Which meant he didn’t know I saw him glance around one last time, and then punch a fist straight through Lisa Fulton’s cover.
Chapter 8
The first beer didn’t touch the sides, but the buzz of alcohol helped my hands stop shaking. Writers are, universally, far more polite than what I’d just experienced. But there was something about this festival in particular that had us all at each other’s throats. Was it the isolation, the locked-off feeling of the train—no live-streaming, no journalists—implying we were on our own and therefore our actions might not follow us back to the real world in some kind of bizarre Lord of the Flies satire? Or was it simpler: S. F. Majors had clearly selected a combustible cocktail of writers. They all had their links, their grievances and their arguments, which, adding ego and cooking under the desert sun, baked into nothing less than a resentful quiche. Except for me. This was my first time meeting every one of these writers. So why was I here?
I told myself I was overthinking it and got up to get a refill, but when I came back the husband-and-wife team, Jasper and Harriet, had commandeered my table by the window. I looked around. The bar was filling up. The boisterous flock of older women had a spare seat at their table but I didn’t think I could handle them. McTavish had a stool at the bar, elbows keeping him upright, where he could mainline fluids, and though there were spare stools beside him, I didn’t think that was a much better option. No one else I knew was in the carriage, as many had retreated to their rooms. I must have hovered long enough that Jasper noticed.
“Sorry, mate. Did we pinch your spot?” He slid over, and I sat down. “Jasper Murdoch, good to meet you.”
His blackberry-dark hair contrasted with the Gatsby-lantern green of his eyes. He was wearing a T-shirt belted into a pair of jeans. I shook his hand, which bore the hardened fingertip calluses of a tradesman, and turned to his wife. “And Harriet, right?” This caught her off guard; she brushed a tendril of hair behind an ear. “I heard you talking during the panel. I’m not a stalker or anything. Ernest.”
“The adverb guy,” Harriet said. It was a warm insult, an alliance in thinking Wolfgang had been a bit harsh.
“That was all quite lively, wasn’t it?” Jasper said.
“That’s one word for it.” I sipped my beer, looking out the window at a staff member picking up the collapsed easel from the dirt, scratching their head at the lack of wind to knock it over. “I don’t think I realized what I was getting myself into.” I laughed. “But you’re the guests. Money’s worth for you, at least?”
“Don’t take it personally,” Jasper said. Harriet nodded.
“Like all good advice, that’s easy to say and tough to follow.”
“Think about it this way—to Royce and Wolfgang, fresh meat like you is a scary thought, because there’re only so many spaces on a shelf. And you’re standing there, ready to jump in their graves. So to speak.” Jasper shrugged. “That’s how they see it, I reckon.”
It was too astute a summary to not be lived experience. I hazarded a guess. “Which publisher do you work for? Gemini?”
“He’s a writer, actually,” Harriet said.
“Part of the festival?” I asked.
Jasper physically waved my question away. “I have business with Wyatt Lloyd. This seemed as good a place as any to chase him down and do it. Not often you get the chance to go all the way up and down Australia.” In the air, he traced a finger in a line up and a line down. I remembered the Ghan went both ways. “Especially for the Irish.” He whispered it almost conspiratorially, nodding at Harriet.
She playfully punched his arm and said to me, “Don’t listen to him. My parents are Irish, but I was born in Melbourne.” That explained why her accent was so light.
“So you caught the train up from Adelaide just to catch it down?”
“We rented a car. Drive up, train down,” Jasper said.
“Long drive.” I thought of the seasickness tablets that he’d mistakenly handed Wyatt. They seemed unnecessary for a desert road trip; he must have been the queasy carsick type.
“If you’ve never done it, I recommend it. Beautiful country. Nothing better than open roads, dingy motels and clear air to finish some projects.”
“Okay then, writer to writer. Am I being fragile, or was everyone picking on me?”
“I think you crave their validation too much. Who cares!” He shrugged. “It’s the stories themselves, not the covers and the shelf space or the festival invites, that outlive us.” This struck me as poignant, but it sounded just a little rehearsed. It seemed to me in particular that he’d convinced himself a festival invite wasn’t important, partially in defense of never having had one. His mention of shelf space, and specifically how little it mattered, twigged a better understanding.
“You self-publish?” I guessed. An online success trying to make the jump into print made sense: it was a reason to tail Wyatt on the trip. There’s always at least one guest at every writers’ festival clutching a manuscript, waiting to shove it into an unsuspecting publisher’s hands. “Ebooks? I used to do that.”
“Ah—”
“He’s very good,” Harriet bragged. “Sold just as many books as McTavish.”
“Thanks, Harry, that’s enough.” He clearly disliked her speaking on his behalf, like a child bemoaning a proud mother. He turned back to me. “I do okay.”
It wasn’t quite humility. He was suddenly a little more shy, protective, and I wondered if it was a glimmer of the same kind of imposter syndrome I felt. Of course, Harriet may have been inflating his ego, but the truth was simple: even if Jasper had great sales for his self-published work, he’d still had to come chasing a publisher on this train.
I turned to Harriet to change the topic. “And you’re a fan of McTavish, I assume?” She had, after all, been the one to ask him a question.
Harriet smiled. “I’m a big fan of his books.”
“What about you?” Jasper cut in. He seemed to me a gentle guy, but one with the uncomfortable habit of interrupting his wife when she was talking, as he had during the panel, which was a little too possessive for my tastes.
“Yeah. I’m not, like, a Mongrel or anything. But a fan. Well,” I half-laughed, “I’m deciding if I still am, to be honest.”
“If it’s any consolation,” Jasper said, “I heard that lady—she’s your agent, right?—arguing with Wyatt about taking those reviews down.”
“You’ve seen it too?”
“Word gets around. Everyone gets a bad review sometimes. Don’t let it bother you. Hey”—he held up his empty glass—“we might freshen up before dinner, right, Harry?”
Harriet nodded. “It was nice meeting you, Ernest.”
They stood up to go, and like I was at a speed-dating table, the man who’d asked me the question at the panel—gold-rimmed glasses and graying, red-flecked beard—sat right down. He had a leathered face and black-diamond moguls for furrows on his brow, and he wore an Akubra that was too clean to have been purchased anywhere other than the Berrimah gift shop. He was holding two beers, and just as I wondered if his mystery companion was joining him, he slid one over to me. This was too many drinks for my constitution—I still had a third of my second beer to go—but I hooked the glass with my finger out of politeness and nodded my thanks.
“Douglas Parsons.” He extended a hand and we shook. I didn’t feel the need to give my name, considering he’d read my book and had addressed me at the panel, but then I felt self-conscious that I was being arrogant in assuming he knew who I was, and so spluttered out Ernest after far too long a pause.