Douglas Kennedy - A Special Relationship

'I can do it'.

We shook hands on it. The next day, a motorcycle messenger arrived at my house with a large, deep cardboard box - and over fifteen hundred pages of proofs. I had cleared the kitchen table for this task - already installing an anglepoise lamp and a jam jar filled with newly sharpened pencils. There was a contract along with the page proofs. Before signing it, I faxed it over to Nigel Clapp. He called me back within an hour.

'You've got a job', he said, sounding surprised.

'It looks that way. But I'm worried about something - whether my fee will invalidate me for Legal Aid'.

'Well... uhm... you could always have them re-draft the contract, guaranteeing you full payment upon publication, which is... according to the contract... eight months from now. So we could show the court that you have been working, but that you'll be remunerated after the Final Hearing, which would keep you qualified for Legal Aid. That is, if you can manage to afford not to draw a salary right now'.

The hearing was in ten weeks' time, and I was down to the equivalent of £1500. It would be insanely tight.

'Say I asked Stanley for a third of the fee up-front?'

'Yes - that would still put you well within the Legal Aid threshold'.

Stanley Shaw was only too willing to re-jig the contract, pointing out that, 'In the thirty years I've been a publisher, this is the first time that a writer or an editor has asked for a delayed payment... which, of course, I'm most happy to facilitate'.

That evening, I did a bit more simple mathematics. I had a total of sixty-one days to do the job. Fifteen hundred by sixty-one equals 24.5 pages per day, which divided by eight made three.

Three pages per hour. Do-able. As long as I stuck to the task at hand. Didn't allow my mind to wander. Didn't dwell on the ongoing agony of missing Jack. Didn't succumb to the perpetual fear that the judge at the Final Hearing would side with Tony, and limit me to an hour a week's visit until...

No, no... don't contemplate that. Just go to work.

It took me four days to cross the threshold of the 'A' composers (Albinoni, Alkan, Arnold, Adams) into the 'B's - and gradually move through the Bach family. And, my God, there were an enormous amount of works under review. Then there were the critical pros and cons - the way the editors of the Guide discussed whether, in the recording of the B Minor Mass, you should opt for the traditional kappelmeister approach of Karl Richter, or the leaner, reduced period forces of John Eliot Gardiner, or the interpretative brilliance of Masaki Suzuki, or...

That was the most intriguing thing about working on this Guide (especially to someone with as little musical knowledge as myself) - the discovery that, in musical performance, interpretation changes with every conductor, every instrumentalist, every singer. But though you can play games with metronomic markings and tempi, you can't really deviate too much from the score. Whereas all stories are always open to speculation, conjecture, even reinvention... to the point where, in the re-telling, you begin to wonder where the original narrative has gone, and how the plot line has been hijacked by the two principal protagonists, both of whom are now presenting diametrically different versions of the same tale.

'You must be going crazy, reading all that musicological stuff, word-by-word', Sandy said one evening during our daily phone call.

'Actually, I'm rather enjoying it. Not just because I'm finding it interesting, but also because it's given me something I've been craving for months: a structure to the day'.

Three pages an hour, eight hours per day - the work broken up into four two-hour sessions, with a half-hour break between each period. Of course, I had to work this schedule round my weekly visit with Jack, my bi-monthly talk with Jessica Law, my bi-monthly consultations with Dr Rodale. Otherwise, the work defined my time. Just as it helped me mark time, and accelerate the agonizing wait for the Final Hearing. Yes, I did find such intensive proofreading to be frequently exhausting. I was also simultaneously bored and overwhelmed by the enormity of the task. But there was also a certain pleasure in pushing my way deeper and deeper into the alphabet. After three weeks, Berlioz was a distant memory, as I'd just polished off Hindemith and Roy Harris. Getting through the entire recorded corpus of Mozart was a bit like a drive I once took across Canada - during which I kept thinking: this has got to end sometime. Then, in the middle of week five, I began to panic. I was just entering the big 'S' section, with wildly prolific composers like Schubert and Shostakovich to work through. Stanley Shaw (another S!) checked in with me once, reminding me that the deadline was just two-and-a-half weeks off. 'Don't worry - I'll make it', I told him, even though I myself was beginning to wonder how I'd do it. I increased my workday time from eight to twelve hours. This paid off - as mid-way through the sixth week, I had managed to finish off Telemann and was dealing with Tippett. And during my subsequent session with Dr Rodale, she informed me that I was now appearing so much more balanced and in control that she was going to begin the gradual reduction of my dose of anti-depressants. A week later, while reading the section covering all complete sets of Vaughan Williams symphonies (the Boult was the favoured recording), I received word from Nigel Clapp that we had an exact date for the Final Hearing - June 18th.

'Uhm... the barrister I want to instruct... and who does this sort of case very well... and... uhm... is also on the Legal Aid register... well, her name is...'

'Her?' I said.

'Yes, she is a woman. But perfect for your situation... sorry, sorry, that sounds all wrong'.

'I know what you're saying. What's her name?'

'Maeve Doherty'.

'Irish?'

'Uhm... yes. Born and raised there, educated at Oxford, then she was part of a rather radical chambers for a while...'

I see...

'Did a lot of... uhm... substantial work. Especially in the family law area. She's available. She does Legal Aid. She will respond to the predicament you are in'.

'And say she ends up facing a traditional judge who can't stand her politics?'

'Well... uhm... one can't have everything'.

I didn't have time yet to dwell on this potential problem, as Vaughan Williams gave way to Verdi and Victoria and Vivaldi and Walton and Weber and Weekes and - twenty-four hours to go - I was still working on Wesley, and drinking nonstop cups of coffee, and assuring Stanley Shaw that he could have a courier at my door at nine tomorrow morning, and I was negotiating the complete organ works of Widor, and somewhere around midnight, I reached the last listing (Zwillich), and suddenly the sun was rising, and I tossed the final page on top of the pile, and smiled that tired smile which comes with having finished a job, and ran a bath, and was dressed and awaiting the courier when he showed up at nine, and received a phone call an hour later from Stanley Shaw congratulating me on making the deadline. An hour after that, I was holding my baby son under the increasingly less watchful eye of Clarice Chambers, who told me that she was going to leave us alone this morning, but would be down the corridor in the tea room if we needed her.

'How about that, Jack?' I said after she headed off. 'We're on our own at last'.

But Jack was too busy sucking down a bottle to respond.

I crashed out that night at seven, and slept twelve straight hours without interruption. I woke the next morning, feeling less burdened than I had felt in months. This lightening of mood carried on into the next week - when Stanley Shaw rang me and asked, 'I don't suppose you're free to do another job?'

'As a matter of fact, I am'.

'Tremendous. Because it is another doorstopper of a book. Our film guide. Currently clocking in at 1538 pages. It needs to be fully proofed in nine weeks. Same terms as before?'