Leonard had finished the final edit on the company’s book about the Romans. It had ended up as a competent compendium of dry facts and narratives, presented in a crisp but soulless style. It would, no doubt, launch hundreds of forgettable school projects that would be corrected by student teachers in their spare time, each one getting more or less the same mark as the others. Leonard was now free to work on his own book on the same subject, an advanced draft of which had been sitting in his top drawer ever since that happy day when Shelley had agreed to meet him for a walk in the park. In its current form the book was a depiction of the life of a young Roman boy. In reviewing his draft, though, Leonard realised that the boy was still stuck in some generic, stylised template, lacking in personality. He was hardly the type of boy that kids would want to travel through time to be or be with—he had no sense of fun or preferences, and was short on actions and details. Leonard needed to bring him to life. To do this he needed someone to write for, someone who would provide his motivation and act as an idealised audience at whom he could pitch little moments of humour and sensitivity. And so he had decided to write the book for Shelley’s little boy Patrick, and named the Roman boy Patrius.
The book now seemed to open up into a range of Technicolour possibilities. Leonard thought about how Patrick would react to a book about his Roman self, which made Leonard want to pack it with interesting, exciting, lived-in facts; not merely dry bits of trivia to languish at the bottom of a schoolbag, but facts as vectors of life itself, as messengers from the past. Leonard drew him going to school in a toga, wearing a bulla to protect against evil, and playing with his toys in the years before Christmas and Santa Claus existed, if Patrick could even conceive of such a barren era. He drew him playing dice with real bones and included a two-page spread about Patrius’ mother, who was freed after many victories as a gladiator. On the following page he included a fold-out section showing the inside of Patrius’ lunchbox: a slice of emmer loaf, some dates, and a purple carrot. But Leonard also wanted to give Patrius normal traits that were less about Roman times and more a reflection of the type of boy who would have had someone as special as Shelley as his mother. Leonard wrote that Patrius tried hard and did as much work as was good for him, even if it was more than he would have liked. Patrius painted and sang songs every day. He asked lots of questions and answered his mother back, which he got scolded for, even though his mother took private satisfaction in observing that independent spirits do not skip a generation. While he hopped into bed a little late most evenings, he always went to the doctor when he was sick and was happy when his teeth fell out. The main thing to know about Patrius was that he shared his life with his family. Leonard drew him as yea big, with curly auburn hair, green eyes and—historical accuracy notwithstanding—Star Wars glasses. A fact box described him as having a big heart and a big imagination.
Leonard had worked on enough books to know that he now had sufficient detail to put together a pitch. His only problem was that he had never actually pitched anything by himself before. He usually handed that bit over to the overseeing author and only heard back when the book had been commissioned. After a few moments’ reflection, he decided to take a chance and send his pitch and an extract to the only person he could think of:
‘Hi Mark,
I hope you’re keeping well. I hear you’re in demand on the conference circuit these days, so I’m sorry to trouble you, but there’s this project I have been working on that I thought you might be interested in…’
Leonard did his best to pitch it to Mark Baxter, BEd, with all due deference, hoping to get his help to break through from backroom anonymity to full authorship credits. He had to handle this with some sensitivity, as he was in effect asking for Mark’s help in bypassing him altogether, but he figured that Mark had been around long enough and would still negotiate a cut and a cover credit for himself, even if all he did was pass on the email. Leonard wasn’t in a mood to drive a hard bargain. He signed off the message in conformity with the new company policy on email signatures:
‘You may wish to note the above.
Leonard’
He pressed ‘send’ and felt as though he had just thrown a water balloon over a privet hedge. Now that he’d submitted the pitch he would have to go into overdrive to finish the book in case Mark Baxter, BEd, took an interest and asked to see a full draft. But first, he noticed that the four clocks in view—his watch, mobile, computer, and desk phone—all displayed different times, meaning he was either slightly early, on time or a little late for his lunch date with Shelley. Leonard had arranged to meet her out by the bike rack, to avoid any unwelcome office banter from Helpdesk Greg. He couldn’t wait to tell her about his idea of writing the book for and about Patrick, and about how she had inspired him to send it to the famous Mark Baxter, BEd. She had brought nothing but goodness to his life ever since she entered it.
When he reached the bike rack, Shelley was already waiting for him. As usual she was loaded like a packhorse with all her cycling gear.
‘Hey, how are things?’ he said, ‘Let me carry that for you. How was your morning, and your weekend, come to think of it?’
‘Okay, I suppose. Just hanging out with Patrick. He was a bit bored from being inside, but didn’t want to go out. He gets like that sometimes. Kids get tired after a week at school, but I couldn’t just let him sit indoors playing Lego all day, so I promised him a trip to the cinema.’
‘Anything good? Did you go see the film from the Happy Meal?’
‘No, actually. I never thought of that. We went to see the latest Fart of Darkness movie. You know, the usual format with loads of jokes aimed over the kids’ heads at the parents. I was a bit snoozy in the cinema and he sort of wanted to leave once he had finished his treats. He was just in one of those hard-to-please moods. How about you—how did your friend get on at the prize-giving?’
‘Great, yeah, really good. He won actually. Got a trophy of a severed hand and a giant cheque for ten grand. We could hardly fit it in the boot.’
‘Wow, what a prize! Can you cash those giant cheques?’
‘Nope. They give you a real cheque too. He’s getting the giant one framed.’
‘What’s he going to do with the money?’
‘Hard to know. He’s never really had any money and he’s not hugely interested in it. His sister is getting married on Easter Monday, so he was talking about maybe helping her with that. She’s booked the reception at Whitethorn Castle, which can’t have been cheap. They’ve had to keep the numbers tight, so I’ve had to surrender my plus one, I’m afraid.’
They walked on a bit but the conversation petered out. With Hungry Paul, Leonard was able to surf over any silences, but things were different with Shelley. Getting the conversation going sometimes felt a bit like a hill start.
‘So, where are we going by the way? Any ideas?’ she asked.
‘How about the bog bodies?’ suggested Leonard.
‘Okay. I haven’t been to see them before. Are they scary?’
‘Oh no, I shouldn’t think so. It’s just these leathery old bodies in bits and pieces. You can see all of their features perfectly though; some even have hair.’
‘Okay. It sounds interesting, though I’ll hold off scoring it for romantic potential until I see them,’ she said, trying to raise a smile but not quite managing it.
The conversation went quiet again. He noticed how Shelley was often the pace setter between them. When she was bubbly and positive, everything was great, but when she was quiet, they struggled.
‘Everything okay?’ he asked as they approached the exhibition.
‘Hmmm. Sort of. Well, not really. There’s something I wanted to ask you. But it’s kind of awkward.’
There was a feeling of a ghost walking across his abdomen. ‘Ask away,’ he said.
‘It’s about Patrick. Me and Patrick anyway. I’m really enjoying our time together, you and me I mean, and I like the way we are taking things slowly, but I was just wondering about what you said in your message about meeting Patrick. It kind of took me by surprise. I wasn’t sure what you meant really. So, I dunno, I just wanted to ask you about it.’
‘Oh, I see. I hadn’t really thought about it to be honest. I just wondered whether you might like join us and, if you were minding Patrick, he could come too. Nothing more than that. All at face value, et cetera, et cetera.’
They were standing at the door of the exhibition. Leonard felt he was being tested but didn’t understand the question.
‘Patrick is my world, Leonard. I have put my life into looking after him. I don’t want to mess him around.’
‘Oh, of course, of course.’
‘What I mean is that I can’t introduce him to just any man I have met for a few dates.’
The characterisation was brutally clarifying for Leonard.
‘Oh, I see. Of course. I mean, I never meant to interfere with you and Patrick. I was just trying to be nice.’
‘I know, I know. I’m not criticising you. It’s just that I can’t tell him who you are, that you write his favourite books, and then let him meet you and then if things don’t work out, he’ll just feel abandoned and rejected, and I don’t want that to happen. I can’t just bring him along without explaining who you are. Not just your name and that you write the books, but who you are to me, and specifically, who you are to him. Do you understand? Do you understand that that’s important to me? And why it’s so important?’
A tour group of Italian students pushed between them, all wearing puff jackets and skinny jeans. It took a few minutes for the babbling line of teenagers to file past. Shelley looked at Leonard through the gaps in the crowd with a sad and gentle expression on her face. When they had all passed, Leonard might have said something, done something or otherwise conveyed to Shelley that he understood, truly understood, what she was getting at. She was sending a distress signal to him that was bouncing back to her unread. Leonard knew that something important was happening, but he was just too unsure, too inexperienced for the subtlety that was expected of him.
‘Right so, should we head inside then? These bog bodies will be getting impatient!’
He could feel the echo of his own ridiculousness all around him. A big kid in an adult conversation. Found out.
‘I’m going to go, Leonard.’ Shelley gave him one last deep look with those sorry, sad, soulful eyes.
‘Oh, okay. Maybe another time then,’ said Leonard, panicked and paralysed. Out of his depth.
Shelley took her cycling gear from him.
‘Bye Leonard.’
He stood at the door of the exhibition, watching her go through the most uncinematic rigmarole of putting on her cycling gear. She gave him a small, heroic smile that she would do her best to keep from turning tearful until she had faced around and was on her way. He stood still, dumbstruck with the significance of it all, watching her cycle off into the traffic and away from him.
Feeling undone and in need of somewhere quiet to gather himself, Leonard drifted into the exhibition, where he sat alone in a dimly lit room. Alongside him, a two-thousand-year-old bog man lay prostrate in a display case, preserved in the pose he held at the very moment his life changed.