‘So, where are you heading for, anyway?’ Alice asked; and when I told her, ‘Do you have family there?’

‘No, I’m going to see a friend. She’s been living there a few years now. She’s a social worker.’

‘I see. This is – this is a girlfriend, then, is it?’

‘No, no, not at all. Absolutely not. No, Joan and I go … way back. I mean –’ It suddenly occurred to me that there was a quick and easy way of filling her in on the situation. ‘Did you see that feature on me a couple of months ago, in one of the Sunday supplements: “The First Story I Ever Wrote”?’

‘Yes, I did. I adored it, too: that terribly funny spoof you wrote on detective stories when you were twelve or something. You must have been such a precocious little thing.’

‘I was eight,’ I said gravely. ‘And it was meant to be perfectly serious. Anyway, Joan was – well, I suppose my best friend in those days. She lived almost next door, and we used to go and play together on this farm: and that photograph which they used in the magazine, the one of me sitting at a desk and looking very serious and intellectual, that was taken in this cowshed where we had a sort of den. I knew it would be the perfect one for them to use – you know, they’d just have to cut it in half so she wasn’t actually in it – but I lost my copy years and years ago. I phoned up my parents and they had no idea where it was, either, so in the end I phoned Joan on the off chance that she might still have one. Which she did, much to my amazement: seems that she’s hung on to it all this time. And so she sent it down, and – well, it was sort of nice to have made contact again, because we hadn’t really had much to say to each other since … I don’t know, since my rather short-lived marriage, I suppose, and after that we had a few more phone calls and then she asked me if I wanted to come up and stay for a few days and I thought – well, why not? So here I am.’

Alice smiled. ‘Sounds like she’s a bit stuck on you.’

‘Who, Joan? No. We hardly know each other, really. We were just kids.’

‘I don’t know, though: keeping your photograph all those years. And now that you’ve had books published and everything you might seem very glamorous to her.’

‘No, I mean, all this is really just for … you know, old times’ sake.’

Despite all that I was doing to play things down, I could see that the subject of Joan was starting to make Alice uncomfortable. A twinge of incipient jealousy, perhaps? Already? That was how I chose to interpret it, at any rate, in my treacherous exhilaration, and my suspicion was merely confirmed when she glanced at her watch and changed the subject with shameless abruptness.

‘Do you make much money from writing, Michael?’

This might well have been an impertinent question; but if Alice had taken a risk, it was a well-judged one: I would have told her anything by now.

‘Not a lot, no. That’s not why you do it, really.’

‘No, of course not. I only asked because – well, I’m in the publishing business myself, and I know the kind of sums involved. I know it can’t be easy for you.’

‘You work in publishing? Who for?’

‘Oh, you wouldn’t have heard of them. I’m afraid I work at the most disreputable end of the spectrum. Those two deadly words – I can hardly bring myself to utter them.’ She leaned forward, and her voice sank to a dramatic whisper: ‘Vanity publishing.’

I smiled indulgently. ‘Well, most publishing is vanity publishing, when you think about it. I certainly don’t earn a living wage, and my writing takes up a lot of time which I suppose I could be spending on other sorts of jobs, so you could say that I was paying for the privilege, in a way.’

‘Yes, but we publish the most dreadful kind of rubbish. Terrible novels and boring autobiographies … Stuff that’ll never get within five miles of a halfway decent bookshop.’

‘You’re an editor for these people, are you?’

‘Yes, I have to deal with all these mad authors on the telephone and reassure them that their books are worthwhile, which of course they aren’t. And sometimes I have to find writers, which is slightly more tricky: you know, somebody wants a book written – a history of their family, or something – and we have to find a writer who’ll take it on. That’s what I’m trying to do at the moment, as a matter of fact.’

‘The arrogance of these people, though: to assume their family histories are worth writing about.’

‘Well, they do happen to be quite famous, actually. You’ve heard of the Winshaws, have you?’

‘As in Henry Winshaw, you mean – that maniac who’s never off the television?’

She laughed. ‘That’s right. Well, Henry’s … aunt, I think it is, wants to have a book written about them all. Only she wants it to be done by – you know, a proper writer. Not just any old hack.’

‘God, you’d have to be a glutton for punishment to sign up for that, though, wouldn’t you?’

‘I suppose you would. All the same, they’re absolutely loaded, you know, the lot of them, and it seems she’s willing to pay the most absurd amount of money.’

I stroked my chin thoughtfully, beginning to pick up a hint of where this conversation was heading. ‘You know, it almost sounds … it almost sounds as if you’re trying to sell this idea to me.’

Alice laughed: she seemed truly shocked by this suggestion. ‘Toyou? Goodness, no. I mean, you’re a real writer, you’re famous,I’d never in my wildest dreams expect that –’

‘But you’d never in your wildest dreams have thought you’d meet me on a train, would you?’

‘No, but … Oh, I mean, this is ridiculous, it’s not even worth talking about. You must have so much to do, so many ideas for new novels …’

‘As it happens I don’t have any ideas for new novels at the moment. I was talking to my editor only a few weeks ago and we reached something of an impasse.’

‘But – look, you’re not telling me you’d be seriously interested in this, are you?’

‘Well, you haven’t told me what the deal is yet.’

When she did tell me, I tried to stop my eyes from widening and my jaw from dropping, but it wasn’t easy. I tried to look cool and confident in the few seconds it took to work some things out: how I could afford to move out of the flat in Earl’s Court, for instance, and buy my own place; how I would be able to live quite comfortably off the sort of sum she was talking about for several years. But there was something else I needed to know, something even more important, before I let myself be taken any further down this dangerous path.

‘And this book,’ I said: ‘this is your project, is it? Your baby.’

‘Oh yes, very much so. We’d … well, I imagine we’d be working together on it.’

The guard’s voice came over the speaker system, announcing that the train was about to arrive in Kettering. Alice stood up.

‘Well look, this is where I have to get off. It’s been really nice meeting you, and … Listen, you don’t have to be polite. You wouldn’t really be interested in taking this on, would you?’

‘It’s not out of the question, actually. Not by any means.’

She started laughing again. ‘I can’t believe this is really happening. Honestly, I can’t. Look, I’ve got a card in here somewhere …’ She fumbled inside her handbag. ‘Take this, and give me a call when you’ve had time to think about it a bit.’

I took the card and glanced at it. The name of the firm, ‘The Peacock Press’, stood out in red lettering, and beneath it came the legend, ‘Hortensia Tonks, Senior Editor’.

‘Who’s this?’ I asked, pointing at the name.

‘Oh, that’s … my boss, I suppose. They haven’t given me my own card, yet: I’m a relative newcomer. But who knows,’ and here – I can remember this clearly – she touched me lightly on the shoulder, ‘you could well turn out to be my passport to promotion. Just wait till I tell them that I’ve got Michael Owen interested in doing the Winshaw book. Just wait.’ She crossed out the unfamiliar name and wrote her own, in large, angular handwriting. Then she was taking my hand and pressing it in a formal farewell: ‘Well. Bye for now.’