Chapter 14
14
It was bizarre how quickly they fell into a rhythm, Sarah considered. Two weeks after the discovery of Drew’s new secret hobby, and not only were they working nicely in tandem but, somehow, they managed to find the time for it. Obviously, it had taken a little bit of shifting around in terms of the children’s schedules; waiting for Eva to nap so Sarah could get another thirty minutes at the laptop was one of her biggest frustrations, but to counter that, she’d managed to wake up before the children twice that week and get half an hour done then. These last few days, she really felt as though they were starting to get into their stride.
Drew was still writing on the train but had given up any attempt at editing.
‘I don’t want to sound mean,’ Sarah had said one week into the joint venture. ‘You’re just not particularly good at it. You don’t see your own mistakes. Besides, I think it’s better to have fresh eyes on it. A woman’s eyes. You just get the story down, and I’ll go over and edit it in the evening when the kids are in bed.’
He’d been sceptical. ‘What about if they don’t go to sleep? How are you going to manage to do it then?’
‘Well then, you’ll have to see to them. If you want me to do this, then I need to make sure I get at least an hour every night where I am not interrupted.’
‘I guess if you think that’s the best way…’ Drew had conceded. ‘The sooner we get it finished, the sooner we can start making money from it.’
That was the moment when she had subtly walked away and ended the conversation.
Sarah was actively avoiding any mention of money whatsoever when it came to the book. While it was great seeing Drew so excited, she couldn’t help feeling he was getting a little ahead of himself. And that was putting it nicely. Obsessed was probably a more accurate term.
Every day, he was growing more and more convinced that this was the answer to all of their problems, and that they were somehow going to make millions from this new idea in a matter of weeks.
‘I read this blog post during lunch today,’ he said one evening after he had got in from work. ‘This guy makes eight grand a day self-publishing his books. Can you imagine that? Eight thousand pounds a day ? We could pay off the mortgage in a month!’
‘Most people don’t make that sort of money,’ Sarah tried to convince him. ‘Most writers don’t make any money at all.’
‘I know that. But even if we could make 10 per cent or just 1 per cent. Imagine what that would do for us?’
And no matter how much she tried not to, she did imagine.
At toddler group, when the other mums strode around in their skinny jeans and tight tops, Sarah imagined how nice it would be to afford a gym membership again. Of course, it would be nicer had she just been able to fit straight back into her size ten jeans without any amount of physical effort, discipline, or self-control on her part in any way, but a gym membership or personal trainer would come a close second. She could stop buying budget food too: fresh salmon fillets and organic vegetables for the kids every night. And wine that wasn’t on a three for ten pounds deal. A personal bodyguard wouldn’t go amiss either, she thought, if only for the purpose of keeping unwanted mums – by which she meant Justine – away.
‘I was reading a study about the effects of screen time on children,’ Justine said, having suddenly appeared at Sarah’s side twenty minutes into their Monday toddler group. Sarah cursed herself. She thought she had been keeping tabs on Justine’s location in the hall, mainly to avoid being spotted stealing the children’s biscuits from the buffet. Not only had she been literally caught with her hand in the cookie jar, but Justine’s appearance was only moments after Sarah had given up trying to persuade Eva to play nicely with the other children and so had handed her daughter her phone to keep her quiet. She knew exactly what lecture was coming next.
‘It’s a necessity, of course, in this day and age. We all do it. But honestly, the more you read about it, the more terrifying it is. And it’s not just their eyesight it affects, either.’
‘No?’ Sarah muttered, wondering exactly how long this passive-aggressive attack on her parenting was going to last and whether she should grab a handful of the biscuits and claim she was taking them as snacks for Eva on the walk home.
‘Oh no, it’s all sorts of things,’ Justine continued. ‘Hand-eye coordination, concentration levels. Not to mention the effects it has on their social skills. I mean, you only need to look at the children to see what it’s doing to their brains.’ She barely paused for breath before continuing her tirade. ‘We try to limit the time ours spend on them, obviously, but sometimes you just need that little break, don’t you? Take last week. Philomena spent a full fifteen minutes on my phone. Fifteen minutes . In a row. Can you imagine? I felt absolutely ghastly afterwards. I made sure we had an extra-long yoga session together that evening.’
Sarah looked over at Eva, who had, at that minute, begun licking the screen.
‘At least it’s not affecting her eyesight now,’ she said.
Back home, things were good. Better, in fact, than she could remember them being in years. And she knew the exact reason why.
Drew had been unsure at first; a man writing erotic fiction novels seemed like a recipe for disaster. Yet, the more he wrote, the more and more his preconceived notions were pushed further to the back of his mind. It helped that Sarah knew; he didn’t feel quite so perverted when he went to look up a particular turn of phrase on Google and found himself face to face with a pair of double-f boobs and an unfeasibly large penis.
‘Nope,’ she would say when she read through his latest work each evening. ‘You cannot say that about her backside. What backside have you ever seen that’s the shape of a donut? And why is he all muscular and glistening? I thought he was an English teacher.’
‘English teachers can get a sweat on too,’ Drew protested.
‘When he’s writing reports?’
He wobbled his head contemplatively. ‘Perhaps not then.’
‘I think you need to tone it down a bit here,’ she would say, highlighting yet another paragraph she was going to delete. ‘Besides, didn’t the guy in chapter three also have picture-perfect abs? And the one in chapter five too?’
‘I thought they had pretty perfect abs.’
‘Whatever it is, it’s too similar. How about perfectly chiselled? Or beautifully contoured? You have a thesaurus on the computer. It wouldn’t hurt you to put it to use now and again. And there are more than two different body parts on each of the sexes, you know.’ At first, she had been delicate about taking a red pen to his work. Now she rarely waited for his approval before axing line after line of whatever he’d written and moving on. Yet somehow, even in its raw state, even with the whipping – metaphorical obviously – he received, it was cathartic. They had found their momentum. Together, they were a machine: not yet well-oiled, but definitely lightly lubricated, and getting better with every passing day.
Each evening, Sarah would tear his book to shreds, and each morning, he would get back on the train more excited and enthused about what the next chapter was going to hold. He was already at nearly 30,000 words: 30,000 words in a month. It was unbelievable when he thought about it. He could remember the time when writing a 2000-word essay felt like the biggest slog he was ever going to do. Now, if he didn’t write 1000 words on the morning commute, he would arrive at work with a bee in his bonnet and have to shorten his lunch break until he reached the target.
He had even given up on the Monday fry-up trips altogether, in favour of a half-hour’s silence at the office to get a few more words down, or at the very least, catch up on the latest podcasts. There were great things out there for people like him, he had discovered. Things that were going to make this a real career for him and Sarah. A whole new life. And people were starting to notice the difference.
‘You’re very busy again,’ Polly said that morning as she passed his office. He had had a productive day so far, excluding the fifteen minutes spent on the phone to IT on Barry’s behalf as they would no longer deal with Barry directly.
‘They’re the unreasonable ones,’ Barry had insisted. ‘Thinking I spilled that cup of coffee on my laptop deliberately.’
‘Wasn’t that the second cup of coffee you’ve spilled on your laptop?’
‘Exactly! Who would spill two cups deliberately?’
Drew wasn’t entirely sure he saw the logic in his argument. ‘Fine, just use my computer. But put your mug down on the window ledge first.’
‘It’s only tea,’ Barry replied.
Drew scratched his temples. Some days it was even harder than managing Eva.
‘Sorry,’ Drew said now, looking up from the computer to find himself staring into a pair of perfectly made-up, grey eyes. ‘Did you say something?’
‘Only that you looked busy,’ Polly replied. ‘And that we missed you today at lunch. Is it some kind of healthy eating regime? I thought you were almost as addicted to your black pudding as Barry.’
With a subtle swipe of the hand, Drew minimised the window on which, only moments ago, he had been writing a highly explicit scene involving the air hostess, a hotel architect, and a bespoke mahogany bookshelf. Once his screen was clear, he leant back in his chair in an overly exaggerated attempt at a casual, relaxed pose.
‘Just trying to get everything sorted before the Christmas orders get finalised. Experience has taught me that any day now, your uncle’s going to come through wanting the last six years’ worth of figures on turkeys and cold cuts.’
Polly chuckled. ‘Quite possibly, although I think he’s currently too busy fretting over who put a dent in the side of his new car to worry about that right now.’
‘They didn’t?’ Drew leaned forward in his seat.
‘They did. Yesterday, while he was out at lunch. And he only drove it off the forecourt last week.’ Drew winced. Polly didn’t. ‘Honestly, I don’t get guys and the new car thing. Really, I don’t. Is it that important what the piece of metal looks like that gets you to work each day? Surely there are more exciting things you could be spending your money on? Like holidays or nights out with friends?’
‘Or bumper packs of nappies and burping cloths,’ Drew finished for her.
‘I’m not quite there yet,’ she laughed. ‘Besides, you’re not exactly an old dad.’
‘I’m not?’ Drew questioned, shifting about so as not to aggravate his sciatica that had begun playing up again since he started all the writing. ‘I bloody well feel like I am.’
Polly’s smile broadened.
‘Then you should come out with me. I’m sure I could make you feel young again.’
‘I’m sure you could.’
It was meant as a fun and polite response to her question, yet when the words came out of Drew’s mouth, they sounded downright sleazy. An immediate flush of colour rose to his cheeks. ‘Well, I, uhm…’ A frog caught in his throat as he began to stutter. ‘I should get back to this figure. Figures. These numbers. I have numbers to look at.’
She grinned. ‘Maybe you could just save me a dance at the Christmas party? Oh, and don’t forget Stu will want the accounts drive before the end of the week,’ she said, pivoting on the balls of her feet and walking out. As the door clicked closed, Drew threw himself back in his chair and groaned. At least Sarah never had to worry about him having an affair. He was about as good at speaking to women as he was at fixing the tumble dryer. Not that he would ever consider having an affair, of course. Especially not with the way things were going between them at the minute. And then, for no other reason than he wanted to, he texted his wife to tell her he loved her. He was a lucky man, and he knew it.