‘A perfume model? How does one model perfume?’
‘A model who’s in a perfume ad. Marie Martin. Séduction. She’s all over the Tube, if you’re interested.’
‘I wouldn’t take the Tube if you held a gun to my head. How old were you when he left?’
‘Fourteen.’
‘And your mother?’
‘Forty-five.’
‘Ah. A lethal age. My husband left me when I was forty-four. When I was thirty-four, he used to recite Yeats to me. You’ve read Yeats?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face . . .’
‘Lying fuck.’
‘Yeats?’
‘My ex-husband. But yes – Yeats too, I’m sure. You know how men are. Or if you don’t, give it time. They all think with their willies, to a greater or lesser extent.’
‘Right. Their willies . . .’
Miranda Frost shrugged. ‘It’s the word I prefer these days. Men can call them their cocks or pricks or schlongs or love muscles, or whatever ridiculous metaphor they choose, but we don’t have to go along with it. Men hold their willies in far too high an esteem.’
I nodded. It was a difficult analysis to dispute.
‘Thank God lesbianism isn’t simply a lifestyle choice, as the fundamentalists would have us believe. It would be the end of the human race.’
‘Do you mind if I ask you a few questions now? You know, about your poetry?’
‘Yes, I suppose you ought to.’
‘Great.’ I took a sip of coffee, then cleared my throat. ‘So, your latest collection has been released to huge critical acclaim. Do the reviews still matter to you, after so many years?’
‘Yes.’
I waited.
Miranda Frost gave me a look that would wither a vase of sunflowers. ‘What, you want more?’
‘It would help.’
Miranda Frost’s eyes continued to bore into me for what seemed like another minute. ‘It feels good when people praise your work, bad when they don’t. What more is there to say? You could ask a schoolchild a similar question and get the same response.’
‘Right . . . So, er, does writing still give you the same thrill it did thirty years ago?’
‘Tell me, Miss Williams: are all the questions going to be this conventional? I’ve answered their like a dozen times; it’s all on the internet, I’m sure. Don’t you think your readers might like something different?’
‘Sorry. I did have some good questions but’ – I showed her my notebook – ‘they dissolved.’
‘So I see. Still, you were doing well enough a few moments ago. We were having a reasonably stimulating conversation. I’m sure you can spin it into a couple of thousand words.’
‘I’m selling it to the Observer as an exclusive interview,’ I pointed out. ‘Not an essay on men and their willies.’
‘Very well. So ask me something interesting. Ask me something I’m not expecting.’
‘Okay.’ I glanced once more at my saturated notebook, then set it down on the table. I thought for a few moments. ‘How well do you know your neighbours?’ I asked. Miranda Frost exhaled with infinite disdain. ‘Would you care, for example, if one of them died?’
‘I don’t have any neighbours, Miss Williams. I live in a cottage miles from anywhere. I find the isolation suits me.’
‘My neighbour died last night,’ I blurted. ‘I found the body.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘My neighbour died. I found his body.’
There was no doubting the smile now. For the first time since I’d arrived, Miranda Frost looked unequivocally intrigued.
‘Go on,’ she said.
3
SOMETHING DIFFERENT
When I got home, I made myself a fresh pot of coffee and listened back to the calamity that was my exclusive interview with Miranda Frost. So far as I could tell there was nothing salvageable. Nothing. Should I email again, ask for a follow-up? Even if it were likely, there didn’t seem much point. Who cared about the witch behind the words? It was the words that mattered. Still, I knew that I had to turn in something. By my standards, this was a lucrative piece of work. I couldn’t afford to let it slip away.
I toiled on my laptop for three hours straight, trying to come up with a clever angle, something postmodern. Deconstructing Miranda: a non-interview with the woman who hates interviews. It was a terrible idea that grew more terrible with every unnecessary word I pumped in, like a blood-bloated mosquito ready to pop.
I changed tack. Meander Frost: psychoanalysing what the poet won’t tell us.
This, of course, was even worse.
I emailed Jess at the Observer to tell her that the write-up was coming along, but might take a couple of days longer than anticipated – due to the death of someone close to me. Even as I was typing, I didn’t know how to feel about this not-quite-a-lie. On the one hand, it was devious and emotionally manipulative; on the other, it was just the kind of creative thinking I’d need if I was to transform this Miranda Frost interview into something printable.
By then it was late afternoon, and it was my turn to make dinner, so I went to the shop and bought eggs, bread and a salad in a bag – destined to become an overcooked omelette and accompaniments. For my late lunch, I had two more cigarettes and a bar of chocolate, then returned to my laptop with renewed determination. The next thing I knew, I was being interviewed for a PR job in Canary Wharf. The interview took place on the 101st floor and, due to a lack of foresight with the laundry, I’d had to borrow an ill-fitting trouser suit from my sister; under this, for reasons less clear, I was naked as a new-born.
I awoke twenty minutes before Beck got home, feeling slow and stupid.
I served dinner with a strong bottle of Rioja and an abject apology, because it felt like a dinner that needed both. Beck put on a brave face, but I knew that if this meal lived long in the memory, it would be for all the wrong reasons. He deserved better, really, after a nine-hour office day bookended by two grimy Tube rides, even though he always insisted that he liked his job and found the underground much more bearable than I did.
Beck worked for a digital consultancy on the South Bank, a couple of stones’ throws from Waterloo. It was the kind of cool tech company that modelled itself on Google. They posted job adverts that included phrases like We work hard, we play hard. The office had a games room with pool and ping-pong tables, and beanbags and a beer fridge – and a tacit understanding that no one should open the beer fridge before 6 p.m. (unless it was a Friday or summer). And, so far as I could tell, the workspace was almost entirely devoid of interior walls. According to the company’s mission statement, this was to nurture an atmosphere conducive to creativity, collaboration and cross-pollination. But if you wanted any privacy, then I supposed your options were limited to the toilets or the stationery cupboard. The toilets, to my knowledge, were not open-plan. Even so, thinking too much about life in an office – any office – filled me with a profound sense of dread. I’d temped all over central London between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-four and still felt like I was suffering post-traumatic stress disorder.
‘So how was she?’ Beck asked, as we continued to run through the edited highlights of our respective days. By this point, the uninspiring omelette had been eaten, the last of the salad was wilting in its bag, more wine had been poured, and the living area smelled strongly of cooking oil. Anything fried, in our flat, tended to linger.
I’d already told him about the hellish commute; now we were on to the woman at the end of the line, whom I conjured in a few sharp sentences. ‘Imagine the lovechild of Miss Havisham and Hannibal Lecter,’ I concluded, ‘played by Bette Davis with a hangover.’