Джон Бойн - A Ladder to the Sky

‘No, I’m being entirely serious,’ I replied with a shrug, my expression completely neutral. ‘Oh, she didn’t write every word in the book, don’t get me wrong. A lot of it is mine. In fact, I had to rewrite some sections substantially. The traits you’ve already listed were just some of her flaws as a writer and I was, shall we say, a more experienced hand.’

‘I don’t…’ He shook his head, looking at me as if I had started speaking in a foreign language. ‘I’m sorry, Maurice, I don’t quite understand what you’re telling me here.’

‘It’s quite simple. I’m saying that the original manuscript of the novel was written by Edith. Then Edith fell down the stairs and I took what she had written, worked pretty hard on it, I have to say, and turned it into a Maurice Swift novel. As a sort of… homage to her.’

‘But you’ve never mentioned this before,’ he said.

‘Haven’t I?’

‘No. I’ve read every interview you gave regarding that book and you never said a word about your wife’s contribution.’

‘I suppose it didn’t seem that important at the time. It’s a bit like what happened with Erich, in a way. He told me a story and I adapted it for my own use. Edith had a novel, she died, and I adapted it for my own use too. There’s not a great deal of difference between the two scenarios. It was a perfectly legitimate endeavour.’

As I heard myself say these words aloud, they didn’t sound as terrible to me as I had expected. In fact, my explanation sounded rather reasonable.

‘And you don’t think there’s something dishonest about that?’ asked Theo.

‘Not in the slightest,’ I said, feigning innocence. ‘Why, do you?’

A scene from a novel flashed through my mind. The moment at the end of Howards End when Dolly, the silly girl, reveals that the house had been left to Margaret Schlegel in Ruth’s will but Henry had thrown the offending note in the fire. I didn’t do wrong, did I? he asks in all innocence.

And Margaret, who has been through so much, shakes her head and says, You didn’t, darling. Nothing has been done wrong .

Theo, however, was no Margaret Schlegel.

‘I do, to be honest.’

‘Oh, then I think you’re just being a little uptight. Look, Edith was dead. Or she was in a coma, anyway. And a manuscript existed. It was obvious that it was going to be a major success if it was knocked into shape. So, of course, I used what she’d left behind. I owed that to her. If you’d been in my position, wouldn’t you have done the same thing? Out of love?’

‘No!’ he said, leaning forward, and the look of astonishment on his face rather frightened me. Had I underestimated how seriously he would take this? ‘It wouldn’t even have occurred to me!’

‘Hm,’ I said, considering this. ‘Then perhaps I do have an imagination after all.’

‘Maurice, I don’t know how—’

‘Look, I did what I did and I stand by it, all right? What else should I have done? Publish it posthumously under her name? What good would that have done? There would have been no writer to publicize it. No one to read from it at the festivals. The book probably would have died a death. No, it made far more sense to claim it as my own and accept the garlands that came in its wake. If anything, it was a tribute to Edith that it was so well received.’

‘Fuck me,’ said Theo quietly, shaking his head and burying himself in his pint for a few minutes. From time to time he scribbled a few notes on the pad which I couldn’t make out from where I was sitting, and I didn’t enquire as to what they were. I waited until he was ready, sitting quietly, enjoying my drink, until he finally looked up at me, and I smiled at him.

‘Another drink?’ I asked.

While I was standing at the bar, I felt a curious mixture of relief and anxiety. I had told the truth, or a version of it, anyway, and had done so in such a way that I’d made it clear I didn’t believe it was anything to get too worked up over. Theo might have been surprised by what I’d said, but it wasn’t as if he could hold me to account for it. Edith’s original manuscript had long since been shredded and, if he chose to write about this in his thesis, I could either deny it or stand by every word and say that yes, my late wife had been working on a vague idea, or we had been working on it together, but it was in its very early stages when she died. And I had simply continued with the book.

The barmaid poured the drinks and I happened to glance over to the other side of the pub and a familiar face – two familiar faces, in fact – caught my eye. I turned away quickly, hoping they hadn’t spotted me, but perhaps my sudden movement alerted them for they looked in my direction and recognized me immediately. An awkward moment followed before they raised their hands in greeting and I nodded in return, attempting a smile, before carrying the drinks back to our table. I wanted to sit down and see whether things felt different between Theo and me now, but there was simply no way around it. I wouldn’t be able to concentrate until I’d gone over.

‘Will you excuse me for a moment, Daniel?’ I asked him. ‘I just spotted a couple of old friends in the corner and I should probably go over and say hello.’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘And it’s Theo.’

‘What?’

He shook his head and reached into the pocket of his coat for his phone as I walked across the room, hoping that I looked reasonably healthy and not too much like the tragic old drunk I had turned into.

‘Hello, Garrett. Hello, Rufus,’ I said, shaking their hands in turn. Garrett Colby, my late wife’s former student, and Rufus Shawcross, my erstwhile editor. The man who’d dropped me after the failure of The Treehouse and come to regret that when I was shortlisted for The Prize with The Tribesman a few years later.

‘Hello, Maurice,’ said Rufus, standing up and shaking my hand as if we were close friends. ‘It’s been such a long time! How are you keeping these days?’

‘Very well, thank you,’ I said.

‘You know Garrett Colby, don’t you?’ he asked, turning to his companion.

‘We were friends back in my UEA days,’ said Garrett, not standing but offering his hand too. ‘Hello, Maurice, it’s nice to see you again.’

‘Well, we were acquainted,’ I said, correcting him. ‘“Friends” might be pushing it a little. I almost didn’t recognize you. What happened to all that lovely blond hair of yours? It used to be rather a signature piece, didn’t it? Drove all the boys crazy, as I recall.’

‘I got older,’ he said with a shrug. ‘And it fell out. Are you growing a beard? I didn’t realize they were back in vogue for men on the wrong side of fifty.’

‘No, I just haven’t shaved in a few days,’ I said.

‘Actually, we’re celebrating,’ said Rufus, and I noticed now that they had a bottle of champagne standing between them in a silver ice bucket. That wasn’t something you saw in the Lamb and Flag very often. ‘You’ve heard the wonderful news, I presume?’

‘No. Has Mr Trump died?’

‘Even better. The shortlist for The Prize came out this morning and Garrett is on it.’

‘Garrett who?’ I asked.

‘Garrett,’ repeated Rufus, looking a little baffled by my question. ‘This Garrett.’

‘Oh, right,’ I said, turning back to the buffoon next to him, who was grinning like the cat that got the cream. Of course, I knew only too well that he’d made the shortlist. It had made me scream aloud in my flat earlier that day when the news was revealed. I had thrown four dinner plates, two cups and a vase at the wall and they had all smashed into pieces that I would have to clear up later. ‘I didn’t even know that you were still writing.’