There were countless tiny joys I hadn’t realised were waiting for me when I first became a mother, and this is just one of them. Snuggling with my daughter beneath a blanket in front of our favourite Christmas film, toes touching, our eyes and smiles meeting at exactly the same moments. I can’t wait to watchThe Holidaywith her, too. But she is not quite old enough yet. So, for now, Macaulay will have to do.
I’d been planning to squeeze in a bit more work before dinner. But then I catch sight of my daughter’s hopeful face, and check the time. Screw it, it’s Christmas. ‘Go on, then. Why not.’
61.
Josh
January 2014
Andrea and I are in Valencia, where she’s attending a literary festival. I’ve tagged along for a few of her work events now. Book fairs and signings, trips abroad to meet publishers.
We are eating dinner at an oyster bar. This was Andrea’s suggestion – I’ve never exactly been an oyster kind of guy. Rachel and I tried them once, on one of our semi-ironic Valentine’s Day outings, and all I can remember is Rachel crying with laughter as I repeatedly gagged.
It’s the kind of place where you have to bray to be heard, all chandeliers and vintage champagne and crustaceans on plates. I wish I could have been brave enough to suggest we give it a swerve in favour of the scruffy tapas joint up the road, which looked far more fun. But Andrea is sophisticated, and this is her trip, at the end of the day. Okay, so oysters aren’t my thing. But maybe they could be. And my girlfriend is nothing if not a fan of living life outside your comfort zone.
‘Love that people assume you’re my toy-boy,’ she says, running her foot up my leg beneath the table.
She introduced me this way to her friends, when we first met. She likes pretending we’re kind of kinky, teasing me about looking aeons younger than her.
‘Very funny,’ I say, poker-faced. ‘You’re thirty-five. We look entirely normal together.’
But, in reality, I enjoy that we can joke about it. I like that she feels comfortable enough to rib me, remind me not to take myself so seriously. I like that joining her for events and dressydinners and hours-long writing sessions means I have so much less time now to dwell on the future, or how jarring it feels to see a twenty-something when I look in the mirror. I like that I’m constantly thinking about crafting a paragraph she will deem to be perfect, or picking her bunches of snowdrops from the garden, or unearthing old recipes for soups and muffins and soda bread she might enjoy. And I like it when she seeks me out at my desk, kissing and caressing me for what seems like hours before eventually sinking on to me, dress bunched around her waist, fingers raking my skin, face flushed and glimmering as she bites back my name.
She squeezes a lemon segment over an oyster before sipping it from the shell. ‘Thought I’d lost you this morning.’
‘Had a sudden burst of inspiration at three a.m.’
‘Lucky you. What are those like?’
I throw her a sceptical look. She’s always complaining of having creative block, yet she’s the one selling out literary festivals, not me.
Still. Meeting her appears to have hot-wired my brain, creatively speaking. Maybe Rachel wasn’t wrong, all those years ago. Maybe I really did need a muse. For the first time in a long while I’ve been feeling reinvigorated by writing, pouring words on to the page, unable to stop, as if I’m crafting my debut all over again.
This new novel is different from anything I’ve written before, though. Genre, subject matter, form. Which feels like a risk, in many ways. Then again, I can probably afford to take one now. The idea I discussed with my publisher a few years back went nowhere; I promised myself I would give it my best shot, but the whole project was canned before I’d even written a word.
‘I’d love to read what you’ve got so far,’ Andrea says, sipping her champagne.
To most writers, even a single sentence of feedback from Andrea Bewley would be literary gold. And I include myself in that: since we met, we’ve spent countless evenings debating narrative convention and technique, voice and characterisation, genre, drive, intention. She is, to be frank, the hottest teacher I’ve ever had. In fact, it’s started to make me question what I ever thought I was doing, masquerading as a college lecturer and imparting what I now know to be my distinct lack of expertise.
Being with her has focused my mind to an entirely new degree. Because I am keen to impress her? Or maybe it’s because we are not so different. We both want to write books that other people admire. I find myself talking to her about writing more than anything else, in the hope of absorbing even a smudge of the creative energy that propelled her to the top of the bestseller lists.
That said, I’m not quite ready to share what I’ve been writing yet.
‘It’s really just brain vomit right now,’ I tell her.
‘Mmm, that is a good stage. I do love a good creative puke.’ She nods down at the oyster platter. ‘Go on, then.’
Gingerly, I take one and raise it to my lips, bypassing the lemon and black pepper, because no amount of garnishing is going to make a dead mollusc taste good. I want to get it over with as quickly as possible. So I tip back my head and down it in one, the way I’ve read you’re supposed to.
Andrea smiles, leans towards me and whispers, ‘Swallowing whole is kind of a giveaway, you know.’
‘Of what?’ My mouth tastes of fish and seawater. Why the hell do people eat this stuff?
‘Amateur oyster-eater,’ she says, but with a fond smile, as if she thinks it’s cute.
I was already feeling faintly self-conscious next to Andrea, in her waft of dark blue silk and vault’s worth of silver jewellery. Ijust packed my usual uniform of plain dark T-shirts, jeans and trainers to come out here. I guess it’s my way of trying not to attract attention, to blend in, do my best to avoid eye contact with anyone I don’t know.
But, lately, I admit I have been wondering if I need to up my game. To begin dressing more smartly, perhaps learn about things like fine food and opera, watch more films that come with subtitles.
