Pompomberry House (19 page)

I blushed a little. Gareth always managed to make me feel
good about my work. Even now, when there was no implied obligation to read my
work, he had devoured one of my shorts. Mind you, it
was
research ...

“Tell me more about Emily Whistlefoot.”

“I don’t know a great deal about her. Wait! I’ll look her up
on the forum.” I grabbed my phone. “She’s a crazy stalker fan apparently.”

“Crazy? Well that fits.”

“I know!”

“So why did they employ her to proofread?”

“Well that’s the thing — they didn’t
employ
her.”

“Oh, slave labour?”

“Something like that. She probably loved it though — she has
a crush on Rafe, and Montgomery apparently.”

“The old man?”

“Yeah.”

“Is Rafe attractive?”

“No.”

“You answered that a bit quickly.”

“Because it was an easy question.”

“He looked attractive in his photo.”

“Well, you go out with him then.”

“There’s no need to get defensive.”

“I’m not!” I sat there fuming for a few moments, until Emily
Whistlefoot’s profile popped up on the screen. “Oh my God!”

“What?”

“It’s Emily Whistlefoot! Her profile picture is a meerkat!”

“My God!”

“Quite! Well this is conclusive.”

“It is?”

“She must have gone to a garden centre to buy gnomes, and
fallen for the charms of the meerkats.”

“Does it look like a plastic meerkat?”

“Hard to tell on my phone.”

“You need to talk to Emily.”

“I know! This meerkat situation cannot be a coincidence!”

“More importantly, she’s female, saw the text before it was
published, and is, in your own words, crazy.”

Chapter 10

Emily Whistlefoot was a lot more responsive than Netta
Lewis, responding in less than ten minutes and agreeing to meet me the very
next day. She was also not having any of that trendy wine bar nonsense that
Annabel was into, being more than happy to agree to a meeting in a café.

The venue was a classic Caffè Nero — varnished redwood
chairs, blue and brown painted walls and marble-topped podiums for water and
napkins. Good old Nero’s. Another stamp for my loyalty card.

I wondered what Emily was like. Was she overweight, old and
desperate, as the others had suggested? Or was she skinny and librarian-esque,
with horn-rimmed glasses? Or maybe, she was disguised as an average person,
with crazy bubbling beneath the surface.

I didn’t have to wait long to find out. Emily was an
exceptionally good timekeeper. At first, I disregarded the skinny teenager
before me, but when she grinned, and offered me her hand, I realised that this
was Emily — she couldn’t be more than seventeen. She looked nothing like the
hardened eccentric that the writers had predicted.

Emily was a cute, fair-haired bookworm type, with intense
green eyes and a huge, youthful smile baring slightly crooked teeth. She was
clearly at that pre-goddess phase. With a few more pounds and a little
self-confidence, she would be fighting men off with a stick (if she so wished.)

“I’m so touched that you wanted to meet me!” she grinned. I
detected a faint Birmingham accent beneath the timid over-excited tones, and wondered
how long she’d been living in London. She smelt faintly of Ribena (or was that
the scent of a berry smoothie getting made at the counter?).

“Thanks for coming,” I said. I already doubted that she was
the killer. She was far too young to have nurtured enough cynicism to become a
murderer.

“I loved
The Red River
,” she said, beaming.

You read my book? Oh my God, I love you!
“Thank you.”

“I loved the references to lads’ mags!”

“Thank you! Those bits were fun to write.”

“I keep meaning to read
The Book of Most Quality Writers
,
you’re in that, aren’t you?”

“Wait, you didn’t proofread it?”

“No. Initially I offered, but after I found out when it was
due for release, I had to retract my offer.” She gasped, as if she had made an
unforgivable faux pas and began hurriedly trying to explain. “You see, I’ve
been in hospital on traction for weeks — that’s why I’ve read so many eBooks.
My Kindle was a lifesaver! Anyway, I was discharged earlier than expected ...”

“So you were too busy to proofread, catching up on life once
you were out?”

“Yes! Is that really bad?”

“Not at all! It’s not as if they offered to pay you.”

“I would have done it, if I’d stayed in hospital.”

“How long were you in hospital?”

“Over three months! It was so dull! Thank goodness I had my
Kindle. Still, it is nice to be able to use a full-sized keyboard now that I’m
out.”

“Did you type your reviews on your Kindle?”

“Yes,” she admitted, looking sheepish.

So there it was, Emily Whistlefoot wasn’t a crazed stalker
with poor English skills after all, she was just somebody who’d had a lot of
time on her hands and a very small keyboard. A Kindle enthusiast perhaps, but
no less sane than your average person, and certainly more together than many authors,
especially those on that fateful weekend trip.

“Hey, did you meet Rafe Maddocks?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Was he every bit as hot as he is in his pictures? I bet he’s
a real hoot! I really don’t know why he hasn’t been picked up by a major
publisher! He’s easily better than David Nicholls.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

“Perhaps he’s too modest.”

I tried to disguise shock as a particularly troublesome
cough.

“From what I’ve read in the forum, he seems very
approachable. Was he?”

What could I say? I should probably be honest, but how could
I take this girl’s hero away from her? “He was interesting,” I said,
truthfully.

“What about Annabel Fleming? She sounds adorable in
interviews.”

“She has some sugary qualities.”

“I love indies. I mean, what’s Enid Kibbler’s problem?”

Enid Kibbler. The name was familiar — oh yes, the indie
hater.

“Did you read her review of
The Book of Most Quality
Writers
? Honestly, it was brutal.”

The range of emotions that I went through at that point was
vast. Amusement — the anthology truly was terrible; fear — she may have
criticised my story; anger — the cheek of the woman; acceptance — bad reviews
happen. But even after reminding myself that criticism is an unavoidable part
of being published, I was still fighting a powerful curiosity to search for the
review on my phone, at once.

“I’m really jealous of you!” explained Emily. “I’d love to
meet those guys! Heck, I’d love to be an indie writer.”

“You’re not a writer yourself then?”

“Oh, I try. I’ve written a couple of short teen romances. I’m
not much good though, not like Annabel.”

Well, if she’s your inspiration, it’s no wonder you’re struggling.

“You guys are so good, my efforts would look silly.”

“You must believe in your work, Emily! I bet it’s the best
you can do, and you can’t ask for more than that.”

She beamed, the biggest smile I’d seen her crack so far.

“In fact, I’d be happy to look at a couple of pages for you.”

“You would?” she asked, almost leaping out of her chair.

“Of course!”

“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” she cried. “You’re my
favourite indie now. It
was
Rafe Maddocks, but now it’s you.”

“Um, thanks ...”

“Actually, can I have your autograph?”

What? Nobody had ever asked for my autograph before. I found
myself blushing. “Erm ...”

“Please?”

“All right,” I said, shyly.

With that, she disappeared into her large canvas bag, which
appeared to consume her head and shoulders. When she emerged, she was holding a
postcard with Edward Cullen on the back.
No, please! Anything but that.
But then she disappeared into the bag again, and came up holding a postcard
depicting an arrangement of pencils.
That’s better.

She plonked the postcard and a silver-plated fountain pen on
the table in front of me. “I’m really sorry. I should have brought my autograph
book! I’ve already got David Wailing and Kermit the Frog.”

“Kermit the Frog?”

“It’s more of a print.”

“What would you like me to do?”

“Just your name, is fine. Unless you want to do a print ...”
she joked.

I began scribbling, ‘To Emily, Best of luck with your
writing. Love, Dee’. I paused, wondering if it might be more appropriate to
start using my maiden name and then, on feeling a hideous pain in my chest,
added, ‘Whittaker’.

“Thank you so much!” she cooed, unaware of my inner torment.

“No problem. And I meant what I said about sending me a
couple of pages.”

“There’s a novel I wrote in Africa. It’s very short. Can I email
it to you?”

I inhaled. Since publishing
The Red River
, I had
become accustomed to complete novels landing in my inbox. I longed to have time
to give them all the attention that they deserved. Sadly, there weren’t enough
hours in the day.

“Of course,” I said politely, vowing that this really would
be the one I found time to read in full. “Hang on, when did you go to Africa?”

“Last summer. Family holiday of a lifetime.”

“Is that where your profile picture came from? I mean, the
meerkat?”

“Yes! And the lion that I had before that. And the giraffe
before that. And the elephant before that! And the other elephant before that!
And the zebra before that! Hey, did you read this morning’s thread about Peter
Pearson?”

“Who?”

“He’s the managing director of one of the big publishers.”

“Which one?”

“Um ... I can’t remember.”

“What did the thread say?”

“Oh, just that he was in the papers this week dissing
Kindle. He said eBooks lack any form of quality guarantee.”

“What, and paperbacks don’t?”

“Exactly. That’s just what Rafe said. And Dawn. And
Montgomery. And ...”

“I imagine there was a fair amount of opposition on a forum
dominated by indies.”

“Isn’t the forum great?” she asked, bouncing in her chair.

I nodded sadly. It had been great.

“Actually, I haven’t seen you on there for a while. Where have
you been?” she asked, her big green eyes wide and inquiring.

“Life’s been difficult of late.”

“Writer’s block?” she asked, sympathetically.

If only.

Chapter 11

I’d become an avid reader of the news. I had never realised
how depressing the world had become. I tried to skim over story after story
about lives destroyed by the recession, but it could sometimes be difficult not
to get sucked in.

However, by far the most disturbing story in this morning’s
paper was the one about an old lady who had been killed in her own garden. She
was senile and immobile and had had few pleasures in life, besides enjoying the
sun. So, her daughter had taken her out into their garden in North Cornwall, to
enjoy her lunch under a little spring sunshine. As the younger woman watched
from behind the kitchen sink, a seagull had swooped down to steal her pasty.
The daughter had run outside as quickly as she could, only to find that her
mother’s heart had stopped. It was heart-breaking.

Then, I noticed the photograph. I recognised the poor
victim. At first I couldn’t place her but then I remembered where I’d seen her
before — Gulls Reach. She was younger in the photograph, and her features were
less sunken, but it was still clearly the same lady. I found myself trembling. The
seagulls around Pompomberry House were truly evil.

The doorbell rang and I leapt out of my skin. Then Gareth
let himself in.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded, more aggressively
than I meant to.

“Getting some more stuff,” he replied. A visit in itself was
not surprising, but before midday? I wasn’t aware that Gareth knew the meaning
of 11.12 am.

“Gareth, you can’t just pop in whenever you feel like it.”

This had to stop. He’d only seen me yesterday. He really
wasn’t getting the message that we’d broken up at all. I couldn’t think why my
words weren’t getting through to him.

He went straight up the stairs into the bedroom — what
presumption! However, then I realised that he wasn’t hopping into bed as I had
hoped
 ... I
mean,
suspected
; he was going into the wardrobe.

“What are you doing? You can’t just come in here and root
through my cupboards.”

Then he did something so hurtful that he might as well have
punched me in the stomach — he took his dressing gown out of the wardrobe and
put it in a box.

He was moving on.

Ouch
.

Clearly, he wasn’t planning on spending the night here ever
again. But wasn’t that what I wanted?
Why did getting my own way hurt so
much?

“What are you doing?”

“Packing up a few more of my things, like you asked me to.”

“Of course,” I said. Then, trying to sound as casual as I
could, I added, “I’ll be downstairs getting a cup of tea if you need me.” Where
were my manners? “Would you like a cup of tea?”

“No thanks, Dee, I’ve got places to be, people to see.”

What places?
What people?
At least he used the plural,
which must mean he was seeing many people, not just one, potentially special,
person. Or did it?

Oh, pull yourself together, Dee, you want him to move on.
I’d just always imagined that I’d be the first to meet someone else, after all,
I’d known that we were going to break up first.

“What about a coffee? There are biscuits ...”

“Not today,” he said.

I began descending the stairs, feeling rejected and glum.

“Dee?” he added.

I spun around.

“Thanks though.”

“No problem,” I said, choking a little on the words. Why did
Gareth refusing a cup of tea feel so utterly devastating? Was I sickening for
something? Was I pre-menstrual? Yes, that must be it. There was no chance that
Gareth moving on could actually be upsetting. This was the path I’d chosen.