her copy with the words ‘My girl!’ and to my amusement, added the missing e in biro. Years later, at her funeral, my second cousin Louisa told me that Mrs Bastien had passed that Review round all her friends like a one-woman lending library, strictly insisting that they could only have an evening with it each. I think more people in Port of Spain read that story than in the literate sections of London town. What they made of it, I’ll never know.
It was Quick, of course, who was to blame – or thank – for the story finding its way to the editor. I think she relished the symmetry of it – how, after my leaving the raw thing on her desk, she was able to leave a copy of the magazine containing it on mine. I thought it was odd, how she had sat in her garden and exhorted me to disregard the opinions of others, only to go and submit my work for mass approval.
‘Find page seventy-four,’ she commanded, scratching aggressively at the base of her neck. I obeyed her, sitting in that viewless room in the Skelton, wishing she would go away, so that I could be in private to study this vision of my almost-name on the page. But Quick did not leave, and I had to hold in the tsunami of sound I wanted to unleash across the square, a cry of satisfaction so loud it would have travelled over the rooftops to the coast of Kent. My father’s name, Odell Bastien, his daughter’s writing underneath. Next time, I swore there would be no missing e. But for now, it would do. The words, at least, were mine.
Quick smiled, and the effect on her gaunt face was transformative: gleeful, youthful, briefly illuminated with pleasure. She was dressed that day in a dark-green pair of trousers, slightly flared, and a pussy-bow silk blouse with a seasonal repeating pattern of brown leaves. I noticed the slight sag of the material on her thighs; she was definitely thinner. ‘It was an excellent story,’ she said, ‘so I sent it in. I even got you a fee. Thirty pounds.’
‘Thirty pounds?’
‘I hope that was all right. You don’t mind I went ahead?’
‘I don’t know how to thank you. Thank you.’
She laughed, sitting down opposite me, fumbling in her trouser pocket, lighting a cigarette and taking a deep drag. ‘Don’t thank me,’ she said. ‘It was a fantastic read. Did you base it on something that happened at Dolcis?’
‘Sort of.’
She gazed at me. ‘How does it feel, to be a published writer?’
I looked back down at the page; the ink that couldn’t be rubbed away, the deceptive permanence of the paper. I felt exalted, my mind a cathedral, with an actual congregation who wished to visit my altar. ‘Incredible,’ I said.
‘You’d better write some more,’ she replied. ‘Keep going at it. It seems to work.’
‘I will. Thank you, thank you again.’
She went to the window, cigarette in hand, and looked down at the alley where the smokers gathered. I couldn’t imagine her mixing with them, a bird of paradise amongst the canaries. ‘Would you have let me look at it,’ she asked, ‘if you’d known what I might do?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. It was a good question.
‘I wondered. Anyway, you’ve got a terrible view here. Did Pamela choose this room? We can get you a nicer one.’
‘I’m fine, thank you. A nice view would probably distract me from my work.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘How puritanical.’
Quick could tease me as much as she wanted; I didn’t care. I was published. She remained at the window, her back to me again. ‘How about Reede’s news on Mr Scott’s painting, eh? He’s looking very pleased with himself. Looks like we are going to have an exhibition. He wants to call it “The Swallowed Century”. But we cannot exhibit only one painting.’ I could hear the disdain in her voice. Her body was slightly curled over, as if she was shielding a ball of pain.
‘I didn’t know,’ I said.
She turned. ‘No? Is everything all right between you and Mr Scott?’
‘Yes. No. Just a misunderstanding.’
‘I see.’ She straightened up, leaning against the wall. ‘Want to talk about it?’
‘There’s nothing much to say.’ Quick fixed her gaze on me, so reluctantly, I went on. ‘I went to his mother’s house, in Surrey.’
‘Nice?’
‘Nice. We had dinner. And then afterwards, he told me he loved me. And I didn’t say it back. And it all went wrong