by John Purcell
‘No, never. You exaggerate.’
‘Do I? I don’t think so. You’re conscious of it, too. It informs everything you do. There’s an easy grace, a consciousness of perfection.’
‘Please don’t say anything more.’
‘How else could you be as you are? I’ve spent my life studying people. You’re entirely fearless and this must come from a place of unquestioned superiority. You have nothing to gain from anybody. What can Malcolm or I give you? You’re not like us in any way. The way you spoke to him just then. Most people would lie. They’d say they’d read some of my previous novels. At university, or something. You didn’t. And the consequence of this admission didn’t concern you in the least. Malcolm will come around to you, as everyone eventually does. Your beauty convinces you of it.’
‘You don’t know anything about me,’ said Amy, because she was conscious of the effect her beauty had on others. But here, in Helen’s office, suddenly it wasn’t a pleasant consciousness. Here, in Helen’s office, beauty wasn’t beautiful.
‘I didn’t know anything about you, but now I do. You haven’t needed to learn the art of deception. Your face speaks only the truth.’
‘Stop it.’
‘Okay, then. I’ve gone too far. M&R have sent you. You tell me you’re their “fix-it” girl. How are you going to help me?’
‘I can help you deliver what they want. That’s the world I know.’
‘And yet you haven’t read my work. Very presumptuous. I think we should talk again after you’ve read something of mine.’
‘I’ve been assigned this task. I didn’t request it. I don’t need it. I came out of curiosity. But I see clearly now that even if I succeed, I fail.’
‘There you go again. Why say such a thing? But I am reassured that you’re capable of curiosity.’
‘Will you email me the three versions of your novel?’
‘That would be a good start. But I don’t email my work. Digital copies proliferate. I like to keep a track of all copies of my dirty laundry. Can you work with printed manuscripts?’
‘I tend to lose things.’
‘I’m not emailing my work. Clarissa always worked with printed manuscripts.’
‘I’ll leave them in the back of a cab or on the tube. Let me log on to your laptop and I’ll save them to the cloud. No email. They’ll only be accessible to me.’
‘No.’
‘I can’t take the manuscripts.’
‘You’ll have to work here then.’
‘I don’t keep regular hours.’
‘It doesn’t have to be this difficult.’
‘Let me save them to the cloud. That’s how I work with everyone.’
‘No. Here or not at all.’
‘I don’t do nine to five.’
‘Are you coming down?’ shouted Malcolm from the bottom of the stairs.
Helen went to the door. ‘Yes, we’re on our way.’
*
In the kitchen Malcolm handed them gin and tonics.
‘I was just telling Amy that she’s the most beautiful woman I have ever met.’
‘Don’t start that again,’ said Amy, taking the tall glass handed to her. She was perched on a high kitchen stool. Her legs were crossed, her flip-flop dangling again. ‘Congrats on the Booker longlisting, Malcolm.’
‘Thanks. She’s right, though. You’re very beautiful. But I won’t mention it again. I can see it isn’t something you want discussed.’
Malcolm had thought they would go into the front room, but Helen made no move so he sat down at the kitchen table opposite his wife and leant against the wall so he could look up and across at Amy.
‘We’ve reached an impasse, Malcolm. Amy won’t take my printed manuscripts with her and I won’t let her have digital copies.’
‘Then she can work here.’
‘That’s what I said but she keeps unconventional hours, apparently.’
‘The solution is very simple. Let me save the manuscripts to the cloud and I’ll have them all back to you in a couple of weeks at the latest. Malcolm, help me out. You can see how simple that is?’
‘Malcolm doesn’t know what the cloud is, Amy. He’s never owned a computer.’
Amy smiled.
‘Where do you live, Amy?’ asked Malcolm. ‘Will it be difficult to get here every day?’
‘I have a studio in Chelsea, but I rarely see it. I spend most nights with friends. I could be in the West End one night, Docklands the next. I was in Wimbledon last night.’
‘And that’s how you live?’ asked Helen.
‘I don’t like being alone, but I can’t commit. It’s quite the dilemma.’
‘How do you get anything done?’ asked Malcolm.
‘I don’t sleep.’
‘So you go from bed to bed? I don’t understand,’ asked Helen.
‘Fuck buddies, mainly,’ said Amy, unable to stop herself from smiling.
‘Fuck buddies?’ said Malcolm slowly, as if testing out the phrase.
‘And strangers. I meet and go home with a lot of strangers.’
‘Isn’t that dangerous?’ asked Helen.
‘You’d think so, but it isn’t. I’ve never had a problem I couldn’t handle. Touch wood,’ she said, tapping the wooden bench. ‘It isn’t all sex. I stay with friends and some of my authors, too. I have a couple of girlfriends who are very generous with their spare rooms.’
‘Extraordinary,’ said Helen. ‘And this life suits you?’
‘For now.’
Malcolm and Helen were silent. They stared at the beautiful woman sitting at their kitchen bench, trying to comprehend all that had been said in the last few moments. She was utterly, utterly foreign to them. Helen felt old and out of touch. Malcolm couldn’t make sense of what he was hearing.
‘It’s not a good way to live. I don’t recommend it. But it works for me,’ she added, seeing the look of confusion on their faces. They would never understand. She barely understood it herself.
‘And why have M&R sent you? I don’t follow,’ said Malcolm, utterly confused.
‘Do you know Jack Cade?’
‘No,’ said Malcolm.
‘Yes, he does,’ interjected Helen. ‘The thriller writer.’
‘I made that happen. I work with the writer Liam Smith to put together two Jack Cade thrillers a year. They have been extraordinarily successful. We’ve sold millions of copies.’
‘And you want to put together a book with Helen?’
‘I don’t, my boss does. It’s only a request. If I don’t think I can help, then I’ll move on.’
‘So presumably, you’ve made a lot of money out of all this. Right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then why live as you do?’
‘I don’t have an answer for that.’
Amy had finished her drink a while ago and wanted another. But both Malcolm and Helen had barely started theirs. She got up.
‘Do you mind if I fix myself another G&T?’
Malcolm started to move, but she said, ‘No, no. I can manage. You sit tight.’
She made herself a strong one.
Malcolm noted she didn’t put the tonic water back in the refrigerator.
‘As you don’t mind where you sleep, why not stay in the empty flat downstairs for a few days. You can read the manuscripts and we can go from there,’ said Helen.
Malcolm shot her a look. He was finding the whole thing difficult. That Helen would even countenance this young woman advising her on anything hurt him. He studied his wife. Gone was the surety of past years. How old and fragile she looked as she sat staring longingly at this stranger, as if Amy held the answer to a long-unanswered question. It was absurd.
‘Yes, read them,’ he said, pushing his chair back. ‘Then you’ll know what you’re up against.’ He stood up and, passing between Helen and Amy, crossed to the bottle of tonic water. ‘Or better still, read her recent novels, The Uninvited Guest or More Than I Can Say. Sublime. Or any of the older books for
that matter. I can lend them to you.’
He lifted the tonic water and opened the fridge.
Helen turned her head to see what he was doing.
Speaking into the fridge as he put the bottle back in the appropriate place in the door, he said, ‘Helen’s work isn’t for everyone. But it has its audience.’ Then, closing the fridge, he turned to face Amy. ‘As time has shown. Some of her books are still in print. And The Uninvited Guest was included in a collection of modern classics.’
Amy didn’t know what to say to this. Was he implying that she wasn’t bright enough to appreciate Helen’s work? Or was he just defending his wife against the outstretched grasp of commercialism?
‘I’m sure they’re very good,’ she said, trying to absorb and silence Malcolm’s comments, whatever his agenda.
Malcolm took three steps towards Amy. He was kept from getting any closer by Amy’s extended foot with its dangling flip-flop. He placed his hand on the edge of the kitchen bench.
‘I do hope you’re not an idiot,’ he said, using the same tone he’d used when asking her if she’d like a drink – friendly, upbeat.
‘Malcolm!’ said Helen, twisting around in her seat.
‘I couldn’t bear it if you were,’ he continued in the same tone. ‘I’ve met too many idiots in publishing lately. Over the years Helen and I have been privileged to work with the best editors and publishers. People with a vocation. But with all this merging, with the sackings and the redundancies, the writing world has lost its best people and its soul and direction and purpose. When I meet any ambitious young person willingly entering into the business as it is now, I have to wonder. And what you’ve told us about putting together a bestselling book, I have to be suspicious of you, don’t I?’
‘No, you don’t,’ said Helen. ‘Amy will be working with me, not you!’
She was quite upset, Malcolm saw.
They were all silent. Amy was stunned by Malcolm’s words. So he thought she was an idiot. She couldn’t speak. She uncrossed her legs and placed one foot on the floor.
‘You know better than that, Malcolm,’ said Helen, with great self-control. ‘When they cut the head off publishing, it grows another. We just have to weather the headless beast. It never lasts. Remember the eighties?’
‘And what are you then, Amy?’
Amy stood up straight and tall, and said, ‘What am I? I’m successful. What I do pays the bills. How do you think publishers can afford to indulge in publishing books like yours?’
She had wanted to jab him in the chest with her index finger on the last word, yours, but held back. Her body had moved forward, though, and in response, half expecting the jab, Malcolm had moved very slightly back.
‘Good,’ said Malcolm smiling, ‘there is hope. The only reason an opportunist gets upset at being called an opportunist is because they once had ideals.’
But the smile only angered Amy further. She was as tall as Malcolm and she leant in, bringing her face close to his, and asked, ‘What good are ideals in the world we live in?’
Malcolm looked back into Amy’s angry eyes, and asked in return, with great composure, ‘What good is life without them?’
Amy and Malcolm remained in close proximity for only a moment, but his question lingered. And she saw the calm assuredness in his eyes even as she turned away leaving the question unanswered.
Amy couldn’t look at Helen, so she turned back to find her drink and held it a moment, trying to gather her thoughts. Then she took a tiny sip. And then breathed.
‘Look,’ Amy said, turning around, ‘Malcolm, be as worthy as you like, I don’t care. I’m here to help Helen get out of her hole. Helen, you know what’s at stake. We need to get this done and quickly otherwise they’ll send in the lawyers. I can help you deliver what they want. It might not fit in with your legacy, or whatever, but it will stop you from losing all you have. You have to make a decision and quickly. Send me the manuscripts and I’ll look over them.’
‘I can’t send them.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake! What does it matter? They’re not state secrets. They’re just novels. And you don’t like any of them anyway. Besides, who do you think is going to get hold of them? Let’s be honest, who the hell would want them?’
‘Get out!’ spat Malcolm, with restrained fire.
‘No. You don’t understand what’s at stake. Tell him, Helen. Tell him what Julia told you.’
Helen was silent. Her head was lowered. She was shaking her head slightly.
‘M&R want their advance back. Helen hasn’t kept to the deadlines. The contract has been broken. They’ve been very patient, but the jig is up. They don’t give a fuck who you are or what you’ve done. They just want their money back or a return on their investment. You’re done for if we don’t come up with something fast that sells a fuck load of copies.’
‘So let them. Good. We don’t need any of this,’ said Malcolm. ‘I always expected to end up freezing to death in a council flat. I was looking forward to cans of cat food for dinner.’
‘Shut up, Malcolm,’ said Helen. ‘I need this. They’re not taking it back. This is my house. I won’t let them.’
‘Then send me the manuscripts. And I swear I’ll fix it.’
‘I can’t send them. I won’t send them.’
Amy sat back down, elbow on the counter, and rested her head in her hand. ‘Then you’re fucked.’
‘Stay here. Just for a few days,’ pleaded Helen.
Amy sighed. It was a big sigh. She tried to imagine what the next few days might look like if she stayed. She couldn’t imagine it, living here, with old people. What she could imagine was returning to tattoo boy’s place and hiding out for another week. That was an attractive option. He was an attractive option. And she hadn’t finished War and Peace.
‘Will you be a turd, Malcolm?’ Amy asked.
‘Probably.’
‘No, he won’t be,’ said Helen.
‘Okay, then. I’ll stay. But I warn you, I don’t sleep, I’m very messy, I will bring home strangers, and it will be noisy. Oh, and I will drink all the alcohol you have. Are you happy with that?’
‘No,’ said Malcolm.
‘Yes,’ said Helen.
Chapter 12
Women Writers’ Guild Awards
Helen wasn’t very comfortable. She had been elbowed into a corner by the pressing crowd and the din was growing ever louder. She was regretting coming. It was the night of the Women Writers’ Guild Awards and she was there to read a speech and accept a lifetime achievement award. Soon after she had arrived, the small green room had started to fill up. Helen could only guess who they all were. The shortlisted authors and their partners? Agents? Celebrities? Not one face was familiar to her.
The chair of judges, a writer she had never met before, nor read, was chatting to her about the books on the shortlist, none of which Helen had read. She was surprised she’d never heard of any of the shortlisted authors. She had always tried to keep up with the literary world. She hadn’t known much about the Women Writers’ Guild until she was notified of her win. This admitted fact didn’t faze the chair in the slightest.
As Helen stood there, she glanced over the head of her chaperone. She saw she was the oldest woman in the room by at least twenty years, perhaps thirty – she judged the majority of those present to be women in their late twenties or early thirties.
When she was in her thirties she was also one of hundreds of young writers. But few would be invited to events like this. Establishment events. What had happened to her generation, or the generations between? This room should be filled by them. They hadn’t all died. Had they given up? Fallen out of favour? Or had they been shoved aside by the next generation and the generation after that? But then, she recalled sadly, so many of her peers had actually died. One after the other. Helen always surprised herself with the sudden recollection of her actual age. Seventy-seven. She might as well round up. She was eighty. Almost one hundred. She was old. Venerable.
>
The chair said something, and then repeated herself, louder the second time but the growing hubbub was too much for Helen. She gave up trying to hear the chair, whose name she had already forgotten, and nodded.
If this had been the 1970s, the room would have been filled with writers over fifty. Predominantly men. But there were brilliant women then, too. She’d once met Elizabeth Bowen. Only briefly, and she coloured now, after forty years, recalling the meeting. Bowen’s novel, The Death of the Heart, had been a major influence on Helen’s early work and she had told Bowen so. Bowen had been very patient with her excited talk, but had been unable to stifle a yawn. Helen had been humiliated. In such company she had always felt like an upstart. Because of her precocious success – the reviews of her first books had been exceptional – she’d been thrown into the company of giants. True giants. Writers she had read with awe. Writers who would be read forever more. Remembered and cherished. The oldest of those writers could speak of meeting Thomas Hardy.
Helen couldn’t stop looking at the faces in this room. So young and attractive. All talking animatedly. The young spoke so animatedly these days. And like Amy, with the confidence of the victor. Helen had to acknowledge that youth had won, partly as a result of the battles fought against the establishment by her own generation. They had demanded to be heard. And now the voice of youth was all one heard. The young appeared to be ready-made for television.
A beautiful woman with dark skin and light eyes approached, taking hold of Helen’s elbow, and must have said some witty things. The chair laughed and hugged the young woman. Helen smiled politely and was rewarded with a kiss on the cheek.
Who were all these people? She recognised no one. Not a soul, and these were some of the country’s best women writers.
The room started to empty out and Helen’s hearing returned.
‘Would you like to sit down, Helen? You won’t be called for another ten minutes,’ said the chair, leading her towards a row of seats set against the wall. Helen sat and let the chair wander off. She opened her handbag and took out the notes she had written. She saw now that she had completely misjudged the occasion. Her speech was for an older audience.