‘Yes,’ Nina said. ‘Yes, it is exactly like that.’ It seemed to Vera that the woman looked at her with a new respect.
‘I’m the same myself,’ Vera went on. ‘Other people call it gossip; I say it’s research.’
Nina relaxed and gave a little grin.
‘So tell me about Professor Tony Ferdinand. What sort of character was he? Did you know him before you met here at the Writers’ House?’
It was an undemanding question and Nina must have realized it was one she’d be asked, but she hesitated. Vera thought she was debating how much she should say. She leaned back in her chair as if she had all the time in the world, as if the woman’s silence was entirely natural.
‘As I explained, he supervised me for a while at St Ursula’s.’
Vera put her elbows on the table. ‘Tell me how that works,’ she said. ‘I never went to college myself. This is a new world to me.’
‘I’m not quite sure how it works generally,’ Nina said. ‘I think perhaps I had an unfortunate experience.’
‘Then tell me how it worked for you.’
Nina looked out of the long window, and spoke without looking at Vera at all. ‘I was very young when I wrote my first book. I’d just left university and I spent the summer not very far from here. My grandparents lived on the Northumberland coast and I felt more at home with them than I did with my parents.’ She shrugged apologetically. ‘Sorry, none of this is relevant.’
‘But it is gossip,’ Vera said. ‘Nothing I like better than gossip.’
‘It was the sort of book you write once in a lifetime. I didn’t understand the rules of storytelling – all this information we’re passing on during this course would have meant nothing to me – but the story and the characters came together like a sort of magic. I have never been so happy as I was that summer.’
Vera thought sometimes a case worked out that way. Everything falling into place. Instinct and solid policing coming together. Then there was nothing more exhilarating. Nina seemed lost in her memories and Vera prompted her. ‘So how did Tony Ferdinand come into your life?’
‘I’d heard him on the radio, read his reviews and I admired him. He seemed passionate about literature and about championing new, young writers. He’d just set up the new creative-writing MA at St Ursula’s. I suppose he was some sort of hero. Then I met him, quite by chance, at a party. Friends of my grandparents, not very far from here, were celebrating a wedding anniversary. I’m not sure how he came to be there. I think he happened to be in the area. On holiday perhaps. Later I found he was very good at getting himself invited to parties, fancy restaurants.’ Nina stopped speaking for a moment. ‘He’d been a freelance journalist. I don’t suppose he was paid much. And he had very expensive tastes.’
Vera nodded, remembering the clothes in his wardrobe. ‘Must have seemed like a stroke of luck,’ she said. ‘Just bumping into him like that.’
‘I could hardly believe it. I’d only gone to the party to keep my grandparents happy and as soon as I walked into the room I heard his voice. I’d have known it anywhere.’ Nina paused again. ‘You must understand that I was very young, very naive. Easily flattered. Tony encouraged me to talk about my novel. Later I realized I was the only female under fifty there and that he was flattered by my admiration. I entertained him for an hour or so while he drank a bottle of our hosts’ champagne. “Why don’t you apply to St Ursula’s?” he said when we left. “And let me see a copy of your novel.” And he gave me his card.’
‘That must have been exciting,’ Vera said. ‘To have someone that famous asking to look at your work.’
‘Unbelievably exciting!’ Nina faced Vera to make sure she understood the importance of what she was saying. ‘Like being six and waking up on Christmas morning and getting just the present you’d been dreaming about secretly all year.’
‘So you sent the book to him?’ Vera didn’t want to give Nina the impression she was rushing her, but neither did she want to be here for hours. She had that appointment with the superintendent, and if she was going to be grovelling, she’d better not be late.
‘I phoned him as soon as I got back to my parents’ house in London, and went to see him. His office in St Ursula’s was so full of books there was hardly room for a desk. I thought anyone who owned that many books must be honest and true. How could you read so widely and not be a good person? And he said he loved my novel, that I should join his course.’ She paused. ‘After that interview I was happier than I’ve ever been in my life. It was as if I was flying home.’
‘But it didn’t work out?’
‘No,’ Nina said. ‘It didn’t work out.’
‘Tell me.’ Still Vera was aware of time passing, but this was the first time she had a sense of Tony Ferdinand as a real person. He’d been a con man, she thought. A bit of a chancer. But bright enough to make people think he had influence. And in the end so many folk believed he could pull strings, and make things happen, that the perception became truth. ‘Tried it on, did he?’ Nina had been a bonny young woman after all. And it seemed he’d tried it on with Joanna.
‘No not that. He was unpleasant in an old-fashioned sexist way. Touching as if by chance. The occasional invitation that could have been taken as a proposition. But I could have coped with that.’
‘So what did he do?’ Vera asked. ‘What did he do that was so terrible?’
‘He ruined my novel. Him and the rest of the group.’
‘How did they do that?’
Nina struggled to find the words to explain. ‘The teaching sessions were brutal. I’d had to take criticism as an undergraduate, but this was horrible. A form of intellectual combat. We’d sit in a circle, discussing an individual’s work, but there was nothing constructive in the comments. It was more like a competition to see how hard and unpleasant each student could be. Tony told us things were like that in the publishing world: tough, uncompromising. We should get used to it. But it wasn’t done for our benefit. He enjoyed moderating all that bile and aggression. He was entertained, and it made him feel powerful. It wasn’t just me he had a go at. He picked on anyone vulnerable. I remember him and a visiting tutor tearing apart one student, who fell to pieces in front of us. I found myself joining in. It was horrible.’ Nina looked up at Vera. ‘I tried to edit the text to meet the group’s comments. Most of the other students seemed so much more confidant and articulate than I was. And Tony seemed to agree with them. But of course that was a mistake. In the end my original vision was quite lost.’
‘So you left?’ Vera still couldn’t quite make sense of this. Usually she enjoyed dipping into worlds that were quite different from her own, but this seemed so far from her own experience that it was unfathomable. She’d never understood before that words could be a profession, a matter of pride, an income.
‘Eventually. It felt like a failure, but I was making myself ill. I found a more conventional postgraduate course and became an academic. I dumped the first novel. There was no way I could recapture the excitement. Recently I’ve started writing again.’
‘Published, are you?’
‘Not by anyone you’d have heard of.’ Nina managed a grin. ‘I’m with a small press, North Farm, based in rural Northumberland. I’ve got a passionate and intelligent young editor. It’s almost impossible to get my novels into mainstream bookshops, but Chrissie has a number of imaginative marketing strategies, and at least I don’t feel that I’ve sold my soul.’
‘What I don’t understand…’ Vera leaned forward across the table ‘… is why you agreed to run this workshop. You must have known in advance that Professor Ferdinand would be one of the tutors.’