by Rachel Hore
‘I thought you had stayed on at school,’ Penelope said severely. ‘Last time I telephoned your mother, she told me you’d passed your exams with flying colours. How long ago was that? I’ve hardly spoken to her recently.’
‘When we moved,’ Isabel said, ‘I’d just finished school. Now we’re living in the middle of nowhere and there’s nothing for me to do. That I want to do, I mean,’ she added hastily. ‘I won’t be their skivvy any more, I just won’t.’ Her voice rose to a squeak. ‘Please, can’t I stay here with you, Aunt?’
‘Goodness me, child, I can’t have you living here. It’s out of the question. But never mind that now. The most important thing to do is to telephone and let your mother know you’re safe.’
‘No!’ Isabel cried. ‘They’ll only tell me to come home. I left a note. I was going to write to them – in a little while.
When I’d found a job and somewhere to live.’ She sounded braver than she felt. In truth, she was in turmoil. If her aunt wouldn’t have her, where could she go?
‘And you imagine that these things will happen instantly?’ Penelope said in a quiet voice. ‘Isabel, we must at least assure them that you haven’t been murdered or worse. I should be sorry to learn that you had grown up cruel.’
Isabel turned her face away, her mouth quivering. After a moment she mastered herself sufficiently to mutter, ‘All right, you can telephone. But I’m not going back.’
‘We’ll see. I suppose, thinking about it, I could keep you here for a few days. Just a few days, mind. That would give everyone time to calm down.’
‘Could you? I’m not . . .’ Isabel started, but Penelope was already sweeping from the room. ‘Ohhh,’ the girl cried. She sank onto the sofa, arms crossed, her small face cast in misery.
‘Do not despair.’ She’d forgotten that Berec had been listening all this while. He was sitting by the fire, silently stroking the dog.
‘How can I not? I’ve nowhere to go. I need a job – any job. What is it you do?’
Berec shrugged. ‘This thing and that thing,’ he said. ‘I have to be free to write my poems. People like your aunt are very kind to me.’
‘You’re a poet, really?’ she gasped, for a moment forgetting her troubles. He gestured to the book on the table before her and she reached and scooped it up. Sure enough, Alexander Berec was printed on the jacket. ‘Reflections on a Strange Land,’ she read aloud. ‘Is that this country, or where you came from?’
‘You’ll have to read and see,’ he replied with a smile. She turned the pages, glancing at the poems. Decidedly melancholy, she thought them.
‘My first collection,’ Berec murmured. ‘You will see, here.’ He leaned forward and showed her a page near the beginning. A line read, My thanks to Mrs Penelope Tyler for her generous support. ‘Your aunt,’ Berec said proudly, ‘she is my patroness.’
Isabel’s mouth formed an O. Her aunt knew a poet and she, Isabel, had met him, this gentle, charming man. She looked up at him, her eyes shining. ‘I love poetry,’ she said. ‘And books and reading. I wanted to go on to university, you know, but my father said it would be a waste of time.’
Berec clapped his hands together. ‘I guessed you were an intellectual young woman,’ he said, amused. ‘Why, I tell you what, I will introduce you to some people. Come along tonight. Wait.’ He fished the newspaper out of the coal-box, tore off a corner, then using his own book as a rest, scribbled an address.
‘Six o’clock this evening,’ he whispered, passing the piece of paper to Isabel just as the door handle turned. ‘I’ll wait for you outside.’
Isabel thrust the precious scrap deep in her coat pocket just as Penelope re-entered the room. The girl looked up eagerly, but something sombre in her aunt’s face alarmed her.
‘What did my mother say?’ she asked, rising to her feet.
‘It wasn’t she who answered,’ Penelope said, biting her crimson lower lip.
‘Not my father?’
‘She found your note and panicked, called him home from the office.’
‘Oh.’ He’d be furious.
‘What he said was . . . well, I’m afraid you’re to return home immediately. He is, I think, a little upset.’
Isabel took a step back. ‘I won’t go. He can’t make me.’
‘And if you don’t go, he says – my dear, I’m sure he doesn’t mean it – that he doesn’t want you back at all.’
‘Oh,’ Isabel repeated, full realisation of her situation dawning.
‘I’m unsure what to advise. Can you really not go back?’
‘I can’t, it’s simply impossible.’
‘I see. Well, I suppose you may stay here for a night or two. A short while. Until you find work, perhaps.’ Penelope was reasoning with herself.
‘Could I not live here if I paid my way? I’d not be any trouble.’
‘Isabel, it wouldn’t work.’
Though wrapped up in her own concerns, Isabel caught a sudden glimpse of secrets her aunt kept close.
The address Alexander Berec had given her took her north of Oxford Street, to a tall, narrow Georgian house in Percy Street, on a corner at a junction where the road curved in a sort of elbow. A painted sign, palely visible in the lamplight, announced it to be the offices of McKinnon & Holt Publishers. Curtains were drawn across the ground-floor windows, but chinks of light, snatches of voices and laughter betrayed a party going on within. There was no sign anywhere of Berec, but as she hovered outside, mustering the courage to ring the bell, he came hurrying round the corner. ‘Isabel,’ he cried, kissing her cheeks. ‘I am so pleased you came. Mrs Tyler . . . ?’
‘I’m afraid I told her I was going to meet a friend.’ Isabel was relieved to see that he looked more spruce than he had that morning.
‘Why, that is exactly what you have done,’ Berec replied, going up the steps and pressing the bell. ‘I am your good friend.’
‘What is the party for?’ Isabel asked, as they waited to be admitted.
‘It’s not for anything, I don’t think – just a literary party,’ he replied.
The door opened to reveal a solidly built, pleasant-looking man of around thirty with fair hair brushed to one side and a fresh, sensitive face.
‘Come in, both of you, come in,’ he cried. ‘Berec, the ladies had almost given up on you.’ He ushered them into a big, shabby hallway lined with piles of cardboard boxes where half a dozen people hung about talking. It smelled excitingly of cigarettes and alcohol.
‘And this must be . . . Mrs Berec?’ The man put out his hand to shake Isabel’s, his expression polite but uncertain.
‘No, no,’ Berec said, with a laugh. ‘Myra conveys her apologies, but she is once again indisposed. Stephen, may I introduce my young friend, Miss Isabel Barber? Isabel, this is Stephen McKinnon, my publisher – the best, may I say, in London.’ These last words were spoken with one of his gallant little bows.
‘Miss Barber, enchanted,’ Stephen said, looking askance at Isabel.
Berec rushed on. ‘I see I must explain. Stephen, Miss Barber and I met at Penelope Tyler’s home this morning. She is Mrs Tyler’s niece, a most intellectual sort of girl.
Isabel has only recently arrived in London and needs to find suitable work. I immediately thought of you.’
‘How very considerate,’ Stephen McKinnon murmured.
‘I’m sorry,’ Isabel said, feeling far out of her depth. ‘You must think it awfully rude of me, turning up like this.’
‘Not at all,’ Stephen said. ‘I know your aunt and am glad to have you. Come in and meet everyone. Excuse us, gentlemen, please,’ he said to a group being lectured on politics by a short stout man with fiery eyes and a low, passionate voice. Stephen led Berec and Isabel past them into a noisy room packed full of people.
At once, a chubby, middle-aged woman with a low-necked dress and too much face powder came to meet them. ‘Ha, Berec,’ she said. ‘You’re just in time to settle an argument about the great Czech poets. There’s a man here says t
here aren’t any.’
‘That’s perfidious, Mrs Symmonds! Isabel, please excuse me,’ Berec said, as the woman dragged him away.
Beside her, Stephen chuckled. ‘Berec gets on with everyone, but particularly the more mature ladies.’ He handed her a glass of whisky. ‘They like to mother him. Your aunt is a case in point. A truly nice woman, and very generous to impoverished writers.’
‘Why doesn’t his wife look after him?’ Isabel asked. She’d liked Stephen immediately, sensed there was something very straight about him. She didn’t mind that he regarded her now with amusement.
‘I have never met Myra Berec and am not even certain that they have, er, exchanged marital vows,’ Stephen said gravely. ‘But I’ve not enquired too closely into Berec’s past or indeed his present. He is a man of great talents and has a gift for friendship that proves very useful on occasion. Him bringing you here is typical.’ He smiled.
‘He meant me to ask you about a job,’ Isabel rushed in, taking advantage of the smile.
‘I’m afraid that, too, is typical Berec,’ Stephen said, the smile turning regretful. ‘Sometimes he acts before he thinks. I can’t afford to employ anyone else at the moment. Business is very tight. There are too many writers and not enough people who buy their books.’
‘Oh,’ she said, crestfallen.
‘I hope something turns up for you soon,’ he said. ‘If I hear of anything, of course . . . Ah.’ A large man of about sixty, with sad eyes and an untidy moustache, had shambled through the door. ‘That is the great William Ford,’ he whispered. ‘Or so he likes to think of himself. I’m afraid I must ask you to excuse me for a moment.’ Isabel watched him greet the man and pour him a drink. For a while she was completely alone. She didn’t mind. It had been a long day, a momentous day, and not without its disappointments. She was too tired for bright conversation with strangers. She took a tentative sip of the whisky and screwed up her face. It tasted like castor oil. She swallowed it hastily and it burned her throat, but she liked the warmth it spread inside. The second sip was a little better and she allowed herself to relax and take in her surroundings.
This room must once have been a reception room, but was now furnished as an office, with a big mantelpiece above a blocked-up fireplace, and windows on three sides hung with blackout curtains. The twenty other people in the room were about all it could accommodate amongst several large desks, an elderly dining table on which bottles and glasses were laid out, bookshelves, piles of paper, potted plants and other assorted paraphernalia. A delightful, messy collage of book covers and newspaper cuttings decorated the wall by which she stood. These she perused eagerly, without recognising any of the titles and hardly any of the authors. There were lists and notices: mysterious charts concerning paper and typesizes; handwritten instructions regarding petty cash and returning the key to the lavatory. There was a poster printed in clear capitals to simulate carving in stone. She began to read it with a deep sense of thrill:
THIS IS A PRINTING OFFICE, it said, CROSSROADS OF CIVILISATION, REFUGE OF ALL THE ARTS AGAINST THE RAVAGES OF TIME, ARMOURY OF FEARLESS TRUTH.
‘Isabel, did you speak to Stephen about employment?’ She swung round to see Berec.
‘Well, yes,’ she said, touched by his persistence, ‘but he said there isn’t anything. He can’t afford to pay.’
‘What nonsense,’ Berec growled, his normal good-temper ruffled. ‘You must speak to him again. We will both speak to him.’
‘But if he has nothing, what is the point?’
‘Nonsense,’ Berec said again. ‘He has some successes. Maybe not with poetry, but Miss Briggs’s romances sell well. He must expand. He needs another editor, he can’t rely on Trudy Symmonds for everything.’ He bent close and whispered in her ear, ‘I don’t care who she’s married to, the woman has no soul. Not like you. You have soul. I can always tell in here.’ He struck his chest with a clenched fist and said something resonant in his own language.
‘I can’t be an editor,’ Isabel said. ‘I know nothing about it. I mean, I read and read – but that’s all.’
‘Read widely and believe in your judgement. One day you will be an editor. You are an intellectual, I tell you. I always know.’ He gave a broad smile.
‘You are kind to me, Mr Berec,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘Nobody has ever said encouraging things like that to me before, certainly never my parents.’ Was it only this morning that she’d been living at home, being ordered to wash up? ‘Why do you say them? You don’t know me at all.’
‘I know Mrs Tyler. I would do anything for her. You are her niece. Come, I want to help you. We will speak to Stephen together, when he finishes with that bitter old man Ford. Twenty-four novels, ha. The same novel twenty-four times, is what I say. Give the money to someone who deserves it.’
‘Shh, he’ll hear you,’ Isabel said, giggling, but the big moustached man was rambling away to Stephen, impervious to distraction. Finally, Berec persuaded Mrs Symmonds to intervene.
‘Stephen,’ Berec said, catching his sleeve, ‘come, I must speak to you seriously. You have an opportunity. This young lady, you can’t turn her away.’
Isabel, seeing the expression on Stephen’s face turn from polite good humour to annoyance, couldn’t help bursting out, ‘Please, Mr Berec. Mr McKinnon isn’t interested, it’s quite clear. And I couldn’t work for anybody who didn’t really want me. I would simply die.’ She spoke with such passion that she found both men silent, staring at her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled. She put down her glass clumsily, so Stephen had to steady it. ‘Perhaps I should go home now. I’m really quite . . . exhausted.’
She started to move away, but Stephen touched her arm. ‘Wait.’ He was perusing her as though he hadn’t seen her properly before.
‘I want to help you,’ he told her, ‘but I stand by what I said. There is no position at the present time that I can offer you. I simply have no spare money. I rely on the financial support of a gentleman whose factory makes ladies’ shoes. Every book I publish seems to lose money.’
‘Except Miss Briggs’s romances.’ Berec put in.
‘What the Daily Mail calls Maisie Briggs’s “enterprising heroines” may indeed prove to be our salvation,’ Stephen McKinnon said, his eyes twinkling.
‘My mother simply devours Maisie Briggs,’ Isabel told him, cheered by this change of mood.
‘Devours her, does she?’ Stephen grinned. ‘And what is it that you devour, Miss Barber?’
‘Oh, I like anything,’ Isabel said, filling up with happiness at his attention. ‘I mean, I’ll try anything. My parents don’t understand at all. If my father sees me reading, he tells me to go and do something. I say I am doing something – I’m reading – but he thinks that’s being pert.’
At this, Stephen threw his head back and laughed, but Berec’s expression was horrified. ‘You poor child,’ he breathed. ‘Stephen, you must do something. The forces of ignorance must not be allowed to triumph.’
Stephen assumed an expression of amiable defeat. ‘Look here, I must go and speak to my other guests,’ he said. ‘Miss Barber, please. Would you come and see me tomorrow? I can at least give you some advice. Audrey,’ he called. A poised young woman with a pretty upturned nose pushed herself off the desk she was sitting on and sauntered across. ‘Audrey, what am I doing tomorrow morning?’
‘Chuck over my diary, someone.’ Audrey consulted a black notebook and read out, ‘Mr Greenford with the quarterly accounts at ten, the man from Unicorn Printing at eleven-thirty, lunch at La Scala with James Ross’s agent.’
‘Eleven then, does that suit?’ he asked Isabel, who nodded. ‘Audrey, this is Miss Isabel Barber. Put her down for interview at eleven.’
‘Interview?’ Audrey gave Isabel a cool up-and-down stare, then scribbled what looked like Isabelle Barba in the diary. Isabel didn’t dare correct her.
‘You see?’ Berec said later, as he put her in a taxi and pressed into her hand the ten-shilling note he’d just cadged. �
�I knew Stephen would see sense.’
Isabel, riding the cab through the dark, unfamiliar streets, was not so sure . Mr McKinnon was humouring Berec. It seemed that everyone succumbed to his charm. As for her, she was wound up to a pitch of intensity that only a very young person can feel. In that untidy office with its interesting posters, all those people and their talk about books and ideas, things she thought really mattered, she had seen something she wanted. Not just wanted: she had set her heart on it with every drop of feeling she possessed.
Chapter 3
Emily
London, the present
‘Matthew, how did you get in?’ The street door of Parchment Press was kept locked after hours, so Emily stepped out of the lift unprepared to see Matthew in the hallway, the wings of his thick black hair glistening with mist. In the low light, with his shadow of beard and his eyes glinting like chips of blue granite, he looked like an exotic pirate. Then he smiled in that vulnerable, lopsided way she loved as he came forward to greet her, and he was Matthew, nice and familiar again. For a moment she forgot she was cross with him for being late. His kiss tasted deliciously of spearmint and rain.
‘Some woman let me in on her way out,’ he explained as he pushed the button to release the door. ‘No idea who she was, but she seemed to know me.’ He hung back to let Emily through first. The world outside was cold and shiny, but the rain had thankfully ceased.
‘She must be mad, letting riffraff like you into the building,’ she teased.
‘I expect she knows a promising poet when she sees one,’ he retorted and Emily laughed. ‘Sorry about being late, Em. I was in the library and didn’t notice the time.’