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448 pages, Hardcover
First published October 3, 2024
‘So what are you writing about, love, in your book?’ Edie said. ‘I’m writing about my early life mainly–teens and twenties. That and my mother, you know. It’s really since she died,’ I said, ‘and going through all her stuff . . .’ ‘Oh, that’s so touching,’ she said, ‘it must bring memories flooding back.’ ‘Yes and no,’ I said, not ready to go into it. ‘She sounds such a remarkable person.’ ‘She really was,’ I said. ‘I wonder how much you actually remember, from so long ago,’ Edie said. ‘David’s got an amazing memory,’ said Richard, ‘as you know.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’ve been thinking about all this. The teenage stuff is more like writing a novel. I remember places, and experiences, very clearly, but they’re stills, you know, rather than clips. Or GIFs perhaps, sometimes–a head turns, a hand comes down, but you never see what comes next, it just does it again. Besides that, of course, there’s anecdotes, things I’ve been told, that I know I did, even if I can’t really remember them. And no one recalls more than a few words anyone actually said fifty years ago. You just have to make that up.’ ‘A bit of improv,’ said Ken. ‘Because you did write about your acting career, didn’t you, in your first book?’ Edie said, holding my eye to conceal her uncertainty. ‘Well, that was a more general book, about experimental theatre in the Seventies and Eighties–I don’t want to go there ever again. What I’m writing now is more about my personal life–things I really didn’t want to talk about before. I want to write about falling in love.’ ‘Oh, yes?’ said Ken, and Richard gave us an interesting smile as he absorbed the idea. ‘And I want to write about being like I am, but never knowing much about where I came from.’
Richard knows of course that I’ve been writing another book – though not exactly what it is. I seem to need some secrecy, even from him; and no doubt I’m wary of his editorial eye. If I’m home in the day I climb up here under the Velux and close the door, but I’m aware on and off, when he crosses the room or takes a call from one of his authors, of Richard at work in the room below. He’s just started editing a book on the Burmese junta–a curious choice, it seems to me, and clearly very slow work for him. He has tried to involve me by asking if I’ll check the proper names, but I feel the author, who has actually spent twelve years in the country, is much more likely than me to know the right forms.