He was trying to write, but there was not much chance of doing that when he had to spend all his time fetching and carrying for a fractious Edith. In a fit of generosity, he offered to read to her, but she waved him away as if he were offering something reprehensible. Instead she was intent on badgering him into conveying an endless stream of food that even a restaurant would have had trouble keeping up with. Two crumpets lightly toasted and thickly buttered. A slice of ham. Is there any cold chicken? A pickled onion, a pickled egg. A book, a magazine, a copy of the Radio Times, a jigsaw puzzle. Bread and dripping! Their cook was becoming insubordinate. （“I can hand in my notice at any time, you know.”）
Of course, anything other than slops and pobs was forbidden to Edith by Nellie, so Ramsay felt some sympathy for her for fancying something tasty. He remembered his time in the Swiss sanatorium, where the food had been excellent—endless mugs of cocoa and bowls of rich soup and plates of local cheese and ham. It had helped him get better, so how could it harm Edith? And the sooner she got better, the sooner she would stop needing to be waited on hand and foot.
Detective Chief Inspector Jones was patrolling the streets of Soho. Or prowling? Prowling had a criminal feel to it, though, didn’t it? Perhaps he was a criminal as well as a policeman. Not impossible—look at Maddox.
Ting, ting.
Only ten days after starting his magnum opus he could feel his creativity dimming, coming in fits and starts with interminable longueurs in between. He felt overcome by ennui. Did people really do this for a living? Every day?
The typewriter keys glared balefully at him. Soldier on.
The Age of Glitter had rapidly become unwieldy. Yes, it was a crime novel, but it was also “a razor-sharp dissection of the various strata of society in the wake of the destruction of war.” （Ramsay was not without ambition.） “Hm,” Shirley said. Disappointingly, Shirley, usually his greatest champion, had reservations. “Should you really be trying to portmanteau everything into it, darling Ramsay? Wouldn’t it be easier just to stick with the idea of the body on the pavement? I rather liked that. And you haven’t even written that bit yet.”
“And what about romance as well?” Kitty said, clutching her heart and pretending to swoon. “You should have people who fall in love with each other.”
“No, I shouldn’t,” Ramsay said. “I can’t think of anything worse.” But, on reflection, perhaps he should introduce a romantic element? It would open the novel up to a whole new readership （women）。 How would he go about it? He had no experience of either love or romance. The female sex seemed unattractive to him, but then living with his sisters, who could turn on a sixpence, was enough to put anyone off, let alone someone with “the soul of an artist,” as Shirley had pleasingly termed it.
Ting! Ting!
Great writers did not have to work under these conditions. Great writers had wives to keep the mundanities of life at bay. Perhaps that was what he needed, but who could he marry? Most of the girls Ramsay knew, like Pamela Berowne, were ghastly creatures who would hinder, not help.
Of course, there was an argument for marrying Pamela Berowne—she was filthy rich, so it would solve his financial difficulties and he could repay Azzopardi the ludicrous sum of money he owed. The memory of the evening in Belgravia popped up unwanted and was promptly quashed. It had been a week now since the nightmarish spieler and Azzopardi still hadn’t approached him for reimbursement. Ramsay was hoping that if he continued to ignore the problem it might just go away.
If （when） he became successful, people crowding into Hatchard’s for his latest bestseller （Do you have the new Ramsay Coker? I hear it’s brilliant）， he would be independent, earning his own money, a proper income rather than the weekly alms doled out by Nellie from the profits of the clubs. Enough money to enable him to cut the ties of the apron strings. Not that he could remember ever seeing Nellie wearing an apron. （“In Holloway,” she said, “every ruddy day.”）
To his annoyance, Ramsay realized that he was on his last cigarette. He had consumed an entire packet since breakfast—smoking, he had discovered, really helped with writing.
In the dining room they kept a large alabaster box of cigarettes and when he returned from the kitchen for the umpteenth time with the invalid’s latest demands （“a fried egg, yolk still runny”） Ramsay stopped off to replenish supplies.
He couldn’t help but notice the various papers that were spread across the surface of the dining table. Nellie’s solicitor had visited earlier and they had spent over an hour sequestered with each other. Solicitors were high on Ramsay’s list of tedium （it was a long list）， but he glanced idly at the table in passing. The Last Will and Testament of Ellen Macdonald Coker. Oh, there wasn’t anything tedious about that at all.