The Girl On the Page

by John Purcell

  ‘I won’t forget,’ he said. He couldn’t cope with the look I gave him. He returned it with one of his most devious grins then continued signing. He did fuck her on the way! Bet he knew the driver would’ve watched the whole thing. I had created a monster. He’d been a fucking choir boy when we’d met. Now look at him.

  ‘How is Girl on Girl going? You haven’t sent any pages through since we wrote the outline.’

  ‘Been busy. GOG is on the back burner. I’m busy with Tangential.’

  The two young women kept passing the books through and he kept signing.

  His fucking dreams of literary greatness again.

  ‘What’s Girl on Girl?’ asked the publicist.

  ‘Do you have time for that?’ I asked, ignoring the girl.

  ‘Yes.’ It was final. Cold. He didn’t look up. In a warmer tone, he said, ‘Girl on Girl is the working title of the new Jack Cade. It’s a joke. Girl on the Train. Gone Girl. Girl with All the Gifts. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. We thought it was time for a bit of Girl on Girl.’

  ‘That’s funny, they do all have girl in the title. I hadn’t noticed that.’

  ‘And they’re all about women,’ he added.

  Now it was time for my tone of voice to shift. ‘Don’t you think you need a break?’ I asked. He noticed immediately. He stopped signing.

  ‘Are you all okay if I take five? How many do I still have to do?’

  ‘We’re about halfway. Take all the time you want, Liam,’ said Matt. ‘I might see if we can’t rustle up some afternoon tea for us all.’

  *

  Liam led me outside through a fire door, which he propped open with a brick. We were in a space between two warehouses. An identical fire door was directly across from us. A concrete path ran down between the two buildings to the street. This area was evidently a refuge for smokers, as there was a ceramic pot against the wall filled with sand and cigarette butts.

  Liam lit up.

  ‘You’re smoking again? What the fuck is going on with you?’

  He didn’t answer with words, but he exhaled with a brutal contempt.

  ‘What am I to you?’ he asked, standing straight, chest out.

  I paused before answering. Not because I didn’t have an answer but because I had many and needed to know what had prompted his question. Surely it couldn’t be love. I’d made myself abundantly clear on that front. And we had ratified the agreement on the bonnet of Daniel’s car. My suspicion was that Julia had got to him, had found his weakest point and had pressed it with a meticulously manicured finger.

  The way he was holding his body was aggressive, and ready for battle. But the look in his eyes was vulnerable and he was biting the inside of his lips, which he only did when he was anxious.

  ‘What are you to me? A golden fucking goose,’ I replied, knowing this was the one answer he feared most and one, if I were Julia, I’d have encouraged him to believe.

  ‘You would say that. Perfect.’

  The fight went out of his body and he fell back against the wall, sliding down until he looked like he was seated on an invisible chair.

  ‘What would you prefer?’

  He took a long drag on his cigarette. ‘The truth is just fucking fine,’ he spat out, smoke issuing from his mouth.

  ‘You think that’s the truth?’

  ‘I know it is.’

  I wanted to kick him. This mood was new. It was defeatist. So unlike Liam.

  ‘We need to put things into perspective.’

  ‘Do we?’ he asked, exhaling and looking down at the ground.

  ‘Yes, you shit.’

  ‘I have to think of the future. This won’t last forever. Jack Cade will go the way of Len Deighton and Frederick Forsyth. It could happen without warning, too. Changing geopolitical factors can fuck me overnight. Like the fall of communism for John le Carré and Tom Clancy.’

  ‘Both of whom survived the fall.’

  ‘You know what I mean. I’m exposed. I need to ensure I can continue writing beyond Jack Cade.’

  ‘Tangential?’

  ‘Yes, maybe. Why not?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Liam! Neither of us is ever going to win the Booker but together, as Jack Cade, we can continue to entertain millions of people. Our readers can rely on us. We’re a brand. You know how rare that is in publishing?’

  ‘It’s just work. I have no love for it. It’s soul-destroying.’

  ‘Christ, Liam, neither of us need work again. We’ve each made a fuck-ton of money. We can quit now. You can go and write Tangential and I can . . .’ I paused. I had no idea what I could do beyond Jack Cade. I smiled, slightly embarrassed. ‘I don’t know what I’ll do but I’ll find something.’

  He looked at me. It was a strange look, I couldn’t quite understand it. But it unnerved me and I said, rather cautiously, ‘I like doing what we’re doing, I really do.’

  ‘I can’t work like you do. The schedule we agreed to is too tight. And you work too quickly. Always emailing me, demanding more. Like it’s a race. There’s way too much pressure on me to deliver.’

  He was exhausting me with his negativity.

  ‘I need time to think, to read, to travel. I need a break,’ he added.

  ‘Fuck it. Take a break. You need one. You’re all over the place. I’ll write the next one without you. You can edit it at the end.’

  ‘As if you could. You need me more than you’ll ever admit. The meat of Jack Cade comes from me; you’re just the warm plate, the veg and the gravy. You’ve never fired a gun, you’ve never beaten someone to a pulp, never been beaten to one, never experienced battle, never been shot at, never lived on rations or even slept on the ground in the open. The reader will know the difference.’

  ‘You forget, I went to boarding school,’ I said, trying to lighten the mood, even though I was upset by what he’d said.

  ‘You call that living?’

  ‘You’ve said all this before. It doesn’t hurt me anymore. It’s just boring. Good writers make shit up. Like Jeanette Winterson and Venice. Shakespeare and everywhere. You think Tolkien ever visited Hobbiton?’

  ‘He was at the Battle of the Somme, Amy. The man had lived. You’re a smart cookie but you’re a rich, impossibly beautiful white girl who hasn’t travelled, doesn’t know her history, has little interest in politics or science or technology . . . You’re one of the privileged. You haven’t suffered.’

  ‘Why are you being such a fucking cunt?’ I asked, feeling the tears well up.

  ‘You need me, I don’t need you.’

  He had said it. That’s what the weird look had been about. But his words took my breath away.

  ‘If we’re being honest,’ he continued, ‘I don’t need a break from the work.’ He looked me in the eye and said, ‘I need a break from you.’

  I slapped him. I’d never slapped anyone before. It felt good.

  He’d been slapped before, however. He barely moved. I wanted to do it again. But he stood up straight and looked at me with such contempt I reconsidered.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, coldly.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Showing you care.’ And then he walked back inside.

  ‘Hey, fuckwit,’ I called after him.

  He stepped back outside.

  ‘Congratulations.’

  He looked puzzled.

  ‘Julia told me her exciting news. You’re going to be a father.’

  ‘Go away, Amy.’

  ‘And you gave her Helen’s manuscript, too, didn’t you, you cowardly piece of shit.’

  ‘Go! I’m done with you.’

  ‘I’m done with you.’

  ‘My lawyers will be in touch.’

  Chapter 41

  Daniel on the Road

  Daniel didn’t really know where he was. Or if where he was had a name. He supposed every foot of England was named by now, but whether anyone had named the spot where this particular Shell service station on the M6 was he did not know. While he filled his car with fuel
, he took out his phone with his free hand and checked Google. They called it Welcome Break at Charnock Richard, which was an odd thing to call a place. Charnock Richard. And then he saw that he wasn’t strictly in Charnock Richard, which was a few miles away.

  He’d been here before, he recalled. A number of times. Never had it occurred to him to wonder where he was beyond noticing it was a Shell service station. According to Wikipedia it was the first service station on the M6. There you go.

  The petrol pump was taking forever. He didn’t know what the capacity of his fuel tank was. He assumed sixty litres, because that’s what his last car had. He’d never been on empty in this new one. But he’d just filled past sixty litres, so he watched the numbers climb. It stopped at sixty-four litres.

  He went in to pay.

  Inside he browsed the shelves. Considered getting coffee. Then a Cornish pasty. But felt slightly nauseous. He didn’t need anything. Still he lingered. He didn’t want to drive on. He was between things. Between London and Edinburgh, between parents and wife, between doubt and certainty.

  He’d left London in the middle of the night. Without ceremony. Without goodbyes.

  The previous evening Malcolm had said he wanted to drive north with him whenever he left, but Daniel thought that was taking things too far. He wasn’t Malcolm’s son anymore. Or, more correctly, he was possibly more his son than ever before. The past Daniel had known and relied on had been repudiated by them both, Helen and Malcolm, each separately. And Daniel had conceded as much. So he wasn’t the son they’d known. He wasn’t the son he’d known himself to be. The resentful son – the unloved and the unseen.

  After scanning the products in the car maintenance section of the shop thoroughly, he was now loitering in front of the sweets. He picked up two Curly Wurlys, thinking of the boys.

  While in London, Daniel had become a new son. He had been reborn. And he’d had no choice in the matter this time, either. Helen and Malcolm had expected him to love them back with his newborn heart. To see them with his newborn eyes. To embrace them with his newborn arms.

  But he was completely alien to himself. And felt nothing.

  He stood in the queue to pay and glanced out of the window to see which number pump he’d used. The man in front of him smelled of something familiar, but he couldn’t think what it was. There was a deep blackhead on the nape of his neck.

  Malcolm and Helen saw everything. They knew everything. But their great faith in him was misplaced. He couldn’t do new. He was too old, too tired. Failure was his due. A comfort. A conclusion. For him, there was no second chance.

  The literary giants didn’t know everything after all.

  Daniel had reached the front of the queue. ‘Six, please.’

  ‘Did you want the Curly Wurlys?’

  He had handed over his card but had held onto the sweets without thinking. He looked at the woman behind the counter for the first time – she wore a look of incurable boredom – and then tossed the Curly Wurlys onto the shelf with the chewing gum, saying, ‘Sorry. No.’

  He waited for her to hand his card back, but the woman just stared at him.

  ‘What?’ Daniel asked.

  The woman shook her head and swiped the card.

  ‘Do you want me to put them back?’ he asked.

  She shook her head again, more dismissively this time, and placed his card and receipt on the counter while looking to the next customer over his shoulder, signalling to Daniel that their business was done.

  He stepped to one side and replaced his card in his wallet, staring at the Curly Wurlys he’d abandoned so thoughtlessly.

  ‘Where are the toilets?’ he asked, suddenly, desperately. Those in the queue looked at him. The woman behind the counter said nothing but indicated with a nod of her head.

  Daniel found all of the toilet stalls busy and, having no choice, vomited loudly in a large yellow bucket on a cleaning trolley, covering the mop with his waste. Afterwards there was complete silence. No one made a sound. No one asked if he was all right. The stall doors remained shut. Washing his face and rinsing his mouth at the sink, he noted the look of horror on the face in the mirror staring back at him.

  On his way back to the car, he felt light-headed. The woman behind the counter kept her eye on him even as he passed through the door to the forecourt.

  Outside, the air was noxious. He paused. He didn’t want to leave the safety of the service station. The nausea persisted.

  He would move the car to the parking lot.

  As he walked towards it he clicked the button in his pocket and the orange indicators blinked. Watching the daylight reflected in the car’s polished curves as he drew nearer, he noticed something. A handprint on the bonnet. Amy’s handprint. He stopped short and just stared at it.

  Images flashed before his mind.

  Ignoring the car that had just pulled in behind his, he approached the handprint carefully. Then he saw the other marks. Life had happened on his car bonnet. Life that Amy hadn’t hesitated in seizing greedily for herself. The same life that Geraldine must have craved and was now enjoying. The life that he had not suspected existed. The life that would never be his.

  By the pump was a paper dispenser. He took a handful of paper and scrunched it up. He lifted the watering can from its place. Then, pouring water over the bonnet, he wiped away the remnants of life.

  The young woman in the car waiting to use the pump honked her horn.

  He got hurriedly into his car.

  On the drive from London, he’d been half-listening to one of Geraldine’s audio books, The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. As the narrator started again, he turned it off. The past, present and future were all equally appalling. Now, he didn’t want to think about anything.

  He merged back onto the M6 and turned on cruise control.

  As a child he had developed a technique to deal with moments of high anxiety: he sang ‘Puff, the Magic Dragon’ softly to himself. He thought of this now, but didn’t sing. It began to rain. The windscreen wipers started automatically.

  *

  Four hours later Daniel was sitting against a tree in Braidburn Valley Park, just near the back gate to the house he’d shared with Geraldine. He was hoping to catch sight of the boys. And maybe talk to Geraldine herself, if the moment was right.

  He had come at four because it was the time Geraldine often stole an hour with the boys in the park. Recently, they had become obsessed with the Braid Burn. The shallow stream fascinated them. And worried their mother. But Daniel loved to watch them dance excitedly on the bank when they had thrown a leaf or a twig into the water. If left to their own devices, the boys would have played beside the stream all day long.

  Geraldine wasn’t happy with this obsession. She needed to be so vigilant. She had visions of finding one or both of the boys face down in the stream under the bridge. The boys could get through the back gate if it was left unlocked and into the park. Samuel was fearless and would climb the back fence and sit atop it. He hadn’t yet found the courage to jump down the other side. But they were both growing up so fast.

  Daniel had promised Helen he’d return to Edinburgh and look for a flat. He’d taken compassionate leave from work, but knew they couldn’t afford to have him gone for much longer. They were understaffed as it was. He’d have to call them.

  But the thought of doing anything of the sort exhausted him.

  As he leant against the trunk of a tree, the sunny breaks, the familiar scent of the grass, the sudden brief shower that passed as rapidly as it had come, the beautiful green prospect, were all one to him. The nausea of Charnock Richard had turned into a heavy weight in his stomach, like a boot pressed menacingly against him.

  When the boys did run into sight, he hid himself. The only thing that had mattered on the drive up was seeing them, but on seeing them he realised this was no longer true. They looked like another man’s children. That man would give them Curly Wurlys. He blew his nose on the receipt he’d been given at the serv
ice station, threw it on the ground and wiped his eyes with the back of his hands. Then Geraldine emerged from the garden, closing the gate behind her. She was shouting after the boys.

  She looked the same. She was wearing the dark jeans she always wore, the muddied Hunter boots she pulled on for the park, the overlong black cardigan she wore over her T-shirt when she was unsure about the weather.

  As she passed him, he looked at her face for signs of change. Her expression was the same as she always had when unobserved. Beautiful, contemplative, slightly anxious. She’d never been observant. And so didn’t notice him now. Most of her attention was directed inwards. As much as she spoke about living in the moment, the outer world had always been a distraction.

  She shouted again after the boys to stop.

  They ignored her.

  From the trees, Daniel watched her as she walked with quickening steps down the hill after them. On the drive up, Amy and Geraldine had merged lazily in his mind. But now there was no chance of confusing the two. Geraldine wasn’t a libertine. She wasn’t a risk-taker. She was a woman who needed to be loved, who needed her family close, who needed to be listened to and respected.

  The whole of his marriage to Geraldine he had supposed he had been unloved and unlovable. Loving hadn’t come easy. He wanted so much to be the husband and father Malcolm hadn’t been. But it was forced. Fuelled by resentment. He loved Geraldine with a weight that negated the effect. Love wasn’t to be bullied into greatness. Love suffered under his heavy-handed approach.

  Geraldine loved easily and beautifully. He’d lived under her loving gaze in the beginning. How dearly he had needed the warmth of her gaze and touch. His joy was easily mistaken by her for love returned. But Geraldine was not to be mistaken forever. She had stopped loving him. The warmth had turned into a kind of distilled panic. A nervous energy. A devotion to children, to cleaning, to work and to her family.

  And this had suited Daniel. This was what he had sought without knowing. The outer veneer of happiness. But it wasn’t enough for Geraldine. It wasn’t enough for her family, either. They knew she was unhappy. They were the first to speak to her of divorce. She hadn’t considered it possible. With Geraldine’s family working against the marriage, it was only a matter of time. An alternative future had entered Geraldine’s mind. When one of her clients’ compliments carried a different tone, she welcomed the change and reciprocated. The dam on Geraldine’s heart was breached.