Written From the Heart

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘No, I see I was wrong, you’re not a bit like your father, Grigor!’

  ‘Please call me Greg – all my friends do.’

  ‘OK. Now, do you want to look some more to see if he acknowledges you in the book?’

  He shrugged. ‘I suppose it doesn’t matter now if he does – and perhaps he will not really want to admit to a son of my age, making him look old?’

  ‘You’re probably right about that. He’s been a bit touchy lately about getting older. And now you have made it, you don’t need to worry about people attributing your success to his influence, do you?’

  I shut the bureau lid. ‘Perhaps we’d better let sleeping manuscripts lie – and Grigor, er … Greg, I won’t tell about your visit, if you don’t tell about mine.’

  ‘Right,’ he said, looking relieved. ‘He’s forgotten he loaned me a key ages ago when I brought that stuff here to store, and I’ve never given it back.’

  ‘Ditto,’ I said. ‘I had one so I could look after his cat and I forgot to give mine back, too.’

  Time was getting on, and with a quick check to see we’d left no trace of our presence we tiptoed out of the silent flat and climbed the steps up to the street, where Grigor shook my hand in a rather formal way and we each departed in different directions.

  I felt like Tina the Spy.

  The clandestine visit had been illuminating, just not in quite the way I had envisaged.

  Sixteen

  Fêted

  NOVELTINA LITERARY AND CRITICAL AGENCY

  Mudlark Cottage, The Harbour, Shrimphaven

  Dear Neville Strudwick,

  Thank you for your letter, photograph and kind invitation to dinner. However, I have made it my strict policy not to meet with my clients, since I am a professional writer with a very busy life and thus have to fit my agency work in wherever I can. I am sure you will understand.

  However, I can critique your Western when you have written it (on receipt of a further cheque), and certainly do go with Bullwhip O’Sullivan. I think you are on to a real winner there.

  Yours sincerely,

  Tina Devino

  The annual Shrimphaven Festival of Culture was looming, and Lady Het Woodwind-Chote, chairwoman of the committee running it (and the town, the county and probably the country), rang to invite me for coffee, because she said she wanted to ask me something very important regarding the festival. I was thrilled because it must mean that now I was famous enough to open it, not just do a book event at the library, and so I’d have to write a graceful little speech – and what on earth would I wear?

  I’d have to buy something new, and the Festival was in May, which is a dodgy month weather-wise because it might be cold or hot and not all of it was to take place inside.

  And come to that, what should I wear for coffee with Het? I mean, I knew she was a friend of Jackie’s, who is from an old family even if she is an ageing hippie with no money, but I didn’t move in the same social circles unless they happened to be circling one of Jackie’s many bashes where anything goes, and usually did …

  Het lived in a decaying pile of bricks outside the town and bred peculiar little dogs called Wiener Schnitzels or something, and I’d only ever seen her in a waxed drover’s coat down to her wellies looking like an escaped tarpaulin, except for the aforementioned parties and the Festival, when she was firmly upholstered in shiny black with sensible court shoes and Royal Stuart tartan stockings.

  I don’t do tartan – or shiny, come to that – so unflattering.

  A phone call from Linny, who had to leave the house and use her mobile, since Tershie was insisting she rest all the time and eat good food, and although she had no objection to lying about in bed eating chocolates, she didn’t want to do it during valuable shopping time.

  Luckily he was off on a business trip the following day so she could resume normal life, and she hoped he’d have calmed down a bit by the time he returned.

  When I asked Linny how she felt she said she just couldn’t believe it was true, like not believing that men really had landed on the moon, because it all seemed so unlikely, but actually all she felt was fed up and a bit hormonal.

  She wanted me to go round next day but I told her I had too much to do – which I had – but promised to pop in after seeing Sergei on Monday. ‘And I sincerely hope he looks less grotesque because his face looked terrible the other night,’ I added. ‘Frozen as well as battered and bruised.’

  ‘That’s Botox,’ she said knowledgeably. ‘They must have overdone it, which is a pity because he normally has a very mobile face, hasn’t he? It takes months to wear off – and he’s had a facelift too, I could tell.’

  ‘Well, I wish he hadn’t. I loved him just the way he was, and now I don’t know how I feel, and until he looks more like his old self I’m not going to even consider forgiving him for the incident … and I run a manuscript assessment service, for God’s sake, so he might at least have told me he was writing his autobiography and asked me for help! Oh, and I forgot to tell you, Linny – I broke into his flat and looked at his memoirs.’

  ‘You did?’ she gasped. ‘Tina! But did he – what did he say – you know …? Did he name names?’

  ‘No, on the whole he seems to have been very cautious, and used initials for the women in his life. Most of the alphabet, too! But as far as I could see at least he cast them all in minor roles apart from me. I only had time for a quick look.’

  I didn’t tell her about Grigor being Sergei’s son because she was a big gossip and would never manage to keep that nugget to herself.

  ‘Oh, I’m just so relieved for you,’ she said kindly. ‘I was worried he’d tell all the intimate things you wouldn’t want to share with the entire world, because he has no natural shame whatsoever, has he?’

  And I agreed that modesty and decorum were not his middle names – which actually are something unpronounceable like Ivanovitch Tolstoyevski – but I was hoping Nathan Cedar would curb any tendency of Sergei’s to include anything actionable in his memoirs.

  Then Linny said that she’d actually sneaked out to drop her manuscript off at Nathan’s, as arranged, though he’d just taken it from her on the doorstep because he’d had another writer with him, and wasn’t he gorgeous? She wasn’t surprised I’d used him in my novels. She could see I’d quite like to use him out of them, too, and Sergei had suspected the same from the way we’d been staring into each other’s eyes at Lemonia, so I’d better watch my step.

  However, I did not need the warning: the minefield before me was perfectly clearly marked out already in both the Cyrillic and English alphabets.

  NOVELTINA LITERARY AND CRITICAL AGENCY

  Mudlark Cottage, The Harbour, Shrimphaven

  Dear Angie Heartsease,

  Thank you for the manuscript together with the delightful gossamer skirt.

  On first glance your novel has a rather Alice Thomas Ellis look to it, but I will give you my critique once I have had time to study it more closely.

  Yes, do tell Bob Woodelf that I would be prepared to take his children’s storybook (written on handmade paper with illustrations drawn in ink distilled from toadstools), in exchange for the matching top to go with the skirt, size twelve, same colour, although I do not generally deal with anything other than adult fiction.

  I assume you barter among yourselves as well as with the general public to get the things you need. It seems a very practical way of going about business!

  Yours sincerely,

  Tina Devino

  I received a ticket for the SFWWR (Society For Women Writing Romance) Awards Lunch at the Savoy, inviting me to sit on the Salubrious Press table, which came from Tim by way of Jinni, saying it was an oversight and it should have been delivered weeks ago, which it certainly was because the lunch was on Friday of that week.

  After thinking about it I came to the conclusion that my invitation wasn’t sent at the last minute as an insult, which was my first thought, but because sales of Spring Breezes were p
roving so embarrassingly good Salubrious simply couldn’t ignore me as they’d clearly intended to. Miracle had called to inform me that Spring Breezes was at number twenty-two and still climbing in the Hot Chick Fiction Chart, and although I am not a chick, I am fiction and hot, so I was very pleased.

  I thought I would go … although the event was always held in one of those huge glittering dining rooms with mirrored walls and doors, and after only a couple of drinks it all got very confusing. The last time I was blundering about for ages trying to sneak out to the (very swish) ladies’ cloakroom until a waiter kindly took pity on me and opened a door, though fortunately I was far from being the only one batting against the walls like a moth against a lantern, so the staff were used to it, and they might as well detail one of those nice young men to point out the door permanently at these functions and have done with it.

  Just as well I already had the suit I bought for the Brown’s Flowers of Fiction thing because there was no time to find anything new. I wondered whether if I wore my amazing corset-style bustier under it that would be too over-the-top for lunchtime in more ways than one …

  Miracle didn’t ask me to sit at her table for the lunch, like she usually did (though she always expected me to pay for my own ticket), but there is a limit to the number of blonde one-hit wonders you can accommodate at one table, and at this rate they would soon only be able to attend stand-up buffets.

  Seventeen

  Fresh Cuttings

  NOVELTINA LITERARY AND CRITICAL AGENCY

  Mudlark Cottage, The Harbour, Shrimphaven

  Dear Neville Strudwick,

  Thank you for your letter.

  No, I absolutely can’t make any exceptions among my authors, and so will unfortunately have to decline that dinner invitation. I have heard that the Robust Langoustine at Priory Chase is very well thought of, though, so perhaps you and your friend George could enjoy that ‘intimate dinner for two’ instead?

  I am so glad you are pressing on with your rewrite, but unhappily, due to sheer pressure of work, I find I will be unable to critique the finished novel after all, which in any case might now be much better suited to a male reader. I have suggested one or two names and addresses for you to try on a separate sheet, and wish you good luck with your future writing.

  Yours sincerely,

  Tina Devino

  Nathan did live literally round the corner from Sergei (which was probably another good reason for not attempting any kind of three-part harmony) though his flat was much smaller and his study the size of an average broom cupboard, but he also owned the cellar, and once he could afford it he was going to have it converted into further living accommodation.

  I elicited all this information from him within the first few minutes of arriving (surprisingly nervously) on his doorstep, also clocking his casual clothes, heart-wrenching smile and burgeoningly virile five o’clock shadow, all of which I dare say would soon be making an appearance in The Orchid Huntress.

  While he went to make coffee I spent the time staring around the study at the piles of manuscripts, shelves of books by terribly well-known authors, and especially at the picture on his desk of a pretty girl with a vaguely familiar actressy look about her.

  It’s a pity people don’t seem to give each other signed photos any more (except for Sergei, who hands them out to everyone – there was one propped up on a bookcase) because a scrawled ‘Yours for ever, Louise’ or ‘From your loving sister Kate’ would have been terribly helpful …

  And what was I expecting anyway? That he would be living a celibate life waiting for Tina Devino to come along and make him an offer he couldn’t refuse?

  Then my eyes fell on a manuscript with Linny’s name on it. I quickly glanced at the top page and it was totally Mills & Boon, so if she’d been sending her novels anywhere else she’d been wasting her time and Tershie’s money, though come to think of it, even posting out a hundred manuscripts would be the merest drop in the ocean of his wealth.

  Fortunately I heard the clink of crockery before Nathan came back, so was sitting demurely, ankles crossed, when he came in. Over the chocolate Hobnobs I put him in the picture regarding my contractual situation with Salubrious Press, and told him how my ex, Tim, had suddenly become my editor so that they planned to release Dark, Passionate Earth with indecent haste both in paperback and hardback at once in June, and then Miracle had given me to understand that that was it: they wouldn’t want the option on another.

  They certainly hadn’t done anything to promote Spring Breezes. I’d done it myself – with the help of the tabloids, who’d got hold of some ridiculous story about Sergei and someone they assumed was me in his garden, and it was all quite absurd – but I didn’t mind so long as my book sold. And actually it was wonderful now because I was getting publicity, including the Brown’s promotion, simply for myself and not because I was in a relationship with a famous man, although that had never done me any harm either.

  Nathan, who had listened to all this with his cup of coffee suspended in mid-air and an expression of utmost – if slightly stunned – interest, said Sergei had given him all his cuttings to look at, and since he also subscribed to the ones about me (something I didn’t know – sweet of Sergei!), he was pretty au fait with the situation, and then we started to skirt around the tricky bits, and he delicately asked, since I’d apparently been close friends with Sergei for years, how I felt about the autobiography being serialized in the national press.

  Looking deeply into his treacle-brown eyes, I said I had nothing to hide, but Sergei had assured me that he hadn’t mentioned my name in his book, or gone into specific detail, which I hoped was true. But even so, it would probably all be raked up again, especially those fuzzy pictures of the woman with Sergei in the garden, which they were all insinuating was me.

  ‘So, actually it wasn’t you in the garden?’

  ‘Oh, no!’ I assured him, with the limpid truthfulness engendered by lust (though had he had a garden larger than a window box, who knows how the meeting might have ended?) and then decided to follow through and, picking the woman least likely to have done any such thing, said on impulse: ‘Actually, in deepest confidence, it was my old friend Linny, but it was a temporary weakness, one of those spring things, you know, and she deeply regrets it. She and Sergei hardly speak now, which makes it so difficult for me.’ I could hardly keep my face straight, but I expect he thought the slight choking was due to emotion.

  ‘Yes, I can see that it would make things difficult,’ he said thoughtfully, but agreed that any publicity was great, even publicity based on unfounded rumour.

  Then he said, probing carefully, ‘You and Sergei are still …?’

  Helpfully I assured him that my relationship with Sergei had been warm but platonic for ages (well, hours, really) but Sergei had a jealous nature.

  He said he understood, though I wasn’t sure that I did, and added that he’d only intended to represent novelists, until Sergei had insisted on him handling his rights when he’d found out that he was an agent, and it was such a big coup that he couldn’t resist. And I could see he was worried that he might lose a big client if he showed more interest in me than Sergei liked … or at least that’s what I hoped he was worried about.

  He’d already found out quite a bit about my sales figures and stuff, though don’t ask me how, and thought Salubrious would now definitely want to take up the options clause on the next book because Dark, Passionate Earth seemed set to do very well, but thought we could perhaps get a better offer elsewhere.

  I described how Miracle had so callously dropped me and that now I thought she was having second thoughts, too, but having been dumped I didn’t want to be reconsidered; I wanted a new start – with him.

  ‘Are you quite sure?’ he said, and I said, ‘Yes, I am,’ and so we are agreed, and I am going to sign a contract with him.

  He’d have to meet with Miracle at some point to discuss my earlier books and contracts, but he didn’t seem worried about it
, so clearly there is steel in there and also, close up, he isn’t as young as I thought, probably not years and years younger than even my real age, and I wished he’d mentioned who the girl in the photo on the desk was.

  But anyway, we were pronounced Agent and Author, and so went out to the pub round the corner for lunch to celebrate our literary nuptials, which was not the sort of place either Sergei or Linny might frequent. Having got the business out of the way we found we had so much in common, like a love of plants and flowers, that we could have talked for hours except he had someone coming to see him at three and eventually had to go.

  All the time we were together his lovely warm brown eyes seemed to be sending me entirely different messages from what he was saying, which was disconcerting, to say the least, but I dare say I was also sending out mixed signals.

  I did wear the corset-style top under my garnet-red suit for the SFWWR lunch, and was glad that I did because I was photographed even though I wasn’t shortlisted for the Super Romance Award – never have been, probably never would be, due to being ‘light, funny and full of sexy flowers’, as one of my more memorable book reviews put it.

  When I jokingly asked one of the photographers to knock a few years off my age he breathed on the camera lens, so I could hardly wait to see that one.

  Love-in-a-mist.

  Tim was seated directly opposite me at the round table and I noticed he couldn’t take his eyes off my diamond heart, strategically suspended just above my plunging cleavage and glittering crazily in the light from the chandeliers.

  Jinni, who was sitting next to me looking like a petrified albino hamster, admired it very much, so I told her it had been given to me by a friend, and she gulped and asked if it was from Sergei Popov.

  Only she’d read somewhere that we were friends, and she’d always loved the ballet though due to her arches she couldn’t take it up professionally, and wanted to know whether he was half as gorgeous in real life as he looked on screen in that documentary about his life they did a couple of years ago. You know, the one with the memorable sequence where he danced naked in a forest, unfortunately slightly out of focus?