A tri-force of unstoppable ferocity

My editor, Chris and my agent, Sid are waiting for me when I arrive in the coffee shop. I thought I was on time but when I look at my watch I see that I’m not.

Sid looks absurdly happy to see me and it touches something in me and I hold out my hands in an exaggerated greeting. “Hey!” I say. “Dudes!”

Sid gives me a high-five while Chris nods his head and forces a smile. “Christopher,” he says.

I sit down on a wooden chair, keeping up an absurd air of frivolity. “Isn’t it a great morning? Sid, it’s good to see you, but I told you, you don’t need to come to these little meetings.”

“You’re my client. It’s my job.”

“Still, there’s no real need for you to be here.”

“I had nothing better to do,” he says, and my smile drops a little because he isn’t joking.

“Shall we order a drink?” I suggest.

“Good idea,” Chris says. He attracts the waitress’s attention and squints at the blackboard. “This menu is confusing.”

“I know,” Sid agrees. “I don’t trust anything but Starbucks or Costa Coffee now.”

“You know where you are with them,” Chris says.

The waitress arrives with a pad and a pen. “Good morning. What can I get for you?”

“I’ll have a Cappuccino,” Chris says.

“A Mocha for me please,” Sid says.

“And for you, sir?” she asks me.

“I’ll just have a Scotch on the rocks, please.”

She looks at me uncertainly. “Um…we don’t have any alcohol, I’m afraid.”

“Damn,” I say. “I’ll settle for a beer, then.”

“No, we don’t have any alcoholic drinks here.”

“What?”

“This is a coffee shop,” Chris says, unable to hide his disgust.

“I don’t drink coffee,” I whine. There’s an uncomfortable silence which I fill when it seems no one else will. “A tea then, please.” The waitress nods and moves away. “A double,” I call after her. She ignores me.

My mood has darkened. Chris looks at his watch. “Well, really I just wanted to try and close the book on the book,” he says. I can tell he usually uses this as a joke but with me there is no humour. “Have you gone through the final corrections?”

“Hey!” I say to Sid, suddenly remembering. “Are you still seeing that girl from Hore’s?”

“No.” He looks miserable. “Things didn’t quite work out there.”

“That’s too bad.”

“In fact, she changed her mind before we even got back to my flat. It was a frustrating evening.”

“You told me you’d been on a few dates. You told me she’d met your mother.”

He shrugs. “Well, I was embarrassed.”

“And now?”

“Just a bit angry.”

Chris cuts in. “Do you think you two can discuss your love life afterwards? This is actually a business meeting and I do have a lot to get through today. I chose this place because you’re always so glazed over in my office. But it should still be semi-formal.”

“I don’t have a love life,” I tell him. “I’m married.”

Sid laughs which makes me laugh. The drinks arrive in china cups. Chris and Sid’s come with a free mini-shortbread but mine doesn’t which makes me slightly sad.

“Anyway,” Chris tries again. “I’ve done all the work and I’ve sent it over to you and now I just need you to sign off on it and we’ll be done.”

“You should come out with us,” Sid tells Chris. “I think together we’ll make a tri-force of unstoppable ferocity.”

“I’m married,” Chris says, and Sid shrugs. Chris turns back to me, impatient. “Why have you not finished it yet?”

“My computer was running slow,” I say, “And I thought it might have a virus. I downloaded some anti-viral software, and that turned out to be a virus. It’s been a frustrating two weeks.”

“Look,” Chris says, “I can assure you it’s all in order. Just sign off and we can put it to bed.”

“I can’t do that. I have to read it. When I find grammatical errors in books I find it really alienating.”

“OK. A, there will be a separate final check before it goes to print, B I am a damn good editor. This isn’t a rock biography. This is a novel and I respect novels and you can trust me just a little bit.”

“It’s not a trust thing,” I say. “I just need to do it myself. I’ll do it in the next few days.”

“The board likes to know everything is running to schedule.”

Sid took a sip of his coffee. “The book isn’t out for six months. Can’t the board just relax?”

“No, the board can’t ‘just relax’! They get nervous and jumpy with me.”

“I’ll get it done,” I assure him again.

He puts his head in his hands. “I just want it to be over. I’ve spent a disproportionate amount of my time on this project, you know.”

“Sorry,” I say genuinely.

“And it’s still not as good as it could have been. I’m used to debut novelists being precious and argumentative about the changes I suggest but you just ignored them all. I tell you, you’re lucky Harper Collins didn’t drop the project citing breach of contract.”

“I would never have let that happen,” Sid says, and Chris and I suppress smirks.

“It’s still a sci-fi novel, though. Or is it?” I ask, suddenly excited.

“Yes, it’s still sci-fi,” Chris assures me.

“Oh,” I say. “Well, you should like it then.”

“But I’m not a sci-fi editor,” Chris tells me.

“I’m confused.”

“Bradley had too much on and sometimes we have to cover each other. I drew the short straw.”

“This isn’t what Christopher needs to hear,” Sid says.

“Oh I don’t care anymore,” I say. “No one’s got behind me on this thing.”

“We are behind you, Christopher,” Chris sighs.

“Remember,” Sid tells me, “You’re having a novel published by a major company. Now we’ve got to go out there and sell it.”

“Well, first you’ve got to finish it,” Chris reminds me.

I feel low and ungrateful, which makes me feel lower, and because of this I imagine that something more positive will come out of the meeting and that we will part with hugs and apologies and platitudes such as ‘I really do respect you as an artist’, but in reality, Chris gets up without finishing his drink to get back to his office and I have to make my excuses to Sid to avoid spending the rest of the day with him.

At home, I watch Bid TV for a few minutes which motivates me to start reading through the final draft.