“This is me smiling,” I say.
“Come on,” Pauline urges from behind her video camera. “You look miserable.”
“My face doesn’t register emotion. Rest assured, inwardly I’m bubbling.”
Pauline, my publicist, has brought me to a factory in Suffolk where someone in brown overalls is about to push a button which will begin the process of churning out the initial run of five thousand copies of my novel, Clear History.
“How do you feel, Christopher?” Pauline says, voice muffled against the camera’s metal casing.
“Good,” I say. “Yeah, quite excited. Good.”
“Let me see some enthusiasm.”
“I’m excited,” I snap, annoyed.
Twenty or so of the factory’s machine operators are lined up with their hands clasped in front of them, staring with expectant smiles which make me feel uncomfortable.
“Okay,” the manager says, pushing his black glasses up his nose. “Are you ready?”
I nod and he looks at me, waiting for something more. When he finally realises that this is the extent of my public displays of emotion, he reluctantly signals for the party to begin. The machines crank up with an irritatingly loud meshing noise and the workers pull mufflers over their ears.
“It takes around five hundred people to operate the machines for one book,” the manager shouts in my ear.
“I’ve heard that,” I say. “Is it true?”
“Not really. Only if you totally manipulate the figures and factor in workforce you shouldn’t. But it sounds impressive.”
“Get ready!” Pauline shrieks, and then copies of my book begin spilling onto a conveyer belt and trundling towards us. “Yay!” she says.
The workers clap and smile again. Pauline shoves the camera in my face and I wink into the lens, a lazy gesture that requires minimum emotional output but that people sometimes seem to get a kick out of.
The workers begin to package the books into boxes except for the very first copy which makes it all the way to the end and the manager gestures at me to pick it up as though he is offering me the Holy Grail. Which, in a way, he is.
I pick it up and look at the cover. “Nice,” I say, nodding.
“How do you feel?” Pauline asks me again, this time in a singsong voice.
I wink again, and hold both my thumbs up and try to smile.
The red light on the front of the viewfinder darkens and Pauline drops the camera to her side. “Well, I fucking tried,” I think I hear her say and then she marches to the table at the side of the room and pushes the camera into its bag and zips it up. Then she just stands with her back to the room.
“Now you get a tour of the factory,” the manager tells me.
“Just one second,” I say, and then I join Pauline at the table. “I’m doing my best,” I shout.
She turns and looks at me with obvious displeasure. “Come outside a second,” she says, and I follow her to the entrance. With familiarity comes acceptance and she no longer repulses me. She still has the power to unnerve me, though.
We push through the reception and out into daylight where she stands and faces me with her hands on her hips. “It’s my job to help your book sell but there’s nothing more I can do for you,” she says.
“I’m not a good actor, Pauline. What do you want from me?”
“You shouldn’t have to act. This should be the happiest day of your life, next to your wedding day.”
“It is. But I look miserable in my wedding photographs too. People look at them and think it was my mother’s funeral. And that day I wasn’t forced to wear an ill-fitting luminous jacket.”
“Do you think we do this for everyone? This is a privilege, and I wanted to get some footage of you acknowledging that and fucking crying for joy when the books appeared. This is your dream in print. There’s a video on YouTube of some mad author jumping up and down and dancing in the printing factory and it’s fantastic and joyful. Would it have been too much to ask for you to show the world how you’re feeling?”
“I’m not like that. I’m sorry. I do appreciate everything you’ve done. But I just can’t imagine Cormac McCarthy dancing a jig on the Internet.”
The manager sticks his head through the main doors. “You’re missing it all,” he says.
Inside, he takes me around the factory, pointing at each bit of machinery and explaining its function. After half an hour I tell him that I have things to do and he stares at me as if I’ve just eaten one of his fingers.
In my car outside my flat I sit for a few minutes and hold the book in my hands. What Pauline doesn’t realise is that the whole process is a very private one for me. I wrote the book longhand alone in my bedroom lying face down on my bed listening to music on my iPod over hundreds of hours and people will read the book (hopefully) alone, independently, a unique experience. I don’t know what the whole process is about, but I do know it isn’t about factories and machines and video clips.
The cover looks great and my name doesn’t have (1976-) after it and there’s a blank page at the end so people can’t open it to read the inside flap and accidentally read the last few words. I look okay in the photograph. The text isn’t too big or small. It smells nice.
Then I turn to the dedication and run my fingers over it.
“Come on,” Pauline urges from behind her video camera. “You look miserable.”
“My face doesn’t register emotion. Rest assured, inwardly I’m bubbling.”
Pauline, my publicist, has brought me to a factory in Suffolk where someone in brown overalls is about to push a button which will begin the process of churning out the initial run of five thousand copies of my novel, Clear History.
“How do you feel, Christopher?” Pauline says, voice muffled against the camera’s metal casing.
“Good,” I say. “Yeah, quite excited. Good.”
“Let me see some enthusiasm.”
“I’m excited,” I snap, annoyed.
Twenty or so of the factory’s machine operators are lined up with their hands clasped in front of them, staring with expectant smiles which make me feel uncomfortable.
“Okay,” the manager says, pushing his black glasses up his nose. “Are you ready?”
I nod and he looks at me, waiting for something more. When he finally realises that this is the extent of my public displays of emotion, he reluctantly signals for the party to begin. The machines crank up with an irritatingly loud meshing noise and the workers pull mufflers over their ears.
“It takes around five hundred people to operate the machines for one book,” the manager shouts in my ear.
“I’ve heard that,” I say. “Is it true?”
“Not really. Only if you totally manipulate the figures and factor in workforce you shouldn’t. But it sounds impressive.”
“Get ready!” Pauline shrieks, and then copies of my book begin spilling onto a conveyer belt and trundling towards us. “Yay!” she says.
The workers clap and smile again. Pauline shoves the camera in my face and I wink into the lens, a lazy gesture that requires minimum emotional output but that people sometimes seem to get a kick out of.
The workers begin to package the books into boxes except for the very first copy which makes it all the way to the end and the manager gestures at me to pick it up as though he is offering me the Holy Grail. Which, in a way, he is.
I pick it up and look at the cover. “Nice,” I say, nodding.
“How do you feel?” Pauline asks me again, this time in a singsong voice.
I wink again, and hold both my thumbs up and try to smile.
The red light on the front of the viewfinder darkens and Pauline drops the camera to her side. “Well, I fucking tried,” I think I hear her say and then she marches to the table at the side of the room and pushes the camera into its bag and zips it up. Then she just stands with her back to the room.
“Now you get a tour of the factory,” the manager tells me.
“Just one second,” I say, and then I join Pauline at the table. “I’m doing my best,” I shout.
She turns and looks at me with obvious displeasure. “Come outside a second,” she says, and I follow her to the entrance. With familiarity comes acceptance and she no longer repulses me. She still has the power to unnerve me, though.
We push through the reception and out into daylight where she stands and faces me with her hands on her hips. “It’s my job to help your book sell but there’s nothing more I can do for you,” she says.
“I’m not a good actor, Pauline. What do you want from me?”
“You shouldn’t have to act. This should be the happiest day of your life, next to your wedding day.”
“It is. But I look miserable in my wedding photographs too. People look at them and think it was my mother’s funeral. And that day I wasn’t forced to wear an ill-fitting luminous jacket.”
“Do you think we do this for everyone? This is a privilege, and I wanted to get some footage of you acknowledging that and fucking crying for joy when the books appeared. This is your dream in print. There’s a video on YouTube of some mad author jumping up and down and dancing in the printing factory and it’s fantastic and joyful. Would it have been too much to ask for you to show the world how you’re feeling?”
“I’m not like that. I’m sorry. I do appreciate everything you’ve done. But I just can’t imagine Cormac McCarthy dancing a jig on the Internet.”
The manager sticks his head through the main doors. “You’re missing it all,” he says.
Inside, he takes me around the factory, pointing at each bit of machinery and explaining its function. After half an hour I tell him that I have things to do and he stares at me as if I’ve just eaten one of his fingers.
In my car outside my flat I sit for a few minutes and hold the book in my hands. What Pauline doesn’t realise is that the whole process is a very private one for me. I wrote the book longhand alone in my bedroom lying face down on my bed listening to music on my iPod over hundreds of hours and people will read the book (hopefully) alone, independently, a unique experience. I don’t know what the whole process is about, but I do know it isn’t about factories and machines and video clips.
The cover looks great and my name doesn’t have (1976-) after it and there’s a blank page at the end so people can’t open it to read the inside flap and accidentally read the last few words. I look okay in the photograph. The text isn’t too big or small. It smells nice.
Then I turn to the dedication and run my fingers over it.
Dedicated to the Memory of Susan Hardy (1948-2008)
A Loving Mother without whom none of this would be possible
It looks nice in print. “It may not be a great novel,” I say out loud in case she can hear me. “But it’s something. It’s something anyway.”
Cheryl is home and she claps excitedly and hugs me and I realise I should have taken her to perform at the factory. “I’m so proud,” she says.
She grabs the book and looks at the front and back covers and the inside flaps. “It’s so exciting,” she says. Then she flicks through the first few pages and reads the dedication and looks at the prologue and then she puts it back down and walks into the kitchen.
I follow her and watch her preparing dinner. “I don’t think I performed for the camera as the publicists wanted.”
“No?”
“They should have got me drunk again.”
“Mmm.”
“Or drugs.”
She says nothing.
“Everything okay?”
“Yep.”
It isn’t. “What’s wrong?”
She stops and sighs with her back to me. “I just thought that…as your wife, the person closest to you, that you might, you know, have dedicated your book to me.”
I blink a couple of times. “Oh.”
“I shouldn’t have assumed, but I did. It didn’t actually cross my mind that you wouldn’t. It’s a bit of a shock.”
My mouth is dry. “I’m sorry. If she hadn’t have died this year then it might have been different. But this…just seemed appropriate.”
“Maybe. But there’s nothing stopping you having two dedications, is there?”
“I thought it would detract from hers.”
“So you did think about it?”
“A little. Look, I only know about six people. If I blow two on the first book then I’m going to start repeating myself or dedicating them to the postman or something. Look, I promise that the next one will be for you.”
She turns to face me. “What if this is the only one?”
I scramble desperately for an answer. “It doesn’t…change my feelings for you.”
“What does it even mean, anyway? Of course none of this would have been possible. She gave birth to you.”
“I thought it was nice.”
She turns back to the counter. “I’ll get over it,” she says. “I get over everything, don’t I?”
I make my way back to my armchair and sit and hold the book which seems heavier suddenly. “Love you,” I call timidly through the open doorway.
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