Ed nodded as if he’d heard it all before. ‘Erin, about fifty per cent of my authors also have full-time jobs,’ he said flatly, steepling his fingers in front of his face. ‘And I don’t hear excuses from them because, do you know what? There are no excuses. Nobody is forcing you write a book. You do it, even if it means juggling another career, family, friends, because you really, really want to. You don’t write books for the money because, believe me, for every John Grisham or JK Rowling there are thousands of really brilliant, talented authors out there writing books for less than ten thousand pounds a time.’
Erin winced. ‘If this is a motivational speech, it isn’t working,’ she said sulkily.
‘You write books, Erin, because you have a story burning inside you that you want to share,’ continued Ed, his voice soft and assured. ‘It doesn’t matter whether it’s still around in a hundred years, lauded as a classic, or whether it brought pleasure to just one person, the idea is to write a book and see it printed and bound and think, “I did that”.’
Ed smiled kindly. ‘And I know that’s how you feel. Or rather how you did feel, because I saw it in your face and I read it in your words when you sent me your manuscript almost a year ago.’
Erin nodded weakly, knowing he was right, but also knowing that, if there had ever been a burning desire to write a story, it had now been dulled by a nice salary, a lovely flat, a wardrobe of beautiful clothes and a gorgeous house that was going to make her fortune.
As if he were reading her mind, Ed put down his cup and looked at her. ‘In life, Erin, some people do things for love and some people do things for money. Take it from an old man, the people who do things for love tend to be the ones who end up happiest,’ he said with a crinkled smile. ‘Did I tell you that thirty years ago I worked for an investment bank? It seemed to be the thing to do when you were fresh out of Cambridge.’
Erin was amazed. Sitting here surrounded by books and paper, she couldn’t imagine Ed having ever been anywhere or anything else.
‘So what happened?’ she asked.
‘An epiphany.’
‘And do you regret it?’
Ed shook his head vigorously. ‘Friends I worked with then are now partners in the big banks, buying second and third homes in Tuscany with their very large bonuses. They’re rich, and stressed, and for the most part unhappy, because there is always someone richer than them, more successful than them, and it doesn’t make them feel good.’
‘But you’re successful anyway,’ said Erin swiftly, knowing that with a roster of big-name authors on the books, Ed Davies was hardly on the breadline.
‘The difference is, I would do what I do for free.’
Ed leaned forward on his desk and patted the top of a large pile of manuscripts. ‘There are fifty wannabe authors here, all desperate for me to read their scripts, take them on my list, help them live their dream. But I can’t, because I already have too many authors who are taking up too much of my time, and that is why I only take on one or two very exceptional writers a year.’
Erin had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. ‘Are you saying that you don’t want to represent me any more?’ she stammered.
‘I’m saying I want to see something from you by the end of the summer. Because if you can’t find it inside yourself to find the time, I want to find another young writer who can.’
‘Can you believe he said that?’ said Erin grumpily, biting into a club sandwich. She had arranged to meet Chris for lunch in Green Park and was giving him a blow-by-blow account of her meeting with Ed. ‘And I thought you might show a bit more concern for my predicament.’
Chris was lying on the grass with a newspaper over his face to protect him from the sun. ‘Well, what do you expect?’ said Chris in a muffled voice. ‘He’s right, isn’t he? You haven’t done a thing and you’re holding back real talents like myself.’
She threw a crust at him, but it just bounced off the paper. She sighed and looked around the bustling park. Cabbage White butterflies danced in the air, children were running around with ice-cream cones. It was like high summer in Cornwall, she thought, immediately trying to blot the notion out. She hadn’t been home in months, and that seemed like just another thing to feel guilty about.
‘Anyway, I want to start afresh with a new idea, but I can’t think of anything.’
‘Worse excuse in the world,’ said Chris, lifting an edge of the paper and squinting at her. ‘You’ll be telling me you
’re too busy next.’
‘Oh, stop nagging me,’ she frowned. ‘I have my reasons.’
‘Oh yes?’ he said, sitting up to look at her properly. ‘And what secrets are we keeping, Miss Devereux?’
She avoided his gaze. She didn’t want to tell Chris about either Julian or her fledgling property development quite yet. Julian felt too good to be real and she was scared that if she said his name out loud he would cease to exist. And she didn’t even want to think about the Belvedere Road site, let alone talk about it. Everything seemed to be taking so long. She hadn’t even made the planning permission submission yet and already one mortgage payment had left her bank account. Worried that she had bitten off more than she could chew, she didn’t want to mention it to anyone until she knew the project was going to succeed.
‘No secrets,’ she said, blushing. ‘But I am busy.’
‘In that case I have a proposition,’ he said, reaching across and swiping Erin’s orange juice.
‘Oh yeah,’ smiled Erin. ‘Going to ask me on a date now? I didn’t think you’d got that far down your list.’
‘Not yet, sweetheart,’ he said with a smile. ‘But seriously, I have a week off work in about a month and I’ve booked a cottage in the grounds of the Cliveden estate in Berkshire to write my book. I’ve been there to write before; it’s National Trust land, really beautiful, really inspiring, right by the river. I always gets loads done. If you fancy it, there’s a spare bedroom …’
‘It sounds good,’ said Erin cautiously. It did sound good, but then who could predict what might happen in a month’s time? Maybe Julian would want to go on a mini-break or something, and Midas being an American company, she only had two weeks’ annual leave.