by John Purcell
‘In a drawer.’
‘Riiight.’
Julia placed her hand on the pile of Liam’s books.
‘We’re also taking Liam away from you.’
I snorted. Let’s call it a snort of contempt.
‘Does that worry you?’ Julia asked, caressing the spine of the top book.
‘I work with Liam. Co-authors. We have a contract between ourselves. M&R have a publishing deal with the both of us. I’ll be working with Liam on the books for as long as we agree to write them, regardless of the views of this office.’
I smiled as Julia’s smile paled.
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Yes, you did. You must have known.’
‘I didn’t. I thought you brought him to us, but I didn’t know about the contract you have with him.’
‘How did you get this job? I mean really!’
‘That’s all before my time. It was an acrimonious handover. Maxine Snedden’s refusal to cooperate has made my life very difficult.’
‘Knowing nothing has made your job difficult. But at least Maxine left you Helen’s manuscript, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Bullshit. Did Liam give it to you?’
‘Give me what?’
‘Helen’s manuscript.’
‘What are you talking about? It was found here. It had been filed incorrectly.’
‘Riiight. I’ll speak to Liam. He’ll tell me.’
Julia, reverting to her old ways, took a deep breath and gave me a banal smile.
‘I couldn’t help but notice a lot of new faces out there,’ I said casually as I stood to leave. ‘Young faces, too.’
‘Restructure, as I said.’
‘Julie Gibson gone? Sandra Fullerton? Susan Churchill? Gary Shorten? Curtis Small?’
‘All gone.’
‘I heard they quit.’
‘It was time for a change anyway.’
‘They were the most experienced publishers you had. Well done. You know they’ll take their authors with them, don’t you?’
‘It’s been very good for M&R. Cleansing. We were getting stale.’
‘So it’s just me and Valerie left?’
Julia drummed her fingers on the top Jack Cade.
‘And you want me gone.’
Julia smiled.
‘If I go, I’ll take Valerie with me. You’ll just have the newbies. The ones I thought were interns.’
‘A young, hungry team is just what M&R wants right now.’
I laughed. ‘Look,’ I said. ‘My first impulse was to try and convince you not to publish Helen’s book, but she doesn’t want me to do that. I came to find out how you got yourself a copy of the manuscript. You’ve answered that. Liam gave it to you.’
Julia ignored me again.
‘What happens now? Is there a little cardboard box with my stuff in it? Do I need to speak to HR or sign any papers?’
‘We’ll be in touch.’
I stopped at the door. ‘You know Helen’s manuscript needs a bit of work, right?’
‘My team didn’t think so.’
‘The kids out there? What’s their track record with this kind of thing?’
Julia didn’t answer me.
‘I’m sure it will be fine. They know what they’re doing. But it would be a shame to stumble at the finish line. There’s a lot of money at stake.’
‘I’ve read it, Amy. It’s great.’
‘All of it? Really? Good for you. It has some pretty big words in it.’
She ignored me. ‘We’re pushing for March 2017. In time for Mother’s Day.’
‘That’s a quick turnaround.’
‘Strike while the iron is—’
‘Julia, it’s not all marketing. Without word of mouth these books don’t reach their potential. Readers must feel compelled to thrust it into the hands of other readers. They need to become evangelists for the book.’
‘It’s perfectly fine as it is.’
‘No, it isn’t. I’ve read it a few times now. I’ve made some important changes. Like I do for Liam. Much-needed changes. But don’t take my word for it, ask Clarissa Munten and Maxine Snedden. They both knew it needed tightening up. Even Helen’s agent said as much before he died.’
‘We know what we’re doing.’
‘Good to hear.’ And then I left her office.
I went to my desk and found all of my things as they were. Valerie was typing away as usual. HR hadn’t done a damned thing. Julia was all bluff.
‘Would you come with me if I jumped?’ I asked Valerie, but got no answer. Then I realised she had her earphones in. I tapped her on the shoulder and she squeaked.
‘Fuck! You scared me,’ she said, taking out her earphones and looking up at me.
‘Julia’s being a fucking bitch. Would you come with me if I jumped?’
‘I’ve been in talks with Hachette,’ said Valerie, shyly.
‘You’d leave me?’
‘I’ve hardly seen you at all. You don’t answer your emails or my messages. Besides, Julia said you weren’t coming back.’
I fell into my chair and said, ‘I’m so sorry, Valerie. Will you ever forgive me?’
She shook her head slowly, but smiled. ‘You know what you need to do?’ she said. ‘You need to take Julia’s job. You’d be a great publishing director.’
‘Maybe,’ I said, not warming to the idea.
‘With your money, you could start your own publishing house. Have you ever thought of that?’
I stood up and kissed Valerie’s forehead.
‘I’ve got to go.’
‘Think about it. I’d come with you if you jumped in that direction.’
She blew me a kiss and popped her earphones back in.
While waiting for the lift I received a text from Julia.
Send me your edited version.
No fucking way.
What do you want?
Your job.
Not possible.
Good luck then.
And then as the lift doors were closing, Julia thrust her hand in and stopped them. They opened slowly. If I’d had more presence of mind, I would have taken a photo of her. She was a different person. My words had done their job; she was a bundle of self-doubt.
‘Amy, we must be able to work something out.’
I was pressing the button for the ground floor. ‘You know my terms. Call me if you need me.’
‘I need your help now. I need to get this done before I go on maternity leave.’
‘You’re pregnant?’
‘Liam didn’t tell you?’
‘Why would Liam tell me?’
Julia smiled.
The doors closed.
I descended.
Chapter 39
All the Light Had Gone Out
Dr Aldington had been Helen and Malcolm’s GP for the last fifteen years. He was only in his late fifties but looked venerable. Especially when compared with his GP colleagues at the practice. None of whom, according to Helen, looked old enough to drive, let alone practise medicine.
But she had remembered thinking the same of young Dr Aldington when he had replaced elderly Dr Grant, who had died suddenly one afternoon while seated at his desk. Thankfully, he had done so between appointments.
Malcolm was in with Dr Aldington and Helen was in the waiting room. She stared first at the white featureless walls, then the grey neat carpet, then the blank-faced youth staring at his phone, then at the pile of magazines, and finally at the flat-screen television playing a loop of ads promoting blood-thinning medicine, incontinence pads, cough mixture, fungal cream and the like. No windows. No natural light. Helen didn’t like the new premises. Neither did Dr Aldington, for that matter. He had been rather comfortable in the Georgian townhouse the practice had occupied for one hundred continuous years. The young doctors had all voted for the change.
The door to the passage that led to the consulting rooms opened and Dr Aldington followed Malcolm out. The docto
r smiled reassuringly on seeing Helen’s anxious expression. Malcolm walked straight to the counter and spoke and laughed with the receptionist. Helen overheard him make another appointment before Dr Aldington spoke to her.
‘He’s fit as a fiddle. We’ll run a few tests, of course, but as far as I can tell you have nothing to fear. His mind seems as sharp as ever.’
This was not the news Helen was wanting. His tears that morning had shocked her. Surely he was unwell. Not himself.
Walking with Malcolm back to the tube she wondered whether Dr Aldington had been duped. Malcolm could turn it on when he wanted. As when he spoke to Max. But what would Dr Aldington say if he saw him now?
She stole a look at his face as he walked beside her. All the light had gone out. She knew so well the faces he would present when angry, when sulking, when despairing, proud, anxious, calm and tired. Each in their way had some hidden architecture to them, some frame holding the flesh in place. Glancing again at his face but staring too long and hard, for Malcolm turned to look back at her, she was saddened to see no such architecture there. The flesh of his face hung slackly from the bone but his eyes were afire.
Her head filled with questions, but she was too frightened to speak. What if he answered them? What if he told her he was dying? What if he told her he no longer loved her? What if it was Alzheimer’s? What if he told her he was going to take his own life?
He said nothing and turned back to focus on the footpath ahead of him.
As they descended to the tube, Helen made no effort to wipe away her tears. She followed Malcolm to their platform, where they both sat on a free bench to wait the four minutes for their train.
Chapter 40
The Truth Is Just Fucking Fine
Liam wasn’t answering his phone.
I didn’t doubt that he had fucked Julia. But that she was pregnant by him? That was bullshit. Wouldn’t happen. Couldn’t happen.
I walked quickly away from the M&R office in the direction of Waterloo Station, trying his number a couple more times as I went. I didn’t want to message him: Did you knock up Julia? I needed to speak to him. In person, if possible.
I rang his publicist. Nothing. I called M&R reception and was told where he was.
I’d forgotten he was signing at the warehouse. I fucking hate signings.
But Liam loves them. A book signed is a book sold, he says. The guy never signed more than a few thousand and we sold two hundred thousand of each book in hardcover in the UK alone. It made no sense. The hardcore fans appreciate it, he said. Which was probably true. But then, they were exhausting.
That’s one of the reasons Liam found warehouse signings easier than the public signings. The strain of public events took their toll. The people who lined up for hours for a few seconds with him – quick hello, selfie, personally signed book – were devoted to his fiction, and they often knew more about it than we did. Their questions and queries more often than not stumped us. And Liam especially didn’t like looking a fool. But it wasn’t just this. Liam had nailed it when he said, ‘Each fan takes a tiny little piece of me away. Soon there won’t be anything left.’
I stood in the main hall of Waterloo Station with the whole population of the world buzzing around me. I couldn’t make up my mind.
I wasn’t his girlfriend or wife. What was it to me if he got Julia pregnant? He was reprehensible. I was reprehensible. No change there. I’d betrayed Gail since promising not to, and I’d do it again, so I wouldn’t be rushing to tell her about Julia. She’d find out the hard way.
But Julia, Liam? Julia? And just when I thought I had her, too. The fucking soulless bitch. She’d been on her knees. At my mercy. But she had one last card to play. Bitches always do.
And it was a good one. She’d probably been fucking him since Val McDermid’s book launch. Jesus. And I’d been sharing him with her. Well played, Julia, well played. Did she know she was deceiving a wife and a lover?
It was all getting too messy. Liam was getting messy.
I didn’t mind being his slut. I enjoyed that role. He could bend me over whenever it suited him. But only a few days ago he was making out that he loved me. That he wanted to run away with me. What was going on in his head? What if I’d said yes?
I had to see him.
Were Julia and this kid a problem he didn’t want to face?
While waiting for the train I scrolled through my emails. I found one from Liam. No subject line, just an empty email with an attachment. The first chapters of something with the working title Tangential. Tellingly, the author of Tangential wasn’t Jack Cade, but Liam Smith.
I couldn’t believe the timing of this. He was losing his mind. Mid-life crisis.
One of the most difficult aspects of our very successful union was Liam’s desire to be respected by people he respected – by writers like John le Carré, Ian McEwan, Zadie Smith. Which meant convincing them that his thrillers were literature – an impossible challenge – or Liam writing something completely different, an award-winning literary novel – just as unlikely.
From time to time Liam would disrupt our very tight and well-orchestrated publishing schedule by sending me a few chapters of a literary novel. These chapters usually meant work had stopped on the new Jack Cade. When Liam did this I always found him hard to deal with.
My harsh and critical edits of his Jack Cade novels often meant he wouldn’t speak to me for days. He was a million times more sensitive about his literary efforts.
I read the pages on the tube on the way out to the M&R warehouse. The pages weren’t bad. But they weren’t fucking Julian Barnes.
*
I was ushered into the room the warehouse staff set aside for book signings and found Liam surrounded by a team of people, most of whom I had met before on previous signings.
There was someone new, however.
‘Hi. Where’s Fiona?’ I said, walking across to Liam and giving him a chaste kiss on the cheek.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked, looking up and signing at the same time. The books were being moved under his pen and removed in a seamless process by two young women, one on either side of him. I had to get out of the way. They were all so intent on the business at hand. He had five thousand books to get through. A day’s work. They were to be a Waterstones exclusive edition.
‘I got your email,’ I said, having skirted around to the other side of the large table. ‘I read most of it on the tube on the way here.’
The warehouse doors opened and a guy I’d met before brought in a two-metre-tall pallet-load of boxes. I returned his nod hello and moved out of the way again. Matt, the guy usually in charge, was hurriedly unpacking the boxes and placing the books in neat piles. He smiled and raised his eyebrows. Another guy was putting them back in boxes when they’d been signed. It was some process. They were all sweating.
Liam stopped signing. ‘What did you think?’
I knew this was coming and I had a lie ready: ‘It’s great.’
He was satisfied with that. His whole body relaxed and he got back to signing.
The person I didn’t recognise as I came into the room had removed herself to the quietest corner and had been enjoying one of those phone conversations that seem impossibly silent. She was now finished and moved proprietarily towards Liam. Standing behind him and placing her hands on his shoulders, she looked boldly across the table at me. She wasn’t beautiful but she was slim, blonde and she couldn’t be more than twenty, which combined to make her attractive.
‘Fiona’s on maternity leave. Remember? This is Vanessa, her replacement,’ said Liam, not looking up.
Vanessa smiled and squeezed his shoulders.
He’d fucked her, too. Fucking publicists.
He was out of control.
I leant across the table and shook her outstretched hand. ‘I’m Amy.’ She could try to work out what I was to Liam herself. I walked over to Matt, knowing her eyes would follow, and asked to open a box. There is nothing like seeing a book
you’ve worked on come into being. But better than that is to open one of the boxes. Matt knew my need and handed me the blade.
‘Not too deep, you don’t want to cut the books,’ he cautioned.
I slit the box and pulled out a copy of Moving Target. To be honest, I couldn’t quite remember what it was about; we had written it two books ago. With half the cover taken up by the name Jack Cade and a silhouette of Mark Harden walking down a deserted street, it was sure to sell at least a million or two worldwide. I kissed the cold cover and placed it back in its box.
Looking up I caught the publicist staring at me. Her hands were still on his shoulders. Very protective. Was I ever that young and that dumb? Did she really think she was going to be Mark Harden’s girlfriend?
‘Hey, Liam, have you thought more about my plan?’ I asked, trying to sound like I had a reason for being there. ‘The series of YA books?’
‘I don’t have time.’
‘Sure you do, I’ll be doing all the work.’
‘What kind of return is there? I mean Baldacci, Grisham, Coben, Patterson, Reichs and a few others have done it. Get me some numbers. Personally, I think it takes away their edge. What was Jack Cade doing at seventeen? Probably fucking a cheerleader in the back of his dad’s car.’
‘We’ll make it an erotic series for teens, then. Beat E.L. James to the idea.’
This made Liam laugh.
‘Besides, I wasn’t thinking about us writing new stories. Just sanitising the original books for a younger audience, like Dan Brown will be doing soon with The Da Vinci Code. Did you hear about that? The Jack Cade brand would do all the work. Probably lead to more backlist adult sales, too. Kids wanting to read the real thing, with all the sex and violence, like you used to. Young Adult didn’t exist when you were growing up, remember.’
Liam stopped signing. He was about to say something when his publicist interrupted.
‘Don’t forget to sign one for my mum,’ said Vanessa. ‘She’s your biggest fan. She nearly died when I told her what I was doing today.’
Jesus, Liam, you met her today? That’s fast work. Where’d you fuck her? In the back of the hire car on the way?