2005
[hissing]
Thanks for the tea.
You’re welcome. I’m sorry about the delay; I hope you’re not in a hurry.
Not at all. The main thing is to make a good job of this interview, at a pace that suits you.
[pause]
Tell me more about the books. What’s most important to you, the story, the plot, the setting or the characters?
The characters, they’re always number one.
You could say I got stuck with the two central characters in my series and ended up spending twenty years in their company.
God, it’s hard to say that: twenty years – it’s such a terrifyingly long time.
But the two women, my friends, were created in the first book and survived to the bitter end…
Where did the characters come from? And the stories?
The characters came from here and there.
Often from the deepest recesses of my mind; at other times they were based on people I knew, or even people I’d met only once and didn’t actually know anything about – they just caught my imagination.
At one time you yourself might have ended up in a book, under a different name, of course.
When a writer’s around, nobody’s safe. My friends were delighted when they heard I’d given up.
What about the stories? Where did you find the inspiration for them?
Often from my imagination, of course, but in some instances they were inspired by true events. By the time you’ve lived for more than sixty years, you’ve seen a lot, heard even more, and the truth is often more extraordinary than fiction. So it makes sense to steal from the truth.
Do you get away with it, with stealing…?
Don’t we all get away with it, at one time or other? Frankly, you wouldn’t believe what writers get away with.