Джон Бойн - A Ladder to the Sky

Henrietta’s debut novel, I Am Dissatisfied with My Boyfriend, My Body and My Career , was due to be published by FSG later that year and was already being touted as a significant work, ‘ Bridget Jones meets A Clockwork Orange ’. A few weeks earlier, she had submitted a new story directly to Maurice, who had passed on it, a rebuff that precipitated her unscheduled appearance in his office that morning, just when he’d been hoping to relax while watching Rafael Nadal play Andy Murray in the Wimbledon semi-final.

‘Sorry to burst in unannounced,’ she said, charging in and hurling a large carpet bag that even Mary Poppins would have rejected as being unwieldy to the floor, where it landed with a considerable thump. She peeled herself from her coat, scarf and gloves, a curious combination, considering it was July and, outside, New York was melting. The room filled with an unmistakably stale scent of musty body odour. Henrietta, Maurice knew, only bathed on Saturdays, in order to help preserve the planet’s natural resources and today, unfortunately, was a Friday. ‘But I think we need to talk, don’t you?’

‘How lovely to see you,’ he lied, moving his laptop a little to the left so he could keep an eye on the match – Murray had won the first set, but Nadal was leading comfortably in the second – while listening to whatever she was here to complain about. ‘Just passing, were you?’

‘No, I came deliberately, and the journey was horrendous.’ Despite growing up in Milwaukee, Henrietta modelled her speech on Merchant Ivory period films starring Emma Thompson or Helena Bonham-Carter. ‘First, I stood in some frightful dog poo on the pavement and had to return home to change my shoes, which was a terrible bore. Then, while travelling on the 4 train, I was forced to switch carriages as a woman nearby was, quite literally, going into labour and her screams were giving me one of my headaches. Upon changing, I found myself seated next to an Indian gentleman who proposed marriage on the basis of what he called my childbearing hips.’

‘That’s nice,’ said Maurice. ‘Did you accept?’

‘Of course not.’

‘And how did he take it?’

‘No one likes rejection, Maurice. But we’ll get back to that in a minute. Anyway, he seemed to get over it quickly enough. By 28th Street, he had proposed to a young African-American man who did not take his advances with good grace and, by 23rd, to a border collie, who seemed much more interested.’

‘Excellent.’

‘I hate coming into the city. I really do.’

‘Then you should have stayed at home.’

‘No, it was important that we confront this situation face to face.’

‘And what situation is that?’ he asked.

‘Don’t play silly beggars, Maurice. You know exactly why I’m here.’

‘I assume you’ve brought something new for me to read?’

‘Ha! As if I would. After the way I’ve been treated by your magazine? Not a cat’s chance in hell!’ She leaned forward and rearranged the letter opener, stapler and hole-punch on Maurice’s desk so they were perfectly aligned. ‘I don’t give my work to people who despise me.’

‘I don’t despise you, Henrietta,’ replied Maurice. ‘Why on earth would you think such a thing?’

‘Well, you don’t respect me, that’s for sure.’

She reached into her carpet bag and shuffled around for a bit in it before removing a sheet of A4 paper folded into eighths. ‘ Dear Henrietta ,’ she read aloud as she unravelled it. ‘ Thank you so much for allowing me to read your latest story— ’

‘If I may,’ he interrupted.

‘ THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALLOWING ME TO READ YOUR LATEST STORY ,’ she repeated, raising her voice now, ‘ a wonderfully quirky fable that illustrates just why FSG were so keen to sign you up! Unfortunately, space in Storī is rather limited at the moment and I don’t think I’ll be able to publish it, although I daresay I’ll regret that when the New Yorker snaps it up! Keep sending me your stuff, though, I can’t get enough of your particular brand of whimsy. Much love, Maurice Swift. Editor-in-chief. ’

‘You’re upset,’ said Maurice.

‘Upset? Why would I be upset? It’s only “stuff”, after all. It’s not as if I pour my very lifeblood into every sentence, paragraph and chapter. Stuff! Fuck you, Maurice. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.’

‘That might have been an unfortunate choice of word,’ he admitted.

‘You think? I never would have imagined that you would treat me with such contempt. You’ve let me down, Maurice, you really have.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t take it personally,’ he replied. ‘I’ve done that to quite a few people over the years. There’s an army of them out there, both living and dead, who don’t look at me with any particular benevolence.’

‘Anyway,’ she continued with a sigh, looking around the office, which was filled with books, manuscripts and multiple back issues of Storī . Several shelves were taken up with various foreign-language editions of Two Germans , The Treehouse , The Tribesman , The Breach and The Broken Ones. ‘I wouldn’t normally do this, but since we have so much history together I thought I’d come in and offer you a second chance.’

‘A second chance?’ he asked, raising an eyebrow. ‘At what exactly?’

‘At publishing my story,’ she replied, rolling her eyes. ‘Because if you don’t want it, I’ll take it across the street and find someone who does.’

Maurice tried not to laugh. Across the street? Did she think she was a character in a David Mamet play? There was nothing across the street except a vintage-clothes store, a coffee shop that reeked of marijuana and an elderly homeless man who sang the chorus of ‘American Pie’ whenever anyone handed him money. If she wanted to take it across to any of them, then she was perfectly welcome.

‘Of course, I hate to pass up such an opportunity,’ said Maurice. ‘But I read the story several times and I just didn’t think it was the right fit for our upcoming issues. I don’t like turning people down but—’

‘And I don’t like being shitted upon from a great height!’ shouted Henrietta. ‘Particularly by someone I respect and admire.’

He frowned. Weren’t respect and admire essentially the same thing? She’d made similar blunders in the story he’d rejected. The opening line, for example, had gone:

Every evening as he took the train home from work, Jasper Martin began to feel both anxious and apprehensive.

The same thing. And there was another on page four:

Lauren glanced up towards the light, which was flickering and quivering, and wondered whether she should put off hanging herself until the connections were secure.

The same thing.

‘I don’t think I’ve shitted on you, Henrietta,’ said Maurice. ‘Not from any height, great or small. I just didn’t feel the story was right for us, that’s all. And I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can be persuaded otherwise.’

‘What was wrong with it?’

‘There was nothing wrong with it, per se ,’ replied Maurice, glancing back towards the screen, where Nadal was celebrating taking the second set. ‘ I suppose I just didn’t feel that it had your usual je ne sais quoi .’

‘And what is that supposed to mean?’

‘It’s French.’

‘I know it’s French. And I know what it means . I’m asking what you mean by it.’

‘Do you want the truth?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘It’s just that, usually, when I ask writers whether they want the truth, they say that they do but actually they want anything but. They want me to lavish praise on them and tell them to dust off their dinner jackets for the Nobel Prize ceremony.’