by Jemma Harvey
‘No,’ said Georgie, showing hackle.
Ivor looked nonplussed, for the first time thrown off his stride.
‘She’s an adult,’ Georgie said. ‘Why should we feel protective? She can look after herself.’ Bullshit, of course, but at least Ivor was disconcerted.
He struggled to pick up his thread again. ‘Anyway, you care about her a great deal. Everybody must: she’s so gentle, so lovely . . . I want to tell you that I would never hurt her. I really do love her. This must seem very quick to you – though we got to know each other by e-mail over several weeks—’
‘Three,’ Georgie said. ‘Not exactly several. Three weeks.’
‘I’m not sure. It seemed longer. We had so much to say, swapped so many ideas . . . When we met, it was the same for both of us. A sort of recognition . . . I don’t know if it’s ever happened to you.’
‘No.’ Georgie again.
‘From now on, I’m going to take care of her,’ Ivor persisted. ‘Nothing and no one’s going to hurt her again. You don’t have to worry about her any more.’
‘We weren’t worried,’ Georgie snapped.
Afterwards, when we had left Lin alone with him, she declared sweepingly: ‘He’s a phoney.’
‘He sounded okay when he talked about teaching,’ I said. ‘Anyhow, it’s always hard for a guy to explain his – his intentions to family and friends. Think of the prospective groom in Father of the Bride. Sincerity is difficult to do when you really mean it.’
‘I’ve never tried,’ Georgie admitted.
‘English isn’t a good language for expressing genuine feelings,’ I asserted, profoundly. ‘We’re too reserved – too ironic – the stiff upper lip – the floppy lower lip – all that stuff. It works better in French.’
‘Merde,’ said Georgie.
Two days later, Ivor and Lin had their second dinner date, and he moved in.
I’m running ahead of myself here. Lin’s new romance wasn’t the only thing happening in our lives at that time, but once you pick up a story-line, it’s simpler to run with it until you reach a convenient place to stop, regardless of any action on the side. I know that’s not how it’s done, of course. I managed better in the previous chapter, jumping about from scene to scene, following everyone at once. Modern writers usually do it that way, and if they don’t, editors are supposed to correct them. Today’s reader – so we are told – has a short attention span and is easily confused. The book is competing with other distractions: the portable CD player, the computer screen with all its charms, the conversation of fellow travellers on train or tube. So the reader needs to be able to dip in and out of a book without getting lost. Zooming to and fro in time is therefore discouraged (except in fantasy and SF, where you can get away with anything, on the assumption that your readers are sad freaks who have few distractions in their lives and, as a result, phenomenal powers of concentration). However . . .
Going back a few days, I took Todd Jarman to lunch. This is traditional after intensive editorial effort and an equally strenuous response from the author: in theory, it’s a treat for the latter, but in practice it should be a treat for both. Of course, a few editors disdain tradition, and some authors don’t want to see any more of their colleagues than is strictly necessary (this is called being a recluse, and is generally popular with publishers), but overall the custom has survived, unlike the defunct wood-panelling and gentlemanly contracts of yore. The literary lunch remains a staple of doing business in the publishing world.
I looked forward to my date with Jarman (if you could call it that) with mixed feelings. I didn’t like him, naturally I didn’t, he was arrogant and difficult and a pain to work with. But I’d enjoyed editing his book, being difficult back – I’d been exhilarated by the sense of freedom I experienced, so far only with him, the freedom to be spiky, provocative, even offensive. With anyone else, the smart remarks – if they occurred to me – stayed in my head. And at a previous meeting, he’d been almost complimentary about my figure, though Helen Aucham would doubtless still consider me a lump. More than almost. Of course, perhaps he was merely being kind, perish the thought – but saturnine types aren’t usually given to that sort of kindness. It doesn’t go with saturnity. Anyhow, rejecting the charms of Mean Cuisine, I hovered indecisively over several possibilities before consulting Georgie. Like all the best PR people, she knows every restaurant worth knowing and can get a table at short notice even in the most sought-after venues. ‘The Gay Hussar,’ she said promptly, when I had explained my requirements. ‘Leave it to me.’
She was looking a little happier that day, almost back to normal levels of vivacity. Apparently, she and Cal had had a brief but polysyllabic exchange that morning, which indicated the ice might be about to thaw.
‘Don’t push it,’ I advised. ‘Let him come to you.’ As if I would’ve done any such thing. It’s so easy to know the right moves – for other people.
‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘I’m older than you: remember?’ When not bewailing her advanced years, she makes use of them. ‘I’ve been around the block – much too often. I can be patient.’
I didn’t comment. Patience is not one of Georgie’s virtues.
However, she sent me an e-mail shortly after confirming the booking at the restaurant and I met Todd Jarman there later that week.
On the way, I found myself thinking about his hero, D.I. Jake Hatchett – a far more complex piece of self-portraiture than Jerry Beauman’s Disneyfied alter ego. The Beauman character resembled the original only in the most superficial, rose-tinted way, Jerry as he wished to be seen, or possibly as he saw himself: trusting, wronged, oozing noble qualities, yet intelligent and capable of outwitting his enemies. Having worked with Jerry, I was quite prepared to believe that he suppressed any awareness of his own cunning, manipulative, criminal nature, or any of the defects which had earned him public derision and private disdain. He saw himself as a one-dimensional, cardboard figure, and wrote (or tried to write) accordingly. But Todd had penned his own likeness with perception, some depth, a glimmering of artistic truth. That’s a quality you can’t define, but you always know when it’s there. Hatchett was mean and moody, difficult to get along with, a pain to colleagues who failed to understand the ragged principles to which he clung. Those in authority rarely praised him, even when he got his man – which, of course, he usually did. In some ways the classic hero-cop, he was a survivor rather than a success, cast in a mould that has actually varied little from Dirty Harry to Inspector Morse. But he was also self-doubting, occasionally wrong-headed, a failure in his relationships, above all, a man who made mistakes. And Hatchett, beneath his gritty exterior, was capable of the odd act of kindness, though only to homeless alkies or junkies, a rent-boy dying of AIDS, a whore whose ’eart of gold had been transformed into lead by the touchstone of life. (He would have had no time to be kind to a dumpy bourgeoise with an Oxford degree who presumed to tell him how to be a good cop.) Jarman saw the world as a dark, violent, grubby place where Hatchett walked alone, trying to change some small thing for the better, and generally failing.
On which thought I reached the restaurant, and there he was, not looking mean and moody but actually quite welcoming, in a saturnine sort of way. I apologised for my lateness (five minutes), pleading a meeting which had overrun, though in fact I’d simply miscalculated how long it would take me to get there. I don’t normally drink at lunchtime – it makes me sleepy for the whole afternoon – but Todd was already nursing a whisky and when we came to order I decided, rashly, to share a bottle of wine.
‘Good,’ Todd said. ‘I hate drinking alone. It makes me feel like an alcoholic.’
D.I. Hatchett, I recalled, did drink alone, often. There were frequent scenes of gloomy introspection over a solitary glass of something or other. ‘Your character does,’ I said. ‘Are you like him?’ I’d never ventured to comment on the parallels before.
He made a wry face. ‘I suppose most authors resemble their main characters,�
�� he said. ‘But Hatchett drinks more than me. The stress of his job. Being a writer isn’t nearly so stressful – or at least, it wasn’t until I started to work with you.’ But his tone was light, mocking; he even smiled. ‘Mind you, I’d like to drink more heavily, only my body won’t let me. Getting to middle age, I’m afraid. Heavy drinking means heavy hangovers. I don’t fancy that.’
‘You’re not middle-aged,’ I found myself saying, confusedly. ‘Middle age starts at fifty . . . or more.’
‘What am I then?’ he asked, looking quizzical.
I fished for a word, and found one. ‘Mature,’ I declared. ‘Like – like Stilton.’
‘I see. Improved flavour, but smelly. Sounds appropriate. Anyway, Hatchett’s younger and tougher than me, though he’s probably ruining his liver. Fortunately, political correctness hasn’t caught up with him yet.’
‘How much like you is he?’ I pursued, feeling daring.
‘Much better in a fight. I keep fairly fit, but it’s years since I was involved in a punch-up. On the other hand, I’ve got more brains. I always know who-dunnit and why. I give him the clues, but he can be bloody obtuse. It usually takes him a whole book to catch on.’
‘Good thing too,’ I said. ‘Otherwise we’d both be out of business.’
‘Am I too obvious?’ He sounded almost diffident, a trace of Hatchett’s self-doubt creeping in. ‘I can’t tell. How quickly do you get it?’
I hesitated before answering, realising he was genuinely worried. ‘Fairly quickly. But I’m supposed to. I read differently from other people – more analytically – I have to, I’m an editor. I started reading Agatha Christie when I was twelve, and after I’d got through a couple and sussed out her style I always guessed the murderer. If you haven’t cheated, if you’ve given the reader all the info, the final twist shouldn’t really be a surprise, more a revelation. Only most readers get caught up in the story, and so they race through without stopping to think. That’s how it’s done. The quickness of the pen deceives the brain. Judging by your sales, you do it very well.’
‘You’re paying me compliments,’ he said lightly. ‘Now I know this is a special occasion.’ But he looked pleased.
‘Hatchett has a very sombre view of life,’ I went on. ‘It’s all poverty, and deprivation, and despair, and rich people who are indifferent or corrupt or both, and people in power who abuse their position. Is that how you see things?’
‘Now, the difficult questions,’ he said. ‘Yes. And no. It’s . . . how I feel I ought to see things, because I suspect that’s how they are. I’m privileged – insulated – I go to dinner parties in Hampstead and Islington with other privileged, insulated people – when I feel I should lead a more useful life, I should try to change things. So I lead the life I should be leading in fantasy, and make money out of it. Sounds pretty contemptible, doesn’t it? I even let myself like people, sometimes. Hatchett’s a morose sort of bastard – he doesn’t like anyone much. Especially writers.’
‘Books can change things,’ I insisted. ‘They help people to see . . .’
‘That’s the sop I throw to my conscience,’ he said. ‘When it needs sops.’
‘And you should let yourself like people. There are good guys out there. Your Helen . . .’
‘You don’t care for her much, do you?’ he said with disconcerting acuity. ‘Don’t bother to deny it: I can hear the effort in your voice whenever you mention her. She does good, yes, but . . . she knows it. In recent years I think she’s become a little too sure of her own rectitude. Like a pillar of the church in the Victorian age. She disregards people who don’t need her help or whom she feels don’t deserve her attention. Now I’m doing it again – criticising my girlfriend – you’ll be down on me like a ton of bricks. But I noticed she was offhand with you: she does that sometimes. Don’t let it upset you. She cares desperately about her clients, and I think, on a subconscious level, she feels that fulfils her quota of caring. She wasn’t like that when I first knew her, but since she became successful . . .’
‘You’ve been with her a long time, haven’t you?’ I said, thinking it was rather a waste. ‘You’re obviously much better at relationships than Hatchett.’
‘Don’t you believe it. I was married at twenty-two: we were madly in love, or what we thought was love, and rushed in where angels fear to tread. It came apart because I wanted to write and wasn’t making enough money. My wife left me, but she said it was my fault, and she was probably right. I have a teenage son who’s only just got around to forgiving me.’
‘Do you see him?’ I asked, tentatively. ‘On a regular basis, I mean.’
‘Yes, of course. But it hasn’t been easy. My ex imbued him with the idea that I’d failed both of them. I was supposed to be a solicitor, you see, but I chucked it before I’d done my articles. Maybe that’s why I started dating Helen. A latent attraction to the Law.’
I remembered what he’d said about the importance of justice. ‘You think you were wrong to give it up,’ I said. ‘You think you should have been more like her, fighting for human rights. But you can influence more people with books, really you can. And you’re a good writer. You mightn’t have been a good lawyer.’
He laughed suddenly, his face lightening. ‘What a sensible girl you are! All right, enough of me. You’ve asked all the questions so far. Now it’s my turn.’
As lunch progressed, I remember feeling vaguely disturbed that we weren’t arguing. After all, it was the arguing which had been fun – wasn’t it? But he was unexpectedly easy to talk to. And since he’d been so open about himself, I felt it was only fair to tell him a little about me. More than a little, in the end. I told him about my childhood, about being fat, the diet, my job at Ransome, and my secret ambition to be a writer too.
‘When you’ve done something,’ he said, ‘let me criticise it. Then I can get my own back.’
But I didn’t tell him about the three wishes – that was girl stuff – or the story I’m trying to write, this story: it wouldn’t be his sort of thing.
We worked our way through fish balls and creamed spinach (me) and veal with red cabbage (him), avoiding the inevitable jokes about fish and balls. I didn’t eat much; I was too busy talking. Or listening.
‘I like this place,’ he said. (Clever Georgie.) ‘I haven’t been here in ages. Helen says Eastern European food’s too fattening.’
‘She’s right,’ I said guiltily.
‘Don’t you lose any more weight. I meant what I said the other week. You look fine as you are.’
‘Men always say that,’ I retorted. ‘And then they go out with very thin women.’
‘Touché! But she wasn’t so thin when I—’
‘You said.’
Suddenly, we were both silent. One of those silences that sneaks up on you and takes over, more forceful than words. But it didn’t feel awkward, more – expectant. A tingly kind of silence. We stared at each other until embarrassment kicked in, and I felt myself starting to blush. I hate blushing.
‘I must be getting back,’ I said hastily, hoping the blush hadn’t yet made itself visible.
And Todd, at the same moment: ‘Time I made a move.’
We chatted in a desultory way while Ransome took care of the bill, and said goodbye on a handshake. Maybe it was my imagination that he held my hand just a little too long.
That weekend, something awful happened. So awful that I blush to remember it, even worse than I blushed in the restaurant, the kind of blush that makes you hot all over and goes right down between your legs. When I started writing this book (if it ever becomes a book) I knew there would have to be spicy bits: you can’t have this type of novel without spicy bits nowadays. But I didn’t want to write about real sex – it’s too personal, too special; putting it on public view feels like a betrayal of your partner. (Georgie said that was nonsense, and she was happy to give me all the graphic details of her sessions with Cal, but I refused.) So I’ve written about fantasy sex instead – I don’t hav
e any inhibitions about that. I can’t imagine Hugh Jackman etc. would mind: it’s all pure fiction, even to the roles they play. I would never imagine having sex with an actor as himself; that wouldn’t be any fun at all. I’d never fantasised about real people, on screen or off, though once or twice I’d tried. Which is why it was such a shock when . . .
Let’s start again. Nigel’s friend Terry Carver had sent me his children’s story just before I went to Crete, but I didn’t want to take it with me and I hadn’t made time for it until now. I’d e-mailed him confirming receipt and said I would get back to him asap, so on the Saturday afternoon I decided to tackle it. I’m not much of a judge of the genre, but I thought it was good, and should be passed on to the relevant imprint with a vote of confidence from me. But for all the merits of the story, I found it hard to concentrate. My mind kept wandering off at vague tangents and having to be hauled ruthlessly back on track. In the evening I went to a barbecue in Hampstead (I thought of Todd and his dinner parties) which promised a selection of single men, but I left early. It was too hot to go near the brazier, too hot for hot food, and the men seemed immature and dull – or mature and dull – or just dull.
The flat, too, was sweltering. Mandy was restless and whiny, evidently wanting to get out of his fur, but short of a shave there was little I could do about that. I lay in a lukewarm bath to cool down, offering to lift him in with me, but even the worst heatwave won’t drive a cat to water. He quietened down later, once he had turned up his nose at dinner and put me in my place to his own satisfaction. I lit some candles – they don’t give out any significant heat – and lay on the sofa since the bedroom, under the roof, was horribly stuffy. I was thinking about Todd, re-running extracts from our lunch-date. Gradually, I found my fancy roaming down unknown avenues. Supposing he’d come to the barbecue . . . Or we might meet at a dinner party, on an evening when Helen couldn’t make it, and we’d be seated together, talking exclusively to each other, unaware of the people around us. My imagination fabricated various conversations, all of which, like tributaries, flowed naturally into the same stream of thought. In due course, he would take me home. (By taxi: we’d been drinking.)
