The Other Side of the Story (37 page)

She could actually feel Tania wince. 'That name will have to go.'

Then Jojo rang Gemma, who was thrilled she'd been sold to Lily Wright's editor.

'Thank you for trying again for me. I knew you could convince her.'

Authors, Jojo thought. Buncha know-nothings. Then Jojo told Gemma about the money.

'
Sixty
grand. Sixty
grand
. Oh, my good Christ. Great. Fabulous. Fantastico!'

Fantastico indeed. No need to tell Gemma she was the literary equivalent of a band-aid, because this might work out very nicely.

LILY

24

-

Book News
, 5 August

RECENT ACQUISITIONS

Tania Teal from Dalkin Emery has bought
Chasing Rainbows
, the debut novel from Irish writer Gemma Hogan. Agented by Jojo Harvey from Lipman Haigh, the book sold for a reported £60,000. Described as a cross between Miranda England and Bridie O'Connor, it will be published next May as a paperback original.

I was skimming through
Book News
, looking for any excuse not to write, when the words 'Gemma' and 'Hogan' leapt off the page, waited until they had my full attention, then punched me in the stomach. Gripping the page too hard, I read the piece properly, then reread it while little waves of shock broke over my head.
Gemma. Book. My agent. My editor. Lots of money
.

Fear in my heart, I stared at the black letters until my eyes went blurry. There could be many Irish Gemma Hogans, it was not such an unusual name, but already I knew: this was my Gemma. She had often talked about writing a book and her having
my
agent and
my
editor was too much of a coincidence. But how on earth had she swung it? It was difficult enough to get a book published, never mind to bag the agent and publisher of one's choice. She must have become a practitioner of the black arts. I sank my face into my hands; this was a message, like the horse's head in the bed in
The Godfather
.

I am gifted at intuition, at premonitions even, and I knew the game was up. Although I had feared some form of retribution, so much time had passed that I had begun to hope that Gemma had moved on with her life and perhaps even quietly forgiven me. But I had been mistaken: all this time she had been planning revenge. I was not sure exactly how she was going to ruin my life, I could not have given precise details there and then, but I knew this was the start of an unravelling.

In an instant I saw my entire life falling away from me. Gemma hated me. She would tell the whole world what I had done to her and would turn everyone against me.

And the money! Sixty thousand! As compared to the paltry little four thousand advance I had got. Her book must be stunningly good. My career was finished, she would blow me out of the water with her sixty-grand masterpiece.

I picked up the phone, blew the dust off it through trembling lips and rang Anton.

'Gemma's written a book.'

'Gemma Hogan?'

'It gets worse. Guess who her agent is? Jojo. And guess who her editor is? Tania.'

'No, that can't be right.'

'It is, I promise. It's in
Book News.'

Silence. Then, 'Christ, she's sending us a warning shot across the bows. It's like the horse's head in
The Godfather
.'

'That's just what I thought.'

'Ring Jojo, find out what it's about. But it's got to be about us, right?'

Yes, and the worst bit of all.' I could hardly utter the words, so great was my jealousy. 'She got a huge advance.'

'How much?'

'You won't believe -'

'How much?'

'Sixty thousand.'

Anton became quiet for a long, long time, then I heard a little whimper.

'What?' I almost shouted.

'I picked the wrong girl!'

'Oh, ha bloody ha,' I said crossly.

I phoned Jojo. Though my head was racing with the need to know, I managed the polite 'Howareyou?' thing, then striving for casual but actually sounding half-strangled, I said, 'Er, I read in
Book News
that you have a new author called Gemma Hogan. I was just wondering —'

Yeah, it's the one you know,' Jojo said.

Arse. Arse, arse, arse, arse, ARSE. 'Are you sure? Living in Dublin, working in PR, Liza Minnelli hair?'

'That's the one.'

I wondered if I might weep.

Yeah,' Jojo said. 'She said to say hey to you. Ages ago. I'm sorry I forgot.'

'She… she had a message for me?'

'She just asked me to say hello.'

Dread swamped me. Any hope that this was a bizarre coincidence dissolved. Gemma had planned this. It was deliberate and targeted.

'Jojo, can I ask… do you mind, is it breaking client confidentiality… what's her book about?'

'Her dad leaving her mom.'

'And a best friend stealing someone's boyfriend?'

'No, just the dad leaving the mom. It's fun! I'll get a copy to you, soon as they're proofed.'

'Thanks,' I whispered, and hung up.

Jojo was lying to me. Gemma must have already got to her and inducted her to the dark side.

Ema has run away with a marauding gang of chartered accountants
, I thought.
Anton has a touch of dry rot in his left leg and I lost my mother in a card game
.

I forced myself to concentrate hard on the horridness of this scenario. I furrowed my brow and really
tried
. For a brief moment I caught a glimpse of how vile it would be to share a home with a man with dry rot. Then I did the mental equivalent of elbowing myself and saying, 'Silly! None of those things are

This exercise usually makes me grateful for my lot.

Not today, though.

25

Anton rang back, 'Have they turned up yet?'

No need to ask who 'they' were: the builders. Our obsession, our fixation, the centre of our lives.

Despite the best efforts of most of the banks in Britain, we had bought our beautiful redbrick dream house and had moved in at the end of June. Spirits had been sky-high. I was so happy I thought I might die and for an entire week did nothing but look at cast-iron beds on the Internet.

Before we had even moved in, we had a building firm lined up to repair our dry rot as a prelude to 'knocking things through'. We had not even fully unpacked when a small army of Irish labourers, all bearing an uncanny resemblance to Mad Paddy, descended upon us.

The Mad Paddys wielded their claw hammers and set to work with zeal, behaving as though they were on a demolition job — they ripped the plaster from the walls, then the bricks, then pretty much removed the entire front of the house; the only thing that kept it from toppling over into the front garden was a mesh of scaffolding.

For almost a week they slashed and destroyed and just at the point when they were meant to start reassembling our ruined house, they discovered the dry rot was a lot worse than originally thought. Those in the know, who have had a lot of construction done, tell me this is what usually happens. However, on account of Anton, Ema and I being the Crap Family, for whom nothing ever works, who are always led inexorably to the restaurant table with the wobbly leg, I took it personally.

And the cost of the job? In light of the new discoveries, the original quote doubled overnight. Again, this was text-book and again I took it personally.

Muttering something about needing new window lintels — whatever on earth they were - and not being able to do anything until they arrived, the boys - again, in time-honoured tradition, so I am told - disappeared. Once more, I took it personally.

For two full weeks we saw nothing of them. Gone, but not, however, forgotten. Anton, Ema, Zulema - I will get to Zulema - and I, were existing in squalor. Boot-shaped cement marks marched across the beautiful old wooden floors, I kept stumbling across tabloid newspapers in the oddest of places (beneath Ema's pillow, anyone?) and sugar crunched underfoot; people complain about builders drinking too much tea — it was not the tea I objected to but the wretched accompanying sugar.

Nightly, I expected someone to shin up the scaffolding, slip in through one of the many holes in the wall and burgle us. Although they would have been bitterly disappointed as the only thing we had worth stealing was Ema.

Builders' tools were strewn about the house and one of them, a foot-long wrench, had become the unlikely object of Ema's affections. She had become so attached to it, she now insisted on sleeping with it. Other children become fixated with velveteen rabbits or small blankets; mine had fallen in love with a builder's wrench as long as her soft, squeezy arm. (She had named it Jessie after my sister Jessie who had come home in June for a short visit from Argentina, where she was now permanently located with her boyfriend, Julian. Ema had been quite dazzled by her.)

But worse than all the other plagues put together was the omnipresent dust… Beneath our fingernails, between our bedsheets, behind our eyelids - it was not unlike living in a sandstorm. Every time I put on face-cream I exfoliated instead and I had given up cleaning the house because it was so staggeringly pointless.

It was wretchedness beyond description, especially for me because I 'worked' from 'home', but when I begged Anton to do something, he insisted the men would return when the lintels had arrived from wherever lintels come from.

I still had no idea what lintels were. It did not matter. They were still managing to break my heart.

One dusty morning, before Anton left for work, he was eating muesli. Suddenly he hurled down his spoon and exclaimed, 'I keep thinking it's dust!'

He foraged with his fingers in the bowl and retrieved something. 'Look at that!' He extended it to me. 'It's a piece of dust.'

'It's oatmeal'

'It's fucking dust.'

I pretended to study it more closely. 'You're right, it's dust.' Perhaps now he would ring them.

He put a call in to Macko, the foreman, and the news was horrifying; the lintels had arrived from Lintel Land but the Mad Paddys had started another job. They would finish us off when they got the chance.

We blustered and stomped and complained in the strongest possible terms. They
have
to come. Look at the
state
of the place. We can't
live
like this.

That was more than a week ago, and since then Anton and I had to take it in turns to be the grown-up, to ring them and insist in our firmest voices that they return to the job and finish it within the week, but they just laughed at us. This was not mere paranoia, I knew they laughed at us because I
heard them
.

Eventually Anton secured a promise. 'They'll be here next Monday. On their mothers' lives, they'll be here with the lintels on Monday.'

It was now Thursday. Three days later.

'No, Anton, no sign of them yet.'

'It's your turn to ring them.'

'Excuse me, I think not. I rang them first thing this morning.' We rang them four or five times daily.

'You didn't, Zulema did.'

'Because I bribed her to.'

'What was it, this time?'

I hesitated. 'My toner.'

' The toner I bought you? The Jo Malone stuff?'

'Yes,' I said. 'I'm sorry, don't be cross. I did love it, I do. But I loathe ringing them so much and she's quite good at it. They don't laugh at her.'

' This has gone too far,' Anton said, with sudden grim resolve. 'I'm going to get us some legal advice.'

'No!' I exclaimed. 'Then they'll
never come
back!' One of the things I heard over and over was that if you even mention taking legal action against them, it was game over. 'Please, Anton. That's the last thing we should do. Let's just keep grovelling.'

'OK, I'll ring them,' he said.

Then I remembered we had agreed to grant him an exemption because he had got a filling in his tooth the day before.

Over the past week, regarding ringing the builders, Anton and I had developed a complicated system of obligations, exemptions and rewards. Because my job paid more than Anton's he had to make two phone calls for every one of mine. But the chore could be sold, bartered or passed to another person if you could persuade them to do it; twice since Monday I had bribed Zulema with cosmetics. Anton had tried to get Ema to do it. Also illness could mean an exemption; Anton's filling guaranteed him a free go. Likewise, I was looking forward very much to having my period.

I heard a key in the front door; Zulema and Ema were home from their walk.

'I forgot about your tooth exemption,' I said to Anton. 'Please don't worry. I'll ring them.'

With this magnanimous offer, I rang off.

I would make Zulema do it.

OK, Zulema: Zulema was our au pair. She was part of our brave new world — new house, me writing my next book, etc.

She was a tall, good-looking, strong-willed Latina who had arrived three weeks ago from Venezuela.

I was terrified of her. So was Anton. Even Ema's perpetual grin dimmed a little in her presence.

Her arrival in our lives had originally been planned to coincide with the end of the building work. We had hoped to welcome her into a beautiful dry-rot-free home and when it became evident that the house would still be a wreck on her arrival date, I phoned to put her off. But she was as inflexible as a missile on a pre-ordained, computerized course. 'I am comeeng.'

'Yes, but Zulema, the place is quite literally a building site-'

'I am comeeng.'

Anton and I ran about like headless chickens, preparing the bedroom at the back of the house — the only bedroom with intact walls - for her. We gave her our cast-iron bed and our best duvet cover and it actually looked very pretty, far nicer than ours or Ema's room. But Zulema took one look at the scaffolding-clad house and its all-pervasive dust and announced, 'You leeve like animals. I weell not stay here.'

With terrifying speed she found a boyfriend — someone called Bloggers (Why? I have no idea.) who had a nice flat in Cricklewood — and moved in with him. 'Do you think she'd let us come too?' Anton had asked.

Zulema was very helpful. Dreadfully helpful. All day long she policed Ema so that I was entirely free to write but I missed Ema and I loathed the very concept of having an au pair. The exploitatively tiny sum we paid her made me squirm with shame — even though we gave considerably more than the going rate, as I discovered at Tumble Tots when I tried discussing my guilt with Nicky. (Nicky and Simon had had their much longed for baby three months after I had Ema.) She said, 'Simon and I pay our au pair half of what you pay yours
and
she's bloody glad to get it. Think about it, this Zulema is learning English, she's working - legally — in London, you're doing her a favour!'

Because Zulema lived elsewhere, we did not have a built-in babysitter, but I so did not care. I was horribly relieved at not having to share the house with her. How could I ever relax? Sharing one's home with a stranger is always difficult even if the person is adorable. Which Zulema was not. Hard-working, undoubtedly. Responsible, I grant you. Honest, apart from using my Gloomaway shower gel. (Which I
needed
. It was the only thing that could persuade me to wash in that grimy old bathroom.) But she was not much fun. Not even slightly. Every time I saw her in all her grim, beetle-browed beauty, my heart sank.

'Zulema,' I called.

She pushed open my study door. She looked displeased. 'I feed Ema.'

'Yes, um, thank you.' Ema appeared between Zulema's legs, winked at me — conspiratorially? But she was only twenty-two months… much too young to wink conspiratorially? - then clattered away. 'Zulema, would you mind ringing Macko again. This time,
beg
him to come?'

'What weell you geeve mee?'

'Er, cash? Twenty pounds?' I should not have been offering her money, we were so short of it ourselves…

'I like Super-line Corrector from Prescriptives.'

I looked at her beseechingly. My beloved night-cream. And it was only new. But what choice did I have?

'OK.' At this rate I would have no skin-care left at all.

She returned within seconds.

'He say he ees comeeng.'

'Do you think he meant it?'

She shrugged and stared at me. What did she care? 'I weell take Superline Corrector.'

You do that.'

Zulema thumped upstairs to spirit away my night-cream from my dressing table and I resumed staring at my desk. Perhaps they would come this time. Just for a moment I let myself hope and my spirits inched upwards. Then my copy of
Book News
caught my eye and I was reminded of Gemma's huge book deal — I had forgotten briefly - and my spirits lowered themselves back to base. Cripes, what a day.

Gloomily, I opened the rest of my post, hoping it would not contain anything too insane; now that I was a 'successful' 'writer' I averaged one mad missive a day.

I received letters from people who were looking for money; letters from people who said that writing about witchcraft was the devil's work and that I would be punished (these were written in green ink); letters from people who had 'lived a very interesting life' and who were willing to sell me the details (the usual terms offered were a fifty-fifty split of profits); letters from people inviting me to spend the weekend with them ('I don't have much, but I am happy to sleep on the floor and you can have my bed. Local sights include the clock tower which is an exact, if smaller, version of Big Ben and only six months ago a Marks and Spencer opened - there's posh!'); letters from people sending their manuscripts and asking me to ensure they got published.

Every day was different. Yesterday it had been a letter from a girl called Hilary whom I had been at school with in Kentish Town. She was one of a trio of bitches, who had made my life hell. It was just after the move from Guildford when I had been wretched with unhappiness and fear that Mum was going to leave Dad. Hilary and her two fat friends had decided I was 'a stuck-up cow' and got everyone to call me, 'Her Majesty'. Whenever I opened my mouth in class Hilary led a chorus of, 'Ooh, la-di-
dah
.'

In her letter there was no mention of any of that, however. She congratulated me on the success of
Mimi's Remedies
and said she would 'love us to get together'.

'Yeah, now that you're famous,' Anton had scorned, speaking out of one side of his mouth because of his filling. 'Tell her to go and fuck herself. Or if you like I'll do it for you.'

'Let's just ignore it,' I said, chucking the letter in the bin and thinking: How peculiar people are. Did Hilary really think we would meet? Had she no shame?

I decided to ring Nicky about it; Nicky had also been bullied by Hilary. Then I decided
not
to ring Nicky. She and Simon kept having Anton and me over for dinner and I was acutely embarrassed that although we now had a house, we still could not repay their hospitality. I turned back to my post.

Today it was a letter from a woman called Beth who had sent me her manuscript a month earlier, asking me to forward it to my editor, which I had done. However, Tania must not have liked it enough to publish it because this was an angry couple of pages, letting me know what a selfish person I was. Thanks a bunch, Beth said. So nice of me to destroy her chance of being published, especially when I had everything. She had thought I was a good person but, boy, had she been wrong. She would never buy another of my books again for as long as she lived and she would tell everyone she knew what a piece of work I was.

I knew Beth's career setbacks were not my fault but, nevertheless, the attack upset me and made me tremble a little. The delights of the post at an end, it was time to — aaagghh! — do some writing.

My new book was about a man and a woman who had been childhood chums and had met again as adults on Friends Reunited. Almost thirty years earlier, when they had both been five years old, together they had witnessed a murder. At the time they had not understood what they had seen, but their reunion had unlocked and recontextualized long-dormant memories. They were both married to other people but as they began to explore what they thought might have happened, they became closer to each other. As a result their marriages were suffering. It was not what I wanted to write, it made me unhappy, but it was still what my fingers persisted in typing.