by John Purcell
She picked up a copy of The Night and took it across to Malcolm.
‘This is one of mine,’ she said, popping it on the counter.
Malcolm glanced at it. ‘I know. They’re everywhere.’
‘But he’s been rejected by his owner.’
‘There are often a couple of mine here, too. Don’t take it to heart.’
‘I loved that book,’ said the guy behind the counter, Asher, pointing to The Night.
Malcolm looked at him and said, ‘Really?’
‘Yes, I’ve read all of Jack Cade’s books.’
Malcolm laughed. ‘Asher, this is my friend Amy.’
‘Nice to meet you,’ said Asher, who was probably about twenty-five.
Amy thought he looked unwashed. His long hair was greasy and pulled back behind his ears. And his face glistened. Definitely Slytherin.
‘Amy is Jack Cade.’
‘What do you mean?’
Amy stared at Malcolm and then at Asher, who seemed perplexed.
‘I work with a guy called Liam Smith to write the Jack Cade books.’
‘You’re shitting me. Really? That’s amazing.’ Then he paused and looked at Amy and Malcolm, searching their faces. ‘Nah, you’re shitting me, right?’
‘Asher, why is it so hard to believe?’
‘But I’ve met Jack Cade. He signed my book.’
‘You met Liam Smith. Look it up. Jack Cade and Liam Smith are the same guy. And I helped Liam become Jack.’
Asher pulled out his phone and googled Jack Cade and Liam Smith.
‘Hey, Asher, you know who your good mate Malcolm is, right?’ asked Amy. She was smiling at Malcolm because he was trying to get her to be quiet.
‘No, who?’ he asked, while reading Wikipedia.
‘The author Malcolm Taylor. He’s longlisted for the Man Booker.’
‘Holy shit, you’re right! Jack Cade and Liam Smith are the same dude. But it doesn’t say anything about you, Amy.’
‘Which is exactly the way I like it. I’m a silent partner. Will you keep my secret?’
‘Sure. Sure. My mind is blown. I can’t tell you how weird this all is for me.’
Malcolm paid Asher for a copy of Levels of Life by Julian Barnes and then led Amy out.
‘Do you think he believed me?’ Amy asked as they walked along the high street.
‘About me or you?’
‘About me. I don’t think he even registered what I said about you.’
‘Probably. I don’t know. He’s a strange kid.’
They walked on in silence for a bit.
‘Why don’t you write your own thrillers? Why take the back seat?’
‘It’s just how it worked out,’ said Amy, taking one of the bags from Malcolm. He had almost stopped moving altogether.
‘And do you write for yourself ever? Do you have anything I could take a look at?’
‘No. I mean I wrote a novel when I was at university, but it was rejected by nearly every publisher in London. I wrote it before I knew what I was doing. I’d do things differently now.’
‘How so?’
‘I don’t know. I just wouldn’t invest in it. Not in the way I did. I put everything I was into that book. It nearly killed me. And then for it to fail. It was awful. I think I could write with a bit more distance now. There’s no pressure anymore. I’ve done it. I’ve helped write a string of bestsellers. We’ve been number one in the UK and US; it doesn’t get much better than that.’
‘Doesn’t it?’ asked Malcolm.
‘No, it doesn’t.’
‘If you say so.’
Amy hated the way Malcolm said that. It was so smug. She wanted to hit him. But she restrained herself.
They walked the rest of the way in silence.
When they arrived back at the house, Daniel was there chatting with Helen. Amy was still angry at Malcolm and couldn’t stand the sight of Daniel, so she went downstairs.
As she opened the door to the flat, she suddenly realised why the conversation with Malcolm had so unsettled her.
He sounded just like Max. That’s what he had sounded like. Max.
Chapter 19
Whatever Is Necessary
Helen checked her inbox. There had been no reply to the email she had sent to Clarissa. She had waited a week before sending the same email again. And now another week had passed since resending that. And this was phase two. Her phone calls, and the messages she had left, had gone unanswered, too.
Their relationship was officially at an end.
Helen stared at the inbox. It was 5 am. She slept for just four or five hours a night now. The screen was the only light in the room. She closed the lid and sat in darkness until she noticed the faint hint of light coming through the edges of the drawn curtains. Then she stood and opened them. The dark cloudless sky above gave no hint of the coming dawn.
Thinking about this new Clarissa was painful.
She could happily recall their working life together. Opening up to her had been a long process – a few books before Helen could share her writing in the raw, her ideas still unclothed by art. Their partnership, for that is how Helen considered it, was based on mutual trust. To have Clarissa handle her work with such care and consideration was reassuring. Clarissa’s edits and comments were couched in respect. Helen had always considered the work as being more intimate than friendship.
Over the years Helen had counted on Clarissa for more than just editorial advice. She learnt to consider her a confidant. In moments of doubt she had called on her, meeting for lunch or evening drinks. She had shared her domestic affairs, she had discussed her relationship with Malcolm, her anxieties about Daniel. Clarissa had responded to these with the same care and consideration. She had offered sound advice, or reassurance, whatever was necessary.
Helen turned on the desk lamp and started unpacking one of the three boxes that had been by the door for a week. They contained the files she had rescued from Malcolm’s paper shredder. She switched on her printer, which was also a scanner, and arranged a selection of folders on the desk. Opening her laptop she saw there were no new emails.
Acknowledging the one-sided nature of her relationship with Clarissa pained Helen. She had considered Clarissa a friend while Helen was just work to Clarissa. One of her many writers. Now that Clarissa was retired she wasn’t required to keep in contact. So she didn’t.
Reviewing their working life under this suspicion was altogether too painful. And mortifying. She would not do so. What it said about her was awful. She had always had a good opinion of herself. Not to say she was narcissistic or a great egotist, but she had always assumed she was a good and likeable person whom others wanted to know and be acquainted with. But when she looked at the bare facts of her life she saw that this wasn’t the case.
Twenty years they had worked together. But she had to admit that her relationship with Clarissa was all one way. Clarissa knew everything about Helen. What did Helen know of Clarissa in return – only that she was married to Hugh, they had three daughters, Cyn, Ali and Liz, lived in Putney and had a share of a villa in Provence.
Helen had never met Hugh, nor had she visited the house in Putney. She remembered Clarissa’s daughters’ names because she had made use of them in a novel. Framed photos of them had cluttered Clarissa’s desk at Sandersons. Early on, Clarissa had invited Helen over for dinner, but there had never been time. And Clarissa stopped asking. She only remembered the villa in Provence because when Clarissa had mentioned she was going away for a month to the south of France, Helen had resented it. The editor holidays in France while the writer can’t justify the cost of a weekend away in Brighton.
And Clarissa had been Helen’s only close female friend. But it wasn’t friendship, though, was it?
What Clarissa did outside their shared work wasn’t relevant to Helen. She knew Clarissa was well respected in the publishing world and that she had mentored other editors and had written a few books on editing novels, but this only served
to convince Helen she had the best editor in the UK. She didn’t want to discuss different approaches to editing with her. Just as she wouldn’t discuss paper quality with the printer and she wouldn’t discuss RAM with the guy who sold her laptops.
Helen began to scan the contents of Malcolm’s files.
She sighed. How blind she had been. And how ironic her failure was. Her novels were all about female relationships. She was admired for her depictions of female friendship. Clarissa had even said as much herself.
Clarissa’s abandonment hurt because she had assumed they were friends.
But how could they have been when her commitment to her work and Malcolm was total?
Her marriage was a wall blocking intimacy with others.
Big love, true love, and complete compatibility were all-encompassing. To find a man like Malcolm who was also a writer – an intellectual who shared her obsession with perfection, with good work – was beyond her early expectation. To then remain in perfect harmony with him for another fifty years was exceptional. In her delight and excitement, she neglected all others, even, since he left home, her own son.
But now . . .
Malcolm was drifting away from her. And she had no one to talk to.
She was holding a loose sheet of foolscap, empty but for a little three-verse poem. It was written in the tiniest script, as if Malcolm had been ashamed of its contents. It was a filthy little thing. She remembered him writing it. A product of their first hungry months together. They were different people now.
She felt desperately sad, but no tears fell. Her heart felt dry.
Did she want a public record of the poem? Or was it something just for them?
She scanned it. There was no them. That is why she was doing what she was doing. None of their work was theirs anymore. Malcolm didn’t have the right to destroy his work and she didn’t have the right to censor it. Good and bad would be saved for posterity.
His behaviour recently had verged on the bizarre. The attempt to destroy his work. The hilarious but ultimately self-defeating radio interview. His refusal to accompany her to the awards night. His watching of daytime TV. It was all strange and upsetting. And the way he was with her. Courteous, obliging and good-humoured. More like hired help than a husband. And he wasn’t writing. He wasn’t reading. He lay about listening to records.
There was no denying it. The very moment Clarissa ended their working relationship, Malcolm had begun to drift. The cause was the same, that damned book and what motivated it, but whereas Clarissa could cut and run, Malcolm could not. Malcolm shared Clarissa’s idea of Helen and both had been disappointed, that was evident. She now wondered if he shared her disgust, too. Because it had to be disgust. Nothing short of disgust would compel a decent woman like Clarissa to behave so abominably towards her. If Malcolm were merely disappointed, she might win back his respect. But if he were disgusted, like Clarissa, the break would be final. He would continue to drift further and further away.
Malcolm would never leave her. He felt he had a duty to himself, and to her, to remain. But merely remaining was just not leaving, which she wouldn’t endure. She needed more from him. Love. His love had always been entwined with respect. If she had disgusted him by her actions, then there could be no respect. Which is why he seemed recently to refer to her in the past tense. Helen had always . . . Helen used to do this or that . . . You used to like . . . But especially so when describing her as a writer. He used a tense that prohibited a future.
The house was all she had. She had been dreaming of such a house for all of her adult life. She loved it with an ardour that surprised her. Malcolm was wrong to detest the house. The house was an end and was distinct from the means. The novel was the means, the advance was the means, even the decision to write such a book was the means – detest all of the means, but the house itself was just a house, clear of any wrongdoing. She wanted him to love the house. If he loved the house she could endure his loveless toleration of her.
Helen wanted to keep the house, to mend her relationship with Clarissa and to force Malcolm to love her. That was why she had written the two new versions of the novel. The last version was more herself than anything she had written in the last ten years. She thought it her best work. But neither would read it.
Amy had read it.
But Clarissa and Malcolm would not.
Chapter 20
Amy’s Decision
There was a loud knock on the connecting door.
Amy used her phone to turn down the music, and called out, ‘Come in!’
The door opened and Malcolm, while remaining at the top of the stairs and thus out of sight, called down to Amy, ‘Will you be joining us for dinner?’
‘No, thank you. I’m going out for dinner. Sorry, I let Helen know earlier.’
The connecting door closed.
He was abrupt, Amy thought. But lovely in his way.
Malcolm probably knew that Amy had promised to give Helen some feedback today. It wasn’t going to happen. She’d have to go upstairs before she left to let Helen know she still wasn’t ready.
Amy poured herself a drink. And undressed.
She didn’t want to go to dinner. Liam had organised it. Gail would be there, as well as the scriptwriter who kept telling Liam he wanted to turn Mark Harden into a Netflix series. They had been clever until now, and had kept the film rights. Liam had tried writing his own screenplays, but none were successful. Now, as the sales of the books escalated, and their dominance of the New York Times Best Sellers lists was impossible to ignore, the opportunists were circling.
Amy cautioned against acting in haste. She cited Jack Reacher with Tom Cruise. He came back with Game of Thrones, Harry Potter and Outlander. She returned with James Patterson’s Alex Cross. He with Gone Girl.
Liam was growing impatient. He needed a big name to back the project. The truth was he was annoyed that Idris Elba was considering playing James Bond, when Mark Harden was a perfect fit. He’d sent Elba his treatment but so far no interest had been shown. Which hurt. Liam had Elba in mind as he wrote the books, he said. Amy always had Liam in her mind. Liam was Mark Harden in many ways. That’s how Amy wrote him. Elba’s eyes were too kind. Mark Harden wouldn’t get far with kind eyes. Besides, she had read that Elba was tied up with filming Stephen King’s Dark Tower. That could drag on for years.
She’d go to the dinner. It was unavoidable. She couldn’t have a screenwriter whispering sweet nothings into Liam’s ear. He was susceptible to flattery. He was an enthusiast when it came to film. He could easily waste weeks rewriting or co-writing scripts that went nowhere. She needed him to keep to their tight writing schedule if they were going to meet their deadlines.
Besides, Gail was going. She couldn’t stand her up. She’d been the one who had insisted Amy come.
*
Amy was in the shower when there was another knock at the inner door. She turned off the water and listened. Helen was calling down to her from the top of the stairs.
‘I’m in the shower,’ she called out.
‘I’ll come down later,’ replied Helen.
She turned the water back on. She loved the showerhead Helen had chosen for the flat. It was generous. Large and round, like in shampoo adverts. That was one thing her lifestyle failed to deliver. Good showering experiences. Josh’s shower, for instance, dribbled lukewarm water over her.
Josh. Try as she might to stop herself, her thoughts kept drifting back to Josh. He was a disturbance in the force. He had no right to be in her life. Or at least, no right to her thoughts as well as her body. Just last night, she’d waited at the bar for hours like a pathetic groupie until he had finished work. He couldn’t keep his hands off her in the cab back to his place. As soon as they were through the door he undressed her roughly and pushed her onto the bed. He stood above her and undressed, rubbing his cock until she couldn’t stand it anymore and took him in her mouth.
Afterwards, he fell asleep immediately. Distant is a strange wo
rd to use considering the nature of their relationship. They weren’t emotionally connected; it was still largely physical. But there had been a connection of their natures the first and second time around. His nature had been open and accepting, hers had been hungry and demanding. This time he was evasive and uncommunicative. Or was it she who had changed?
He woke when she was leaving, but instead of stopping her, he let her go.
The tables had turned. He had grown complacent. Expected her to return. She had handed him control without realising it.
He was supposed to be her plaything. Her fuck buddy.
But it no longer felt like that.
Where had her self-confidence gone?
The best way out, the best way to retain her dignity, was to not see him again. To go cold turkey. No more Josh cock.
But even after thinking this, if she went to dinner, she knew she’d have to stop herself from going around to his place afterwards. She knew she would find this difficult. She could feel the pull of him even now. But it wasn’t his cock that she wanted. The way she was feeling, a fake boyfriend was better than no boyfriend.
Ten minutes later Amy was standing in briefs and bra at the bathroom mirror applying her makeup, when there was another knock on the inner door.
‘Come down,’ she called out, in response.
Expecting to see Helen, Amy continued at the mirror applying her mascara, and said, ‘I was going to come up before I left. Would you like a drink?’
There was a pause.
‘Yes,’ came the delayed reply. It was a male voice. Amy glanced at the mirrored reflection of the doorway. She could see Daniel standing at the bottom of the stairs from where he had a good view of her near-naked form. The look on his face was enough for her to hiss, ‘Get out!’ and kick the door shut with her foot.
‘Helen asked me to invite you up for a drink before you left,’ he said through the door.
‘Go away, Daniel. I’ll come up before I go.’
She leant against the door. She was so angry. Where did this guy get his confidence?
And now she would have to go upstairs and sit with him while she had a drink with his parents. She stepped into her dress. It was too short and the neckline plunged too deep for dinner with Gail or a drink with Daniel. But it was gorgeous. She felt gorgeous in it.