Chapter Twenty-Six London Friday 12 February 2010
Chapter Twenty-Six
London
‘There, there. To the left, no, a little more the right . . . a little more. That’s it!’
The brown double doors to the library were wide open and two men were navigating a large whiteboard through them, directed by Tanya Brik, Leo’s publicist, at the top of the steps.
‘Morning, Olivia! Lovely day for it!’ Tanya was partly visible behind a huge cardboard box. Olivia could spy an enormous fuchsia scarf and a camel coat.
Olivia, running a little late, was at the bottom of the steps. ‘Morning, Tanya!’
It was cold; gently sleeting, with next to no wind.
A chilled hush muffled the sounds of the city and rendered the Georgian buildings in St James’s Square elegantly out of focus.
Tanya was right; it was the perfect morning for readers to be cosily ensconced inside the London Library, watching Leo Greene present a workshop on ‘Crime Writing and How to Absolutely Kill It’.
Olivia followed Tanya, the men and the whiteboard into the building and bypassed them at the lift to run up the flight of stairs to the first floor.
In the Reading Room, Leo Greene, the bestselling author, was halfway up the metal ladder to the bookstacks that lined the upper walls – famous for their narrow, iron-grille walkways – and stringing up a huge banner with his name on it.
‘There you are!’ he called down. Leo was in his Author Clothes: charcoal chinos, striped chambray shirt, heather lambswool jumper and a jaunty paisley cravat that people who liked authors seemed to go wild for. ‘I wasn’t sure if you were going to make it.’
‘Sorry.’ Underneath her coat, Olivia was wearing her soft jersey dress with the peony print. Heeled Mary Janes. Smart, scholarly, supportive – that was how she wanted to appear.
Leo looked at her for a second too long, then said, ‘Do you want a crime scene cupcake? We ordered way too many. They’re over by the window.’
‘Thanks!’
She walked past the elegant pillars and the reading tables with their Anglepoise lamps, to a desk set up by the large window at the back of the room, overlooking St James’s Square.
She recognised the errant scatter of Leo’s workshop notes and materials.
His random set of pens, his mobile phone.
His coffee cup, and at least three lists on lined paper.
On a round table in the corner was a tray of cupcakes – Leo’s book cover printed on edible paper toppers on each – and a Perspex box on the floor next to it stacked with three or four layers of spares. She extracted a cake from the tray.
‘By the way, where do you keep the paper clips?’ He was calling again from the ladder. She bit into the cupcake. ‘We couldn’t find them anywhere.’
‘Hold on!’ she called back. ‘I’ll pop down to the office.’
Olivia no longer worked at the theatre, which had closed down.
She was assistant librarian, Monday to Thursday, 8.
30 a.m. until 6 p.m., at the London Library, and she loved it.
She adored working among the books, walking the ‘stacks’, assisting members and absorbing the muted atmosphere as people quietly studied at their desks under those nodding lamps.
Virginia Woolf had been a member there, as had TS Eliot, EM Forster and Charles Dickens.
Olivia felt she was following in the footsteps of great writers as she walked up the main staircase, where their portraits were displayed, or trailed her hand over first editions in the stacks – even if she was making none of her own.
She passed Tanya and the whiteboard being carried into the Reading Room, and made her way back down to the ground floor and the office, where she found the paper clips in the second drawer of the desk.
On top, a big poster of Leo’s event was unfurled, his smile bright and beaming at her.
Officially, this was a day she had booked off, but unofficially, this morning she was helping out her friend.
‘Should be quite the turnout.’
Chief librarian, Alistair Martin-Fox, was in the doorway. Grey hair, grey jumper, grey slouchy slacks, twinkle in his eye.
‘Hello, Alastair. Yes, it will be.’
In half an hour, quite a crowd – mostly women, Olivia expected – would be pitching up for handsome Leo Greene and his workshop.
She had seen the amounts of tickets sold; she knew how in demand he was.
His debut novel, Midnight Shadows, had been a huge success almost overnight, making the top five of the Sunday Times Bestseller List only three weeks after publication, and staying there ever since.
It had been reviewed in all the major newspapers; he had been a witty and adorable guest on Sara Jewson’s The Book Programme; social media had eaten the book up; his sales were simply through the roof.
Leo had reached the holy grail of publishing, and he was holding it in his hand and sipping its rich wine at steady intervals.
‘I hope Mr Greene’s taking you out for lunch after. The wind beneath his wings,’ Alistair joked.
‘I’m only his friend,’ Olivia replied, with a frown. ‘I’m just helping him out today. I’m not the wind beneath anyone’s wings.’
She hadn’t told anyone at the library that she was a writer, too, because she wasn’t really, was she?
She preferred Alastair and the rest of the kind, genial staff at the London Library not know that she had tried and failed; that, while she was friends with a bestseller whose glittering books shone under neon lights to widespread acclaim, her own novel flickered like a stubby candle, unnoticed, out on the wasteland.
‘Do you think he’ll sign my book for me?’ There had been a hardback copy of Midnight Shadows on Alastair’s desk for some time.
‘Definitely. And there’s loads of spare cupcakes if you fancy one. Over at the back of the Reading Room, just help yourself.’
‘On a diet.’ Alistair ruefully patted his stomach. ‘Thanks, though. And thanks for coming in to help.’ He smiled so sweetly she felt guilt at her terseness.
She took the small box of paper clips and was crossing the main entrance to the staircase when she spied Leo’s friend, Billy Hastings, bounding up the steps two at a time.
Billy was new. A new writer friend of Leo’s who Leo had met at a Books!
Books! Books! event at Elephant and Castle two months ago.
Introduced to each other as wunderkinds, apparently, both riding high in the charts, both raking in the accolades – Billy wrote fighter pilot WWII action adventures, selling 100,000 copies of his book, Spitfire Skies, after only five weeks – Leo and Billy had hit it off immediately.
They went to bookish events together. They had meetings in pubs, Leo told her, where they discussed each other’s work – different genres, no competition.
Billy understood the heady heights, the thrill of immediate literary success. Billy got it, Leo told Olivia.
‘Hi, Billy.’ Olivia had met Billy at a couple of Leo’s events.
‘Hi, Olivia.’
Billy had dark spiky hair and a boyish nature. Up in the Reading Room, Leo was straight off the ladder and delighted to see his friend. They slapped each other on the back and beamed into each other’s faces like they hadn’t seen each other for weeks.
‘Thanks for coming to support me, mate!’
‘How could I not? It should be a great gig. The book’s doing amazing. Want to go for a pint after?’
Olivia handed Leo the paper clips.
‘Sure!’ Leo’s eyes flickered to Olivia. ‘Would love to.’
‘Great. We’ve got to toast your success.’
They slapped each other on the back again, then Billy started to pace around, hands in pockets, touring the library.
‘Thanks again for today,’ Leo said to Olivia. ‘For coming in on your day off.’
‘My pleasure.’ She adjusted her dress. ‘Like Billy said, it should be a great gig. And I’m always happy to help, you know that.’
‘I do.’
Leo smiled at her. She’d been there for him his whole publishing journey; a bright shiny journey, in a fast car.
She’d helped him edit his debut, not doing the work, but reading his amended drafts, continuing to give him notes.
The big structural edit, the line edit, the copy edit.
She’d even offered to do an extra proofread for him, when it had reached that stage, but he had said no, that was too much work, and she knew it was.
She’d been to his big book launch at Parchment she’d held the new satchel he’d bought to carry his notebooks in and ‘look the part’ while he made a speech in front of a sizeable crowd, and read the opening chapter of his book.
And she’d gone with him when he appeared on The Book Programme, along with Rowan, had waited in the green room for him, made him a cup of coffee in the break from filming.
‘Are Isaac and Caroline coming?’ she asked him.
‘Those two? Of course not! They couldn’t care less.’
‘I thought Isaac might have read it by now. You know, the chef thing?’
‘No. Listen, I would have preferred to take you out for lunch,’ he said. ‘Rather than go for a pint with Billy. But I know you probably wouldn’t want to.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘No, you should go and have your pint. Toast your success.’
He faced her steadily, his hazel eyes unblinking. ‘You’ve been to my book things,’ he said. ‘Although not so much, recently. But I can never get you to go out for a drink or a meal with me. Why is that?’