The Editor's Wife

by Clare Chambers

  I paid for my bottle of San Pellegrino and found an empty table – empty apart from a glass of water, a canvas bag covered in graffiti, and a splayed hardback, which I realised as I sat down was The Amazement of Dr Oberon by Ravi Amos. From the back cover his ever-young photograph smiled up at me. I looked around for the owner, but no likely candidate suggested themselves. I couldn’t stop myself flipping the book over to the Acknowledgements. I am grateful for the light touch of my editor, Owen Goddard . . . Even at this distance his printed name could find me out. I was simultaneously pondering this coincidence, and wondering whether there wasn’t something characteristically self-regarding in Ravi Amos’s vote of thanks, when I realised someone was standing at my elbow.

  It was a girl with blonde pigtails and a beaded headband. She was wearing shorts, and a black vest stretched tightly across her nipples, which were level with and pointing at my forehead. Something in her appearance – her recklessly sunburned shoulders, perhaps – persuaded me that she was English.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, moving across so she could reclaim her seat, and pushing the book towards her. ‘I wasn’t trying to nick it. I was just being nosey.’

  ‘You can have it if you want,’ she said as she sat down. ‘I can’t get into it.’

  ‘Already read it. It’s not his best, but you’ve got to stick with it – at least till page sixty.’

  ‘Hmm. Does it make sense after that?’

  ‘Yes, but if it doesn’t you can always come to my tent and I’ll give you a seminar on it.’

  ‘Ha ha.’ She took a swig of her drink and looked surprised to find it already empty.

  ‘Have some of mine,’ I said, handing her the unopened bottle. ‘I haven’t slobbered in it.’

  ‘I’d rather have a beer.’

  I bought some beers and we stayed there at the table for the rest of the evening, and had those authentic Italian pizzas with not much on top that you can tear like wet cardboard. I was staring at her so intently all this time that I missed the sunset, but never mind. At about midnight she got up and pulled me to my feet and said, ‘Come on. Time for that seminar,’ and we picked our way back down the slope to my tent, with the lights of Florence scattered below.

  The relief of that first careless fuck since Zoe. Just skin on gorgeous skin and none of the emotional mauling that goes with being in love.

  In the morning she was going on to meet friends in Rome, and before she left she produced a laundry marker and asked me to sign her canvas bag. ‘I’m going to embroider it all when I get home,’ she said. Now that I looked at it more closely I could see that as well as CND symbols and doodles were quite a number of other ‘signatures’. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be part of this hedonistic tapestry, so I drew a heart and wrote ‘Gerald’ in great looping letters across the flap.

  Once I’d seen how easy it was, I had variations of that encounter in campsites all over Europe. I’m not saying that backpackers are a particularly promiscuous breed, or that I had a special knack for picking up women. But with everyone constantly arriving, departing, packing up and moving on, it is mutually understood that a slow and satisfying pursuit is a luxury that has to be sacrificed.

  One evening in August, almost seven months since I had said goodbye to Diana, I had a revelation. I was sitting in a campsite in Interlaken, drinking a cold beer and watching the paragliders drifting down like bright confetti from the mountains. I could see the pinkish-gold snow on top of the Jungfrau, and the black shark’s fin of the Eiger against the sky: it was an awesome sight – nature at its most ostentatious. There had been a thunderstorm earlier in the day but the grass was dry now, and warm underfoot. From the café came the hiss of meat being grilled over a barbecue; presently I caught its smoky, caramel scent. Somewhere a radio was playing faintly: Mozart’s Horn Concerto. Its jaunty notes rode the breeze like butterflies. As I registered all these separate but somehow complementary sense impressions, I realised that something inside me had changed. I felt good. Not wonderful, or ecstatic, but calmly comfortably fine, as though the scales had tipped at last and I was more happy than sad.

  The next day I made my contractual monthly phone call home and learned from Mum that Owen and Diana had been killed in a road accident in Greece three weeks earlier. They’d been riding a moped along a cliff road and collided with a truck. It had made a couple of lines in the Daily Telegraph. It was a pure fluke that she’d noticed it, she said, but with me being abroad, items about foreign holiday tragedies tended to catch her eye.

  27

  IN SEPTEMBER I returned to York to complete the final year of my degree. I found it difficult to settle back into student life: all my friends had left, and I no longer had any appetite for the sort of competitive drinking and partying that was so much a part of the culture, and which I’d once enjoyed. Although I was only a few years older than the other third years I felt antiquated in comparison. It was as if my experiences in London had turned my spirit prematurely grey. They, in turn, mistook my world-weariness for condescension, and avoided me.

  I have made it sound as though I was a hermit: this wasn’t the case. My housemates were friendly, there was company if I wanted it, and I had casual girlfriends, though I always seemed to go for the sort that I knew I couldn’t feel much for, and who wouldn’t get too attached to me. The deep, serious, soulful types I avoided, especially if I was attracted.

  I worked doggedly rather than enthusiastically at my studies. This time around I found myself temperamentally well suited to maths. Its cold, predictable certainties were reassuring, beautiful even. It was so much easier than writing fiction: there was no need to strive for originality or wit or the music of a perfectly turned sentence. On the contrary those qualities would have been serious impediments to accuracy, and accuracy was all.

  One remarkable thing happened that year. At the end of my first term I received a letter, forwarded from the bed-sit via Gleneldon Road, from a firm called Swift & Deckle, offering to publish The Night Wanderer. The signatory was Vincent Lesser, a name I recalled, after my initial mystification, as the former colleague to whom Owen had proposed sending (and evidently sent) a copy of the manuscript.

  He apologised, though not effusively, for taking so long to respond. I learnt later that it was not uncommon for manuscripts to languish unread in editors’ offices for a year or more if the authors failed to chase them up, and that Owen’s prompt treatment of the slush pile was by no means standard practice.

  He was very impressed – as were all those at Swift & Deckle – by my ‘ebullient style and sharp characterisation’ and hoped I would accept their offer of an advance of £2,000 against a royalty of 7½ per cent.

  Swift & Deckle were described by my out-of-date Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook as ‘a small, independent hardback house specialising in literary fiction and non-fiction, in particular biography, history and current affairs: a poor man’s Kenway & Luff’.

  Kenway & Luff were down as ‘a poor man’s Faber & Faber’. I didn’t bother looking up Faber & Faber: I thought two removes of poverty quite sufficient.

  Of course I was pleased with this development, but in the detached, qualified way that, post-Diana and Owen, I now experienced anything like pleasure. This is me, Christopher, sitting on the top deck of a bus, with an offer to publish in my pocket, and finding the sensation quite interesting, was my chief response. The other was, of course: if only Owen . . .

  To say that their deaths haunted me is no exaggeration – it was something like the spectral presence I had felt at my elbow in that campsite in Florence, when I had seen Owen’s name in print. Though I hadn’t known it at the time, he was already dead. And in the coincidence of Swift & Deckle’s offer of £2,000 – the exact amount of Owen’s gift – I couldn’t help but feel a ghostly influence.

  I was stalked by guilt: it would lie in wait and assault me when I least expected it. I would be walking through the centre of York, holding hands with a girl, my mind on the sex to follow, when we woul
d pass a toyshop with a rocking horse in the window, and instantly those little orphaned twins would be clawing at my heart, and my head would ring with their sobs, and the rest of the evening would be a write-off.

  One detail from the two-line report in the Telegraph, relayed to me over the phone by Mum, had lodged in my mind: ‘The couple were staying in the honeymoon suite.’ A second honeymoon to repair the fractures of a once-happy marriage. How could their deaths be anyone’s fault but mine?

  By the time I reached England it was all in the past. I was too late for the funeral, too late for flowers. If there ever was a memorial service no one told me. But, of course, who was there to do the telling? We had no acquaintances in common. I had dropped in and out of their lives like an assassin, leaving no trace. All my grieving had to be done alone, since I had taken such pains to conceal the nature of our relationship – from my parents, from Gerald – that there was no one now who could have understood the depth of my sorrow.

  I thought of Leila, and although I didn’t consider her an especially comforting presence, she had at least known Owen and Diana well, and could be expected to sympathise. My efforts to trace her were frustrated at every turn. She wasn’t in the phone book, and I had no idea where she lived beyond a sense that it was north of the river. I looked through numerous fashion magazines and newspapers to see if I could find her byline, but drew a complete blank, and began to wonder whether her significance in the fashion world had been overstated.

  Finally I had what I thought was the inspired idea of visiting the private dining club in St Martin’s Lane where she had once bought me lunch. The girl on reception was new and didn’t recognise the name, but said I could leave a card. I wrote my parents’ number, and my address at York, and the message: Leila. Please get in touch. Yours, Chris Flinders, but I wasn’t unduly surprised when I heard nothing. She had never liked me.

  Vincent Lesser didn’t have the ‘light touch’ that Ravi Amos had so admired in Owen. I met him only once, when he bought me lunch at the White Tower – not a stone’s throw from the offices of Kenway & Luff – to celebrate their acquisition of The Night Wanderer. He was very confident, salesmanlike, with a professional manner that made it hard to establish real rapport. I could tell almost at once that we wouldn’t be friends. I had assumed we would at least have Owen in common, and was both disappointed and relieved when it turned out that the two had been acquaintances rather than friends. (I still harboured a fear that one day someone would denounce me for my treacherous involvement with the Goddards.) They had met very occasionally at publishing parties and award dinners, but had known each other by reputation rather than personally. It was from Vincent that Owen had acquired Lawrence Canning, after Swift & Deckle had wavered and finally turned him down. Owen’s reciprocal recommendation of me was the first communication Vincent had had from him for more than a year.

  After lavishing praise on my book, he produced ten pages of closely typed queries and suggestions. ‘Just some initial thoughts,’ he said.

  I read them on the train home in a state of despondency. The fact that all the comments were perfectly sound and judicious only made it worse. So many weaknesses in such a short book! Once they had been taken into account there was hardly anything left to admire.

  ‘Let me have your rewrites by the end of the month,’ he had said. ‘We want to make early proofs so we can send them out and get some good quotes for the jacket. Do you know anyone who might give it a puff? Other writers I mean.’

  ‘I met Ravi Amos once,’ I said, without thinking. I had overreached myself.

  Vincent smiled kindly. ‘He doesn’t give endorsements,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t suppose he does.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I know plenty of people who are guaranteed to rave about the book,’ he assured me.

  In the event, only one of these phantom ‘Ravers’ could be found to endorse The Night Wanderer: Ralph Butcher, a newly successful writer of nautical potboilers who probably owed Vincent a favour.

  ‘A thought-provoking debut’, ran his testimonial on the jacket, which struck me as ambiguous praise at best. The thoughts provoked may not, after all, have been entirely friendly.

  As soon as I had received the final instalment of my advance, I was determined to repay the £2,000 to Owen’s daughters – or whoever was now their guardian – but discovering their whereabouts was no easy task. I realised how little I knew about Owen and Diana’s background, how superficially I had infiltrated their network of family and friends. I couldn’t recall Diana ever mentioning any relatives: I didn’t even know her maiden name. There was just Owen’s elderly father, in Snowdonia – if indeed he was still alive – and blessed with a surname too commonplace to be traceable.

  After retreating from various dead ends, I had more or less given up when I remembered the sister. Diana had wanted to listen to the radio because Owen’s sister had a part in the afternoon play. The incident had been driven from my mind by Diana’s startled reaction to the sight of Leila in the street below. It had only surfaced now, and with it a name: Bronnie. Its cutesiness had irked me at the time, but I was grateful for it now. There was only one Bronwyn Goddard in York Library’s copy of Spotlight. Her publicity photo showed a woman with dark permed hair and heavy make-up, but still bearing a vestigial resemblance to Owen. The cleft chin had looked better on a man. She was registered with a theatrical agent in Soho, and it was to this address that I sent the following letter and a cheque for £2,000.

  Dear Miss Goddard

  I am sorry to approach you in this roundabout way, but you are my only point of contact. Your late brother was a good friend to me and, among other kindnesses, once gave me £2,000 to bail me out when I was broke. Although he insisted, with typical generosity, that the money was a gift and not a loan, I would like to return the money to the twins. I have left the cheque blank because I’m afraid I can’t recall their proper names.

  Thank you for your help, and please accept my heartfelt condolences.

  Yours sincerely

  Christopher Flinders

  Within a week of sending it the cheque was returned, in a typed envelope, unaccompanied by any note of explanation. The hostility of this gesture, in response to what I had thought a sincere and courteous letter, gave me a nasty jolt. I could only assume that Owen had taken his sister into his confidence, and that she had recognised my name and wanted nothing to do with me, my cash or my condolences.

  It only remains to describe my literary career. It won’t take long.

  Over the course of the year it took Swift & Deckle to publish The Night Wanderer the buzz of excitement subsided to an uneasy silence. In spite of their initial confidence, they had been unable to sell either paperback or foreign rights. ‘Don’t worry,’ Vincent said. ‘We’ll be able to sell it on the back of all the reviews.’

  ‘How do you know it’ll get any?’ I asked.

  ‘First novels always get plenty of attention, and once one literary editor has picked it up the rest follow like sheep. Don’t worry.’

  I wasn’t worried. I had absorbed too much of my parents’ pessimism over the years. Aim low. Keep your head down. Don’t make a fuss.

  Of my ten free copies, I sent one to Mum and Dad and one to Gerald, not expecting much in the way of feedback. (Gerald and I were only just about back on speaking terms, and didn’t meet, except at unavoidable family functions.) The rest I left in their cardboard box, and they came with me from loft to loft each time I moved house.

  Mum was swift to respond. ‘I wish you hadn’t used the F-word,’ she said. ‘Now I won’t be able to send it to Auntie Daph.’

  Gerald said, ‘I suppose that Gareth character – the dumb brother with the Buddy Holly glasses – is meant to be me.’

  ‘He’s nothing like you,’ I protested. ‘He’s got red hair.’

  There were no reviews. Of the 1,500 copies printed just 350 were sold. Within eighteen months the rest were remaindered, or pulped.


  PART THREE

  28

  THE DECISION NOT to investigate unusual nocturnal noises has to be taken lightly, almost subconsciously: nothing chases away sleep like deliberation. As someone with a tendency to early-hours insomnia, I had trained myself out of bad habits like glancing at the luminous dial of the clock at the first hint of wakefulness, or monitoring background noise. So when a faint, metallic tapping broke the surface of my dream I tried, in that fraction of a second while there was a choice, to sleep on.

  It wasn’t a very threatening noise, but its rhythm was somehow deliberate, in the way that the rattle of a chain-link fence in the wind, for example, was not, and it was this man-made quality that kept intruding and finally demanded investigation.

  I swung my legs out of bed and sat up, listening. I could feel the knobbly tassels of the rug digging into the soles of my feet, and the cold midnight air whipping around my ankles. And then it came again, chink, chink, chink, from somewhere outside, but close. I crossed to the window and drew aside the curtain, which was hanging from two remaining rings like a piece of washing pegged out to dry.

  Below in the garden – ninety square feet of coarse grass roped off from the rest of the paddock – a torch beam swung to and fro.

  I dropped the curtain and stepped back from the glass, my heart clubbing in protest. For a moment I wondered whether it might be Richard, for inscrutable reasons of his own choosing the middle of the night to perform repairs to the fence. But then I remembered that he and Sally were in Turkey on their annual one-week holiday. That explained, too, why the dogs hadn’t barked: they were billeted at Richard’s brother’s farm in Thirsk.