out laughable.
I looked down into that disconcertingly cool face and said: “Is this why you’ve been coming to bed with me? Simply to coax me into fiddling things somehow for your husband? To get me under your thumb?”
She smiled her listless smile. “Not just my thumb.” She pushed my arm away and rolled over on top of me. Her eyes were closed—in bliss, or sheer indifference?
We forgot about Crispin for a few minutes. At least, I did. But the moment we had finished, and she had uttered that half-contemptuous laugh with which she always rounded off a coupling—insulting in a way, yet provoking a vow that next time I’d make her gasp rather than laugh—she murmured in my ear: “I mean it. We really do have to do something about him. Otherwise I’ll finish up pushing him off a bridge or something.”
It was nearly time for me to get back to my office and for Gemma to go out and finish her pretence of shopping.
As we dressed, I said: “Look, I’ve got his last two typescripts on my shelf. They’ve both been round six publishers, and they’re getting very dog-eared. Rather gives the game away.”
“You can have fresh copies run off, can’t you? Or get them sent out on line, or whatever they call it nowadays. And charge him against his next royalties.”
“If any.”
She looked back over her shoulder and shrugged that shoulder as if deciding that I too was a washout. I couldn’t help snapping back: “No matter how we tart either of them up, there’s precious little chance of an acceptance.”
She reached for her tights. She really did have the most beautiful back; and she was moving her hips most tauntingly, as if to demonstrate what I’d be missing if I didn’t come up with some bright idea.
It couldn’t just be that she wanted to stop Crispin moaning and boring her. She must think more of him than I had guessed so far. In which case, why was she here with me?
Using me. But that back, those shoulders….
“All right,” I said. “There might be one way to ensure publication.”
“About time, too. I knew you’d come up with something.”
“You pay to have your own book printed and published. Handle your own distribution. Or pay some firm to handle the lot—printing and distribution. Vanity publishing, they call it.”
“How much would it cost?”
“More than it’s ever worth.”
“How much?”
“Now, just a minute. Crispin would hate it. No way would he admit that he had to—”
“He doesn’t need to know.”
This was surely way out of character. “You’d really do that for him?”
“He’s been a good breadwinner so far.” She sounded resigned rather than grateful. “We’ve got to keep him ticking over.”
“Wouldn’t that sort of payment show up somewhere? I don’t know how the two of you manage your budgets, but surely he’d be bound to notice?”
“He leaves the handling of the books to me. Those sort of books. I was his secretary, remember?”
I was tempted to ask her if she really loved him that much, but it didn’t seem quite right at the moment. Or maybe any other moment.
I always hated this stage when all that sleek beauty disappeared within an everyday dress: smart and expensive, but still only an unremarkable sheath for such remarkable contents,
“Next Tuesday, then?” she said levelly. “And you’ll let me have all the details then?”
“Now, look, I’m not sure—”
“Rather than some vanity publisher, as you call it, couldn’t you approach a reputable one? Someone glad to do you a favour?”
“Favours come with a high price tag in this business.”
“I’m sure you can manage it, David.” She stooped to look in the dressing table mirror and pat her already trim hair back into its tight, boyish helmet. As if peering through the glass at someone she had just recognized, she said: “Wasn’t there that rather interesting woman you introduced me to at that last party?”
“There’ve been so many parties. The only one you came to without Crispin—”
“Nina. Wasn’t that it? Nina something-or-other. She seemed rather nice. And quite fond of you.”
“Nina Whiteley.” I didn’t think Nina had ever been all that fond of me, except when I brought her a potential bestseller; but now I did recall that she and Gemma had talked enthusiastically together for quite a time. “A very agreeable contact,” I conceded, “but she’s already rejected those last two books of his.”
“But with adequate financial back-up to cover any losses, couldn’t she be persuaded?”
“Are you serious about this? I mean, if anything went wrong, as it well might, Crispin would kill you if he found out.”
It was only a turn of phrase, but for a moment her eyes gleamed with an excitement I’d never aroused in her before. Her lips seemed to mutter the words silently. Kill me…kill….
Aloud she said: “Tuesday.”
She clung obediently to me while I kissed her goodbye, and smiled her frigid smile. It was routine. With the usual post-coital tristesse I found myself thinking that all she really wanted was attentiveness rather than passion.
Gemma left by the back door of the block into the gardens. I waited ten minutes as usual, before going out and hailing a cab to take me back to the office.
At my desk that afternoon I was awash with doubts about her ideas on Crispin’s behalf. As a conscientious professional agent, I disapproved of the basic amateurism of vanity publishing; and on top of that there was something about Gemma’s whole attitude that gave me the shivers.
But by the next day I was already so hungry for her naked in my arms that I knew I had to act. I wasn’t going to risk facing her on the Tuesday and telling her I’d decided I couldn’t go ahead with the scheme. Would she be capable of turning, expressionless, and walking out?
All too possibly. So I went to see Nina Whiteley.
* * * *
“Yes, I do remember her,” said Nina. “Charming girl. Never met her husband—that client of yours, right?—but I couldn’t help wondering….”
Not wanting her to speculate too far, I said: “I’ve got a couple of propositions.”
She settled herself in her chair with that cheerful scepticism which so many agents and authors had had to face. The challenge was to break it down, or fail; to argue with her, or woo her.
I had never found it easy to woo Nina. She was thin, dark-haired, and had a darkly bossy manner, as
