Annie Lyons - Not Quite Perfect

‘Hi, Emma,’ he says with a condescending lilt. ‘So Richard Bennett? It’s either going to be a huge opportunity or a complete drain on resources and the bottom line. Thoughts?’

Emma bristles at his patronising tone but answers as calmly as she can. ‘I think it’s a formative work for an emerging talent in a brave new world of modern fiction destined to win awards and generate sales and profit for the company,’

‘Well done, Emma. Good work,’ he says, which makes Emma want to stave in his head with the manuscript she’s holding. ‘Personally, I prefer something a little meatier. Did I tell you I’d read Don Quixote last summer?’

‘Several times.’ They have reached the twelfth floor and the lift doors open. ‘Got to dash, Joel. Got a book to buy.’

‘Good luck. Don’t be nervous. Mind you, I would be. Digby’s relying on this one.’

‘Tosser,’ mutters Emma under her breath as she makes her way into the open-plan office. Ella has left a small bunch of butter-yellow freesias on her desk with a card that says, ‘I know you can do it.’ Emma is touched, but at the same time feels a little inadequate as she doesn’t know if she would have been so thoughtful herself. Behind the lovingly placed flowers is a less lovingly placed Post-It note slapped onto her computer’s blank face. It’s from Miranda and it simply says, ‘Emma – please pop in at 9. Digby wants a word.’

Emma feels as if she might regurgitate her breakfast. It’s not that she’s afraid of Digby: He’s a pussy cat compared with the bottom-line obsessed powers that now run the company. But he is one of Miranda’s oldest friends and was a traditional, independent, gentlemen publisher, who launched a whole host of seminal works, as well as being the founding member of the day-long publishing lunch. Emma takes a deep breath and knocks on Miranda’s closed door with what she hopes is an air of quiet authority. There is no answer, so Emma inclines her ear towards the door, just as it is flung open by the literary powerhouse that is Miranda Winter.

‘Ah, Emma. I thought I heard something. Morning. Morning. And how is my brightest and best on this exquisite day? Come, my child, don’t be shy. Digby won’t eat you. He’s had his breakfast.’

Miranda’s office is a shrine to the great and good of publishing, books and reading. Her walls are adorned with photographs, sketches and mementos from her forty-odd years as the matriarchal founding editor of Chandler and now Allen Chandler. The world of books and publishing may have changed, but Miranda Winter is not a woman to be trifled with and the newer suits at Allen Chandler simply wouldn’t dare. They’re terrified of her and she makes them far too much money. The photographs of Miranda with everyone from John Gielgud to John Updike read like a history of cultural movers and shakers from the post-war years. Emma is particularly impressed by the rumours that Miranda has slept with most of the men photographed here, even the gay ones. They are like the photographic equivalent of notches on her bedpost.

As Emma enters the room, Digby is perched on the edge of Miranda’s dark oak monster of a desk, a pudgy hand pawing at one of his many chins. Although publishing today is a very different world to that of fifty or even twenty years ago, when lunch neatly segued into afternoon tea, cocktails and dinner, no one seems to have told Digby and he remains the very picture of old-school corpulence. He is suited by a little man in Saville Row and his Oxford brogues are always shiny. He prefers a dickey bow to maintain the air of an eccentric publisher and today his pink shirt looks fit to burst as his belly extends over his blue pinstriped trousers.

‘Ah Ella,’ he begins, raising his fat hands in a sort of waving gesture.

‘It’s Emma.’ She corrects him. ‘Ella’s the other one.’

Digby snorts with amusement as if having two people with vaguely similar names is the funniest thing he’s ever heard.

‘Sorry, so sorry. Now, Emma, I know I don’t need to tell you how much our hopes are resting on you today. And I just wanted to say good luck. I know you can do it.’

Emma tries to speak but only manages a squeak of agreement.

Miranda leaps to her rescue. ‘Well, Emma and I will do our darndest to bring home the bacon, eh Emma?’

Emma nods vigorously, deciding that it is probably best to remain mute for now.

‘Quite so, quite so,’ says Digby with customary vagueness. ‘Well, the very best to you both. I look forward to hearing good news!’ And away he shuffles.

‘So tell me how you’re really feeling’ says Miranda when he is gone.

‘Honestly? I’m bloody terrified. I mean, this is this most exciting book I’ve read since Marquez. Do you really think we can get it?’

‘The agent is touting it hither and thither after the publisher with the most money, but I know we have more to offer.’

She looks at Emma with glassy eyes. It’s the look Ella and Emma call her ‘mirror to the past’. Ella always jokes that Emma is her protégé and it is clear that Miranda does see something of herself in Emma. At last year’s Christmas party, Miranda threw her arms around her and told her that she was like Boudicca, but they were all very drunk.

‘Ten o’clock then. We pitch our ideas, gush, enthuse and generally plump up their egos like sumptuous cushions. OK?’

‘Ok. Do you think Richard will go for it?’

‘Oh, it’s not Richard we have to worry about, darling. It’s the agent.’

The light is flashing on Emma’s phone when she gets back to her desk. It’s a text from Martin: ‘Good luck Mrs Almost-Wifey. Hope you get the book. I’m proud of you. Love M.’ She smiles but is starting to feel a bit sick and desperate to get on with it. She checks her watch: 9:34. twenty-six minutes to go. She leafs through her notes again and realises that her hands are shaking. The book is beautifully written and Emma desperately wants to be the one to publish it. She gives herself an internal pep talk: ‘You can do this. You are good at your job. You love this book and you want the world to love it too.’

The phone rings shattering the peace. Emma leaps up, knocking coffee all over her notes. ‘Fuck!’ she says involuntarily into the mouthpiece.

‘Emma?’ asks Miranda with no notable surprise at the outburst.

‘Yes? Sorry. I’m here.’

‘And so are they. Are you ready?’

Emma looks at the coffee-steeped notes and realises that she’s going to have to wing it. ‘I’ll come straight over.’

‘Fine. I’ll go and welcome them, roll out the red carpet as it were. And remember, you should be bloody nervous but it’s just another book. OK?’

‘OK,’ says Emma feeling anything but.

Miranda’s office is filled with the heavy perfume of pink lilies, mingled with the welcome aroma of freshly brewed coffee. Emma realises that she needs to pee, but daren’t leave the room now. The table is covered with a selection of Danish pastries. Her stomach groans appreciatively, but she decides against the risk of icing down her top and flaky crumbs on her upper lip. She can hear Miranda coming, jollying their guests along in a warm but business-like way. She decides that standing is the best option as sitting might seem somehow presumptuous or complacent or both.

The woman who enters first is known to Emma by fearsome reputation only: Joanna Uppington is ball-breaker number one of the publishing world. Emma is pretty sure she’s never smiled in her life. She is immaculate and tiny in her fitted, designer trouser suit. The only aspect to her that gives her any height (and which Emma suspects is the actual source of her power) is her hair with its impressive four-inch power-bouffant held in place with enough hair spray to finish off the ozone layer.