9

With the train service from Waterloo to Honiton scheduled to take a long and dreary three and a quarter hours, Michelle stared glumly out of the train window and contemplated how incredibly miserable the next portion of her life was going to be. The compartment smelled of ancient dust, the window was smeary as though painted with yellow glue, and moreover, with ten minutes till departure time, the worn and crusty seats were filling up with alarming speed. Michelle, unaccustomed to the brusqueness of Intercity etiquette, flinched and clenched her teeth as each new pinstriped bum wordlessly slapped down in a space she had fondly hoped would be empty. She was horrified. Who were all these men? Why were they so rude? And what possible reason could they have for catching a train to Honiton at half-past eight in the morning? When agreeing to make this journey, she had been comforted by a pleasant vision (admittedly founded on nothing more substantial than bluesy British Rail TV advertisements) that included an idea of relaxation and room to breathe. But the sad truth was that Michelle had worked in an office for too long. She did not know the first rule of British Rail travel: that if there is more than one cubic metre of space per passenger, something is deemed to be wrong and the service is cut.

The worst thing about the journey in prospect, however, was not the cattle-truck discomfort, nor the danger that someone would sit next to her eating an individual fruit pie without first inquiring whether she wanted some. It was that she and Tim now faced three and a quarter hours in which to bemoan their common predicament, which was simply this: they no longer had a magazine to sacrifice their lives to. ‘No magazine’ – what a strange combination of words. Perhaps that was glue on the windows, she thought – but her mind was wandering. She glanced around, pulled herself together, looked at her shoes, and faced facts. In the course of twenty-four hours Come Into the Garden had ceased to exist, and now she and Tim had been left, bewildered, sacrificing their lives to nothing.

It was a weird feeling. Each of them carried a businesslike letter, received in the morning’s post, informing them of Digger Enterprises’ intention to cease publication of Come Into the Garden forthwith, blah, blah, sincere regret, rhubarb – but they still couldn’t take it in. It seemed like nonsense. As she fought for breath, Michelle could not remember ever experiencing a shock of equal proportions. The day before, when the magazine’s typesetters in Clerkenwell suddenly announced midway through the afternoon that they were laying down their tools, was a memory fresh as paint, and would remain so. When she thought of it, her mouth went all stiff, her shoulders came up around her ears, and she felt a terrible urge to hit someone.

Just like that, the typesetters had pulled the plug. The keyboard operatives stopped tapping; the compositors laid down their scalpels; and a few seconds’ silence were respectfully (or was it ironically?) observed before attention turned routinely to the late news pages of Pigswill Gazette or Marmalade Monthly, or some such other grisly specialist publication. No matter that Come Into the Garden had run uninterrupted for fifty years. No matter that Michelle had given it the best years of her life. Later in the day, acting on his own initiative, a typesetter’s clerical assistant with a nasty rash on his neck gathered up all the standing artwork from the Come Into the Garden pigeon-hole (the ‘Me and My Shed’ logo, the ‘Dear Donald’ in big loopy handwriting, the list of editorial staff that always appeared on page three underneath the Contents) and tipped them in a bin. Such is the passing of a little magazine.

Obviously, with typesetting a moribund trade, the managers of this little company were rightly dismayed to lose a nice regular job like Come Into the Garden. But on the other hand, the matter also had its compensations. The pleasure of finally telling Michelle over the phone precisely where she could stick her forebears and twinges and far-be-its and etceteras was so highly relished and coveted that, after a scuffle broke out at the coffee-machine between volunteers for the job, the men actually drew lots in the toilets. The lucky winner was a young paste-up artist called Jim – a relative newcomer, unfortunately, who had been allowed to take part in the draw only because the older blokes felt awkward about leaving him out. Fair and square he won it, but understandably the others were sore. By rights, the job should have gone to someone who had known Michelle much longer, who wanted it more badly; but such was fate. The hapless losers made the best of it by crowding around the office phone while youthful Jim made the historic call.

‘We’re not setting your stuff any more,’ Jim told Michelle excitedly, in a rush, not savouring it at all. The other blokes shrugged; what a waste. Michelle, caught halfway through one of her arch how-I-hate-to-be-a-nuisance-pestering-you-for-co-operation complaints about the late arrival of proofs, paused for breath and considered what she had heard. ‘Could I trouble you unforgivably and ask you to explain that last remark?’ she asked. ‘We’re not setting it, you see,’ said Jim, ‘because you’re going out of business.’ Michelle gasped loudly and knocked over her bottles of nail varnish, so that her sub-editors looked up briefly from their work and bit their lips. ‘But what am I going to do with all this copy?’ she demanded crossly. At which she was surprised to hear the assembled typesetters, in the background, whoop with delight and crack up laughing. Ha ha, what could she do with that copy? Blimey, she walked right into that one.

Now she watched as Tim wiffled uncertainly down the platform to buy some coffees from the Waterloo concourse, and saw how thoroughly her life was tied up with Come Into the Garden. Just observing Tim’s departing form, she realized she had never before encountered him outside the context of the office. Someone suggested having a drink after work once (at Christmas?), but Michelle had made an excuse and left; probably, Tim had done the same. At work, Tim looked different, somehow older; at work, they both knew what they were doing. She yearned to be back at her desk. A pile of features waited to be subbed, and she saw them in her mind’s eye – all badly written, all straggly and formless, crying in the semantic wilderness for a decent sub to please, please show them the way (hoorah, a split infinitive) – and here she was, sitting on a train at the commencement of a fool’s errand, thinking only of her own future. She felt guilty. Those features needed her. Her mission in life was to straighten them out.

Fifteen years working to a weekly production schedule would not be eradicated overnight. Wednesday morning, for Michelle, meant the arrival of next week’s crossword (set since 1960 by an elderly cantankerous gaffer with dandruff, who signed himself ‘Tradescant’); it meant final proofs of ‘Ted’s Tips’; the writing of the cover-lines by the editor (she rewrote them afterwards, he didn’t seem to mind); and around lunch-time, it meant Osborne turning up in a flurry of string bags and oranges to write his terrible piece about celebrity sheds. Every week the same. The incontrovertible order of things. Whenever Michelle had taken holidays, it didn’t matter where in the world she went, or how long she stayed away, she was aware hour by hour, almost minute by minute, of what ought to be happening at the office. Once, in a fabulous sea-front bar in Turkey, she had quite surprised her fellow Classical coach tour holiday makers by suddenly narrowing her eyes and snarling, ‘That eleven-thirty messenger is early again, I just know it.’

So it was jolly hard to adjust to the idea that nothing whatever was happening in the office this morning, apart from a couple of volunteer subs answering the phones and dolefully dividing up the reference books to take home. Lillian had disappeared the previous afternoon, and Tim refused to tell her why. In fact he was particularly jumpy on the subject. But on hearing the terrible news from the typesetters – and then receiving his own ghastly letter of dismissal – he had been insistent that they travel immediately to meet with Digger Enterprises with a personal plea for time, or negotiated redundancy, or both; so here they were. Michelle was not optimistic that they could make any difference to the outcome, but agreed to go – partly, she realized on reflection, because she was too dazed to argue, and partly because, having never been to Honiton, she was curious to see it. Perhaps she would at last discover why ‘Honiton, Devon’ was always her first inspiration when writing spoof letters to either Osborne or the magazine.

She picked up the book she had brought for the journey (the new Trent Carmichael in hardback), but put it down quickly. By page forty-two she already had a fair idea that the gardener did it. She stared out of the window again and sighed. To think that only a week ago she had subbed Osborne’s ropy Trent Carmichael piece so brilliantly. All those knowing references, all those clever puns; she had been born for this job, how could it possibly cease to exist? Morbid thoughts overwhelmed her. What would become of this highly specialized talent? Where could she take it? What was it worth? On the tube this morning she had come up with a superbly clever headline for a piece combining Orson Welles and patio furniture (should one ever crop up), yet all of a sudden there was no connection whatever between clever horticultural headlines and the price of sprouts. Her chin began to wobble. ‘Nobody wants my Sittings on Cane’ was possibly the saddest thought she had ever experienced.

‘Not enjoying your book?’

She looked up in surprise to see a tanned, intense-looking man in a Barbour jacket and flat cap sitting opposite. Unlike everybody else on board, he must have sat down quietly, for he had completely escaped her notice. He looked familiar, but she couldn’t think why. Outdoors-ish with his orangey-brown face and startling blue eyes, this man nevertheless had hands that were small, pink and soft; and his Barbour looked as if it had just come off the hanger in a Piccadilly outfitter’s. No, she suppressed the idea as ridiculous; she didn’t know him. After all, she reflected bitterly, unless he had worked for Come Into the Garden at some point in the past fifteen years, chances were obviously against it.

‘So, not enjoying it, then?’ he repeated, looking her challengingly in the eye and patting his corduroyed knees in a self-satisfied manner. He evidently thought this was funny. Some of the other passengers were pretending not to listen, and he seemed to be pleased by the attention, as though he deserved it.

‘You ought to keep on with it, you know, the book. It might get better,’ he said in quite a loud voice, and shot her a wink that said ‘You know who I am, don’t you?’

Michelle gave him a non-committal stare and noticed, with a certain revulsion, that his lips were a strange unnatural shade of salmon pink. Was this a chat-up line? Michelle sincerely hoped it wasn’t. She peered exaggeratedly out of the window for Tim, but he was nowhere in sight.

‘Oh look, my friend is just coming,’ she said nevertheless, and – just for the sake of the fiction – waved pleasantly at a small bench in the middle distance.

Undeterred by her little ploy, however, the stranger reached forward and touched the book in her lap, the intimacy of the action sending a great shock-wave right through her body and out of her ears.

‘That’s mine actually,’ he said, with a glamorous and rather insinuating smile. ‘That’s my book.’

Michelle pulled herself together, and stopped bothering to look for Tim – who was quite honestly going to miss the train if he didn’t hurry.

‘No, it isn’t,’ she said sharply. ‘Look, I am on page forty-two.’ She shuffled herself upright in her seat, and prepared for a fight.

‘Oh no, I’m sorry, you misunderstand,’ he said, still smiling. Looking at him, she couldn’t decide whether he was handsome or vile. It was certainly a misfortune for a chap to have colouring so suggestive of cheap make-up from Woolworth’s. ‘What I meant was, well, Murder, Shear Murder was written by me. I take all the blame, ha ha. Guilty, your honour. I am the humble author.’ He sat back and gave her a look that said ‘Amazing, eh?’ and waited for her reaction.

Michelle’s eyes widened. Was this really Trent Carmichael? Author of Dead for a Bucket? What an extraordinary coincidence. She flipped the book over and looked at his picture, and then looked at him again. It was true. Of course, the man on the dustjacket was probably eight or ten years younger, and was pictured in black and white, and had evidently been told to assume a cold, murderous expression while resting on a shovel next to a freshly dug grave (it was rather a disturbing image, actually), but it was the same face, all right.

‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell you how the story comes out,’ he said teasingly (this sounded like a well-practised line). ‘I won’t disclose “who done it”!’

She laughed politely, wondering whether to mention she had already formed a strong suspicion against the gardener. ‘No, no,’ she said, ‘please don’t tell. That wouldn’t do at all.’ Feeling awkward, however, she carried on. ‘Actually I did guess the murderer in S is for … Secateurs!’ she said brightly, confused to find herself sounding gushing and inarticulate. ‘Right at the very beginning, I thought that clever teenager, the girl, you know, the one who labels everybody, I guessed –’ But she broke off, realizing rather late that crime writers aren’t particularly interested to hear how easily you sussed their game.

She picked up the book and opened it again, but was confused about what to do next. Should she tell him she was a fan? That she had read every book? Should she mention the magazine article she had worked on? Or should she pretend to be so absorbed in Murder, Shear Murder that she couldn’t stop for a chat, but must read on furiously, biting her nails? It was an unusual situation in which to find oneself. Her discomfort wasn’t helped much, either, by Carmichael’s rather eerie fixed smile. He seemed to be waiting for her to say something, something that was perhaps due to him as a famous person. But since she didn’t know what it was, he was obliged to give her a hint.

‘Would you like me to sign it for you?’ He was leaning forward again, with that half-gruesome, half-engaging, proud-father smile. His body was so close she could smell his after-shave, which was earthy and rather strong.

‘No, that’s all right.’

‘Really. It’s no bother.’ He had found a smart silver ballpoint pen in his inside pocket, and had popped it out, ready.

‘No, really, I don’t want you to.’

But he took the book and opened it at the title page. She noticed, with a flinch of annoyance, that he had carelessly lost her place. ‘Now you’re going to tell me your name.’

It wasn’t a question. Michelle looked around for Tim again, but without much hope. He had evidently got caught up in a bullion robbery or something. At the back of the train, someone was blowing a whistle.

‘Michelle,’ she said at last, without much grace.

‘That’s a lovely name,’ he said. ‘Mmmmm. Michelle, Michelle, Michelle. Ma belle. Mmmmmm. Beautiful. Lovely.’ He kept this up as he wrote in the book. When finished, he handed it back to her, and gave her a highly practised flash of famous-person charisma.

‘Now, Michelle. Are you going to make it come true?’ He pointed to the book, and she opened it at his inscription.

To Michelle, whose delightful company and frankly unusual predilections have enriched my humble understanding of female desire. Our train journey was one I will never forget. Thanks so much for the memory.

Your

Trent Carmichael
(CBE)

At which point, with Tim just hurrying through the ticket barrier balancing a couple of coffees and some slices of fruit cake on a wobbly paper tray, the train moved out of the station, leaving him behind.

Tim had not been caught up in a bullion robbery, he was merely phoning his ex-girlfriend Margaret for a bit of last-minute sympathy and support. However, compared with being tied up, blindfolded and bundled in the back of a hijacked Securicor van, the option of making voluntary contact with Margaret was probably only marginally less distressing. It was a stupid thing to do, of course, but he was desperate. Remembering that Margaret had a cousin and uncle in Honiton (Gordon something, an inventor, and his dad, an ex-fire-chief), Tim wildly decided that the journey in prospect was an adequate pretext to get in touch. How he thought he would obtain the yearned-for sympathy and support is less easily explained, since he ought surely to have recollected that Margaret possessed talent and inclination for neither. But he phoned her, the poor sap, he did. He even missed his train in this forlorn hope of a few kind words.

Margaret’s readings in psychology were extremely handy for a person disinclined to mollycoddle, which is perhaps why she took up the subject in the first place. It was rather neat: for Margaret, psychology meant never having to say you’re sorry; you could hurt people and then, with a single bound, get away with accusing them of textbook insecurity. Objective reality is an illusion, she reckoned; fulfilled and unfulfilled desires account for everything. Thus, if someone were to phone her up at half-past eight in the morning (say) and tell her he was jolly upset about his magazine closing, she could argue that secretly he must have wanted it to happen. Tim unfortunately had forgotten about all this when he made his last-ditch call from the end of Platform 12. He had forgotten, in particular, that Margaret would reiterate her usual theory that his feelings were all connected with his mother, with ‘pain of separation’ and something anal to which she sometimes referred darkly but never satisfactorily explained. Amazing that he could have forgotten. Less amazing, perhaps, how it all came flooding back.

‘Listen,’ he protested after a couple of minutes, almost in tears at her refusal to accept the straightforward case of the matter. ‘I’ve lost my job. It’s real. It’s happened. My job!’ He was obliged to shout, so that he could hear his own voice above the ambient station noises.

‘“Job”,’ repeated Margaret playfully. She was enjoying this. Just out of the shower, she was towelling her hair while keeping an eye on the weather forecast on Breakfast TV. ‘That’s a very telling choice of word, Tim. It makes me wonder whether you mean your big job or your little job.’

Tim felt wretched. Was there really something psychologically revealing about using the word ‘job’? Was it this anal thing again?

‘All right, then, my position.’

Margaret laughed. ‘Position’ was clearly no improvement. Tim looked at his watch and started worrying whether he really had time for all this.

‘How about post?’

‘Ha!’

Tim gave up. It suddenly struck him that she might be writing this down.

‘Still keeping Post-it notes in business?’ asked Margaret. Now that she had started, she seemed to be relishing the chat.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I thought of you last week when the Independent went up by five pence,’ she said. ‘God, how I remember the trauma from last time. I told everybody on the course about it, and they couldn’t believe it, they thought I was making it up. We had a really good laugh. So what did you decide?’

‘I decided not to let it worry me,’ he said, lying.

‘Gosh, well done.’

If this was a stupid conversation to miss a train for, it was also a stupid one to get upset about, yet quite out of nowhere Tim suddenly realized he was crying. Two huge tears welled up behind his specs, and involuntarily he felt all the muscles in his face dissolve.

‘Do you ever miss me?’ he asked.

‘Of course.’ Margaret was now brushing her long dark hair, deliberately creating static electricity in it, so that she could hold the brush to one side and observe the way the hair lifted up, defying gravity, reaching out feebly for support. She put the brush down, and the hair collapsed.

‘I miss you,’ said Tim.

‘Of course you do.’

‘I mean it, I really miss you.’

‘And I mean it, too. Of course you do.’

‘I can’t live without you.’

‘That’s nonsense.’

Tim choked on a sob, and noticed that his money was running out.

‘Better go,’ he said, ‘I’m worried about missing my train.’

‘That’s typical of you, Tim,’ said Margaret, to the sound of a disconnected line. ‘That’s absolutely textbook.’

As soon as she put down the phone, she grabbed for a large box on a shelf marked ‘TIM’ and hauled it down. Efficiently she made a few notes on a scrap of paper, circling the words ‘job’, ‘position’ and ‘post’ in green pen, and carefully noting the time and date at the top in blue. She was getting good at this, she reflected; the ‘TIM’ box was almost full. It would soon be time to convert all the research into a groundbreaking casebook study and unleash her ex-boyfriend’s obsessive-compulsive disorder on the waiting public. She could see it now, the scene in the bookshop, with her signing copies of Tim: How I Lived with a Loony, just like her old buddy Trent Carmichael sometimes did. Margaret’s mum once mentioned, tentatively, that perhaps Tim’s identity ought to be disguised when the book was written, but Margaret had set her straight about this, impressing on her the demands of proper scientific practice. ‘It’s got to be authentic!’ she declared, her eyes passionate. ‘Don’t forget I only lived with Tim in the first place because he promised to provide such fantastic material. Do you think I would compromise my own academic integrity by telling anything less than the exact truth?’ Hearing the case put like that, Margaret’s mum – who had been told about her own inadequacies enough times to know when she was out of her depth – decided to rest her case. As Margaret had so rightly pointed out on numerous occasions, she should just count herself lucky that no companion volume called Mum: Every Detail of What’s Wrong with the Stupid Old Bat had, as yet, got past the planning stage.

Margaret phoned up British Rail and asked for the train times to Honiton. This was just what the book needed, Tim driven to misery and madness by the loss of all his routines at a single blow. She couldn’t afford to miss it, even though the place made her slightly uncomfortable. Gordon and his dad were pussy-cats, it wasn’t them she was worried about. It was whatsername, Barney’s ex-wife, up the road. Ten years ago, when Margaret was fourteen, there had been a bit of an incident in Barney’s garden – ever since when that creepy Trent Carmichael had referred to her as his ‘partner in crime’. But it was all a long time ago – just before Gordon and his dad moved to Dunquenchin, and just before Carmichael wrote his breakthrough bestseller S is for … Secateurs! Cleverly, Trent had persuaded Barney’s wife to star in the TV version, just for his own (and Margaret’s) private amusement. One day she planned to write a book entitled Trent: Psychopaths Do It but They Don’t Get Involved, but obviously not just yet.