|
Extract from Falling Backwards...
Excerpt from chapter in which all my characters go to a publishing
party....
We took the tube from Charing Cross and emerged into the icy
night with its usual London halo of orange. My brief explanation
to my mother as to where I was going did not include mention
of a trip into the city; I'd only called from the door that I
was going out. But once we were on Tottenham Court Road, ploughing
through the crowds in our thin dresses with our coats open (me
in my school goat, Lea in a leather Mac) and our bags flapping
against us, I felt a new lightness. I felt as though I'd
been waiting for a night like this all of my life, ever since
childhood folded up behind me and the long stretch to adult life
loomed ahead. I followed Lea, who darted and skipped, and
generally raced to the bookshop, which I did not see until we
were practically on the doorstep, being ushered inside by a man
in a duck-down coat who held open the door.
''Oh, good, it's packed,'' Lea said.
She was right, judging from the number of bodies inside the
shop James could count himself among the lucky authors whose
launches are a success. It helped that the shop was small
to begin with and that the many tables and display racks of novels,
travel guides, Penguin Classics and bestseller dumpbins meant
available floorspace was at a premium.
There was a sense of this being a party in transition, the champagne
came in plastic glasses and not a single guest removed his overcoat. Some
even held on to their satchels or maintained throughout the evening
a copy of the Guardian pinched between elbow and rib. But the
faces were enthusiastic and young, remarkably young. The
men wore rimless spectacles and cotton shirts in ridiculous patterns,
or Doc Martens and faded jeans. The women were either in
jeans and boots or dresses of the sort that Lea - and for tonight,
myself - might wear. I don't suspect anybody was as young
as seventeen, or showed up in their school coat as I did, but
it was nothing like the Christmas parties I'd been to with Mother.
Nobody wore a corsage, for example. And the ambience had
not been attended to. There's been no concern over the
right lighting, the perfect not-too-intrusive music, the strategic
placement of chairs and sofa. The launch was a crowd of
people beneath fluorescent strip lights, talking at each other
over their flimsy plastic drink glasses, their skin flushed with
the heat of standing indoors, close together, in winter gear.
There was a cloud of cigarette smoke thick as butter, no place
to sit or even lean, the windows had long since steamed up and
were now dripping with the moisture of so many exhaling humans
in a building that originated long before ventilation systems
had been dreamt of. Someone figured out to open a few of those
windows, and then the door was propped open with a box of hardbacks. It
was a great relief to breathe in air from the street because
the cigarette smoke was making me feel light-headed and I'd begun
to find it difficult to focus on the guy I was talking with -
he seemed terribly sophisticated to me, but he was apparently
all of twenty three - whose curly hair bobbed in front of me
as he described something about the university he'd been to or
perhaps it was the surroundings of the college, a plain or moor
or vale that was quite famous. He mumbled and spoke into
his drink, while I smiled and nodded and tried, without making
it appear I was doing so, to catch sight of Lea or James.
''Phenomenal aftertaste, almost like sulphur,'' he said, another
mystery sentence that I could pin to no specific topic, then
he pointed over my shoulder and disappeared abruptly, I had no
idea where.
I finally caught sight of James, who was wearing his usual tweed
jack and jeans and standing about ten yards and dozens of people
away from me. I called his name but my voice sunk into
the din of the party. He might as well have been on the other
side of the country; there was no getting near him. I did
not know that this was unusual - if not impossible - for a writer's
first novel to get the kind of attention that James's was apparently
revelling in, so I did not question why so many people were there.
Only later did I discover that Lea had convinced her entire orchestra, and two
other orchestras with which she had some small connection, to
appear that night in honour of James's book. If I'd been
able to hear any of the conversations around me I might have
noticed that the topics did not so much focus on who was doing
what paperback, the impact of the Booker nomination on a particular
title's sales or when a much-hyped anthology was due to be published,
but on the latest, best, or most collectible rendition of Mahler's
Fifth.
I was surrounded by musicians but could not have taken in this
information, anymore than I could understand what - what in
hell - my young man with the curls was talking about. He'd
returned - apparently he'd only ventured away to bring me a drink,
which I downed in short order out of a combination of thirst
and nervousness - and sent him packing off through the crowd
to get another. When he returned for the third time I knew
his name - Geoff - but with the infusion of alcohol and the continuing
noise of the party, I still could not follow his conversation.
''Absolutely top rate but you must get there early,'' he said,
about what I could not guess. It did not matter. I was
standing among adults at a party talking to a man and that was
all that mattered...
|
