When Alice Met Danny
Page 25
The other respondents to the advert all had their merits. One had clearly decided that he was a woman, the others hedged their bets. One already had a published book to her credit. Closer inspection of the title, and a quick check on the laptop, revealed it to be self-published. This was not necessarily a bad thing. At least it showed she had the will and the stamina to write 100,000 words. Over his years of fruitless attempts to find a publisher, he had also come perilously close to going it alone. Only a lingering sense of pride had stopped him. He now knew that pride is a luxury aspiring writers can ill-afford.
The Case of the Velvet Ball Gown did not immediately leap out and grab him. From the bookseller’s blurb it sounded like a fairly ordinary murder mystery. And at £13.99 in hardback, he couldn’t imagine she had sold thousands. Her signature, CV and email address matched. The name was Rosalind Waters, and her address was in Hammersmith, London.
Deciding on the other four did not take long. The one who assumed he was a woman sounded a bit vague. She had not bothered to enclose a CV, although she mentioned a degree in French. All she provided was her name, Penelope Grainger, and an address in Nottingham. She listed no writing credits. He decided not to allow this to colour his judgement. He had, after all, nothing but a short story and a couple of textbooks to his credit. On the other hand, she wrote clearly and correctly. No split infinitives, misplaced punctuation, or prepositions floating at the end of a sentence. He liked that. He decided to give her the benefit of the doubt.
The next was from a woman called Ariadne Anstruther.
‘Noah, have you ever met an Ariadne? I’m sure I haven’t. I suppose she abbreviates it, but how the hell do you abbreviate Ariadne? She can hardly call herself Arry? What were her parents thinking? Mind you, there was that child named after all the players in the winning world cup football team …’
Her CV looked impressive, at least educationally. She had a first class degree in English, plus a MA in Creative Writing. She was working as a journalist in South London and wrote articles for various magazines. No book credits yet, but work in hand.
‘I like the sound of this one, Noah.’ She was given pride of place on the top of the ‘Possibles’ pile.
The next was less impressive, at least visually. The paper was flimsy, the presentation of the letter poor, and the style rather staccato. There was little attempt at politeness. She claimed to have written a number of short stories but without any luck on the publishing front. This lack of success endeared her to him, so he added her to the pile. Her address was in Bristol, her name Maggie Perkins.
The last sounded very nice, maybe a bit too nice. She gave the names of her three ‘little ones’, along with the details of a few articles she had had published. Her educational background was Oxford, no less. She wrote in a clear, open style. Her home was in Stevenage, and her name Tiffany Rossi. Whether the surname was her maiden name, or her husband’s, was not clarified. Certainly the name Tiffany didn’t sound very Italian.
In the end, he added all of the letters to the ‘Possibles’ pile. He now had to whittle his six possible co-authors down to one winner. He would need to devise a test of some kind. And he would need to decide upon a time and a place for the book. As he scratched the dog with his foot, it occurred to him that he could kill two birds with one stone: He would ask his ‘Possibles’ pile as part of their test. Maybe one of them had a favourite period of history. He could then research it. A trip to the university library, a few days of study, and he would be ready to go.
His copy of Fifty Shades of Grey arrived on the Saturday. He settled down to read it that evening. It was hard going. It took him until the following Wednesday to get through it. He could only cope with short bursts, not because of the content, but the style. When he finally set it down, it left him puzzled.
He told Cynthia all about it at his next session.
‘Leaving aside the sentence construction and the punctuation, it’s nothing like as erotic as I thought it would be. It’s all relationship stuff, with a bit of sex thrown in. Well, all right, there’s more than a bit of sex, and it is a bit bizarre, but I was expecting more. I am quite disappointed.’
‘Would you have preferred more sex?’ He recognised her tactful tone. It was the same one she had used a few months earlier when enquiring, casually, if he masturbated regularly. This time he restrained himself.
‘It’s not a question of preference. This book has been hyped up as the smuttiest thing ever to hit the mainstream, and it isn’t. Have you read it?’
He had the satisfaction of seeing her cheeks flush. Did this mean she had read it? He took the opportunity to go on the attack.
‘They say it’s a book by a woman for women. Did you think that? Did it speak to you, Cynthia?’ He was delighted to see her discomfort grow.
She cleared her throat before replying. ‘Mmm, I don’t know. I only flicked through it.’ She looked up from her pad. He noticed that she had stopped writing. ‘My sister gave it to me to read.’
‘Do you and your sister often read that sort of thing?’
‘No, of course not.’ Her tone was unusually sharp. The lady doth protest too much, methinks. ‘But the fact remains that one of you forked out good money to buy it. And millions of others have done the same.’
She collected herself. ‘So is that what you plan to do, then? Write something similar?’
He told her about the Western Morning News article. She scribbled dutifully. ‘So, you see, Cynthia, I think you were right. I maybe do need to try something frivolous.’
She looked up from her pad with a broad smile. She so rarely displayed emotion that it too him aback.
‘Tom, that’s really good news. I’m so glad you think like that. I’m sure you will benefit greatly from a change of direction in your writing. Less medieval warfare, mutilation and death, more fun and…’ she hesitated, searching for the word ‘smut. Why not?’
‘There is, of course, the question of the subject matter. I just hope I know enough about it.’
After Tom had left the consulting rooms, Cynthia wandered through to Reception. Debbie was in the process of closing up.
‘Hi, Cynthia. How’s it going with the gorgeous professor?’
‘Definite progress, Debs.’ She decided that client confidentiality would not be breached if she mentioned his new project. ‘He’s going to write a dirty book.’
Debbie’s eyes opened wide. ‘Well, be sure to tell him if he needs any help with his research, I’m always available.’
For a moment, Cynthia felt like saying ‘Join the queue’, but she retained a dignified silence.
CARINA™
ISBN: 978 1 472 09713 2
When Alice Met Danny
Copyright © 2014 Trevor Williams
Published in Great Britain 2014
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