smiled, and Tom smiled.
‘Wish you’d have a word with Rory then,’ Tom said. ‘He doesn’t seem to see it your way. He’s being pretty difficult about a new deal.’
Elle interrupted, she knew she had to. ‘Oh, Rory loves John Rainham, he—’
Tony cut straight across her. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘That’d be a shame. He’s a big author for me, Tom. Good man.’
Elle sat between them, and drained her wine glass. She tried to tuck a lock of her newly blonde, stubby hair behind her ear and frowned: usually she didn’t need any help to feel stupid. It was more than that though – she felt irrelevant, like a silly girl whose voice was higher, a waste of space. For the first conscious time in her adult life, Elle wondered how she’d have been treated if she’d been a boy.
‘Tom, my dear, how are you?’ Felicity was standing behind him, her hands on his shoulders. He stood up and she kissed his cheek.
‘I’m good, thanks, Felicity, how are you?’ he said. ‘You look wonderful.’
Creep, Elle thought.
‘I’m extremely well, thank you. Now, how’s your dear papa? Such a shame he can’t be here tonight, but you know, we must speak to him and sort out that new contract for John.’
‘Talk to your son about it,’ Tom said, smiling though his eyes were cold.
Felicity seemed to ignore this; she actually batted her lashes at him. ‘That piece on Dora in the Guardian Review was wonderful,’ she said. ‘Were you pleased? I loved it. I can’t wait to read the rest of the biography. It sounds marvellous.’
‘It’s good,’ Tom said, and then stopped. ‘Lovely to see you, Felicity.’
He sat down again. If Felicity was surprised at this abrupt termination of the conversation, she didn’t show it. She patted Elle’s shoulder. ‘Good work, Elle, my dear, good work,’ and moved on.
Flushed with kind words from her idol and full of sudden confidence, Elle turned to Tom. ‘Who’s Dora?’ she asked.
‘My mother,’ Tom said. He ate some bread, chewing it with his mouth open, and pretending to listen to the conversation on his other side, between Nathan the art director and Lorcan’s agent, about Lorcan’s next shoot, recreating a Bavarian castle in Teddington.
In one of those strange moments where a greater force takes over and the imagination leaps further than the facts, Elle pressed her hands together. ‘Dora – Zoffany?’ she asked. ‘She’s your mother?’
Tom nodded. ‘Yup.’ He didn’t seem particularly amazed she’d worked it out.
‘That’s incredible!’ Elle shook her head. ‘Oh – oh, my goodness. She’s one of my favourite novelists, we did her at university.’
‘You “did” her,’ Tom Scott said. ‘What does that mean?’
God, what a prick. ‘Studied her, sorry.’ Elle was still red with excitement. More than Barbara Pym or even Rosamond Lehmann, Dora Zoffany had been her favourite of the authors she’d studied as part of the Twentieth-Century Female Novelists course. She had read everything she’d written – eight novels, letters, short stories – umpteen times. In nearly a year at Bluebird, she had met lots of authors and spoken to even more, but to be seated next to Dora Zoffany’s son was something else. Dora was a proper novelist. People wrote biographies of her! Bookprint Publishers had only recently been taken severely to task in the Bookseller for letting her go out of print, Elle had read that very article only last week. And here she was next to Dora Zoffany’s son, even if he was an arrogant loser! She smiled happily at him. ‘I’m so – so …’ she started, and then trailed off.
Tom said, ‘What? So impressed? Think I’m more interesting now?’ He ate some more bread.
Elle was stung. ‘No –’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean it like that, it’s just I really do love your mother’s books.’
‘So do a lot of people,’ said Tom, folding his napkin up into a tight square.
‘Well – all I mean is, you must be very proud of her.’
‘Of course I am,’ he said. He turned to her, a frown puckering his forehead. ‘It’s just I don’t generally sit there thinking of her as a world-class novelist, you know. She was just my mum.’
‘OK. I’m sorry.’ Elle gave up. Fair enough. He obviously didn’t want to talk about her, and she could hear her voice, sounding high and stupid again. She wished she could simply say how much his mother’s books meant to her, and how sad she’d been when she’d died, three years ago.
But Tom Scott didn’t seem to need her sympathy or attention. He turned away and began a conversation with Lorcan’s agent, so that his back was almost facing Elle. Thankfully, just then the tables were swapped so that each rep was moved around, and Tony Rooney left after the chicken, to be replaced by Jeanette, who covered Kent, Surrey and Sussex, and who was lovely, if a little obsessed with the sales ordering systems and their implementation. At least she looked Elle in the eye, though, and they had a long conversation about stock levels and ordering up books from the warehouse which Elle, after the evening so far, found extremely comforting.
By pudding, Elle was a bit drunk. She was two glasses of champagne and several glasses of wine down. Not that it seemed to matter – everyone else was, too. The noise was louder and as pudding was served, the dinner began to break up. Tom Scott stood up and nodded at her.
‘Nice to meet you, Elle,’ he said. ‘Good luck with the job.’
‘She doesn’t need any luck,’ a voice behind her said, and Elle looked up to see Rory behind her. He patted her head. ‘She’s the best, aren’t you, Elle?’
‘Sure she is,’ Tom shrugged, and the shoulder pads in his too-big dinner jacket rose up and down again. ‘Sorry to have missed you this evening, Rory.’
‘Yes,’ Rory said easily. ‘We need to talk soon. Are you around tomorrow?’
Elle saw the flash of panic in Tom Scott’s eyes. He’s totally out of his depth, she thought. ‘Er, sure. Give me a – no, I’ll call you.’
‘I’ll try you as well. Thanks for coming, Ambrose.’
‘Ambrose?’ Elle said, more to herself, picking a grape off its stalk.
Tom ignored this. ‘Bye, then,’ he said, and walked away.
‘Why’d you call him Ambrose?’ Elle stood up, feeling a bit dizzy.
Rory laughed. ‘That’s his real name. Hilarious, eh? Changed it when he went to university. His mother knew mine, I used to have to play with him when we went for lunch there, he was a total square, really holier than thou.’
‘I felt a bit sorry for him,’ Elle heard herself say, to her surprise. She watched Tom walk towards the exit, unnoticed by anyone except her, his thin shoulders hunched, his expression dark.
‘Don’t,’ said Rory.
