Conversations With Mr. Prain (2 page)

“I know, but then there’s always the next thing. It’s never boring.”

That struck him as somehow significant and surprising. “You’re never bored?”

“No, no. How can you be bored, here? Whoever’s tired of London is tired of life—didn’t Samuel Johnson say that?”

“For there is in London all that life can afford,” added my visitor, slowly, knowing the next line of the quotation. And then he looked at me, hard, as if I were in some way a bothersome conundrum he had to solve, though how or why this should be so was, to me, a complete enigma.

Our discussions were usually pot-holed with interruptions, with customers asking to purchase books, and stallkeepers on breaks intruding to chat. Such latter guests started me telling him stories about the Market. I discovered these amused him. He was a cool fish, and causing a smile to come to his face became a challenge. And I liked to tease him, trying to show that I did not care about his social status or his wealth. I goaded him about his apparent lack of concern for environmental issues, which made him hesitate, unsure of how to take my jibes. He retaliated by speaking rather disparagingly of my “Antipodean candour.” I don’t believe he was used to people mocking him, even in jest. But I never felt he was offended. He seemed to be cheered by the glimpse of another—Bohemian—world. I thought of him as a charming, handsome, upper class toff who was bored enough to venture into this maze for the sake of a few words with an intriguing bookstall owner.

I recognised that he thought me attractive, in some way (even though he commented at times on how my attempts at interesting hair-styles were not always flattering). I was not wholly naive about this. It was simply that I did not feel this was the key reason for his frequent return. He made no advances or innuendoes. And he was not my type or I his. I was an amusement to him. His visits, I thought, were not prompted by lack of female company or any particular personal desire for mine, but by a yen for interesting conversation.

He did not seem to want to tell me anything about his present circumstances, personal or professional, as if they were too dull, and I did not press him for information. I never asked him his name. I would refer to him humorously as “Mr. E.” The mystery. He was, at any rate, very much a “Mr.” to me, in a way that English men can be, and Australasian or North American men generally cannot. It was to do with an innate reserve, confidence and bearing. Despite my teasing, and wish to demonstrate otherwise, his formal manner, age and wealth seemed to demand some recognition of my inferiority and social distance. I did not ask him what he did for a living. In my circles, you rarely asked what acquaintances worked at to earn money. You waited for them to provide information about their chosen artistic medium, after which you defined them vocationally as “Jack the dancer” or “Kishti the painter,” á la the Middle Ages. Paid work was never considered a vocation. Had I known at the outset that he was a prestigious and well-known publisher I would never have let myself compose a poem in front of his very eyes.

It was late July, and tourists greatly outnumbered locals. The suffocating day pressed upon us. People were sweating odiously as they shuffled through the stall. I was too torpid to think straight, and spent most of my spare time fiddling with a poem that never seemed to improve no matter what I did to it. It was nevertheless a counterblast against the reeking sauna of my present conditions, since it recalled an icy morning in October,
when once I waited in a small Scottish railway station and witnessed a natural phenomenon.

“Hello,” he said, cocking his head to read the page. By this time we had reached a stage of some geniality. “Mr. E” had become a “regular” with whom I felt quite familiar. “Are you writing a poem?” There was surprise in his intonation.

“Yes,” I admitted. “I’m not sure if it’s working though. It’s probably a bit trite.”

“So, are you a poet?”

“I write poems,” I said, without much enthusiasm, looking askance at a group of rowdy Italian schoolchildren. “I’m not sure if I’m entitled to call myself a poet. I prefer to write fiction. I’ve had some short stories and poems published in New Zealand, and I’ve written a novel, set here with English characters, but it’s really hard to get a novel published in London if you’re an unknown writer.”

“Yes,” he said, and then stopped as if thinking what next to say. “Well, I do know how hard it can be. I’m in publishing, actually.”

“What sort of publishing?” I asked, suspicious.

“Books of all kinds. I’m chairman and managing director of Coymans. My grandfather began the company.” He said this rather flatly, not at all sounding grand, and did not look at my face. This was a considerate gesture on his part, because my face would have shown a surge of horror, indignation and wonder. I did not feel immediately thrilled to have met such an influential person. I felt betrayed, as if he had acted under false pretences by not admitting this before. But then, I had not told him that I wrote. Suddenly, we were both exposed, and everything was awry. I did not know quite how to behave.

“So you’re Mr. Coyman? Coy about your true identity, at least,” I said, trying to grab a mental fig-leaf and turn the furore of reactions into a tease. I wanted to remain outwardly casual, to look as if I did not particularly care. “Prain. Edward Prain. Coyman is an old family name.”

In His great and abiding mercy to agnostic sinners, God commanded the Italian schoolchildren to knock over a pyramid of books on the display table, which provided me with an avenue of release. Commotion ensued in which some of the children left in a hurry, others attempted to restore the books to their previous positions, and I was able to appear furious and storm around tidying.

When I returned to the counter, Mr. Prain was holding the draft of the poem. Something fizzy welled up in my abdomen.

“Can I read more of your work sometime? That novel, for example?” His manner was courteous and, now, calculating.

I looked at him saying this as if I were lip-reading from a distance.

“What?” I said.

“A selection of your work,” he repeated. “May I read it?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be back in two weeks, if you could have something ready.”

“All right.”

“Good. Well. Bye then.”

I don’t remember him leaving. I stood as motionless as a statue, as the cliché goes. I moved only when someone asked to buy a book, and broke the spell.

A selection. I spent thirteen days reading and sorting to find a truly representative sample of my best material. I printed out stories again so everything looked tidy, with no pages curled or torn, as if it were a competition in which you scored points for neatness. I bought pink ribbon to tie around different categories: poems, short stories, the novel. I covered an A4-sized box with black paper to make it look solid and impressive, and stuck labels with my name at a corner of the top and on two sides, so it would not get lost.

The designated day began with fine weather, but by lunch-time there were intermittent squally showers and a
north wind. Some stallkeepers closed up. Some were fighting not to have their wares blown away and soaked. Nevertheless, crowds of people animated by the power of positive thinking had decided to stay on in Camden in case it ceased raining and turned back into a bright, shiny day. This was not to be, and they sought comfort inside the proper buildings and covered areas of the Market, watching things fly past, waiting for the worst of it to pass. I counted twenty-three people in my stall. Their dripping clothing and bags were speckling the books with water. They had despondent, guilty faces as they looked over the shelves, knowing that they were only inside to keep dry. They were even buying cheap books from the bargain bin in a hope of convincing me that their intentions were genuine. The rain lashed in and seeped through on to the stock, while I anxiously covered it with sheets of plastic. Then I sat guarding my black box amid the kerfuffle, telling the paper cup of tepid tea upon my counter, “he won’t come.” But he did, at 4.30 p.m., when the people had gone and I was thinking of shutting up my lot and going home.

“Hello,” he said, rather brightly. “Sorry I’m a bit on the late side. Ghastly weather, isn’t it?”

“Awful,” I agreed.

He was wearing a tailored raincoat and a brown hat and somehow managed to appear unnaturally dry and glossy, as if he had just stepped out of a magazine feature on businessmen of the year.

I was nervous. No longer was he the gentleman whose hankering for different conversation forced him into the chaos of Camden Market; he was a publisher. My reactions had now been transformed into awe. He was God’s mercy incarnate, which had dropped—as the ungentle rain from heaven—into my humble bookstall. He had descended from his modern, multistorey West End offices to offer hope. He, who was Coymans Publishing Company, had asked to read my work. He had perceived a spark of talent in that one poem. He was giving me a chance to prove that I was worthy, that I really could write, that my novel could be published to widespread critical acclaim. All those years of writing in the night could suddenly come to something. I felt speechless. I, who ordinarily chattered freely, had nothing to say. I smiled that false smile one offers to cameras.

“Is this your selection?” he asked, in good spirits.

“Yes.”

“My word, you have been industrious. I thought I would get a Manilla folder.” He spoke as if I were a child who had done a very large school project. I felt a little like a child who had done a very large school project. I busied myself finding a plastic bag in which the box of typescripts could be protected from the elements. He said he had managed to park his car very nearby, and so a bag was unnecessary. I deemed that it was. I felt him looking down upon me as I rummaged through packing materials and paper bags under the counter in an effort to find something suitable.
Someone came to stand beside him: a punctured Punk with a pound coin in one hand and a book in the other. Distractedly, I took the money and let him go away without checking the price inside, and put the coin in my pocket to ring up later. I was flustered and determined not to show it. Mr. Prain seemed buoyant and in a mood completely at odds with the weather.

“It’s very good of you to have a look at this,” I said, trying not to sound as meekly crawling and overcome by modesty as I felt.

“Not at all. It’s my job.”

“I hope you won’t be … too bored or … disappointed.” I trailed off into a shy woolliness, completely unlike me.

“Well, we’ll see.”

After putting the box in a decent enough plastic bag, I handed it to him as if it were a parcel of crystal. Robustly, he flung it under his arm.

“I wondered,” he said, halting. This time it was he who seemed tentative. “Why don’t you come to tea one day next month? We can talk better.”

I gathered he meant we could talk about my work better, undisturbed by customers and other visitors. This certainly seemed a good idea. I could not imagine him going through it in these circumstances, with all sorts of people peering at the pages.

“Oh yes,” I said. “That would be good. But Monday’s my only real day off.”

“Come on a Monday then, a Monday afternoon.”

This was very kind of him, I thought, to be so accommodating. And it was very respectable too. He might have offered dinner, but then I may have become suspicious that he was out to wine and dine me for other purposes. No, he was clearly doing all this in order that we could discuss what I had given him in a civilised fashion.

We decided on the date and time, and he gave me instructions on how to catch a certain train to Banbury.

“Banbury?” I asked. “Isn’t that miles away, near Oxford?”

“Yes. That’s where I have my house—well, near there, in the countryside really. An hour and a bit by train. Get the one-fifty from Marylebone Station and I’ll meet you.” He smiled. His eyes were as determined as an athlete’s.

“Right,” I said. “So I’ll see you then.”

And so I took the train from Marylebone Station on that Monday in late August, a day full of promise, sun and warmth. I went to meet Mr. Edward Prain, to talk about my work, over tea.

“There are too many writers in the world. There are too many stories. There’s a glut.”

This response was not a promising development in our conversation. I had a feeling that I would be held in the web of a monologue about recent British economic forces, all because I had asked if he had missed the opportunity of publishing a writer who subsequently became a success. I appeared to have touched a nerve.

I placed my teacup carefully into the round central depression of the saucer, avoiding the silver teaspoon and a biscuit crumb. The fine bone china chinked lightly. I removed my tense finger and thumb from the ornate cup handle and breathed an inaudible sigh of relief that I had succeeded in drinking half a cup of tea and eating a piece of angel cake without cracking anything, catapulting items of crockery across the table, or showering sugar over the embroidered table-cloth.

Mr. Prain continued, “Furthermore, there are too many good writers in the world. There are too many good stories.
There are too many well-written novels. There are celebrated foreign writers whose works should be translated into English. There are excellent writers from unusual social backgrounds or minority ethnic groups that deserve publication for their perspectives. There are superb and neglected writers from times past whose works should be republished. There are new writers whose fresh visions and marvellous plots should guarantee an interested audience. One should publish them all.”