Wishful Thinking (47 page)

‘
No
.'

‘Something more restrained.'

The launch loomed ahead of us, an event of huge significance though we weren't at all sure what it signified. We anticipated it with dread and also with . . . well, anticipation. As Georgie said, if the party was a catastrophe, it wouldn't be
our
catastrophe. Apart from specifying certain people he wanted to invite, Jerry had left the guest list up to her, and Georgie, after an open meeting with practically everyone at Ransome, had decided to ask the whole of London – media, celebs, the lot – in the hope that some of them would come out of sheer curiosity, some for the free booze, and a few because they didn't realise whom the invitation was actually from. (It was headed: ‘The Staff and Management of Ransome Harber invite you to . . .' after a brief debate with Jerry, who was tactfully brought to realise the imprudence of putting his own name at the top.) I had contemplated adding Todd Jarman's name to the list – I was still running on forlorn hopes – but Alistair stepped in first, insisting we include all our high-profile authors living in the area. ‘Time to show solidarity with their publisher,' he said. ‘We've backed them for years; now they need to back us.' He had clearly slipped into an alternative universe where writer and publisher shared a warm, huggy-huggy relationship based on mutual respect and appreciation. In this world, writers hate their publishers on the grounds that their advances are too small and their efforts at promotion derisory – and, as I've mentioned before, publishers despise writers, since they know nothing about books and do everything they can to mess up the smooth running of business. But some might attend the party, if we were lucky. Writers cannibalise pain, preferably other people's. There were bound to be a few out there who would come, like Romans to the amphitheatre, in the hope of seeing Jerry eaten by lions.

As far as Jerry's private list was concerned, the refusals were mounting up. In general, people don't bother to accept (or refuse) an invitation to a launch party: it's the kind of sprawly, casual occasion when they think courtesy doesn't matter. But in this case the great and the good clearly wanted it set on record that they
weren't coming
– refusal was a gesture, not a mere social decision. Of course, arguably, so was acceptance, but we didn't have so many of those. All we could do, as Georgie put it, was to trust that, in theatrical parlance, it would be all right on the night. ‘And if it isn't,' she concluded, ‘it doesn't matter, because it's not our fault. Jerry was the one who wanted the bloody party, after all. If no one shows up, there'll be more Bolly for the rest of us.'

Bearing this in mind, anyone at Ransome who had anything to do with the project was preparing to turn out – ‘It'll flesh out the crowd,' Georgie said, ‘if there is a crowd' – plus a good few extras. I slipped an invitation to Cal, in case Georgie hadn't, and later that day he arrived at my desk, plainly in a state of indecision.

‘I've had a couple of these,' he said. Aha. ‘No one's ever bothered to
invite
me to a launch before.' He had a point. You don't usually invite staff: they just go. Or not. But this was – unfortunately – a special occasion.

‘Everyone's getting them,' I explained. ‘We're trying to rally people round. Let's face it, we could well be the only guests.'

‘I thought perhaps Georgie . . .'

‘This isn't
personal
,' I lied. ‘This is for the company.'

‘Balls to the company,' Cal said, looking startled. Corporate morale wasn't a big deal at Ransome. Publishers tend to take it for granted that it's a privilege to work for them; they don't think their employees need regular encouragement.

‘Okay, then it's for your colleagues. For everybody who worked on the damn book. You did the dust jacket, didn't you?'

‘'Course, but . . .'

‘Show – solidarity.' I borrowed from Alistair's vocabulary. ‘It's just a party. You used to be a party guy.' I decided to take the bull by the horns. ‘Is it us – is that the problem? Georgie – and friends? Don't you even
like
us any more?'

‘Don't be stupid. I've always liked you, and as for Georgie . . .'

‘Did that blonde really fill the gap,' I said, ‘or did she just – temp?'

He made a half-grimace, gave part of a head-shake, a fraction of a shrug. ‘You know it's hopeless.'

‘No, I don't,' I said with sudden energy. ‘It's only hopeless if you think it is. Love is special. Love is worth the effort. You could make it work if you both really
wanted
to. You've had plenty of time to dwell on the difficulties: all you have to do is come to terms with them.'

‘Georgie doesn't want to,' he said, ‘does she?'

‘Ask her.'

Meanwhile, the columnists backed off Lin to stick their dagger-nibs into another scandal, but the damage was done. The photos which had appeared in the press were all either old ones from the files or the blurred sneak-shots of prowling paparazzi, but they were enough to make her so apprehensive she hardly dared go out. One day in her local supermarket she was harangued by a woman she knew only by sight, who called her a disgrace to motherhood, more interested in men than the welfare of her children. A manager rushed to her aid, and she was taken home in tears, but after that she declared she would never go shopping again. The Internet had its uses: she could buy everything online. She couldn't even face going to work any more . . .

‘Are you going to let the bastards defeat you?' Georgie demanded. ‘Where's your fighting spirit?'

‘I haven't any,' Lin said flatly. ‘I can't stand people yelling at me,
hating
me. It makes me shrivel inside. Not just strangers – people I know well, people I thought knew
me
. Vee won't take Meredith any more. She says I should spend more time with the kids, stop g-gadding about. I know I was stupid – I
know
that – but I don't gad about, I've always, always put the children first. It's like
I'm
on trial, not Ivor – like
I
abused them . . .'

‘Vee's wrong,' I said furiously. ‘She's just being smug and self-righteous and superior – she and all the ones like her. The broadsheet moralists and the tabloids who batten on people's suffering – and the morons who soak it up to feel good about themselves. People hurt other people – they let each other down – they let
themselves
down – and then they band together to victimise some poor sod whose little failings are out in the open. It makes them
feel good
– it's the real feelgood factor – and it's horrible. It's humanity at its most obscene. Like stoning adulteresses in Biblical times. People like to gang up, particularly against someone who won't fight back. There's the bully in all of us, but at least we can try to suppress it, instead of – instead of justifying it, instead of saying to ourselves: I'm right – I'm righteous – she's screwed up – she
deserves
to suffer . . .'

Lin was clasping my hand, evidently moved by any gesture of affection or support these days.

‘Good speech,' Georgie said. ‘Wish I'd made it. And
don't
say—'

‘You will, Oscar. You will.'

The atmosphere lightened. ‘Right,' Georgie said. ‘First of all, you
can
go out. You must. You can wear a woolly hat pulled down over your ears and look a nerd; lots of celebrities do that. Or a wig – that might be fun. But you mustn't become a recluse. For the kids' sake—' she found the right button, and pressed it ‘– you've got to go on as normal. They won't like it if you fuss over them all the time. And you can't give up working: you need the money.'

‘Demmy said I was a bad mum,' Lin whispered. ‘His classmates told him . . . And Sandy doesn't say anything, but his teacher told me he keeps getting into fights, and he comes home with bruises, and sulks when I ask how he got them.'

‘Has – has Andy phoned?' I asked hesitantly.

‘No. I mean, I don't know. Mostly, I keep it unplugged, and my mobile's not working, and I don't check my e-mail any more 'cos people have found out my address, and I get so much hate stuff . . .'

‘Maybe you should call him.'

‘How could I?'

I didn't push it.

‘At any rate,' Georgie said, ‘you'll come to Jerry's party.'

‘I couldn't possibly—'

‘You'll come,' Georgie persisted, at her most inexorable, ‘because we need you.
I
need you. We'll fix you up with a babysitter, someone from a reliable agency if we have to. I'll find a way to put it on the PR account. But you have to come. You can't let us down.'

‘I've already let my children down—'

‘Oh
bollocks
 . . .'

The launch was at the end of November, carefully timed to start the Christmas season. At Jerry's insistence, we went to the flat the day before to discuss it in detail. He believed in planning a party like a military operation, something we thought of as overkill although, under the circumstances, perhaps it was necessary. But I suspected the circumstances had nothing to do with it; Jerry was just one of Nature's super-planners, a control freak who, having temporarily lost his grip on life, was determined to get every aspect of it back on track. The champagne corks would be fired
here
– the toad would be holed up
there
– a squad of catering staff would attack the west lounge – guests would be ambushed and stripped of their coats in the lobby – a welcoming line would be stationed near the door – hold until relieved . . .

‘I don't think we need that,' Georgie said hurriedly. ‘It looks as though we're trying too hard.'

‘When I went to a reception in Downing Street—'

‘They
have
to be formal,' Georgie said coaxingly. ‘We don't. Much better to appear casual. We
know
this is the best party of the season; we don't have to ram it down anyone's throat.'

‘Maybe you're right,' Jerry conceded, with a flicker of the mouth which might have passed for a smile.

‘If the old religions are right,' I remarked in an aside to Georgie, while Jerry was diverted by the telephone, ‘and people go to Purgatory for a single lie, you're going to be there for one hell of a long time.'

‘Purgatory,' Georgie shuddered, ‘is part of my job.'

Surprisingly – once he had realised she was undergoing trial by tabloid – Jerry was extremely, even embarrassingly, nice to Lin. In his view, they were kindred spirits, wrongfully targeted by the gutter press, and as such ranged on the same side. (At other times, he also felt he was a kindred spirit with Frank Bruno, Russell Crowe, Tony Blair and the late Princess Diana.) He kept making jollying remarks to her – ‘Don't let the swine get to you' – ‘Right is always right, even if a howling mob calls it wrong' – patting her on the shoulder, oozing sympathy. When she said she might not manage to come to the party, he became bracing and military again: ‘We have to stand together. I know you won't let the team down.'

‘I'm not
on
his team,' Lin objected pitifully, once he was out of the room. ‘I don't think I can take much more of this.'

‘I know,' Georgie said. ‘There's a downside to being hounded by the press that you just don't expect. It puts you in such very bad company.'

‘
Publishing
puts you in bad company,' I said. ‘And they told me it was a respectable job.'

‘When you consider what books are
about
,' Georgie retorted, ‘you can't really expect publishing them to be respectable.'

With Jerry metaphorically laying out a party map and moving flags around we hadn't had another chance to search the bathroom. Lin, driven to breaking point by his sympathetic manner, declared he was capable of any crime and she would be only too happy to prove it – thus uniting with Georgie and me on our quest for his hidden loot. Against my better judgement, I was still eager to vindicate my theory about the cache under the bath. Call it sheer female curiosity, if you like. Yes, I know that's a sexist statement, but actually curiosity is one of the (many) qualities that make women superior. Listen to any conversation between a man and a woman: the woman will be asking questions, the man talking, usually about himself. (Most heterosexual relationships are based on this simple fact.) Men affect to despise us for being ‘nosy', ‘minding other people's business', but in fact they thrive on our spirit of inquiry. And curiosity leads to progress – you can bet it was a Stone Age woman who stuck a haunch of mammoth in the fire to see what would happen, and thereby invented cooking. I wouldn't be surprised if many of the great discoveries of history were made, not by the accredited males, but by their wives, overlooked because of their gender. Mrs Newton probably had to drop the apple on Isaac's head a good few times before he cottoned on. And one of the main things that's wrong with our police force is that the CID still consists predominantly of men. Yet women are natural detectives (Agatha Christie knew all about that) and much better at it than Sherlock Holmes.

Which brings me back to Jerry's bathroom. I wanted to see what was behind the faux-marble panel, Georgie had her back to the wall with financial hassle, and Lin, driven to the edge of a precipice, was horrified to find Jerry Beauman dangling from the same rope. We weren't really planning to steal the money – I don't think so, anyway – we just wanted to know if it was there. We weren't planning to inform the Serious Fraud Office. We weren't planning
anything
. It just gave us something to be curious
about
– a distraction from broken hearts and hopeless love, from private rejection and public humiliation and guilty fantasy. It made us feel like Charlie's Angels again, swashbuckling adventuresses on the trail of a supervillain. Of course, Jerry wasn't plotting world domination, but from the way he organised the party it was clear he was exactly the kind of obsessive control freak who
might be
. Besides, he was the nearest we could get.