“Isn’t that the point?” His special evening was usurped, things spinning out of control.
“Partly. We must try new things every single day.”
“What did you do?” He was beginning to know her.
“I used Gilson Mather,” she said bluntly. “I’ve taken the addresses of the responses to Mr Winsarls’s survey, and used those.”
“You’ve what?”
“For the KV publicity. It was necessary, Bray.” She was defiant. “I’ve identified over a thousand American buyers of Gilson Mather’s restored antiques and reproduction furniture. I’ve sent details of the KV stories into the elementary schools in their areas, towns, districts. And the next thing.”
“Tell me.”
“Is everything all right, sir?” their waiter asked anxiously.
“Yes, thank you.”
“I’ve advertised a charity competition for educational purposes. You planned it, right? You and Kylee keep talking the mathematics. Children of Davey’s age. It will centre on the TV series. Link-in.”
“You…” He passed his hands in front of his eyes. “It’s too soon.”
“And I’ve done something else, Bray. I’ve promised all respondents a Sheraton repro, made by the senior joinery master at Gilson Mather’s, for the one connoisseur who can get our KV stories accepted in most local schools. As an aid to anti-illiteracy campaigns.”
Bray stared, aghast. “Does Mr Winsarls know this?”
“No.”
“Lottie, it’s exploiting the firm’s trust!”
“I know,” she said blithely. “Your idea was a competition based on the books. We just shift it to TV!” She started her meal. “You’re missing the point, Bray. Speed!”
He said faintly, “We’re running amok, Lottie.”
“Bray, darling,” she said without contrition, “eat your meal. It’s lovely.”
“My Garvan piece is going to be the prize. But how to explain the one of the firm’s own pieces to Mr Winsarls?”
“It will cost the firm next to nothing! Let Gilson Mather take the credit for helping education.”
He saw her earnest expression. She said levelly, “George Corkhill can be trusted. He’ll not let anything slip to Mr Winsarls. There is a problem, though.”
“There is?”
“The person we never speak of is your stepsister Sharlene. Authoress,” she said drily, “of the KV stories. She doesn’t really exist, does she?”
It took some time before he managed, “No.”
“You made her up.”
“Yes.”
“Necessary.” She nodded, enjoying herself immensely. He couldn’t make her out, when he’d thought he knew her quite well. Was she glad Sharlene was a figment? “I can see that. You couldn’t do this alone, or the child stealers would spot you and move on. So you invented Sharlene.”
“I had to.” He was surprised she didn’t seem at all offended.
“Of course you had!” Her smile returned. “I guessed a month ago. Face it, Bray. I’m your ally. I’m in with you, however long it takes.”
“Like Kylee said?” The girl had been bitter about Lottie.
“Exactly.”
“Thank you.”
He thought a moment, and added that he’d better let George Corkhill know that Lottie was virtually a partner. She laughed at that, eventually having to dab her eyes, whining about her mascara.
“George has known ever since I came!” she told Bray, still laughing. “It’s become a standing joke at the printer’s!” Bray failed to see the humour. “I can be Sharlene, Bray, if it comes to it. Except I’m appallingly healthy for my advanced age!”
For a while he felt almost betrayed, the way she had pretended to be taken in. By the end of the evening he had come round. After all, she had only done as he intended. They discussed ways of exploiting the newfound success and the problem of getting round the absence of Sharlene S. Trayer.
Bray was apprehensive about any TV series. Lottie said it would be a hoot.
“Anything on a TV screen about KV is on our side, Bray,” she concluded. “Look at it like that.”
Chapter Forty-One
The TV offices were ultra-modern.
Some aspects of publishing, Lottie thought, gazing round, were truly obnoxious. More so than TV, perhaps. It was the people in the trade as much as anything. Tropical plants, madly naff paintings, scruffy notice boards. Swish receptionists, that Continental indifference showing, and males grumbling into straggling beards, you’d run out of adjectives in a school essay. Today’s colours were designer lime and yellows, as horrid as you could get. Blonde, it seemed, was in, and trad skirt suits were back. Hello olde tymers, she thought cattily, here’s redundant over-the-hill Lottie Vinson trying to sell eccentric kiddies’ tales scribbled by a no-hoper in a shed. Jesus.
“Lottie Vinson?” a nasal girl asked.
Lottie said good morning and got the predictable response.
“Would you wait, please? Mr Heilbron will be with you directly.”
Smarting, Lottie sat. As ever, deodorant never quite managed to overcome the tang of Peptic City’s bad coffee. She was eventually admitted to where five of the TV junta waited, each exhibiting various degrees of animosity. Lottie’s sure instincts for determining pecking order were still there: Heilbron and Moiya Laudrup mattered. The rest were mere number lumber.
Heilbron was a glossily rotund man. Lottie wondered if he’d visited L.A.’s famed Black Tower and was desperately copying Hollywood ethnicity. He wore an unconvincing Van Dyke, surely the butt of office jokes? The Moiya Laudrup woman looked varnished, hair dyed the requisite blonde, teeth a-dazzle. She came round the desk to shake hands, hey, us women against male swinishness.
Her effusive introductions were gilded malevolence. Lottie was clearly a seabed feeder, whose sole purpose was to provide them with profit or get the fuck out. Lottie warned herself to relax, because antagonisms always showed. She went brightly into foils-before-sabres, talked of traffic, this and that.
Lacquered minions, carefully less glamorous than La Laudrup, served coffee then withdrew. A woman launched into a grim account of the difficulties of adapting children’s books to the screen. She had false teeth that didn’t quite stick. With every word, Lottie’s spirits rose. How fortunate, she thought, that I’ve heard this patter a hundred times before. If the next minion moans about costs, I’m in without a shot fired.
“Thank you, Melie,” Mr Heilbron beamed. “Frank?”
A crusty old pinstriped man ahemed his way into a dithery monologue all about pre-production funding ratios. Adaptations were ruinous to any TV company, especially one with a superb production record.
“Downtable stuff.” Heilbron gave Lottie a rueful beam, sorry how the meeting is turning out but let’s press on. “Freda?”
Freda was a skeletal lady quivering under gorgeous hair. She delivered a saga of trade union setbacks and calamitous markets. Lottie listened with increasing optimism. Moiya would promote Freda, for we ladies infallibly pick out ugly limited-cortex sisters. Quickly she told herself, Lottie, just remember smiles and quiet confidence.
“So you see, Lottie, it’s a pret-ty sorry outlook!”
For a moment Lottie wondered if Heilbron had marked her card, knew that they were angling to give KV a tryout. This wasn’t a conference. It was a haggle.
“Questions,” Ms Laudrup put in briskly. “The material?”
“Written by an American lady, seriously infirm,” Lottie said. “I’m her sole agent.”
A minion stacked KV copies on the table. Nobody glanced there.
“Strange history, don’t you think, Lottie?”
“I’ve seen stranger, Ms Laudrup. There was one writer who —”
“Sure, sure.” Heilbron held a hand out. Melie thrust a file into it. Heilbron deigned to peruse the page. “Your graph’s bald. Verifiable?”
“All data is available. I won’t disclose marketing devices.”
“We can’t
do without those.” Frank coughed apologetically. Heilbron and Laudrup laughed in synchrony, programmed.
“If anything did get green-lighted,” Moiya said, her smile vanishing so swiftly that even Lottie didn’t perceive the change, “the question is adaptation.”
“The authoress won’t do the TV script. She’s too busy.”
Heilbron and Laudrup didn’t swap looks, but Lottie felt loads lift.
“Conditional or not?”
“Of course. Sharlene’s drawn up a list of essentials,” Lottie said. The next thing was an outrageous guess. “Fifteen details, and screenwriters have complete discretion.” She could have said three or twenty, but what the hell.
“Open discretion suits TV best.” Lottie had never exactly worked the TV end. Open discretion meant they could do whatever they liked to Bray’s stories. This team must think Christmas had arrived. Now was the time they realised that Christmas also brought winter.
“No, sorry. I fought Sharlene tooth and nail.”
“We could meet with Sharlene…”
Lottie heard him out before refusing. “I have no route round her doctors. Getting the next book out of Sharlene is difficult enough. Any option will be non-renewable, three months.”
“It’s never less than six!” Heilbron exclaimed, agitated.
“I had to battle for three. Sharlene’s definite.”
“Soonest being…?”
Lottie smiled. It was time to arm, load, aim. Fire?
“My agent’s instinct is to pretend I’ve a million TV offers. Truth is, I have no more screen appointments.” She let it drag a second. “Sharlene will give me hell if I dawdle over contracts. First come gets served.”
“Our parent company is American, Lottie. Has textual approval been sought from educational authorities in US of A?”
“Already negotiated,” Lottie said smoothly. Inclusion of the KV stories in the Cannon Endriss political lobby was the one concession she had squeezed out of those new enemies, once her old friends. There would be a price, but she was in too far.
“Time scale?”
“No idea,” she said, stone-faced. “I already have got approved USA certification.”
Moiya Laudrup almost smiled, learning the calibre of her visitor. “We’d like you to hold on until it came through. Otherwise…” She sighed to show a perfectly good deal would be ruined.
“No. That would give you a free pending option.” Lottie suppressed the temptation to say that some TV companies might not care whether the stories were approved in America or not. It did matter to Bray and, she admitted with growing frankness, to herself.
They banished the three acolytes after a while, sent for more coffee, and talked until early in the afternoon. Lottie declined lunch.
That evening, she wrote to Officer Stazio.
Dear Officer Stazio,
Forgive this intrusion into your retirement. You may recall that we spoke on the telephone soon after I became acquainted with Mr Charleston.
Might I ask your advice? How much would it cost to hire some reliable investigator, to see if there have been any advances in tracing missing children? I know agencies are only rarely successful, but I do not want to miss any chance of helping Mr Charleston who, incidentally, does not know of this letter.
I enclose International Reply Coupons for return postage. I trust that you are enjoying retirement.
She gave her home address and phone number only. After all, Officer Stazio might only seem sympathetic. She herself had only just earned Bray’s grudging trust. Even sending the letter was taking a risk. Stazio knew nothing about Bray’s books.
A whole week she deliberated, then Friday evening posted the letter, her hand shaking.
Bray knew that events can arrive already at war with each other, the pandemonium leaving you limp as a rag. It happened on the Saturday he received the latest KV book from George Corkhill – a courier, Buster rushing out barking. Only at eleven o’clock did Bray realise that his friends opposite were in their garden looking at his house. He went to the window and signalled disappointment. Courier or no courier, there was no news.
The new book, The Rescue of KV, showed his imperfect drawings on the dust cover, the kites made of purple leaves, the motor car leaf engines looking rummer than ever. But all authentic, exactly as Davey had first drawn them. Bray started reading. Words looked totally different in print. George’s note said how pleased he was at the work Bray’s series was generating.
The doorbell rang. Bray concealed the little book under a cushion, thinking it was probably Lottie back for some reason. He opened it to Mr Walsingham, standing there with a woman. Bray kept hold of Buster.
“Mr Walsingham!” Bray looked from one to the other. “It isn’t bad news?”
Walsingham was rueful. “No, nothing serious. I felt I should call. This is Kitty.”
Bray asked them in, wondering.
“We won’t stay, Mr Charleston.” They sat together on the couch, Bray glimpsing his book as the cushions were disturbed.
“Nothing’s wrong, is it? I haven’t seen Kylee since Wednesday.”
“No, nothing like that.” Kitty glanced about the room. Her gaze touched on some flowers Lottie had left as Walsingham went on, “I want to apologise. I must have created a terrible impression. I’m sorry.”
“There’s no need.”
“There is, you see. Kylee’s never looked back since you came on the scene.”
Bray considered the words. “I don’t quite know what to make of that, Mr Walsingham. Kylee’s behaviour is exemplary.” He smiled awkwardly. “Sorry if that sounds a bit like a probation officer’s report…” He petered out at the gaffe.
“She’s a new person.”
Kitty spoke for the first time. “Our lives were impossible until she started work for you, Mr Charleston.” She gave a half-laugh. “She’s actually stopped her deranged attacks on us. All right, on me.”
Walsingham said frankly, “We’re going to marry soon. Kylee doesn’t mind. And the job you arranged.”
“I only put them in touch.”
“She lays the law down, as usual,” Walsingham added. “She’s content.”
“It’s been a transformation. We have you to thank.”
“Not at all, er, Kitty. Kylee’s merely growing up.”
“It’s more than that,” Walsingham said. “My daughter’s been in trouble as long as I can remember. She’s nothing like she was.”
“Can I ask what exactly it is she does?”
“Oh, just computer work. She rigged up a shed. Kylee does it all. I’m the most electronically useless cabinet maker on the coast.”
Walsingham asked, “Can I offer my own expertise?”
“No, thanks, Mr Walsingham.” Bray felt the man’s unease. “Kylee is enough. I couldn’t have done a thing without her.”
“I just hope her language doesn’t bother you!” Kitty said.
“Not at all.” Too stiff, too reserved. Bray struggled. “Kylee deserves the very best chance in life.”
“It’s been the making of her.”
The couple left after a few minutes, still exchanging reassurances. Bray felt that Kitty was pleased by Lottie’s flowers.
He let Buster out into the garden before resuming his reading of The Rescue of KV. It was a slight story, brief as ever, involving some giant who stole the colour essential for the kites, was one of the first tales Davey had ever made up. The rescue was nothing more than a timely change in the wind direction, causing the foe’s escaping balloon to disintegrate. Bray’s eyes filled as he remembered Davey’s face glowing with delight as he’d drawn the leaves floated down to the sea. Bray had retold the saga over and over while Davey listened, vigilant in case a word was missed.
Everything was essential in Davey’s stories, every word, every phrase. It had to be word perfect, even to the intrusion of a passing duck that tried to swallow a leaf and kept missing.
Two good things, then a tax document requiring informatio
n about Bray’s business. Payments were due, and accounts had to be rendered within days.
Before the afternoon was out, two more bombshells. Shirley suffered some sort of relapse, and Geoffrey faced redundancy.
Chapter Forty-Two
Late one evening Retired Officer Jim Stazio phoned. “That you, Bray? No news, just making a how’re y’doin’ call, no reason.”
Bray took it. He’d walked Buster and the retriever was now asleep in his pit. That night was months into the search. Bray could think in those terms now without anguish, though counting the days renewed his anger every single time.
He was becoming frightened. So many things happening – sales, the first TV episode in production, Lottie’s determination wrestling deals in the American market, a part-time lady in Gloucester taking over local distribution. But the old question remained, was it progress? Kylee had changed Bray’s computer for swifter devices, still mouthing off, still abusive, but less furious and more certain than before.
For the past two months he’d driven himself to the point of exhaustion, until George Corkhill, Kylee, Lottie and Geoffrey, not to mention Suzanne and Harry Diggins at work, everybody in fact tried to tell him to take it easy. Only when Loggo had taken hold of a piece of mahogany to steady it while Bray worked did he acknowledge that he was worn out.
He went through preliminary courtesies with Officer Stazio.
“Can I call you back? I’m just —”
Stazio chuckled. “Hey, Bray, I’m retired, not broke! I can still afford a call.”
“Sorry.” It was Bray’s cackhanded attempt to save the other’s call charges. “Old age creeps on. Retirement suiting you?”
“Love it. Miss everything, though.” Stazio sighed. “I called to ask about you, truth to tell. Still doing that sawing? Feller I bowl with midweek mentioned your firm. Gilson Mather? I said nuthin’, just listened up. Has an old sideboard and stuff, right proud of them things.”
“My firm’s doing some USA promotion.”
“I hear it’s pretty famous.” Stazio paused while Bray wondered. “How’s Geoffrey and his lady?”
Finding Davey Page 21