goblins.’
‘Whatever. You’re the expert. Right, must dash. A million things to do.’
He flinched at the word.
When she’d gone he stood for a while holding thephone. Then he drank more whisky, which made him cough. He subsided into his armchair. The coughing gradually transmuted into sobbing. Later, he wiped his eyes on his sleeve, got to his feet and went to the window. Instantly, he recoiled from it. The Weird Sisters, Francine and Merilee, were out in the lane again. Merilee or Francine took her thumb out of her mouth and waved shyly.
2
The Nutwell Prize ceremony was a bloody rum do, in Minerva’s considered opinion. Sort of High Table meets Bottom-Feeders. During pre-dinner drinks, she’d experienced the utmost difficulty escaping from an Indian academic who had strangely assumed that she would be fascinated by his theories apropos the relationship between the
Mahabharata
and
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
. She’d mistaken him for that Asian chap who did stuff for Channel Four. Next, she’d almost made a fool of herself by mishearing the phrase ‘inter-genre discourse’. Then inadvertently she’d found herself in one of those Who’s Shagging Whom (carnally or commercially) seminars, this one chaired by Colin ‘Cruella’ Devine. It was peculiar that the life went out of it when she joined in. She was, after all, the font of all knowledge on that subject. Maybe that was why.
Or maybe it was because she had Philip in tow. ‘In tow’ was the right phrase, actually; she felt like the doughty little steam tug in that painting by Turner, hauling the hulk of a once-glorious man-of-war to the breaker’s yard.It was absolutely terrifying that he was so useless. He was the bloody
winner
, for Chrissake, and he … well, he was hardly bloody
there
. God!
She’d been appalled when he stumbled into the Dorchester. It had almost drained her arteries of
sangfroid
not to scream. He looked like someone on Schindler’s list, not a shortlist. As soon as she’d dragged him into the suite she forced him into a hot bath laced with aromatherapy Crisis Oil. Then she sorted him out a haircut and full facial. Helping him into his new clothes, she realized that he’d lost quite a bit of weight since he’d been measured for them. There was a good deal of slack in the trousers. But at least he now looked merely mad, rather than actually homeless. Which was OK, since at least half the people here were clearly nutters.
But where oh where was the Murdstone of yesteryear, the Murdstone of
Late Review
, of Hay-on-Wye, of New York, of Los Angeles? How had he been replaced by this person who looked like he was wearing someone else’s dentures?
She glanced sideways at him over her champagne. Watched him nodding vacantly in response to the intense babble issuing from the mouth of Perdita Holmes. She wanted to slap his face, scream at him, ‘This tedious bitch is the Head Buyer of MetroBooks, so show her some sodding respect!’
She drained her glass, then signalled for a boy in a black and gold waistcoat to bring her another.
She’d been in denial. Oh, yes. And it wouldn’t do. Shetook a deep breath (oh for a ciggie!) and let the words form, like a row of bloody tombstones, in her head:
Philip couldn’t write what everyone was calling
Murdstone 2
. (Let alone
Murdstone 3
.)
He couldn’t do it.
Dark Entropy
had been a glorious flash in the pan.
He’d passed across the sky like that Bill Haley Bop comet or whatever it was called and disappeared.
A One-Hit Wonder.
A huge global Number One, and that was it.
All over.
Nothing wrong with that in itself, of course. Loads of people had retired on less. Much less. She knew professionally several people who’d lived for years on a Number Two.
It wasn’t his fault. It was hers. She should have
read
him. The person, not the wretched book. Should have said to Gorgon, ‘OK, you’ve got a huge bestseller, thirty-seven foreign language deals, the movie, the
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