Mr. Winters went on to advise that no author could count on a first success as a warrant for taking up full time authorship. Far better get a steady job, even if it meant producing one book every two years, instead of two or three. Then, after a period, it would emerge whether the author was really a big shot and could afford only to write for a living, or whether he was one of the thousands who gave all their leisure to providing entertainment for the public for a sum per book that could not have got them two minutes in a cinema.
All this was new to Adam, and he protested indignantly that the reading public should be made to pay at least a halfpenny per copy for every book they took out of the Free Libraries. Mr. Winters shrugged his shoulders, laughed and replied:
`A. P. Herbert and others have been trying for years to get a law to that effect through Parliament. But they are lone voices crying in the wilderness. The big shot politicians don't give a damn for justice. All they think about is whether or not a measure might cost their party votes; and to make the British masses pay even a trifle for their reading would. So full time authors, except those in the first rank, continue to eke out their existence on a few hundred a year, and most of our M.Ps couldn't care less. Now, my friend, Across the Green Seas has done exceptionally well for a first novel, but if you are wise you will get yourself a steady job.'
Considerably chastened, Adam returned to Wandsworth. On the voyage home he had had pleasant day dreams of being received in England as a literary lion, invited here and there as the guest of honour and hearing his name on everyone's lips. Now it emerged that that did not happen after just one successful book, and he
might even have to get some other form of regular work to support himself. But, apart from journalism, he had no experience or qualifications which could get him a reasonably well paid post. Rather than become a drudge on a pittance, he decided to spend
his days and nights flogging his talent for all he was worth.
Imbued with the new, fervid flame of creation he turned out story after story and scores of articles on topical subjects. Some were bad, some indifferent, but enough had something in them for several Fleet Street editors to become interested. Within three months he had established a connection and was earning just sufficient money to keep his head above water.
It was at that time that a new element entered his life in the person of Mildred Soames.
He met her at a party given by his publishers. Far from being the `lion' at it, he was just `one of our authors'. But Mildred had read his book and showed wide eyed interest in him. She was a dark, slim, fine boned young woman with small, well chiseled features and would have been nearly beautiful in a classic way had it not been for her protruding teeth. Physically and mentally she was the very antithesis of Polly and the only attraction she had for Adam was her evident enthusiasm about his work. Pleasantly flattered as he was at finding her to be a `fan', he did not take her praise very seriously until it emerged that her husband was the firm's representative in the northern counties, and that for some years past she had been reading manuscripts and advising on their acceptance or rejection.
Her husband was not at the party and she went on to convey that, as he had to spend the greater part of the year on his rounds of the booksellers in the north, she led a rather dreary life. This emboldened Adam to suggest that if she had no other plans she might care to go on somewhere with him to dinner. She accepted with alacrity and, when he confessed with some embarrassment that he knew very little about London restaurants, she suggested a place in Chelsea at which they dined snugly but inexpensively.
By the time they were having coffee the small, dark, intense Mildred was extracting from her large, shy, Viking like companion full particulars of his ambitions, circumstances and present impecunity. Promptly she offered her assistance. She read not only for his publisher but also for several magazines, so was in a position to introduce his work to their editors.
This necessitated their meeting again on numerous occasions at first over a drink or for dinner, then in her Chelsea flat. On the third occasion he went there he found that her husband had
returned to London on one of his monthly visits to report sales.
His name was Bertie and he proved to be a short, fat, jovial faced man. Mildred had already told Adam that, as Bertie was seldom at home, he made no objection to her having friendships with other men; so he had heard from her all about her new `literary discovery' and gave Adam a hearty welcome.
In fact Adam found it embarrassingly hearty, for the exuberant Bertie not only plied him with much more gin than he was used to, but slapped him on the back, referred to him as his wife's new `boy friend' and proceeded to launch into his latest repertoire of questionable stories.
Mildred, failing to head him off, looked down her well modelled little nose with obvious disapproval, and it was evident to Adam that any great affection that might once have existed between the couple had long since been dissipated.
At their next meeting, Mildred confided to Adam that she had good reason to believe that Bertie was unfaithful to her during his absences in the north and that they continued together only as a matter of convenience. He liked to be able to return to a comfortable home of his own to which he could invite his friends, while she was the gainer by the generous allowance he made her and by living in a better flat than she could otherwise have afforded.
Meanwhile, as the manuscript of Adam's second book had not yet gone to press she had been through it with a tooth comb, cutting out many of the passages about the sea and expanding those concerning the love interest. He did not approve all her alterations, but accepted them because she assured him that she knew best. People, she said, did not want to read long descriptions of tempests and ill feeling between ship's officers; they had, to her mind, a childlike absorption in sexual urges and the moves that eventually led to people getting into bed together.
Nine months later, owing largely to Mildred's connections, Adam was making quite a good income. It was not spectacular and, with Scottish caution, he refused to abandon his bed sitter in Wandsworth for better quarters; but he had been able to refurnish his seedy wardrobe with new and smarter clothes and, more and more frequently, take Mildred out to dinner and a theatre or movie.
At last the big day came when The Sea and the Siren was published. That night, to celebrate, they dined and danced at the Savoy. Afterwards he took her back to her flat and went in for a last drink. It was a very long time since he had had his affaire with Polly and in recent months he had increasingly toyed with the idea of trying to find a girl whom he could care for and who would
be willing to take him as her lover. Mildred had given him the
impression that she despised that sort of thing, and he had never even kissed her. But that night both of them had drunk much more than they were accustomed to carry. On a sudden impulse he put his arms round her as they sat on the sofa. She protested, but only feebly. His caresses did not seem to rouse her and she refused his plea to undress and allow him to go to bed with her; but, eventually, still on the sofa, she let him have his way.
In the small hours of the morning he walked back from Chelsea to Wandsworth. He felt none of the elation he had experienced after his first night with Polly; only a relaxed feeling and a vague uneasiness about how the thing he had started might develop.