Authors: Jonathan Coe
The baby seems to have your eyes, and I think I can even make out a bit of the Winshaw nose, there! Can you see much of Sir Peter in her?
Not yet, really, no. I think babies often grow into a resemblance with the parent. I’m sure that’s what will happen.
Does this mean you’ll have to take a break from your column for a while?
I don’t think so. Obviously I want to spend as much time with Josephine as possible – and, of course, Peter was able to offer me pretty good terms for maternity leave. It does help if your husband is also your boss! But I’d be loath to let my readers down. They’re so loyal, and they’ve all been so kind, sending cards and so on. It really restores your faith in people.
I must say, as an avid reader of the column, that it’s something of a surprise not to find the builders here!
I know – I do tend to go on about it, don’t I? But we’ve had to have such a lot done recently. This conservatory’s new, for instance, and so is the whole of the extension with the swimming-pool. It took even longer than expected because the neighbours were so beastly about it. They even took us to court over the noise, would you believe. Anyway they’ve moved now, so that’s all been amicably resolved.
And now I believe we’re about to discover yet another side to your talents.
Yes, I’m currently working on my first novel. Several publishers have been bidding for it and I’m pleased to say it’s coming out next spring.
Can you tell us about the subject?
Well actually I haven’t started writing it yet, but I know it’s going to be very exciting, with plenty of glamour and romance I hope. Of course the nicest thing is that I can write at home – we’ve put in this dear little study overlooking the garden – so I don’t have to be away from Josephine. Which is just as well, because right now I don’t think I could bear to be parted from her for a moment!
Hilary stared malevolently at her daughter, watching her face crumple as she gathered breath for another scream.
‘Now
what’s the matter with it?’ she said.
‘Just wind, I think,’ said the nanny.
Hilary fanned herself with the menu.
‘Well can’t you take it outside for a while? It’s showing us up in front of everybody.’
Once they’d gone, she turned to her companion.
‘I’m sorry, Simon, you were saying?’
‘I was saying we must think of a title. A single word, preferably. Lust, or Revenge, or Desire, or something.’
‘Well, can’t we leave that to their marketing people? I’m going to have enough trouble writing the bloody thing.’
Simon nodded. He was a tall and handsome man whose slightly vague exterior masked a sharp business sense. He had come highly recommended: Hilary had chosen him to be her agent from a shortlist of seven or eight.
‘Look, I’m sorry the auction was a bit disappointing,’ he said. ‘But publishers are really playing safe at the moment. A few years ago six figures would have been no problem at all. Anyway, you didn’t do too badly. I read recently that the same people paid some new writer seven hundred and fifty quid for his first novel.’
‘Couldn’t you have pushed a
little
bit harder, though?’
‘There was no point. Once they’d gone up to eighty-five thousand they weren’t going to budge. I could tell.’
‘Oh well. I’m sure you did your best.’
They ordered oysters followed by fresh lobster. Just as the waitress was leaving, Simon said: ‘Shouldn’t we order something for – what’s her name – Maria?’
‘Who?’
‘Your nanny.’
‘Oh, yes. I suppose we should.’
Hilary called the waitress back and ordered a hamburger.
‘What does Josephine eat?’ asked Simon.
‘Oh, some vile muck you have to get in little bottles from the supermarket. It goes in one end and comes out of the other about ten minutes later looking exactly the same. It really is the most disgusting business. And it screams
all
the time. Honestly, if I’m
ever
going to get this book started, I’m going to have to go away for a few weeks. I don’t mind where – maybe Bali again, or one of the Barrier Reef islands – any old dump, really. But I can’t get a
thing
done with that blasted baby around. Honestly, I just can’t.’
Simon laid a sympathetic hand on her arm.
Over coffee, he said: ‘Once you’ve got this novel under your belt, why not do a book about motherhood? Terribly popular these days.’
∗
Hilary disliked most women, regarding them as competitors rather than allies, and so she always felt at home in the Heartland Club, the stodgy, calcified and male-dominated establishment where her cousin Henry liked to conduct most of his informal business.
Henry had broken with the Labour Party shortly before the second general election of 1974, and although he had never officially joined the Conservatives, he had, throughout the 1980s, been among their most loyal and outspoken supporters. During this period he became a familiar public figure, his bushy white hair and bulldog features (always rendered a little rakish by a trademark spotted bow-tie) forever cropping up on television discussion programmes, where he would take full advantage of his freedom from party loyalties by slavishly toeing the line of whichever cynical new shift in policy the present administration happened to be trying out at the time. It was partly for these appearances, but also – and more importantly – for the decade of legwork he had put in on a succession of policy-making committees, that he was rewarded with a peerage in the 1990 honours’ list. The notepaper upon which Hilary had been summoned to her latest audience was proudly headed with his new title: Lord Winshaw of Micklethorpe.
‘Ever think of going back into television?’ he asked her, pouring two brandies from a crystal decanter.
‘Of course, I’d love to,’ said Hilary. ‘I was bloody good at it, apart from anything else.’
‘Well, I hear there’s a vacancy coming up soon at one of the ITV companies. I’ll look into it for you, if you like.’
‘In return for which …?’ said Hilary archly, as they sat down on opposite sides of the empty fireplace. It was a hot evening in late July.
‘Oh, nothing much. We just wondered if you and your fellow scribes could start putting a bit more heat on the BBC. There’s a general feeling that they’ve gone way out of control.’
‘What did you have in mind: features? Or just the column?’
‘A bit of both, I would have thought. I really think that something pretty urgent has to be done, because as you know the situation now is completely unacceptable. The place is overrun with Marxists. They’re making absolutely no secret of it. I don’t know if you’ve seen the
Nine O’clock News
recently, but there’s no longer even a pretence of impartiality. Particularly on the Health Service: the way they’ve reported our reforms has been deplorable. Quite deplorable. There are homes up and down the country which are being invaded – quite literally invaded every night – by a torrent of anti-government lies and propaganda. It’s intolerable.’ He raised a brandy glass to his bilious face and took a lengthy gulp, which seemed to cheer him up. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘the PM loved your front page on Tuesday.’
‘What,
LOONY LABOUR LESBIANS BAN KIDS’ CLASSICS
?’
‘That’s the one. Laughed like a drain, she did. God knows, we all need a bit of light relief these days.’ His face clouded over again. ‘There’s talk of another leadership challenge, you know. Heseltine might make his move. Madness. Utter madness.’
‘This vacancy you were talking about …’ Hilary prompted.
‘Oh, that.’ Henry mentioned the name of one of the larger independent companies. ‘You know there’s been a reshuffle there and they’ve got a new MD. Luckily we were able to get one of our own men in. Comes from a financial background, so not only is he good with figures but best of all he knows absolutely sweet FA about the business. One of his first jobs is going to be to get rid of that clapped-out old pinko Beamish.’
‘So they’ll be looking for a new head of current affairs.’
‘Absolutely.’
Hilary digested this news.
‘He gave me my first break, you know. Back in the mid seventies.’
‘Quite.’ Henry drained his glass and reached for the decanter. ‘But then not even your worst enemies,’ he said drily, ‘could accuse you of being the sentimental type.’
∗
When Hilary turned up for her meeting with Alan Beamish she was shown – as arranged – not into his office but into an impersonal interview room with a view over the main entrance.
‘I’m sorry about this,’ he said. ‘It’s a blasted nuisance. They’re repainting my ceiling, or something. I wouldn’t mind but I was only told about it this morning. Can I get you a coffee?’
He hadn’t changed much. His hair may have been greyer, his movements slower, and his resemblance to an elderly parish priest even more pronounced: but otherwise, it seemed to Hilary that the dreadful evening he had inflicted on her during that long school holiday might have been yesterday rather than twenty years ago.
‘I was more than a little surprised to get your call,’ he said. ‘To be honest, I don’t really see that you and I have got very much to discuss.’
‘Well, for instance: I might have come to ask you to apologize for calling me a barbarian in your little diatribe for the
Independent
.’
Alan had recently published an article about the decline of public service broadcasting called ‘The Barbarians at the Gate’, in which Hilary had been held up (rather to her delight, it must be said) as an example of everything he hated about the present cultural climate.
‘I meant every word,’ he said. ‘And you know very well that you give as good as you get. You’ve devoted plenty of column inches to attacking me over the years – as a type, if not by name.’
‘Do you ever regret giving me so much help,’ Hilary asked, ‘when you see what a Fury you unleashed upon the world?’
‘You would have got there sooner or later.’
Hilary took her coffee cup and sat on the window-sill. The sun was shining brightly.
‘Your new boss can’t have been too delighted with that piece,’ she said.
‘He hasn’t mentioned it.’
‘How have things been since he took over?’
‘Difficult, if you must know,’ said Alan. ‘Bloody awful, in fact.’
‘Oh? In what way?’
‘No money for programmes. No enthusiasm for programmes, either: at least not the sort I want to make. I mean, you wouldn’t
believe
their attitude over this Kuwaiti thing. I’ve been telling them for months we should be doing a programme on Saddam and his military build-up. We’re in this bloody ridiculous situation whereby we’ve spent the last few years selling him these weapons, and now we’re turning round and calling him the Beast of Babel because he’s actually using them. You’d have thought there’d be something to be said on that subject. I mean, just in the last few weeks I’ve been having talks with an independent film-maker who’s been working on a documentary about all this for years, purely off his own bat. Showed me some superb footage. But the people upstairs won’t commit themselves to it. They don’t want to know.’
‘That’s too bad.’
Alan glanced at his watch.
‘Look, Hilary, I’m sure you didn’t come all the way here just to look at the view of our forecourt, beautiful though it is. Would you mind coming to the point?’
‘That photo that went with your article,’ she said absently. ‘Was it taken in your office?’
‘Yes, it was.’
‘Was that a Bridget Riley hanging on the wall?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You bought it off my brother, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Lots of green and black rectangles, all on a slant.’
‘That’s the one. Why do you ask?’
‘Well, it’s just that there seem to be two men outside, loading it into the back of a van.’
‘What the –’
Alan leapt to his feet and came to the window. He looked down and saw a removal van parked by the steps, with the contents of his office stacked on the sunbaked tarmac: his books, his swivel chair, his plants, stationery and paintings. Hilary smiled.
‘We thought this would be the kindest way to tell you. It’s best to get these things over with quickly.’
Somehow, he managed to say: ‘We?’
‘Is there anything I should know about the job before you go?’ When no answer was forthcoming, she opened her briefcase and said, ‘Well look, here’s your P45, and I’ve even written down the address of your nearest DSS office. It’s open till three-thirty today, so you’ve got plenty of time.’ She offered him the piece of paper, but he didn’t take it. Laying it down on the window-sill, her smile broadened, and she shook her head. ‘The barbarians aren’t at the gate any more, Alan. Unfortunately, you left the gate swinging wide open. So we wandered right inside, and now we’ve got all the best seats and our feet are up on the table. And we intend to stay here for a long, long time.’
Hilary snapped her briefcase shut and made for the door.
‘Now: how do I get to your office from here?’
September 1990
1
It was purely by chance that I found myself writing a book about the Winshaws. The story of how it all came about is quite complicated and can probably wait. Sufficient to say that if it had not been for an entirely accidental meeting on a railway journey from London to Sheffield in the month of June, 1982, I would never have become their official historian and my life would have taken a very different turn. An amusing vindication, when you think about it, of the theories outlined in my first novel,
Accidents Will Happen.
But I doubt if many people remember that far back.
The 1980s were not a good time for me, on the whole. Perhaps it had been a mistake to accept the Winshaw commission in the first place; perhaps I should have carried on writing fiction in the hope that one day I would be able to make a living at it. After all, my second novel had attracted a certain amount of attention, and there had at least been a few isolated moments of glory – such as the week when I’d been featured in a regular Sunday newspaper article, usually devoted to vastly more famous writers, entitled ‘The First Story I Ever Wrote’. (You had to supply a sample of something you had written when you were very young, along with a photograph of yourself as a child. The overall effect was rather cute. I’ve still got the cutting somewhere.) But my financial situation remained desperate – the general public persisting in a steely indifference to the products of my imagination – and so I had sound economic reasons for trying my luck with Tabitha Winshaw and her peculiarly generous offer.