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 mid-sentence.
He padded across to the bathroom, discarded his pyjamas, took a cold shower, then dressed in a T-shirt, tracksuit bottoms, tennis socks and a Bristol Grammar School 2nd XI sweater. He always laid out his clothes on a chair before going to bed, and always put them on in the same order.
Harry finally put on a pair of well-worn leather slippers, left the bedroom and headed downstairs, muttering to himself, ‘Slowly and concentrate, slowly and concentrate.’ When he entered the library he walked across to a large oak partner’s desk situated in a bay window overlooking the lawn. He sat down in an upright, red buttoned-back leather chair and checked the carriage clock on the desk in front of him. He never began writing before five minutes to six.
Glancing to his right he saw a clutch of framed photographs of Emma playing squash, Sebastian and Samantha on holiday in Amsterdam, Jake attempting to score a goal, and Lucy, the latest member of the family, in her mother’s arms, reminding him that he was now a great-grandfather. On the other side of the desk were seven rollerball pens that would be replaced in a week’s time. In front of him a 32-lined A4 pad that he hoped would be filled with 2,500 to 3,000 words by the end of the day, meaning the first draft of the first chapter had been completed.
He removed the top from his pen, placed it on the desk beside him, stared down at a blank sheet of paper and began to write.
She had been waiting for over an hour, and no one had spoken to her.
Emma followed a routine every bit as disciplined and demanding as her husband’s, even if it was completely different. Not least because she wasn’t her own mistress. When Margaret Thatcher had won a second term, she had promoted Emma to minister of state at the Department of Health, in acknowledgement of the contribution she had made during her first term of office.