The Immaculate (4 page)

As always, the sight of his own face exhibited so brazenly made him feel strangely uncomfortable, almost vulnerable. He read the blurb beneath the enlarged photograph:
MEET THE AUTHOR, JACK STONE, WHO WILL BE HERE ON THURSDAY
, 24
^TH
FEBRUARY
2004
AT
1:30
P.M. TO SIGN COPIES OF HIS NEW NOVEL,
SPLINTER KISS.

Bracing himself, Jack crossed the road, promising himself a cigarette over lunch once this was over.

He reached the opposite pavement without being recognized, which was not entirely surprising, for in truth Jack was unremarkable in appearance. He carried perhaps half a stone too much weight for his five-nine frame, though this was easily concealed beneath baggy clothes. He had coffee-brown hair, slightly wavy, which he combed back from his forehead and over his ears. His face was pleasant, endowed—when he chose to display it—with a generous smile and eyes every bit as blue as Paul Newman's. If Jack had the chance to alter one aspect of his appearance it would be his jaw, which he considered far too prominent. At best he thought he looked like Desperate Dan, at worst a chubby piranha fish. Sometimes he wore silver-framed spectacles, and in his left ear was a silver ring, which he had not removed for some half-dozen years.

On the photo in the Strange Worlds window Jack's hair was longer than usual and he was not wearing his spectacles, so maybe he would be able to sneak in without anyone noticing. Sitting behind a table piled with books with a pen in his hand would make him feel more confident. What was it he had said to Gail, only half-jokingly, last night? He had said that writing was the profession of disturbed people: obsessives, neurotics, schizophrenics, egotists. “Which one are you?” she had asked him teasingly. He had rolled his eyes, cackled, given her his most crooked smile and hissed, “All of them.”

He was a dozen yards from the shop's entrance when he was spotted. He had his head down and his hands in his pockets, but heard the shuffle of feet increase, the buzz of voices raise a notch, and knew immediately what it signified. He raised his head in resignation, preparing to smile. “Hiya, Jack.” “Hello, Mr Stone.” “I loved
Consummation.
” “When does
Splinter Kiss
come out in paperback?”

Jack did his best to reply to as many greetings and answer as many questions as possible; he hated the thought that there were those in the queue who might feel snubbed before the event had even begun. He reached the glass door and tapped on it to alert the muscle-man in the
Strange Worlds
T-shirt who was standing just inside, acting as security guard. In what he hoped was a loud voice he said to the crowd, “Please excuse me. Hopefully I'll get a chance to speak to you all inside.”

It was obvious the muscle-man did not recognise Jack. He scowled and took his time strolling to the door, and once there kept his hands clasped behind him. Jack felt embarrassed and annoyed; he was aware that everyone in the queue was craning to look at him. Determined not to shout, he pointed very deliberately at the window display, then at himself, and then he mimed writing. The muscleman's scowl softened to a frown as realisation began to dawn. The man at the front of the queue, who was around twenty with slicked-back hair and a hooded grey track suit jacket, said in an exaggeratedly dopey voice, “Duhh, my brain hurts.” He helped out by holding up his rare first edition hardback of Jack's first novel,
Bleeding Hearts,
and pointing from the name on the cover to the man himself.

The muscle-man finally got the message. He twisted a key in the left half of the door and tugged it open. Jack slipped inside, thanking him curtly. “Uh . . . sorry, Mr. . . . uh . . . Stone,” the muscle-man said in a voice that sounded as if it were being played at too slow a speed.

The owners of the shop, Pete and Barry, were far more enthusiastic. Pete rushed forward, flinging out his hand. When the handshake came it was a disappointment, the kind that Gail always referred to as a damp dishcloth. “We're
so
pleased to see you,” Pete enthused. “It's going to be a super function. Well, you've seen for yourself, the hordes are massing outside.”

Jack merely smiled and nodded vaguely, then turned to Barry, who was hovering at Pete's shoulder like a minder, and said, “Hi.”

Barry murmured something inaudible, his gaze veering shyly away from Jack's. They were a strange pair, these two, lovers by all accounts, though they were so different that the thought of them living together, sharing their lives on a day-to-day basis, made Jack's mind boggle. He always thought of Pete as a fox—tall, lean, with quick movements and sharp features. Barry, on the other hand, was a tortoise—short, dumpy, awkward and introverted.

“You'll be sitting here, if that's okay,” Pete said, gesturing grandly at a spotlit table heaped with copies of Jack's new book. Cormorant, Jack's publisher, were really going to town on
Splinter Kiss,
his fourth novel.

“Fine,” Jack said, hoping the combination of spotlights and nerves were not going to make him pour with sweat. Behind the table, on the wall, was a large poster depicting the cover of
Splinter Kiss
—a striking surrealistic portrait of a woman with moths hatching from her eye sockets—and beneath his name, in large white letters, a quote from
Starburst
magazine: “Jack Stone is fast gaining a reputation as the most stunningly original dark fantasist working in Britain today.”

“I'll be sitting beside you, nearest the door,” Pete was saying, “flogging the product, so to speak. We've also got plenty of paperbacks of the first three on the shelves if the cheapskates would rather buy those and have those signed instead.”

“Great,” said Jack, and glanced at his watch.

“Still five minutes to go,” Pete said, as if apologising. “Well, six to be precise.”

“I don't mind starting now,” Jack said, “if that's okay with you.”

Pete spread his hands. “Fine, fine. It'll reduce a bit of the two-thirty backlog, anyway.”

Barry, who had been hovering on the periphery of the conversation, now edged forward and placed a copy of
Splinter Kiss
on the desk. “Would you . . . er . . . sign this for us first?” he mumbled.

“Sure,” said Jack, producing his pen. “Might as well get a bit of practice in. To Pete and Barry?” Barry nodded. Jack did the honours and handed the book back with a smile. Barry muttered his thanks.

Pete said, “Would you be a dear, Barry, and make us all some coffee?”

Barry shuffled away. Pete flapped a hand at the muscleman standing impassively by the door. “All right, Brian, up with the portcullis.” Brian reached for the door handle but glanced back at Pete with a bewildered expression. “Well, open it then,” Pete said, rolling his eyes.

As with all the signings he had done, Jack felt nervous and self-conscious at first, as if he had no right to be here, but after fifteen minutes or so he began to enjoy himself. The public—or “punters” as Pete referred to them—were chatty and friendly and often refreshingly weird, though from them all Jack detected a kind of reverence that he did not feel worthy of and that he did his best to break down. At ten minutes before two, Tamsin, the publicity manager from Cormorant who had set this up, arrived and asked Jack how it was going. Jack spread his hands and said, “Pretty well, as you can see.”

“Have we sold many
Splinters
or is it mainly old stuff?” she asked.

Jack shrugged as he signed. “About half and half, I should think.”

Pete did a brief calculation and said, “We've sold sixteen
Splinter Kiss
's in”—he glanced at the clock—“twenty minutes. That's not bad. Almost one a minute. We'll get through fifty at this rate.”

Tamsin nodded. She was petite with spiky ginger hair and an almost constantly smiling face. “Great,” she said. “Well, I'll just hang around. Shout if you need anything.”

Someone arrived with a proof copy of Jack's second novel,
Song of Flesh.
“Where did you get this?” he asked.

The girl looked a little alarmed, as if Jack had accused her of stealing. “From a secondhand bookshop in Huddersfield,” she said so quietly that he almost had to read her lips.

Someone else, who bought three copies of
Splinter Kiss
and wanted them inscribed “To Denise/Hilary/Sharon with big sloppy kisses, Jack Stone,” (as the guy had forked out almost forty quid, Jack complied) asked, “Any chance of seeing
Consummation
or
Song of Flesh
as a film?”

Jack shrugged. “I think
Consummation
would be hard to realise on screen.
Bleeding Hearts
has been optioned, though, so it's fingers crossed for that one.” When the guy screwed up his face as though he'd been eating a lemon, Jack said, “That doesn't appeal?”

“Nah. I thought
Bleeding Hearts
was a piece of shit. But it was only your first novel, so that's okay.”

At twenty past two Tamsin moved to Jack's side, leaned over and said into his ear, “I think it would be best if we cut the queue off at the last person now. There's still quite a lot of fans outside. What do you think?”

Jack said, “Well, as long as everyone who's out there gets their books signed.”

“They will, don't worry.” She glanced at her watch. “I mean, we're going to overrun as it is.”

He shrugged. “Okay, if you think it's best,” but he didn't like the thought of people turning up at 2:25 and being turned away. Maybe some of them had left the office for lunch at two and had rushed across town to get here. The thought of being considered inaccessible or aloof dismayed him, but he was beginning to realise how some celebrities, particularly the more successful ones, could gain such a reputation.

“I'll tell the gorilla on the door,” said Tamsin. “What's his name? Rambo?”

“Brian, believe it or not. Please make sure he doesn't start throwing his weight about, though, if people get tetchy. I don't want them to think he's associated with me.”

“Relax,” said Tamsin. “And start thinking about yourself. You're doing people a favour here, you know—meeting the public, signing their books.”

“If they didn't buy the books I wouldn't be here in the first place,” he replied.

He signed his final book at 2:45; Pete announced with obvious delight that they'd sold sixty-two hardbacks, then he and Tamsin went for lunch at Nafees, an Indian restaurant on Denmark Street where Jack had arranged to meet Gail.

She was not there when they arrived, though Jack had told her 2:40. He hoped she hadn't gone off in a huff because they were late; sometimes she had a very short fuse, and Jack knew she often felt second-best to his work. He'd told her he loved her and that there was no one in the entire world he'd rather be with. But he loved his work too: writing was an obsession with him, a necessity. Success was simply a wonderfully fortuitous consequence. Even if Jack was making no money at all, still collecting rejection slip after rejection slip like in the old days, he would continue to write.

The restaurant was colourful but tasteful: Indian fabrics and paintings on the wall, the suggestion of sitar music in the background. A soft-spoken waiter in a maroon suit and bow tie led them between affluent-looking city people to their table.

In the three years that Tamsin had been at Cormorant, Jack liked to think they had become friends. However, beyond their professional relationship, Jack realised he knew very little about her. She sometimes mentioned a boyfriend, though Jack had never heard her call him by name. She had also mentioned visiting her parents in Ipswich, but Jack did not know if she originated from there. Perhaps she was bubbly simply because she had to be. Maybe when she went home at night, to her boyfriend or whomever, she released all the vitriol she'd been storing up all day. Maybe tonight she would kick off her shoes, fling herself on the settee and say, “God, I had to take one of our authors, Jack Stone, out for lunch today. What a drag!”

Jack held the menu in front of his face to conceal his smile at the thought. Gail often accused him of being insecure and cynical and he hotly denied it every time. But it was true; he found it hard to trust people completely. He wondered whether this was a result of living in London or whether the roots were buried deeper, in the bitter soil of his childhood in Beckford.

“Are you ready to order?” Tamsin asked.

“I know what I want, but do you think we could wait for Gail? She should be here any minute.”

“Sure. No problem. Shall we have some drinks while we're waiting?”

“Yeah, great. I'll have a Kingfisher if they serve it here.”

When their drinks arrived, Tamsin said, “Do you mind if I smoke? Please say if you do.”

“Not at all. In fact, I wouldn't mind one myself, though I'm trying to cut down.”

“You do right,” said Tamsin. “Disgusting habit.” But she laughed easily to show that it was a habit she had no intention of stopping.

As Jack drew on the cigarette he felt the familiar twinge of emotion that was too slight to be termed fear or dread. His grandfather and great-grandfather had both died of lung cancer in their early sixties, though Jack consoled himself with the thought that as far as he knew his father was still going strong and he must be sixty-seven or sixty-eight by now. Tamsin began to speak enthusiastically about
Splinter Kiss
and asked him how the new one was coming.

“
The Laughter
? Very well, so far, though I never like to say too much about the novel I'm working on. I don't know why, it just makes me uncomfortable. Maybe because I'm so close to it, or perhaps it's just a superstition of mine that I don't even know about.”

Tamsin nodded and Jack said, “God, that sounds pretentious, doesn't it?”