After writing four novels between 2020-22, only one of which finding a publisher, I stopped. I have not written any fiction for over two years. The short story below is my first attempt at finding a path back to writing. If you find it interesting please let me know in the comments below. If you think others would like to read it, please share it on your socials. (If you hate it, fight me.)
The Collaborators
by John Purcell (5000 words. A 15-30min read)
Oh, shit. I can’t afford this room.
These were his first rational thoughts on waking. His dreams had been especially fraught. The reality of his situation played itself out in ridiculous scenarios, keeping his anxiety on the boil while he slept.
The room was very dark. He wasn’t sure if it was the result of blackout blinds or whether he was awake before dawn. He could just about hear traffic noises from the street below. Was London stirring?
He remembered layout of the room. He would never forget the room. He would never forget the night. Or the past six weeks in the studio. Or the three months communicating by letter.
But last night it had all gone to his head.
Without moving he scanned what he could see of the room. His clothes were the darker lumps scattered across the lighter carpet between the bed and the ensuite. His phone was not on the bedside table which meant it was in the pocket of his trousers. Out of reach. He shifted slightly to see if he could reach but he was too afraid to wake her, so gave up.
They had been drunk. But not on booze. They had been caught up in their own genius. They had consummated their collaboration, something that was clearly forbidden. And he was ashamed and afraid.
There was no hiding it, either. It had all happened out in the open. He had been obsessed with her from the moment he received her first handwritten letter. Obsessed, but not like this. He hadn’t been interested in her sexually. Someone famous, someone undeniably cool had noticed him, was interested in him. He had shared all her letters with his wife. They had both been excited by her attention.
Before the letters he had only had a passing interest in her. Among a collection of five hundred CDs were two of her albums from the late nineties. Boxed up and not played since the noughties when he got his iPod. None of her work was in his Spotify library. He had always admired her; she was an enduring artist in an age of one hit wonders, but she had dropped off his radar.
He had been surprised and delighted by her initial letter. She told him they shared the same publisher and that’s how she got his home address. He’d never considered her part of his world. The literary world. He hadn’t known she had published books of poetry. But then lyrics were poems of a kind. Hers certainly were. But not good poems, he had his publisher send him copies of her books. She wasn’t someone anyone he knew took seriously as a poet, though she was the kind of musician they would listen to.
She stirred in the bed beside him. Even though his back was to her, he closed his eyes. Not really sure why it would matter if she found him awake.
That first letter reached him when his most recent book was being described by his own readers as impossible to understand. But her letter praised the book effusively and showed that she understood what he had been doing. Their correspondence was largely the meeting of two great readers. They shared quotes and recommended books and enthused over authors they both admired.
That’s where it should have stayed. On paper.
She was ten years older than he was, he discovered when he googled her. Twelve years older than his wife, Lucy. Forty-five years older than his son, Aaron.
He needed to pee. He couldn’t lie in bed. He needed to get home.
He felt sure Lucy would understand. They were both literary people, who knew nothing was black and white, that human relations lived in greyscale. She would see that it was a stupid mistake, the result of an infatuation, a frail ego. Or at least pretend to. If he told her the truth, that is.
Lucy had known the risks involved. She had even revealed her trajectory of her thoughts a week before when she tried to clear the air, referring to George Clooney facetiously as her ‘hall pass’.
She could plainly see the power this famous woman had over her husband. The need to get the album done had been all consuming. He was ordered down to the estate in Cornwall at a moment’s notice. And he dropped everything and went. He was bewitched by the project and by the artist. And Lucy knew how it was done. She knew because she had been caught up in it when she went down to the estate in Cornwall herself and watched the band in the studio. For two nights Lucy had been the centre of attention. An honoured guest. The wife of the writer. Her eyes had widened, she had gotten drunk on it all, too.
Lucy knew how easily it could happen. She would forgive him. Their love was bigger than this hiccup. It wasn’t real. Their marriage was real. This wasn’t.
But he knew it wasn’t pretend. Those were his trousers on the floor. That was her breathing he could hear. She was not his ‘hall pass’. This was adultery. He couldn’t run from it. He couldn’t hide it.
The evidence was mounting as he lay inert. Too frightened to move.
He would have to pay the bill for the room, for one. A large, unexpected sum would upset their well-regulated monthly spend. Everything had always been tightly budgeted. Every penny counted. You don’t live as they have lived without being thrifty. Their entire twenties were spent studying in different institutions living like paupers while racking up huge student debts.
He hated to think how much the room cost. What had he been thinking?
But he hadn’t been. Not with the frugal part of the brain that got him through university, then later, her PhD, then belatedly, while Lucy was pregnant, his own PhD. And through Aaron’s first year when they were both writing and neither of them were earning a thing.
He had been using the part of his brain that had written the four short books that had made his name. Confident works by an artist in full command of language and his art, said The Guardian. The books that the rock star lying naked beside him had read, and written to him about, one of which, Gambit, had inspired the album she had just wrapped up. The album they had celebrated in style last night. The celebrated author and the rock star. He was in his predicament because of that part of his brain, the artist part, which was most susceptible to flattery.
And last night over dinner in front of her people she had spoken of turning his latest and least successful novel, Yodel, into an opera. An opera.
That’s who booked them into the very expensive, very exclusive boutique hotel on a whim, the artist. Taking the only available room, a suite, with the nonchalance of a commercially successful writer, which he knew he wasn’t and would never be, no matter what was whispered into his ear late last night in the middle of their indulgent erotic encounter.
His successes were of that ethereal kind, praise, respect, the adulation of a select, tiny portion of the reading public. And a few prizes. Not the big ones, with life changing prize money, but the smaller more prestigious ones, with none. On debut he enjoyed two-page spreads in nearly all the papers (even those he despised) and was universally hailed as the genius of the age (Lucy said it was because his first book was very short - meaning it went to the top of every literary editor’s pile and was actually read - cover to cover). Invitations to all the literary festivals around the world followed.
After the publication of his second book, Gambit, a love story - which briefly touched the firmament with a strong first week of sales, before plummeting out of sight - he toured for a year. His sales continued to be slow, but his reputation saw exponential growth. He had gone from panel member to the keynote speaker at literary festivals. But for a year he barely wrote a word.
Even after four well received books, the financial rewards were moderate. After adding up all the speaker’s fees, the odd paid article, advances, library monies and festival fees he made as much annually as a barista in Waterstones, which is slightly more than their booksellers make.
The hotel’s double-glazed windows couldn’t block out the increasing volume of London getting on with its day. He guessed it was seven am. He had to go home. He had to face Lucy.
He pushed his head further into the decadent pillow and ran his hand slowly across the linen sheet. He wasn’t new to luxury. Some of the far-flung festivals he had attended put him up in accommodation he didn’t feel he warranted. For the last five years, while on tour, he had been in and out of four- and five-star hotels and luxury B&Bs. He’d also spent months at writers’ retreats in the US, Italy and Australia. But he had never had to pay for any of them. There had always been someone who took care of all that. His publisher appointed publicist, or the festival author liaison, or the wealthy benefactor who liked the company of writers. When it was over all he had had to do was pack and stroll through the lobby into the waiting car.
That might be a way out, he thought, rising slowly from the bed, naked. A sound behind him caused him to turn. She had rolled over, away from him. He crept to the bathroom and while he relieved himself, he thought of his publicist. She had been instrumental in bringing the rock star and author together. He would ask her to pay for the room until he could find a way to pay the publisher back.
He went in search of his phone. There were unread messages from Lucy. They always messaged before either went to bed. It wasn’t always possible but nine times out of ten it was. And he was only in London. Same time zone. No excuse. It was actually after eight, not seven. Which was worse.
He messaged his publicist, careful to use a different message app, he didn’t want his wife to see him as active yet.
In those first two or three years he and his publicist had spent more time on the road together than he had spent at home and there were few secrets between them. While he spent his time away from Lucy living like a monk, ignoring the very rare promise, real or imagined, of a no strings attached fling, his publicist hadn’t.
Her fiancé, completely oblivious to the repeated betrayals, waited out large chunks of the year alone in their studio apartment in Docklands playing video games and masturbating with her on facetime when she wasn’t otherwise detained.
Lucy had waited out the time with Aaron and her parents while fitting in freelance editing work for pennies and trying to find a publisher for her own experimental novels. There hadn’t been any facetime sex for them. It wasn’t how their relationship worked. They shared essays, sending links to each other to articles they admired, or derided, not photos of sex organs. All that longing and frustration they did actually feel was expressed in the first week of his short-lived return to base. Theirs was a passionate but intensely private relationship. Few public declarations, even their wedding was by the book, and certainly no public displays of affection. She was just as bad as he was. After spending much of their shared university life in an intense sexual relationship even their closest friends were surprised when on leaving university they moved in together. No one had known they even liked each other.
A message came back from his publicist. Done. But now I own you.
He stifled a laugh. Then a wave of relief swept over him. One obstacle removed. Only a million more to overcome.
He knew the best thing to do was to come clean and tell Lucy everything. If she left him, he would have deserved it. Their son, Aaron would do as he and Lucy had done when each of their parents had divorced, be torn in two and never feel completely safe or loved again. It hadn’t been that difficult.
He smiled grimly at the thought and then realised he was still naked and standing in the middle of the room, face lit by his phone, and she was awake and looking at him, her face lit by her phone.
Without a word she swept out of bed and into the bathroom. The light flicked on. Moments later he heard the shower, then her stream of pee hitting the waiting water below. He went to the open door of the bathroom as she flushed the toilet. She glanced at him then stepped into the shower and closed the glass door. He watched as she washed last night off her.
He supposed she was used to being watched. Lucy hated it. Would tell him off for observing her every move as she washed up or dressed. He liked to watch, to listen, to record everything. The door opened but she didn’t step out. Her hand extended towards him. He wasn’t drunk on anything, but he took her hand, and it began again.
***
He hadn’t smoked a cigarette in years, but here he was on the narrow hotel balcony with her feet in his lap, smoking and talking as if what had just happened, again, wasn’t the greatest betrayal of all. Just sitting with her on the balcony with her feet on his lap was a betrayal. Every intimacy he shared with her was.
He had only ever loved one person. Lucy. She had been all he had ever wanted. Was still all he would ever want. And yet here he was in a bathrobe with her feet in his lap and their occasional movements causing a stir which foreshadowed further betrayals ahead.
What the fuck was going on? Who was he? How rotten everything was. How rotten he was.
‘I am going to have to tell her, you know.’
‘Why would you tell her? Or anyone for that matter? If it comes up, lie. Lie boldly, lie well. Kill it dead before it festers.’
He stared at the roof of the building across the street. What she said was so rough and crude. Ugly, really. They really were from different worlds.
‘But the book is about trust, the whole album is about faith in that.’
‘It’s about truth more than trust. Truth of expression, not the mundane truths of cock and cunt. Man and wife. Up and down. Higher truth.’
‘Bullshit. We fucked up. We broke trust. We failed ourselves and our art. And we failed those we love and those who love us.’
‘Get over yourself.’ She lifted her feet off his lap and placed them on the ground. ‘Better to lie and get on with your life than blow it to bits which is what you would do by telling her. I have never thanked anyone for telling me.’
‘Who would cheat on you?’
‘I love that you mean that. But I have been cheated on all throughout my life. Artists are fuckers, musicians the worst of all. Lucy will suspect. That’s all. Deny, deny, deny. If it comes up. It most likely won’t. She, like me, is probably more afraid of the truth and will stay silent on the subject, happy to continue on in ignorance.’
He had nothing to say to that. He had walked open eyed into this situation, betrayed his wife’s trust and there was no honourable way out. The truth was a burden he didn’t want. But he had no right to offload it onto Lucy’s shoulders.
He stared at that famous face. It wasn’t the face from the album covers or the magazines. But it was unmistakably her. She pretended to be more interested in the ash that had fallen on her dressing gown. Or maybe she was more interested in the ash than the conundrum that he was facing.
How dull he must appear to her. How disappointing he must be the morning after with his anxieties and humdrum cares. For the past six weeks he had moved between the studio on her estate in Cornwall and the studio two blocks from where they were seated. With brief stints back at home. Her world was far from mundane. An album was the work of dozens of people. Most of them were artists in their own right. Fascinating people, reckless people, interesting people. But the album was finished. It was all over.
Even though his book was the source material, and it was going to be called Gambit after his book and marketed as a collaborative project between him, the darling of the literary world and her, independent music’s most awarded, innovative and enduring singer songwriter. His work was barely recognisable. A phrase or two of his had made it through the exhausting process unscathed. It was largely her creation though her partner had co-written most of the lyrics with her. Sometimes right in front of him. With no request for his input. Two or three phrases from a book of just under 50,000 words.
Her production team owned the rights to the film, too. And he had only recently discovered that his script had been rejected and another was being written independently of him.
And yet last night when they played the finished album end to end in the London studio to an audience of executives, he was exhilarated. Somehow, she had captured the book without direct references. It was a masterpiece. But her masterpiece.
In the bar afterwards, her hand had clasped his and hadn’t let go. As everything was breaking up and people were saying their goodbyes she had held him back. They had found another bar, and over unfinished drinks had spoken to each other about the work they had just listened to, about what they wanted to do in the future and what they wanted to do to each other.
Being the focus of her attention had flattered him. It was the first time in the six weeks that he hadn’t felt like a third wheel. Under her undivided gaze he had been knocked off his centre. She had even said, I did it all for you.
Throughout the nineties she had been an indie rock god, always evolving, winning and losing audiences with her constant changes. Then in the noughties she had burst into the mainstream briefly with an accessible radio friendly rock album, showing everyone that she could do anything. She sensibly bought lots of property on the proceeds, then retreated back and lost the wider audience with an album that cemented her position as an artist. Then came the albums of her maturity, deep reflective albums reaching far beyond her contemporary experience for which she was awarded prize after prize.
He hadn’t sold out with this collaboration as some of his peers had suggested. She was the greater artist. He had seen that in the studio. Her medium was just more accessible than his. Reading a book takes more time and attention than putting on an album. But a book is rarely read more than once, and in his medium an artist can get away with murder. An album will be listened to again and again and again. Repeated listening will discover all the faults. Somehow the artist has to make art that remains new and perfect for eternity.
He had to admit he had been listening to her music on Spotify on the long train journeys to and from Cornwall. He had gone through her whole backlist dozens of times. Three of her albums were regularly played on repeat. Since being thrown into her orbit even the albums he had once owned were different. More her, somehow. The lyrics had been popping into his head in her presence. Especially last night as she held his hand. And then afterwards. He couldn’t stop them if he had tried.
They weren’t great on their own, but combined with the heavy bass, driving rhythm, the tone of her voice, and the emphasis she put on them, then they were better than any poetry he had read. He felt them in him as they fucked. Like the music was essentially sex itself.
She got up and went inside. He could hear her ordering breakfast. More expense. Hopefully the publicist would take care of that, as well. He swivelled in his seat to watch her. After calling down she had picked up her phone and was scrolling. He honestly had no idea what was going on in her head. No clue.
After nearly fifteen years with Lucy, he felt he had some idea. Not enough. He always wanted more. But some. And it bound him more tightly to her. There was nothing here in this hotel room to bind him. But he liked the otherness of the woman on the bed. The strangeness of her. That ten years between them was observed on her skin, but also in the way she moved and thought. She gave no fucks. He was filled with nervous energy. She was herself, out and proud.
He lingered on the hotel because he knew this would never be repeated. He was only there because she had wanted him last night. He had served a purpose this morning and if anything else happened it would be because she initiated it. Why, he would never really know. Then she would go and that would be that. There would be no further invitations. That was something he knew about her at least. This was it. For her. A one-time thing.
They would be thrown together a lot in the next few months. They would be interviewed together. He would go to her London concerts. That had been arranged. He would read from the book on stage in front of thousands of confused people while she accompanied him on guitar.
Then there was the film. If it ever progressed beyond the script. So, he wouldn’t be out of her life, but he would be out of her bed. And it wouldn’t matter to her. And, he hoped, it wouldn’t matter to him.
So why do it at all? What was it all for? And why stay? Was her approval worth so much?
The doorbell buzzed. He went over and took hold of the large tray and brought it to the table. He was hoping for a fry up, but she had ordered pastries and coffee. She started to talk about Thomas Hardy. She had read an interview with him where he talked about the influence of Hardy’s poetry on his first book. That was what had first drawn her to his work. Then she told him something he had known months ago, that Hardy’s novels had been a big influence on her work. Though, having listened repeatedly to her albums since, he only caught slight echoes here and there.
He was famished and drank and ate his fair share and watched the remaining pastries until he felt that she had had enough time, then ate those, too.
She was saying how disappointing a recent re-read of Return of the Native had been. It had been her favourite. She had been put off re-reading any of the others, preferring to keep the fond memories of the novels. The poetry stood up. She had never stopped re-reading that.
He once again felt pushed back out of the way. Her personality overwhelmed his own. She was a force. Not loud or obnoxious but insistent. She took her place in the centre as a given. Not that she wasn’t curious. Her talk on Hardy wasn’t a lecture, she coaxed responses out of him. It was a discussion, but not in the manner he was used to taking part in. He realised he was taking more care than he would normally take. His friends were drenched in literature, were comfortable with their knowledge, sure of their interpretations, but he sensed she was not as comfortable. So, he pulled his punches.
If Lucy had been there, she would have kept quiet, too, he thought, but how she would laughed once they were alone. Lucy. There were unanswered messages from Lucy on his phone. The knowledge pressed against him. Had been pressing against him all morning.
He knew he would confess. It was a rotten thing to do. But for him the only thing to do. Their life together had been built on trust. It had been the guiding light of their art. Both their childhoods had been fractured and their relationship had given them back their faith in people.
Being honest would smash all that, but not being honest would, too. Sooner or later. It was inevitable. Theirs was a finely tuned partnership. The smallest changes were registered. Honesty was the only possible way forward. She may understand, like he hoped he would understand if she cheated. He’d always been liberal minded in theory. But would he understand though? In reality.
Lucy had worked as a publicist the first year out of university. She had been thrown together with many famous men. Often arriving home in the early hours of the morning. These were charismatic men, too, and she had been in her early twenties. Of course, he had been jealous. How would he feel if Lucy had come home to him saying, I’m not sure how it happened, it was the last thing I ever expected to do but somehow, I ended up sleeping with Boris Johnson. And I’m pregnant and I’m keeping it.
‘Why are you smiling?’
‘I was thinking about Boris Johnson fucking my wife.’
‘That’s an unpleasant thought.’
‘I know you’re right about all this. I should lie. But I can’t.’
‘More fool you.’
‘So, you’ll just waltz in and take up where you left off?’
‘No. It isn’t easy. Sometimes I feel like I will combust in the heat of the shame I feel. But it passes. What we share is greater than this sort of thing.’
‘This sort of thing.’
‘Yes. A sordid one-night stand with a near stranger.’
‘Sounds like you’re quite used to this sort of thing.’
‘Did you just slut shame me?’
‘I didn’t mean it like that.’
She laughed.
‘I am away for months at a time. Sometimes these things just happen. I deny myself ninety out of hundred opportunities. Occasionally I give in.’
He took comfort from this. That he was one of many. It lessened the burden on him. Took some of the responsibility from him. It was not actually true though.
‘I’m surprised this is your first. It is, isn’t it?’
He nodded.
‘You’ve been at this a while now. You get around. Lonely nights in hotels. Waking up and having to check your itinerary to work out where you are. Everyone is looking at you. Everyone wants to talk to you. You’re being pulled this way and that. No one has broken through and tempted you up to their room?’
‘None of that sounds like my experience. Being lonely, certainly, but not the rest. The literary world is not a sexy place.’
‘What about other writers? I can think a few I’d like to fuck. You’d go up to Zadie Smith’s room if asked, surely.’
Her phone rang. She answered it. It was her partner. She told him where she was, not who she was with. Then she proceeded to have an ordinary conversation with him, moving to the bed to get more comfortable.
The call lasted an hour. In that time, he had showered and dressed. He had plugged in his phone which was nearly dead and found the book he had been reading - he never went anywhere without a book - and took it into the balcony to read in the pale sunlight.
He wasn’t reading, though. He was listening. He stayed because he wasn’t meant to be there. He was firmly placed inside her private world. This was her unfiltered. When would an opportunity like this come again?
She and her partner discussed an upcoming family dinner, picking up her prescription, his new bicycle, the neighbour trimming their hedges for them, cleaning out the chicken coop, the email they both got from the studio bosses, and she read out an unfinished poem she had written which sounded a lot like a pen portrait of him and discussed what time her train would arrive in Cornwall.
What would he say if Lucy called? Could he pull all that off? Could he be nonchalant? No chance. If his phone rang and it was Lucy, he’d sooner throw himself off the balcony than face that test.
Coward. Swine. Adulterer. Liar. He would never write another true word. How could he? Liar. Liar. Not yet though. He hadn’t lied yet. He had put that off. It was eleven. Eleven. This was unprecedented behaviour. He knew the silence was speaking for him. But he couldn’t face the messages on his phone.
Her conversation ended. He went in and she ignored him, tapping something into her phone. Her robe had dropped open. Her breasts were partly exposed. He picked up his phone. There was a new message from Lucy. He had counted four. But to find out if there were more, he would have to look and by looking she would know and that would be that. He sat on the bed and then lay down. She had been sitting cross legged but now she lifted her bare legs and lay them over him.
‘You’re very dressed.’
‘I have to go.’
‘So go.’
Her brutality shocked him. He closed his eyes.
‘I don’t think you want to go.’
He didn’t say anything.
‘I think I was the fuck off your life, and you will follow me to the ends of the earth. Cuntstruck.’
He remained silent.
‘I think everything up until now is meaningless. I think you’re wondering how you used to get on without me. I think you’ve forgotten how to be you.’
He laughed.
‘You might be right.’
‘I usually am. So, what will you do? Go and try to remember how to be you? Or stay and find out who you could be?’
‘What are you saying?’
‘I can’t leave here in the clothes I walked in wearing. I have arranged to have some clothes sent. They’ll be here in a couple of hours. I am saying stay and see what happens.’
He raised his hands to his face.
‘We could stay another night. Another two nights. We could stay the week in this room. Be rock’n’roll. Or we could go to Paris. Be poets. We could spend a month together. Be lovers. That would make everything worthwhile.’
‘Everything?’
‘Well, if you tell her what we’ve done your marriage is over and for what? A one-night stand? If you’re gonna fuck up your life, you might as well stay and fuck me until you die of exhaustion. Don’t you think?’
‘I have to go.’
Without another word he gathered his things and left. She was laughing as he went.
‘I’ll still be here when you come back,’ she said, through the closing door.
When he checked out it was explained that the room had been paid for. He told them his partner had a later train and would check out by two. He almost ran to the tube station. No phone coverage under the ground. He had time to come to a decision. He had to take a step. To lie or not to lie. It was only once he was on the high street of the satellite town where his parents-in-law lived, where he had lived with Lucy and Aaron since the pandemic, that he felt brave enough to open her messages.
First one:
When will you be home?
Second one:
?
Third one:
I hope you’re alright.
The first three had all been sent last night.
The fourth one:
It doesn’t take a genius to work out what happened last night. I am far from surprised. But even so, I thought we meant more to you than that. Don’t bother coming home. I’ll have your things boxed and ready to send to you once you’ve worked out what you’re doing. It’s not the great wrench it might have been. Since Gambit was published you haven’t been the same. You’ve barely been here and when you have been here you were always writing, which means long absences even when you’re standing right in front of us. So, no, it won’t be that difficult. Not for Aaron either. We’ve been just fine without you before; we’ll be fine when you’re gone more permanently. As you see I’ve given this a lot of thought. I’m surprised you held out this long. I am disappointed I held out. I love you, you are probably, annoyingly, the love of my life, but I won’t sacrifice myself to that love and I certainly won’t sacrifice Aaron. Go be brilliant elsewhere, we’ll be fine.’
He took no further steps.
About the author
John Purcell is the author of five published works of fiction. The Secret Lives of Emma trilogy published by Penguin Random House and The Lessons and The Girl on the Page published by 4th Estate.
by John Purcell (5000 words. A 15-30min read)
Oh, shit. I can’t afford this room.
These were his first rational thoughts on waking. His dreams had been especially fraught. The reality of his situation played itself out in ridiculous scenarios, keeping his anxiety on the boil while he slept.
The room was very dark. He wasn’t sure if it was the result of blackout blinds or whether he was awake before dawn. He could just about hear traffic noises from the street below. Was London stirring?
He remembered layout of the room. He would never forget the room. He would never forget the night. Or the past six weeks in the studio. Or the three months communicating by letter.
But last night it had all gone to his head.
Without moving he scanned what he could see of the room. His clothes were the darker lumps scattered across the lighter carpet between the bed and the ensuite. His phone was not on the bedside table which meant it was in the pocket of his trousers. Out of reach. He shifted slightly to see if he could reach but he was too afraid to wake her, so gave up.
They had been drunk. But not on booze. They had been caught up in their own genius. They had consummated their collaboration, something that was clearly forbidden. And he was ashamed and afraid.
There was no hiding it, either. It had all happened out in the open. He had been obsessed with her from the moment he received her first handwritten letter. Obsessed, but not like this. He hadn’t been interested in her sexually. Someone famous, someone undeniably cool had noticed him, was interested in him. He had shared all her letters with his wife. They had both been excited by her attention.
Before the letters he had only had a passing interest in her. Among a collection of five hundred CDs were two of her albums from the late nineties. Boxed up and not played since the noughties when he got his iPod. None of her work was in his Spotify library. He had always admired her; she was an enduring artist in an age of one hit wonders, but she had dropped off his radar.
He had been surprised and delighted by her initial letter. She told him they shared the same publisher and that’s how she got his home address. He’d never considered her part of his world. The literary world. He hadn’t known she had published books of poetry. But then lyrics were poems of a kind. Hers certainly were. But not good poems, he had his publisher send him copies of her books. She wasn’t someone anyone he knew took seriously as a poet, though she was the kind of musician they would listen to.
She stirred in the bed beside him. Even though his back was to her, he closed his eyes. Not really sure why it would matter if she found him awake.
That first letter reached him when his most recent book was being described by his own readers as impossible to understand. But her letter praised the book effusively and showed that she understood what he had been doing. Their correspondence was largely the meeting of two great readers. They shared quotes and recommended books and enthused over authors they both admired.
That’s where it should have stayed. On paper.
She was ten years older than he was, he discovered when he googled her. Twelve years older than his wife, Lucy. Forty-five years older than his son, Aaron.
He needed to pee. He couldn’t lie in bed. He needed to get home.
He felt sure Lucy would understand. They were both literary people, who knew nothing was black and white, that human relations lived in greyscale. She would see that it was a stupid mistake, the result of an infatuation, a frail ego. Or at least pretend to. If he told her the truth, that is.
Lucy had known the risks involved. She had even revealed her trajectory of her thoughts a week before when she tried to clear the air, referring to George Clooney facetiously as her ‘hall pass’.
She could plainly see the power this famous woman had over her husband. The need to get the album done had been all consuming. He was ordered down to the estate in Cornwall at a moment’s notice. And he dropped everything and went. He was bewitched by the project and by the artist. And Lucy knew how it was done. She knew because she had been caught up in it when she went down to the estate in Cornwall herself and watched the band in the studio. For two nights Lucy had been the centre of attention. An honoured guest. The wife of the writer. Her eyes had widened, she had gotten drunk on it all, too.
Lucy knew how easily it could happen. She would forgive him. Their love was bigger than this hiccup. It wasn’t real. Their marriage was real. This wasn’t.
But he knew it wasn’t pretend. Those were his trousers on the floor. That was her breathing he could hear. She was not his ‘hall pass’. This was adultery. He couldn’t run from it. He couldn’t hide it.
The evidence was mounting as he lay inert. Too frightened to move.
He would have to pay the bill for the room, for one. A large, unexpected sum would upset their well-regulated monthly spend. Everything had always been tightly budgeted. Every penny counted. You don’t live as they have lived without being thrifty. Their entire twenties were spent studying in different institutions living like paupers while racking up huge student debts.
He hated to think how much the room cost. What had he been thinking?
But he hadn’t been. Not with the frugal part of the brain that got him through university, then later, her PhD, then belatedly, while Lucy was pregnant, his own PhD. And through Aaron’s first year when they were both writing and neither of them were earning a thing.
He had been using the part of his brain that had written the four short books that had made his name. Confident works by an artist in full command of language and his art, said The Guardian. The books that the rock star lying naked beside him had read, and written to him about, one of which, Gambit, had inspired the album she had just wrapped up. The album they had celebrated in style last night. The celebrated author and the rock star. He was in his predicament because of that part of his brain, the artist part, which was most susceptible to flattery.
And last night over dinner in front of her people she had spoken of turning his latest and least successful novel, Yodel, into an opera. An opera.
That’s who booked them into the very expensive, very exclusive boutique hotel on a whim, the artist. Taking the only available room, a suite, with the nonchalance of a commercially successful writer, which he knew he wasn’t and would never be, no matter what was whispered into his ear late last night in the middle of their indulgent erotic encounter.
His successes were of that ethereal kind, praise, respect, the adulation of a select, tiny portion of the reading public. And a few prizes. Not the big ones, with life changing prize money, but the smaller more prestigious ones, with none. On debut he enjoyed two-page spreads in nearly all the papers (even those he despised) and was universally hailed as the genius of the age (Lucy said it was because his first book was very short - meaning it went to the top of every literary editor’s pile and was actually read - cover to cover). Invitations to all the literary festivals around the world followed.
After the publication of his second book, Gambit, a love story - which briefly touched the firmament with a strong first week of sales, before plummeting out of sight - he toured for a year. His sales continued to be slow, but his reputation saw exponential growth. He had gone from panel member to the keynote speaker at literary festivals. But for a year he barely wrote a word.
Even after four well received books, the financial rewards were moderate. After adding up all the speaker’s fees, the odd paid article, advances, library monies and festival fees he made as much annually as a barista in Waterstones, which is slightly more than their booksellers make.
The hotel’s double-glazed windows couldn’t block out the increasing volume of London getting on with its day. He guessed it was seven am. He had to go home. He had to face Lucy.
He pushed his head further into the decadent pillow and ran his hand slowly across the linen sheet. He wasn’t new to luxury. Some of the far-flung festivals he had attended put him up in accommodation he didn’t feel he warranted. For the last five years, while on tour, he had been in and out of four- and five-star hotels and luxury B&Bs. He’d also spent months at writers’ retreats in the US, Italy and Australia. But he had never had to pay for any of them. There had always been someone who took care of all that. His publisher appointed publicist, or the festival author liaison, or the wealthy benefactor who liked the company of writers. When it was over all he had had to do was pack and stroll through the lobby into the waiting car.
That might be a way out, he thought, rising slowly from the bed, naked. A sound behind him caused him to turn. She had rolled over, away from him. He crept to the bathroom and while he relieved himself, he thought of his publicist. She had been instrumental in bringing the rock star and author together. He would ask her to pay for the room until he could find a way to pay the publisher back.
He went in search of his phone. There were unread messages from Lucy. They always messaged before either went to bed. It wasn’t always possible but nine times out of ten it was. And he was only in London. Same time zone. No excuse. It was actually after eight, not seven. Which was worse.
He messaged his publicist, careful to use a different message app, he didn’t want his wife to see him as active yet.
In those first two or three years he and his publicist had spent more time on the road together than he had spent at home and there were few secrets between them. While he spent his time away from Lucy living like a monk, ignoring the very rare promise, real or imagined, of a no strings attached fling, his publicist hadn’t.
Her fiancé, completely oblivious to the repeated betrayals, waited out large chunks of the year alone in their studio apartment in Docklands playing video games and masturbating with her on facetime when she wasn’t otherwise detained.
Lucy had waited out the time with Aaron and her parents while fitting in freelance editing work for pennies and trying to find a publisher for her own experimental novels. There hadn’t been any facetime sex for them. It wasn’t how their relationship worked. They shared essays, sending links to each other to articles they admired, or derided, not photos of sex organs. All that longing and frustration they did actually feel was expressed in the first week of his short-lived return to base. Theirs was a passionate but intensely private relationship. Few public declarations, even their wedding was by the book, and certainly no public displays of affection. She was just as bad as he was. After spending much of their shared university life in an intense sexual relationship even their closest friends were surprised when on leaving university they moved in together. No one had known they even liked each other.
A message came back from his publicist. Done. But now I own you.
He stifled a laugh. Then a wave of relief swept over him. One obstacle removed. Only a million more to overcome.
He knew the best thing to do was to come clean and tell Lucy everything. If she left him, he would have deserved it. Their son, Aaron would do as he and Lucy had done when each of their parents had divorced, be torn in two and never feel completely safe or loved again. It hadn’t been that difficult.
He smiled grimly at the thought and then realised he was still naked and standing in the middle of the room, face lit by his phone, and she was awake and looking at him, her face lit by her phone.
Without a word she swept out of bed and into the bathroom. The light flicked on. Moments later he heard the shower, then her stream of pee hitting the waiting water below. He went to the open door of the bathroom as she flushed the toilet. She glanced at him then stepped into the shower and closed the glass door. He watched as she washed last night off her.
He supposed she was used to being watched. Lucy hated it. Would tell him off for observing her every move as she washed up or dressed. He liked to watch, to listen, to record everything. The door opened but she didn’t step out. Her hand extended towards him. He wasn’t drunk on anything, but he took her hand, and it began again.
***
He hadn’t smoked a cigarette in years, but here he was on the narrow hotel balcony with her feet in his lap, smoking and talking as if what had just happened, again, wasn’t the greatest betrayal of all. Just sitting with her on the balcony with her feet on his lap was a betrayal. Every intimacy he shared with her was.
He had only ever loved one person. Lucy. She had been all he had ever wanted. Was still all he would ever want. And yet here he was in a bathrobe with her feet in his lap and their occasional movements causing a stir which foreshadowed further betrayals ahead.
What the fuck was going on? Who was he? How rotten everything was. How rotten he was.
‘I am going to have to tell her, you know.’
‘Why would you tell her? Or anyone for that matter? If it comes up, lie. Lie boldly, lie well. Kill it dead before it festers.’
He stared at the roof of the building across the street. What she said was so rough and crude. Ugly, really. They really were from different worlds.
‘But the book is about trust, the whole album is about faith in that.’
‘It’s about truth more than trust. Truth of expression, not the mundane truths of cock and cunt. Man and wife. Up and down. Higher truth.’
‘Bullshit. We fucked up. We broke trust. We failed ourselves and our art. And we failed those we love and those who love us.’
‘Get over yourself.’ She lifted her feet off his lap and placed them on the ground. ‘Better to lie and get on with your life than blow it to bits which is what you would do by telling her. I have never thanked anyone for telling me.’
‘Who would cheat on you?’
‘I love that you mean that. But I have been cheated on all throughout my life. Artists are fuckers, musicians the worst of all. Lucy will suspect. That’s all. Deny, deny, deny. If it comes up. It most likely won’t. She, like me, is probably more afraid of the truth and will stay silent on the subject, happy to continue on in ignorance.’
He had nothing to say to that. He had walked open eyed into this situation, betrayed his wife’s trust and there was no honourable way out. The truth was a burden he didn’t want. But he had no right to offload it onto Lucy’s shoulders.
He stared at that famous face. It wasn’t the face from the album covers or the magazines. But it was unmistakably her. She pretended to be more interested in the ash that had fallen on her dressing gown. Or maybe she was more interested in the ash than the conundrum that he was facing.
How dull he must appear to her. How disappointing he must be the morning after with his anxieties and humdrum cares. For the past six weeks he had moved between the studio on her estate in Cornwall and the studio two blocks from where they were seated. With brief stints back at home. Her world was far from mundane. An album was the work of dozens of people. Most of them were artists in their own right. Fascinating people, reckless people, interesting people. But the album was finished. It was all over.
Even though his book was the source material, and it was going to be called Gambit after his book and marketed as a collaborative project between him, the darling of the literary world and her, independent music’s most awarded, innovative and enduring singer songwriter. His work was barely recognisable. A phrase or two of his had made it through the exhausting process unscathed. It was largely her creation though her partner had co-written most of the lyrics with her. Sometimes right in front of him. With no request for his input. Two or three phrases from a book of just under 50,000 words.
Her production team owned the rights to the film, too. And he had only recently discovered that his script had been rejected and another was being written independently of him.
And yet last night when they played the finished album end to end in the London studio to an audience of executives, he was exhilarated. Somehow, she had captured the book without direct references. It was a masterpiece. But her masterpiece.
In the bar afterwards, her hand had clasped his and hadn’t let go. As everything was breaking up and people were saying their goodbyes she had held him back. They had found another bar, and over unfinished drinks had spoken to each other about the work they had just listened to, about what they wanted to do in the future and what they wanted to do to each other.
Being the focus of her attention had flattered him. It was the first time in the six weeks that he hadn’t felt like a third wheel. Under her undivided gaze he had been knocked off his centre. She had even said, I did it all for you.
Throughout the nineties she had been an indie rock god, always evolving, winning and losing audiences with her constant changes. Then in the noughties she had burst into the mainstream briefly with an accessible radio friendly rock album, showing everyone that she could do anything. She sensibly bought lots of property on the proceeds, then retreated back and lost the wider audience with an album that cemented her position as an artist. Then came the albums of her maturity, deep reflective albums reaching far beyond her contemporary experience for which she was awarded prize after prize.
He hadn’t sold out with this collaboration as some of his peers had suggested. She was the greater artist. He had seen that in the studio. Her medium was just more accessible than his. Reading a book takes more time and attention than putting on an album. But a book is rarely read more than once, and in his medium an artist can get away with murder. An album will be listened to again and again and again. Repeated listening will discover all the faults. Somehow the artist has to make art that remains new and perfect for eternity.
He had to admit he had been listening to her music on Spotify on the long train journeys to and from Cornwall. He had gone through her whole backlist dozens of times. Three of her albums were regularly played on repeat. Since being thrown into her orbit even the albums he had once owned were different. More her, somehow. The lyrics had been popping into his head in her presence. Especially last night as she held his hand. And then afterwards. He couldn’t stop them if he had tried.
They weren’t great on their own, but combined with the heavy bass, driving rhythm, the tone of her voice, and the emphasis she put on them, then they were better than any poetry he had read. He felt them in him as they fucked. Like the music was essentially sex itself.
She got up and went inside. He could hear her ordering breakfast. More expense. Hopefully the publicist would take care of that, as well. He swivelled in his seat to watch her. After calling down she had picked up her phone and was scrolling. He honestly had no idea what was going on in her head. No clue.
After nearly fifteen years with Lucy, he felt he had some idea. Not enough. He always wanted more. But some. And it bound him more tightly to her. There was nothing here in this hotel room to bind him. But he liked the otherness of the woman on the bed. The strangeness of her. That ten years between them was observed on her skin, but also in the way she moved and thought. She gave no fucks. He was filled with nervous energy. She was herself, out and proud.
He lingered on the hotel because he knew this would never be repeated. He was only there because she had wanted him last night. He had served a purpose this morning and if anything else happened it would be because she initiated it. Why, he would never really know. Then she would go and that would be that. There would be no further invitations. That was something he knew about her at least. This was it. For her. A one-time thing.
They would be thrown together a lot in the next few months. They would be interviewed together. He would go to her London concerts. That had been arranged. He would read from the book on stage in front of thousands of confused people while she accompanied him on guitar.
Then there was the film. If it ever progressed beyond the script. So, he wouldn’t be out of her life, but he would be out of her bed. And it wouldn’t matter to her. And, he hoped, it wouldn’t matter to him.
So why do it at all? What was it all for? And why stay? Was her approval worth so much?
The doorbell buzzed. He went over and took hold of the large tray and brought it to the table. He was hoping for a fry up, but she had ordered pastries and coffee. She started to talk about Thomas Hardy. She had read an interview with him where he talked about the influence of Hardy’s poetry on his first book. That was what had first drawn her to his work. Then she told him something he had known months ago, that Hardy’s novels had been a big influence on her work. Though, having listened repeatedly to her albums since, he only caught slight echoes here and there.
He was famished and drank and ate his fair share and watched the remaining pastries until he felt that she had had enough time, then ate those, too.
She was saying how disappointing a recent re-read of Return of the Native had been. It had been her favourite. She had been put off re-reading any of the others, preferring to keep the fond memories of the novels. The poetry stood up. She had never stopped re-reading that.
He once again felt pushed back out of the way. Her personality overwhelmed his own. She was a force. Not loud or obnoxious but insistent. She took her place in the centre as a given. Not that she wasn’t curious. Her talk on Hardy wasn’t a lecture, she coaxed responses out of him. It was a discussion, but not in the manner he was used to taking part in. He realised he was taking more care than he would normally take. His friends were drenched in literature, were comfortable with their knowledge, sure of their interpretations, but he sensed she was not as comfortable. So, he pulled his punches.
If Lucy had been there, she would have kept quiet, too, he thought, but how she would laughed once they were alone. Lucy. There were unanswered messages from Lucy on his phone. The knowledge pressed against him. Had been pressing against him all morning.
He knew he would confess. It was a rotten thing to do. But for him the only thing to do. Their life together had been built on trust. It had been the guiding light of their art. Both their childhoods had been fractured and their relationship had given them back their faith in people.
Being honest would smash all that, but not being honest would, too. Sooner or later. It was inevitable. Theirs was a finely tuned partnership. The smallest changes were registered. Honesty was the only possible way forward. She may understand, like he hoped he would understand if she cheated. He’d always been liberal minded in theory. But would he understand though? In reality.
Lucy had worked as a publicist the first year out of university. She had been thrown together with many famous men. Often arriving home in the early hours of the morning. These were charismatic men, too, and she had been in her early twenties. Of course, he had been jealous. How would he feel if Lucy had come home to him saying, I’m not sure how it happened, it was the last thing I ever expected to do but somehow, I ended up sleeping with Boris Johnson. And I’m pregnant and I’m keeping it.
‘Why are you smiling?’
‘I was thinking about Boris Johnson fucking my wife.’
‘That’s an unpleasant thought.’
‘I know you’re right about all this. I should lie. But I can’t.’
‘More fool you.’
‘So, you’ll just waltz in and take up where you left off?’
‘No. It isn’t easy. Sometimes I feel like I will combust in the heat of the shame I feel. But it passes. What we share is greater than this sort of thing.’
‘This sort of thing.’
‘Yes. A sordid one-night stand with a near stranger.’
‘Sounds like you’re quite used to this sort of thing.’
‘Did you just slut shame me?’
‘I didn’t mean it like that.’
She laughed.
‘I am away for months at a time. Sometimes these things just happen. I deny myself ninety out of hundred opportunities. Occasionally I give in.’
He took comfort from this. That he was one of many. It lessened the burden on him. Took some of the responsibility from him. It was not actually true though.
‘I’m surprised this is your first. It is, isn’t it?’
He nodded.
‘You’ve been at this a while now. You get around. Lonely nights in hotels. Waking up and having to check your itinerary to work out where you are. Everyone is looking at you. Everyone wants to talk to you. You’re being pulled this way and that. No one has broken through and tempted you up to their room?’
‘None of that sounds like my experience. Being lonely, certainly, but not the rest. The literary world is not a sexy place.’
‘What about other writers? I can think a few I’d like to fuck. You’d go up to Zadie Smith’s room if asked, surely.’
Her phone rang. She answered it. It was her partner. She told him where she was, not who she was with. Then she proceeded to have an ordinary conversation with him, moving to the bed to get more comfortable.
The call lasted an hour. In that time, he had showered and dressed. He had plugged in his phone which was nearly dead and found the book he had been reading - he never went anywhere without a book - and took it into the balcony to read in the pale sunlight.
He wasn’t reading, though. He was listening. He stayed because he wasn’t meant to be there. He was firmly placed inside her private world. This was her unfiltered. When would an opportunity like this come again?
She and her partner discussed an upcoming family dinner, picking up her prescription, his new bicycle, the neighbour trimming their hedges for them, cleaning out the chicken coop, the email they both got from the studio bosses, and she read out an unfinished poem she had written which sounded a lot like a pen portrait of him and discussed what time her train would arrive in Cornwall.
What would he say if Lucy called? Could he pull all that off? Could he be nonchalant? No chance. If his phone rang and it was Lucy, he’d sooner throw himself off the balcony than face that test.
Coward. Swine. Adulterer. Liar. He would never write another true word. How could he? Liar. Liar. Not yet though. He hadn’t lied yet. He had put that off. It was eleven. Eleven. This was unprecedented behaviour. He knew the silence was speaking for him. But he couldn’t face the messages on his phone.
Her conversation ended. He went in and she ignored him, tapping something into her phone. Her robe had dropped open. Her breasts were partly exposed. He picked up his phone. There was a new message from Lucy. He had counted four. But to find out if there were more, he would have to look and by looking she would know and that would be that. He sat on the bed and then lay down. She had been sitting cross legged but now she lifted her bare legs and lay them over him.
‘You’re very dressed.’
‘I have to go.’
‘So go.’
Her brutality shocked him. He closed his eyes.
‘I don’t think you want to go.’
He didn’t say anything.
‘I think I was the fuck off your life, and you will follow me to the ends of the earth. Cuntstruck.’
He remained silent.
‘I think everything up until now is meaningless. I think you’re wondering how you used to get on without me. I think you’ve forgotten how to be you.’
He laughed.
‘You might be right.’
‘I usually am. So, what will you do? Go and try to remember how to be you? Or stay and find out who you could be?’
‘What are you saying?’
‘I can’t leave here in the clothes I walked in wearing. I have arranged to have some clothes sent. They’ll be here in a couple of hours. I am saying stay and see what happens.’
He raised his hands to his face.
‘We could stay another night. Another two nights. We could stay the week in this room. Be rock’n’roll. Or we could go to Paris. Be poets. We could spend a month together. Be lovers. That would make everything worthwhile.’
‘Everything?’
‘Well, if you tell her what we’ve done your marriage is over and for what? A one-night stand? If you’re gonna fuck up your life, you might as well stay and fuck me until you die of exhaustion. Don’t you think?’
‘I have to go.’
Without another word he gathered his things and left. She was laughing as he went.
‘I’ll still be here when you come back,’ she said, through the closing door.
When he checked out it was explained that the room had been paid for. He told them his partner had a later train and would check out by two. He almost ran to the tube station. No phone coverage under the ground. He had time to come to a decision. He had to take a step. To lie or not to lie. It was only once he was on the high street of the satellite town where his parents-in-law lived, where he had lived with Lucy and Aaron since the pandemic, that he felt brave enough to open her messages.
First one:
When will you be home?
Second one:
?
Third one:
I hope you’re alright.
The first three had all been sent last night.
The fourth one:
It doesn’t take a genius to work out what happened last night. I am far from surprised. But even so, I thought we meant more to you than that. Don’t bother coming home. I’ll have your things boxed and ready to send to you once you’ve worked out what you’re doing. It’s not the great wrench it might have been. Since Gambit was published you haven’t been the same. You’ve barely been here and when you have been here you were always writing, which means long absences even when you’re standing right in front of us. So, no, it won’t be that difficult. Not for Aaron either. We’ve been just fine without you before; we’ll be fine when you’re gone more permanently. As you see I’ve given this a lot of thought. I’m surprised you held out this long. I am disappointed I held out. I love you, you are probably, annoyingly, the love of my life, but I won’t sacrifice myself to that love and I certainly won’t sacrifice Aaron. Go be brilliant elsewhere, we’ll be fine.’
He took no further steps.
About the author
John Purcell is the author of five published works of fiction. The Secret Lives of Emma trilogy published by Penguin Random House and The Lessons and The Girl on the Page published by 4th Estate.
