Chapter 8

8

After leaving Algos House, I head to Shepherd's Bush. Once on the subway, I check my WhatsApp to make sure the photo of Eva in the desert is there, which it is. Suspecting Nate would make me delete it, I'd sent the picture to myself as soon as I took it.

Those two motorbike helmets. Who did the other one belong to, if not Nate? A friend's? I file that question away for another day. Retrieving my recorder, I hold it to my ear and press Play to make sure all our conversations are there. Inevitably, the interview will be toe-curling to listen to, it always is. Embarrassing interjections from me, superficial reflections. No interaction is ever quite how I remembered it. What I do know for certain is that you can never predict the dynamic of two people in a room.

Hearing the remnants of our conversation makes me feel queasy. Why didn't I see what he was doing, the way he dodged me, channeled the subject away from him like water? Did he always have the upper hand all along?

But I know that's not the root of my revulsion. That came earlier when he lost his temper, the crack of the chair legs on the slate tiles.

I text Amira that I'm on my way in. I promised her I'd come into the office to write up my piece so we can edit together and the subs can start working on it more quickly.

The carriage is empty. Fixing my eyes on the Underground map above the doors, I look at the Central Line, bleeding its trail east, ending in that loop. The names are still oddly memorable, like anagrams: Theydon Bois, Hainault, Fairlop, Roding Valley. In my head I am sixteen again, counting each stop along the Central Line that took me away from home and deeper into London. The farther west and beyond that I traveled, the closer freedom seemed, meters and meters away from where Tony and I both grew up. We never return to that place. Back then, I was the baby of the family and after our mother died, Tony and I looked out for one another. When my dad—his stepfather—died a few years later, he was there for me all over again. We were alone, our family unit shrunk to two.

Whenever I try to recall that time with any clarity, memories fragment and dissolve. Not for the first time I wish I could replay the past like one of my interviews in all its digital verity. Everyone has their own illusive version of the truth. A recording is more objective. Until it's written up, transcribed and morphed with my own subjective observations. A memory is no different, nothing more than a palimpsest, layer upon layer altered and modified by yourself and the perspectives of those around you. After my father died, the narrative of that night, the responsibility and panic it placed on my shoulders, still weighs me down. This is what happens when you're forced to depend on someone else as much as I did.

I shut my eyes, trying to stem the feelings that threaten to resurface. Deadlines, interviews, writing, this is what occupies me, distracting me from who I used to be. Most of the time it works well enough. I put on my headphones again. Here is Nate's voice, telling me about his research, the developing brain of a newborn, how the tiny intricate branches and cells grow into a rich, interconnected tangle of connections. Leaning back in my seat, I let his voice wash over me. The carriage seats around me fill as we reach Marble Arch. I skip to the part where I leave Nate's study, recorder still on, to visit the washroom.

Silence. Then, footsteps approaching the table. A muffled, rustling sound as he picks up the recorder. He clears his voice.

"You're doing well, Anna, I'm not used to being the one under scrutiny, although I may get my own back yet. By the way, I really hope you're not rummaging through my cabinets." I rewind and play it again to catch his tone, dryly amused. "Please try not to jump to any wild conclusions."

Was that a guess? A shiver of unease runs through me, how mercurial his moods can be. Furious and lashing out one minute, cool and calculated the next. When is he truly himself?

My magazine company occupies an office block in Portland Place. In the foyer, the walls are marbled and windows stretch from floor to ceiling. There are mirrored lifts and a statue of the newspaper tycoon who founded the company back in the '30s; his imperious gaze tracks me as I take the escalator to the second floor. All that hubris, along with newspaper sales and profits, vanished decades ago. Last year the title was bought out by a billionaire property tycoon who promptly sacked half the staff, slashed editorial budgets and down-paged the magazine. We all know it will close when the new owner decides to "de-invest."

Until then, it is death by a thousand cuts. The remaining few of us hang on by our teeth, working in a warren of stuffy windowless spaces with soulless strip lighting and coffee-stained carpet tiles that curl at the edges.

"Ah, Anna, how did it go?" says Jess as I follow her into a cramped corner office.

I give her all the right affirmations, tell her that he was hard work but I was able to charm him, eventually, and he opened up. She nods, her thin red lips part into the briefest of smiles. Jess doesn't do nuance. She's either nice or nasty, and I prefer nasty. At least it's more authentic. Jess moved over from Vogue a few years ago, bringing with her a pitiless brand of perfectionism. "I don't think that would pass the smile test," is Amira's wry response to most of my pitches.

Editorial assistants weep mutely in the washrooms, meetings are torturous and cover stories routinely spiked at the last minute. There is no gossip or banter, only the silence of people dying inside. It's really more morgue than magazine. I cling to my outsider status as a defense against the misery around me, but I'm not sure how much longer I can last here.

While Jess usually only opts for cover interviews with young actors from a London family dynasty, or salacious exposés of wealthy scions, Dr. Reid was an exception. We carry on talking about the interview and how much content I can work into the spread, when our art director walks in.

"How are the Dr. Reid photos looking, Elaine?" snaps Jess. Elaine wears a Ramones T-shirt and ripped jeans. The warm honey highlights in her curly shoulder-length hair conceal the inevitable tide of gray. As with most women's magazines, aging is celebrated in its editorial but studiously avoided in reality.

"We've got enough here to hold two spreads and a cover," says Elaine, fanning out the pictures of Nate across Jess's desk. There are several shots of him in close-up, standing in the courtyard of Algos House, his patrician features framed by the branches of a cherry tree. He faces the camera, his eyes staring off, suitably reflective and melancholic. They've gone full-scale wistful widower. Inwardly I cringe. The dark snark has been erased, along with that questioning glint in his eye that gives him edge. There's something so posed, so wooden about his expression. It doesn't look like him at all.

"This would be strong for the cover," says Jess, pointing to one of the images. "He looks defiant."

"He looks hot," Elaine corrects her with a smirk, and the chrome bangles on her wrists rattle as she points to one. "How old did you say he was?"

"Forty, and too young for you." Jess's tone is caustic. "This will need to be two thousand words. We'll do it over three pages and make the pictures smaller if need be. He's not that good-looking."

"I'll file first thing tomorrow morning," I say, walking out of her office to my desk as my phone vibrates.

Forgot to ask, can I please see the final edit before it goes to print? Just want to check for any inaccuracies or misquotes. I'm away after tomorrow, any chance you can send it through later this evening? Hope the thumb's bearing up okay. N

The phone pings again.

Still up for tonight Meet you there? Tony x

My heart lurches. I was supposed to go to a gig tonight in a small club in Camden with him. He's always trying to interest me in obscure indie bands and it's become something of a shared joke between us, how terminally uncool I am when it comes to live music.

I'm so sorry. Complete nightmare at work, can't speak right now. You'll have to go without me. Will call later to explain. A xx

I return to Nate's message. Every journalist knows the cardinal rule is never to show your copy to your interviewee, no editor allows it. If I did and Amira or Jess found out, I'd lose any future work. I reply cautiously.

Thumb's just about bearing up, thanks. Re. copy, you can only query errors, none of my reflections or descriptions or quotes, unless what you say is factually incorrect.

"Sooo?" Amira appears behind me, in search of an entertaining debrief. I turn my mobile over so she can't see my screen and repeat, briefly, what I told Jess about the interview, but of course that isn't enough to satisfy her. "Check out the pictures," I say, throwing her a bone. "Elaine fancies him."

"Come on, give us a quick listen," she says, removing my AirPods, but I grab them back off her.

"No way."

"Come on, Anna, tell us how did you really feel about the charismatic, brooding Dr. Reid?" She drops her voice dramatically.

"Feel? That's such an overused word." I roll my eyes, find myself echoing Nate.

"Okay, did you like him, then?"

"Not articularly." I affect a dispassionate expression, staring at my screen while my heart hammers. I couldn't quite bear Amira to hear Nate and I chatting about art in his basement study.

"You don't fancy a drink after work?" she says, catching my distracted expression. "Looks like you need one."

I shake my head. "Wish I could but—" My phone vibrates. She gives me a suspicious glance, but thankfully Jess's door opens and she calls Amira into the meeting.

I take longer than usual writing up the piece. It needs to be more sympathetic, but not so bland that Jess and Amira might question it. I leave out the tantrum, the insights too that I would normally read into something like that, how controlling he seemed, volatile and unpredictable. Looking back I wonder if the dismay he expressed about losing his temper was no more than an attempt to persuade me he was really a good guy. Reflections that Amira would have loved me to include but I've come this far, I can't risk upsetting him.

Instead, I ramp up details about how eloquent he is, how charismatic and smart. It feels like I'm writing a puff piece but I also know this profile needs to be my calling card. By 8:00 p.m., I'm done. As I leave the office, I text Nate.

I've finished—I'll email it through now. If I don't hear from you by midday tomorrow, I'll assume all is good with it. Thanks, Ax

I read it back. All good, except for the x at the end. I delete it and press Send.

When it goes to press a couple of nights later, I find myself unable to sleep. As I drift off, black italicized words and quotations swim in front of my eyes. I wake up to an ashen dawn light seeping around the edges of my blinds, quickly dress for work and head for the newsdealer at the end of my street.

There's something about seeing my words in print that still exhilarates in an old-fashioned sort of way. The thrill of something that exists in a vacuum, blissfully free from the online trolls. I pick up a copy of my paper, piled up on the floor between the Telegraph and the Times , and my pulse quickens at the sight of us in print on the cover, our names so close to one another:

King of Pain reveals personal agonies:

Anna Tate interviews Dr. Nate Reid

I peel away the different sections like layers of an onion. Sports. Travel. Arts and Culture. Until I reach the magazine, a slim glossy prize at the center. I turn the pages until I see his mournful gaze staring out at me, a quote emblazoned above his head.

"I came home to find my wife dead. It was like something out of a horror film seeing her surrounded by those sculptures..."

My heart plummets, knowing how he might react. What felt like genuine disclosure looks brutal blown up like that, slapped brazenly on the page. Maybe they beefed up the headlines because the copy was too kind to him. If only I could get a chance to explain.

On my way to the office, I scroll through my phone, check the reader page views. Three-hundred-and-forty-thousand reads and rising, median attention three minutes, best read on the website.

Who was it that said the death of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world? Some stuffy old Victorian author. It may not be poetic but the sentiment still stands—it is perfect click bait.

Over the coming days, there's a small-scale swirl of attention, tweets and comments, hero emails from Amira and even Jess. A brief high followed by a rapid comedown. But nothing from Nate.

His silence makes me uneasy. I try not to think about his contempt for journalists, how I could be another one to add to his list of most hated, my chance of being a ghostwriter ruined. Untrustworthy, sensationalist.

I throw myself into researching my next interview with an infamously bad-tempered but innovative Scandi chef, and it's his voice I plug into my ears; his TV shows, his memoir and his documentaries I immerse myself in. The strip of mauve on my arm has faded.

Within a week, I persuade myself that I've banished Dr. Reid from my thoughts entirely. It is a Friday afternoon and I'm about to leave the office to meet my chef in a converted courtroom in Shoreditch when the email lands.

Priya James

Request re: Dr. Nate Reid

A bolt of anxiety crackles through me. Fuck. A libel. I click straight onto it, convinced it's from his lawyer until I see Priya James's signature—Grayson Inc. Publisher of Nonfiction. His publisher.

Dear Anna,

I do hope you don't mind me dropping cold into your inbox like this. Rhik, Dr. Reid's book PR, passed on your contact details.

Nate was thrilled with your magazine profile and asked me to make contact. I worked with him on his recent book about neuroscience and we're in the early stages of his next project, something very different which I'm excited about—his memoir. We do have a few potential names in the hat but I wondered if you'd like to come in for a chat so we can tell you a bit more about the book, ideally next week? I look forward to your reply.

Best wishes,

Priya

Something fizzes inside me like static. I feel charged, alive. He liked my interview, although reading between the lines, she's less than underwhelmed.

I feign a poker face as Amira walks up and stands behind me. It drives me mad when she sneaks up on me to read my emails, as if they're her property, even though I know it's just Amira gleefully fishing for gossip. I click out of the mail but it's too late, she's seen the subject line and the sender.

"Priya James, eh? She did that memoir two years ago; you know the surgeon with the inoperable brain tumor we extracted for the mag? New York Times bestseller for months."

I make a noncommittal sound, avoiding her gaze.

"I've heard she's ruthless. A friend of mine knew someone with stage one cancer who got in touch with her about a book idea, only to be told she wouldn't consider a cancer memoir from anyone with less than stage four, for maximum sales." I grimace, Amira laughs. "I'm not sure we'd be interested in profiling her, if that's why she's in touch?"

"Not exactly, no."

Amira raises her eyebrows. "It's nothing," I say. "An informal chat about a book idea."

"Is this about the memoir that Nate hopes to publish—you're in the frame for it? See, I knew you had this all planned out." An annoying grin spreads across her face. "Makes sense that you were so bloody nice about him in the interview. Seems like it paid off. So is anyone else in the picture or just you?"

"They're lining up a few ghostwriters to interview, by the sounds of it."

"Ah, the beauty parade. I've heard about those, where they meet you in a hotel and get to decide which one they'll choose."

"Beauty parade," I repeat, trying to block out the nightmarish image of a line of us in blue satin sashes shimmying down a catwalk while Nate and Priya hold up score cards.

"I wouldn't get your hopes up about this. Even if Nate wants you on the job, I'm sure Priya has her own favorites lined up. I've heard she can be quite...possessive...about her clients. Nothing gets by her."

I can no longer contain my curiosity. "You mean there's something more going on? They're a thing, seeing each other?"

"It's only a rumor, but something to bear in mind for the interview." She scans my expression, suitably neutral for her benefit.

"Well, maybe that will be for the best, if I don't get the job then," I say. "I'm not even sure I'd want to get inside Dr. Reid's head. That's what you'd have to do as a ghostwriter, isn't it? I really don't think that would be a good place to go."

She opens her mouth, another question forming on her lips, but decides better of it.

"Well, see you tonight back at the apartment," she says cheerfully. "Have fun with your chef."

"I will." I smile back at her as she leaves.

I don't tell her I ordered two books on the art of ghostwriting weeks ago and replied to Priya that I'm free all next week. In the cab I check my phone, idly search for her Instagram. A gallery of corporate profiles pop up. Priya James takes the reins as head of publishing at Grayson Inc. There's a wide-angled shot of her across the boardroom table, poker-faced, intimidating.

I can't help looking at her through Nate's eyes, it's not hard to figure out the appeal. That itch of competitiveness flares up in me again, of wanting what can never be mine. Their easy, comfortable lives and careers. It's a heat that I try to ignore. But it's there anyway, leaving its bitter aftertaste.