by John Purcell
Amy knew how drunk she was when she tried to navigate the stairs to the flat. She judged herself to be drunker than she ever remembered being on those steps. Drunker than the night she’d fucked Daniel.
Parts of her passage down were obscured from her. Her brain no longer seemed committed to full consciousness. One moment she had trouble with her heels. The next she was barefoot.
Max was talking. She couldn’t focus on him now. Moving from the sofa in the front room to the bottom of the stairs had been too much for her. All she could focus on was climbing into bed. She saw the bed. But needed to pee, so made her way unsteadily to the bathroom.
*
‘What time is it?’ Amy asked, rolling onto her side.
Max was seated on the bed fully clothed with his laptop on his lap. The bathroom light was still on. She could smell bleach.
‘Four.’
‘Why are you still here?’ It all felt so familiar. As if no time had passed.
‘I was worried about you. You vomited and . . .’
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said quietly over his words.
‘… then went into a bit of a stupor. I thought you might vomit again. I didn’t want you to go the way of Jimi Hendrix, so I stayed.’
‘Thank you, Max.’
‘You’d do the same for me,’ he said, closing his laptop. ‘At least I hope you would.’
‘I would, you know I would,’ she said, reaching out and touching his hand briefly, before bringing hers back under the covers. He was here in her room, almost in her bed. How natural it felt.
‘Here, drink this,’ he said, giving her a glass of water. She lifted herself to one elbow and drank the whole glass.
‘I have to pee.’ She jumped up and ran to the bathroom. She was still in the dress she’d worn last night. She took it off and sat on the loo. Then she went to the sink and washed out her mouth with mouthwash. She checked her hair. Disaster. She took off her underwear and threw on her bathrobe. Then she switched off the light and ran back to bed. As she got under the covers she cleverly disrobed in one clean movement.
Max had opened his laptop again. He half closed it on Amy reappearing.
‘Feel a bit better?’ he asked.
She nodded. It was like old times. He was so normal. Max how she remembered him. She used to wake in the middle of the night to find him working. She learnt her bad sleeping habits from him.
‘Writing down notes on last night?’ she asked, snuggling into the duvet.
‘More trying to frame the story. The marriage is interesting, isn’t it? And their son, what an oddball.’
‘Be kind to them.’
‘I’m in love with them both already.’ He clapped the laptop shut and looked as though he was going to get up, but then leant closer to Amy. She thought he was going to kiss her, like he used to, but he stopped short and said quietly, looking her in the eye, ‘You have to stop this.’
‘What?’
‘This. Your drinking. It has to stop.’
‘What do you know about it? We haven’t seen each other in years.’
‘People talk. Besides, anyone can see you drink too much. You had more than your fair share of three bottles of champagne over dinner and then sat on the couch and had two very large whiskies. You don’t even like whisky. Or you didn’t. Who knows, now?’
‘I was celebrating Malcolm’s success.’
‘When you nodded off upstairs Helen said something, too.’
‘What?’
‘That you drink too much.’
Amy rolled over, turning away from Max.
‘They both care about you, Amy. I can tell. And it’s a wonderful thing to be loved by such people.’
She said nothing.
‘People are worried about you.’
‘They can fuck off.’
‘Why are you doing this to yourself?’
She didn’t answer him.
‘Look, I’m going to go.’ He got off the bed and put his laptop back in the bag. ‘Malcolm has agreed to do the interview, so I’ll be back later today. Thank you for getting me in the door.’
She said nothing.
‘They’re both great. I understand why you’re staying here. I would if I could.’
Max stood at the end of the bed and watched Amy to see if she would say anything. Nothing came so he walked through the lounge area to the front door.
‘Max.’
He couldn’t be sure he heard his name or whether he just wished to hear it.
‘Max.’
He went back to the bed.
‘Max, don’t go. You needn’t go. Sleep here. I know I’m a mess. It’s all right.’
He crouched down by the bed and brought his face in line with hers.
‘I can’t.’
‘Kiss me.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You loved me once.’
‘I did. But I can’t stay.’
‘Kiss me, Max. Just once.’
‘No. You’re not mine anymore.’
She reached out and took hold of his hand.
‘Stay with me, please. I want to be with you.’
‘As much as I would like to, I can’t. And I won’t. We’re both different people now. We’ll never be as we were.’
She let go of his hand.
He closed the street door quietly behind him.
Chapter 36
Nothing to Be Ashamed of
Malcolm was making breakfast. He had been to Waitrose early and had bought bacon, eggs, tomato, baked beans, thick-cut bread, and Cumberland sausages. He didn’t normally drink whisky and had had a few with Trevor the night before, so he awoke feeling the worse for wear. He wanted a big breakfast and assumed the others would all come running as soon as they smelt the bacon frying.
Not long after Malcolm started cooking, Daniel came down the stairs and entered the kitchen.
Malcolm looked at him and smiled. Daniel said nothing but started cutting up the tomatoes.
A few minutes after Daniel’s appearance, the door to the flat opened and Amy appeared in her bathrobe and bare feet. Her hair was a mess and her face was pale and blotchy. It was obvious to both men that she wasn’t feeling the best. It looked like she’d been crying.
‘What’s cookin’, Mal?’ she asked, shyly.
‘The lot. Are you hungry?’
‘Famished.’
‘Has Max gone?’ Malcolm asked.
‘He’s my ex-boyfriend,’ she said. ‘He went home last night. Can I make some juice for everyone?’
They both nodded.
‘Is Helen coming down?’ asked Malcolm.
‘She was on the phone in her office when I passed her,’ said Daniel.
Malcolm checked the time. Just after nine.
*
As they ate their breakfast, Malcolm was telling Amy and Daniel stories about Trevor. In a previous life, Trevor had been an actor. He had walked the boards with Olivier and Gielgud. He had once wooed Maggie Smith. And his first wife had been a famous Greek actress he met while starving in Greece during the war.
Amy was wolfing hers down, as was Malcolm. Daniel was taking his time. He didn’t usually eat much in the mornings. The instant coffee Malcolm had made him wasn’t coffee at all. He didn’t know what it was. He added another teaspoon of sugar.
They all heard Helen coming. Amy jumped up, took her plate from the warmer and placed it next to Daniel at the table. Malcolm poured her some tea. When she entered the kitchen, it was clear something unexpected had happened.
‘I’ve just spoken to Julia,’ she said, and sat down. ‘They found the missing copy of the original manuscript in a drawer last week. She said they’ve all read it and love it. She was telling me how great it was, how proud she would be to publish it, how all of the editorial team were behind it, how the heads of marketing and sales were behind it one hundred per cent.’
‘But . . .’
‘She also said she was assigning someone called Valerie Hodges to the book to rep
lace you, Amy. She said you’d resigned.’
‘What!?’
‘I don’t think she knows you’re living here.’
‘We need to fight this.’
‘No, we don’t. I’m done. They can publish it. Leave it alone.’
‘But if it isn’t what you want . . .’ said Daniel.
Helen was silent. She looked as exhausted as she had sounded.
‘It’s a good book, Helen, and nothing to be ashamed of,’ said Amy, trying to make the best of it. But she felt hollow. She didn’t believe Julia had just ‘found’ the manuscript. It was too much of a coincidence. Liam must have given it to her. ‘As I said before, I know fifty writers who’d throw their mother under a bus to have their name associated with that manuscript.’
‘It means we get to keep the advance and the house,’ said Helen, smiling bravely. ‘That’s a relief.’
Malcolm hadn’t looked up from his plate since she had entered nor the whole time they had all been talking. Helen glanced at him, expecting him to raise his eyes on this news. He didn’t.
‘It’s a lovely house,’ said Amy, filling with self-loathing. Helen looked demoralised. And Amy knew it was because of her actions. Helen had trusted her. Amy had betrayed that trust. Amy had placed her trust in Liam. He had let her down in turn. And now Julia had succeeded in taking the fight out of Helen. And even though this was the perfect time to admit what she had done, the fear of being asked to leave Malcolm and Helen’s life was suddenly too great. Without examining her reasons, and with the rationale of the coward, Amy chose to be silent. She would fix things before Helen and Malcolm discovered the truth.
Amy said with forced cheerfulness, ‘I still want to look into whether we can get the second and third versions published. I think the three books together would make for an interesting study.’
‘Why?’ asked Daniel. ‘You’re in a privileged position, you’ve read all three. I haven’t read any of them.’
‘The three books are variations of the same theme,’ said Amy, eager to leave the table but unwilling to do so while Helen needed her.
‘Like the versions of Lady Chatterley’s Lover Penguin used to publish?’ Daniel asked. ‘I remember them from my university days.’
‘I don’t know those,’ admitted Amy.
‘They were more drafts of the same novel,’ said Helen. ‘Mine are completely new novels. Each distinct from the last.’
‘But they share the same DNA in a way,’ added Amy. ‘Like brothers and sisters. If you’re told they’re family you see the similarities, but not knowing them, you wouldn’t guess their connection.’
‘When I started, Daniel, I knew I could tell the story I had in mind a number of ways. I just decided to write it for a general audience, as you know, in the hope of making some money. I’d spent most of my writing life with the brake on. Carefully choosing every movement forward. This time I rolled with it and reached speeds I never thought I could. Completely uninhibited writing. I did one rewrite and I was finished. The whole process took a quarter of the time I normally take. And as a result, the manuscript was huge. Almost two hundred thousand words. Later, when I decided not to publish version one, I returned to write the second version from scratch. I inhibited my imagination. I wrote with precision, with patience, entirely conscious of every choice. The story shrank considerably. Characters vanished, scenarios, too.
‘The third version was different. I wrote as I’d never written before. I can’t quite describe that process. I suppose one way would be to say I wrote at a molecular level. But that sounds ridiculous.’
‘That’s the version you should read, Daniel. And so should you, Malcolm,’ said Amy.
Malcolm looked up from his plate. He seemed surprised to find himself spoken to. They saw that his face was wet with tears. Daniel had never seen his father cry before and it shocked him. Helen turned away. And Amy said, ‘Malcolm, oh dear, what’s the matter?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, his shoulders shaking, ‘I feel so sad.’
Amy hugged him as Helen left the table and then the room.
Daniel picked up a sausage from his mother’s untouched plate and took a bite.
‘This sausage is good, but everything else is fucked,’ he said, chewing.
Chapter 37
Max’s Notes I
Strangest meeting with Malcolm Taylor today. Last night we had talked about my interviewing Malcolm and Helen Owen, a larger piece about the couple, their careers and the effect the shortlisting was having on them.
Today I arrived and Helen was nowhere to be found and when I sat with Malcolm in his office, he told me that the interview would have to be short and centre on A Hundred Ways and the Booker shortlisting.
Then, as things progressed and talk turn to Helen, he consistently referred to her in the past tense. At one point I saw that he was getting upset. I looked away for a moment and he recovered himself. But throughout the rest of the interview he wiped his eyes from time to time.
This was very different from the Malcolm I had met the night before. Seated with his long-time agent, the irrepressible, nonagenarian Trevor Melville, Malcolm had been voluble, warm, entertaining and forthright.
We discussed novels about novels and writers, and Malcolm pointed out that both Hesse’s Gertrude and Maugham’s Of Human Bondage feature heroes with a disfigured foot, suggesting that artistic sensibilities are an infirmity, a burden. And Trevor reminded us of the role tuberculosis plays in the novels of the nineteenth century and how often it is the poet or the artist dying slowly and gracefully in the corner on a chaise longue. Art as a disease society needs to excise.
They both teased me good-naturedly, too, Malcolm referring to a book I had never heard of, Enemies of Promise by Cyril Connolly. In it, I gather from what they said, Connolly lists all of the things one ought not to do if one wishes to succeed in literature – become a critic, a journalist, write paid reviews, edit literary magazines, teach writing etc. All of which I have done and still do.
But this morning, it was as though we were meeting for the first time. Last night had been wiped from the record.
When I asked Malcolm what he was working on now, he said it was too distressing to talk about. Too raw. So we turned back to A Hundred Ways, which he seemed to know next to nothing about. He couldn’t recall the names of the characters, the story or the process of writing it. He acted like a poor student who has been asked to speak upon a book he had not read. I say acted; he was that student.
My knowledge of the book interested him and he took his cues from me. I reminded him of the radio interview that brought him some level of fame and he chuckled for the first time. Trevor had told him all about it, he said. As though the interview hadn’t happened to him.
I had two hours with him, which went surprisingly quickly. I will listen to the recording again, but I don’t think I got anything of use. At least, it’s not the story I want to write. I will speak to Amy to see if I can get access to Helen.
There was one bright spot, but this was off point, and confusing. I went to my recording for this, because it’s very particular. He said that he doesn’t think my generation, including me, capable of understanding literature, or history, or philosophy, as we were raised in the internet age, which has applied a filter on us. A filter that confirms my own preconceptions at every turn. He says his contemporaries had a chance, but only discovered they were deceived late. Their vision had been impaired by the generation before. Now, the world could only be seen through the lens of irony. Nothing could be taken at face value.
I don’t quite understand what he means by all that. But he’s got me wrong. I’m not that guy. My experience of literature etc., comes via books, not the internet. I thought I had more than proven that the night before.
Chapter 38
It’s Perfectly Fine as It Is
I didn’t announce myself or knock, I just walked straight into Julia’s office. There was someone with her. A man. In a suit. Bald. Lean. Mid
-thirties. I don’t know who he was or what he was doing there. But as soon as Julia saw me standing in the middle of her office, she finished up with him and ushered him to the door. He nodded to me as he left. I walked to the chair in front of Julia’s desk and sat down.
Julia made her way back to the desk, slowly.
‘Well, look at that. Books. Liam’s book, too.’ There was a pile of hardcover Jack Cades on the end of her desk. ‘Now you’re a publisher.’
‘I’ve just spoken to Helen,’ she said, as she sat down.
‘I know. That’s why I’m here.’
‘Before we start, I should tell you things have changed around here. There’s been a restructure. Your role has been made redundant.’
‘You think I give a shit?’
‘You should. We’re taking Helen away from you.’
‘And giving it to Val. Helen told me.’
‘No, Val said it wasn’t her thing.’
I smiled. Loyal Val. I loved her even more in that moment.
‘We’re giving one of the young guns a go.’
‘Good plan. Did you think that up all by yourself?’
‘I had help,’ she said, smiling, flashing impossibly white teeth. I didn’t like that smile. She was very pleased with herself. I remembered the impulse I’d had the last time I was in the office. The impulse to smash her teeth in with the corner of her laptop.
‘You know I don’t need the salary I get here, right? And I can get a job anywhere I want?’
‘Are you sober?’ she asked, ignoring my words.
‘It’s eleven in the morning.’
‘Would you be happy to take a breath test? New company policy.’
‘Liam said you’d try something like this. You’ve just said I’ve been made redundant, you’ve probably cleared my desk, I no longer work here. What good would a breath test do?’
‘Make it harder for you to get another job.’
‘In publishing? You’re not serious. People get fired for being sober in this industry. Face it, there’s nothing you can do to me, and no point either, you’ve got what you wanted. Helen’s book is brilliant, in your sense of the word, and will sell millions. It’s your Pillars of the Earth. Congratulations. Where did you find a copy of the manuscript?’