How to Seduce a Ghost

by Hope McIntyre

  When the first commission to ghost a full-length autobiography came along, it was something of a relief to make them sound as exciting and salable as possible. I had the time to turn in some presentable writing and I was paid a good deal more money. The truth is I never had any particular ambition to write the Great West London Novel and I’m under no illusion that what I produce is art. I suppose some people—my mother, for instance—would say I’m happy to hide behind my subjects and maybe they’re right. But why not? I like being a ghostwriter, it presents its own unique challenge—to capture the voice of someone else and tell their story in as entertaining a way as possible. More often than not I think I do them justice and that for me is fulfilling.

  So who would it be this time?

  I adore my agent even though we have nothing in common beyond our professional relationship. Genevieve’s very good for me. She will not tolerate my black moods and insecurities. She is very brisk and businesslike. Click here and she’ll get you a deal, sell your translation rights all around the world via a host of subagents, negotiate a serial sale, analyze your royalty statements. And all with immaculate makeup and pale pink tailored suits with a lilac patterned scarf artfully tucked into the opening just above the top button. Manicured nails, a short no-nonsense haircut softened by highlights and lowlights, short legs and thick ankles excused by tiny feet in high-heeled Manolo Blahniks. Genevieve is always so well groomed, I cannot imagine what she looks like all rumpled first thing in the morning. I always feel a complete wreck beside her, not that she ever says anything.

  But underneath it all she is enormous. There is no getting away from it. The impeccable grooming is a kind of sugary camouflage to mask her excessive circumference. I do not understand why she is so large. She never appears to eat very much and her tiny feet and hands indicate her natural size to be considerably smaller. Maybe she binges in secret. Whatever she does, it doesn’t matter. I could not imagine Genevieve being any other way. There is a cuddly quality to her that is extremely attractive. I sometimes think she ought to be the star of a TV show that reassures people that it can be okay to be fat. She is so totally comfortable with her bulk, she almost makes me want to gain thirty pounds. Because above her ruff of double chins, Genevieve has one of the prettiest, daintiest faces I know. Her features are small and perfect. Navy blue eyes, a cute little turned up nose, and a rosebud mouth. And I would kill for her baby-soft skin.

  Genevieve’s attitude toward me is perfect as far as I am concerned. I allow her total confidence in me as a professional writer to encompass everything else about me even though her inquiries about my private life never extend beyond the perfunctory. I would never dream of unburdening myself to Genevieve about my personal problems just as I know next to nothing about her own life beyond the agency. I suppose I could interpret this distance as lack of concern but I choose to view it as a desire to avoid being intrusive for which I am grateful. Genevieve leaves me alone, which is what I would like everyone to do, yet at the same time she is mumsy. There is no other word for it. Within the confines of our professional relationship, she fusses over me with affection, clucking away about my career like a mother hen.

  “So did you know her?” Genevieve asked as soon as I walked through the door.

  “Did I know who?”

  “Astrid McKenzie.”

  “Saw her in the street, said hello. Never really met her to talk to.”

  “Well, I saw her last night,” said Genevieve triumphantly. “Sit down, dear.”

  I sat, gingerly, because her chairs for visitors are rather spindly. God knows what would happen if she ever subjected them to her own alarming weight.

  Genevieve’s office is like a large cupboard. It is meticulously tidy, which always makes me feel rather uncomfortable. As far as I can see she has absolutely everything on disk. There is never a scrap of paper on her desk, no manuscripts lying around. For quite a while I thought there was no fax machine and no filing cabinets. Then I accidentally opened a door while searching for the loo one day and found a walk-in closet that housed both these things. They were crammed in, along with a small sink, a fridge, an electric kettle, a wine rack full of champagne, an ice bucket, a few glasses and mugs and a large bottle of Gucci Rush, a fragrance I particularly dislike.

  Her office is a tiny room up some stairs in a very fancy part of Covent Garden just behind Long Acre. She doesn’t have a conference room. For a meeting comprising more than two people, she always contrives to convene at the publisher’s office or in a restaurant. I have a terrible feeling that if anybody does get inside the door she pretends her office is the reception area. I suppose she isn’t really a literary agent like any other. She handles ghosts and people don’t normally publish their autobiography more than once so maybe only her clients, her ghosts, are allowed into her office. Everyone else she meets elsewhere. It’s a tiny operation but she runs it with maximum efficiency and because it’s so small, she’s always available.

  “So put me out of my agony, Genny. Who have you got lined up for me?”

  “Selma Walker.”

  Selma Walker?

  She’d got me all the way over here to talk about a soap star? But even as I heard the name I experienced an involuntary prickle of excitement.

  Selma Walker meant money. Serious money. She was hugely popular. An American actress who had been imported into Fraternity, one of our long-running soaps, as Sally, the brash American bride of one of the family of brothers on whom the series was based, brought back from a business trip he’d made to New York. For anyone who is prepared to admit they are old enough to remember Dallas, it’s as if the Ewings have been picked up and put down in the north of England. The appearance of Sally and her ritzy New York style had really set the cat among the pigeons, the pigeons in this case being her more down-to-earth sisters-in-law, none of whom could stand her. Television audiences, however, loved her and the ratings soared. Not since Joan Collins appeared in Dynasty had a bitch antiheroine so completely captured the viewers’ imagination.

  “So how did you meet her?” I asked Genevieve.

  “I was at the Ivy last night with one of the cast members of Fraternity and I got him to catch her eye and go over.” I resisted the temptation to quiz Genevieve on what she was doing out with an actor. Occasionally I longed to break the rules and engage her in a bit of girly gossip but our mutual respect for each other’s privacy was paramount.

  “You mean you set this up?”

  Genevieve shook her head. “No, I didn’t actually. That’s the weird thing. She was at that far corner where they can push the tables together and seat about ten people. She was right in the corner, no way I could get to her, and she wasn’t even the person I wanted to talk to. There was a record producer at her table I’ve been after for some time. He’s put the word out he wants to do his autobiography. Business stuff. Not your kind of thing.” She smiled to show she didn’t mean to be patronizing. “Anyway, I thought if we could get invited over for a drink after dinner, I could make a move. Well, we were and I wound up seated next to the record producer and I suppose I must have been pitching him quite heavily because suddenly Selma Walker who is now very close to me says, What is it that you do exactly? She’d been eavesdropping. Well, after that the record producer was toast. She virtually rearranged the table so I could be right beside her and she started quizzing me. It turned out she wants to tell her story and is looking for a writer. But before I could tell her about you she up and left, went home to get some sleep because she had an early call. As she’s leaving she says Call me, okay? Jerry has my number. Jerry’s the record producer.”

  “Who’s toast,” I reminded her.

  “Not necessarily.” Genevieve winked and I laughed. I loved the way she kept all her options open. “But no sooner had she left than this guy called Buzz someone slips into the seat beside me. Very good looking but quiet. Introduced himself, said he’d seen me chatting to Selma and told me he was her manager. When he heard what we’d been talk
ing about, he told me to call him first thing this morning so that’s what I did and we set up a meeting for you to meet him next Wednesday at five. He has an office in her house and, you’re not going to believe this, but did you know she lives right around the corner from you?”

  “Sounds like it was meant to happen,” I said. “So what’s her story? Is it a good one?” I realized I didn’t know anything about Selma Walker beyond the fact that she was American and starring in one of our most popular soaps.

  “Oh, bound to be, dear.”

  “You mean you didn’t ask?”

  “Well, it’s not exactly the sort of thing you get to grips with first, is it?” Genevieve amazes me sometimes. She wants me to write someone’s story with them but she doesn’t even know if it’s a good one.

  “So what did you and Buck—”

  “Buzz, dear.”

  “So what did you and Buzz discuss?”

  “Oh, the marketing. How much publicity the book would get, author tours, foreign sales, the fact that she’s an American would secure a big sale over there.”

  “Not necessarily,” I pointed out. “Has Fraternity been sold in the U.S.? What was she doing before she came over here?”

  “And I know I could get a huge serial sale.”

  “Only if there’s some juicy gossip.”

  “Which you’ll find out, won’t you, dear?”

  This was beginning to sound rather familiar. I’d been here before when I’d written profiles. Go for the dirt. That’s what sells.

  “Only if she wants to divulge it.” Once again I was the voice of reason. “It’s her autobiography, don’t forget. She’ll have control over what goes into it.”

  “Oh well, you’ll have no trouble dealing with that,” said Genevieve with confidence.

  She disappeared into the cupboard to make me a cup of coffee.

  “You’d better give me the address,” I said wearily when she reappeared. Not much time to do my homework. “What did you tell the manager about me? Are you sending over my work in advance? When do I get to meet her?”

  “I already did. And I guess he’ll set up a time for the two of you to get together. Now, that’s enough of that. Give me all the details about Astrid McKenzie. Did you see the body? Was it horrible? I’d never seen her in the flesh before. She has this milky white skin. The thought of it turning black and disintegrating into soot is—”

  “Genevieve, PLEASE!” What was the matter with everyone? First Tommy and now Genevieve, thirsting for the gruesome details. How would they feel if they had to go home to the scene of the fire knowing that someone might be out there lurking, ready to strike again?

  I described my brief visit up the road that morning and told her what the guy in the market had said.

  “But where did you see her last night?” I asked her.

  “At the Ivy. It was when I was talking to Buzz. She was coming down the stairs from the ladies’ on her way out of the restaurant and she looked straight at us. And she freaked.”

  “What do you mean, she freaked?”

  “Just what I said. It was really spooky. She saw Buzz and she freaked. Her face changed, she looked terrified, and she started almost to run. She couldn’t get out of that restaurant quick enough. He didn’t notice her, he had his face turned toward me, and it was as if she wanted to get away before he saw her.”

  “What time was it?”

  “About ten thirty.”

  “She must have gone home and . . .”

  “Oh my God,” Genevieve squeaked at the thought. “I might have been the last person to see her alive.”

  “Except for her murderer,” I said without thinking.

  CHAPTER 3

  TOMMY AND I ARE NOT ON SPEAKS.It’s actually quite serious. All went well for a couple of days after the fire. He stayed with me for two nights running, snoring gently beside me like a catarrh-ridden tabby cat, while I clung to him, wide-awake, and sniffing the air for the first sign of burning. Then I asked him to do something really quite simple for me and he failed me and I went for him in the vicious ugly way that only I know how. It’s how I sometimes behave when I am disappointed—usually by life in general but in this instance because I had actually believed Tommy and I were beginning to remedy the rather bad patch we seemed to have been going through. Now he had ruined it by screwing up the one small thing I had asked him to do. And so had I by letting it get to me and losing control.

  Our standoff has been going on for a week. Our record is nine days so I’m getting a tiny bit nervous. If there was ever a time when I needed Tommy to stay the night it was now. When the constant nocturnal fire alert became more than I could bear I would have to get up and pad about the house until I was satisfied nothing was burning and there was no one outside brandishing a blazing torch.

  On the whole, Tommy’s quick to say sorry when I berate him but then there are times when he insists it isn’t his fault and he won’t climb down. I suppose if you live with someone this sort of thing gets cleared up in a day or two but it’s a little tricky if you’re each waiting at opposite ends of London for the other one to say sorry.

  This time Tommy had failed to record a gardening documentary on BB2 I particularly wanted to see but would miss because I had to show up at the book launch for one of my subjects. It’s funny how some of them want you to disappear off the face of the earth once you’ve turned in the last chapter and others insist on making you their best friend. All I needed, when I got home and found he’d forgotten, was for him to say “Oh, sorry. How stupid of me. Let me take you to Paris for the weekend to make up for it.” And I would have been fine about it. He didn’t even need to mention Paris. I am very easily disarmed. But that was too hard for him. Oh no, he’d been lounging around on my sofa with a Chinese takeaway, waiting for me to return and when I went ballistic, his response was:

  Why’d you want to watch it anyway? It’s not as if you even like gardening.

  It’s a waste of time explaining to Tommy about having dreams for a cottage in the depths of the countryside with acres of peace and quiet all around me. His vision of the future never goes much beyond me marrying him and having loads of little Kennedys. Try as I might, I just could not get him to admit he’d done anything wrong. He didn’t think I needed to watch the bloody documentary so therefore it didn’t matter that he’d forgotten to record it for me.

  Even though I am stubborn, somehow I am always the one who reaches out first and calls a truce. But this time I was seriously pissed off with him. It wasn’t a question of having missed the documentary; I’d got beyond that long ago. It was the fact that he hadn’t cared enough about me to record it. That rankled. And I would have let him stew for at least another four days if I hadn’t left my tape recorder in the back of a cab. I always took a tape recorder with me when I worked, even for the first introductory meeting, and once I’d met her manager, I could be set up for the first interview with Selma Walker any day now. The more I thought about it the more I felt I bloody well wasn’t going to go out and buy a new one just because Tommy had forgotten to record my documentary for me.

  There is a connection here. I didn’t need to go out and buy a new one because I knew Tommy’s flat would be stiff with tape recorders and all I had to do was go around there and take one. But I wasn’t speaking to him and I didn’t have a key. I’d had to give mine to his cousin from Newcastle when he’d last come to stay and I’d never had it back. I knew Tommy kept a spare hidden somewhere but I didn’t know where.

  If I wanted to find out I’d have to make contact.

  His answering machine picked up the night I called. This was outrageous. Where was he? He had no right to be out enjoying himself without me. I left a terse message stating what I wanted to know, would he please get back to me. I couldn’t resist adding a triumphant closing sentence about how I’d landed a lucrative new job writing Selma Walker’s autobiography. Bit of a fabrication given I hadn’t even met her yet.

  He called and left a messag
e on my machine while I was at the dentist. Had he known that I had an appointment that morning? Had he called then deliberately so as to avoid speaking to me?

  “Key’s taped to the back of the fourth dustbin from the right.” His voice resounded in my kitchen as if he was standing right beside me. Key taped to fourth dustbin from right, I scribbled on a bit of paper. Asking for trouble, I would have thought. “Take the Aiwa,” he continued. “It’s in the chest in the hall and I know I put in fresh batteries the other day. Built-in microphone. Selma Walker’s a bit of all right. She’s a Chelsea supporter. Keep me posted. Cheers.”

  Why Tommy lived in Bow was beyond me. It’s not as if it’s convenient for Broadcasting House. Or, more important in Tommy’s view, Stamford Bridge in Fulham. Chelsea Football Ground. I doubt that he’s registered that it has become fashionable to live in the East End. Notting Hill, the area I live in, used to be a cool address and was even catapulted into the international limelight by a film of the same name starring Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts. The film’s mammoth success meant the property prices went through the proverbial roof in Notting Hill. Now anyone with any sense is selling up and buying houses in Shoreditch or Hoxton or even a loft in Exmouth Market.

  If I ever feel myself weakening and thinking of agreeing to live with Tommy, all I have to do is make a trip to his flat to be reminded why this would be such a foolish move. Talk about Men Behaving Badly. And it’s not as if there’s two of them to make such a mess. There’s only Tommy. Though I know he says yes to anybody who asks him for a bed. The only problem is he hasn’t got a spare bed so his guests have to sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag. Anyone would think he was still a teenager. Walking into the place you always have to start by kicking a path through the mounds of clothes on the floor. Everywhere I could see evidence of Tommy’s habit of becoming obsessed with something and then abandoning it halfway through. A book entitled How to Write Screenplays that Sell lay open facedown on an armchair, its pages filled with dust, a testament to his ambition to change careers about six months ago. Discarded manuals littered about the place revealed a variety of other ambitions that had fallen by the wayside. A model airplane minus the wings had pride of place on his dining room table, the glue open and congealing beside it. A jigsaw with the outer edges completed and the rest of the pieces lying scattered across a desk. Crosswords with only half the clues filled in. CDs out of their cases. This was how he spent his time away from me. I confess I felt a little guilty. Tommy is someone who likes company. He’s popular down in the bowels of Broadcasting House, he has his mates at the BBC. But away from work they probably assume he’s spending time with me. They probably don’t realize that there are long periods when I banish him from my life while I work on a book. All around me I could see proof of his attempts to occupy his spare time, time he would much rather spend with me.