got sadder about Sarah. And the older people arrived on the dance floor, the publishing legends, the members-club raconteurs, the eccentrics and the elegant, the sharks and the chic and the scouts and the Indians and the auctioneers and the earnest-faced editors-who-really-edit, the recently-fired and recently-promoted, the recently dry and the recently high, the rehabbed, reformed, retweeted. It didn’t usually feel this febrile and poignant to me; perhaps it was the lyrics about ignoring the impending apocalypse. The way the book industry was about to change, we might all be out of a job in five years. But my friends were facing the prospect with courage and so I stopped feeling so sad for a second before I realised who I was missing from the centre of the floor: James Cockburn.
Cockburn and I had become friends at various ceremonies and private-members clubs during the two years when the books I published from Birmingham were winning prizes. A hedonist easily recognises another hedonist, often in the queue for a toilet cubicle, and as we were both from the North, lads in a feminine industry, we became friends quickly. At book fairs he’d introduce me to the funniest and drunkest of the foreign editors and agents. I don’t believe European women are naturally more alluring than British, but at the time their accented English and the fact I hadn’t met any before made them seem so. As men we were outnumbered and popular, despite the limitations of our looks and characters. I won’t pretend I didn’t enjoy it, that it didn’t give me an impression of my attractiveness and charm I could never have believed in as a teenager; but I was in the first glorious wave of love with Sarah and never did more than flirt. James was more used to it than me, more adapted: he felt entitled to his luck and whatever else he wanted. He had made a myth and come to rely on it for his place in this world. He had to keep creating stories for people to tell about him at book fairs; he was the notorious James Cockburn, outlaw publisher. I knew he loved this role, but I also saw how it trapped him. He was frequently in trouble with Belinda because of it, but it was also this persona that allowed him to do his job the way he did it. He was the ideal editor for a writer like Craig Bennett, and they were the very worst influences on each other.
What was certain was that there was no room for two James Cockburns in our office, and that Belinda wouldn’t hesitate to sack me for similar behaviour. For both our sakes, I needed to separate that coke from Bennett – but now he was trapped between Belinda and the producer of a TV book club. As I moved closer he saw me and shouted over, ‘Liam! Cocktails! Three mojitos!’
‘Oh, I don’t like rum,’ said the TV producer.
‘And, of course, whatever the ladies want.’
Belinda looked hard at me. I betrayed Bennett rather than her, coming back with only one mojito and some wine for the women. Belinda was gesticulating to the TV book producer as I handed them their bowls of white, and it gave me the chance to talk under my breath to Bennett. ‘Do you mind if I do a line while you’re engaged with these?’ I asked. I wasn’t going to mention what Amanda had told me, but I had to correct the mistake I’d made when I’d offered him a line at dinner. I’d have an accident and drop the lot in the toilet.
‘Of course I do,’ he said. ‘I’ll come with. Belinda! We’re just going for a fag,’ he called to her, ushering me away with a hand on the small of my back. He propelled me down the corridor towards the smoking balcony. I caught a glance of Belinda’s face as I was pulled in a swift right angle into the toilet.
Again, I was bundled into a cubicle, and there, finally, I had to confront him. ‘Look, I’m sorry, Craig, I can’t allow you to do that. Amanda’s told me about your heart condition.’
He looked over his shoulder at me from where he had placed his wallet on the top of the cistern.
‘I feel awful for setting us off on this path tonight, but I can at least get us off it,’ I went on.
He shook his head at me and went on doing what he was doing, opening the wrap and shaking coke out onto the surface.
‘Seriously, please give it here,’ I said. ‘I can’t be responsible for something else awful. And I really like you too.’
‘I do not have a fucking heart condition,’ he said, not looking my way. ‘Unless maybe heartlessness.’
‘Come on, that’s not you. You’ve got too much heart. Let’s look after it.’
‘What do you fucking know about it?’ he said, rounding on me. ‘It’s not what they say in articles about me, is it? I’m “wantonly cruel”, “animated by spite and distrust”.’
‘Journalists, mate. I don’t recognise that picture, and no one could from your books.’
‘And I don’t recognise whatever picture Amanda gave you. Look at me: I’m too young to have a heart attack.’
I was looking at him. He was red-faced and dry-lipped, licking around his teeth.
‘They’d say anything!’ he carried on. ‘They do anything to make you do what they tell you to!’
‘But let’s not now, hey? We’ll save it up for later.’ I heard my voice as though it was someone else’s. I had the forced tone of an HR assistant who’d just come back from a ‘persuasiveness’ ‘workshop’. I knew I’d got it wrong.
Craig held me by the shoulders. ‘I like you,’ he said, ‘because you were honest with me. You didn’t flatter me. You told me about yourself and let me talk to you. Simple qualities, found in many places, but not always here. But I am free to do what I want to do, and you are not responsible for my actions. We hardly know each other. We don’t know each other at all. I absolve you of any responsibility. I will not listen to you. There is nothing wrong with my heart and I intend to do a line of cocaine right now. You may join me if you like.’
Although his words were robust, they no longer sounded true. It was a performance without point, playing the version of himself he’d tried to disown to me earlier. I think I could have spoken to the man behind the face, if I had really wanted to. In fact, I’m sure I could. And it is this that makes it unforgivable that I accepted the line he offered and charged out of the toilets, past Belinda’s stare and onto the dance floor, where I twirled around and poured my drink on the feet of a pretty editorial assistant, whose number I found later in my BlackBerry, ‘girl with wet feet’. I would like to say I deleted it and that I haven’t thought about calling it since. I would like to say much about myself that I cannot. There is something wrong with my heart too.
Chapter 6
Lizzie sniggered. I had been hamming it up a bit. Arturo looked at her with an appalled expression.
‘Lizzie, there is something wrong with his heart!’
‘I’m sorry, Liam,’ Lizzie said. ‘I’m sorry to hear about your heart.’
We looked at each other then, and I smiled back. I couldn’t help myself. I really liked the woman. She had a forgiving smile: I know you are ridiculous, but I like the way in which you are ridiculous.
‘I didn’t mean that literally,’ I said to Arturo. ‘I was exaggerating too.’ And in an instant his wide, innocent eyes narrowed and a sly grin cut through the concern he had affected. ‘I know, Liam,’ he said, and laughed, and I realised I had made two friends.
The party in Kensal Green came to a sudden end at two, far too early for my liking and the other guests with ‘stamina’. As we queued for taxis, we gravitated towards each other, all asking the same thing: ‘Where now?’ There was a gang of about twelve
