This Was a Man (The Clifton Chronicles 7)

Once all four of them were seated around the oval table, Seb tentatively began by saying, “One or two of us became quite concerned, Victor, when during your absence three checks were presented for clearance by a Miss Lombardo, whom Arnold, John, and I had never heard of.”

“Never heard of?” said Victor. “Which planet have you been living on?”

When none of them attempted to defend themselves, the penny dropped.

“Ah,” he said, looking like a man who had a straight flush, “so you all assumed—”

“Well, you must try to see it from our perspective,” said Arnold defensively.

“And to be fair,” said Victor, “I don’t suppose Miss Lombardo makes the front page of The FT that often.”

The other three directors burst out laughing.

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“I confess I didn’t have the board’s approval to purchase the building and, fearing that we might lose it while it was still at such a low price, I allowed Miss Lombardo to open an account, which I guaranteed.”

“But that doesn’t explain the five thousand pounds she paid for a mink coat from Harrods,” said John Ashley, a little sheepishly.

“A birthday present for Ruth that I didn’t want her to know about. By the way, is that why you were trying to get in touch with me?”

“Certainly not,” said Seb. “We just wanted you to know that Giles may have pulled off a major coup in Rome, before you read about it in the press.”

“Good try,” said Victor. “But I’ve known you far too long, Seb, to fall for that one. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I won’t mention the subject again, as long as you back my proposal to support the charity at the next board meeting.”

“That sounds like blackmail.”

“Yes, I do believe it is.”

“I should have listened to my wife in the first place,” mumbled Seb.

“That might have been wise, all things considered,” said Victor. “I wasn’t planning to mention to the board that Samantha winked at me when you were making your ridiculous exit from the Caprice.”

HARRY AND EMMA CLIFTON

1986–1989

44

WHEN HARRY WOKE, he tried to recall a dream that didn’t seem to have had an ending. Was he yet again the captain of the England cricket team about to score the winning run against Australia at Lord’s? No, as far as he could remember, he was running for a bus that always remained a few yards ahead of him. He wondered what Freud would have made of that. Harry questioned the theory that dreams only ever last for a few moments. How could the scientists possibly be sure of that?

He blinked, turned over, and stared at the fluorescent green figures on his bedside clock: 5:07. More than enough time to go over the opening lines in his mind before getting up.

The first morning before starting a new book was always the time when Harry asked himself why. Why not go back to sleep rather than once again embark upon a routine that would take at least a year, and could end in failure? After all, he had passed that age when most people have collected their gold watch and retired to enjoy their twilight years, as insurance companies like to describe them. And Heaven knows, he didn’t need the money. But if the choice was resting on his laurels or embarking on a new adventure, it wasn’t a difficult decision. Disciplined, was how Emma described him; obsessed, was Sebastian’s simple explanation.

For the next hour, Harry lay very still, eyes closed, while he went over the first chapter yet again. Although he’d been thinking about the plot for more than a year, he knew that once the pen began to move across the page, the story could unfold in a way he wouldn’t have predicted only a few hours before.

He’d already considered and dismissed several opening lines, and he thought he’d finally settled on one, but that could easily be changed in a later draft. If he hoped to capture the readers’ imagination and transport them into another world, he knew he had to grab their attention with the opening paragraph, and certainly by the end of the first page.

Harry had devoured biographies of other authors to find out how they went about their craft, and the only thing they all seemed to have in common was that there is no substitute for hard work. Some mapped out their entire plot even before they picked up a pen or began to tap away on a typewriter. Others, after completing the first chapter, would then make a detailed outline of the rest of the book. Harry always thought himself lucky if he knew the first paragraph, let alone the first chapter, because when he picked up his pen at six o’clock each morning, he had no idea where it would lead him, which was why the Irish said he wasn’t a writer, but a seannachie.

One thing that would have to be decided before setting out on his latest journey, was the names of the main characters. Harry already knew the book would open in the kitchen of a small house in the back streets of Kiev, where a young boy, aged fifteen, perhaps sixteen, was celebrating his birthday with his parents. The boy must have a name that could be abbreviated, so that when readers were following the two parallel stories, the name alone would immediately tell them if they were in New York or London. Harry had considered Joseph/Joe—too associated with an evil dictator; Maxim/Max—only if he was going to be a general; Nicholai/Nick—too royal, and had finally settled on Alexander/Sasha.

The family’s name needed to be easy to read, so readers didn’t spend half their time trying to remember who was who, a problem Harry had found when tackling War and Peace, even though he’d read it in Russian. He’d considered Kravec, Dzyuba, Belenski, but settled on Karpenko.

Because the father would be brutally murdered by the secret police in the opening chapter, the mother’s name was more important. It needed to be feminine, but strong enough for you to believe she could bring up a child on her own, despite the odds being stacked against her. After all, she was destined to shape the character of the book’s hero. Harry chose Dimitri for the father’s name, and Elena for the mother—dignified but capable. He then returned to thinking about the opening line.

At 5:40 a.m., he threw back the duvet, swung his legs out of bed, and placed his feet firmly on the carpet. He then uttered the words he said out loud every morning before he set off for the library. “Please let me do it again.” He was painfully aware that storytelling was a gift that should not be taken for granted. He prayed that like his hero, Dickens, he would die in midsentence.