‘My dear,’ said Beverley in a careful voice. ‘All my novels end with a marriage. They have to.’
‘But why?’ asked the ghost. ‘Why do they have to?’
‘Because they’re the rules!’
‘So break the rules! What if, rather than having your heroine find fulfilment only through marrying a man, she ditched that man as being beneath her and went off to find it in another way? Through her work, for example? Or, perhaps, with another woman? Or with a non-binary—’
‘DON’T!’ shouted Beverley. ‘Just don’t. I’ve had quite enough of that for one week. And it’s not as if anything like that happens in Jane Austen anyway, is it?’
‘No, but you’re not Jane Austen.’
‘Jane Austen wasn’t Jane Austen during her lifetime either,’ countered Beverley. ‘It took time.’
‘Yes, well, I don’t think that’s something we have to worry about here,’ said the ghost sniffily as she drank her coffee.
‘You’re very cocky for such an inexperienced young woman,’ said Beverley. ‘I don’t approve of confidence in an employee. It gives them notions.’
‘I’m not actually your employee, Beverley,’ said the ghost with a sigh. ‘I’m paid by the publishing house.’
‘You are my employee,’ insisted Beverley.
‘Am not.’
‘Are too. Look, I’m not going to play this game with you. It’s beneath my dignity and above yours. The fact is, this just isn’t going to work out. I’m sorry, but there it is. I don’t think I can continue to allow you to be my ghost.’
‘Oh dear,’ replied the ghost, not sounding particularly concerned. ‘What a shame.’
‘Please don’t take it personally—’
‘I won’t.’
‘And don’t let it affect your new-found confidence—’
‘You don’t need to worry about that.’
‘It’s not that you don’t have some talent—’
‘I’m aware of that.’
‘It’s just that we’re not a great fit.’
‘I couldn’t agree more.’
Beverley sat back, feeling a growing sense of irritation. She’d never fired a ghost before, but she’d sacked the occasional cleaner and had always rather enjoyed the experience. It wasn’t that she wanted the ghost to grab the nearest butter knife and make a play for her wrists, but surely a few tears, perhaps even a little gentle begging, wouldn’t go astray?
‘I must say you’re taking this awfully well,’ said Beverley. ‘You do realize that I’m dismissing you, yes?’
‘Well, as much as it’s in your power to do so, yes, I get it,’ said the ghost. ‘And that’s fine. I mean, my contract says that I get paid for every submitted page, so it doesn’t make a huge amount of difference to me either way. It just means that I don’t have to spend any more of my time on this. Although, it has been a positive experience.’
‘Has it?’ asked Beverley, resisting the urge to scratch her eyes out. ‘In what way?’
‘Well, as I told you when we met, I originally wanted to go into journalism,’ said the ghost. ‘But this week, spending time on The Ski Instructor of Verbier, I’ve come to realize that my true calling might be fiction.’
‘Then perhaps you should go into journalism after all? The tabloids would find you indispensable.’
‘Taking rather mundane plots and stereotypical characters and then breathing some actual life into them has proved rather interesting to me. I’ve started to think, well, what if I didn’t have to start with a bunch of clichés and do everything I can to make them sound a bit less ridiculous? What if I could start with authentic characters who do things that people actually do in the twenty-first century? And perhaps play with the language a little. I even have an exciting idea about page layout that—’
‘I’m not interested.’
‘To shape prose on the page to mirror the emotions of the—’
‘I don’t care, dear.’
‘Even to find a way to blend poetry with prose and—’
‘Is this monologue going to continue much longer? I don’t know if you’re mistaking me for the Publishing Director of Faber & Faber, but that sort of thing doesn’t interest me in the slightest.’
The ghost shrugged her shoulders, looking a little disappointed by the lack of encouragement.
‘Well, it was just a thought,’ she said.
‘Some thoughts are best kept to oneself,’ replied Beverley, making a distinct effort to stop gritting her teeth, worried that she might pare them down to stubs in anger. ‘During the whole Brexit drama, I found myself erotically drawn to John Bercow, but I didn’t go around telling people.’
‘I feel that I’ve offended you,’ said the ghost after a slight pause.
‘It’s just that you have such little respect for what I do,’ replied Beverley. ‘Speaking as a mother, you do realize that, having sold twenty million books around the world, there are some who might say that my work actually appeals to readers?’
‘Well, it’s not really your work, though, is it? It’s the work of your ghosts.’
‘They’re my ideas!’ insisted Beverley, finishing her Bellini now and wishing she had four more lined up, before throwing a quick, imperious look towards the waitress, who scampered off to pour another. Waiting for it to arrive, Beverley decided that she’d wasted enough of her morning on this smug little creature and wasn’t going to indulge her any longer. ‘I’m glad you’re not upset,’ she said. ‘And, naturally, I wish you all the best with your literary endeavours.’
‘Thank you. As it happens, I have an idea for a historical novel set in Ukraine during the Cossack uprising of 1648.’
‘Sounds utterly tedious,’ said Beverley.
‘Sort of a Doctor Zhivago tale. Only set in Odessa. My new boyfriend, Pylyp, has been telling me some stories and—’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Beverley, feeling as if someone had just placed her left hand in a bucket of water and her right in a toaster before pressing the ‘on’ switch on the wall socket. ‘Did you say Pylyp?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’ The ghost sat back and feigned surprise. ‘Of course, you know him a little, don’t you? He worked with you on Strictly.’
A lengthy,
lengthy,
lengthy,
silence.
‘How on earth do you know Pylyp?’ asked Beverley, her words coming out in a voice that even she didn’t fully recognize. Somehow, it reminded her of Kermit the Frog.
‘Well, it’s the funniest thing,’ said the ghost. ‘I was in your house the other day when the phone rang. I answered it, and it was him. Well, we got talking because I recognized his accent and I told him about my own family history, and one thing led to another and he asked me to meet him for a drink. To talk about the old country, you know. He was in Odessa breaking up with an old girlfriend at the time, but he came back the next day and we met up. And that was it. Love at first sight. For both of us.’