‘Oh,’ said the ghost, shocked. ‘That’s really not the way that women should talk about each other, is it? Sisterly solidarity and all that.’
‘Spare me,’ said Beverley, waving this away. ‘She’s not my “sister”. She’s a person of low morals who thought nothing of sleeping with another woman’s husband, pretending to get pregnant by him and then, when scorned, selling her story to the Daily Mail. She’s no more my sister than you are.’
‘Well, we do share a sort of bond, don’t we?’ asked the ghost. ‘Given that we’re both writers.’
‘Only one of us is a writer, dear,’ said Beverley, with a patronizing smile.
‘True. But your name is on the covers of your books so people think of you as one.’
Beverley gritted her teeth, feeling an urge to throw the coffee in the ghost’s face, an urge she resisted for now.
‘It hasn’t been the best week for George, has it?’ asked the ghost.
‘Mr Cleverley has been going through a difficult time,’ said Beverley. ‘Which is not uncommon among men of a certain age. I’d prefer not to discuss it, if you don’t mind. It’s a private family matter.’
‘Of course. But if you want to talk—’
‘I don’t.’
‘But if you do—’
‘I don’t.’
‘Then I hope you know that I’m—’
‘But I don’t.’
‘All right.’
‘So,’ said Beverley, not wishing to continue this part of the conversation any further and placing her hands on the manuscript before her. ‘I’ve read the chapters you submitted.’
‘Oh good!’
‘And I have to say that I’m very disappointed.’
The ghost raised an eyebrow. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘I thought they were some of your best work.’
‘It’s as if you’ve entirely ignored all the parameters I set out for you. Carolyn, our heroine, is supposed to fall deeply in love with Marcel, the ski instructor, while only pretending to despise him. Instead, you have her actually despising him.’
‘Yes, but I thought your idea was a bit Jane Austen so—’
‘And what’s wrong with Jane Austen, might I ask? Her books have lasted for, what, four, five hundred years?’
‘There’s nothing at all wrong with Jane Austen, if you are Jane Austen. But if you’re not, then perhaps it can seem a bit silly to recycle one of her standard plot devices. Can’t we leave that sort of thing to Hollywood?’
‘But the way you write him goes against the whole spirit of the novel. Marcel is, for want of a better word, a complete dick.’
‘He is, isn’t he?’ said the ghost, looking delighted by this description.
‘But that’s not a good thing! He’s supposed to be gruff and unapproachable, wounded by a terrible secret from his past, but underneath … underneath, there is a kind, sexy billionaire – possibly with a neglected child in boarding school who only wants him to notice her – just waiting to get out. What he needs is the love of a good woman to strip away the dark exterior.’
‘Yes,’ said the ghost, taking a sip of her coffee. ‘But don’t you think that’s been done to death?’
‘Everything’s been done to death, my dear,’ said Beverley. ‘Life has been done to death. But we keep on breathing, don’t we?’
‘It’s just … and I don’t mean any offence here—’
‘I hate it when anyone starts a sentence in that way,’ said Beverley, finishing her Bellini and ordering another with a quick point to the waitress. ‘You can always guarantee that they’re about to offend you.’
‘It’s just that I feel your novels have a certain Groundhog Day feel to them.’
Beverley blinked. ‘I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean,’ she said.
‘They’re repetitive. The same stories, the same characters, repeated over and over. Don’t you want your books to surprise people?’
‘I most certainly do not,’ said Beverley, picking up the new drink and swallowing a third of it. ‘Nobody likes surprises.’
‘I do.’
‘Then you’re abnormal. My readers want to be comforted by my books. They want to open one and know that they can sink into it as they might their favourite armchair. And when they’re finished, they don’t want to remember a word of it.’
The ghost nodded, considering this. ‘Perhaps we have different expectations of what a book should be,’ she said.
‘Perhaps we do,’ agreed Beverley. ‘In your mind, it’s perfectly fine to write Marcel as a total bastard with no redeeming features at all—’
‘But there’s plenty of men out there with no redeeming features at all! Plenty of women too, for that matter!’
‘Yes, in real life! But is that what you want from a novel? Real life?’
‘Well, some semblance of it, yes.’
‘Then go read one of Maude Avery’s miserable dirges. But don’t bother with any of mine.’
‘In general, I don’t.’
‘In general you don’t what?’
‘Bother with any of yours. No offence.’
Beverley laughed. ‘How could that possibly be offensive?’ She closed her eyes for a moment and breathed in through her nose, trying to maintain some sort of equilibrium. ‘You’re quite the sly boots, aren’t you?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘I do. I wonder what goes on inside your mind.’
‘Quite a lot, actually.’
‘Well, you’ll never find a husband if you insist on proving that to everyone. Nobody likes a clever woman. But look, I’m not here to discuss your inadequacies as a person or your oh-so-highbrow taste in literature. I’m here to discuss my novel. The novel that will have my name on the cover and my name on the spine and that I will end up defending on Woman’s Hour while Emma Barnett takes pot-shots at me. Now look at this here.’ She lifted a page that was so full of red marks that it looked as if it had been leeched. ‘This flashback scene. Where Marcel is remembering his first romantic encounter with his late wife.’
‘Yes? What about it?’
‘I mean … have you read it?
‘Yes. I wrote it.’
‘This line. This outrageous line. Reader, he raped her.’
‘I thought that was rather good.’
‘And you’re the one who says you don’t want it to be all Jane Austen!’
‘That was Charlotte Brontë.’
‘Same difference. How on earth is Carolyn supposed to fall in love and marry a man who is a rapist? Do you honestly think the reader is going to want that to happen?’
‘No, but that’s the point. She’s not going to fall in love with him and she’s not going to marry him.’
Beverley looked utterly bewildered now.
‘Then who is she going to marry?’ she asked.
‘No one.’
‘What do you mean, no one?’
‘I mean, no one. She’s not going to marry at all. She’s going to remain single.’