I told him to collect me in a couple of hours. I’d done half my Christmas shopping by then, even if it would be a bit heavy to get home on the train, and the coffee was wonderful and came in soup bowls, so it would just have to keep me going until I got back on the train the next day. I also bought a supply of pastries and nuts and things to take back with me so I didn’t have to eat dinner that evening; I could just sit there and pretend.
You can’t say I don’t learn from experience. I was at the front of the queue for the bar’s brief opening before dinner, and got a whole bottle of wine despite the barman’s horror at the idea.
‘I’m sure you only mean a large glass, not a whole bottle, dear?’ he said kindly, but I insisted and carried it off to the dining room where I made sure I wasn’t at the dodgy dishing-out end of the table this time and pretended not to hear when the committee arrived and Moira said I was sitting in her chair.
Then Hereward Brunswick turned up, escorted by another Moira clone, and of course he drew the short straw this time. I was amazed that they could treat even a famous author like that! Or try to, because Hereward said straight out that he was positive they would understand that he’d rather sit next to me because he was such a great admirer of my books, and he was sure Deirdre wouldn’t mind changing with him?
Of course, she couldn’t do much except agree. Hereward was a very entertaining but very naughty old boy and told me some stories about Miracle (who was his agent) that I hadn’t heard; but of course he’d been with her from way back, even before she set up her own agency.
We shared the rest of my bottle of wine after he’d given his rather risqué but fun talk to the assembled Teds and Moiras, then we retired to a quiet corner of the bar and spent the evening together – but not in any amorous way on my part, I hasten to add.
But I did buy his latest book, The Nelson Incident, and he signed it ‘To that rare sexy flower, Tina Devino, from her would-bee pollinator!’ He was absolutely wicked, but actually he was still very dishy, so you can imagine what he would have been like twenty years earlier – he’d have given Sergei a run for his money.
At the end of the evening he was collected by a big black car and departed waving regally, since he lived somewhere within ferrying distance, and I wished I did. (And don’t think he didn’t pressingly invite me to go back with him, either – but of course I tactfully declined.)
I was certainly glad to get back home next day, all laden with books and pottery as I was, though fortunately a very nice man helped me off the train and into a taxi with them, so it was not as difficult as I’d envisaged.
The answering machine was crammed full of tearful, hurt and/or indignant messages from Sergei and Linny, which I quickly deleted.
Minnie wore the smug expression of a mouse who’d been spoilt rotten in my absence and her furry little belly was so full she was practically dragging it along the cage floor.
‘Get on that treadmill and run!’ I told her, but she just gave me a look of disdain and twitched her whiskers a bit.
Twenty-Five
Watering Places
Dear Tony,
I was deeply touched by your brotherly offer to go and duff Sergei up personally for breaking your sister’s heart.
However, my heart isn’t broken, just a bit bruised, so I would much rather you didn’t attempt any such thing.
Do thank Mary for the delicious home-baked cake, made to that recipe given to you by our cousin umpteen times removed, Tullia, the one you unearthed on your fact-finding mission to Italy in search of the ancestors. I’m glad something constructive came out of the trip.
Your affectionate sister,
Tina
Next day my author copies of both the paperback and hardback of Dark, Passionate Earth arrived, and rather splendid they looked, too; it was nice to have them before they actually came out in the shops, which is what used to happen.
Oh, and the following day I was having an actual book launch at a bar opposite Salubrious House. It was all a complete surprise to me, but it showed that advance orders must be good.
Nathan was going to be there too and except for the break-up I might have asked Sergei … only then he would probably have overshadowed me because of his fame and whopping great charisma, plus his other striking personal attributes – and frankly I didn’t want to share the limelight at all: this was my moment! I would have asked Linny to go with me under other circumstances – like her not having slept with my lover, for instance.
I wore something lighter and sassier than a suit this time, which is just as well because the wine bar was crammed full and very hot, but then this sort of thing usually is because all the publishing staff dash in for free booze and nibbles, and then just as quickly pour out again, leaving only the hard core of people who have to be there.
Tim had to be pleasant to me, and Nathan said I looked beautiful and the book was going to be a big success, and he stayed next to me practically the whole time, even though Jinni did her best to lure him away, and full marks to her for effort. God knows, I don’t blame her because the publishing world is full of women, which is why when you see even an old Suit at these affairs they are always entirely surrounded by attractive women, charmed by the novelty. Even Tim seemed to have no trouble attracting several, despite his lack of hair and dyspeptic expression.
I loved the balloons with trowels and things printed on them that they’d decked the room with, though the ribbed green cucumber ones looked a bit like inflated condoms … and when I had a closer look I could have sworn …
But no, surely not? And the big, helium rose-shaped ones were very tasteful, so I took one home with me.
Several people mentioned the latest extract from Sergei’s memoirs, especially hinting about the mysterious ‘T’, love of his life, and asking how I felt about the papers linking me with those photos of Sergei and a naked woman in his garden. Oh, and hadn’t Sergei and I been friends for years?
But I was back to the enigmatic smile and the bland: ‘Do they really?’ because clearly I could make it on my own. I didn’t need any two-timing Bolsheviks to boost my ratings.
Dark, Passionate Earth seemed to be everywhere, and so was I, signing it. This time sometimes I actually sat and signed it for people, though if anyone else implied anything about me and Sergei I thought that I was going to lob a copy at their head and I feared the enigmatic smile would soon turn into a snarl.
I kept remembering the lower-key book tour with Spring Breezes when Linny and I had such fun despite the awful weather and the Repetitive Signing Syndrome, and the bookshop manager in Harrods remembered Linny and asked after her, so I lied and said she was abroad on holiday.
Still, I was cheered to see my book emblazoned all over the tube – must ask for a copy of the poster to brighten my hovel – not to mention all the other publicity and reviews it was getting, and so I embarked on my second day of book signings feeling quite confident. There was even a little queue at the first one, except it turned out that half of them thought I was the war correspondent who was signing next day.
But I seemed to have mastered the technique of looking up and smiling without actually looking at who was buying the book, while asking: ‘And who shall I make it out to?’ in an interested way, until suddenly this little waterlogged voice said: ‘To your lowly worm of a friend Linny, who doesn’t deserve ever to be forgiven, but who misses you!’
It was, too, and she looked dreadful, all pale and miserable. I sprang up and we gave each other a big hug and my eyes went all watery, which was not exactly the image I was trying to project. It was just as well Linny looked so preggie because otherwise the people queuing might have thought we were a pair of lesbians, though on second thoughts I dare say that doesn’t matter these days and might even be a promotional plus, and in any case with my name linked so luridly with Sergei’s on everyone’s lips, there wasn’t really much chance of that.
‘Oh, Linny, I’ve missed you too!’ I cried.
And she sai
d, ‘Tina, life just isn’t the same without you! I can’t say exactly what I think to anyone else, even Tershie, and I hate being pregnant – I feel like something out of Alien, wondering what’s going to pop out, and I must have been absolutely mad … and I don’t know what got into me!’
I said Sergei had that effect on a lot of women, and though I could never forgive him, I understood just why she’d done it, and although it was always going to feel odd that we’d – however temporarily – shared a lover, our friendship was worth more than that.
Then we hugged again and the manager brought another chair over and suggested my friend sit down and wait while I finished my signing, which she did, and then came in the taxi with me to the last one.
Afterwards we went on to the Ritz where she bought us both a celebratory afternoon tea once we’d tidied our rather ravaged faces in the swish ladies’ loo. (And the waiter said it was nice to see me again, madam, so I nearly asked whether they wanted a writer in residence or even just anything expensive promoted in my next book.)
We settled down over the teacups to a major, major catch-up of everything that’s been happening to us both, and hers sounded much worse than mine. They should warn you what pregnancy’s like; it all sounded appalling, and no wonder the birth rate was falling.
Then we went back to Linny’s, where Tershie also embraced me, smelling of some fabulously expensive aftershave, and said he was glad we’d made up our spat (little did he know the cause and he was never going to learn it from me). He phoned Lemonia to see if they could find us a table and they could, so we had another celebration and I felt like I’d done nothing but sign books, eat and drink all day, and could there be a more perfect way to spend my time?
Tershie sent me home in a taxi again, only unfortunately it turned out to be the driver who spent the last long journey telling me about his seaside holidays as a child, and it wasn’t any more interesting the second time round than the first.
I felt as if I’d had a lifeline restored now that I was speaking to Linny again. Soon after she rang me to say that her Mills & Boon had been accepted! Subject to a major rewrite, of course, but Linny – accepted! She said Tershie was terribly proud of her, and now she felt that she could call herself a writer at last instead of being secretly envious of my success, even though she was always delighted for me.
I said I’d only just had any success, and I was sure she’d be a mega seller. I asked her to come to the SFWWR Summer Party with me, where she’d meet lots of other M&B writers, which would be useful, and she wouldn’t feel that she just tagging along with me either.
Nathan, too, had fallen into the habit of phoning me up (although sometimes at rather strange hours of the day or night) for little chats about nothing much, which was lovely. We got on so well, and he sort of filled the place Sergei used to occupy with his daily phone calls telling me how his feet hurt, or how he had a mysterious ache somewhere, though I still didn’t know what to do with myself on Mondays.
I wore my Titania blue beaded outfit for the SFWWR party, and Linny wore something slightly tented in beige, which was not a colour that went well with her rather Mediterranean complexion, but I didn’t like to tell her, and actually when I took off the retro blue-and-pink-spotted chiffon scarf I was wearing, which I didn’t really need with all that bead action, and tucked it into her neckline, it brightened the whole thing up no end.
I drank too much, talked too much, but didn’t eat too much, since Linny had to get a passing waiter in an arm-lock before he stopped wafting past with trays of finger food held tantalizingly high above our heads, though we had time to grab only a handful before he struggled free. He gave us a wide berth after that, but these places are all the same when it comes to the catering at functions, and so uninspired when it comes to nibbles that I can’t help feeling it would be much better if they just sent someone down to Marks and Spencer’s with a trolley.
My book was climbing briskly up the paperback charts and doing brilliantly on Amazon, and I seemed to be everywhere … not to mention when the next somewhat steamy bit of Sergei’s memoirs came out (I must have missed that part when I was looking through the manuscript!), in which he had gone into our relationship and habits in a lot more depth …
So then there was a bit of scandal among the tabloids again, only neither of us was married so it wasn’t exactly illegal, was it? (Although, come to think of it, I thought having sex in your garden may well be against the law, and what a lot of spoilsports if so!)
And it was quite wrong to say Sergei ‘seduced newly-wed Tina Devino from the arms of her husband, Tim Hollins’ because I realized ten minutes after the wedding that I’d made a major, major error, and so if anything I used Sergei as an excuse to get out of it, and who wouldn’t?
Then Mel asked me if she could start a Web fan club! She said she loved my books, which I knew, and she thought she could make some money out of it since everyone would have to pay to join and then she could flog them Tina Devino official souvenirs and so on … and Minnie the mouse is going to be the official mascot with a big photo – the Melinda Moussenger of the Web world.
Dark, Passionate Earth climbed to number two in the paperback charts!
Was I famous at last?
Twenty-Six
Mixed Signals
NOVELTINA LITERARY AND CRITICAL AGENCY
Mudlark Cottage, The Harbour, Shrimphaven
Dear Glenda Strudwick,
How nice to hear from you that everything is going so well, and that Neville made a good recovery from that nasty chill and the tummy bug, which, as you say, were probably entirely due to his unfortunate dip in the harbour and served him right.
No, it doesn’t really surprise me that he took a sudden aversion to the study, once he saw the framed photograph of Sergei and the new Laura Ashley wallpaper and curtains, but it does indeed now sound the perfect place to construct those delightful dried flower arrangements you make for the church bazaars and the Women’s Institute; and yes, there probably is a good local market for greeting cards and bookmarks made from hand-pressed flowers, and you should certainly try it.
I’m sorry Neville is now underfoot in the rest of the house, although I expect you are enjoying his attempts to ingratiate himself back into your good graces, but actually I meant it when I told him he could write Westerns, so how about buying him a nice shed to work in out of the way and encouraging him to get on with it? Some of them are like little offices, and if you have it well away from the house you will hardly know he is there.
With many thanks for the super wicker cornucopia of dried summer flowers – I am sure it will be a great inspiration to me while I am working.
Best wishes,
Tina Devino
This literary life was terribly exhausting! I’d been on three radio programmes (though they were all recorded at the same place!) and one morning TV thing, which was terrifying, and I was sure I’d made a complete fool of myself, but actually when I watched the video Linny had recorded for me, I wasn’t too bad! I couldn’t remember a thing about it, due to terror, but obviously under severe stress a part of my brain I didn’t even realize I had took over, and so I sounded almost intelligent, which proves I have even more hidden talents than I thought.
Despite all this media coverage I managed to fit in a signing session at Necromancer’s Nook in Shrimphaven, since they’d always been very good to me. Even if I was getting quite successful there was no way I was going to get too big for my boots, because after all it’s still only me in here, when you come right down to it. Actually, lots of people came, including Ramona, and Linny – and Nathan, which was a surprise, although of course I let him know my publicity itinerary.
Afterwards I invited him back for tea at the cottage – Ramona and Linny too, of course. But Ramona had to dash because if she left her dog in the car for too long it ate the upholstery, and Linny had to rush back to town in order to get ready for something – not the birth, that was months away – so it was just the two
of us.
I showed Nathan round my garden first, which didn’t take long, six pebbles and a bit of samphire by a driftwood log, and even Sergei wouldn’t dare to get up to anything in there because he would certainly be arrested. Then I gave Nathan a quick guided tour of the cottage, not lingering in my tiny bedroom, because Earth girls aren’t easy, and though it may have begun to seem like a decade since I’d last had sex with anyone I didn’t wish to appear at all needy, besides the strange dichotomy of Nathan being rather come-on-ish on the phone, but much more reserved in the flesh, apart from the expression in his warm, dark brown eyes …
Really, I was starting to find all these mixed signals rather confusing so clearly I was out of practice.
We had tea in my little sitting room and fortunately I had large quantities of scones, clotted cream and strawberry jam in, ready for Mel (who I am convinced has a tapeworm, since she is stick thin except for a little round pot belly, but eats voraciously) because she was coming round later to show me my fan club website, HotBeds. But I knew she wouldn’t mind sacrificing some of the scones in a good cause.
But perhaps he was too good and I was too wary, for although we were very friendly (and it’s difficult to be anything else on a sofa the size of a large armchair), we weren’t that friendly, especially when he somehow got on to the subject of cricket over the tea and scones, which seemed to be a Pavlovian trigger to happy reminiscences.
Why do men always have an engrossing interest in something boring? You try and tap their depths only to find there aren’t any, just throwbacks to the playground involving balls of one kind or another …
And why do so many women pretend they share that interest? But not me: I told him straight out that I found all sport a bafflingly strange way of going on, and would rather not think about it, let alone talk about it, so he changed the subject to Sergei, with whom he seems, disconcertingly, to be getting quite friendly.
Written From the Heart Page 16
