Foreign Parts

by Foreign Parts (retail) (epub)

  Stay? Stay here? Here, in Marsdyke, where the men worked in the mill, or down the mine, and the women whited their front steps and black-leaded their grates, and did their washing on a Monday? Stay and live like that after what she had become used to? Even though she was alone she tossed her head and gave a gasp of impatience. Why, she had had men waiting for her at the stage door, she’d been feted and flattered, and she’d sipped champagne into the small hours. How could Uncle Gransden ask her to stay to mind Aunt Clarice?

  Mattie had been walking swiftly. Now the moors spread before her in their stern glory, rippling green, grey and purple like a wild sea beneath a stormy sky.

  Even in her rage they caught at Mattie’s heart. Tears sprang to her eyes. It was not the moors she feared and despised, but the small, confined life of the streets of Marsdyke. The thought of months – years, perhaps – spent tending an ailing, aged woman in that cramped little corner house … she shuddered. She could not, would not, do it.

  Like all spirited romantic heroines Mattie was in danger of becoming insufferable. Admirable ambition could so easily turn into egomania, and fieriness into good old-fashioned rudeness. And as for misplaced passion, well! Before I was through my readers would want to take Matilda Piper by her pretty shoulders and shake her till her fine white teeth rattled in her generous mouth.

  Scarlett O’Hara had started it. She had been the prototype minx, beautiful and bloody-minded enough to inspire devotion, and sufficiently wrong-headed to make the reader feel superior. An inspired creation. I often wondered whether Margaret Mitchell realised, when she set pen to paper after the long years of exhaustive research, that her epic novel would chiefly be remembered for the transcendental corniness of Rhett and Scarlett’s final exchange, captured on celluloid by an Englishwoman and an actor with taxicab ears …

  At any rate, since I was no Margaret Mitchell, and Down Our Street was assuredly no Gone With The Wind, I was going to have to do something to restore Mattie to her senses and make her once more the wholesome, home-loving, tenderhearted girl she had once been, albeit with an added dash of assertiveness courtesy of her time in the big city.

  Her arms wrapped tightly round her against the cold, Mattie walked on until she had reached the cluster of great tumbled stones which as children they had called the Witches. From a distance they looked like a group of hunched, black-robed old women sitting in a circle on the wind-combed hillside. Two hyphenated adjectival phrases here. I debated which one to excise, decided I liked both of them and would leave them in for the moment. I knew very well that in all likelihood a respectful copy editor (it was a sign of my advancing years and reputation that the copy editors seemed younger) would let them slip by and they would annoy me for ever after, but there was no point in wasting time on them now, with the story waiting to be told.

  Mattie sat down on the hard, moss-covered lap of the largest of the Witches. It was more sheltered here, but the wind still whipped her hair across her face. Tears of cold and self-pity welled up in her eyes. She was on her own in the world, and no one understood her.

  Because of the wind, which had snatched away the sound of his approach, Oliver Challoner was upon her before she saw him. The great black horse fretted and stamped among the rocks as she dashed the tears from her eyes with her wrist.

  ‘There was a time, Matilda,’ said Oliver in that mocking way of his, ‘when you were not so vain as to walk out on the moors with nothing but a flimsy frock to protect you.’

  Not trusting her voice, she didn’t answer him. To her consternation he dismounted and stood surveying her, the reins looped casually over his arm. I tried to picture this. I was by no means sure how feasible this casual looping would be in a stiff moorland nor’easter, and jotted a question mark by it.

  ‘What is more,’ continued Oliver, ‘the dresses you had then suited you better.’

  Now Mattie was stung. She got to her feet, her eyes flashing green fire.

  ‘I won’t ask you what you mean by that,’ she said with all the cold contempt she could muster, ‘but I’d thank you to keep your unwanted opinions to yourself.’

  ‘The dresses you wore then,’ went on Oliver as though she hadn’t spoken, ‘may have been hard and homespun, but you looked fine in them, Matilda.’

  ‘Because I am a hard and homespun woman, I suppose!’ snapped Mattie, ( in case my readers should have failed to draw the inference).

  Oliver let go of the reins of the grazing Lucifer and walked slowly towards her. She could not step back for the rock behind her, and he came so close that the scented ruffles on his shirt front almost brushed her face. ( I made a note: Ruffles okay?) When he spoke his voice was no longer mocking but silky and insinuating.

  ‘So you are a woman, are you, Matilda?’ he asked, and she could feel his hands resting lightly on her waist. ‘Let us see …’

  Before she could move or struggle his arms slid round her and his mouth came down on hers.

  After a long moment he released her. She swayed back against the rock, her legs weak. She expected him to speak: to say that she was indeed a woman. But he remained silent, and only his eyes sparkled with malicious amusement as he picked up Lucifer’s reins and swung into the saddle.

  Then and only then did he speak. Holding out one black-gloved hand, he said:

  ‘Well, Matilda, may I offer you a ride back to Marsdyke before you catch your death of cold?’

  She was so incensed that she could not at first find words to answer him. But he must have read her feelings in her eyes, for he wheeled the horse and cantered away. And his laughter was carried to her on the wind.

  She shook her fist. ‘I would not take a ride with you, Oliver Challoner, if you were the last man on earth!’

  In my mind’s eye I could already see the cover which the Erans would produce to accompany Down Our Street: the Lysette Anthony lookalike with her hair streaming in the wind… the rolling moors, the scudding clouds … Oliver Challoner as played by Daniel Day-Lewis, all cheekbones and eyebrows … in the middle background Seth Barlow, arms folded, cap on the back of his head … in the distance the huddled rooftops of Marsdyke, the black skeleton of the mine, and the smoking towers of the mill …

  The trouble with being a published writer, I reflected as I went downstairs, was that you learned about publishing. And about publishers, their whims and predilections, the way their minds worked. And it corrupted you. Unless you were an Iris Murdoch on the one hand, or an automaton-like producer of pulp romance on the other, you began to think like Them. For novelists, there was no ‘Us’. When two or three of the scribbling persuasion were gathered together in the name of hype, hustle, workshop or seminar, they sniffed round each other with the stiff-legged walk and rolling eyes of mongrels in a park, unable (or unwilling) to establish any real intimacy. The dark secrets of their respective contracts ensured that they remained for ever isolated.

  I poured myself a glass of wine and stood staring out of the kitchen window. The white gravel of the driveway glittered and glared in the sun. Dennis Potter was on record as saying that the best writing came out of repression. If this were so, Down Our Street was destined to be a real bobby-dazzler.

  ‘He’s doing what?’ said Clara, with all the scathing incredulity at her command.

  ‘Going back to England. Just for a few days.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Problems at work.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Gosh, that’s really tough on your dad,’ said Naomi. They were both standing, dripping, on the verandah. I couldn’t tell whether Naomi’s intervention was ironic, or offered in a spirit of arbitration. I gave her a hard look which she returned stonily. She had made a turban of her towel, and was an imposing sight.

  ‘Yes, poor George,’ I agreed shamelessly.

  Clara looked daggers at both of us. ‘Poor nothing. Can we go?’

  ‘Certainly not. We’re on holiday.’

  ‘Yes, but we’re nearly halfway through. You know perfectly well
Dad won’t come back once he’s over there.’

  I wasn’t going to argue hypotheses and principles. Practicality was the only way to stymie this move.

  ‘He’s flying home,’ I said, ‘on expenses. There’s no way we can afford for you two to fly.’

  ‘Come on, Nev,’ said Clara. The slap of their feet went away in the direction of their room.

  That night in bed, George said: ‘Don’t be angry about this.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Yes, you are, you’re bristling.’

  ‘Then it’s a little late to advise against it.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘I think a holiday’s a holiday, that’s all.’

  ‘No, you don’t, you think a holiday’s a necessary evil.’

  This ‘I know you better than you know yourself’ line was one of George’s most infuriating attributes. I turned my back on him with a flounce, and listened to the small, self-satisfied rustle as he sought the companionship of the Queen of Crime.

  By the time I dropped him at Bordeaux airport at three the next afternoon, I just wanted him gone. I had already begun to make those mental preparations and adjustments which were necessary to contemplate ten days (for I believed Clara) without George’s improving influence. It would not, for instance, be necessary to spend every waking hour in breathless admiration of things Gallic. Neither would there be any need to be civil to Royston, since I had not the least interest in his tabletop facilities. I could be sloppy and celibate and eat bread in bed. I could row with the girls and buy tinned food.

  What I couldn’t do was stop thinking of Kostaki. That was another thing that annoyed me, as I stood outside the departures terminal at Bordeaux and watched George get his case from the boot. Did he have some kind of death wish? Why was he never there when temptation stalked our relationship? Why, in God’s name, did he trust me?

  We bumped cheeks and he said he’d be in touch. Realising this would mean a visit to Royston’s office, I told him not to bother, but he insisted that it was the least he could do. Driving back I realised I never wanted to arrive. I felt safe in the car. Safe from Royston, safe from the girls, safe from Kostaki. Safe from myself. I took a loop off the main road and drove along a lane flanked by plum and apple trees already groaning with fruit. There was no traffic to speak of. A couple of farm trucks, a tractor, a woman on a bike. So there was no chance of missing the white MG parked at a roadside vente de fruits. Nor of missing the legs, once more in shorts and even more tanned than before. I slowed down, not because my foot was on the brake, but because I was suddenly incapable of exerting pressure on the accelerator. But when he turned, a brown paper bag of plums in his arms, my foot shot down reflexively and I almost dislocated my neck. A panic-stricken glance in the rearview mirror revealed Kostaki and the walnut-faced fruit seller sharing a joke at my expense, with much shoulder slapping.

  As soon as I was out of sight I pulled over and switched off the engine. A casual observer would have seen a fair-haired Englishwoman in a pink T-shirt sitting at the wheel of a Ford Sierra, but this would have been a chimera. The reality was a creature from the imagination of a Hieronymus Bosch, all fangs, claws, wild hair and mad eyes. And far from sitting in silence, I was screaming like a banshee.

  Chapter Ten

  Out popped Royston like a weatherman as I emerged from the garage.

  ‘Get him off all right?’ he asked, with a curious inflection which made me suspect double entendre.

  ‘I dropped him there, yes,’ I replied crisply.

  ‘He can always let you know if there’s a problem,’ agreed Royston.

  I ignored his implication that I would return to Bordeaux at a moment’s notice to bail George out of trouble, and headed grimly towards the house.

  ‘I suppose,’ Royston called after me, ‘that you won’t be wanting to entertain with the lord and master away.’

  ‘What on earth,’ I threw back, ‘makes you think that?’

  We were getting further and further apart, and each trying to have the last word. Infuriatingly, it was Royston who had it.

  ‘Only slipped out to say you had a call.’

  I stopped, and waited for him to elaborate.

  ‘The girls have got the details …’ He gave an insouciant wave and sloped off.

  I followed the sound of MC Hammer and discovered the girls in the shade behind the barbecue. They were lolling in the hammocks. Teazel lay on Clara’s stomach. Everybody’s eyes were closed.

  ‘What’s this about a phone call?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, your agent called,’ mumbled Clara.

  ‘My agent?’

  The cat shifted slightly, otherwise there was no response.

  ‘You mean Lew?’

  ‘If she’s your agent—’

  ‘He.’

  ‘—then it must have been.’

  ‘Actually,’ put in Naomi, who contrary to early indications was assuming the role of mediator and advocate in the Blair menage, ‘Royston did say it was Lew somebody.’

  ‘But how on earth did he get in touch? I never gave him the number. The only person I gave the number to was Gareth. Somebody’s playing silly—’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t us,’ said Clara. ‘And he wants you to call back.’

  ‘He can whistle for it,’ I said.

  ‘Urgently.’

  It was not even a matter of conscious decision. I simply went back to the garage, climbed in the car and reversed out at speed, the wheels churning on the gravel. I was rewarded by the sight of the cat streaking away from the hammock area in alarm, fur on end, like a jet-propelled sea urchin. On the way down the drive I noted, with grim satisfaction, Royston’s baffled glance as I roared past.

  ‘Yes, sure, help yourself,’ said Priscilla. ‘D’you have a card?’

  ‘Yes, but I’m not going to use it,’ I said. ‘I shall reverse the charges.’

  ‘Might as well live dangerously,’ she said.

  Common sense dictated that the cool thing to do was simply wait for Lew to ring again. If it was that urgent, he would. But I was so furious – with him, with Royston, with George (the rat) – that I wanted to take the initiative. It was early evening, the publishing world’s happy hour, and Lew would doubtless be retrieving a couple of bottles of white from the fridge for a session of mutual ego-grooming with one of his clients, or an antic hay of gossip and negotiation with an editor. I badly wanted to disturb him.

  Also, I had to admit I was curious. This was Reality knocking at my door. This was proof that people thought about me in my absence in the way that Eloise et al thought about George. It was only a shame that George was not here to witness both my righteous (and rightful) indignation, and my importance in the world of letters.

  After a brief interlude during which it sounded as though the operator were swimming the channel with the receiver between her teeth, I got through. Lew was talking to someone else as he lifted the receiver.

  ‘… don’t know a first-rate commercial property when they see one. Hallo, Lew Mervin – oh, yes, sure … Harriet?’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Is that – uh – Harriet, is that you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Harriet!’ He sounded, as always, genuinely delighted and quite impervious to what I had fondly imagined to be my iciest tone. ‘This is so serendipitous, you have no idea—’

  ‘Lew, you called. Someone gave you a number and you phoned. I am on holiday. Or was.’

  ‘That was your husband, Harriet. He’s such a great guy. He really understands you, and how many women can honestly say that about their husbands?’

  ‘He does not understand me!’ I barked.

  ‘Okay, but he knows you love your work. A writer never stops working. Life is work, for the writer, right?’

  ‘Up to a point.’

  ‘But you don’t know how great it is that you called. I wonder if you can guess who’s sitting on my sofa with a glass of wine in his hand and your name on his lips?’ ent
hused Lew. I tried to picture whoever it was sitting on the plump, chintzy cushions beside the piecrust occasional table covered with photos of his ex-wife and nubile daughters.

  ‘I have no idea.’

  Lew chuckled. A deep voice said something in the background.

  ‘Only Sonny Beidermeyer,’ said Lew.

  I was momentarily stumped. ‘Who?’

  Lew lowered his voice and I detected a hint of anxiety as he repeated: ‘Sonny Beidermeyer, from Aurora.’

  Now I remembered. Aurora Publications of New York. The biggest, swankiest, and certainly the most bumptious of all the big, swanky, bumptious American publishers. The company who were always two moves ahead of the game, and who had invented the game in the first place; whose deals were the most audacious, whose hype the most breathtaking, whose commercial success awesome. And yet who always managed to have at least one svelte, brilliant book adorning the review pages to ensure their continuing literary integrity. Sonny Beidermeyer. Well, well, well.

  ‘Harriet? Are you there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sonny is here, and we were just speaking of you.’

  ‘Nicely, I hope.’

  Lew chuckled. ‘Of course! She says she hopes we’re saying nice things about her.’

  There was another distant rumble and Lew’s laugh went up a couple of semitones. ‘Sonny says he wouldn’t speak ill of someone he hadn’t met.’

  ‘Right.’ My mental silhouette of Sonny, which had been that of a large walnut whirl, broadened slightly at the top. Beidermeyer was obviously no pushover.

  ‘So,’ I said, rather more briskly, ‘what can I do for you?’

  Lew lowered his voice again for the non-public part of the conversation. I could picture him wrapped round the receiver, his glasses halfway down his nose, his narrow shoulders hunched in an attitude of Woody Allenish intensity.

  ‘Harriet, how is the novel?’

  People often referred to the work in progress in this way, as though it were a dependent relative or delicate pet; or perhaps some awkward and unlovely medical condition.