‘Jarrod is actually back working at Storī these days,’ said Theo. ‘He’s no longer interested in being a writer, though. He says he got to the point where he realized that he just wasn’t good enough and that his calling lay in working with other writers. He has your old job there. Editor. He’s making a go of it too. I’m surprised you didn’t know any of this.’
I shrugged. ‘I haven’t paid any attention to the magazine since I sold it,’ I said. ‘I knew it was still in existence, of course, but other than that…’ I turned away and checked my watch. The afternoon was turning into a cross-examination and I wasn’t enjoying it.
‘I’m going to make it a central chapter in my thesis,’ said Theo. ‘I’m calling it Storītime.’
‘How inventive.’
‘Yes, I thought so. And, if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you about something I discovered while I was over there.’
‘Fire away,’ I said. ‘I get the sense that our foreplay is over at last and, finally, you’re about to fuck me.’
‘I’m sorry?’ he said, sitting back but looking utterly nonplussed by my choice of words.
‘Just ask what you want to ask,’ I said with a sigh. ‘I can see you’re itching to do so.’
‘All right then,’ he said, flicking through his notes. ‘The thing is, when Jarrod heard that you were to be the subject of my thesis, he asked whether I’d like to have a look through the Storī archives.’
‘I sincerely hope that you found more interesting things to do in New York than read through all of them.’
‘Actually, I jumped at the opportunity. The magazine’s been going a long time now. I thought there was a chance that I might stumble across a lost story by someone who went on to be famous.’
‘Famous!’ I said, bursting out laughing. ‘These are writers we’re talking about, Daniel, not movie stars.’
‘Maurice, you keep—’
‘I keep what?’
He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘Anyway, of course I couldn’t possibly have read everything there. There are thousands of stories in that room.’
‘I think you’d abandon reading for ever if you even tried.’
‘So instead I decided to focus my attention on two particular periods.’
‘Oh yes? Which ones?’
‘Spring 2009 and winter 2013.’
‘All right,’ I said, thinking back, trying to remember what was happening in my life then. ‘You were, what, about six years old in 2009 and ten years old in 2013?’
‘No, I would have been…’ He seemed surprised by what I had said. ‘I was born in 1996 so I would have been thirteen and then seventeen.’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘My mistake. So what was so special about those particular periods? Are you going to tell me or do I have to guess?’
‘It was when you wrote the first drafts of The Breach and The Broken Ones.’
I lifted my drink, swallowed almost a third of a pint in one go, then set it back on the table.
‘You really are very diligent, aren’t you?’ I said. ‘I feel I may have underestimated you, Theo. And did you find anything good in there? Something that you think I should have published but didn’t?’
He took a second notepad from his satchel, a much larger one, and flicked through it, stopping at a particular page and reading it for a long time before speaking.
‘There was a story by a woman named Marianne Jilson,’ he said finally. ‘Called “When the Bough Broke”.’
‘Awful title,’ I said.
‘True,’ replied Theo. ‘And the story wasn’t much better, to be honest. Well, the writing wasn’t, anyway. Although the plot was sort of interesting.’
‘I don’t remember it.’
‘It was about five brothers living in America in the 1930s, working on their parents’ farm. Four join the army but one is left behind because he has flat feet and they won’t take him.’
‘Flat feet,’ I said, laughing. ‘I’ve never really understood what that means, have you?’
‘The story is built around how difficult he finds it, being the only young man in town when everyone else has gone away to fight. He feels emasculated, of course.’
‘I see,’ I said quietly.
‘And then there was another story, by Ho Kitson. A Chinese-American writer, if I remember correctly from the accompanying letter.’
‘And what did he or she write?’
‘He. A story called “A Statement of Intent”.’
‘Better title.’
‘Agreed.’
‘Oh, I’m so glad.’
‘And Ho Kitson’s story was about a girl who has abandoned her baby in a railway carriage in California, just as it’s about to set off for a cross-country journey.’
I nodded but said nothing.
‘You can see where I’m going on this, I presume?’ he asked after a lengthy pause.
‘The Breach,’ I said.
‘The Breach,’ he agreed. ‘The opening chapter of that novel sees a young woman leaving her unwanted baby in a railway carriage. Another woman boards shortly after, discovers the baby and, being unable to have a child herself, steals him. No one ever knows. She just takes him home and she and her husband raise him as their own. And when the boy turns eighteen, the Vietnam War breaks out and almost all the sons of the families in town go to fight, but when he goes for his medical test—’
‘You don’t need to recount my own novel to me, Theo,’ I said, growing annoyed now by his impertinence. ‘I wrote it. I think I remember what it was about.’
‘And then there’s The Broken Ones,’ he continued, looking down at his notes again. ‘Do I need to go on?’
‘Well, you’re obviously enjoying yourself,’ I said with a shrug. ‘So why not?’
‘Steven Conway. A story called “The Wedding Anniversary”. A husband and wife visit Paris to celebrate twenty years together and, while there, she has a brief affair. And then Anna Smith. A story called “Tuesday”. A comic story about life on a university campus where a professor is trying and failing to seduce his students. And if we look at the plot of The Broken Ones—’
‘All right, Daniel, for fuck’s sake,’ I said, raising my voice.
‘Theo,’ he said calmly.
‘Just tell me what your fucking point is.’
He looked at me with a certain contempt in his eyes and laughed. ‘It’s not obvious?’
‘Not to me,’ I said.
‘The ideas. They weren’t yours.’
‘And?’
‘Maurice, I’m not trying to be obtuse—’
‘Then you’re failing. Tell me this, Theo. Those four stories you read. Were they any good?’
He considered this for a moment and shrugged. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘I mean, they had some good ideas, story-wise, but the writing was weak and the characters were never fully developed.’
‘And if you had been the editor of Storī at the time, would you have published them?’
‘No. Definitely not.’
‘So what’s the problem?’
‘Your novels – those two novels – they weren’t your ideas. They’re a blend of other people’s stories.’
I smiled. Other People’s Stories. My new book. My unfinished book. The book that Daniel, the little snoop, had discovered and got so worked up over.
‘But their stories weren’t any good,’ I protested. ‘And my novels, the two that we’re talking about, were both very well received.’