Once the three manuscripts had been despatched by courier, the agonizing wait began. Harry’s three readers had all been warned that Heads You Win was a departure from his usual fare, which only made him more anxious.
He had considered allowing Giles, who had a lot more time on his hands lately, and Sebastian, his most ardent fan, to also be among the first to read his latest manuscript, but decided not to break with his usual routine. He would allow them to read the final draft over Christmas, after his line editor had suggested any changes.
Miss Eileen Warburton, a spinster of this parish, was a woman Harry suspected lived alone in a basement flat and, like Mole, didn’t emerge until spring. During those winter months, she would spend her time toiling away on her authors’ hapless scripts, correcting their mistakes, some of which were so inconsequential no one else would ever have noticed them. While others, howlers, as she liked to describe them, had they gone uncorrected, would have caused a thousand irate letters to end up on the author’s desk, pointing out his stupidity. Miss Warburton never allowed Harry to forget that Geneva was not the capital of Switzerland, and that the Titanic had sunk on April 15th, not 14th.
In a moment of flippant bravado, Harry had once reminded her that in Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, the heroine’s eyes changed from black to brown to blue and back to black again in less than a hundred pages.
‘I never comment on books I haven’t edited,’ she said, without any suggestion of irony.
Emma would be among the last to read the manuscript, when it was in proof form. Everyone else would have to wait until publication day before they could get their hands on a copy.
Harry had planned to spend a relaxing weekend once the book was finished. On Saturday afternoon, he and Giles would drive over to the Memorial Ground and watch Bristol play their old rivals Bath. In the evening, he would take Emma to the Bristol Old Vic to see Patricia Routledge in Come for the Ride, followed by dinner at Harvey’s.
On Sunday, he and Emma had been invited by Giles and Karin to lunch at Barrington Hall. They would later attend evensong, when he would spend most of the sermon wondering which page his three readers were on. As for an unbroken night’s sleep, that would not be back on the agenda until all three had called and given their opinion.
When the phone rang, Harry’s first thought was that it was too early for any of them to have finished the book. He picked it up to hear Giles’s familiar voice on the other end of the line.
‘Sorry to mess you about, Harry, but I won’t be able to join you for rugby on Saturday, and we’ll also have to postpone lunch on Sunday.’ Harry didn’t need to ask why, because an explanation followed immediately. ‘Walter Scheel called earlier. The East Germans have opened the floodgates at last, and their citizens are pouring across the border. I’m calling from Heathrow. Karin and I are about to board a flight to Berlin. We’re hoping to get there before they start knocking the wall down, because she and I plan to be part of the demolition crew.’
‘That’s the most wonderful news,’ said Harry. ‘Karin must be delighted. Tell her I’m envious, because when people ask where were you on the day the wall came down, you’ll be able to tell them. And if you can, bring me back a piece.’
‘I’m going to have to take an extra suitcase,’ said Giles. ‘So many people have made the same request.’
‘Just remember, you’ll be witnessing history, so before you go to bed each night, be sure to write down everything you’ve experienced that day. Otherwise you’ll have forgotten the details by the time you wake up.’
‘I’m not sure we’ll be going to bed,’ said Giles.
‘May I ask why you’re carrying a hammer in your bag, sir?’ asked a vigilant security officer at Heathrow.
‘I’m hoping to break down a wall,’ Giles replied.
‘I wish I could join you,’ said the officer, before zipping up the overnight bag.
When Giles and Karin climbed aboard the Lufthansa plane half an hour later, it was as if they had gatecrashed a party rather than joined a group of passengers who would normally be fastening their seatbelts prior to receiving safety instructions from a zealous air hostess. Once the flight had taken off, champagne corks were popping, and passengers chatted to their neighbours as if they were old friends.
Karin held on to Giles’s hand throughout the entire flight, and she must have said, ‘I just can’t believe it’ a dozen times, still fearful that by the time they landed in Berlin, the party would be over and everything would have returned to normal.