‘That’s because I’ve been devouring it all over again, Jack. You thought you might have copies for my fair helpers, didn’t you?’
‘So I have,’ Boswell said, struggling to spring the catches of his aged briefcase.
‘See what you think when you’ve read these. Some for you as well, Bren,’ Sedgwick said, passing out Boswell’s last remaining hardcovers of several of his books. ‘Here’s a Hugo winner and look, this one got the Prix du FantastiqueÉcologique. Will you girls excuse us now? I hear the call of lunch.’
They were in sight of Waterloo Station again when he seized Boswell’s elbow to steer him into the Delphi, a tiny restaurant crammed with deserted tables spread with pink-and-white checked cloths. ‘This is what one of our greatest authors looks like, Nikos,’ Sedgwick announced. ‘Let’s have all we can eat and a litre of your red if that’s your style, Jack, to be going on with.’
The massive dark-skinned variously hairy proprietor brought them a carafe without a stopper and a brace of glasses Boswell would have expected to hold water. Sedgwick filled them with wine and dealt Boswell’s a vigorous clunk. ‘Here’s to us. Here’s to your legendary unpublished books.’
‘Not for much longer.’
‘What a scoop for Cassandra. I don’t know which I like best, Don’t Make Me Mad or Only We Are Left. Listen to this, Nikos. There are going to be so many mentally ill people they have to be given the vote and everyone’s made to have one as a lodger. And a father has to seduce his daughter or the human race dies out.’
‘Very nice.’
‘Ignore him, Jack. They couldn’t be anyone else but you.’
‘I’m glad you feel that way. You don’t think they’re a little too dark even for me?’
‘Not a shade, and certainly not for Cassandra. Wait till you read our other books.’
Here Nikos brought meze, an oval plate splattered with varieties of goo. Sedgwick waited until Boswell had transferred a sample of each to his plate and tested them with a piece of lukewarm bread. ‘Good?’
‘Most authentic,’ Boswell found it in himself to say.
Sedgwick emptied the carafe into their glasses and called for another. Blackened lamb chops arrived too, and prawns dried up by grilling, withered meatballs, slabs of smoked ham that could have been used to sole shoes...Boswell was working on a token mouthful of viciously spiced sausage when Sedgwick said ‘Know how you could delight us even more?’
Boswell swallowed and had to salve his mouth with half a glassful of wine. ‘Tell me,’ he said tearfully.
‘Have you enough unpublished stories for a collection?’
‘I’d have to write another to bring it up to length.’
‘Wait till I let the girls know. Don’t think they aren’t excited, they were just too overwhelmed by meeting you to show it. Can you call me as soon as you have an idea for the story or the cover?’
‘I think I may have both.’
‘You’re an example to us all. Can I hear?’
‘Shadows on a ruined wall. A man and woman and her child, and another man reaching out to them, I’d say in warning. Ruined tenements in the background. Everything overgrown. Even if the story isn’t called We Are Tomorrow, the book can be.’
‘Shall I give you a bit of advice? Go further than you ever have before. Imagine something you couldn’t believe anyone would pay you to write.’
Despite the meal, Boswell felt too elated to imagine that just now. His capacity for observation seemed to have shut down too, and only an increase in the frequency of passers-by outside the window roused it. ‘What time is it?’ he wondered, fumbling his watch upwards on his thin wrist.
‘Not much past five,’ Sedgwick said, emptying the carafe yet again. ‘Still lunchtime.’
‘Good God, if I miss my train I’ll have to pay double.’
‘Next time we’ll see about paying for your travel.’ Sedgwick gulped the last of che wine as he threw a credit card on the table to be collected later. ‘I wish you’d said you had to leave this early. I’ll have Bren send copies of our books to you,’ he promised as Boswell panted into Waterloo, and called after him down the steps into the Underground ‘Don’t forget, imagine the worst. That’s what we’re for.’
* * * *
For three hours the worst surrounded Boswell. SIX NATIONS CONTINUE REARMING ... CLIMATE CHANGES ACCELERATE, SAY SCIENTISTS ... SUPERSTITIOUS FANATICISM ON INCREASE ... WOMEN’S GROUPS CHALLENGE ANTI-GUN RULING ... RALLY AGAINST COMPUTER CHIPS IN CRIMINALS ENDS IN VIOLENCE: THREE DEAD, MANY INJURED .. . Far more commuters weren’t reading the news than were: many wore headphones that leaked percussion like distant discos in the night, while the sole book to be seen was Page Turner, the latest Turner adventure from Midas Paperbacks, bound in either gold or silver depending, Boswell supposed, on the reader’s standards. Sometimes drinking helped him create, but just now a bottle of wine from the buffet to stave off a hangover only froze in his mind the image of the present in ruins and overgrown by the future, of the shapes of a family and a figure poised to intervene printed on the remains of a wall by a flare of painful light. He had to move on from thinking of them as the Aireys and himself, or had he? One reason Jean had left him was that she’d found traces of themselves and April in nearly all his work, even where none was intended; she’d become convinced he was wishing the worst for her and her child when he’d only meant a warning, by no means mostly aimed at them. His attempts to invent characters wholly unlike them had never convinced her and hadn’t improved his work either. He needn’t consider her feelings now, he thought sadly. He had to write whatever felt true - the best story he had in him.
It was remaining stubbornly unformed when the train stammered into the terminus. A minibus strewn with drunks and defiant smokers deposited him at the end of his street. He assumed his house felt empty because of Rod’s proposal. Jean had taken much of the furniture they hadn’t passed on to April, but Boswell still had seats where he needed to sit and folding canvas chairs for visitors, and nearly all his books. He was in the kitchen, brewing coffee while he tore open the day’s belated mail, when the phone rang.
He took the handful of bills and the airmail letter he’d saved for last into his workroom, where he sat on the chair April had loved spinning and picked up the receiver. ‘Jack Boswell.’
‘Jack? They’re asleep.’
Presumably this explained why Rod’s voice was low. ‘Is that an event?’ Boswell said.
‘It is for April at the moment. She’s been out all day looking for work, any work. She didn’t want to tell you in case you already had too much on your mind.’
‘But now you have.’
‘I was hoping things had gone well for you today.’
‘I think you can do more than that.’
‘Believe me, I’m looking as hard as she is.’
‘No, I mean you can assure her when she wakes that not only do I have a publisher for my two novels and eventually a good chunk of my backlist, but they’ve asked me to put together a new collection too.’
‘Do you mind if I ask for her sake how much they’re advancing you?’
‘No pounds and no shillings or pence.’
‘You’re saying they’ll pay you in euros?’
‘I’m saying they don’t pay an advance to me or any of their authors, but they pay royalties every three months.’
‘I take it your agent has approved the deal.’
‘It’s a long time since I’ve had one of those, and now I’ll be ten per cent better off. Do remember I’ve plenty of experience.’