The Lessons Read online

  DEDICATION

  For my parents, Pat and Terry Purcell, who have loved and supported me throughout. Thank you.

  EPIGRAPH

  Art is not always healthy and why should it be?

  Patricia Highsmith,

  Cahier 27, 20 May 1990

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Act One: 1983

  Part One: 1960–1961

  Chapter 1: Harry, The Lamb, Halmstead, Kent

  Chapter 2: Daisy, Halmstead, Kent

  Chapter 3: Harry, Fairstead Hill, Kent

  Chapter 4: Daisy, Halmstead

  Chapter 5: Harry, The Downs

  Chapter 6: Simon, Stourstone, Kent

  Chapter 7: Harry, The Downs

  Chapter 8: Simon, Stourstone

  Chapter 9: Harry, Lodge Farm

  Chapter 10: Daisy, Stourstone

  Chapter 11: Harry, Stourstone

  Chapter 12: Daisy, Stourstone

  Act Two: 1983

  Part Two: 1961

  Chapter 13: Simon, Surrey

  Chapter 14: Daisy, Stourstone

  Chapter 15: Daisy, Soho, London

  Chapter 16: Simon, Stourstone

  Chapter 17: Harry, Stourstone

  Act Three: 1983

  Part Three: 1961

  Chapter 18: Simon, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, French Riviera

  Chapter 19: Harry, Lodge Farm

  Chapter 20: Simon, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat

  Chapter 21: Daisy, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat

  Chapter 22: Simon, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat

  Chapter 23: Daisy, Saint-Tropez

  Chapter 24: Harry, Lodge Farm

  Chapter 25: Simon, Positano, Italy

  Act Four: 1983

  Part Four 1963–1968

  Chapter 26: Harry, The Downs, 1963

  Chapter 27: Simon, King’s Road, London, 1964

  Chapter 28: Harry, The Lamb, Halmstead, 1964

  Chapter 29: Daisy, King’s Road, 1964

  Chapter 30: Simon, Chelsea Embankment, London, 1965

  Chapter 31: Harry, The Downs, 1965

  Chapter 32: Daisy, Chelsea Embankment, 1965

  Chapter 33: Harry, Lodge Farm, 1966

  Chapter 34: Simon, Chelsea Embankment, 1966

  Chapter 35: Daisy, Halmstead, 1966

  Chapter 36: Harry, Lodge Farm, 1966

  Chapter 37: Daisy, Halmstead, 1966

  Chapter 38: Harry, Lodge Farm, 1966

  Chapter 39: Daisy, Dover, 1968

  Act Five: 1983

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Praise

  Copyright

  ACT ONE

  1983

  Jane

  London to New York

  I rejected a first-class seat on principle. My literary agent, the great Trevor Melville, did not. He is up the front of the aeroplane right now being offered champagne, hors d’oeuvres, a hot towel, a massage and a blow job, I assume. I don’t know what they do up there. I’ve never travelled first class. On principle.

  When I rejected my first-class ticket in favour of economy class I requested they donate the difference to the children of Kampuchea. I don’t know whether they did. I’m not even sure I could say who they are. I only wonder about that now I’m seated in the cramped window seat in economy, thinking how nice it would be to be handed a hot towel and a glass of champagne. The armrest feels sticky. Instead of champagne I have the hardback of Hollywood Wives I bought at the airport, having forgotten to pack the Updike I had been reading. Rabbit Is Rich, if you’re wondering. The woman at the counter assured me I would love Hollywood Wives.

  Not only was I regretting having principles, I was regretting having no backbone. Not that the seat was uncomfortable, though it was, but because I should have declined the invitation to attend the event in New York. I don’t do events, new book or not. Book tours, readings and events are things I used to do. My books don’t sell any more copies because I endure six weeks of solitary confinement in two dozen hotel rooms up and down Britain and across the USA. The demands on authors get worse every year. The first book I didn’t promote at all, because I was going through a marriage breakdown, was the one that sold most copies. I rest my case.

  I’m on the aeroplane because Trevor was very insistent, and the British public are idiots. The New York event isn’t just for me, it is to be a celebration of British writing in all its forms. John le Carré will be there, Trevor tells me. As will Salman Rushdie, who won the Booker. And Jackie Collins, the author of the book on my lap. There were rumours of William Golding making an appearance. Plus poets and playwrights and journalists.

  Trevor can be very persuasive when he wants to be. He said to me with a straight face, ‘Jane, it’s a prestigious event and as a direct descendant of Austen, Brontë, Eliot, Woolf, and the equal of Spark and Murdoch, it is your duty to attend.’ He is an idiot and I told him so. Spark and Murdoch could just as easily attend themselves. In fact, I said, I bet they both declined. But he knows how a writer’s vanity works. I dismissed his ridiculous statement out of hand. Austen and Brontë! Yet a writer can never forget criticism or praise entirely. The former festers and the latter blooms.

  What tipped me over, however, was Margaret Thatcher’s thumping defeat of Labour at the recent election. As I said, the British public are idiots. When the news came in, I called Trevor and agreed to go. He had already declined on my behalf, he admitted, but he would see if he could turn things around.

  Exchanging Thatcher’s Britain for Reagan’s America didn’t appear to be much of a deal, but New York has never represented what we think of as America, just as London is not representative of Britain. Besides, I’ve always liked New York.

  I have been tempted to move to America. I’ve visited many times since the sixties. I’d choose the sunny side, though: Southern California. San Diego, Palm Springs, Los Angeles. I stayed in Malibu for a few blazing months just after I turned forty. That script never got written in the end, though the film was made, regardless. Someone else adapted my novel while I spent my days missing my children and listening to Joni Mitchell albums, and my nights fucking Carl in that bedroom overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I still got paid. I suppose you could call it my midlife crisis. Do women have midlife crises? Carl wasn’t from Malibu either. No one is. He was an actor in his late twenties. Just what I needed at that time. Nobody’s heard of him. Spent his days surfing rather than going to auditions. Just another casualty of California’s smiling promise. That was ten years ago. He must be staring at the rear end of an eighteen-year-old waitress and contemplating his own midlife crisis by now.

  What surprised me most about California was the optimism. I couldn’t understand it. I wouldn’t have minded had there been good cause for it, but I could find none. Not in Hollywood. Not in the American way of life. Maybe once, briefly, in the early sixties, but not in the early seventies in Nixon’s America. I suppose that’s why positive thinking took hold and became such a valued commodity on the west coast. I suppose it is an essential component of the American dream, too. The only one that is cheap and available to all.

  Of course I adopted a positive outlook. When in Rome. Besides, pessimism made one a pariah. Sarcasm was outlawed, irony unknown. If one couldn’t afford two cars, a pool, three bathrooms, and a television in every room, at least one could have an indefatigably positive outlook. It was a free country, after all. But somehow my optimism always struck the wrong note. Even my smile unnerved people. I don’t know whether a Brit can ever be a full-throated optimist.

  We haven’t even reversed out of the terminal. Passengers are still finding their seats. They’re all doing last-minute things in a muted panic. The man seated next to me is already reading. Apart from an awkward he
llo and a bit of jostling as he took his seat and arranged his things, he has been silent and still. He hasn’t looked up once. He must fly regularly. I don’t. Not any more. So I have been watching everything with interest. I love to watch people and eavesdrop. I can’t help myself. This scene, with passengers taking their seats and struggling with hand luggage, everyone at cross purposes, is repeated all day on dozens of flights at hundreds of airports and must seem commonplace to those working, but this moment won’t happen again. Not just to me, but to all of us. Life is like that. Even the steward’s brief conversation with the passenger directly in front of me is unique. The steward must have had hundreds of exchanges with passengers in the last month alone, but this one is different. The middle-aged male passenger is complaining that the window won’t open.

  ‘They are not supposed to open,’ is the steward’s patient reply.

  ‘The window on my last flight did,’ he says.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, sir, this one doesn’t. Is there anything else?’

  Since when have windows opened on a jumbo jet?

  An hour into the flight, everything has quietened down. I have read or skimmed through a hundred pages of Hollywood Wives but I need a rest. The book is too big for the pocket in front of me so it must remain on my lap. There is nothing to see out the window. The man seated beside me is still reading. He is reaching the end of the paperback. I should be thankful, for he is the most accommodating of men. I have ownership of both armrests, as his forearms are on his lap. He holds the book with both hands and barely moves. He hasn’t kicked off his shoes. He has no offensive body odour. I can’t say how old he is, as I was busy stowing my handbag when he said hello and I haven’t had reason to look at his face since then. It’s devilishly hard to look at someone’s face unobtrusively when they’re seated beside you. He is wearing a younger man’s suit, not a very well made one by the looks of it, and it’s a nasty brown, but he has made an effort. We are in economy: he might have been in jeans.

  There’s no third seat, so we only have each other. The section we share in the rear of the plane near the galley is narrow and can only fit two seats. There are three of these in a row. They remind me of couples’ seats or lovers’ seats at the cinema. With the wall of the galley across the aisle it is very private. Only trouble is we are a bit too close to the smoking section at the very rear of the plane. And the smell of tobacco is killing me. I don’t want to disturb him, but I really need to have a cigarette. Though I smoke, I never sit in the smoking section, I can’t bear it. Smokers are usually terrible chatters and incorrigible flirts.

  The need to use the lavatory has decided me. I rummage in my handbag for my cigarettes and makeup bag and I take the plunge. ‘Excuse me.’

  My travelling companion has nearly finished reading one of my novels. My third, The Undeceived. This is the first time I’ve ever seen a stranger reading one of my novels in public. My first flight in five years and someone is reading my work. My books are not the sort sold in airport bookshops. I have lived comfortably on my sales, but they haven’t sold enough copies for me to expect to see them read on public transport or in tea shops. Not that I take public transport or visit tea shops. Maybe I should get out more.

  In my experience it is better not to talk to anyone, friend or stranger, who has read your work. All praise is doubted, all criticism taken to heart. Neither party finds the experience satisfactory. I shall say nothing.

  When I return to my seat after the cigarette he has Hollywood Wives open on his lap. He has made himself comfortable. His arms are on the armrests. Shoes off. Tie loosened. Belt undone? I think so, but my view is partly obscured by the book and his seatbelt.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ he says, trying to hand back my book as I squeeze by him to my seat. He does appear very embarrassed. ‘It’s just that I am interviewing Jackie when I get to New York but I haven’t read any of her novels. Dumped on me at the last minute. I’m sure she won’t mind. I’m not her target audience. But when I saw it just sitting there . . . I’m sorry.’

  When I say he can keep it to read on the flight, he says, ‘Oh, thank you. But Jackie’s the least of my worries.’ He pulls The Undeceived from the seat pocket in front of him. ‘Jane Curtis. She’s the one I’m most worried about. She has a reputation for being difficult.’ He is tapping the paperback against his knee. ‘If someone hasn’t done their homework she lets them know. I’m interviewing her in front of an audience. Do you know her?’

  I tell him I have heard of Jane Curtis but haven’t read her.

  I should have published under my maiden name, Littlejohn. I’ve been stuck with my first husband’s name on my books, even those written after we divorced and I remarried.

  ‘Oh you must read her. This isn’t the first time I’ve read The Undeceived. I must have read it three times. And The Eunuch even more. The Lessons, her debut, was ground-breaking. So shocking for its time. I read it at university. Changed my view of the place.’

  He flips the paperback over and opens it. He shows me the grainy black and white photo of the author. The photo of me. I’m sitting right next to him. I notice the way his finger caresses her/my face. The photo was taken in the sixties. The publisher used it well into the seventies. I was too naive at the time to realise that the pretty young innocent with the imagination of a whore was considered good for sales. I haven’t allowed more recent editions to carry an updated photograph. As a woman, being taken seriously in the literary world is a constant battle. I won’t be pushed around. Hence my reputation for being difficult.

  My travelling companion is prattling on. He’s married and has two children. He’s a copywriter and part-time journalist who wants to write novels. He keeps referring to me as a feminist writer.

  I’m no feminist. Largely because they tend to stop at equality. I would march under the banner of a more ambitious movement. Domination. A complete transfer of power. Matriarchy or nothing. I can love a man but not men.

  He still has the book open at my photo. I know when I’m reading a book with a photo of the author, I stare at the photo and try to get some understanding of the author’s character from their face, clothes, hairstyle, facial hair, makeup, glasses. I feel certain I’d know that author if I met them or sat beside them on a flight taking me to interview them. Even if the photo was taken twenty years before.

  That’s the problem with ageing. You become invisible. At least women do. My eyes are the same. So are my lips and my nose. I am still recognisable as that young woman in the photograph, if men choose to look closely. But they don’t.

  My hair is different, though. I thought my hair was my one defining feature. But all things pass. In my thirties, after Clyde was born, it began to thin. When I looked in the mirror I no longer took courage from my hair. After I started to have it coloured regularly in my late thirties, it gradually became brittle. I finally cut it all off a couple of years ago and this strange curl entered my life. Since then, I’ve worn it very short. Almost a man’s hairstyle. And I’ve slowly lightened the colour I have put through it. I don’t know myself when I glimpse myself in a mirror, or catch my reflection in a window. When I look again, I see me. My features are older, but the same. I have mourned the loss of my hair, of my identity, privately.

  This is my first public death.

  Perhaps I am my hair to my travelling companion, too. How disappointed he will be when he meets me in New York. I’ve always been vain. Most people are, I suppose. Otherwise how could we all function? I look in the mirror for reassurance now. Yes, I am still beautiful. I don’t see it in the eyes of men, or women, as I once did, and I can’t say why. I’m not the same Jane Curtis any more. But I am who I am now.

  I have decided to seduce my travelling companion. Or at least excite his interest in me. Not because he was reading my book, but because he is young and married and travelling alone. And I have been single too long. It has been almost a year since I threw Markus out.

  ‘If you’re nervous about the interview, why
not practise on me,’ I say to my companion. ‘I won’t know the answers but you can get your head straight about what you know.’

  He takes out his briefcase and opens it. He has a much-thumbed copy of The Eunuch, my shortest novel, and a hardback of Winter Harvest, my biggest seller. There is also a notebook he flicks through until he finds the list of questions he’ll be asking me tomorrow night in New York. At the top is a list of my titles. The Lessons, The Eunuch, The Undeceived, Children of the King, Winter Harvest, At the Water’s Edge, Delight, Hawthorn House, An Awkward Business.

  There is also a list of men: Sebastian Curtis. Simon Compton. Walter Richmond. James Beckett. Trevor Melville. Richard Fontaine. Clive Samuels. Markus Taylor.

  No Harry Morton, which is interesting.

  As expected, my travelling companion spends the next hour speculating on links between what he knows of my life and what is depicted in the novels. It’s clear he’s read the regrettably frank Paris Review interview I did in ’76.

  How excited, sexually excited, men get reading about strong women. The self-same women they run screaming from in life. The more my companion speculates, the harder he gets, no doubt, picturing that fine-looking young woman in the photo doing all the things my female narrators do. What heterosexual woman has not at some time in their life put a man’s penis in her mouth? Who has not let a man fumble about under her skirt with his hand or mouth? These things are not new. But let a beautiful young woman write about such acts, and you have publishing gold. Especially back in the sixties, though the success of Hollywood Wives suggests things haven’t changed.

  The Eunuch is my angriest novel. And though the reviews were mostly good, sales were poor. I was in such pain when I wrote it. In it a nice young man is destroyed by my female narrator. And she loves him. And yet this book is the one men most often mention when they try to fuck me. What are they looking for?

  My companion seems fixated on The Eunuch. He even reads parts out. The sixties flood back to me. Simon. That villa in Nice. All those corrupt fuckers. Sebastian. The house in Stourstone. Harry and my niece, Daisy. My sister, Kate. I encourage my companion to speculate further. I ask him questions about the explicit content in the books. We are talking quietly with our heads close together. Like you do in bed. I bet myself he is actually hard under that briefcase.