Whispering Corner Read online

  ‘True, but Martin touched a nerve whether in film or book form,’ Jocasta said. ‘What I’m saying is that the public’s taste is changing, and to succeed as a publisher you have to continually gauge it, find authors to match it, and be ruthless about giving up those who don’t. “Deflower and devour” horror books were OK in their day, but that day is over …’

  ‘Anyone who knows Jonathan’s work would hardly call it “deflower and devour”,’ Sylvia protested. ‘When he was interviewed on Bookworm last month he was introduced as “one of the most intelligent interpreters of horror”.’

  Jocasta permitted her lips to draw back in a slight smile.

  ‘Bookworm is hardly the exemplar of the British literary establishment.’

  I felt it was time I joined the conversation.

  ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, Miss Mount-William, but it seems to me that you’re unhappy to have inherited me with the Griffin list.’

  She paused for a moment before replying, and I guessed she was considering the fact that at one time I had made a lot of money for Griffin and, although my last book had not done well, there was a possibility that I might again.

  ‘It would be foolish to pretend that I don’t see a problem, as the sales figures bear out, but of course I hope that the book you’re working on will re-establish you. How is it progressing? I understand it’s due for delivery in three months …’

  ‘Provided there are no unavoidable circumstances.’ Sylvia quoted a clause that she always insisted upon.

  ‘I’m sure there won’t be a problem,’ Reggie asserted. ‘I’ve always found Jonathan to be most professional over deadlines. Comes from his years in newspapers, I suppose.’

  ‘The book is going fine,’ I lied. ‘And I’ll bring it in on time.’

  ‘And the title? In the contract it merely says “A Novel”.’

  ‘It took me a while to decide,’ I said, an extraordinary idea beginning to take shape in my mind. ‘So important to get the right one,’ I went on, hoping for a few more seconds before I had to come out with my decision. ‘Margaret Mitchell called her book The Old South — luckily someone changed it just before it was printed. I can’t imagine The Old South having the same impact as Gone with the Wind.’

  ‘And your title?’

  I took a reckless gulp of white wine.

  ‘Whispering Corner.’

  ‘Like it,’ said faithful Reggie.

  Sylvia choked back her surprise and Jocasta merely remarked that she would have to think about it. As soon as she finished her main course she said that she had to go.

  ‘There’s a meeting,’ she added by way of apology. ‘There’s always a bloody meeting these days,’ Reggie sighed. ‘We go along to hear what the sales side will allow us to publish.’

  Jocasta chose to ignore this heresy.

  ‘It’s been interesting to meet you,’ she told me. ‘I’m glad Whispering Corner is on course. It’s scheduled to appear in spring. See you in a minute, Reg.’

  She headed in the direction of the ladies’ washroom and Reggie gave us a wry grin.

  ‘You will have gathered that horror is not the favourite genre of my new boss.’

  ‘This situation must be so disappointing for you,’ said Sylvia, actually patting his hand.

  ‘You can’t keep a good man down,’ he laughed. ‘There may be an announcement in Publishing Weekly before long. But it’s only to be expected that Jocasta will want to promote her own authors, so be sure Whispering Corner is a winner. I don’t want to be down-beat, Jon, but what you badly need is another success. You can only coast along on a past one for so long and you know the old adage: You’re only as good as your last book. Shadows and Mirrors was a very fine novel but your last didn’t live up to it. I’m not saying it wasn’t well written,’ he added hastily, ‘but I think you felt you were in a position to experiment. Subtlety is all very well, but you did tend to overdo it.’

  ‘So sorry there wasn’t a disembowelled corpse on every page that didn’t feature a rape scene,’ I said bitterly.

  ‘Jon, just give this one everything you’ve got. Since I edited your first novel I’ve recognized your ability and I know you’ve got it in you to write a bestseller again … Ah, here’s the Knightsbridge Guerrilla.’ When Reggie and Jocasta Mount-William passed into the pale sunlight of Romilly Street, I signalled urgently for a couple of brandies — mine a large one.

  ‘I think we need these,’ I said.

  ‘I certainly do,’ Sylvia agreed. ‘Jocasta might have been a bit much, but you … what’s this new title you suddenly sprang on me? What the hell happened to Ancient Dreams that you’re supposed to be half way through?’

  ‘Ancient Dreams became a modern nightmare. I’m sorry, Sylvia, but I’ve been lying to you about its progress — couldn’t admit I had writer’s block, I suppose. And when I did get some of it down I’d tear it up afterwards. No one could have believed in my characters because I didn’t believe in them myself.’ Sylvia could not prevent her surprise — no, shock — showing on her face.

  ‘You mean that the book that the Mount-William is expecting in three months just doesn’t exist?’

  I nodded, and ordered another brandy.

  ‘Do you want me to get you out of the contract?’

  ‘No way. I’m going to write a novel called Whispering Corner in place of Ancient Dreams, it’s going to be delivered on time and it’ll have a brand new storyline that’ll have film producers queuing at your door.’

  ‘I wish you luck,’ said Sylvia. She was not impressed by my sudden surge of self-confidence and I was very aware that she was hurt because I had not mentioned my difficulties earlier. ‘How do you plan to get a whole novel written in such a short time?’

  ‘I’m going to bury myself in the country and do nothing but write morning, noon and night. I’ll live my book and my characters will come so alive they’ll take over the plot just as they did in Shadows.’

  ‘Did you really believe that, or was it a good conversation piece?’

  ‘It was true — spooky but true. They definitely developed wills of their own, and I felt so intimate with them that when I came to the last page I was bereaved. My companions had gone.’

  ‘At least Whispering Corner isn’t a bad title.’

  ‘It’s the name of my new house. The atmosphere of the place should help. It’s very secluded.’

  Sylvia glanced at her watch.

  ‘I must rush. I’m seeing the editor of Heritage at three thirty. Could you do a piece for him — after you’ve finished the book — on your house? With a name like that …’

  ‘I doubt it. It’s just an old place that happens to be in a wood.’

  ‘No historic associations? No rare architecture? No ghosts?’

  ‘None of those things.’

  ‘But that name … where did that come from?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘The estate agent had an idea the name referred to a spot in the wood before the house was built, but he was rather vague. I’ll certainly research it when I get down there.’

  As we left the restaurant Sylvia said quietly, ‘Listen, old chum, the next time we come here I want you to hand over the Whispering Corner script and tell me it’s the best thing you’ve done.’

  It was the sound of the telephone which saved me from the nightmare. My heart was pounding from a combination of fear and brandy and I sat bolt upright in my sweat-soaked pyjamas for several disoriented seconds before the incessant sound forced me to stumble into the small hall where the telephone stood on my wife’s prized Pembroke table.

  ‘Hello?’ I croaked into the receiver.

  Music and laughter crackled in my ear. Somewhere someone was having a party while I wondered if I was about to have a heart attack.

  ‘Jon … what time is it over there?’

  ‘Pam, it’s very late. Maybe four in the morning. Are you ringing from New York to ask me the time?’

  The tone of her laughter told me that she was sev
eral drinks ahead of the game.

  ‘Darling, I get so confused with this time business. I forget whether it’s forwards or backwards. We’re having a party in Liz’s studio. It’s in an old warehouse, overlooking the Hudson.’

  ‘How splendid,’ I said and slumped down beside the Pembroke.

  ‘Have you heard from Steve?’

  ‘He’s very happy with his course in Sheffield. He rang me a couple of days ago. He told me to give you his love if … when we next spoke.’

  ‘Give him mine. How’s the bloody old novel going?’

  ‘Just fine.’

  ‘Jon, we’re having a celebration.’

  ‘I guessed that.’

  ‘It’s for me …’

  I began to shiver. Perhaps it was the shreds of the nightmare which clung to me, or perhaps I was cold, or perhaps it was Pam’s tipsy laugh.

  ‘Can you guess what we’re celebrating?’

  I said I had no idea.

  ‘Jon, wonderful news. I’ve landed some work with the Feinstein Agency. How long? Can’t say. At least three months. I’m working on the launch of a new perfume.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ I said automatically as the shivering grew worse. ‘What’s it called?’

  ‘Hello? There are voices on the wire. Are you the Wichita Lineman? Did you say, “What’s it called?”’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Fleur de Lune. Watch out for it in the glossies in a few weeks’ time. Isn’t it marvellous? To be back with a campaign after all these years. It was Liz who got me the introductions. She’s been fantastic. What? You sound sort of funny.’

  ‘I just came out of a bad dream.’

  ‘Not those bloody stairs again?’

  ‘Well, congratulations on Fleur de Lune …’

  ‘The perfume is supposed to come from some sort of Asian lily that only blooms in the moonlight. That gives it the name, see?’

  I said that I did.

  ‘Think of the copy I can write round that idea.’

  ‘I could write a book round that idea.’

  ‘Those bloody voices again, can’t you hear them? Must be the CIA. Tell Steve I’ll give him a ticket to come over here for a holiday at the end of term.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Look, Jon, I think the way things are at the moment is best for both of us … hey, that’s my champagne … sorry. What I want to say is that … well, nothing dramatic has happened. I just happen to have landed a job over here, and you’ve got a book to finish in England and … and we’re still friends?’

  ‘Friends,’ I said.

  ‘Liz wants to say hi. I’ll write and let you know how the work goes. OK?’

  ‘Pam …’

  ‘Hi.’ Liz’s voice came on the line, triggering off a mental picture, out of date now, of Pamela’s trendy college chum who had married an American advertising man and now, successfully divorced, followed her intense but short-lived enthusiasms. I gathered that the latest was sculpting shapes of feminist significance out of basalt.

  ‘Pam told you the great news?’

  ‘That she has a job.’

  ‘Yeah. And about time too. She’s had to subjugate her talent for far too long. She’s her own woman again.’

  She did not disguise the note of satisfaction in her voice. She had never forgiven me for getting Pamela pregnant in our young days, seeing me as the factor which had spoiled what she regarded as a glorious friendship.

  ‘I’m very pleased for her,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t mean that. You think you’re the only one allowed to be creative …’

  I guessed that like the rest of the party she’d had a goodly intake of champagne and I held the receiver away from my ear.

  ‘… you were so full of shit you never realized that woman’s potential,’ she was saying when I brought it back into place, and I wondered why American expressions were so anal in character.

  ‘Can I speak to Pam again?’

  ‘No. There’s a photographer here from Village Voice and she’s being photographed with Mercedes …’

  ‘Oh, good,’ I said, not having a clue as to why she should be photographed with Mercedes, whoever she was. Someone to do with the new perfume, I supposed.

  ‘By the way, Jonathan, I read your last book. To be perfectly honest, I hated it.’

  ‘That’s its best recommendation yet,’ I said and hung up.

  I climbed back into the bed whose sheets were damp from my nightmare, and lay in the dark feeling desolate. I knew I should be glad for Pamela’s sake that she was back in her profession of advertising copy writer, but it only emphasized the fact that now we no longer had the shared responsibility for our son our marriage had run its course.

  The thought made me lonely. It was not as though I was losing a lover — as our separate beds had long testified — but while Steve had been growing up we had been a family unit. Then, a few months ago, he had gone to college to study the history of art and we were suddenly face to face with the reality of our situation. Logically it was the best thing for us to go our own ways. I hoped retaining some sort of friendship, so why did I feel so distressed? Regret for the might have been, or a sense of loss of shared history? Though the marriage had been unsatisfactory for us both, we had produced a child together and Pamela had been the biggest single influence on my life. Now everything was changing, and I was apprehensive of the future.

  I tried to tell myself that this was the witching hour when the human organism is at its lowest ebb, and that things would seem better in the morning light. Like Pamela I had a new life to start, and at least I had Whispering Corner to start it in. The place was fast becoming a symbol.

  2

  I awoke from a sleep of exhaustion still feeling exhausted. My movements were clumsy as I went into the kitchen to heat the Cona; and the place where I had lived for the last eighteen years no longer felt familiar.

  I downed my coffee, dressed, put old clothes and reference books into suitcases, raided the drinks cupboard and carried everything down to my car as though London was about to fall into rebel hands. I made another trip upstairs to collect my typewriter and make sure that everything electrical was switched off, and then I was on my way. I had not even bothered to shave — that I could do when I reached Whispering Corner. Automatically I pressed the Radio 3 preset button on the radio and Dian Derbyshire playing Mozart’s Piano Concert No. 21 came like an omen of better things as I drove through the morning traffic towards the M3. The combination of the music and doing something positive lifted the shadow cast by the night.

  After the heady success of Shadows and Mirrors I decided to buy a country house in Dorset. I contacted a number of estate agents with precise details of what I required, but such houses rarely came on the market, and when they did their prices made me realize that what seemed a great deal of money to an author was pretty run-of-the-mill to those in more stable professions.

  ‘The trouble is that you want a stately home for the price of a seaside bungalow,’ Pamela said.

  Predictably she had not shared my enthusiasm, saying that she would miss London. I had suggested that as a compromise we should keep the flat — which was in her name as she was living there before we were married — and divide our lives between the city and the country. But nothing suitable materialized, until one day I received a letter from an estate agent saying that a house had come on to his books which he thought would fulfil my requirements, adding that as it was within my price range it was a remarkable offer.

  A couple of days later Pamela — her coppery hair complemented by a jade green trouser suit — travelled with me to Lychett Mattravers to meet our genial pipe-puffing agent Mr Johnson. We climbed into his silver BMW and drove through the village to a vista of unspoiled countryside with rolling hills in the distance.

  ‘It’ll need some work on it,’ Mr Johnson warned as he piloted us along a narrow road towards a low wooded plateau. ‘It’s been standing empty for some time.’

  ‘Why?’ Pame
la asked suspiciously.

  ‘Legal complications. When the old lady who owned it died at the beginning of last year her will — if ever she had one — was never found, and it seemed that she had no heirs in this country. Finally a relation was located overseas, after which it had to go to probate. That has just been completed, and the new owner is only interested in selling as soon as possible. That’s why it’s going at such a low price. I’d say that with a bit of redecoration it would be ideal for a writing chap like you. All the solitude you want without being too far from the amenities.’

  At the word ‘solitude’ Pamela winced but said nothing. Soon we were driving through woods which, as we turned into a narrow lane, took on the wilder aspect of a forest.

  ‘The Brothers Grimm would have loved this,’ Pamela remarked brightly as Mr Johnson pulled up opposite two lichened columns which, topped by eroded heraldic beasts, had been ornamental gate posts.

  The carriageway was too overgrown for an ordinary car to follow. Mr Johnson tapped tobacco into his pipe bowl and, resigned to the effect the walk would have on his gleaming brogues, led the way on foot. Pamela and I followed, and I almost laughed at the look of disgust on her face when she noticed a splash of orange fungi on the bole of an ancient ash.

  As we picked our way I savoured the woodland hush and the effect of the new leaf growth which dimmed the light to a greenish gloaming. Had I been describing the three of us making our way past the pallid plants and saplings which had taken over the shadowed path in one of my novels I would have made the most of an ‘oppressive atmosphere’ or perhaps a ‘sense of hostility towards intruders’. All that was missing was the mutter of distant thunder.

  In reality I felt none of this. My vivid and slightly sinister imagination had stood me in good stead when I began writing horror novels, but I understood my craft too well to be influenced by it any more than a conjurer believes in real magic.

  The path curved and we emerged from shade into sunlight. At the far end of what once had been a large garden stood the house, and I fell in love at first sight with its eccentric architecture. Walls of mellowed stone supported a steep central gable flanked by a smaller one on either side. All three were surmounted by gargoyles which must have been the pride of the Victorian owner who had added the Elizabethan-style chimneys which twisted like barley-sugar sticks behind them. Butterflies jinked over the lawn of knee-high grass as though DDT and subsequent poisons had never been invented. On each side there was a line of extraordinary green shapes resulting from topiary being allowed to lapse. What a delight, I thought, if they could be trimmed back to the fabulous bestiary they had represented.