‘I thought the notebooks might help,’ said Bonnie, ‘but I can’t write in them, they’re too nice. I’m bound to spoil them.’ She shut the drawer and returned to the sofa, where she gulped down her tea like a victim recovering from shock, except that her tea was not sweet.
Sylvia stayed by the desk. ‘This story you were trying to write,’ she said, ‘is about a girl who is living in an attic room, and who dreams about jumping out of the window.’
‘Dreamt,’ said Bonnie, ‘once, when she was little.’
‘All right,’ said Sylvia, ‘dreamt of jumping out of a window, and then moved into an attic room. And how will your story end?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Bonnie.
‘You’ve no idea how your story ends?’
‘No.’
‘But if you write it,’ said Sylvia, ‘you’ll find out.’
‘If I wrote it I would,’ said Bonnie, ‘yes.’
‘What does it say on the piece of paper that’s appeared under the door?’ asked Sylvia.
‘I don’t know,’ said Bonnie.
‘But it does say something,’ said Sylvia, ‘doesn’t it?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Bonnie. ‘I think so.’
‘But Bonnie can’t quite see it.’
‘Susan,’ said Bonnie. ‘Susan can’t see it.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Sylvia. ‘Susan.’
‘It makes me think of the messages that appeared each morning on Cézanne’s doormat,’ said Bonnie, ‘when he was in Aix, nearing death.’
‘What did those messages say?’ asked Sylvia.
‘They told him to leave town,’ said Bonnie.
‘Who put those messages through his door?’
‘His neighbours, I think,’ said Bonnie.
‘And who posted this message under Susan’s door?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘The landlady, presumably,’ Sylvia suggested.
‘I’m not sure who else it could be,’ agreed Bonnie.
‘Well, it’s up to you, is it not?’ said Sylvia. ‘You are the writer. You decide whether and why your character does something. You must know.’
‘I’m sure I should know,’ said Bonnie, ‘but I don’t.’
‘So you are not really in control of your own story?’
‘I’m not sure I am,’ said Bonnie.
‘When did you write this?’ asked Sylvia.
Bonnie sighed. ‘I started writing it in the winter, before moving in here, but, you know, I feel like I’ve been writing it for years, like every time I write anything it’s really the same thing I’m writing about.’
‘But you still don’t know how it should end?’
‘No. I’ve given up with it anyway. I don’t really know what the story’s about.’
‘It’s about failure,’ said Sylvia, ‘and fear.’
‘Oh,’ said Bonnie. ‘Is it?’
Sylvia turned to the bookcase beside the desk. ‘You have a lot of self-help books,’ she said.
‘My mum gave them to me,’ said Bonnie. She watched as Sylvia ran her index finger along the spines: Making the Most of Yourself, How to Start a Conversation and Make Friends, How to Be Your Own Best Friend, Embracing Your Inner Critic. Here and there Sylvia paused, like a doctor preparing to press down on bared skin so as to find out where the pain was: Does it hurt here? What about here? ‘Fail,’ said Sylvia, ‘Fail Again, Fail Better.’ She took out the book she was looking at. ‘So,’ she said, nodding to the words on the cover. ‘Can you lean into the unknown?’
Bonnie shrugged.
Sylvia took down another book, showing Bonnie the cover as if she might not have seen her own books before. ‘TRY AGAIN,’ she read. ‘FAIL AGAIN. FAIL BETTER.’ She slid the book back into place. ‘Have you read them all?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ said Bonnie. ‘But not necessarily all the way through.’
‘Susan,’ said Sylvia. ‘Susan is your middle name, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Bonnie, ‘it is.’ She did not recall putting this detail down on any paperwork when she had taken the flat, but then she remembered that Sylvia had known her mother, and herself, apparently.
‘You look like her,’ said Sylvia, eyeing Bonnie.
‘Like my mum?’ asked Bonnie.
‘No,’ said Sylvia. ‘She was blond, I think. Slim and very well turned out. No. I mean Susan. You have her short, brown hair, though not her legs.’
Bonnie tugged the hem of her dressing gown over her bared, broad knees.
‘You could have given your character any name you wanted to,’ said Sylvia.
‘What’s wrong with Susan?’ asked Bonnie. ‘It’s just a name.’
‘Names are important,’ said Sylvia. ‘Judy Garland was not Frances Ethel Gumm. Cary Grant was not Archibald Leach. Marilyn Monroe could not remain a Norma.’
‘They were still the same people, though,’ said Bonnie, ‘whatever they were called.’ Nonetheless, she wondered whether her parents ever felt that they had chosen the wrong name for her, whether it had been optimistic, like when she had given the name Lucky to a fairground goldfish that turned out to be diseased.
‘You work in an amusement arcade, don’t you?’ said Sylvia. ‘Like the one in your story, in which Susan is offered a job?’
‘Yes,’ said Bonnie, ‘but I don’t work in a change booth, which is the job Susan’s offered, and anyway, Susan never actually works there.’
‘Did you have the dream Susan has about jumping out of your bedroom window?’ asked Sylvia.
‘I’m not Susan,’ said Bonnie.
‘No,’ said Sylvia, ‘of course not.’ She smiled. ‘Our dreams, according to Freud, are wish-fulfilments. What do you dream about, Bonnie?’
‘I rarely remember my dreams,’ said Bonnie.
‘You’re more likely to remember what the dream was about if you wake up in the middle of it,’ said Sylvia. ‘Perhaps you sleep very soundly.’
‘But if you woke up in the middle of it,’ said Bonnie, ‘you would never know how it ended.’
‘Dreams rarely have proper endings,’ said Sylvia. ‘They just move on or suddenly stop, like life.’ She sat down next to Bonnie again and sipped her tea. ‘So you’ve written other things?’ she asked.
‘I haven’t really finished anything,’ said Bonnie. ‘Sometimes things seem like they’re going fine but then they just start going wrong.’
‘I would very much like to see your other stories,’ said Sylvia, ‘even if they aren’t finished, and even if they are no good.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Bonnie. ‘I’d rather not. I don’t—’ But Sylvia had begun to cough, her shoulders hunching, her hand brought up to her chest.
When the cough subsided, Sylvia said, ‘Do excuse me. It’s just a tickle. Do you think I could have a glass of water?’
‘Of course,’ said Bonnie, getting to her feet. She went to the kitchen and stayed there for a minute, hoping that the unseen germs would disperse in her absence. Or perhaps they were instead filling the room, multiplying.
When she returned to the lounge, Sylvia was on her feet, collecting up her things.
‘I’m going to get going,’ said Sylvia, pausing to accept the mug of water that Bonnie was passing to her, handing it back when she had taken a sip. ‘Thank you so much,’ she said. Indicating the things that were piled up in the corners of the room, she added, ‘I’ll send someone round to pick all this up.’