The Silent Tide (26 page)

Emily’s destination was one of the concert halls. She weaved her way between the loitering tourists, then went through a set of glass doors into a large foyer and followed the signs to a small lecture theatre.

She was a little early and the room was still filling up, so she found a seat a few rows from the front, happy to wait. She loved events like this; there was often such a mix of people and she enjoyed watching them and imagining what their lives were like, and marvel how books could bring them together. Though, she had to admit that in this case, it might be because Joel had appeared in their homes on a TV screen.

And now Joel himself came in, chatting to a trendily dressed young man, who stepped up on the stage ahead of him, clutching a notebook. They sat down at either end of a low table and clipped on microphones. ‘Good afternoon,’ the interviewer’s voice boomed out. Someone adjusted the volume, and everyone quietened. ‘My name’s Lucan O’Brien,’ the young man said, ‘and I’m going to be talking to Joel Richards here about writers who the media called the Angry Young Men. Joel has written a book which ties into the recent series that he presented and I produced. Between us, we hope to give you further insight into some of these fascinating writers.’

Emily had been staring at Joel, thinking how nice he looked in his crisp white shirt and chinos, how composed. All of a sudden he looked directly at her and gave her a discreet smile, which she returned.

The talk was informative and very funny at times, and the audience loved it. Joel spoke briefly and without notes about his book, then answered the interviewer’s questions with eloquence. Emily hadn’t seen this side of him before. It was good news for her professionally, of course, since he would obviously be in demand for publicity when the Morton book was published, but his assuredness made her consider him differently as a person, too. It gave him a dusting of glamour. She listened particularly closely when he described the masculine nature of the writers, and she wondered about the wives and girlfriends behind the scenes, what they had thought of their men’s views of sexual politics and what their own opinions had been.

She was envious of anyone who could stand up and entertain an audience. She still felt a little clammy whenever she was asked to speak at sales conferences or launch parties. She was bursting to ask about the women, however, so when questions were invited from the audience, she put up her hand.

'Yes, the girl with the green headband,' Lucan said, pointing to Emily.

'Were there,' Emily asked, 'any Angry Young Women in the fifties?' From the fact that several other women murmured agreement, she gauged that she'd asked the burning question.

Joel smiled, but didn't embarrass her by giving away that he knew her. 'I've been waiting for someone to raise that,' he said. 'I'm sure there were behind the scenes, but hardly any of them made it into or onto the stage. There was one in 1958, Shelagh Delaney. Anyone heard of her play
A Taste of Honey
? Emily saw several people nod. 'She tried to write it as a novel first, but couldn't make it work.'

'Time for one more question,' said the interviewer, who was glancing impatiently at his watch. Emily would have liked to have asked WHY there weren't more women, but it was someone else's turn.

After the event had finished, Joel was led outside to sign books at a table in the foyer, and although the vast majority of the audience drifted off, happy to have been entertained for an hour, a few lingered, buying books and asking him questions. Emily waited nearby, reading.

'Emily?' She looked up to see Joel was ready. 'Lucan's invited us out to supper. Pippa Hartnell's coming too. She's the one who's producing
The Silent Tide
for BBC. Would it be an awful bore?'

'It certainly would not,' she replied, gathering up her things. I'd love to meet her.' Finding out about
The Silent Tide
adaptation was an opportunity not to be missed.

They went to a Thai restaurant behind Waterloo station, not a grand place at all, but cosy and welcoming. Everybody was paying their own way and the atmosphere was informal and friendly. She sat with Joel on one side of the table with Joel's interviewer, Lucan, and Pippa, on the other. She secretly found Lucan a bit self-absorbed, for he hogged the conversation, showing off about his ambitions, ideas he had for books and television dramas, about plans to move to New York or perhaps Berlin, which was really cool right now. She must remember to give him her business card later, though. Just as with Tobias Berryman, you never knew where the next wonderful book might come from.

The food arrived in a delicious scented cloud of lemon-grass and coriander. They shared it round and ate with gusto.

Emily watched Joel covertly. He was very at home with the television people, while she didn't feel so sure-footed. He knew his way about, remembered the names of those who mattered, spoke the jargon. He even listened politely to Lucan, whom she sensed Pippa didn't like very much either-though she was too courteous and professional, and they all argued quite good naturedly about the latest Scandi thriller and whether tehe audience had had enough of the genre. Lucan was well informed and made some good points about audience bases. Emily managed to feel a little sorry for him, a young man on the make in difficult times.

It was eleven by the time they left the restaurant. Lucan and Pippa said goodbye at Waterloo station and went off separately.

Joel and Emily walked together to the river and back over the pedestrian bridge o Embankment. They paused halfway across the bridge to gaze at the view, St. Paul's Cathedral glowing creamy silver in the distance. The walk had been the first chance they'd had to talk alone all evening.

'How's the book coming along?' she asked. 'The TV adaptation will be a great preparation for it.'

'Won't it. I still hope they deliver to you by September. I've reached nineteen ninety now. That's when he tried writing crime fiction. It was a bit of a disaster, unfortunately. He couldn't really do plot, could our Hugh.'

She laughed. 'What did you think about the photocopies I sent you?'

'Lord, I did read those. Where did you say you got them?'

'They were left on my desk. On Valentine's Day, of all days. Joel, I don't know who's doing it. They left a photograph, too, taken at their wedding-Hugh and Isabel's I mean.'

'I've seen one or two of those in albums at Stone House.'

'This one's in a frame.'

'Interesting. I don't remember seeing one about the house.'

'Nor me. It's all most mysterious.'

He was quiet for a moment. 'I'm not sure,' he went on, 'what to make of what you sent me. Whoever it's by . . . '

'Isabel,' Emily said firmly.

'How can we know for certain it's Isabel? The handwriting is all over the place.'

'Joel, I'm sure it's hers.'

'Whoever it is, she sounds a bit mad. All that ranting about Hugh's book.'

That would be
The Silent Tide
.

He sighed. 'Perhaps I should simply show it to Jacqueline.'

'Maybe you should. What else has she given you about Isabel?'

'Precious little. She says it's not something she wants opened up again. It distresses Lorna, apparently.'

Emily hadn't thought of that. 'That's difficult,' she admitted. 'But you can't ignore Isabel. She was Hugh's wife and the mother of his eldest child.'

'I promise you that I am not going to ignore her,' he said shortly, and she saw that she was irritating him.

They watched a motor-launch power towards them and disappear under the bridge. A cold draught rose in its wake and Emily shivered in her short jacket and flippy skirt.

'Shall we go on?' Joel said. Emily nodded. She was thinking about the photograph of Hugh and Isabel, how bright and alive the bride had looked, the dark eyes in her heart-shaped face sparkling with intelligence. She believed Isabel to have been the more likely inspiration for Nanna in
The Silent Tide
than the more placid looking Jacqueline.

As they came to the steps that led down to Embankment, she caught her high heel in a crevice and stumbled. Joel gripped her arm to save her.

'Thank you,' she said. When he released her, she still felt the warmth of his touch.

At the tube station, they passed through the ticket barrier and stood together awkwardly for a moment.

'You go down there, don't you?' he said. 'And I go this way.'

'It's been a lovely evening, thank you,' she told him. They solemnly kissed each other's cheeks.

'It has been good,' he said, standing close, his eyes steady on hers. 'We must do it again sometime.'

She watched his tall figure disappear round the corner an tried not to think of Matthew.

A week passed, then one morning Emily came into the office to find another of the mysterious envelopes in her pigeonhole. She opened it carefully and held her breath as she withdrew another thick wad of pages covered in Isabel's handwriting.

It started halfway through a sentence, she saw, the sentence that had been left broken off at the end of the previous tranche. She took it back to her desk with a burning sense of excitement. There was no time to read it now, so she stowed it safely in her bag to read at home. Every now and then, as she went through the day, she thought about it there, waiting for her.

Isabel

The autumn of 1950 was a time of deep happiness for Isabel, but so busy was she that she moved through the days with the constant feeling that she’d forgotten something. From the moment when the alarm clock went off at half past six, even in November, when it was still so dark that her body told her it was the middle of the night, she had to be up and active. Sometimes, though, it was a few minutes before Hugh would allow her to leave the bed.

Since Hugh would usually fall asleep again, it was she who put the kettle on, hurriedly washed and dressed whilst it boiled, then drank a lonely cup of tea at the kitchen window, looking out on the frost-dusted roofs of the houses behind as the sky lightened and the cats of the neighbourhood made their way home for breakfast after a night’s hunting. Then she’d make breakfast – eggs and bacon for Hugh, if she could get it, and toast for herself – before setting out for work.

Life at the office was as frenetic as it had ever been. Indeed, for large parts of her day she didn’t think about being Mrs Hugh Morton at all, for she was concentrating on being Isabel, editing manuscripts, reading proofs, typing lists of queries for authors, or writing copy for book jackets. Sometimes, though, she would be reminded, for Hugh would ring up to tell her that he was stuck between paragraphs, and simply wanted to hear her voice. She’d have to patiently talk to him for a minute or two before gently finishing the call.

Audrey had finally given up her job for a life of domestic bliss, though she occasionally swanned into the office during a shopping trip to say hello. Stephen had a new secretary, Cat, short for Catherine, who had some connection with the literary editor at the
Herald,
looking to get into publishing. Cat was silky-haired with long-fringed eyes, like an appealing bushbaby. Stephen was beginning to get quite impatient with her, for though her easy manner made her an asset when working with people, she responded tearfully to brisk orders and demanding work schedules. Isabel, too, was getting fed up with digging her out of various messes. Trudy regarded Cat’s tribulations as ‘silly nonsense’ and wouldn’t help at all. Unfortunately, the
Herald’s
literary editor was not a man to cross lightly, so the weeks passed and Stephen did not quite muster up the courage to sack her. There was talk of passing her on to the psychology editor upstairs, who could do with another assistant, but the psychology editor wasn’t altogether happy about this, and a low-level if good-humoured warfare ensued, the nature of which Cat, bless her, seemed unaware, so that in the end everyone got used to her and she stayed.

These days, Isabel had her coat on and was out of the door on the dot of five-thirty, a bag of scripts to read in one hand and her shopping in the other, and her life as Mrs Hugh Morton resumed. Their daily came only twice a week and it couldn’t be guaranteed that Hugh would have seen about supper. There was, after all, a handy butcher near the office where the queues weren’t too long, so it was sensible for her to shop there during her lunch break rather than Hugh having to stop what he was doing and go out. It all meant that there were so many things to think about and there never seemed time to relax when she ate her lunchtime sandwich, or to idle in the library as she used to.

But she loved getting home to their little flat and to have him waiting for her. She didn’t miss her bedsit days one bit, although she wished she saw more of Vivienne. Her room had been taken by an austere older lady, so she feared Vivienne might be even lonelier than before. Every time she saw her friend she berated herself for not doing so more often, but married life was proving of the Dome of Discovery., e McKinnon terribly absorbing.

Was there anything nicer, Isabel asked herself, than preparing a little supper for your husband and sitting down with him to eat it and to talk about one another’s day? Of course, she made plenty of mistakes to start with, serving up a chicken that was practically raw inside, and a Victoria sponge that flopped. Poor Hugh always tried to laugh and not to mind, though it wasn’t really fair on him.

She knew Hugh’s working life wasn’t easy. He was on his own a good deal of the day – unless he’d had lunch with someone from a newspaper who was commissioning him to write something, or was visiting a library or the offices of a literary magazine – and her homecoming was much looked for.

‘I wrote a thousand words this morning,’ he might say as soon as she walked through the door. 'I'll type them up this evening and let you have a look,' and after she'd flown about the kitchen washing the dishes and cleaning, rinsing out the few clothes she might need between laundry trips, they'd work companionably in the drawing room until bedtime, she reading, he typing or sighing over some book he'd been given to review with a tumbler of whiskey at his elbow, the wireless playing softly in the background.