by E. M. Brown
Richie looked around for Digby, but recalling his passion for cooking, guessed he was in the kitchen preparing hispièce de résistance.He found himself chatting to Chubby Passmore, a successful writer of sitcoms, and his partner Helen.
Across the room he noticed, with a mental jolt, a tall, elegantly slim woman with long blonde hair; she wore a black velvet dress and pearls. She was a softly-spoken New Englander, he remembered, called Elizabeth Teller, and he had met her here tonight for the first time… They would talk for a long time, bound by an ineluctable mutual attraction, and would exchange numbers at the end of the evening. In a month, when Laura left him, he would contact Elizabeth Teller and begin an enjoyable, low-key affair until he followed Digby north to Yorkshire.
Now she caught his eye and smiled, and Richie looked away.
Digby emerged from the kitchen, looking faintly ridiculous in a food-stained apron and huge oven gloves. “Ed!” he called. “Do you mind if I borrow him, Chubby? Ed, come and talk to me while I toil in the bowels of hell.”
Smiling, he excused himself and followed Digby into the kitchen.
“And ditch that bloody stuff Caroline foisted on you and help yourself to a real drink.”
Digby turned to the cooker and lifted a casserole dish onto a work-surface, and Richie opened a bottle of Sam Smith’s bitter, leaned against the wall and watched his friend.
This Digby Lincoln was even leaner than he would be in 2008. He had an almost full head of hair and moved around the kitchen with alacrity as he seasoned the dish and added a splash of wine.
“So, how’d it go with old Morrison?”
Richie remembered reporting, the first time he had this conversation, that the director had asked for certain changes, and he’d agreed to them.
Now he said, anticipating Digby’s reaction, “Morrison demanded some ridiculous changes to the outline, so I told him to go fuck himself and shove the synopsis where the sun doesn’t shine.”
Digby turned and looked at him. “And what did you really say?”
Richie smiled. “I kid ye not. I told the overbearing bastard where to get off.”
“What?” Digby looked shocked.
“Diggers, the man was a cunt. And a nasty fascist cunt, to boot. He wanted changes that would have made the script pro-American propaganda.”
Digby sighed and leaned back against the work-surface. “Ed, Ed… have you ever heard of the word ‘compromise’?”
Richie restrained himself from telling his friend that the word would almost ruin Digby in years to come. “There’s compromise, and there’s compromise. On this, I wasn’t willing to compromise.”
Digby winced. “Please tell me that you said it civilly, so that you can contact Morrison, tell him you’ve had second thoughts, and agree to his suggestions, hm?”
Richie shook his head. “’Fraid not, Diggers. There’s no going back. I really told him to shove the synopsis up his fat arse.”
“God preserve me. Look, Ed… This was a foot in the door. So what if he wanted to fuck about with your outline? You should have bitten the bullet, gone along with it, and taken the filthy lucre and everything that followed. Christ, Ed, you needn’t have signed the thing with your own name. It was an opening” – Digby pointed at him – “and an opening you need, let me tell you.”
Richie shrugged casually, tipped the beer, then said, “I couldn’t, Digby. And I’m glad I didn’t. Things’ll pan out.”
Caroline swept into the kitchen. “Edward, go andmingle while I help Raymond Blanc in here. Tell people dinner will be ready in fifteen.”
Digby said, “Ed told the American director to go fuck himself, Caroline.”
Caroline smiled at Richie. “Good for you, Edward. Now shoo, shoo… Out of here!”
“No, but you don’t understand, Caroline…” Richie heard Digby say as he left the kitchen. “Ed needs the damned work, and the kudos.”
Dinner was a pleasant affair, helped by the fact that Richie was more than a little inebriated. He sat between Chubby Passmore and Elizabeth Teller, and across from Digby, who was beaming to himself and obviously biding his time to break the news about his job offer and imminent relocation.
At one point Richie regaled the guests with an account of his meeting with Max Morrison, overplaying the director’s obnoxiousness – though not by much – and describing his expression when Richie suggested he bugger himself with a furled copy of the synopsis.
“And another thing,” he said, wagging a finger round the table, “I’d avoid any dealings with the man in future, if I were you. A little dicky-bird told me that Morrison will soon be in big trouble.”
Helen said, “Juicy. Do tell.”
“That young P.A. of his, EmmaLou… He’s shafting her.”
Chubby chuckled. “And this is a crime, Ed? I should think that in LA it’s obligatory to have carnal knowledge of one’s personal assistant. The crime would be if one didn’t!”
“Except in this case,” Richie said, “he started fucking her when she was twelve.”
From the flurry of comments that greeted this revelation, Richie assumed he’d earned his dinner. He raised his glass. “So, a toast to Max Morrison, the nasty fascist shit.”
Glasses were raised amid much laughter and talk turned to other things.
Later, over coffee, Digby tapped an empty wine glass with a tea spoon and called out. “Silence, silence, ladies and gentlemen, please!”
Drunk, he beamed around the company like a flushed Mr Pickwick.
“I have a little announcement to make, one and all.” He reached out, gripped Caroline’s hand, and went on, “An announcement, both joyous and at the same time a little sad. For, after all, do not all changes in one’s life, one’s circumstances, engender contrary feelings…?”
“Get on with it!” Chubby called out.
“So to cut to the chase, to cut a long story short and to impart the glad, if bittersweet tidings, without further ado… my good lady Caroline and I are moving, lock, stock and barrel, to Yorkshire.”
“Good God,” Chubby Passmore expostulated, “why the bloody hell are you doing that?”
“Yorkshire?” someone said. “Where exactly is Yorkshire?”
“Just this side of Siberia, so I’m told.”
“Isn’t it famous for something, so I’ve heard?”
“Puddings,” the novelist said, “and prejudice.”
Digby silenced the comments and said, “Yorkshire Television, in their infinite wisdom, have commissioned me to head a team writing a big-budget soap, and to be honest it was too good an offer to refuse. We’ve found a farm to convert on the moors, and we’re moving in a couple of months. Not,” he hurried to reassure his friends, “that we’re turning our backs completely on old London. You’ll be delighted to hear that we’re keeping on our little Chelsea pad.”
Richie raised his glass in congratulation and watched his friend accept the plaudits.
Later in the evening, Elizabeth Teller cornered Richie and applauded him on his treatment of Max Morrison. “The fellow really needed to be taken down a peg or two,” she said in her warm, modulated New England drawl.
They chatted, but Richie’s heart was never in the conversation; his thoughts drifted, and he recalled the first time he made love to Elizabeth, how she demanded he undress her and do things to her which, given her ladylike demeanour and elegant manners, rather shocked him.
He smiled absently, and nodded in the right places, and soon found himself in drunken conversation with someone else.
Then he was standing outside the front door in the early hours, swaying a little as he took his leave of Digby Lincoln.
“I really think, Diggers old man, that you should… should think twice about the Yorkshire thing. Don’t go.”
Digby patted his shoulder. “I’ll be down every couple of weeks, Ed. Don’t worry. We’ll have our regular sessions… only less regular.”
“No… I mean.” He swayed, focusing on his friend. “I mean, you w
on’t be happy up there, Diggers. You’ll regret it. Fifteen years down the line, you’ll tell me… you’ll say, Ed, I should never have left London. That’s what you’ll tell me. I remember.”
Digby guffawed and hugged Richie. “Tell you what, Ed, I’ll put in a good word for you with the producer, get you on the team, eh? That’d be something!”
Richie stared at his friend, then said, “I don’t know when I’ll see you again, but you’re a good friend, Diggers…”
And he went reeling off down the street, followed by Digby’s laughter.
He took a taxi back to Notting Hill. He was surprised to find that Laura had arrived back before him, and that she was curled up asleep in his bed.
He undressed quietly, careful not to wake her, and slid in beside her. He pulled her naked body towards him and murmured, “Loves…” before falling asleep.
He awoke to go to the loo at seven o’clock that morning, surprised that he’d managed to get through the night without earlier visits. His older body would have required at least four trips, after the volume of alcohol he’d consumed.
He was making his way back to bed, and anticipating making love to Laura later that morning, when he felt an oddly familiar pain in his head. He leaned against the wall, moaning, “Christ, no…”
Then the white light hit him and he slumped to the floor, unconscious.
An email from Roger Hartnell, commissioning Editor, Vector Press, 2nd February, 2018
DEAR ED,
I’ve read Interesting Times… and what can I say? I love it. It has everything: depth, a great storyline, fantastic characters, and as a parable for our times it’s way ahead of anything else out there. It’ll go down a storm – but of course the Daily Mail will hate it.
I ran it past marketing and acquisition on Thursday, and they gave me the go ahead. That’s the good news. The not-so-good news… I can offer you an advance of five grand. I know, I know! It’s peanuts. But it is a first novel, after all, and your name isn’t really known outside TV circles.
As for rewrites – the odd line here and there, the occasional cut, but nothing major at all. If only all the mss I deal with were this clean.
Now, I suggest you get yourself an agent. I know you had someone for your TV work, before you sacked her, but I’d advise you get someone for the novel, and all the others you’re going to write for us.
And how about dinner when you’re next down?
Very best,
Roger.
Email from Ed Richie to Digby Lincoln, 2nd February, 2018
DIGGERS, JUST HAD word from Hartnell at Vector, the new imprint you put me onto: as you forecast, they’re taking Times… What I never suspected was the paltry advance: five grand – that’s a third of the brass I got for the last TV script, which took me about three days to write!
I know I shouldn’t complain. You always said there’s no money in writing novels.
Thing is, having had the Beeb turn down my last few outlines, I really need the novel to sell.
A pint or two tonight in celebration?
From the Guardian first novel round-up, December 2018
INTERESTING TIMES, BY TV and radio script-writer Ed Richie, is an accomplished and readable first novel. What is notable in this seven hundred-plus page dystopia is that Richie eschews the dialogue-driven format, which one might expect from a script-writer, and uses an expository narrative harking back a century or more. This imbues the story of a failing TV writer battling the censors and the powers-that-be in a near-future totalitarian Britain with a learned gravitas. Richie’s profound satire is a timely reminder of the fragile freedoms we all take for granted. Recommended.
CHAPTER TEN
January, 2030
ELLA MOVED THROUGH passport control, her progress delayed by having to follow the non-English resident stream, and made her way to the baggage carousel. Snow had fallen in England during the two days she’d been away, and flying over Norfolk Ella had stared down on a landscape that lay lifeless and inert under the white-out, blinding in the bright winter sunlight.
The baggage from the Helsinki flight was slow in arriving, so she took the opportunity to slip to the loo. Easing her way through the press of passengers, she glimpsed a familiar face: a thin, dark-haired man in his mid-forties. Sitting in the cubicle, she wondered where she’d seen him before – and then she had it. He’d been on the train from Manchester three days ago, glowering at her when she offered the little girl her Queers Against the Front leaflet.
A coincidence? But what were the chances of his being on the same train, and the same flight from Finland? Was she being followed – or was she being paranoid?
She took her time in the toilet, and then hung back when she returned to the baggage retrieval area. She scanned the crowd for the man – he’d been wearing a navy blue suit and a grey overcoat – but it appeared that he’d claimed his baggage and departed. She spotted her case trundling along the rubber flanges and managed to grab it before it disappeared back through the hatch.
She was taking a slideway to the rail station, keeping an eye out for the well-dressed man as she did so, when her wrist-com chimed.
Kit smiled up from the tiny screen. “How was the flight, El?”
“Bumpy. Don’t tell me, still nothing on Ralph Dennison, right?” They had spoken last night, Ella reporting her findings in Finland, while Kit admitted that she’d hit a brick wall concerning the scientist.
Kit’s complicit smile told Ella that she was wrong. “This morning I spoke to Charles Sloane – he was doing his PhD at the same time as Dennison, then worked with him at Omega-Tec Research in Oxford. He lost contact with Dennison years ago, but when I explained that a colleague of mine was interested in doing a piece about the scientist, he agreed to meet you.”
“That’s excellent.”
“He’s an emeritus professor at Balliol, and suggested you ring him to arrange afternoon tea. He’s free this afternoon or all tomorrow.”
“That sounds civilised. I’ll do that.”
Kit gave her Sloane’s number, then said, “Any idea when you’ll be back?”
“I’ll probably stay down here for a couple of days, then go back to London after Oxford and try to track down a few more of Richie’s ex-lovers.”
“Ah, the harem…”
“Don’t say it in that tone.”
Kit smiled. “I think, reading that journal of his, you’re falling under his spell.”
“No, but I’m certainly coming to understand what kind of person he was.”
“A self-centred serial philanderer redeemed only by his right-on political stance?”
“You can read the journal when I get back,” Ella said, “and make up your own mind. Anyway, how are things at your end?”
“I’m working hard for SFM and contacted Canongate about the possibility of their publishing my diary of the last five years. I’m meeting a senior editor tomorrow.”
“That’s great. Good luck.”
“Oh, and Aimee’s met someone. Or I suspect she has. She’s being very secretive and stays out long after her shift at the café is through.”
“I’m sorry,” Ella said. “Are you okay?”
“I’m as tough as old boots, El.”
They chatted for another minute, then Ella cut the connection.
She took the underground to Paddington, then checked the times of the trains to Oxford: there was one every hour, and the next departed in forty minutes. She found a café and ordered a coffee and a salad sandwich. It was one o’clock, and she hadn’t eaten since breakfast at six that morning, crispbread, rubber cheese and pickled gherkins. She selected a booth at the back of the café so that she could see everyone who entered; there was no sign of the thin man in the navy blue suit.
She got through to Charles Sloane, gave her name and mentioned Kit’s call that morning.
“I’d be delighted,” he said in cultured tones. “Tea at my college, that’s Balliol. Say three this afternoon? Excellent. I very much
enjoyed your book on Corbyn, by the way. I look forward to meeting you, Ms Shaw.”
Ella thanked him, cut the connection and finished her lunch.
She pulled Ed Richie’s journal from her case and for the next twenty minutes scoured the later entries for mentions of Emmi Takala.
24th August, 2016: Anna bought me that bloody landscape I half-admired in York last week. She insists I hang it in the lounge, replacing Emmi’s canvas. The two are incomparable. So this morning before I put it away under the stairs, I sat and admired it for a while, wondering if I made a mistake all those years ago. How different would my life have been, had I gone back to Crete and Emmi? Would I have found some measure of happiness, or fulfilment?
Tuesday! A session with Diggers tonight.
Ella smiled to herself and closed the journal.
The mention of Digby Lincoln reminded her that she’d intended to call him as soon as she arrived in England.
She raised her wrist-com and spoke his name.
The dial tone sounded, followed by a cautious, “Hello?”
Her screen remained blank; evidently Digby had an ancient phone.
“Digby, Ella Shaw here.”
“Ella, lovely to hear from you. How was London, and the delightful Sam?”
“Sam was as delightful as ever, and working hard. She sends you her best wishes.” She hesitated. “I was wondering if I might quiz you about something?”
“Fire away.”
“It’s about Emmi Takala, the Finnish artist Ed met in Crete in 2008.”
“Ah, the ethereal Emmi,” Digby said. “Ed was quite smitten. I could never understand why he didn’t follow it up. When I tried to probe, he always changed the subject. Anyway, how can I help?”
“I’ve just returned from Finland, where I met her brother.” She paused, knowing that she was about to drop a bombshell, then went on, “He says that Emmi went to England last year – to meet Ed.”