A Ladder to the Sky(57)

Arjan frowned, clearly confused by the question. ‘Shakespeare’s,’ he said.

‘No, I meant who played Hamlet?’ you said with a derisive sigh, and when he named the actor you shook your head and claimed that you’d never heard of him, even though I knew you had. We’d watched him in a mini-series not so long before and both thought he was rather good.

‘I’ve done some other classical theatre too,’ said Arjan. ‘I played Perkin Warbeck at the Royal Exchange, Manchester, and Bonario in Volpone at the Edinburgh Festival. And last year I played McCann in The Birthday Party, although I didn’t get great reviews for that.’

‘Oh yes?’ you asked, smirking. ‘Why was that?’

‘The critics said I was too young for the part. It’s meant for a much older man. Someone your age, I think.’

I was taking a drink of my wine when he said this and almost snorted it out when I saw the expression on your face.

‘Well, I’m not an actor,’ you said, after a lengthy pause. ‘I prefer to create the words, not just stand on a stage and parrot them like a … like a …’ You struggled to finish the simile.

‘Like a parrot?’ suggested Rebecca, delighted by how her lover had scored such an easy victory over you.

‘Actually, I read your novel,’ continued Arjan, and it seemed that he’d built up his confidence now. We both looked up to see which one of us he was talking to.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘You didn’t have to.’

‘I didn’t read it because I was meeting you today. I’d already read it before I met Rebecca. Maybe two years ago? I liked it very much.’

‘What did you like about it exactly?’ you asked, and I turned to look at you, surprised by the question. Were you trying to catch him out in a lie, was that it?

‘I liked the story,’ he replied. ‘I liked the characters. And I liked the way it was written.’

‘Could you be a little more specific?’ you asked, and I felt my stomach sink, certain that, having given such a bland response, the chances were that he couldn’t be. ‘You see, it’s always helpful for a writer to know which passages particularly impressed a reader. We’re such bad judges of our own work.’

He looked at you silently for a few moments and I could see that he knew you were trying to take him down a peg or two. You held each other’s gaze before he turned back to me, placing his wine glass down on the table.

‘The moment where the girl takes her uncle’s car,’ he said. ‘And she’s been drinking and crashes into a ditch. The doors, they were …’ He thought about it. ‘What’s the word? They couldn’t open the doors because they were squashed between two trees, yes?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘I liked the tension in that scene. And when she climbed into the back seat to escape. I did something like that myself once. Took my uncle’s car, I mean, without him knowing. And I was in a crash. The girl I was with, a girl I liked very much, she was badly injured. And she never forgave me.’

‘What happened to her?’ I asked.

‘The windscreen smashed and hundreds of slivers of glass went into her face. She needed a lot of surgery.’

‘And did it work?’ I asked. ‘The surgery, I mean?’

‘Yes, but there were still some scars. Anyway, I liked this passage very much. You write about fear very well.’

‘Well, that is the title of the novel, after all,’ you muttered irritably. ‘Fear.’

‘Yes, but the novel isn’t really about that, is it?’ continued Arjan. ‘In fact, I think the novel has very little to do with fear. In my view, it’s about bravery.’

‘You’re very perceptive,’ I said. ‘Not everyone recognizes that.’

‘I wouldn’t be too flattered,’ said Rebecca. ‘As an actor, Arjan is obviously very interested in literature, so he reads a lot.’

‘Something tells me that when you were in school, you were the boy who always came to class well prepared,’ you commented, and I threw you a look, annoyed by your peevishness.

‘I suppose I was,’ admitted Arjan, refusing to rise to your bait. ‘I wanted to pass my exams and to—’

‘Yes, yes,’ you said, dismissing him now with a wave of your hand.

‘Rebecca tells me that you used to be a writer too,’ said Arjan, and I winced at his choice of words.

‘I beg your pardon?’ you said.

‘She says that you wrote a novel once,’ he replied.

‘I’ve written two actually,’ you told him, and Six, I thought.

‘There must be some competition between you then?’ he asked, looking back and forth between us, and I shook my head.

‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘Nothing like that. My husband has been publishing much longer than I have and is highly respected. I’m pretty new to it all.’

‘And yet your book was such a success,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I admitted, for once wanting to accept the compliment. ‘Yes, it was.’

‘It’s your use of the past tense that bothers me,’ you said.

‘I don’t understand this?’ said Arjan, narrowing his eyes.

‘You mentioned that I used to be a writer. I didn’t used to be anything. I am.’