Page 40 of Famous Last Words

‘A Bloody Mary – no, two. And a goat’s cheese tart,’ he adds. Cam, surprised he’s ordering food already, asks for the same.

‘So, what news?’ Charlie says.

‘Well,’ Cam says. ‘So.’

‘So,’ Charlie says back. He very deliberately puts his phone to the side, face down.

‘Remember Adam?’

‘The big-shot – bestselling debut?’

‘Yes. Well, his next book is six years late.’

‘Sixyears?’

‘You know publishing.’

Charlie rocks back boyishly on his chair, legs stretched out underneath the table, arms folded across his chest. ‘Six years, though. I mean – what’s he been doing?’

‘Trying to have ideas.’ She glances at the menu.

Their drinks arrive, Cam’s cold but the glass warm from the dishwasher, and she takes a delicious, tomatoey-alcoholic sip, which hits the precise spot she needed. She closes her eyes, says a silentcheersto being here with Charlie at the very beginning of the evening. Maybe they really will stay out all night.

‘His publisher checked in with me today.’ She catches his eye, lets a grin out.

‘Crikey – did the publisher rap your knuckles?’

‘Well – kind of. Yes. Just said they can’t waitindefinitely. They’re hinting at wanting the advance back, in their own nice way.’

‘Tricky,’ Charlie says. ‘If I were the agent, I think I’d go into hiding.’

‘Ha.’

‘Is he stressed?’

‘Adam? He writes when he writes. I don’t even know if he’s started. He won’t say. He’s the one who will just post it to me when he’s ready. It takes as long as it takes.’

‘Oh yes, the Jiffy bag client!’

‘That’s the one.’ Cam smiles. Adam doesn’t much like email; he said he liked the remoteness of sending his printed novel in an envelope that he had no idea whether she had received or was yet reading. He had added, when she signed him, that when he wrote the second novel, he’d send it in an envelope, too. That it would be his thing. She’d loved this so much she had told everyone. Libby said he sounded pretentious.

‘I mean,’ Charlie says, ‘it’s just a book.’ As the words leave his mouth, she avoids her distorted reflection in the windowpane. ‘Anyway,’ Charlie says. ‘So this is why you want to stay out all night. Makes sense, CF.’

Camilla Fletcher. She reverted to her maiden name after her married one became infamous. She still remembers the day she signed the form. A kind of sombre reverse-wedding day. It was surprising how easy it was to change it. And she simply reverted to Fletcher on the agency website: most people got used to it quickly.

‘Exactly.’

‘Must be nice to be able to work precisely when you like,’ Charlie remarks. Evidently, he can’t get past it – sometimes, Cam thinks he doesn’t really understand publishing as much as he ought to, because he adds, almost under his breath, ‘Six years off.’

‘Oh, trust me,’ Cam says with a laugh, ‘he’s not been having any fun.’

Out of Sight, Adam’s debut, was published five and a half years ago. They – Cam’s temporary stand-in and Adam – accepted Penguin’s two-book offer, andOut of Sighthad become an international bestseller, in the charts for four straight months here and in the US. The second book had been expected within the year, and is now so late that Cam is sort of half relieved she’s been chased because the next step is the publisher losing interest entirely.

She leans towards Charlie. ‘What’ve you been working on, anyway? Tell me something.’ This is their thing:Tell me something.

‘I’ve been working on … research about theTitanic,’ Charlie answers with a smile. ‘Become an expert. Via Wikipedia. But perhaps no one will even read the book.’

‘Likely,’ Cam says. ‘Just a book,’ she adds lightly.

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