‘She doesn’t hate you.’
‘Oh, come on.’
‘She may not be your biggest fan, but—’
‘She told me that she thought my novel was shit. I believe her actual phrase was a work of blush-making vulgarity. The words are emblazoned on my memory.’
‘She’s jealous of your success, that’s all.’
‘Good, I’m glad.’
‘You should take it as a compliment.’
‘Well, I don’t.’
‘Edith, please. She won’t let me see the boys.’
‘Well, that’s not fair,’ I admitted. ‘But shouldn’t you just speak to a solicitor? Wouldn’t that be easier? Find out what your rights are?’
‘I don’t want to go down that road just yet,’ he said. ‘The moment we start getting legal is the moment that things get completely out of hand. I want to appeal to her better nature.’
‘Ah, you see, that’s where you’re making your mistake.’
‘I just think if someone could tell her how important it is to me to be a good father, how important it is for me to be a positive influence on the boys, then she might behave a bit more—’
‘Like a human being?’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
I sighed. It was obvious that Rebecca was treating Robert appallingly. I was going to say as much but that’s when the door to the grad bar opened and you walked in.
You glanced around, your gaze settling on the students, and you scanned the group, expecting to see me among their number. Only when you looked around the rest of the room did you notice the two of us together and you raised an eyebrow in surprise before walking over.
‘Robert,’ you said, throwing an arm around him. ‘This is a surprise.’
‘Yes, I called in on Edith’s class unexpectedly. Things have been a bit rotten at home, as you know. I thought I could do with a little advice.’
You nodded and asked what we were drinking before making your way to the bar. I could sense in the way you carried yourself that you weren’t happy, and I immediately felt uncomfortable, unable now to concentrate on what Robert was saying. I looked in your direction but you had your back to me. Our eyes met in the mirror behind the bar, however, and there was something in your expression that made me feel guilty, as if I’d let you down in some way.
I wasn’t quite sure what I’d done wrong but I knew that, whatever it was, you would hold it against me for a while yet.
3. November
It wasn’t my idea to invite you to talk to the students and, if I’m honest, I assumed that you’d refuse anyway. No, this particular notion had been dreamed up by Maja, who approached me after class one day, claiming not only to be a great fan of Two Germans but even more of The Treehouse, which I thought a peculiar statement. I promised to put it to you but warned her that you were unlikely to say yes. To my surprise, however, you agreed immediately.
A date was set and I spent that morning reading the stories that had been submitted for workshop later in the week and feeling a strange anxiety at the pit of my stomach that I found hard to understand. You came to my office around three thirty, the first time you’d been there, and spent your time examining the books that had been left behind on the shelves by the writer whose maternity leave I was covering. You took a few out and made disparaging comments about their authors.
‘Is that a new shirt?’ I asked as we made our way towards the classroom shortly before your talk was due to begin. ‘And new jeans? Have you bought all new clothes for today?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ you said, and I looked away from you because you were blushing and seeing people embarrassed has always made me embarrassed too. They were new clothes, of course. I couldn’t decide whether the fact that you were making such an effort for a group of aspiring writers was endearing or pathetic. Did you want to impress them that badly?
When we walked in, I noticed how the students – my students – looked at you with more reverence than they’d ever shown towards me. I don’t think I’m being paranoid, Maurice, when I say that it was as if they believed that, finally, a real writer had come to speak to them, simply because you happened to have a penis. Even the girls, who all liked to pretend that they were such staunch feminists, looked at you with more respect than they ever did me. Especially the girls, actually.
I began by introducing you, mentioning the names of both your published novels, and made some predictable joke about how easy it had been to persuade you to visit as we were sleeping together. Without any preamble, you reached for a copy of The Treehouse – you always favoured it over Two Germans – and read from a section of the book near the centre, where a young boy collapses through the floorboards of the titular building and hangs there for most of the afternoon until a passing farmer arrives to save him. When you were finished, they applauded ecstatically and I could see from the expression on your face how much their approval meant to you.
‘I’m not going to ask Maurice any questions,’ I said when they quietened down. ‘I already know everything there is to know about him.’
‘Not quite everything,’ you said, to laughter.
‘So, I’ll leave it to all of you instead.’
Maja started the questioning, as I knew she would. She had spent the entire reading staring at you, as if you were the Second Coming of Christ, and it was obvious from the expression on her face that she found you highly attractive. I’d like to say that she was undressing you with her eyes but it would probably be more truthful to say that she was stripping you naked and falling to her knees to fellate you. I can’t recall what she asked but I remember you took her question as simply a starting point for a monologue about the current state of the literary world, which, in your view, was appalling. I tuned out, thinking about where we might go for dinner afterwards. And yes, I allowed my eyes to rest on one of the boys, Nicholas Bray, who was very young but very cute and who I’d fancied from the start.
Several more questions were asked before Garrett Colby raised his hand and you turned to him with a look that said you recognized him from somewhere but couldn’t quite remember where.
‘I wondered whether you could tell us what you’re working on at the moment,’ he asked, and you shook your head.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ you told him. ‘As I told you before, Garrett, I prefer not to talk about work in progress. Just in case.’
‘Just in case what?’
‘Just in case someone steals my idea.’
‘But an idea is just an idea,’ he countered. ‘You could outline The Great Gatsby for us all right now and it’s not as if any of us could just sit down and write it.’
‘No,’ you agreed. ‘But still, I’d prefer not to.’
‘Of course, this leads us to a bigger question, doesn’t it?’ said Garrett.
‘Does it?’
‘Yes. The concept of literary ownership itself, or even literary theft. Of whether our stories belong to us at all.’
‘I don’t quite see what you’re getting at,’ you said, but I could see where he was going and wondered how he had the nerve. Looking back, it was pretty rude of him to treat a visiting writer like this, let alone one who had achieved the success that you’d achieved.