Present from the dad? Eugenie wondered.
She sat with Dreena positioned beside her, and got out her notebook, while David armed himself with his camera.
‘Dreena, how did you feel when your mother told you you’d won?’
‘She was tickled pink!’ said the hovering mother. ‘I’ve not read the poem, mind you. She’s so secretive about all her scribblin’.
‘And Dreena, tell me, how did you come to see the first copy of Stet?’
‘It just appeared in the school library,’ Dreena said gravely. ‘I work in the library at lunchtimes. I like it. Peaceful there.’
Eugenie nodded. Revel would be pleased at the school angle. He’d told her that Babs, Lady Barbara, Tony’s wife, had persuaded him to send Stet for six months, free, to the best schools in the British Isles. ‘Catch ‘em young, Eugenie. Get them into the habit.’
‘What do you do in your spare time, Dreena? What hobbies –‘
‘She doesn’t have time for hobbies,’ the mother cut in. ‘There’s her exams to think of. Time enough for hobbies when she goes to university. She’s going to Aberystwyth.’
‘That’s a long way away,’ said David. He smiled at the girl. She smiled back.
‘She’ll be doing English. But they’ll expect her to speak some Welsh as well.’
Clearly, the mother had to be got rid of. Eugenie turned to her, ‘Mrs Price, would it be at all possible to have a cup of tea?’
‘Oh, I’m forgetting my manners! I’ve got the tray all ready.’
As soon as she’d gone, Eugenie said, ‘Tell me about Dublin. Who was it you went with?’
‘My auntie. Her brother lives there.’
‘And did you walk round Dublin, in the rain, with your uncle?’
‘No. My cousin Dicky.’ Dreena pulled a face. ‘He’s thirteen.’
‘And the posh hotel?’
‘Oh yes. The Shelbourne. We didn’t stay there, of course. My auntie took Dicky and me for tea. He made a right pig of himself.’
‘So – the poem. It all sounds so real. It sounds as if you really were with someone very special…’
‘Yes,’ Dreena said dreamily. ‘I was, in my head. Mum says I live too much in my head. But I thought, what if I was with someone nice? Someone who wasn’t a boring little squirt like Dicky. Someone who made my heart race…’
Eugenie murmured, ‘Do you have a boyfriend, Dreena?’
‘No.’
But her pale skin was flushed pink. She had picked up Eugenie’s pencil and was holding it with a far-away look in her grey eyes. David captured the moment.
‘Here we are!’ Mrs Price bustled back and laid the tea tray on the table. Cubed sugar. Best cups. Willow-pattern.
‘I’ll just get the sandwiches. No don’t play mother, Dreena. I’ll pour. I don’t want you dribbling tea down that blouse. Took me an age getting it starched up.’
‘You’ve won ten pounds,’ Eugenie said softly. ‘What will you spend it on?’
‘A present.’
‘For -?’
‘Here we are! Fish paste. Sardine and tomato. It’s your favourite, isn’t it Dreena. Hope that’s all right for you, Miss Dare.’
‘Evie. And yes, I love sardine and tomato.’
David declined, saying if he got a smudge on his lens his editor would tell him off.
‘Do you like the milk in first or after Miss – Evie?’
‘Oh just as it comes, thankyou.’ What an infuriating woman. She wanted to ask more about the dad. Did Dreena visit him in clink? Was the tenner destined for him? And then there was this boyfriend. Was he going to the same university? But the only way she would ever get close to all that is if they were able to take Dreena down the pub and get her tanked up on gin and orange. Not a hope.
Eugenie eyed the girl as the seventeen-year-old politely passed round the sandwich plate and then tore into the food herself. You’re getting ready, Eugenie thought. Waiting to begin your life, planning, preparing, sifting, considering what you want for your future, and what you don’t want. Thinking about the person you want to be.
You’re going to have a high old time at Aberystwyth. Hundreds of miles away from home, your hair loose, as much make-up as you want, as many new clothes as you can afford. The boys are going to fall all over you. David certainly seems interested. Well why not? You’re both the same age, you don’t know David and I are married and anyway I probably seem very old to you. Almost another generation. Damn it.
While David took the tea tray inside for Mrs Price, Eugenie had one last shot at Dreena.
‘What would you like to do – what’s your big ambition for the future?’
‘Oh, I – well, one day, what I’d really love is to write a novel.’
Well who doesn’t? There’s Revel fruitlessly Searching for Bobo, me stuck with Minx and now Welsh Wonder you, waiting confidently for the Muse to come and give you a big hug. Eugenie was beginning to understand why, at Strand Garrick Publishing, Veronica had looked so pained.
*
The train back to Paddington was slow and so crowded, she and David couldn’t get seats together. As the train crawled into London, David yelled at her that he’d got to rush off, get the film developed and printed up. Art had said he could use the Slade darkroom. Art wasn’t officially at the Slade yet, but somehow he’d gained access.
‘Do you know how to do developing?’
‘No. Art wants to teach me.’
Watching David run off up the Paddington platform, Eugenie wondered why they weren’t both both wearing L-Plates. She was learning a new job, he was learning about photography. Together, they had learned about foreign food, ready for his big trip. And they were both novices at marriage.
That night, in bed, when they’d made love, David said, ‘The dad. He’s in for eight years. GBH.’
‘Did the mother tell you? I heard you in the kitchen, pretending you just loved washing up! I bet Dreena’s going to spend the tenner on a present for the dad. What do you buy someone who’s in prison?’
‘Fags. Fags are currency in clink.’
She laid her head on his stomach. ‘What did you think of Dreena?’
‘I think she’ll be a right handful.’
Future tense. No conditional: She would be, Eugenie noted. Instead: She will be.
‘David, when you go away, will you be faithful to me?’
‘I’ll be as faithful as you are.’
‘Why did you want to marry me?’
‘I wanted to leave you with my ring on your finger.’
‘I could take it off.’
‘You could. Certainly you could. But I don’t think you will.’
‘I couldn’t get much out of her,’ Eugenie said apologetically to Revel.
‘Not to worry,’ he said equably. ‘It’s the age. Seventeen. You should hear Tony’s eldest. Araminta. It’s all Dunno, What? Not goin’. Might. Dunno. Drives Babs wild. I mean, the kid’s at a posh school. Costs Tony a bloody fortune so they can educate a kid to talk in monosyllables.’
He was looking at David’s pictures. ‘These are great.’
‘Yes, she – he seemed to have quite a way with her.’
‘He could come in, take some cover shots of me, to go on my book jacket.’
Revel’s novel, typed by Eugenie, was ready to be sent off to Macmillan. Eugenie, having read Revel’s file marked Novel Attack, knew that Strand Garrick had not been the first publisher to be approached. Revel had been trying for the past eighteen months, and the rejections had flooded back to an address in Soho.
They were all polite, except for one which was a scrawled note bearing the dismissive message, ‘Thank you for thinking of us.’ Thank you, and goodnight.
Most of them took refuge in regret, list full, can’t accept new writers, difficult time in publishing, cost of paper, cost of distribution, fuck off. One of them came up with a word that sent Eugenie reaching for the dictionary: ‘I appreciate that I have been an unconscionable time in replying…�
��
This almost unpronouncable word, Eugenie learnt, simply meant ‘excessive’. The letter was from the editorial director of Macmillan.
‘Revel, you said to send your novel off to Macmillan. But haven’t they already seen it?’
It was impossible to crush Revel. ‘Yeah, but the editorial director could have changed. The new guy might think differently. All I need, you see, is for it to strike a chord. For someone to think, Oh my God. This is all about me. This is my story.’
Eugenie said carefully, ‘Surely, Revel…surely Bobo is unique.’
Revel beamed. ‘You should be in publishing, Eugenie. You know more than all those other twats put together.’
Eugenie rang Macmillan and asked for the name of the editorial director. ‘Revel, it’s the same name.’
Revel grinned. ‘Okay. Be interesting to see if he remembers.’
Tuesday was Stet publication day. Eugenie grabbed a copy from the pile on one of the many spare desks in the office.
She turned at once to the Competitions page. Revel had stood over her and dictated the copy:
‘Headline, DREENA’S DREAM COMES TRUE
‘Never did I think,’ said seventeen-year-old Cardiff schoolgirl.
Dreena Price, ‘that I would actually be the winner of the first Stet poetry competion. When I picked up the magazine in the school library I didn’t imagine – blah, blah – many congratulations from all of us at Stet – good luck to Dreena in what we are sure will be a glittering future.’
It didn’t worry Eugenie that Revel had masterminded the words. There, in print, was her first byline, ‘Interview by Evie Dare.’ And underneath, ‘Pictures: Plantagenet.’ And there, in print, was Dreena’s poem.
Revel had chosen two of David’s photos to top and tail the page. One of Dreena dreamily holding Eugenie’s shorthand pencil, in front of Eugenie’s shorthand notebook. In the other she was laughing – at something David had said.
Eugenie slid a copy into an envelope, added a comp. slip with the message, ‘Dreena, it was lovely meeting you, see page 19.’ And addressed it to the Price Cardiff home.
She didn’t have time to study the rest of the magazine, to revel in the new, shiny smell of it, because the editor had a job for her.
‘We know we’ve got Stet into school libraries. No point in bothering with universities, all those sponging kids want to do is get pissed. Babs – Lady Barbara – has put the arm on the big stores, Harrods, Selfridges, all that, to make sure they’re stocking it. What I want you to do, Eugenie, is go round all the station bookstalls, Tubes and mainline, and check if they’ve got it. And don’t forget those bastards, W.H. Smith. If they’ve got it, move it up to eye level. If they haven’t got it, get operatic. You’re amazed, astounded, why, all of London’s talking about it. Keep saying Stet. Keep saying the name.’
At Charing Cross mainline, the man said, ‘Yeah, I think we had it. But it’s gone. Nicked, most like. Didn’t it have a picture of a cricketer on the cover?’
Eugenie nodded. It was three in the afternoon, and she was exhausted.
‘Sport. Well there you are then,’ the man said sagely.
Eugenie collapsed in the station buffet with a bun and a cup of tea. From her bag she took one of eleven copies of Stet that she had been able to buy on her wearing trek round London.
The cover showed a demon England bowler. Revel’s cover-line read, SUMMER SPORT. WILL ENGLAND’S HOPES TURN TO ASHES?
Page 1 was devoted to A Letter from the Editor and was headlined,
SWITCH ON, BBC!
‘The BBC has published a document called Broadcasting in the Seventies – a blueprint for the next decade. It deals with drama, music, the arts, light entertainment, everything Auntie BBC is supposed to be good at.
But nowhere to be found in the document is the word Sport. We have some of the world’s greatest sportsmen. Stirling Moss, Henry Cooper, to name but two.’
‘Excuse me, Revel,’ Eugenie had interrupted his dictation. ‘Would it be a good idea to mention some women sports stars?’
‘Like who?’ Revel grinned. ‘Stumped you there! Okay. Let’s press on. New par:
‘And then there’s cricket. The game we invented and taught the world to play. The sound of willow on leather is as much a sound of summer as the sound, yes, of summer rain.
Who can forget, on Test Match Special, the sound of the great Colin Cowdray urging people from the crowd to help him in forking the sodden turf and mopping up so that Derek Underwood could bowl Australia out against the clock just before close of play?
Who’s forgotten? Dear old Auntie BBC, that’s who.’
Revel had then thrown a sop in the direction of his female readers, talking of Wimbledon, strawberries and cream, don’t forget your brollies, girls!
When Eugenie dragged her aching feet back to Garrick Street, the porter said, ‘He’s gone out Miss. Said for you to get off home.’
David was already at the flat, having done his first A-Level. Geography.
‘Art didn’t bother turning up. The Slade have already given him the nod. Dawson thinks he flunked. Answered the wrong question. It said, Using your field study, describe how the Lake District – something or other. What Dawson forgot was that we didn’t do any field study in the Lakes.’
She handed him a copy of Stet, turned to page 19.
‘Oh Marigold! My pics! Doesn’t Dreena look terrific.’
‘Revel was very pleased. He wants you to take some shots of him for his bookjacket. I said you couldn’t do it till July, you were totally booked up. By then p’raps he’ll have found someone, at some publisher, who’s his soulmate, and wants to take a gamble on him.’
*
Arriving at the office the following morning, Eugenie saw that a cork board had been attached to one of the stained side walls. Revel complained that the last occupants of the office had obviously been heavy smokers, because all the cream paint was tinged a yellowy-brown.
Now Revel was striding up and down in front of the cork board. ‘This, Eugenie, is the Stet Wailing Wall. At the Mirror, every department had a Wailing Wall. It was where you pinned up funny pics with cartoon bubbles, something you’d read that was actually interesting, crap from rival newspapers, whatever took your fancy. And of course, it was ever-changing, so always a good laugh.’
Eugenie stared at the cork board. ‘But Revel, there’s nothing on ours.’
‘Of course there’s not! We’re only just starting. Hang on, tell you what –‘
He rushed across to his desk, seized his yellow pad and wrote, in his green ink:
‘Nobody ever committed suicide while reading a good book, but many have tried while attempting to write one.’
‘Who said that, Revel?’
‘God knows. Here, pin it up.’
While Eugenie was pressing in the drawing pins, Revel was busy scribbling. ‘New competition, Eugenie. They get the magazine talked about. We must keep up the impetus. Now, in this new one, people will be invited to suggest a bequest they receive that they absolutely don’t want.’
‘That sounds fun,’ Eugenie laughed. ‘I could –‘
‘I’ve already composed the winning entry, from Basil Furlong, address in Normandy. Gives Stet an international flavour.’
‘And what has Mr Furlong received that he doesn’t want?’
‘A suitcase stuffed with unfinished short stories. And three cats. Happened to one of the secretaries on the Mirror. She had to be sent home. We didn’t see her again for weeks.’
Seeing that Revel was in an expansive mood, Eugenie said, ‘How long did you work on the Mirror for?’
Revel laughed, and patted the bentwood chair beside his desk. ‘Come and sit down. I’ll tell you. Point is, I used to live in Soho. Used to use a pub called the French. Not it’s real name – Coach and Horses I think – everyone calls it the French. Chap in there, a right regular, I just knew him as Tony. Used to turn up in South Sea Island shirts, palm trees, the amusing octopus or two.
‘One afternoon, Tony said he wanted to start a magazine. Something serious. He felt, he said, he should start to do something with his life. Good for you, I said, getting in another round. Then he landed me with the info that he wanted me to be editor. I said, Tony old chap, I said, I don’t know anything about editing, reporting, all that. He said, I know. But you look as if you do.’
Of course, Eugenie thought. Revel’s trademark gaberdine trenchcoat, the rakish trilby, straight out of the movies.
‘Anyway, Tony realised I’d got to bone up, and he told me to hoof it down to the Mirror. He had contacts there. He fixed it so I spent two weeks on the News Desk, and two on Features. I wasn’t allowed to do any actual scribbling, of course – bloody unions – but I could listen, and learn and go drinking with the lads. They drank just over the road, at the Stab. Not it’s real name, mark you. White Hart, maybe. Just about everything they earned went down their throats. And the way they were earning! The guy who did the Andy Capp cartoon, he was pulling in forty grand a year.’
‘So – Tony turned out to be Sir Anthony Charles? What did he get his knighthood for?’
‘Buggered if I know. Probably didn’t hurt, though, that Cowes week, he lends his yacht to Prince Philip. And then Tony met Babs. She was running a flower shop called Babs’ Blooms. Tony began to haunt the place. He married Babs, got her pregnant pretty damn quick, and got her smart as well. Suddenly, at all the charity do’s, the society do’s these wonderful flowers appeared on every table, with an elegant card saying, Flowers courtesy of Barbara Charles. And these toffs, you know, snatch anything for nothing, so end of an evening, they’d make off with the flowers. And they remembered the name. Barbara Charles. So she was flying. Society weddings, balls, parties, you were stuffed if your flowers weren’t done by Barbara Charles.’
‘Barbara Charles? Hasn’t she just done something for us?’
‘Yeah. Chelsea Flower Show. Kicks off the society season. Should have gone in the first issue, but Babs didn’t get it done in time. Unprofessional. I told her, on the Mirror, you’d have got bollocked for that.’
In Bed with Mr. Plantagenet Page 8