by PETER DAVEY
“It should have been published under your name, Mr. Haymer.”
He took a thoughtful draught of his beer. “Yeah, well, you should’ve told that to your fucking boss, shouldn't you? Excuse my language.”
“I did,” said Dominic.
He looked up at him. “You did?”
“Yes. I did.”
“And he ignored you?”
“I was just an editorial assistant at the time. I’d only been in the job a few months.”
Edward Haymer became thoughtful for a while then drained his drink. “So, what’s he like?”
“I’m sorry, what’s who like?”
“Your boss. Alistair Milner.”
Dominic suddenly felt trapped, a sensation intensified by being pinioned behind that ridiculous little table, his back mere inches from the scalding chimney-breast. “He’s a good bloke. Volatile. Eccentric. Passionate about what he does. He wasn’t always easy to work for but I grew very fond of him.”
His words were met with a cynical grunt.
“I really am sorry your book wasn’t accepted, Mr. Haymer. It should’ve been. If there’s… anything at all I can do.”
“Well, you can start by getting me another drink.”
Dominic was delighted to be able to unfurl himself and take a break from the heat and that penetrating stare. “I’d be glad to,” he said, sliding out of his seat. “Same again?”
“No, a brandy. And after what you’ve just told me, you’d better make it a double.”
On his way to the bar, Dominic sneaked a surreptitious glance inside his wallet. Five minutes later he returned with the brandy and a coke for himself but, before sitting down, he whipped off the Armani jacket Katie had found on EBay as part of her campaign to turn him, as she put it, ‘into a human being’. He was past caring what Edward Haymer thought.
“So what are you planning to do with this information you’ve uncovered?” he asked when Dominic was back in his seat.
“I want to put things right. I want the true authorship of that novel to be established and I want you to get the credit for it that you deserve.”
“Well, that’s very big of you. But why?”
“Why?”
“Yes. Why? You don’t know me. Why should you care?”
“Because I’m the only person who knows the truth – apart from you now, of course – and as an ex-employee of The Dragon’s Head, I feel partly responsible for what happened. And, to be honest, it would give me the greatest pleasure to get one over on someone like Nicola Carson. To me she represents everything that’s wrong with publishing nowadays.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, she’s young, pretty, totally cool. She’s eye candy, isn’t she?”
“Which I’m not?”
Dominic looked at him in confusion then realised, to his amazement, that he was making a joke.
“What I mean is, it’s all about packaging, isn’t it? Look at the rubbish they foist on you in bookshops nowadays – footballers, supermodels, film stars, celebrity chefs. And they’re not content with writing their boring autobiographies, they all want to write novels now as well for which they get six figure advances before their ghost-writer’s even switched on his laptop. And even so-called ‘literary’ writing’s just the same old names churning out the same old pretentious, self-adoring crap. What the industry needs is a shower bath of fresh, original talent – like yours.”
This time Edward Haymer not only smiled, he laughed. Dominic felt he was finally breaking through the ice. Unless it was the brandy.
“I do agree with a lot of what you say,” he said. “It used to make me angry too. Now I just don’t care.”
“Well, I care.”
“You’re still going to have to convince the rest of the world, though, which won’t be easy seeing as Nicola Carson’s a star. Film companies must invest millions in her and they’re not going to stand politely by and watch you destroy her credibility.”
“No, but if I can prove she plagiarised your book, there won’t be much they can do about it.”
“And how do you propose to do that?”
“I don’t know.” Dominic responded awkwardly. “I was hoping you might have some ideas.”
He thought for a moment. “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t even have the computer I wrote it on any more.”
“You didn’t back the files up somewhere else? On another computer maybe, or a memory stick?”
“You probably think I’m very irresponsible and my wife would agree with you. But I’m a different generation to you. I was brought up with typewriters – good old-fashioned typewriters with ribbons in. To me a manuscript isn’t a manuscript until you can hold it in your hands. I don’t even have a computer any more, since I don’t have electricity.”
“Well, there is... circumstantial evidence.”
He laughed. “I don’t think that’ll cut much ice with those red hot lawyers she’s going to throw at you.”
“But that novel’s a major piece of work! Surely no one can seriously believe it was written by a twenty-three-year-old girl – or however old she was at the time?”
“They believed it enough to give her a prize, according to you.”
“They had no reason not to believe it. But if you look at it again in the light of this allegation it becomes glaringly obvious. Most of the action takes place years before she was even born for a start.”
“She could have researched that.”
“No, it’s too authentic. I’ve been through that book with a toothcomb. There’s no question it was written from first-hand experience – your first-hand experience.”
They both lapsed into thoughtful silence.
“And you've no idea at all how she could have got her hands on your manuscript?”
He shook his head. “Have you still got those sample chapters I sent you?”
“No, stupidly I threw them away. I didn’t realise their significance until afterwards.”
“Just like I threw away that computer. If only we could see into the future, eh?”
They fell silent again, but there was something else Dominic had to say to this man – something he still could not bring himself to say, even though relations between them now seemed to have risen a few degrees above arctic. He changed the subject.
“Mr. Haymer, I understand your wife’s a solicitor.”
He looked up at Dominic in astonishment. “How the hell did you know that?”
“There was a reference to her on Google – a domestic assault case involving a young single mother – and I noticed she worked for a firm in Eastbourne. I took a chance and phoned her up, since Haymer isn’t a very common name. That was how I found you.”
“My God, you have been busy. And did you tell her about this?”
“No. I thought I should speak to you first. But her testimony would carry a tremendous amount of weight, surely?”
“My wife hates me. And she’s my ex-wife. We’re separated.”
“I’m sorry. But does she hate your writing as well?”
He gazed down at his brandy, of which he had already finished more than half. “I don’t know. It’s hard to say how she’d react to this news.”
“Are you going to tell her?”
“I doubt it. We don’t communicate these days.”
“Would you mind if I did?”
“Yes I bloody would!” he retorted. “If anyone’s going to tell her it’ll be me! In my own time!”
“Yes, yes, of course. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to...”
“Have you got a number I can reach you on?”
Dominic sensed this was his cue to leave. Edward Haymer had had enough of him. But he couldn’t leave – not without saying what he had really come to say. The whole journey would have been wasted if he left now. Nonetheless, he found himself fishing out his wallet, extracting an old Dragon’s Head business card and handing it to him. “My mobile number’s on there,” he said.
; “Look, why are you really doing this? Are you a journalist?”
“No! No, I’m just a lowly editor in a publishing house. Or I was. I just want to see justice done.”
“You’re a young man with a career, possibly a wife and kids. Why aren’t you just getting on with your life? Why are you involving yourself in something like this?”
“For a start, I haven’t got a wife and kids. And I haven’t got a job – not at the moment. I’ve been offered a job in California and my girlfriend and I are flying out there in just under a month. So I’m kind of in limbo.”
“Well, if you’re starting a new life in California, you should have far more important things on your mind than me and my novel. Don’t you have preparations you have to make?”
“My girlfriend’s doing all that. She’s in her element.”
He was staring at Dominic again, as though deciding whether or not to buy his account of his motives. “Well, that’s up to you. But as for me, I want nothing more to do with this. I’ve decided. As I said, I didn’t like that book and I’m quite happy with my life just the way it is. I’m working on stuff I’m satisfied with and one day – who knows? – someone might even deign to publish it. I don’t want to get tangled up in some high-profile scandal that could backfire on me and cost me millions in damages. Mainly because I haven’t got millions.”
“You mean… you’re just going to let her get away with it?”
“I don’t have any choice.”
“Well I’m sorry,” said Dominic, “but I just don’t think that’s right. You wrote that book. When people praise it, it should be you they’re praising.”
“I don’t care about praise.”
Yeah right, Dominic thought to himself. You’re a writer – you thirst for praise the way a dying man in the desert thirsts for water.
“I’d like to go on pursuing it, anyway. With your permission, of course.”
“You don’t need my permission. You’re free to do as you please.”
“Just the same, I’d rather do it with your blessing.”
He sighed with impatience, as though he’d reached the point where he’d say anything just to get rid of him. “Okay, you can have my blessing. But that’s all you’re having.”
Dominic’s eyes lingered a moment on the man across the little table from him. “Mr. Haymer, there is something else I have to tell you...”
“Not another earth-shattering revelation?”
He caught an expression on the bearded face which, inexplicably, looked close to hatred. And, all of a sudden, he needed the meeting to end too.
“No, it’s nothing. Forget it. I have to go.” And the next moment he was on his feet, holding out his hand. Edward Haymer, looking rather surprised, shook it.
Outside in the damp, cold air, Dominic suddenly felt he was going to throw up. He grabbed the little wooden gate at the entrance to the car park, bent over and took several long, deep breaths until he felt better. Then he straightened up and walked unsteadily back to his car.
*
“So did you find him?”
“Yes.”
“And did he know?”
“No, he didn’t. Or, at least, he said he didn’t. But there was something very weird about his reaction. I expected him to be grateful but he was so defensive.”
“It must have come as quite a shock.”
“I guess so.”
“And what happened to your shoes?”
Dominic knew she would notice his shoes, the purchase of which she had also supervised.
“It’s a long story.”
4
In the days following his trip to Wemborne, Dominic found himself in a state of acute frustration, not knowing how to move things forwards. Edward Haymer’s reaction to his bombshell had been so bizarre that he dared not contact him again but, nonetheless, he was determined not to waste what little time Katie had allotted him and so spent it going through Loss yet again, underlining sentences and passages in pencil and making notes in the margin. And the more he did so the more convinced he became that no sane person could believe this novel had been written by someone born in 1979. It bristled with little details – the tricks girls used for backcombing their hair in the sixties, the shudder of the Ford Capri when dropping from top into third in the seventies, the assassination of Kennedy and what it felt like to be on the brink of nuclear war, the excitement of the Beatles and the opening of the M1. It could be argued (and undoubtedly would be, by Nicola Carson’s lawyers) that these details could have been researched or obtained from an older relative, but having read thousands of manuscripts, Dominic could always pick up received material on his finely-tuned editor’s antennae. There was something about the way this author formed a unique poetry from the forgotten world of Wimpy Bars and tower blocks and the Soviet threat of world domination that convinced him that he (he was sure now that it was a ‘he’) had felt, not been told, what it was like to live through those decades.
On the evening of the fifth day, his mobile rang.
“Is that Mr. Sealy? Dominic?” said a male voice he did not recognise.
“Speaking.”
“Yes. Hello. It’s Ted. Ted Haymer. You came to see me the other day.”
Dominic’s heart soared. “Mr. Haymer! Hi!”
“Yes. Hello. I just wanted to… well, to apologise really. I think I may have been a bit brusque with you when we met. It was just the shock of being told that extraordinary news. But it was good of you to come all the way down here to put me in the picture. And if you’re still determined to pursue the matter… the thing is, you must understand that neither I nor my family can be involved financially in any way. We can’t be the plaintiffs is what I’m saying. As you know, my wife and I are separated but we have children and grandchildren we have to consider. We can’t take the risk.”
“No. Okay. I understand.”
“I mean, if Nicola Carson decides to sue someone for defamation of character or whatever, then you and I have never met.”
“Right.”
“But unofficially I’ll try and give you whatever help I can. Though, like I said, I’m not sure that it’ll be very much.”
“I’m really glad you feel that way.”
“I still think it’s going to be an uphill struggle, though.”
“It will be. But it’ll be worth it.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Dominic hesitated. “So… about your wife. She could prove a tremendous asset.”
The line went quiet for a while. “I really don’t want to involve her.”
Dominic sighed inwardly. “Mr. Haymer, I don’t mean to be presumptuous. I don’t know your wife, I’ve only spoken to her on the phone, but I’m guessing she’s a highly intelligent woman.”
“She certainly is that.”
“And it seems, therefore, inconceivable that she doesn’t respect your writing.”
“Yes, to do her justice, she always has.”
“So to have her testify would carry a tremendous amount of weight. It might even swing it.”
His words were met with silence.
“One thing I’ve learned in my six years in publishing,” he battled on, “is that it’s a cut-throat business and becoming more so by the day. And there’s a lot more to it than just good writing. If we won this case you’d become a famous author overnight – you wouldn’t just be any old published author, you’d be the author whose work was plagiarised by Nicola Carson. You’d be riding on the back of her fame. In fact, it could turn out to be the biggest career opportunity you could have hoped for. So we need to give it everything we’ve got – including your wife.”
Another silence.
“I can’t be the one to tell her,” he said at last. “She’ll think I’ve got some sort of agenda. Maybe if you could tell her? If you wouldn’t mind...”
“Okay.”
“But I don’t want her to feel coerced in any way. Just inform her of the facts, like you did me, and see how she react
s. I want her to be free to make her own decision as to whether she supports me or not. If she wants to have nothing to do with it, then leave it. Don’t try to persuade her.”
“I’ll phone her then. See if I can arrange a meeting.”
*
Dominic’s second conversation with Anne Haymer proved even more awkward than the first.
“It’s Dominic Sealy again, Mrs. Haymer. You may remember we spoke a few days ago when I was trying to find out your husband’s whereabouts.”
“I remember.”
“Well, I went to see him and… there’s something very important I have to tell you concerning him.”
“Can’t he tell me himself, whatever it is?”
“No he, he said he’d prefer it if I told you.”
A pause.
“Look, Mr. Sealy, if you don’t mind my saying so I’m finding this all very mysterious. What exactly is your connection with my husband?”
“I’d really much rather we discussed it face to face. You just name the place – I’ll come to you. It really is very important, Mrs. Haymer.”
The line went silent again.
“I don’t like discussing private matters in my office. There’s a café called Gooseberries a few doors down the road where I sometimes go for morning coffee. Meet me there tomorrow at eleven. I’ll give you directions.”
*
‘Gooseberries’, when he finally found it – sweating, stressed and out of breath – was bland and functional, the sort of place which makes an adequate living selling tea and snacks to shoppers and workers and aspires to nothing more. Dominic paused in the entrance to compose himself. Only three tables were occupied and it was easy to spot Anne Haymer since she was the only customer sitting alone. She looked up from her newspaper as he approached.
“Mrs. Haymer? I’m so sorry I’m late. I got stuck in a traffic jam on the M25.”
“They happen,” she remarked with little sympathy as they shook hands.
“Can I get you anything?”
“No, I’m fine, thank you.”
Dominic was too overwrought to order anything for himself. He sat down opposite her and cast a few nervous glances around the room, smiling as his eyes alighted, briefly, on her face. She was much prettier than in the headshot on her firm’s website – in fact she was quite a looker for a woman who must have been well into her fifties, with her silvery-blonde hair neatly cut and just a judicious touch of jewellery and makeup. He was not surprised that she and Edward Haymer had split up – he couldn’t imagine how they had ever got together in the first place.