Was one of these women my girlfriend, then? He must have wondered. He glanced again at the washing piled beside him. The underwear looked expensive, as did the dresses, though they didn’t appear particularly well cared for, strewn about like that, like territorial markers.
He would struggle to accept my romantic involvement with either of them. He would have been equally mystified by what either of them saw in me, in that state.
‘Nat!’ Wendy said, and so suddenly that Giles flinched. ‘The outline, if you please.’
‘Oh, oh. Of course. Let me fetch it.’ Natalie rose from her chair and teetered into my office.
‘Seb?’ Giles tried again to reach me. ‘Seb, can you tell me what this is about? We’ve several important matters to discuss.’
I merely shrugged, my posture suggesting the haplessness that I felt.
That was the first time that Giles had looked upon me with pity too.
Nat bustled into the living room and handed the old paper file to Giles. ‘The proposal!’ Breathless with glee, she added, ‘People will be astonished!’
‘Will they, now?’ Giles replied. He took the file from Nat’s outstretched hand. I watched her fingers tremble, and the sight of her yellowing nails made Giles recoil. She’d transformed herself into something feminine, but forgotten to pay attention to her hands.
‘Nat,’ Wendy said sharply, and glared with disapproval at her friend, if that’s what Natalie even was.
‘I’m sorry. But it’s just so exciting!’ Natalie said. She came and sat beside me, on the other arm of the chair. Tentatively, she reached out a veiny, quivering hand and placed it upon my shoulder.
Giles glanced at the folder in his hand. ‘API’ was stencilled at the top of the file. API, what does that mean? I watched my agent’s confusion increase. There couldn’t have been more than three sheets of paper inside the file. ‘Seb, what is this?’
‘We’ve told you what it is. The proposal. Isn’t that what you need?’ Wendy said.
Giles opened the file and the scent of old card became noticeable in the room. He looked at the letterheaded API folio, all browned with age around the edges. He began reading the first paragraph.
Wendy and Nat extended their heads towards him, like hungry birds inside a dirty nest.
After several minutes, Giles looked up at me. ‘What is this, Seb? An outline for a short-story collection?’
‘Something far more ambitious than Yellow Teeth,’ Wendy said, her own grin back in place, while she wrinkled her nose at the mention of my last novel. ‘We think he may have missed the point in Yellow Teeth. You could say, he may have missed the boat entirely. But that book served a purpose, didn’t it, Seb? Kept it all going. Though this is a far more accurate and comprehensive vision of his ideas.’
Giles ignored Wendy. ‘Is there any more of this, Seb?’
‘Of course,’ Wendy said. ‘Nat. Bring it in. He might as well begin as he’s finally deigned to visit us. No time like the present.’
‘Bring what in?’ Giles asked.
‘Oh, you’ll see!’ Nat said, her voice breaking into a squeal, before she returned from my office carrying a thin pile of printer paper, pinched at the top by a red paperclip. Nat dropped the manuscript in Giles’s lap before returning, somewhat clumsily in her shoes, to sit beside me.
Giles glanced at the cover page: The Hades Intake. 12 Strange Experiences. It was dedicated to ‘Our Master, M. L. Hazzard’.
I caught a combination of recognition, and an even deeper confusion, filling Giles’s eyes. He’d recognized the name Hazzard immediately, as he was a character in Yellow Teeth – the cross-dressing leader of the SPR. Giles frowned. Strange experiences: that’s also what the author, Hazzard, had called his own stories in Yellow Teeth. ‘This is some kind of sequel then, to Yellow Teeth?’ he said this distractedly.
Wendy raised her thick black eyebrows and answered for me, as she had done all afternoon. ‘In a manner of speaking. But this is the best thing he’s ever written down.’
‘Yes. We’re quite a team,’ Nat added. ‘We share everything.’
Written down? An odd expression, and Giles stiffened when he heard it. ‘A team? Seb, is this a bloody joke?’ Giles shook his head. ‘Seb. This is a short-story collection.’
‘Oh, no,’ Nat said, correcting Giles. ‘They’re not stories. They’re experiences. Strange experiences. And this material has been in the works for some time.’
‘Please, begin. We’re not going anywhere,’ Wendy said, and nodded at the thin manuscript that lay in Giles’s lap, which seemed to be growing heavier as each second of the madness continued.
‘Begin?’ Giles said. ‘Seb, you know that Pan won’t accept a collection of horror stories. No serious publisher will. We’re all expecting a novel. Is this a digression while you work on a new book? A companion piece to ‘Teeth?’
‘It’s what he wants, isn’t it, Seb?’ Wendy added.
He, an unusual and reverential emphasis on a pronoun for an author too. Wendy hadn’t been referring to me either and that really baffled Giles.