Thieving Fear

TWELVE

As Charlotte made to send the longest email she'd ever had to write, Glen came back from lunch with an author. 'Might be good news,' he said.

'I'm glad,' she felt required to say, though she had no idea for whom.

'How have you been spending this sunny afternoon?'

His breath betrayed how he'd spent much of his. She didn't need reminding how she was buried away from the sun. 'Just being an editor,' she said.

'Hey, me too,' he said and squinted at her email to Sextus Sexta Sexagesima, lead singer with Ban This and now author of Praying is the Piss, in which a rock group called Shag the Pigs used magic to become the most successful band of all time. 'Did you send this?'

'I'm about to.'

He reached around her shoulders and scrolled with the mouse, a gesture she found more presumptuously intimate than touching her might have been. 'OK, don't,' he said soon enough.

'Is he another author we've had second thoughts about?'

'I was talking to the big man upstairs and he thinks you shouldn't edit this at all. Some books need to breathe, he said. If you try to fit them into how you think all books are meant to be you could end up suffocating them.' He continued to expose her email as he said 'I guess some of the spelling may need fixing if it's not intentional. Maybe some of the punctuation, though I don't believe they changed a comma of John Lennon's books. Leave all the words he's made up, but the title could use work.'

'I won't argue with that.'

'One word should do it.'

'Praying is the Pits, you mean? It might still offend some people.'

'We're going to offend plenty. Let's use it, not pretend we can avoid it. I'm saying we should call it Praying is Piss.'

Charlotte might have laughed, if only to discover how amused she was. 'Have I heard the good news?' she wondered instead.

'Maybe you can make this work for your cousin. Don't tell me you weren't hoping it might be about her.'

Charlotte was recalling that he'd also drunk a good deal the last time he'd been enthusiastic about Ellen. 'I won't,' she said, 'but how?'

'Hey, where did your imagination go? While they're sold on magic upstairs you ought to make your move. How are her books looking?'

'I thought she was supposed to be working on the first one.'

'Better make it both. Right now they're saying they like two-book contracts for first-timers or they don't think it's worth the risk. She should give you a pitch you can wow them with, then as long as her new chapters shape up I'd say she's sold. They're hot for her upstairs.'

'You mean you've been talking about her?'

'Don't worry, I said she was your author and I didn't say she was your cousin. Maybe we should keep that between us for a while.'

He'd leaned closer to say so, and Charlotte felt oppressed – by his nearness, by the partitions around them, perhaps most of all by his inconsistency. 'Why don't you ask her how she feels about working on both books,' he said.

'I don't think many authors work on more than one at once.'

'A great reason for new ones to learn to, I'd say. The more ways they can compete in today's market the better it'll be for all of us. It's not like she's on her own, is it? She'll have her cousin if she needs help.' He straightened up with a comical wobble that might have been intentional. 'I'll leave you to call her,' he said but lingered to frown at the screen. 'Don't send that by mistake.'

'I'll see if I need to say any of it.'

While it seemed disagreeably likely that she wouldn't, the delay gave her the illusion of control. As Glen gave up playing overseer she freed the desk phone and typed Ellen's number. He was rearranging papers in his cubicle by the time Ellen said 'Hello?'

'Me.'

'Charlotte. I know you're waiting for my chapters. They're coming soon, I promise.'

'Do you think you might be able to let me have a synopsis of your next book as well?'

Ellen hesitated and then sounded oddly wary. 'Can I do a bit of research first?'

'Certainly you can, only how long do you think it'll take?'

'I've thought where I can set it. It's near enough for me to go and have a look.'

Charlotte wasn't sure if she heard or otherwise sensed movement beneath her. The muffled subterranean activity had to be that of a train, and of course she hadn't felt the floor shift like a lid. 'Have I guessed where?' she said.

'I wouldn't be surprised.' Ellen paused for some kind of effect and said 'Thurstaston.'

Another train must be worming under the office, but Charlotte was more aware of having mouthed the name as Ellen spoke it, as if it were a prayer or some other kind of invocation. 'I'll finish this chapter and then I'll send them to you,' Ellen said. 'I was working on it when you rang.'

'Don't let me interrupt any more. I'll look forward to whatever's coming.'

At that moment the computer screen turned black. It had simply grown dormant, though it put Charlotte in mind of a window overwhelmed by a sudden fall of earth. She wasn't going to let it remind her of the earth that must be pressing against all the walls. She nudged the mouse to restore her words on the monitor. 'Enjoy your research,' she said as a farewell.