confident that no one could possibly stay angry with him for very long.

  ‘No,’ I said, deciding not to say that I had only learned of the existence of a new novel at the same time as the rest of them had. ‘No, he doesn’t let me read anything while he’s working on it.’

  ‘Does he think you’re going to steal it too?’

  I laughed and shook my head. ‘I doubt it,’ I said, feeling that I had to make up for my unfaithful thoughts by defending you. ‘Although that’s not such a bad idea. He’s a much better writer than I am.’

  ‘Do you really think that?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I said, and I think I did believe it at the time. But maybe that was just because you’d already been published when we met and so I’d looked up to you ever since. ‘Why, don’t you?’

  ‘No, not at all,’ said Nicholas, looking me directly in the eye. ‘Quite honestly, I think you’re in a different league. Or you will be someday.’

  Despite the tension that seemed to be developing between us during those weeks, my work, at least, was going well. I was getting closer to the end of a draft of my novel and felt sure that I’d have something presentable by late spring. The occasional email from my agent and editor kept my spirits up, although I still refused to tell them anything of the story, preferring for them to respond to it in its finished state rather than having any preconceptions about it. They seemed content with this and my days were filled with teaching, reading and writing. I could get used to this, I thought, wondering whether a more permanent position might open up at the university soon that would allow me to stay on for a few more years. I liked the idea of writing a third novel, a much shorter one, in an intense period of creativity.

  UEA was holding its autumn literary festival during November, a series of curated interviews in one of the theatres on a Tuesday night, and although you generally avoided such events you suggested that we go together to hear Leona Alwin
be interviewed by the novelist Henry Sutton. A few years earlier, Leona had been sent a proof copy of Fear and had been kind enough to read it, offering a line of support that was used on the jacket, something that had impressed you, for you’d always been an admirer of her books.

  In the late afternoon, I came home to change and, as I made my way up the staircase to our flat, the handrail shook in my hand and I stumbled, tripping forwards, preventing an injury only by throwing my hands out to cushion my fall.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ I muttered as I stood up and, when I opened the front door, you emerged from the spare room that I used as my study.

  ‘What was that noise?’ you asked.

  ‘I fell over,’ I said. ‘I thought you said that you were going to fix that handrail? One of us is going to break something if we’re not careful.’

  ‘Sorry. I forgot,’ you said, helping me inside while I rubbed my bruised shin. ‘Are you all right? You didn’t hurt yourself, did you?’

  I shook my head as I brushed myself down. ‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘What were you doing in there, anyway?’

  ‘In where?’

  ‘In my study?’

  ‘Your study?’ you asked, raising an eyebrow. I could hear the petulance in my voice and tried to control it as I didn’t want to ruin the evening ahead. But it was my study and we’d always referred to it as such. On the rare occasions when you used your laptop you always did so at the kitchen table.

  ‘The study, then,’ I said.

  ‘Nothing,’ you told me, stepping past me into the kitchen and turning on the kettle. ‘I was looking for a pen, that’s all. Anyway, I thought the plan was to meet on campus later?’

  ‘I needed a shower,’ I said. ‘I’ve been running around like a lunatic all day. I won’t be long and we can walk in together.’

  Before going towards the bedroom to undress, however, something made me go into the other room to look around. Glancing towards my desk, I could see a few pens lying there, and when I placed my hand on top of the desktop computer, ignoring the part of my brain that told me to leave well alone, it was warm. My first thought was that you had been using it to access pornography. Had I disturbed you in the act? I moved the mouse to wake it from sleep and checked the search history but there was nothing incriminating there, only searches that I’d made myself over the previous few days. Perhaps it had simply been the sun, I thought. After all, due to the positioning of the house, the study could become oppressively warm during the afternoon.