Longshot

On the day of the American rights letter I walked as usual from the friend’s aunt’s house to Ronnie’s office four miles away in Kensington High Street and, as I’d learned a thing or two by that time, I went not precipitously as soon as possible but later in the morning, so as to arrive at noon. Shortly after that hour, I’d discovered, Ronnie tended to offer wine to his visitors and to send out for sandwiches. I hadn’t told him much about my reduced domestic arrangements; he was naturally and spontaneously generous.

I misjudged things to the extent that the door of his own room was firmly shut, where normally it stood open.

‘He’s with another client,’ Daisy said.

Daisy smiled easily, an unusual virtue in a receptionist. Big white teeth in a black face. Wild hair. A neat Oxford accent. Going to night school for Italian classes.

‘I’ll let him know you’re here,’ she said, lifting her telephone, pressing a button and consulting with her boss.

‘He wants you to wait,’ she reported, and I nodded and passed some time with patience on one of the two semi-comfortable chairs arranged for the purpose.

Ronnie’s suite of offices consisted of a large outer room, partly furnished by the desks of Daisy and her sister Alice, who kept the firm’s complicated accounts, and partly by a wall of box-files on shelves and a large central table scattered with published books. Down a passage from the big room lay on one side the doors to three private offices (two housing Ronnie’s associates) and on the other the entrance into a window less store like a library, where from floor to ceiling were ranked copies of all the books that Ronnie and his father before him had nursed to birth.

I spent the time in the outer room looking at a framed corkboard on which were pinned the dust jackets of the crop still in the shops, wondering yet again what my own baby would look like. First-time authors, it seemed, were allowed little input in the design department.

‘Trust the professionals,’ Ronnie had said comfortingly. ‘After all, they know what will sell books.’

I’d thought cynically that sometimes you’d never guess. All I could do, though, was hope.

Ronnie’s door opened and out came his head, his neck and a section of shoulder.

‘John? Come along in.’

I went down to his room which contained his desk, his swivelling armchair, two guest chairs, a cupboard and roughly a thousand books.

‘Sorry to keep you,’ he said.

He was as expansively apologetic as if I’d had a definite appointment and waved me into his office with every appearance of being delighted by my presence. He showed the same manner to everyone. A very successful agent, Ronnie.

He was rounded and enthusiastic. Cuddly was almost the word. Short, with smooth dark hair and soft dry hands, wearing always a business suit over a white shirt and a striped tie. Authors, his presentation seemed to say, could turn up if they pleased in pale blue and red ski-suits and snow-defeating moon-boots, but serious business took place in sober worsted.

‘A cold day,’ he said, eyeing my clothes forgivingly.

‘The slush in the gutters has frozen solid.’

He nodded, only half listening, his eyes on his other client who had remained settled in his chair as if there for the day. It seemed to me that Ronnie was stifling exasperation under a facade of aplomb, a surprising configuration when what he usually showed was unflagging, effortless bonhomie.

‘Tremayne,’ he was saying jovially to his guest, ‘this is John Kendall, a brilliant young author.’

As Ronnie regularly described all his authors as brilliant, even with plentiful evidence to the contrary, I remained unembarrassed.

Tremayne was equally unimpressed. Tremayne, sixtyish, grey-haired, big and self-assured was clearly not pleased at the interruption.

‘We haven’t finished our business,’ he said ungraciously.

‘Time for a glass of wine,’ Ronnie suggested, ignoring the complaint. For you, Tremayne?’

‘Gin and tonic.’

‘Ah... I meant, white wine or red?’

After a pause, Tremayne said with a show of annoyed resignation, ‘Red, then.’

‘Tremayne Vickers,’ Ronnie said to me non-committally, completing the introduction. ‘Red do you, John?’

‘Great.’

Ronnie bustled about, moving heaps of books and papers, clearing spaces, producing glasses, bottle and corkscrew and presently pouring with concentration.

‘To trade,’ he said with a smile, handing me a glass. ‘To success,’ he said to Vickers.

‘Success! What success? All these writers are too big for their boots.’

Ronnie glanced involuntarily at my own boots, which were big enough for anyone.

‘It’s no use you telling me I’m not offering a decent fee,’ Tremayne told him. ‘They ought to be glad of the work.’ He eyed me briefly and asked me without tact, ‘What do you earn in a year?’

I smiled as blandly as Ronnie and didn’t answer.

‘How much do you know about racing?’ he demanded.

‘Horse racing?’ I asked.

‘Of course horse racing.’

‘Well,’ I said. ‘Not a lot.’

‘Tremayne,’ Ronnie protested, ‘John isn’t your sort of writer.’