by Rachel Hore
At Earl’s Court she staggered up the steps of the Underground, longing for her little room at Aunt Penelope’s, and to return to work the next morning, to see Audrey and Stephen and Trudy, and maybe Berec.
It was late by the time she reached her aunt’s. The lights were on in the living room, though the curtains were drawn. When she opened the front door and hauled her luggage inside, she heard voices, a woman’s laughter, smelled cigar smoke – Reginald’s, certainly, but there were others there, too. Gelert pushed his moist nose into her hand. ‘Good dog,’ she said, stroking his rough hair and wondering if she should announce her presence or creep up to bed. Gelert looked up at her, his eyes shining in the darkness. The living-room door opened in a rush of warm air and there stood her aunt, a vital, glowing presence in a cloud of French scent. She held a glass tumbler in one hand, a cigarette in the other.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ Penelope said, her voice slurred. ‘I thought I heard the door, but I wasn’t sure. Are you all right? Come in and have a drink. They’re just a few friends.’ She stood back and Isabel saw past her into the room. Reginald was there, sprawled in an armchair. He nodded in her direction, but did not smile. How unreadable she always found him, though she understood why her aunt might be charmed by his regular good looks. There was another couple there, too, a man of Reginald’s age and, sitting in the other armchair, a much younger woman with neatly waved pale hair and an air of fragility, but when Isabel was introduced to them she didn’t retain their names, and she soon shyly presented the excuse of having to get up for work next morning and departed for bed.
She tried to settle to sleep, but she was anxious, as though little demons hurled barbed thoughts into her mind. How difficult the last two days had been and how alone she felt. From downstairs came the women’s laughter, and the clink of glasses and the men’s low voices.
After half an hour of this she gave up, got out of bed, shuffled into slippers and dressing gown and slipped downstairs. Gelert, curled up on his mat in the kitchen, barely raised his head. There was a little milk in a jug in the scullery, and while it warmed in a saucepan on the stove, she noticed an envelope lying on the top of a cabinet, her aunt’s reading spectacles weighting it down. The handwriting drew her attention. It was familiar. She poured the foaming milk into a teacup, then glanced at the letter again, frowning. The writing seemed very much like someone’s she knew – her boss, Stephen’s. But why would Stephen write to Aunt Penelope? She knew they were acquainted – after all, Berec often spoke of Penelope’s generosity to him. Perhaps it wasn’t Stephen’s writing, perhaps she thought it was because she’d been thinking about him just now, and about being back in the office.
Chapter 8
Emily
‘Quick, she’s off the phone now,’ Gillian’s assistant Becky said, listening at the door of her boss’s office. She knocked, announced Joel and Emily, and ushered them inside. It was a pleasant room overlooking Berkeley Square gardens. Being early December, several Christmas cards were already lined up on the windowsill.
‘Joel, how wonderful to meet you at last,’ Gillian said, coming out from behind her desk and shaking his hand. ‘Welcome to Parchment. We’re all absolutely thrilled to be publishing you.’ She adjusted the long gauzy scarf hanging over her shoulder and indicated the sofa and chairs where they should sit down.
‘It’s me that’s delighted,’ Joel said in his warm voice with its soft northern lilt.
‘It’ll be a marvellous book,’ Gillian continued. She leaned forward in her chair, fixing all her attention on him. ‘Now do you have a title for it yet? No? Well, we’ll have to put on our thinking caps.’
Emily, who’d said nothing yet, secretly admired how Gillian could switch on the charm with authors, shaking hands and making them feel special, all in the space of a few minutes out of her crazily busy schedule. She’d often caught herself studying Gillian, learning from her.
‘And how is dear Jacqueline?’ Gillian asked, her expression now one of intense concern. ‘It must be so difficult for her. They were married for nearly sixty years, weren’t they? You will send her my warmest regards? I simply must go down and visit when I have some time.
‘I can’t say I know her well, but I think she’s doing all right,’ Joel said with the slightest touch of humour. ‘I expect she’d love to see you.’
‘And in the meantime is Emily looking after you properly?’ She threw Emily one of her keenest stares.
‘I’d say so.’ Joel said with a laugh. ‘No complaints there. She’s taking me to lunch later to celebrate, aren’t you, Emily?’
‘Joel’s working up in the boardroom this morning,’ Emily told her boss. ‘I got some files from the archive for him to look through. The critical reaction to The Silent Tide was amazing. I was reading some of the reviews.’
‘You’ve made quite sure no one else wants the boardroom?’ Gillian’s eyes narrowed.
‘I did check with Becky.’ Emily was set momentarily off-balance. Gillian didn’t like her editors to get above themselves, and booking the boardroom must have sounded a bit grand, but it had been the only suitable room free.
‘Well then, I expect it’s all right.’ Gillian rose to indicate that time was up. ‘Joel, it’s been utterly delightful. And we’ll look forward to reading the finished script. When will that be?’
‘I’ve already drafted a lot of it,’ Joel said. ‘Most of the research is done, so I’d say another eight or nine months.’
‘That means . . . let’s say September. Marvellous, marvellous. Well, goodbye.’ And somehow Joel and Emily found themselves propelled outside and the door closed behind them.
Joel looked relieved. ‘Gillian’s very nice,’ he said, once they were out of Becky’s hearing.
‘Yes,’ Emily said carefully. ‘She can be.’
At lunchtime, she went upstairs to the boardroom to find him still surrounded by papers.
‘Do you need a few more minutes?’ she asked. ‘I could let the restaurant know we’ll be late.’
‘No, I’ve finished. But come and look at this.’
She sat beside him at the table and he pushed one of the files, opened at a page of faded type, between them. It was a letter from Hugh Morton dated June 1954 to someone he addressed as ‘Stephen’.
‘Stephen McKinnon was his publisher at the time,’ Joel explained. ‘The Silent Tide must just have been published. It’s this part that interests me.’ He read aloud: ‘“The response to the novel has been better than anything I could have hoped for after the struggles of the last few years. Little Lorna is well, thank God. Jacqueline is marvellous with her and we live a very peaceful life here. The garden is at its most beautiful at this time of year and I sit in the sun and think that life cannot be more perfect.” Now doesn’t that sound like a contented man?’
‘He does sound happy.’ Emily could imagine how lovely that Suffolk garden must be in summer.
‘Doesn’t he just?’ Joel made a final note, then closed the file. ‘From what I’ve read elsewhere, I’d say it’s the time he was happiest in his life.’
‘What does he mean by his struggles? Writing the book and it being published?’
‘Mostly, yes.’ For a moment Emily thought Joel was going to add something more, but all he said was, ‘Well, I was pleased to find that. And I’ve cleared up some points of chronology, so this has been really useful, thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’ It was companionable sitting here with him and she liked seeing him at work. It made her feel a part of what he was doing.
‘May I have photocopies of these reviews?’ he said, indicating some he’d marked out. ‘They’re all new to me.’
‘Of course.’ She gathered up the files. ‘We ought to go and bag our table, though. Why don’t I do the copying for you later and put them in the post?’
‘Actually,’ Emily lifted her wine glass in a toast, ‘yours is one of the first books I’ve acquired for Parchment.’
‘Well, it’s a celebratio
n for both of us, then,’ Joel said, smiling as they clinked glasses.
They were sitting at a table in the window of a first-floor restaurant overlooking Green Park, where a few brave souls huddled on the benches, hunched against the sharp wind. The place had only been open for a few months, and given how empty it was, Emily didn’t think it would last much longer, though the food was good. The waiter brought Joel a large plate of scallops and Emily a spicy chicken dish. Because it was a special occasion, Emily had broken the firm’s stringent rules and ordered a decent bottle of wine.
They argued amiably about what kind of jacket might be put on the book. Jacqueline, Joel told her, would like the portrait hanging in the hall at Stone House, but Emily felt it was too impressionistic and not recognisable as Hugh. She recommended a photographic approach, maybe the studio portrait of him she’d seen in an obituary – was it in the Guardian? – looking intense and reflective. Joel said he’d talk to Jacqueline.
Joel talked a great deal too much about Jacqueline, Emily thought. The woman was insisting that Hugh’s alleged affair with his publicist be dealt with firmly. According to her, it was just a nasty rumour put about by a gossip columnist he’d annoyed, a view Joel agreed with, by the way. She’d also been difficult about him interviewing Lorna.
‘Jacqueline kept coming into the room,’ Joel said, eating a scallop. ‘Poor Lorna, she was flustered.’
‘I’m a little worried that you’re not getting a free hand to write this book.’
‘I don’t think it’s a problem,’ he said, clearly wishing he hadn’t said so much. ‘Why shouldn’t she express an opinion? She’s not telling me what to write. And she has let me see all the papers so far as I know . . . I worry when you look at me like that.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘That intense expression . . . It’s like the way Gillian looks at you. As if you don’t believe me.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t know I was doing it.’ She laughed, uncertain whether she liked the comparison. Perhaps she was picking up a few tricks from her boss. ‘I do believe you. It’s just that this book’s very important to me.’
‘It is to me, too,’ Joel said with feeling.
‘Of course. But you must feel free to tell the whole story, not the Jacqueline Morton version.’
‘You have to trust me to do that,’ he said, and she sensed steel behind the softness of his voice.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and changed the subject. She referred to the letter they had looked at together in the boardroom. ‘You said it was the writing of The Silent Tide that he meant when he talked about his struggle. It made me think. It’s such a powerful and mature work, isn’t it? Very different from his quiet first novel. A lot of people haven’t even heard of Coming Home.’
‘I’m sure you’re right. He must have put all his energy into writing The Silent Tide. It was such an ambitious novel, of course it would have been a struggle to write.’
Emily had an uncomfortable feeling that he was keeping something back.
‘What or who inspired him to write it, do you think?’ She remembered Jacqueline’s coyness. ‘Surely not her. I don’t see it. Jacqueline’s a strong person, but she doesn’t have the passion and charm of a character like Nanna. Could there have been someone else?’
Joel sighed and reached for the wine bottle.
‘Possibly,’ he said, filling their glasses. ‘Morton was married before, you know.’
‘Was he? I didn’t know that.’
‘Briefly, yes. I haven’t been able to find out much about her. Certainly not from Jacqueline.’
‘What was her name?’ Emily was intrigued.
‘Her name was Isabel. Isabel Barber.’
‘Isabel?’ Emily said in surprise.
‘Yes. Does the name mean anything to you?’
‘Not really. It’s just that, you remember outside Ipswich station, I showed you a copy of Coming Home?’
‘Yes, but I was desperate to get rid of that bloody lorry.’
‘I found it in the office. Hugh Morton had inscribed it to an Isabel. I’d been going to ask you about her.’
‘Very little is known about her. She wasn’t mentioned in most of the obituaries. One said that she left him and died not long afterwards, drowned in the floods of fifty-three.’
‘How awful.’
‘There isn’t anyone much left to ask. I talked to an old family friend of Jacqueline’s about the matter, but he’d never met Isabel. He said—’
At this point they were interrupted by the waiter, who cleared away their plates. After they had declined dessert and ordered coffee, Joel moved the conversation swiftly on.
‘Where did you work before Parchment, Emily?’
‘Artemis,’ she told him. ‘I’d been desperate to get into publishing, but it was so competitive. I got a temp job first of all, in their Rights department, and then someone needed an assistant in Editorial and amazingly I got it. One of those strokes of luck.’
‘So you worked your way up there?’
‘Yes – again I was lucky. An editor didn’t come back after having a baby and I was given a few of her authors to look after. It went on from there, really.’
‘It must have been more than luck,’ he teased. ‘Not a spark or two of talent?’
She smiled . ‘Maybe . Lots of very hard work, certainly. I used to be there all hours.’
‘Good for you. It’s obviously paid off. And how did you get this job?’
‘Gillian was looking for another acquiring editor. I’d had a couple of successes at Artemis . When she called me it seemed a good move. But now I have to prove myself.’
‘I’ll do my very best for you with this book.’ He gave one of his warm smiles and she felt a rush of happiness.
When they’d finished their coffees he said he must hurry; he had another appointment.
‘You go,’ she said. ‘I’ll stay and deal with the bill.’
‘Thank you for everything,’ he said, kissing her on both cheeks. ‘I’ll call you very soon.’
‘And I’ll send you those photocopies,’ she replied. ‘Take care.’
But as she watched him disappear down the stairs, she felt her unease return. It was the evasive way he’d answered her questions about Isabel. Was she wrong to believe he was holding something back?
Chapter 9
Isabel
‘No gentlemen friends and the door’s locked at midnight.’ Mrs Fortinbras, pale, plump and powdered, swollen feet in mid-heeled shoes, had two young daughters of her own upstairs and wasn’t the sort to stand any nonsense. Widowhood might mean letting out rooms to strangers, but she still had her standards.
‘Of course,’ Isabel murmured. Her gaze roved the small ground-floor room, her new home. She noted the cloths stuffed against draughts in the bomb-bowed window, and the ugly utility furniture. It was clear why the rent was so modest. She sniffed a faint smell of gas in the air, presumably from the ugly fire bolted into the old grate. Still, the room was clean and got the afternoon light, and there was a carpet of reasonable quality.
In the end, it had been Audrey who had found it. Audrey, who knew Vivienne, who lived in this shambling house in Highgate, near the cemetery, where a room had become vacant. The previous occupant had been taken seriously ill and removed to hospital, never to return. The thought of this cast a pall over the enterprise for Isabel, but she tried not to dwell on it.
When Vivienne had brought her to see the room a few evenings previously, Mrs Fortinbras had requested two weeks’ rent in cash. This Isabel had just handed over and it had taken up all her funds. That very morning she’d plucked up courage and asked Stephen for a small advance on her wages. He’d said nothing, but had taken out his wallet on the spot, and pressed several notes into her hand. He’d also said that he’d have a word with Mr Greenford the accountant on Monday to see if he ‘could do better for her’. Both of them felt intensely embarrassed at the need to discuss money, but she thanked him profusely.
&
nbsp; ‘Not at all, don’t mention it. I must say, Berec’s a sound chap to have recommended you,’ he said, picking up her latest report from the desk and studying it. It was about a novel by a young Englishman who’d been brought up in Kenya. She’d admired the lush descriptions of the African landscape, but found the writer’s tone disturbing.
‘Yes, this is the crux,’ he said, reading from her final paragraph. ‘“One might call it an old-fashioned approach. The author does not seem truly to understand the people about whom he is writing, nor does he strive to do so. The views bred into him intervene all the time. He has no curiosity.” That’s exactly it. You’ve hit upon the problem very succinctly. Let’s turn it away.’
As he put down the report, his eyes had alighted on another manuscript on the desk and he brightened. ‘This one, however, isn’t bad. Have you time to take a look or shall I ask an outside reader?’
‘I’ll do it,’ she said firmly, taking it before he could change his mind. She sensed his eyes on her as she left the room.
She took the keys Mrs Fortinbras held out to her now, and waited till the woman had gone away upstairs. Then she set about unpacking her meagre possessions, lining up her shoes under the rickety bed, hanging her skirts and dresses on the crooked rail set in the alcove, arranging the books on the shelves by the fire. She missed her home with Penelope already, especially Gelert’s companionship. Her aunt had been faintly surprised when Isabel announced that she’d found her own place. Isabel was touched when Penelope had tried to make her stay, but she also sensed the woman’s relief when she shook her head. ‘It’s too good an opportunity to miss,’ Isabel lied. She turned down suggestions of Reginald’s help and transported all her things in a taxi. After all, there wasn’t much.