There’s a chance Robert might have given me the wrong tape. He retrieved it in the half-light, after all.
I consider turning it off but suddenly the quality of sound changes in my headphones; the muffling lifts. I strain to hear more, sliding the volume up to its highest, and then I hear it. The sound of breathing first, and then, in ear-splitting volume, the unmistakable voice of Robert Holbeck.
Reflexively I yank the headphones from my ears with a yelp. In front of me an elderly woman is staring directly at me angrily, her face slack with age, her expression unambiguous. ‘What are you, deaf?’ she shouts, her tone implying she knows I’m not. ‘You gonna answer it? Or we all gotta put up with it?’ she spits, jutting a bony finger toward my bag, and I realize what the hell she is talking about. My phone is ringing, loud and persistent in the car.
‘Oh, er, thank you,’ I manage, and she shrugs dismissively as I fumble the offending article from my bag and answer it.
‘Sorry, yes, hello?’
‘Oh hi, Harriet. Is this a bad time? It’s Amy at Grenville Sinclair. Is everything okay?’
I straighten in my subway seat. It’s my publisher. Again. I dread to think of what could be sparking this second call in a week.
‘Amy, no, no, I’m free. What can I do for you?’
I look down at the Olympus microcassette player on my lap. Through its small window I watch the reels of the tape continuing to turn. It’s still playing. Shit. I clunk down the stop button and then the rewind and watch the reels reverse their movement.
‘Oh, fantastic. Wonderful,’ she says with relief. ‘I’m so glad I caught you. I tried you on your home phone but there was no answer. My mistake. I thought I recalled you once mentioning in an interview that you write from home. Where are you writing these days? It sounds busy there. Do you write out and about?’ Her tone is friendly and conversational but the unspoken upshot of the call is that we both know I am not writing right now. And I should be. My deadline has passed and I am under contract.
‘No, actually, I’m just out doing a little research,’ I lie. And yet considering the new direction my novel has taken, perhaps calling Robert’s tape ‘research’ isn’t such a stretch.
‘Oh, fascinating. Can you tell me more, or is it all still bubbling away?’ she asks.
‘Bubbling, yeah,’ I say, floundering. ‘Listen, Amy, I am so sorry about what happened the other day. I think wires got crossed and—’
‘Not a problem at all, Harriet. I totally understand the situation. And your agent, Louise, has emailed about your extension request, which is actually why I’m calling.’
‘Oh, great,’ I respond optimistically, though something in the change of her tone makes me realize this is not a good call.
‘Yes, so Louise mentioned you’re almost there with this draft. More than two thirds. Now, you know how much Grenville Sinclair loves you; we even looked at pushing publication dates. But the thing is, not much more can be done this end. We’re in a bind. I know this is a lot to throw at you, but we’re really going to need that manuscript by the second week of December.’
I swallow hard, my mouth suddenly arid. ‘The second week? As in…？’
‘Two weeks? Is that doable?’ Her voice is a little crisper now, a little more businesslike. ‘It sounds like you’re nearly there anyway, right?’
‘Right,’ I lie. I have 50,000 words of a 90,000-word novel and last night I entirely reworked the plot.
Two weeks to write 40,000 words and pull the whole thing together. I feel my pulse sky-rocket but force myself to remain calm. This isn’t the moon landing. It’s a curve ball, for sure, but it’s doable. It’s a high daily word count, but I’ve managed it before. After all, I got 7,500 done last night alone. I seem to be back in the game, which is the most important thing.