He shook his head. “No. She already had a copy of the 1964 Peter Owen edition. She wanted the first for herself. I let her have it for sixty quid. These days, I doubt you could get a first edition for under three hundred.”
It always amazed me that people could remember how much they’d paid for things in the past. Such specifics eluded me. I could only remember emotionally, comparatively: something had cost a lot or not much.
“I should talk to Carmen,” I said. “She probably met Helen Ralston when she decided to publish her.”
“Probably.” He had a thoughtful look on his face. “Didn’t we talk about In Troy once before? When I was selling Isis. In Troy had some influence on your book, didn’t it?”
I ducked my head in agreement, slightly embarrassed. Isis was either my first or my second novel, depending on whether you judged by date of composition or actual publication. Either way, I’d written it a lifetime ago. I could hardly recall the young woman I had been when I’d started it, and by now my attitude towards that novel – once so important to me – was clear-eyed, critical, fond but distant. “Yes, it was my model. Almost too much influence, it had – I didn’t realize how deeply I’d absorbed In Troy until my second or third revision of Isis. Then I had to cut out great tranches of poetic prose because it was too much like hers, and wasn’t really me at all.”
I recalled how I’d been pierced, at the age of nineteen, by the insights and language of In Troy, It felt at times like I was reading my own story, only written so much better than I could ever hope to match. It was such an amazingly personal book, I felt it had been written for me alone. If Helen of Troy was Helen Ralston’s mythic equivalent for the purposes of her novel, then she was mine. Somehow, the author’s affair with her teacher in Scotland was exactly the same as mine, fifty years later in upstate New York. Details of time, space, location and even personal identity were insignificant set in the balance with the eternal truths, the great rhythms of birth and death and change.
I had a genuine, Proustian rush then, the undeniable certainty that time could be conquered. All at once, sitting at a table in an Edinburgh restaurant, the taste of wine sharp and fresh on my tongue, I felt myself still curled in the basket chair in that long-ago dorm room in upstate New York, the smell of a joss-stick from my room-mate’s side of the room competing with the clove, orange and cinnamon scent of the cup of Constant Comment tea I sipped while I read, the sound of Joni Mitchell on the stereo as Helen Ralston’s words blazed up at me, changing me and my world forever with the universe-destroying, universe-creating revelation that time is an illusion.
“I was meant to write this book,” I said to my agent, with all the passion and conviction of the teenager I had been thirty-two years ago.
He didn’t grin, but I caught the spark of amusement in his eyes, and it made me scowl with self-doubt. “You think I’m crazy?”
“No. No.” He leaned across the table and put his hand firmly on mine. “I think you sound like your old self again.”
Our food arrived and we talked about other things.
The crab cakes were, indeed, superb. They were served with a crunchy potato gallette and a delicious mixture of seared red peppers and Spanish onion. My salad included rocket, watercress, baby spinach, and some other tasty and exotic leaves I couldn’t identify, all tossed in a subtle, herby balsamic dressing. When I exclaimed at it, Selewyn grinned and shook his head.
“You should get out more. That’s a standard restaurant salad.”
My nearest restaurant was a 20-mile drive away, and didn’t suit my budget.
“I don’t get out much, but I’d make this for myself, if I could get rocket in the Co-Op.”
“The Co-Op?” His delivery brought to mind Dame Edith Evans uttering the immortal question – “A hand bag?” – in The Importance of Being Earnest.
“Does the Co-Op still exist? And you shop there?”
“When I must.”
“Oh, my dear. When are you moving back to civilization?”
“I don’t consider that civilization resides in consumer convenience, actually.”
“No.” He sounded unconvinced. “But what do you do out in the country? I mean, what’s the great appeal?” Selwyn was such a complete urbanite, he couldn’t imagine any use for countryside except to provide a quiet chill-out zone at the weekend.
“I do the same things I’d do anywhere else.”
“You’d shop at the Co-Op?”
I laughed. “Well, no. But I can write anywhere.”
“Of course you can. And when you’re not writing, in the city, there’s art galleries, theatres, bookstores . . . what is it you like about the country?”
“The hills, the sea, peace and quiet, going for walks, going sailing . . .”
He was nodding. “I remember, I remember. I grilled you on this before, when you told me you were going to marry your former editor and leave London. I couldn’t understand it. Not the part about marrying Allan – who was a better man than the publishing world deserved – but why leave London?”
I sighed a little. “We’d decided to down-shift. Allan hated his job; I was fed up in general . . . we figured out we could sell our flats, and buy a boat, spend more time together, and have a better quality of life on less money there.”
“It still suits you?”
I pushed a strip of red pepper around on my plate. That life had been planned for, and suited, two people. After Allan’s death I’d taken the advice of my closest friends not to rush into anything or do anything too drastic, so I hadn’t moved, or made any major changes to my life. What was the point, anyway? Nothing I could do would change the only thing that really mattered.
“I couldn’t afford to move back to London.”
“There are other places. Don’t tell the folks down south I said so, but I actually prefer Edinburgh. Or Glasgow.”
“I guess you haven’t checked out property prices since devolution.”
“But surely if you sold your farm—”
“It’s not a farm, Selwyn, it’s a farm cottage. A dinky toy. Somebody else owns the farm and the nice big farmhouse and all the land and lets us share the farm track.”
“Still, it must be worth something. Think about it. Once you start writing this book you won’t want to have the hassle of moving, but you will want to be near a good library.”
I thought of myself in a library, surrounded by stacks of books. The idea of having a project, things to look up, real work to do again, was incredibly seductive.
“The first thing is to put together a proposal, something I can show around. Just a few basic facts, the reason Helen Ralston is of interest, the stance you’re going to take, why she’s well overdue for a biography—” he broke off. “There hasn’t already been one, has there?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Mmm. Better check the more obscure university press catalogues . . . you can do that on-line. And ask around, just in case somebody is already working on her. It would be good to know.”
My heart gave a jolt. “If there was . . . couldn’t I still write mine?”
“The trouble is, publishers are always ready to commission a new life of Dickens or Churchill, but nobody wants to publish two ‘first’ biographies in the same year – probably not even in the same decade.”
Until a couple of hours ago, I hadn’t given Helen Ralston more than a passing thought in years. I’d had no notion of writing her biography before lunch, and yet now it was the one thing I most wanted to do. I couldn’t bear the idea of giving it up.
“How will I find out if somebody else is already doing one?”
“Don’t look so tragic! If someone has got a commission, it may be some boring old academic who’s going to take ten years, and you could get yours out first. Anyway, don’t worry about it. Just have a scout around. If there’s going to be a biography coming out next year, well, much better to find out now, before you’ve invested a lot of time and energy in it.”
Forewarned wasn’t necessarily forearmed, I thought. I didn’t put much stock in the theory of minimizing pain that way. If I’d known in advance that Allan would die of a heart attack at the age of sixty it wouldn’t have hurt any less when it happened, and it wouldn’t have stopped me loving him. I did know, when I married him, that his father had died of a heart attack at sixty, and even without that genetic factor, the statistical chances were that I’d outlive him by a couple of decades. I came of sturdy peasant stock, and the women in my family were long-lived.
“How do I scout around? I mean, who do I talk to?”
“You could start with her.”
“Her? You mean Helen Ralston?”
He was surprised by my surprise. “She is still alive?”
“Is she? She’d be awfully old.”
“Ninety-six or ninety-seven. Not impossible. I don’t remember seeing an obituary of her in the last few years.”
“Me either. I’m sure I would have noticed. Well. I guess they might still have an address for her at Virago. And there’s a biography of Willy Logan, quite new, that should have something.” I patted the heavy square shape of it in the bag slung across the side of my chair.
“Dessert? No? Coffee?” He summoned the waiter and, when he’d gone away again, turned back to me. “By the way, I know someone who owns one of Helen Ralston’s paintings.”
“ ‘By the way’?”
He smiled. “Really, I just remembered. And he lives here in Edinburgh. An old friend. I should probably call in on him while I’m here – are you free for the rest of this afternoon, or do you have to rush off?”
“I’m free. Do you mean it? I’d love to see it!”
I felt a little stunned by this sudden unexpected bonus. While Selwyn got out his phone and made the call I tried to imagine what a Helen Ralston painting would look like. Although I knew she’d been an art student, I thought of her always as a writer, and I’d never seen so much as a description of one of her paintings. That it should have fallen into my lap like this, before I’d even started work, did not strike me as odd or unusual. Everyone who writes or researches knows that this sort of serendipity – the chance discovery, the perfectly timed meeting, the amazing coincidence – is far from rare. The fact that this first one had come along so soon, before I was definitely committed to the project, just confirmed my feeling: I was meant to write this book.
III
Selwyn’s friend lived a short cab ride away in an area known as The Colonies. This was a collection of quaint, tidy little cottages set in eleven parallel terraces, built, he told me, in 1861 to provide affordable housing for respectable artisans and their families, and now much in demand among singles and young professional couples for their central location and old-fashioned charm.
The sight of these neat little houses set out like a model village in narrow, cobbled streets roused the long-dormant American tourist in me, and before I could crush her down again I was gushing, “Ooh, they’re so cute!”
The big black cab had to stop on the corner to let us out, as it clearly would not be able to turn around if it went any further.
“They’re just adorable!” I became more excited as I noticed the window boxes and trim green lawns. In its day, this had been inexpensive housing, but that hadn’t translated into an ugly utilitarianism. The houses were small – I couldn’t imagine how they’d ever been thought suitable for the large families people had in the old days – but their proportions were appealing to the eye and they didn’t look cramped. “What a great place to live – so quiet and pretty, like a village, but right in the middle of the city. You could walk everywhere from here, or bike, you wouldn’t even need a car.”
Selwyn was looking amused. “I’ll get Alistair to let you know as soon as one comes on the market. They’re very much in demand, but with advance notice maybe you could put in a pre-emptive bid.”
“I didn’t mean I wanted to live here—” but as I spoke, I thought again. Why shouldn’t it be me living the life I’d suddenly glimpsed, in a small, neat, pretty house or a flat within an ancient city? I still loved the country, but after all, there were trains and buses for whenever I wanted a day out, and these days I was feeling distinctly more starved of culture than I was of fresh air and wide open spaces.
“Well,” I said, changing tack, “If you can re-launch my career, I will definitely think about re-launching my life.”
He draped an arm loosely about my shoulders and led me gently down the street. “We – the operative word is we – are going to relaunch your career, big-time. Turn in at the green gate.”
The house where Selwyn’s friend lived was divided into two residences, top and bottom. His was upstairs, the front door reached by a rather elegant sweeping curve of stairs.
A thin, neat, very clean-looking old man opened the door to us. This was Alistair Reid. He had a long nose and slightly protuberant bright blue eyes in a reddish, taut-skinned face. His cheeks were as shiny as apples – I imagined him buffing them every morning – and his sleeked back hair was cream-coloured.
“I’ve just put the kettle on,” he said, leading us into his sitting room. “Indian, or China?”
He was looking at me. I looked at Selwyn.
“China, if you’ve got it.”
“I should hardly make the offer if I hadn’t got it,” the old man said reprovingly. But despite his tone there was a twinkle in his eye so I guessed it was meant to be a joke. “Please, make yourselves at home. I’ll not be long,” he said as he left us.
I looked around the room, which was light and airy and beautifully furnished. It was clear even to my untutored eye that the delicate writing table beside the window, the glass-fronted bookcase in the corner, and the dark chest beside the door were all very old, finely made, unique pieces which were undoubtedly very expensive. Even the couch where Selwyn and I perched had a solidity and individuality about it which suggested it had not been mass-produced.
The pale walls were hung with paintings. I got up and went to look at them. One wall displayed a series of watercolour landscapes, the usual Scottish scenes of mountains, water, cloud-streaked skies and island-dotted seas. They were attractive enough, yet rather bland; more accomplished than my own attempts, but nothing special.
Beside the bookcase were two still-lifes in oils: one, very realistic and very dark, looked old; I guessed it could be two or three hundred years old. It depicted a large, dead fish lying on a marble slab with a bundle of herbs and, incongruously, a single yellow flower. The other painting was much more modern in style, an arrangement of a blue bowl, dull silver spoon and bright yellow lemon on a surface in front of a window, partly visible behind a blue and white striped curtain.
The largest painting in the room had a whole wall to itself. It was the portrait of a young woman. She had smartly bobbed hair and wore a long single strand of pearls against a dark green tunic. I stared at this picture for some time before noticing that it was signed in the lower left-hand corner with the initials W.E.L.
Alistair Reid came in with a tray which he set down on a small table near the couch. I went back to take a seat and saw, with some dismay, that besides the tea he’d brought a plate of thinly sliced, liberally buttered white bread, and another plate piled high with small, iced cakes.
“Store-bought, I’m afraid,” he said in his soft, lilting voice. “But I can recommend them. They’re really rather nice. Or would you rather have sandwiches? I wasn’t sure. It won’t take me a moment to make them if you’d like. Ham, or cheese, or anchovy paste, or tomato.”
“Thank you, Alistair, you’re more than kind, but we’ve just had lunch,” Selwyn said. He turned to me. “You know the old joke, that in Glasgow, unexpected afternoon visitors are greeted with the cry of ‘You’ll be wanting your tea, then’ whereas in Edinburgh, no matter the time, it’s always, ‘You’ll have had your tea then.’ ” He shot a grin in the old man’s direction. “Well, I should have warned you, but Alistair has devoted his life to disprovin
g that calumny on the hospitable souls of native Edinburghers.”
“Oh, go on, I know you’ve a sweet tooth,” Alistair said, not quite smiling.
“Well, I think I might just manage a fancy or two,” said Selwyn.
I took a slice of bread and butter and eventually allowed a cake to be pressed upon me, feeling glad that we’d skipped dessert. The tea was light and delicate, flavoured with jasmine blossoms.
Alistair leaned towards me. “I believe when I came in I saw you admiring the portrait of my mother?”
“That was your mother? Painted by W.E. Logan?”
He nodded, eyelids drooping a little. “Long before I was born, of course. Her father commissioned it in 1926. It was quite possibly the last portrait W.E. Logan ever painted, apart from some studies of Helen Ralston, of course.” He gestured towards the watercolour landscapes. “And those are my mother’s.”
“Your mother was an artist, too?”
He shook his head. “Oh, no. My mother painted purely for her own enjoyment. I have them on display because they remind me of her, and because of where they were painted. It’s where we always took our summer holidays, on the west coast, in Argyll.”
“That’s where I’m from!”
“Really? I’d have guessed you’re from much further west.” A teasing smile flickered about his thin lips.
I felt a little weary and tried not to show it. No matter how long I lived in Britain – and it was now nearly a quarter of a century – I could never pass for native. As soon as I opened my mouth I was a foreigner, always required to account for my past. Yet I didn’t want to be unkind or rude, and it wasn’t fair to take offence where none was intended. Scots, unlike some other Europeans, were generally fond of Americans.
“I was born in Texas,” I said. “Later I lived in New York, and then London. I’ve been living in Argyll for just over ten years. It’s a tiny little place called Mealdarroch, not far from—”
“But that’s exactly where we stayed!” he exclaimed. “It was always Mealdarroch, or Ardfern.” Looking delighted, he turned to Selwyn. “My dear, how marvellous! You never said you were bringing someone from Mealdarroch! My favourite spot in the universe!” He turned back to me. “You sail, of course.”
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