He nodded. ‘All right.’
The notepad reappeared and he turned to a blank page and started scribbling away, a curious smile on his face. He didn’t talk for a long time and I found myself fixated on his hands.
‘Do you remember when Miss Willow tried to get you to write with your right hand?’ I asked, smiling at the memory.
‘I’m sorry?’ he said, looking up.
‘When you were seven or eight. And Miss Willow said that it would be better if you stopped writing with your left hand. She tried to force you to write with your right and I had to go in to the head, Mrs Lane, and lodge a complaint.’
He said nothing, shook his head, and began scribbling in his notebook again. I ordered some more drinks and drank another neat whisky at the bar, which wasn’t like me. I had my strict drinking routine and preferred not to alter it. Somehow, though, I just felt like I needed more. I wanted to fade away.
‘Let’s move on to something else,’ he said, when I sat back down again. He moved his beer to one side, barely glancing at it, while I took a long draught from mine. ‘I’d like to ask you about your time in New York. You wrote two books there, am I right?’
‘That’s right. The Breach and The Broken Ones. Will they play a big part in your thesis?’
‘Of course, but I’m more interested in how you developed the ideas for those books. I’ve established how you worked on the first three.’
‘You’re not still angry at what I told you about The Tribesman, are you?’ I asked with a sigh. ‘Really, I think you’re making a mountain out of a molehill.’
‘You were working for Storī at the time?’ he asked, ignoring my question.
‘Not working for, no. I owned Storī. I founded the magazine from scratch. I was the editor. The whole operation was under my control.’
‘Of course. Sorry. And what made you set it up in the first place?’
‘Well, when I left England I had an idea that it would be worthwhile to do something to help further the careers of new writers. I liked the idea of literary philanthropy. No one had ever helped me, after all, and—’
‘Except Erich.’
‘Well, yes.’
‘And Dash.’
‘And Dash, that’s true.’
‘And Edith.’
‘Yes, of course. You see, I wanted the magazine to become a place where writers longed to see their work in print, which is why I only published four editions a year, each with a dozen or so stories. It kept the quality very high. To be published in Storī, I felt, should be an honour. An aspiration. Like being published in the New Yorker.’
‘I’ve gone through all the old issues.’
‘Of the New Yorker?’
‘No, of course not,’ he said, rolling his eyes, and I sat back, astonished that he could behave so disrespectfully towards me. Perhaps he’d had too much to drink. ‘Of Storī.’
‘Oh, of course. What, all of them?’
‘Yes. It’s important for my thesis to identify where your tastes lay.’
‘You’re very diligent. You really do want to be a biographer, don’t you?’
‘There’s some pretty brilliant writing in there. Some really wonderful work.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And you discovered some great talents. Henry Etta James, for one.’
‘Oh yes,’ I said, laughing a little. ‘Not that she ever gives me any credit for launching her career. You know, when she won the Pulitzer for I Am Dissatisfied with My Boyfriend, My Body and My Career, I sent her a floral bouquet and she didn’t even have the good manners to thank me. She’s held a grudge against me for a ridiculously long time.’
‘Over that story you refused to publish?’
I stared at him in astonishment.
‘How on earth do you know about that?’ I asked, trying to control the slight quiver in my voice.
‘She told me.’
‘Who did?’
‘Henry Etta.’
‘Henrietta James?’
‘Yes.’
I couldn’t have been more surprised if he had pulled his face away to reveal hers lying beneath. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘You’ll have to explain. Are you… How on earth do you know Henrietta? She can’t be a friend of yours, surely?’
‘Oh no,’ he replied. ‘We’re not friends as such. I wouldn’t even presume. But I went to New York earlier in the year, while I was doing some research for my thesis. I thought it was important to get some idea of where Storī fitted into your life. You were there for a long time, after all.’
‘All right,’ I said doubtfully. ‘But how on earth did you find yourself crossing paths with her?’
‘I contacted a few of the writers who had begun their careers by being published in your magazine. It wasn’t difficult; they’re all on social media. Most of them didn’t reply, but she did. She was very generous with her time, actually. She took me out for cocktails at the Russian Tea Rooms, which was pretty exciting. She even introduced me to her editor.’
‘Did she indeed?’ I asked, raising an eyebrow in surprise. ‘That was good of her.’
‘She was very encouraging.’
‘And I suppose she had nothing but bad things to say about me?’
‘Not at all. She was very complimentary. She did say that you’d had a small dispute about a story that the Atlantic had gone on to publish—’
‘She’d completely rewritten it by then,’ I protested. ‘It wasn’t even remotely the same story that she gave me.’
‘She wasn’t negative, Maurice,’ he insisted. ‘Settle down.’
‘Please don’t…’ I breathed in through my nose again, trying to control my temper. ‘Please don’t tell me to settle down, all right?’
‘Okay. But I promise she wasn’t rude about you in any way.’
‘Well, all right,’ I said, feeling disgruntled anyway.
‘I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.’
‘Oh, please,’ I said, waving away his concern. ‘I have about as much interest in Henrietta’s opinion of me as I do the Queen’s.’
‘Would you like another drink? You look like you could use one.’
‘But you’ve barely touched yours,’ I said, seeing how his glass was still three-quarters full while mine was almost empty. ‘Have I been drinking quickly or are you drinking slowly?’
‘Does it matter? Anyway, I’ll get you one if you like.’
‘Yes, please,’ I said, and he made his way to the bar. It was hard not to feel a little under siege but, when I analysed everything he’d said so far, there seemed no reason for me to feel so.
‘She got married last year,’ he said when he returned, placing a fresh pint on the table for me, and I took a long draught from it. It irritated me to see that he’d got himself a glass of water. I didn’t like drinking alone any more.
‘Who did?’ I asked.
‘Henrietta.’
‘Oh,’ I said, not caring very much. ‘Good for her.’
‘I think you know her husband.’
‘He’s not another writer, is he?’ I asked, rolling my eyes. ‘What is it with these New Yorkers and their—’
‘No, an editor, actually,’ said Theo. ‘Jarrod Swanson.’
I thought about it, but the name meant nothing to me. ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t ring a bell.’
‘He was an assistant at Storī for a time. He was your assistant.’
‘Jarrod Swanson,’ I repeated, racking my memory to recall him and, eventually, I remembered. Jarrod had been classmates with Henrietta at the New School but they’d broken up and, angry with her, he’d rejected one of her stories, the very story that I discovered and went on to publish as her first work. So they’d got back together in the end? And now they were married! Well, good for them, I supposed. It was no skin off my nose.