Once the waiter had taken their orders, Kerys produced a notepad from her handbag. "Kids, I'm going to ask your brilliant parents about themselves so I can tell our publicity department what to say about them but if you've any extra ideas, just shout. Who do I start with? Do you write the books around Ellen's pictures, Ben? What was it you said, Ellen, about each taking half the year?"
"Ben writes the book in the autumn and winter and then I illustrate it in the spring and summer when the light's better and the children are at school."
"Was Ben already writing when you met?"
"Not until years after we were married. I managed to persuade him to write down some of the stories he used to tell the children, and you took some persuading, didn't you, Ben?"
"Some."
"Don't worry, Ben, we'll let you talk," Kerys assured him. "We'll want everyone to hear from both of you when we send you touring to promote your book. We'd have done that with your other books if I'd been with Ember then."
"We may have to go separately if it's when the children are at school," Ellen said.
"The one of you who stays at home could be the inspiration behind the other one. The media should go for that." Kerys sat back as their meal arrived and the waiter departed, blowing a kiss in appreciation of their choices. "I mean, if it's true. Do you think you'd be a writer if you hadn't met Ellen, Ben?"
"I don't think I'd be much of anything."
"Let me ask you the question I always like to ask writers. Where would you say your stories come from?"
Ben raised a portion of veal marsala to his lips, then laid it down on his plate. "I'm not sure I ought to know. It works best if I just let the story tell itself to me. I think writers can be too conscious of their technique or what they're trying to say or who they're influenced by. I suppose I must be influenced by everything I've read, particularly when I was a child."
"I'd say your stories read like nobody except yourself. Who did vou -"
"I've never understood this thing about writers trying to find their own voice. It seems to me that if you've got one you're more likely to develop it when you're not straining to hear it yourself. I just try to tell the story as if you were listening to me tell it. I interrupted you."
"I'm glad you did," Kerys told him, and Ellen sensed she was relieved that his enthusiasm had overcome the self-consciousness he always experienced with strangers. "Don't let your food get cold. I was only going to ask what you used to read."
"Anything that helped keep my imagination alive." Ben chewed the forkful as if he was tasting his memories. "Children's fantasies, ghost stories. Science fiction one summer. And when I was a bit older, all the books I could get hold of that were supposed to get you sent to hell for reading them, or so my aunt who brought me up believes. Don't think I'm getting at Auntie Beryl, though, you two. Too much imagination scares some people, that's all."
"Not you kids, I can tell. Which is your favourite Sterling book?"
"The new one," they both said.
"The Boy Who Caught The Snowflakesl Mine too. What do you think we should tell children about it to make them want to read it?"
"About when he wishes he can't feel the cold," Margaret said, "and then the snowflake lands on his hand and he sees it not melting."
"And his second wish is the world should never be cold again, and the cold all goes inside him."
"Tell them about how the icecaps start melting and the seas begin to flood the land and all sorts of birds and other creatures start to die out. That was sad."
"But it's all right at the end, because he uses his third wish to put the cold back in the world."
"And you have to show them some of Mummy's pictures," Margaret told Kerys. "I like the one where the boy's standing in the snow and the two snowflakes are sort of perching on his hands like birds."
"That's superb. I thought we might use it on the cover."
"You remember I told you I've worked in advertising," Ellen said. "I was wondering if you'd want me to make suggestions about that side of things."
"You bet. I'll introduce you to our publicity person and you can sort her out," Kerys promised. "But I just saw some little eyes looking at the sweet trolley when they thought nobody was noticing."
Almost an hour later she ushered the family back to the Firebrand offices, where they were introduced to so many people who wished the book success, and shook so many hands, that Ellen promptly forgot all the names. She was left with a sense of general goodwill which more or less compensated for their being unable to track down the publicity director. "You can meet her next time you're down," Kerys told her, and led them through the children's book department to her office, grabbing an armful of books each for Margaret and Johnny on the way. She cleared a space amid the precarious piles of typescripts and memos and books on her desk while her assistant brought milk for the children and coffee for the adults, extra strong for Ben. When the drinks arrived Kerys raised hers in a last toast. "Here's to making this the year of the Sterlings," she said.
TEN
Twilight and traffic were gathering on the motorway out of London. Long before the car reached Cambridge Johnny was asleep. He was still her baby, Ellen thought as she glanced at his dreaming face in the light from an oncoming vehicle, even if he'd reached the age at which her telling him so annoyed him. Once they were past Cambridge she and Margaret and Ben took turns to spot strange place-names: Stow cum Quy, Snail-well, Puddledock, Trowse Newton… By now they were on the outskirts of Norwich and following the ring road to their suburb while Margaret widened her eyes as if she was inserting invisible props under the lids and protested that she wasn't tired. "Then you're the only one," Ben said, beginning to snore loudly as he steered the car off the ring road. "Ouch, Margery. Don't kick."
"If you're not tired," Ellen told her, "you can finish clearing away the books and games you and Johnny left in the front room."
"Johnny has to help."
"He clears up when you're at dancing class. Don't sulk, or we'll think you aren't old enough to go to the market again with your friends."
"Mummy…" Margaret protested, and left it at that, though when her father parked the car outside the house she peered suspiciously at her brother in case the movement made him betray that he wasn't really asleep. Convinced that he was, she relented and attempted to carry him into the house as she had when they were younger, but had to settle for helping him stumble along, which woke him up. "You can go to bed if you're tired," she said.
"'m hungry," he mumbled.
Margaret's tone had been so saintly that Ellen gave her an amused loving hug. "You're always hungry, Johnny. Tidy away your things while Margery and I make you something to eat," she said as she unlocked the house.
The front door swept a gathering of envelopes and leaflets off the doormat. Johnny pounced on them, handing his mother the leaflets – which advertised a knife-grinder and a newspaper bingo game and a charity which recycled Christmas cards – and sorted the envelopes in case there was one for him. "Just bills," he complained.
"Better give them to Bill, then," his father said. "On second thoughts, give them to me. Bill may be worse off than we are."
"Aren't we well off?" Margaret said.
"We are so long as we have one another, don't you think? And I don't think we'll have to leave either of you at the bank as security just yet." He swung his fist playfully past Johnny's chin to snatch the solemn look from the boy's face. "I get the feeling we're on our way to bigger things, don't you think, Ellen?"