People LIke Her(38)

I sent off what I had at five on Friday, accompanied by an apologetic email. All weekend I’ve been checking to see if she’s acknowledged receipt, to see if she’s read any of it yet, to see if she likes it. Nothing. I’m tempted to drop her a line just to make sure she got it—and maybe, while I’m at it, to ask her casually if she has any initial thoughts—but I manage to restrain myself.

One good thing about being a parent and a writer, I suppose, is that there’s always something to distract you from obsessing about things like that.

There was obviously no question of letting Coco go into nursery this morning. There is no question of letting her go back to that nursery ever again, in fact. Which is just great, given how hard it was to find a place at a nursery—to find any kind of reliable childcare—in our part of London. Nor is this the ideal day for something like this to blow up, if I’m perfectly honest. I remind Emmy that I have this lunch thing. She reminds me that she has the You Glow Mama Awards. I call my mum. She’s driving her eighty-year-old neighbor Derek for a checkup on his leg at the hospital, and then waiting around to drive him home again. I suggest we call Emmy’s mum. For a moment, Emmy looks as though she’s actually considering this, which shows the level of desperation we have reached.

My phone pings, and it’s a text from my mum saying she could make it over to the house by about four, if that would be of any help to us. The truth is no, not really.

All this time, Coco’s wandering around the house kicking at things and twirling on her heel and doing big, exasperated sighs and asking why she can’t go to nursery and see her friends. She’s already made it very clear she doesn’t want to go to an awards thing with Emmy, screwing up her face and baring her teeth and shaking her head with such vigor when Emmy suggests it that at one point she loses her balance and goes stumbling in the direction of the wall. “Be careful, Coco,” I say as I step in and catch her.

“No,” she tells me firmly, stomping away unsteadily. “No, no, no, no, no.”

By the time Winter walks through the door, my daughter is on the verge of throwing a full-on tantrum.

“I could babysit,” she suggests eventually, looking terrified.

Even as Emmy is checking that she really means it, my wife’s eyes meet mine and silently ask me whether this is okay, whether this is the right thing to do, whether we are going to regret this. In reply, I offer whatever the facial equivalent of a shrug is. I mean, surely, even Winter is capable of making a sandwich and taking a four-year-old to the park up the road. We both thank her profusely and fly out the door.

I end up getting to the restaurant right on time—although this does involve my running most of the way to the Tube and then making my way from King’s Cross station to the restaurant at a fairly urgent jog-trot. The greeting from my editor is encouragingly enthusiastic. I get a big wave as I am being led over to her, a wide smile. When I get to the table, I get an actual hug.

“Dan,” she says, tilting her head slightly to one side, looking me up and down, still smiling.

The waiter pulls my seat back. I sit down in it.

“It has been much too long, hasn’t it?” says my editor.

I answer affirmatively. Does this mean she liked what I sent? She certainly seems a lot friendlier than the last time we met, when she turned up late, informed me she needed to be back in the office in three-quarters of an hour, and spent the whole time eyeing her watch. This time around it’s like she’s a different person—or I am. In my chest, something a little like hope flutters. She tells me what starter she is ordering, mentions that she’ll have something light for her main course because she wants to leave some room for dessert. It’s really the desserts that this place is famous for, she informs me. Should we be naughty and have a glass of wine? She says she will if I will. I say I will if she will. She beckons the waiter over and orders something from quite some distance down the menu.

It is a lovely lunch. We talk about the latest changes of personnel and structure at the company, the latest trends in the book world. She mentions a couple of novels they are bringing out soon that she thinks I’ll like and promises to send them to me.

It’s only over the dessert menus that the editor brings up Emmy. She is, she tells me, a great admirer of Mamabare’s writing. It’s so funny, so fresh, so real, she says. It’s so authentic. I make some joke about it being pretty different from the kind of writing I do. She smiles faintly. “How many followers does Emmy have these days?” she asks me. I tell her, rounding up to the nearest thousand, as per the last time I checked. She asks if Emmy has ever thought about writing something like a novel, or a memoir. I say I don’t think so. I take a long sip of wine. Am I sure? She’s convinced Emmy would be a natural at it, that it would be something people would really love to read. Maybe I should suggest it to her. Maybe I should put the two of them in touch. She’d love to hear any ideas Emmy might have.

I’m tempted to ask why, if she wants to talk to Emmy about writing, it was me she invited to lunch.

Or to ask when it was she discovered I am married to the inspirational Emmy Jackson, a slim volume of whose hastily transcribed brain farts, padded out with a load of photos and whacked out in time (I assume) for Mother’s Day, would clearly be a far more commercially exciting proposition than the novel I have been pouring my heart and soul into week after week for the best part of the last decade.