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Reader, there is a part I didn’t tell you – you’ll see why.
It goes like this: picture me, about a week after the Bickerstaff case, lying in my attic room, listening to the rain on the roof. My expression was somewhat shell-shocked, my fingers pressed to my lips.
No, that’s a bit too late. Let’s go back another twenty minutes or so. I was just waking up, feeling stiff and achy still from all our exertions, when Lockwood knocked on my door.
“Morning Luce,” he called. “Want some tea?”
I grunted an affirmative and he came in, carrying a steaming cup. Tea in bed was unusually nice of him, but I thought he’d been making an extra effort to take care of George and I since the events in Kensal Green. In George’s case, I think he felt guilty for not noticing how deeply under the mirror’s spell he’d fallen. In mine, I wasn’t so sure.
I shuffled upright against my pillows, accepted the cup gratefully and took a long sip. To my surprise, Lockwood continued to stand by my bed, his hands in his pockets, his brow furrowed.
“Everything all right?” I asked.
“Mhm. Yeah.” Still he stood there. “Listen, I’d like to ask you something, and I want to be very clear that you can say no.”
“Oh?” I was still waking up, so I wasn’t up to sparkling banter or critical thinking. “Sure. Go on then.”
“Can I sit?” He gestured to the bed.
“Is that all? ‘Course you can.”
“No, that’s not–” He broke off and sighed, but he did sit down. “I wanted to ask – could we –”
“Spit it out,” I said. He was starting to make me nervous; I could have sworn there was a flush creeping up his neck, and if there was something bad enough to fluster Lockwood, it was almost certainly going to do worse to me.
“Would you mind if I kissed you?”
I spat my tea all over the bed.
“Sorry,” I said shakily, mopping my face with my sleeve. “I could have sworn you said –“
“Oh, don’t play dumb,” he cut across me impatiently. “You heard exactly what I said.”
“Yes, I suppose I did. Er, Lockwood, why?”
He gave me a funny sort of smile.
“Well, the thought keeps on occurring to me that I’d like to and it’s becoming a little wearing. I thought it’d be good to get it out of my system.”
I took a big gulp of tea to hide my expression, and burned my mouth. I would say that it wasn’t the most flattering proposition I’d ever had, but as it was actually the only proposition I’d ever had, it was in fact the most flattering by default. Also it was Lockwood. I sat there, my mouth hanging open vacantly, looking like a particularly gormless whale shark. Lockwood wanted to kiss me.
“You really can say no, Luce,” he reminded me. “If you don’t want to.”
“No!”
He looked hurt.
“I mean, no, I do want to! That is to say, yes I do. Er, if you do, that is.”
Lockwood grinned in relief, and something in my chest melted. Then he started to lean towards me and I jerked away with a yelp, slopping tea all over the bed yet again. I was definitely going to have to wash the duvet cover now.
“Wait, you mean, now?!”
His brows drew together in a faintly offended frown.
“Why not now?” he said.
“I haven’t brushed my teeth yet,” I squeaked.
“Does that matter?”
“You can’t taste the inside of my mouth right now!”
His face did something funny, and yeah, fair enough, I’d have been grossed out too.
”Go on then,” he said with a sigh. “If it means that much to you.”
“Just give me five minutes,” I replied in a strangled voice, and slipped out of bed into my tiny cupboard of an ensuite. I brushed my teeth in record time, and then ran a comb through my hair as well, staring at my flushed, wide-eyed reflection and not taking it in at all. Perhaps this had all been a strange dream, brought on by late night cheese on toast. Maybe I would step out to find my room empty and laugh at myself to smother my disappointment.
But no. When I stepped out, there was Lockwood, contemplating a spot on the floor, looking as casual as he got in his shirt and dress slacks. He’d forgone the tie. I wondered vaguely if that had been a deliberate choice. Had he planned this when he’d woken up this morning? Or had he simply decided when he came in with my tea that now was as good a time as any to get this over with? Somehow, the latter seemed more likely. I shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other, suddenly very conscious of the fact that I was not only wearing my oldest, most horrible grey pyjamas, but that they were also covered in tea.
“Um, do you want me to change?” I asked, feeling stupid even as I said it.
He looked up and broke into a smile.
“You’re fine as you are,” he told me and patted a relatively tea-free spot on the bed beside him. “Come sit.”
I sat. He kissed me. Reader, I don’t know what to tell you, because I can hardly remember myself. It was a lot like most first kisses, I suppose: first too dry, and then too wet. In fact, I think my heart was beating so loudly in my ears that I hardly felt anything at all.
When it was over, after a time that might have been five minutes or the rest of my life, Lockwood smiled at me again.
“Thanks,” he said, in the same matter-of-fact kind of tone he used when I poured him his tea at breakfast.
“Don’t mention it,” I said with equal politeness. “Itch scratched, I hope?”
(I was proud of that one; it was cool, casual – sophisticated even.)
“Very much so,” he said, although his smile seemed to shrink a little. Perhaps he didn’t like it when someone else got to be the suave, distant one.
“I’ll … see you at breakfast then.”
“Yeah. Yes, of course.” He rallied, pulling his normal cloak of friendly charm back into place. “Would you like an egg? Boiled or poached?”
“Scrambled,” I answered at random.
“As you wish,” he said, and left.
And that’s where we came in. Me, lying on my tea-stained sheets, staring sightlessly at the ceiling, my entire body numb. That’s how it all started.
* * *
When I finally got myself dressed and stumbled downstairs, Lockwood greeted me politely, as if seeing me for the first time that day.
“Did you sleep well, Lucy?”
“Yeah. Fine thanks, yeah.” I became aware that I was babbling like an idiot and staring at him more than usual. “How about you?”
“Oh, about the same as ever.”
It was all very mannerly, very normal. He served up my scrambled eggs with a good grind of pepper and a sprinkle of grated cheese, just the way I liked them, and I tucked in with a decent pretence at my typical gusto, even though my appetite had mysteriously vanished. Nothing had changed, and everything had changed.
For the next few days, Lockwood continued to behave as if nothing had happened and I followed his lead as best I could. It was difficult, however, when I had that delightful secret sitting inside me. I kept wanting to run away to private corners so that I could pull out the memory and polish it, hunch over it like some gremlin from an old fantasy story, clutching at stolen treasure: Lockwood had kissed me, Lockwood had kissed me, Lockwood had kissed me.
After some time though, the thought of the kiss became more perplexing than elating. I turned the puzzle of it over and over in my mind. Why had he chosen to kiss me in that moment? He said he’d been thinking about it, but what exactly had he been thinking? Eventually, I came to the glum conclusion (supported by his blasé attitude towards me) that it was nothing more significant than mere proximity. I was female, I was close to hand, I was reasonably hygienic, and he had been curious. There was nothing more to it than that.
* * *
Imagine my surprise, then, when Lockwood kissed me again, about a week later. This time, it was after rapier practice. He’d drilled George and I in his usual merciless way, until George cried off on the grounds that he wanted to put on soup for lunch. I continued for another twenty minutes or so, determined not to show how my arms burned with the strain of it.
“I think that’s enough for today,” said Lockwood and I ruined my tough-girl image by sagging with relief. He tossed me a bottle of water and wiped his face and the back of his neck with a towel, which did interesting things to my intestines. I tried not to stare too obviously, but he caught me and grinned.
“All right, Luce?”
“Yeah.” God, my voice sounded breathy. I hoped he would mistake it for standard post-practice breathlessness.
He looked me over, and his expression flickered, as though he were experiencing some deep, internal transformation. Maybe he was hungry too, I thought.
“I hope you don’t feel like anything’s changed between us, Lucy,” he said suddenly. “After what happened the other day.”
“Oh no, nothing at all,” I said. Cool, casual, sophisticated.
“I’m glad you agree,” he murmured. He looked at a spot somewhere above my head. “So there’s no reason anything would change if we did it again, is there?”
My heart started to pound.
“No, nothing at all,” I parroted and earned myself a wolf-like smile. He started to prowl towards me and I held up my hands.
“Wait, now?” I was starting to get a distinct sensation of déjà-vu, and judging by his exasperated sigh, so was he.
“What’s wrong with now?”
“Well, I’m all sweaty.”
“So am I.”
“Not like I am.”
“I fail to see the difference.”
He’d backed me more or less up against the wall of the practice room. My clammy palms were resting on the front of his shirt, doubtless leaving stains. But he didn’t seem to care, and after a minute, neither did I.
It was better this time, partly because I was less nervous and partly because I was less jaw-droppingly stunned. I stood on my tiptoes, trying to reach him better, but he still had to stoop enough that he rubbed his neck in discomfort when we broke apart.
“If we’re going to do this regularly, I’m going to have to get you a box to stand on.”
“Regularly?” My voice was doing that squeaky thing again. Of course, George chose that moment to bellow down the stairs that lunch was ready, so Lockwood just smiled at me and jogged up to the kitchen. I followed, still trying to get my breathing under control.
“You two must have been hard at it,” said George as he dished out the soup. “You’re both bright red.”
“Oh it was pretty hot work,” Lockwood agreed, while I nearly choked. “But you should see how much Lucy’s Kuriashi turn has come on.”
He started to go on about wrist positioning, stances and centre of gravity, and George’s expression glazed over, as it did every time the conversation turned to fencing technicalities. Only when he was thoroughly distracted by his soup did Lockwood catch my eye and wink.
* * *
Kissing Lockwood became part of my new reality – although I never sought it out myself, mostly for fear of disturbing the delicate equilibrium of the thing. Besides, I could never manage to be as charming as he was. What if I said, “Hey, fancy a snog?” and got a cool, “Sorry, Lucy, I’m a bit busy” in response? I could never look at him again. So no, I never chased after him, not in so many words. I will admit that I did perhaps linger in odd spots from time to time; places where, if I happened to run into Lockwood, we could easily have a little privacy for five minutes or so without raising any eyebrows.
On the other hand, he did seek me out, quite shamelessly. There was no real pattern to it. Sometimes two days would go by without him mentioning it at all, sometimes five. Then all of a sudden, he’d raise an eyebrow at me and say something like “Are you free, Lucy?” or “Can I borrow you for a moment?” and I’d make a small show of reluctance before trotting over to him. These interludes rarely lasted longer than five minutes, and he always thanked me politely afterwards. Otherwise, we went on with our normal lives. Went on cases, made each other tea, rowed occasionally over who’d forgotten to pack extra flares or something stupid like that. It was normal. It was good. I got used to carrying my bright, shiny secret around inside me, and eventually, it just became another part of me, like my Listening, or my brown eyes.
* * *
Without ever needing to discuss it, we maintained perfect secrecy, never taking risks or doing anything daft like snogging on the landing where George might wander out at any minute. We were careful, or so I thought.
Then a morning came where I stood dreamily in front of the mirror in my room, brushing my hair and thinking about a moment the day before when George had been out at the archives. I’d been polishing chains in the basement while Lockwood wrote up invoices in the office, when I heard him calling me. I strolled in, trying not to look too eager, even though I had a very good idea of what he wanted.
“How are you getting on with the chains?” he asked.
“Not too bad,” I said casually. “Just a few more feet to go.”
“Good. Can you take a break from them for a minute?” He patted the top of his desk invitingly, and I pretended to think about it.
“‘Spose so. I have all afternoon to finish.”
The wolfish smile had come back. “Come here then.”
“I know a secret,” whispered a harsh voice, jolting me back to the present. I realised I had been staring vacantly into space, the hairbrush held loosely at my side.
I met the Skull’s goggling gaze in the mirror and rolled my eyes at him. “Of course you do. What is it this time, George nicking Lockwood’s biscuit stash? Because everyone knows that’s him.”
“Not quite, although I’ve certainly seen someone put their hands on what they oughtn’t.”
I whirled to face it, feeling a hectic rush of heat to my cheeks. In hindsight, I couldn’t possibly have been more obvious.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, you vile old bone.”
“Vile? That’s hardly fair. I’m not the one slobbering all over my vulnerable employees, am I?”
It grinned at me suggestively, and then made a grotesque kissy-kissy face. I abruptly remembered that George had taken it down to the office for an experiment yesterday morning and left it on his desk. But it had been quiet, and I’d been rather distracted by … other things. Oh well. I raised my chin haughtily, trying to brazen it out.
“I don’t know what you’ve seen and I don’t care,” I said flatly. “But you can keep your undead nose out of my business unless you fancy a trip to the furnaces.”
“Touchy, touchy,” it all but purred. “But I rather think that anything that concerns you does concern me, Lucy. After all, when Lockwood has enough of you and turns you out on the streets, who will I talk to then?”
“The streets?” I scoffed. “This isn’t Victorian England and Lockwood’s not going to abandon me to the tender mercies of the workhouse. We’re just blowing off steam, that’s all.”
“How romantic,” drawled the Skull. “And tell me, how does it feel to be an outlet valve?”
“Lockwood is not using me.”
“Never said he was.” It waggled its eyebrows at me. “I’m sure when I’m not around he cuddles up to you and whispers sweet nothings in your ears all day long.”
I turned back to the mirror and began brushing my already neat hair with unnecessary force.
“We’re keeping things professional,” I snapped.
The Skull wheezed with laughter. “Oh yes, you looked very professional sitting in his lap yesterday.”
“I was on his desk, not his lap!”
“Of course, I beg your pardon, that’s much better,” it chortled. “If you’re so very professional, you wouldn’t mind if he found another girl to get his rocks off with, I suppose.”
My insides turned cold, and I gripped the brush very tightly.
“Well, I think I’ve had enough of your witty repartee for one day,” I said, keeping my voice nice and even. “Lights out now.”
I shut its valve, ignoring its vociferous protests and shoved it under my bed. Nasty snivelling thing, I thought to myself, it just hates Lockwood, that’s all. It can’t stand me paying attention to him. I did my best to scrub the conversation from my memory. Two weeks later, I took that awful trip up North and returned to find Holly Munro sitting in my chair.
* * *
That first day, after Holly had gone home, Lockwood and I had that rather nasty scene I’ve written about elsewhere. He charmed his way round me, as he so often did, and then snaked out a hand to toy with the silver necklace I always wore, a not-so-subtle reminder of the favouritism he’d shown me before.
“You’re not angry with me, are you?” he breathed, and I shook my head. I wasn’t. I couldn’t be. He slipped a finger under my chin and tilted my head up, his dark gaze pinning me in place as effectively as ghost-lock. I trembled when he kissed me, and knotted my fists in his shirt for support.
Later on, lying awake and counting the seconds between flashes of the ghost lamp (an old game I played to get myself to sleep), I wondered why this time had felt so different. Then, in the wee hours of the morning, I suddenly realised that he had kissed me to placate me, and I felt ill. It was the first time he’d ever used this physical relationship of ours against me, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it one bit.
I’m not sure whether either of us consciously decided to start avoiding the other, but our little trysts became less and less frequent from that point on, and when they did happen, they seemed to have a slightly rougher edge to them. In the moment, it excited me; then, remembering it afterwards, I would usually feel sick. In the aftermath of the Wintergarden case, we stopped altogether.
* * *
The subject was never raised between us until Aickmere’s, and even then, only obliquely. I appreciated Lockwood’s attempt to explain himself, even if I found the idea that I was distracting him in operative situations rather weak. I had thought the whole point of blowing off steam together had been to avoid exactly that scenario. However, I didn’t call him on it; there was no point. In my heart of hearts, I had already begun deciding to leave, even if I hadn’t quite admitted it to myself.
I’m not proud of what happened next. A few nights after that – the night before I quit in fact – Lockwood made an appearance in my bedroom after everyone else had gone to bed. I was tucked up with an old Nevil Shute novel, attempting to distract myself from the distant roaring of my thoughts.
“Can’t sleep?” he asked in a husky voice. I knew that tone, I knew what was coming next and I knew very well what I ought to do about it. Instead, I shrugged my shoulders and put my book to one side.
“Mind if I join you?” he went on. There was something off in his expression; perhaps he felt as guilty as I did. All the same, I didn’t resist, and when I shrugged again, he took that as an invite.
He came and sat on the bed beside me, his dark eyes unreadable in the low light. After a moment, I jerked my head at him in a “come hither” gesture, and he lifted the duvet and got in beside me. That was unusual. It wasn’t the first time he’d kissed me in my bed (although it was relatively uncommon; he seemed to save it for moments where we more urgently needed the relief, like the morning after a particularly stressful case), but he’d never joined me under the covers before. In the past, he’d lain on top of them, keeping them as a barrier between us, as though to preserve my virtue. I’d always thought it was sweet, not to mention sensible. We had to maintain some semblance of professionalism, after all.
That night, professionalism went out the window. Lockwood was uncharacteristically frantic and sloppy, his arms clutching me tighter than normal, his breathing more ragged. It was as if he’d sensed the decision brewing in the deeper reaches of my mind and was trying to root it out with the force of his kisses. I was starting to be afraid he might succeed, so eventually, I pushed him away.
“Sorry, Lockwood,” I said as calmly as I could with my heart thumping like a hammer against my ribs. “I need to sleep, I’m still knackered after – y’know, everything.”
“Right,” he panted. “Do you – would you mind if I –”
I had a horrible feeling I knew what he was about to ask and I had to cut him off.
“I’ll see you in the morning, yeah?” I kept my voice as light as possible. “Big day, special breakfast and all that. You ought to rest up too.”
“Sure.” If he was disappointed, he hid it well. “Sleep well, Luce.”
I let him kiss me one more time, brief but heated. I’m only human, after all.
* * *
Of course, that moment of weakness came back to haunt me when we sat in that café together the next day, as I tried to persuade him that I wanted to leave, when in actual fact, I wanted to crawl back into his arms and stay there.
“Lucy,” he said in a choked voice. “Is this because we… is it because of last night? Or before?”
“No, Lockwood,” I said with as much brusque impatience as I could muster. “This is not because we used to snog occasionally.”
“If it bothers you, it won’t happen again,” he said, as if he hadn’t heard me. “Last night was a – a blip. A mistake. I’m sorry.”
That stung, hence my less than charitable response: “Why would it bother me one way or another, Lockwood? We were only ever blowing off steam.”
He stared miserably into his cooling cup of tea, looking like he was contemplating drowning himself in it.
“Right, yeah. Steam.”
* * *
That hang-dog expression of his haunted me all winter long. I saw it at night when I closed my eyes and in reflections on bus windows as I travelled to jobs during those endlessly dark evenings; I frequently drove myself to distraction with wondering what it meant, only to tell myself it didn’t matter because I was never going back.
And then, of course, I went back. As you know very well, I didn’t mean to, but Lockwood won me over – and without so much as laying a finger on me, I might add. Not that I would have minded so very much if he had. Those four months we spent apart had eroded an awful lot of my bitterness towards him. The memory of the harsh turn our relationship had taken softened, and I’d returned to the more innocent longing that had characterised our early days of being – whatever it was we were back then. The whole “blowing off steam” concept had ceased to really cover it.
After Alderbury Castle and our trip to the Other Side, I kept waiting for that old quirk of the eyebrow. Lockwood and I were more intimate than we’d ever been, even when we were stealing off to fumble together in dark corners: we talked more, we spent more time together and we understood each other so well in the field that I sometimes had the scary-pleasant feeling that he was reading my mind. Although, I did have to wonder, if he was reading my mind on that front, then why not on the other? If he did want to be something more, and I was almost sure he did, why didn’t he ever summon me into his arms with that spine-tingling, lupine look of his?
We were so busy with all our efforts to get to the bottom of the Fittes mystery that I never really had the chance to ask the question that plagued me, especially once we’d raided Marissa’s tomb. Everything happened so very quickly after that, I hardly had time to think about it. In fact, the right moment didn’t arise until one golden evening when Lockwood and I took a walk together, he with his new coat, me with my new necklace.
At some point, our hands had brushed together, once, twice, and then I’d worked up the nerve and slipped my palm into his. Our fingers intertwined, and I looked up at him with a giddy rush of love. Somehow, this felt more intimate than snogging on his desk or in the privacy of the linen closet; perhaps because there was no possible way even the most cynical of ghosts could describe holding hands as an “outlet valve”. He met my gaze with an expression very like that old raised eyebrow, and yet less sardonic, more open and trusting. It gave me the courage to ask.
“Lockwood, why haven’t you kissed me yet?”
“Well, it’s a bit public, isn’t it?” He looked pointedly at the park across the road from where we were walking. “Plus, there’s a lot of kids about. Doesn’t seem right, somehow.”
“Not today, you dummy.” I squeezed his hand to show that I meant it as a term of endearment. “I mean, since Alderbury Castle and the Rotwell Institute. Since the Other Side. Since I came back.”
“Oh.” He looked startled. “Well, I wasn’t sure you wanted to.”
“Lockwood, when have I ever not wanted to?”
“I – I was never sure with you,” he said, and all of a sudden, he was blushing and looking younger than I’d ever seen him.
“You kissed me an awful lot for someone who wasn’t sure,” I reminded him.
“Ye-es,” he said, ducking his head. “I knew you liked the kissing bit, in general. But I’ll be honest, Luce, I wasn’t really sure how interested you were in doing it with me, specifically.”
“What?! All you had to do was wink at me and I practically jumped into your arms.”
“Eh? That’s not how I remember it.”
“I’ve been drooling over you since I was fourteen, for God’s sake!”
“Oh,” he said again, and scratched his nose. “I got the impression that you were, ah, humouring me.”
I dropped his hand and stopped dead in the middle of the street.
“You dense clod, how on earth did you get that idea into your head?”
He stopped too and shoved his hands in his pockets, defensive.
“Well. I was always chasing after you, wasn’t I? You were never up for it unless I asked, and you always played it so cool afterwards. I thought it was just a physical thing for you. Blowing off steam.”
Steam was the word all right; it was nearly coming out of my ears.
“You absolute louse, Anthony Lockwood,” I hissed. “Are you really implying that you thought I was using you?”
“Hm. Well. Weren’t you?”
“No!” There were tears pricking the corner of my eyes. “I would never! Do you have any idea how I feel about you?”
“I’m starting to get one all right,” he said, and reached out cautiously. I let him brush away something wet from my cheek. “But Luce, I don’t understand. If you cared for me that much, why didn’t you say anything? Why did you act like you could take it or leave it?”
“That’s hardly fair! You started all that carry-on with your ‘getting it out of your system’ and your ‘nothing’s going to change’.”
He winced. “Did I really say that?”
“Oh yes.”
“That was stupid. And untrue.”
“Fair enough, but how was I supposed to know that?”
“I suppose you couldn’t have.” Lockwood turned away, his expression stormy. “I just thought –”
“That I could read your mind?”
“That it was obvious. How I felt about you. It was so loud inside me, I thought the whole world must be able to hear.”
My breath caught in my throat and I let out a wobbly laugh.
“I think I know what you mean, Lockwood, but no, I’m afraid it wasn’t obvious. Not to me at any rate.”
He looked back at me, and his expression hit me like a heavy wave.
“All that time, you thought I was using you.” He let out a mirthless chuckle. “You must have hated me.”
“I could never hate you,” I told him instantly, and I put my full heart into those words. “Even if I did want to smack you sometimes.”
“Yeah?” Lockwood perked up a little.
“Yeah,” I said, stepping closer, slowly, purposefully. “Many’s the time I’ve wanted to give you a good clip around the ear.”
“Smartarse,” he said. His hands found their way to my elbows, and I could feel their warmth, even through my coat. “Did you mean it? That you could never hate me?”
I ran my hands up the front of his new coat, got a good grip on the lapels. His chest was starting to heave.
“It would be hard,” I said unsteadily, and took a deep breath, a mental run-up. The words, long repressed, came out in a jerky rush: “When-I-love-you-this-much.”
Gold seemed to flash in the depths of his brown eyes and he leaned down towards me.
“Wait,” I breathed against his lips. “What about the poor kids?”
“Oh God, Lucy, you’re going to be the death of me.”
My face must have twisted at that – it was still a sore subject – because he apologised quickly.
“Sorry. I just – oh, sod the wretched kids, I love you and I’ve waited too long for this.”
I’m sure you can imagine what happened next.
* * *
So, maybe now you can guess why this all ended up on the cutting room floor, can’t you? For one thing, George laughed like a hyena when he read the original version.
“I knew you two were dumb,” he howled. “But this really takes the cake.”
Meanwhile, Holly pursed her lips and gave me a worried look.
“I thought you were marketing this for children,” she said.
“There’s nothing inappropriate in there!” I protested. “It’s not like I went into any of the steamy detail.”
She didn’t seem convinced. However, the kicker was Lockwood, of course. When he’d finished reading my first draft, he went out for a long walk and came back looking moody. It was a good look on him, but then again, everything was.
“You don’t like it,” I said.
“No, Luce, it’s excellent, really.”
“You hate it.”
“I never said that.”
I started to get teary and he came and put his arm around me.
“I love it, Lucy, really I do,” he said. “It’s just… I hate remembering how I treated you. I was a complete bastard.”
“You were not. I was horrible too.”
“Well, let’s not fight about it. It’s your story. It’s up to you what you put in.”
“Don’t be stupid. It’s our story. And if you don’t like those bits, I’ll take them out.”
He protested a little more, but I had seen the hopeful expression in his eyes, and that was that. Slash, slash, slash went the editor’s blue pencil, and my memoirs ended up in the sanitised form I’m sure you’re familiar with. But of course, like most writers, I find it hard to part with my precious efforts: that’s why I’ve kept these pages all these years, stashed away in my old attic room. Which raises the question, dear reader, what exactly are you doing, prying around up here? I’ll thank you to put this manuscript back where you found it, and keep your mouth shut, if you know what’s good for you.