Bitter Herbs Page 9

  Ann clasped her long fingers together round her knee, showing off her well-manicured nails.

  ‘What we really want, I suppose,’ she said judiciously, ‘is you to behave like a pathologist. She’s dead and you’ve got to find out where the health was in her life and where the disease: dissect it all, you know.’

  Willow contemplated her self-consciously elegant publisher, eyebrows raised.

  ‘That’s a superficially neat analogy,’ she said. ‘But it doesn’t mean very much and it still leaves me with the problem that the only good things I’ve been able to discover so far are that Gloria was generous to her charlady and that she had remarkably good taste in furniture.’

  ‘You’ve been to the house then,’ said Ann with a stiffness that showed how much she had disliked Willow’s criticism. ‘I know. I used to wonder as each book came punctually to my desk in the old days how anyone with such taste in one direction could produce such frightful novels.’

  ‘And yet you continued to publish them. Why?’

  ‘In those days I had very little option. I was merely the junior editor who was stuck with them. And more recently …’ She broke off and looked at Willow rather guiltily.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘You look like a judge sitting there in that dark suit,’ said Ann crossly.

  ‘I spent the morning at the Home Office. Tell me why you went on publishing her. I’m interested.’

  Ann got up and opened a locked drawer in her desk. She shuffled through some papers and then returned with a letter, which she handed to Willow.

  ‘I’ve kept it as a kind of “it-wasn’t-my-fault-guv’nor” excuse in case I were ever to be challenged,’ said Ann with a self-deprecatory smile. ‘It just shows how wet even the strongest of us can be, doesn’t it?’

  Willow nodded, agreeing that Ann was among the strongest of women, and looked down at the letter.

  My dear Gerald, I think you ought to know that Ann is trying to prevent my books from being published. She has some extraordinary ideas about this wicked nonsense of feminism and is determined to use your carefully built publishing list to see them spread throughout the country, destroying the natural modesty and self-sacrifice of English girls.

  Only you can influence her and I beg you to step in, not simply for my benefit but also for the good of the firm, its employees, and the young girls growing up in this dreadful world of ours.

  I know that you, who have always understood me so well, will stop her from this disastrous step.

  Ever yours, my dear Gerald, Gloria

  ‘Who on earth is her dear Gerald?’ asked Willow, looking up from the remarkable letter in her hand.

  ‘I told you about him when we spoke on the telephone on Saturday.’

  ‘Oh, so you did. I’d forgotten. Plimpton, wasn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right. He was the chairman here when I started, and I owe him a lot, not least for backing me right at the beginning of my career.’

  ‘And so he made you go on publishing her,’ said Willow vaguely as she thought of Posy’s anger. In the light of Gloria’s letter it seemed somehow more reasonable, as though the two women had been waging a real battle of principle. If Gloria’s books had been written to promulgate a particular point of view, then Posy’s criticism seemed more justified, as did her passionate anger.

  ‘He could hardly make me do it,’ said Ann stiffly. ‘He persuaded me by reminding me that the books don’t cost much to produce because they’re so short and we use such cheap paper and “perfect binding”; that they still sell just about enough – if you count subsidiary rights income as well as sales – to cover their share of the overhead; and that whatever I think of them I ought to remember that they once paid my wages and kept the firm going.’

  ‘But you loathe them, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh, yes; and they’ve begun to get quite childish. But Vicky Taffle manages to reduce them to something approximating correct English, and makes sure that the plots are not too obviously repeats of earlier books, that the characters have different names and so on.’

  ‘And then, presumably,’ said Willow with a guilty memory of her own furious response to some crass editing, ‘she has to persuade Gloria that the changes were necessary and make her agree to them.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Ann laughed with enough sharpness to remind Willow that she, too, had once been a junior editor squashed between intransigent superiors and demanding authors. ‘Drink up. We ought to finish the bottle now it’s open.’

  Willow finished her glassful.

  ‘Why did you bestow Gloria on Ms Taffle? From what you said the other day she doesn’t sound tough enough to cope with anyone as difficult.’

  Ann busied herself finding a packet of nuts and decanting them into a small glass bowl. As she offered it to her guest, she said:

  ‘You’re right, of course, but I thought it might toughen her up. She’s competent enough but she has no confidence and she won’t get any further without that. I thought discovering she could cope with Gloria might give it to her.’

  ‘But it hasn’t?’

  ‘No. She’s dealt with the old bag for four years now and it hasn’t made any difference. It’s thoroughly depressing and I’d like to get rid of her, but it wouldn’t really be fair to sack her just because she gives me the shivers. She’s had one of those burdened, virtuous lives: looked after an elderly parent and all that sort of thing. And she is jolly useful in some ways.’

  Willow remembered Eve’s remarks about the habits of bullies and said nothing. For the first time it occurred to her that Ann, too, might have the makings of a bully in her.

  ‘I wish we’d never had to give her the title of commissioning editor,’ Ann went on with a sigh. ‘Her judgement is all right most of the time, oddly enough, but she can’t ever defend it or promote the books she works on. She was a good solid line editor, but she really is a walking disaster as far as strength of personality goes and that matters once you start acquiring books. We still use her for line editing, but it makes her restive and she tries to behave like the other commissioning editors with embarrassing results.’

  ‘Poor child,’ said Willow, recognising the ruthlessness that must have helped Ann rise so effortlessly above the other editors of her age.

  ‘She’s hardly that. I shouldn’t think she’s much more than five years younger than you or me. She’s been here nearly as long as I have.’

  Willow looked at Ann. Silently she said, ah, yes, but you are attractive, confident, glamorous and admired, which is why you despise her so much. Remembering her own days as a dowdy object of contempt, Willow thought she might give Victoria Taffle a hand in her battle with the managing director.

  ‘Right,’ said Willow aloud, ‘I probably oughtn’t to say any of this to you without clearing it with Eve first, but I honestly don’t think I’m going to be able to stretch my meagre material over a full ninety-six pages. With a little help from Gloria’s relations I hope I can say something about her generosity, and then give a résumé of her career, and perhaps quote a little from the old publicity files and a few of the books; oh, yes and talk about her house. Did she do much entertaining in it?’

  ‘A fair amount. She had some friends among the great and the good, whom she valued highly; perhaps because her origins were so very unestablishment.’

  ‘Why didn’t I think of that before? The niece is clearly not part of the establishment. It could help enormously. Using talent (unspecified) to transform a drab existence. Wonderful. Where did she come from?’

  ‘Reading, I understand. I know very little, but presumably Marilyn would be able to tell you more.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll have to see her again in any case. Well, thank you, Ann; you have helped. I’ll have a word with Eve and get you a synopsis with an adjusted word count before the end of the week. Is that all right?’

  ‘Fine. A last glass to finish the bottle?’

  ‘I’d better not. I thought I’d pop along and see if I could take Ms Taf
fle out to dinner and pick her brains a bit.’ Seeing a look of astonishment on Ann’s face, Willow added: ‘Is that a problem for you?’

  Another faint flush stained the perfect cheekbones.

  ‘Whatever you wish, of course. I just hope it doesn’t give her ideas above her station to be dining with one of our most popular writers. Do you know her office? It’s the last one on the far side of the lightwell.’

  Willow’s eyes had grown hard, but she thanked Ann for the drink and the advice with adequate politeness. Making her way along the tortuous passages to the small, dark office where Victoria Taffle sorted out the inconsistencies and infelicities of her authors’ work, Willow felt she could imagine what the woman’s life was like sandwiched between their tantrums and Ann Slinter’s disdain.

  When Willow put her head round the door of the office, she was not surprised to see the lanky, dark, plain woman whose appeal Toby had so violently refused. Her eyes were reddened either from that encounter or from too much reading in a poor light, but there was a surprisingly satisfied smile on her face.

  ‘Hello,’ said Willow from the doorway.

  Victoria looked up, frowned, sniffed, and then smiled more nervously as she stood up.

  ‘I suspect you don’t generally have time for lunch since you’re so busy,’ said Willow, confident that the woman would know who she was, ‘and so I’ve come to haul you out of your den for some dinner and a short consultation about Gloria Grainger. Clearly Ann is working you far too hard, but I need your help. Will you come?’

  ‘I ought really to get home when I’ve done this. I mean it’s terribly kind of you, but I ought to get back. It’s a rather long journey. Besides, I’ve still got two enormous manuscripts to read for the editorial meeting tomorrow.’

  ‘Too bad. Telephone home to say you can’t come quite yet.’ Willow smiled. ‘Tell them that yet another tiresome author is demanding your attention and read the first, the middle and the last chapter of each manuscript over breakfast in the morning. I’m sure that’s what most editors do.’

  When Victoria said nothing, Willow added:

  ‘I’ll go next door and ring up to book us a table.’

  Departing without giving Victoria another chance to protest, or perhaps to have to explain that there was no one at home to care whether she returned or not, Willow tried to think of a truly luxurious restaurant where the editor’s clothes would not look out of place. She remembered a tiny French brasserie on the northern edge of Covent Garden, which Tom had found, where the cooking was remarkably good, the atmosphere gentle, and the clientele quite prepared to put up with eccentricity. Taking a telephone book from a shelf behind the empty desk, Willow found the number and made sure that a table would be kept for her in ten minutes.

  Victoria Taffle protested once again when Willow reappeared in the office, but she refused to listen and whisked them both out of the building, where she hailed a passing taxi. When they were sitting on the back seat, strapped in by the new – and quite merciless – seat belts, Willow said gently:

  ‘Something tells me that you haven’t been treated very well recently and Ann certainly puts too much on you. I thought that perhaps I could kill two birds with one stone: pick your brains about Gloria for my memoir and, as a representative of the hated authors, make up to you a bit for what we’ve all done to you.’

  ‘You’re very kind,’ said Victoria, but she did not sound grateful, merely depressed.

  Eleven minutes later the two of them were sitting on opposite sides of a table in the soft light of the restaurant, sipping their drinks and reading the menu. Willow had ordered mineral water for herself and kir for Victoria.

  ‘I think I’m probably going to have the lobster,’ said Willow musingly in order to show her guest that she need not consider the price of what she ordered, ‘and something first, but I’m not sure what. What about you?’

  Victoria’s menu hit the table with a snap as she dropped it.

  ‘You’re being terribly kind,’ she said, looking more intelligent than she had before. ‘I’d love to have the lobster too, if that’s really all right.’

  ‘Good. And to start?’

  ‘Perhaps the pigeon-breast salad?’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Willow as she consulted the wine list. When the waitress reappeared Willow ordered the food, half a bottle of simple claret to drink with the salads and half a bottle of stunning white burgundy for the lobster.

  ‘Now tell me,’ she said, ‘about life in publishing. I’m beginning to think I’ve had an altogether erroneous idea about it. It’s always seemed rather …’

  ‘Glamorous?’ suggested Victoria bitterly. ‘Most outsiders think that, but it’s quite the reverse for us. Some of the authors are different, of course. They do have glamourous lives.’

  ‘Actually, I was going to say “leisured”. I gather I was wrong.’

  ‘Good heavens yes! You obviously can’t imagine what it’s like. The actual productive work on the manuscripts is really laborious and has to be done with maximum concentration. You can rarely achieve that in the office, so you have to do it at home. Only nowadays working at home on Wednesdays, which always used to be the routine, is frowned on so you have to do it at night and at the weekend. If you try to do it where people can interrupt and telephone, you tend to make idiotic mistakes that make people furious. You get blamed by the authors if you change things they particularly like, but if any mistakes are left in the finished book, you get blamed for that too. The author who made the mistakes in the first place never comes in for a reprimand, or hardly ever.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Willow, unconvinced by Victoria’s paranoia. ‘That seems most unjust.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I’m sure. Haven’t you read those reviews that say things like X has been ill-served by his editor who really ought to have known that fourteenth-century Chinese merchants always wore yellow shoes, or whatever it is. It really isn’t fair.’ Her face had more colour in it and her reddened eyes looked much more alert.

  ‘How are we supposed to be experts on everything we have to edit? Most non-fiction editors have to tackle everything from self-help to … oh, anything: diet, plumbing, needlework, archaeology, psychiatry, all sorts of historical figures whose biographies are published, the decorative arts and so on.’

  ‘But surely for most of those you’d have specialist referees at least.’

  ‘Not these days, I’m afraid,’ said Victoria laughing in a patronising way that made Willow’s sympathy falter for a moment. ‘There’s never the money for that, or the time usually. I suppose academic books are still read for facts, but we don’t publish technical stuff: just ordinary non-fiction.’

  ‘Are there no compensations?’ asked Willow curiously just as the pigeon-breast salads were laid in front of them.

  ‘Oh yes,’ answered Victoria, ‘there are. There are some truly professional authors – usually the ex-journalists – who are positively pleasant to deal with. And just occasionally there’s a book that I really like; not often, but, say, once a year.’

  She cut a piece off one of the slices of pigeon and speared it with her fork. Holding it half-way between her plate and her mouth, she added:

  ‘I suppose what I hate most about it is being held responsible for the awfulness of the books I’ve worked on when I had no say in having them taken on in the first place and have hated them all along. That and having to explain to the authors of mediocre books why we’re not spending anything on publicity and that they’ve sold only about two copies since publication, or – worse – that we’ve had an average of fifty returns a week. That’s utter hell. And when they ask plaintively whether one likes their book, that’s worse still. Because of course one doesn’t – usually.’

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ said Willow, unable to suppress a smile. ‘How little we authors know of the anguish our books cause.’

  Victoria ate the piece of pigeon and then reloaded her fork with salad.

  ‘You know, it may sound exaggerate
d, but “anguish” is the right word. It’s real torture sometimes.’

  She put the salad in her mouth and when she had finished chewing she smiled. For once she ceased to look victimised.

  ‘I must admit that I have thought of writing a kind of survival guide for authors with a glossary of all the codes we use.’

  ‘Such as?’ Willow was not certain she wanted to hear, but could not resist asking.

  ‘Oh, things like: “We’ve shifted your publication date from September to February. We think the book will do better then.”’ Victoria’s tone had led Willow to feel extremely glad that her books were still published in September.

  ‘And what does that mean?’ she asked.

  ‘That the book in question hasn’t a hope of selling.’ Victoria’s eyes positively glittered with mischief and Willow knew that she was enjoying the vicarious revenge on the people who made her working life so hard. ‘There are lots more, of course, but I won’t bore you with them now.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be at all bored,’ said Willow with feeling.

  ‘All right. Then there’s: “Your book is most beautifully written but it needs a braver publisher than us,” which either means that we think it’s pornographic or that it won’t sell more than a couple of hundred copies. Or: “It doesn’t quite work as a novel,” which usually means “we don’t think you can write for toffee.”’

  ‘I see that I’ll have to listen for the unpalatable truth behind everything Ann says to me now.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t have to worry. Everyone approves of your books because they make money. And another thing: authors need to know why their editor changes from great enthusiasm after she’s first read the book to qualified liking and then brooding silence.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Willow, watching the mischievous smile return to Victoria’s face.

  ‘Someone else, someone powerful in the sales department probably or the marketing director, has read the manuscript and sneered at it. When your editor is never there to answer her telephone and takes days to ring you back, then you know she’s being personally criticised because of your awful book by all her colleagues.’