It’s all about stories now.
Since handing in my notice three weeks ago, Claire has phased me out of the day-to-day; out of the spreadsheets, finance meetings and, of course, author relations. Instead I am back to light duties; opening envelopes, reading stories. Everyone’s a writer now; everyone seems to have a story to tell – although some are more worthy of an audience than others. Every week between fifty and a hundred hopeful packages drop through the office letterbox. And I read them all. Alliterative alligators, otters and sprites with their hang-ups, confusions, lacks and conflicts. And I devour them all, as if each one holds the answer, or at least a clue – play fair, don’t tell lies, beware of dragons; be foolish, be brave, be yourself.
Wisdom and precedent tells you that they must be junk; derivative drivel, clumsy rhyme, mixed metaphor and garbled logic. It’s not for nothing that we call it the ‘slush pile’. One good story a month is a standard haul; one submission out of every four hundred or thereabouts. But my bin is practically empty, the stack of pages growing on my desk, reaching closer to the light fittings by the day. I read them and I read them again, arrange the stories between piles: yes, maybe yes, maybe no, maybe maybe. Because if there is anything these stories teach us, it is that everyone has potential. Everyone can. It’s become my mission to make one of these happy endings happen before I leave this office in a little under two months. But time is running out.
On Friday afternoons, as the paper tower develops into a health and safety issue, I select the best dozen manuscripts from the yes pile, drop them into my bag and read them again over the weekend. I read them over breakfast, in the bath, in the garden, behind the bar of the Duck and Cover. I listen to Henry read these stories to me as I chop onions, wash my hair, lie in bed with my head on his chest.
But it’s not all dragons and daisy chains.
Some evenings, we watch movies, the ones Henry watched with his mother: Brief Encounter, An Affair to Remember, Roman Holiday, His Girl Friday. Stories about love, thwarted by timing, pride, circumstance, politics, family, money, war, others. Stories with only two endings; will they/won’t they stories, although you can usually guess which.
Our own brief affair ends in seven weeks, it’s a weepy for sure and I already know the final scene – it’s one we’ve watched together, laughing at the melodrama in black and white. Ridiculing the silly accents, dated dialogue and awful hair, as if desensitizing ourselves for our own inevitable goodbye. Henry apologizes for the films as if they were his fault, but I enjoy the simplicity, the lack of expensive effects and cheap thrills. It makes me feel close to him, sharing something from his own history, I suppose. We won’t be together when the credits roll, but we will have a story. But a lot can happen in seven weeks, so I remind myself to shut up, sit back and enjoy the final act.