‘We haven’t got any. We’ve only published one issue. So you’ve got to cod them – make the letters up.’
Secretly, Eugenie was appalled at the deception. But it meant that for the rest of her life, any fake letter in any publication was as obvious to her as a man in a wig.
*
Revel handed Eugenie the first copy of Stet and jabbed at the racing yacht on the cover. ‘Always work to do with a yacht, so we’ve got a piece – that means an article – a piece on what the aspiring owner might not realise is involved. Tricky piece for me to pull off. Needed to be buoyant, as it were, and informative, but not so it put off any know-all yachties. So start with that. Then say something about the book reviews. Rhoda handles the books. She lives in Cambridge. Now, the business news is ‘by our Business Editor’ but that’s Tony – Sir Anthony, so don’t cock up on that one. In case you run out of ideas, there’s the Telegraph on your desk. Their letters page is first rate. I need eight letters, so off you go. And don’t make a meal of it. I’ve got something else very important for you to do.’
At ten o’clock Mr Herbert appeared with the tea trolley. He was a kindly looking man with wispy greying hair. ‘Tea or coffee, Miss, and there’s chocolate biscuits, but they’re really for Mr Rooke.’
Rushed for time, Eugenie couldn’t do more than scan Revel’s yachting piece. Pity, because it was very informative. It was by-lined R.A. Pemberton, conjouring up a jolly old cove, who probably signed his letters to the Telegraph, R.N (Retd.)
By twenty to eleven, Eugenie was standing in front of Revel’s desk, with the typed cod letters to present to him. Her hands were shaking, and clammy. Her first assignment! Suppose he choked laughing on his chocolate biscuit?
‘I really liked the yachting piece, Revel. I must show it to my husband. He wants to go round the world. Is R.A. Pemberton your nom de plume?’
She was rather proud of dredging up nom de plume from her French O-Level class. Not bad for someone who was taught French by a woman with a Peckham accent.
Revel said absently, busy with his green ink on the sheaf of letters, ‘Journalists don’t have nom de plumes. We have cod names, like you’ve done cod letters.’
He went back to the yachting letter, which Eugenie had started,
‘What a bright and breezy article giving insights into the yaching world! Made me think I must get off quick sharp to the briny!’
Following a lead from the Telegraph, she had signed it from, ‘Major Tomlinson, Tonbridge Wells.’
‘Just a tip, Eugenie. Cut the screamers.’
‘The what?’
‘Screamers. Exclamation marks. Unprofessional. And we’ll end it, ‘Made me yearn to ‘Go down to the sea again. To the lonely sea and the sky.’
He saw her blank look. ‘Masefield. John. And we’ll just sign it, Tight Lines, Tonbridge. Tight Lines!’ he explained, ‘is a yachtie way of saying goodbye. It’s like if you belong to the Lions’ Club, you end a letter: Yours with a roar! And if someone asks how you are, you say Roaringly good! Anyway, talking of poetry,’ he shuffled to the last page of her literary endeavour, which Eugenie had shoved in just to fill up the space. ‘Thank you for all your entries to the Stet Poetry Competion. We have been deluged! The winner will be announced –‘
‘I left a blank. I didn’t know when –‘
‘No. Well we’ll talk about that later. This is all very good, Eugenie. Now just retype it all, as I’ve subbed it and then I’ve got a very important job for you.’
Eugenie returned to her typewriter. ‘Subbed’ she gathered, meant edited. She pounded at the the round keys of the ancient Remington. It was hard work, as the keys didn’t have the necessary spring in them. Perhaps Mr Herbert could oil them.
Draughty window, sluggish typewriter, no clue what I’m doing but learning fast. I just love all this. Love it.
‘Start a file,’ Revel was saying. ‘Mark it, Stet Issue Two, Confirmed Copy.’ Copy is what we call all editorial material.’
From the bottom drawer of his red filing cabinet, Revel took a bulky parcel, wrapped in brown paper. ‘This is my novel. Now take great care of it. That’s my only copy. I want you to take it down the road to Strand Garrick Publishing. Say I wrote it and am available for lunch at the Editorial Director’s convenience.’
She found the offices of Strand Garrick situated between a coffee bar and a dress shop selling theatrical evening gowns, garnished with sequins, feathers and featuring the kind of flowing, medieval sleeves that always got caught on door handles.
Feeling too nervous to enter a publishing office, Eugenie bought time by diving into the coffee bar and stealthily opening the brown paper parcel. Revel’s novel was written in green ink on his foolscap yellow pad.
She read, ‘SEARCHING FOR BOBO. A novel by REVEL ROOKE. CHAPTER ONE.
‘I was born in the picturesque Oxfordshire village of Guilden Malden. As a second child, I was born at home. Second children often were, and often still are, born at home.
Home was a pleasant house in the middle of the village, opposite the church. How well I remember the sound of the church bells, joyful on Sundays and for the weddings, and mournful when the passing bell tolled for a departed Christian soul of the parish.
My mother, a devout woman, was so caught up in parish affairs that she forgot to feed me. She just forgot. My brother used to hear me crying and come and try and feed me toast.
It was the most distressing experience of my life, going hungry like that. You may say I can’t possibly remember but somehow, I do remember how it was for me as a newborn babe, that gnawing hunger that pitiful helplessness…’
No mention of a father. And Bobo, she guessed, was Revel’s childhood name and the novel was about his search for the carefree innocent he had been, once he’d got over his mother starving him. Or perhaps it was about the boyhood he wished he’d had?
Eugenie couldn’t care less. Let Strand Garrick deal with it.
In Strand Garrick’s reception area, Eugenie manouevered her high-heels carefully across the chipped black and white tiled floor. Behind the desk, beside a switchboard, the middle-aged receptionist sat knitting.
‘Goodmorning!’ Eugenie began brightly. She placed Revel’s package on the desk. ‘I’ve brought you in a novel.’
The woman looked aghast.
Then she gabbled, as if from a script, ‘We can’t look at unsolicited manuscripts. It’s Strand Garrick policy.’
‘Yes, but this is different. This is by Revel Rooke, the editor of Stet magazine. Look, I brought you in a copy. Of the magazine.’
The receptionist eyed Stet and then glanced down at her wastepaper basket.
‘Perhaps I could have a word with one of your editorial people.’ Eugenie urged, turning to find somewhere to sit down. ‘I’ll wait.’
The receptionist swivelled round to her switchboard and plugged in what looked like a white Biro. ‘Veronica? Sorry to disturb you. I’ve got someone here with a manuscript…yes, a manuscript…I have told her…she says she’ll wait. Oh would you? Thanks indeedy.’
She unplugged and without a further word to Eugenie, returned to her knitting.
The only place for Eugenie to sit was on a cushionless stone bench. She could feel her bottom beginning to freeze and remembered all her mother’s strictures about what would happen if she sat on cold ground. Eugenie was looking round the reception area for a toilet, when the lift door clanged open and a harassed-looking girl marched out. She had wild dark hair that looked in need of a wash, and was wearing a baggy dress in drab olive. Her socks were olive and her plimsols had, presumably, at one time been white.
‘Yes?’ barked the girl.
‘Goodmorning!’ Fixing on a smile, Eugenie went to the reception desk and picked up Revel’s parcel. ‘I brought this in to show you.’
The girl backed away as if the parcel was contagious. ‘That’s a manuscript!’ she said accusingly.
‘Well, yes. That’s what you do, isn’t it? Turn manuscripts into books
. Isn’t that what publishers do?’
‘You don’t understand. We don’t look at unsolicited material. You have to go through an agent. A literary agent. And we’re not taking on any new writers right now.’
‘Mr Rooke – the author – is not exactly a new writer. He’s a journalist of many years standing.’
Veronica looked as if she had just swallowed a wasp.
‘I’m sure if I can just show you a few chap –‘
‘No!’
And with that Veronica marched back into the lift, clanged shut the metal-grilled door and rose heavenwards.
The receptionist was busy counting stitches. No calls lit up the switchboard. Eugenie returned to the Stet office to break the bad news to Revel.
‘That’s right,’ he said cheerfully. ‘They say they won’t read unsolicited manuscripts. They’re all looking for the next big money-making author, but none of them will read a new writer’s work. Agents only get ten percent of a writer’s income, so to make it worthwhile they try and limit their list to writers who’ll earn huge advances. And most of the agents aren’t taking on new clients.’
Eugenie said, ‘So if the agent’s door is closed, and the publisher’s door is closed, how does a new writer get published? And how can a publisher find the next bestseller?’
‘We’ll just have to press on,’ Revel said robustly. ‘What did they think of the first few chapters?’
‘I – they –‘ Eugenie couldn’t tell him the way Veronica had regarded the parcel as if it should be fumigated. ‘They were a bit surprised it was handwritten.’
‘Yup. Fair point. I did ask Rhoda to type it, but she didn’t seem to hear me. You crack on with it, Eugenie, when you’ve got a spare minute. And don’t throw the original away. It’ll form part of my archive.’
‘Archive?’
‘Of course. A valuable resource, you see, for future would-be writers. All the crossings-out, the changes, the second thoughts reveal work in development, teach an aspiring writer a lot. I did a lot of it deliberately, actually. Makes the publisher think you’re working creatively. But the archive, I’ll probably offer all my papers to the British Library. Perhaps the Bodlean. Actually Tony, Sir Anthony, he’s heard of a university in Texas that pays for a writer’s archive. Even a laundry list can be highly prized.’
If you can find a publisher who will actually read the wretched manuscript, and turn you into a big name, Eugenie thought. She watched Revel shrugging on a stone-coloured gaberdine trenchchcoat. Instead of buckling it, he tied the belt in a knot. From the coatstand he took a trilby hat, which he wore tilted at a slightly rakish angle. To Eugenie, he looked like Humphrey Bogart in a film she couldn’t remember the name of.
Revel handed her a small carrier bag. ‘Poetry competition entries. You can be chief judge.’
David can be chief judge, Eugenie decided. She’d take them home with her tonight.
‘Just make sure, Eugenie, you pick a good winner.’
‘What’s a good winner?’
‘Something by a Muriel of Hull. And try not to choose something that rhymes.’
Eugenie had never read a poem that didn’t rhyme. ‘What’s the prize?’
‘A tenner, and we print the poem. Runner up gets just a mention. I won’t be back this afternoon. If Rhoda rings, tell her I’m out chasing an important story.’
‘Right. What about Sir Anthony?’
‘He won’t call. He’ll be with me. If there is anything urgent, you can ring El Vino’s. Number in my contacts book.’
Revel handed her the manuscript, tipped his hat a shade further forward, and disappeared.
‘It was like that party game, pass the parcel,’ Eugenie reported to David. ‘I gave it to the receptionist, who didn’t want it. I took it back. Tried to give it to this Veronica bird, who didn’t want it. I took it back to Revel, who gave it back to me.’
‘Sounds a lot more fun than the day I’ve had,’ David said, shutting his revision notes on Gustavus Adolphus. ‘Dawson says if there isn’t a question on the fucking Thirty Years War he’ll personally take a bunch of spanners to that history teacher.’
‘I didn’t think Dawson was bothering with A-Levels,’ Eugenie said. ‘You told me he was going to work in his father’s garage, crouched in a pit underneath a car leaking oil.’
‘He is, but his dad wants him to do a proper apprenticeship. Takes years, but Dawson’s worked out he gets some sort of remission if he’s got his A’s. You hungry? I’ve put the casserole in the oven.’
They had spent all day Saturday planning the week’s meals. There were eggs, cheese, bacon, along with tins of baked beans and tomato soup for David’s lunches. Eugenie had made a light, chicken casserole for Monday and Tuesday, fish cakes for Wednesday and Thursday. Friday, while the caretaker’s wife came in to clean, the Plantagenet team planned to go out for a boozy lunch before coming home to bed.
‘Nineteen entries,’ David said, laying out the poetry competition booty on the dining room table.
‘Revel says I’m supposed to find one from Muriel of Hull. That would be a good winner.’
She poured them both gin and tonics. When she’d put the ice tray back in the fridge, David called, ‘Will Muriel from Wolverhampton do?’
Eugenie hurried back in with the drinks, and snatched up an entry, written in neat, copperplate handwriting, from Muriel Greene (Mrs). It was the sort of poem that needed to be read aloud:
‘TO MY DEAR FRIEND
Just a line to say I’m living
That I’m not amongst the dead
Though I’m getting more forgetful
And mixed up in the head.
I’ve got used to middle age
To my dentures I’m resigned
I haven’t lost my specs yet
But how I miss my mind!
Sometimes I can’t remember
When I’m standing by the stair
If I should go up for something
Or have I just come down from there?
If it’s my turn to write dear
I hope you won’t get sore
I may think I have written
And don’t want to be a bore
So remember I do love you
And wish that you lived near
And now it’s time to post this
And to say goodbye, my dear.
P.S
As I stand before the postbox
My face did it get red
Instead of posting this to you
I opened it instead.’
Eugenie laughed. ‘I like it. But it can’t win. Revel doesn’t want anything that rhymes.’
‘It can’t win because it’s doggerel,’ David said firmly.
He passed her another entry, written in black ink, with an italic pen.
‘That,’ said David, ‘is your winner.’
Chapter Four
What a difference a day makes, thought Eugenie. Yesterday I was so nervous about starting work at Stet, I honestly wished there was a toilet in the lift.
And now, here I am, telling the editor in the same decisive way David told me, ‘Revel, this is your winner.’
Revel smoothed out the two neatly hand-written pages and read:
‘WHILE DUBLIN DROWNED
We flew away to Dublin.
It rained. And rained and rained and
Rained. And it rained.
In a café, we shared a Kit-Kat.
I wore a hat the blue of your eyes.
And while Dublin drowned, I fell in love.
We walked Black Water City in the rain.
Sheeting, bucketing rain
That deluged all past and all future
Leaving just the sound of our laughter.
We drifted, debating if the tide was coming in or going out.
We shared chocolate and mints
And sprints to steamy cafes
Everywhere umbrellas dripping
Windblown and abandoned and at the smart hotel
Sn
apped up by American tourists with superior
Luggage, leather-tagged PRIORITY FIRST CLASS.
We each had our own umbrella
Our own way of seeing from beneath.
You saw the dolphin in the pavement
And the shadows on the arches beyond the bridge.
I saw your hands shielding the graphed notebook
From the rain while you sketched.
I saw the way your breath stilled
When I told you, lightly, that I loved you.
And later, when I saw you thinking of another girl.
It didn’t matter. Then.’
Revel read aloud, ‘By Dreena Price. Aged seventeen-and-a-half.’
He sat back. ‘Bloody hell.’
*
‘You have got the camera?’ Eugenie said, on the Cardiff-bound train.
David patted his canvas satchel. ‘Of course I’ve got the camera. And a spare film. Black and white, like you said.’
Revel had made it clear Stet wasn’t prepared to run to colour photography. He’d baulked a bit when Eugenie had demanded twenty pounds for David’s fee, but she’d told him David was a professional and that was what he always charged.
‘She’ll be wearing school uniform.’ Eugenie told David.
‘You mean a gym slip?’
‘Don’t be silly. Girls never wear gym slips these days.’
David decided not to mention the girls in the strip club Art had taken him to.
‘The mother said the summer uniform was a striped cotton, so I asked for the winter uniform, with a blouse and tie.’
‘Do you know what the dad does?’
‘She said he’s away.’
‘Means he’s banged up. Wonder what for?’
The Price house turned out to be in a small terrace near the station. They were greeted by a dumpy woman wearing a spotted dress and white plastic sandals with sensible thick heels.
‘Dreena’s in the garden, waiting. She’s that excited!’
Most of the tiny lawn was taken up by a wooden table with bench seats attached at either side. Eugenie imagined the father, with his cronies, removing it from a pub garden.
Dreena swung smoothly round on her bench, and stood up. She was tall, with an oval face and pale blonde hair worn in two plaits. No make-up, and no jewellery apart from a gold watch.
In Bed with Mr. Plantagenet Page 7