B00BCLBHSA EBOK (16 page)

“I could do a session at one of these things for you, Morgana. ‘The
Future of Publishing: New Ways of Working.’”

“Oh! Aren’t you brilliant. I’ll bear you in
mind for a conference that
isn’t
cursed—our next one, we hope. ‘New Ways of Working’…You know, Lex, I’ve nearly finished my latest book, and while I was
writing I kept thinking, there must be a better way of doing things. Ideally,
I’d like to team up with someone.”

“My client, Audrey Debenham—”

“Not Audrey. She writes too much like me. I’d want to write all the
similes and pare down the prose. The other person would be responsible for the
plot. Audrey’d be no good for that at all. Do you
know what would be even better than teaming up?”

Morgana noticed she had finished her wine and interrupted herself
while she looked around for a waitress to bring her a refill. Fortunately, she
soon caught Maria’s eye, and the soothing sound of wine sploshing into her
glass signaled to her distressed mind that it was
safe to resume the conversation. “Wouldn’t it be great if you could just hire
someone to outline for you, and then fill in the gaps, like those painting by
numbers pictures that were popular in the 1970s? Do people do those anymore? Or
do they just make videos of their children poking the cat in the eye and put it
on YouTube? This millennium has more diverse outlets for the creatively minded,
that’s for sure.”

“Well—” said Lex.

“Crafting’s very popular with young women these days,” said Emily. “Cross-stitch and knitting and quilting, but maybe with a slightly
anarchic tone.”

Apparently neither Lex nor Morgana was
interested in crafting.

Morgana continued, “Even better than writing a book would be to find
a way of transmitting the story directly into the reader’s brain. It would
dispense with the hours and
hours
of
tedium sitting at the computer and getting it all down. I know that some writers
say they’d like their books to be read as widely as possible, but I don’t feel
that way.”

“You’ll think differently once the latest book’s done,” Lex said. “This is just pre-delivery nerves.”

“If people aren’t going to like my books, I’d rather they left them
alone and went and did something else. I’d be happy enough if just one person
read my new book, so long as they liked it. Of course, that wouldn’t be
commercially viable—I do know that, Lex—unless I were to find a way to auction off the book for a million
pounds.” She brought up her hand to shield her mouth and murmured to Emily,
“Though, privately, I don’t mind admitting I’d probably accept ten thousand.”

“You mustn’t undersell yourself, Morgana,” scolded Lex, who’d heard what she said very clearly.

“Forty
thousand, then. Fifty! I’d leave the negotiations to you. Then I’d go
off with this other person, and dream the book for them. It would be like
having a love affair, except for the financial arrangements, and of course
there would be no hard feelings when it was over, and no risk of disease. And
no one-star reviews on Amazon, one hopes.”

“For my Future of Publishing session I was thinking more along the
lines of talking about ebooks. Twitter. Software for
writing books, social media for marketing them. That type of thing.”

“Oh yes! Yes. Marvelous. Where would writers be without agents? You do keep our
feet on the ground.”

Morgana swept off to take her place at the head of the table. Emily
took out her notebooks and made a few notes.

“Are you a writer?” Lex asked, politely but
resignedly. No doubt he thought Emily was going to pitch him her latest
manuscript.

Emily put the notebook away. “No, no. I just wanted to write that
down before I forgot it, because wouldn’t that be a brilliant way to read a
book? Having someone dreaming it directly into your head?”

“Not in our lifetime, alas. Though I must admit, I never thought I’d be able to hold a library
in my hand. And yet they’ve found a way to do it.” He held out his hand for a
moment and shaped his fingers around an imaginary, orb-shaped e-reader, and he
shook his head and smiled.

Emily asked him, “If they invented the technology to do the
person-to-person book dreaming, and there was a risk involved, and they needed
someone to test the prototype, would you volunteer?”

“Interesting. I’ve
had a good long life. I’ve seen my children and my grandchildren grow up…No, I
don’t think I would. Would you, Emily?”

“I thought, when I was younger, that I’d
like to be an explorer or an adventurer. But they’re done with space
exploration, aren’t they? I can’t see them going much further with that. I
think they’ll have to turn inward: explore the mind. So maybe I’d do it, if
someone asked.”

“Ah. And which book would you choose to have transmitted in such a
way, direct from the author’s mind into yours?”

“That’s the thing. It would be a book that hadn’t been dreamed of
yet, wouldn’t it? That’s why it would be so exciting. That’s why I’d do it.”

Dr. Muriel arrived
to take her place at Lex’s right-hand side, with a
cheery hello to Emily. Lex stood and drew out Dr. Muriel’s chair for her, and ensured she was sitting
comfortably. While he was doing that, Emily looked around the room as it filled
up.

Cerys was to her
left, and Zena was the other side of her. Polly and
Archie were on the top table, a few places along on either side of Morgana.
Among the other faces she recognized, Maggie was sitting opposite, on the other
side of the horseshoe, next to a floppy-haired, youngish chap who was trying to
chat to her. Emily couldn’t hear what was being said, but she could see that
Maggie was making a fuss about something. Emily made an
Are you all right?
face across the room.
When it seemed she wasn’t, Emily decided to go over there.

As the waiters and waitresses began to bring in the brown-bag meals—which were pretty much as described, being brown paper bags containing cold
food—Morgana stood to welcome her guests. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you
for joining us at this gala dinner to celebrate this year’s conference of the
Romance Writers of Great Britain. For newcomers, I should explain that we are
in no way affiliated to…” And on she went, much as she had at the start of the
press conference, listing the names of all the august organizations that had no
connection to the RWGB.

Emily ducked along the open end of the horseshoe and reached Maggie
who explained the problem in a piercing whisper.

“I can’t eat this.”

“Are you allergic?”

“It’s not that.”

At the head of the table, Morgana was drawing her brief introduction
to its conclusion. “And of course, Maggie Tambling—”

All eyes turned to the direction in which Morgana pointed her two
upturned hands, like Judy Garland acknowledging the orchestra at Carnegie Hall.

Maggie’s querulous whisper could be heard, quite distinctly. “What
if it’s poisoned?”

Morgana soldiered on. “Maggie Tambling, who is joining us for the
first time after beating off fierce opposition to win our inaugural short
fiction competition.”

Morgana led the applause and then sat down and wordlessly raised her
glass in a salute to the room, to signify that everyone should get on and eat,
and drink. And then they could all go home.

“What makes you think it’s poisoned?” Emily asked Maggie. “Was it
something Teena said?”

Morgana had got up from her seat and was hurrying in their
direction. “It’s perfectly, perfectly OK, Maggie, I assure you.”

“First Tallulah, then Teena. I don’t want the next body in a bag to be me. Someone’ll
have to taste it before I eat it, won’t they?”

“Darling, I think it’s all over now. Their deaths were accidents.
You’re quite safe. There’s no question of the food being poisoned.”

It was unfortunate that just at that moment M. Loman
burst in. “Poison!” he said. “Poison? Is this how you
repay me?”

“Now,” said Morgana, “Dear Monsieur Loman,
I do think there might have been a mistake.”

“I have never been so humiliated!”

Cerys whispered to
Zena, “There speaks a man. Never
had a smear test or a mammogram.”

By now everyone was watching with the mixture of embarrassment and
engagement familiar in small fringe theaters where
the actors are just a little too close to the audience.

“First they break my heart. Is OK. It
beats. I am still alive. Then they break my body. It hurts. Is
OK. I am still alive. They cannot break my spirit. Cannot
take my honor. I come here, to live among British people. I am safe, I
think. But now,
you
try to take my
livelihood. I will live. But I want to know why.”

“Is this about the chocolates?”

“So you admit it!”

“No, no. Dear Monsieur Loman, please sit
down and have a glass of wine. I wish I could do something…I wish I could do
something kind for you, to show you that we mean you no harm.”

“You wish to make reparation? A donation, then.
To charity. Children of the Congo.”

“I’ll do it,” Polly spoke up. “I’ll be glad to do it. This is all my fault, anyway.”

She picked up her handbag and took M. Loman
by the arm. She led him outside to the lobby area where she had stuffed the
gift bags with Emily, so she could make arrangements to send him a donation.

Maggie had watched all this without comment. As Polly came back in
with the air of a deed well done, Maggie said to Morgana, “So there’s no
poison?”

“Absolutely not.
No.”

Maggie pushed her brown-bag executive lunch toward Morgana. “You
won’t mind tasting this for me, then?”

Morgana did mind, obviously. But she acquiesced. And so Maggie
picked up her handbag and walked to the head of the table. Room was made, and a
chair was found, so she could sit next to Morgana. Morgana then proceeded to
take up her knife and fork and cut mouselike bites
out of the various items that had been supplied to Maggie in the brown bag,
putting them in her mouth, chewing thoroughly and then swallowing them under
Maggie’s direction, before Maggie consented to eat them. Morgana also tasted
the wine before it was served. With her jaunty pink fez and tragicomic
expression, Morgana made a passably good jester and chief food taster to
Maggie’s intransigent monarch. When Morgana went out to the front of the hotel
to stand by the steps and smoke, Maggie watched impatiently for her return.

At some point, before she got too drunk, Morgana rose to make a
simple, moving tribute to Winnie. “Let us not forget
the power of words to live on after we die, and move those who read them…”

As she spoke, Cerys leaned in to whisper
to Zena, “They’re not going to leave up her website,
now she’s gone? Surely they’ll take down her reviews?”

“Immortality, innit,
babes? You want them to shred your books after
you’ve gone?”

“No, I’d hope sales would soar.”

“There you are, then. Her website will have more visitors than ever.”

Cerys sighed. “I
suppose I’ll just have to get on and write the next book, then.”

At the head of the table, Morgana concluded by saying, “Winnie’s talent was not for writing fiction, much as we
must admire her for trying. Winnie’s talent came when
she donned the mask as Tallulah, and she wrote about her appreciation for other
people’s talent for writing fiction. She was witty, she was funny, she was truthful. We need people who have her talent for
appreciating books. Not many can do it. She found her true talent before she
died. Not many can say that. She was appreciated. She achieved something. What
she achieved will endure. To Winnie!”

As the people around the room raised their glasses in a toast, Emily
instinctively looked toward the door. By rights, Des should have been standing
there with tears in his eyes, having slipped in unannounced to hear this moving
tribute. But this wasn’t a British romcom film. Des
wasn’t standing by the door, he was upstairs in his
room grieving.

After that the evening was a success because everyone
who was involved in publishing got very, very drunk and gossiped about other
people in the publishing industry. These were activities that revived memories
of a halcyon past and seemed to cheer everyone up— even those who didn’t have much faith in the
future of publishing. And then, to cap it all, at about ten o’clock Polly got a
call from her agent in New York, which of course is five hours behind London in
temporal terms, and twenty years ahead in lots of other ways. But no one was
considering the other ways tonight.

Morgana rose from her seat and dinged her glass. “We’ve just had
some wonderful news. Wonderful! Polly Penham has been
nominated for a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Romance Authors of America.”

“RAA!” a few people said, in tiger growls of appreciation.

“Lifetime achievement?” Emily overheard Zena saying to Cerys. “She’s only thirty-three!”

Cerys shuddered.
“I wouldn’t want to be presented with a lifetime achievement award, even at my
age, a grandmother with nearly thirty books to my name. Bad luck, see? I mean,
where do you go after that? It’s all over, isn’t it?”

“Yeah…Hadn’t thought of it that way. You think it’s a warning? The
universe is trying to tell Polly something?”

“No I don’t! I’m an agnostic Presbyterian. Besides, any more bad
news and I won’t need to dye my hair this color. I’ll
wake up tomorrow and my roots’ll have turned platinum
blonde overnight.”

“No more expensive visits from the hairdresser. If it happens, it’ll
be the first time in your life that coming up to London ever saved you money, Cerys.”

The two women laughed the special laugh some women reserve for
acknowledging extravagance, especially as it relates to overspending on clothes
or shoes. But as events unfolded that night, Emily—also an agnostic—had
cause to wonder whether the universe might, after all, be trying to communicate
some sort of warning. To all of them.