Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark

Author:Muriel Spark
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: A New Directions Classic
Published: 1968-08-29T04:00:00+00:00

Although I had something to acquire in social savvy, looking back I can now say I wasn’t immature in my common sense. In fact, from the time of the dinner party I seemed to perceive that the Tooleys felt more confidence in me, not less, as one might have expected. It was as if they put me into that reliable category of the nanny or the cook who would never let them down. However, my days with Mackintosh & Tooley were numbered; they were numbered to the extent of two more months. I used those two months well.

A large part of an editor’s job is rejection. Perhaps nine-tenths. In those days at least, it was not only rejection of manuscripts but of those ideas that seemed to come walking into my office every day in the shape of pensive men and women talking with judicious facial expressions about such mutilated concepts as optimist/pessimist, fascist/communist, extrovert/introvert, highbrow/middlebrow/lowbrow; and this claptrap they applied to art, literature and life to the effect that all joy, wit and the pleasures of curiosity were quite squeezed out.

But along came Emma Loy. She had decided to publish her new novel with Mackintosh & Tooley, who gave a welcoming cocktail party for her in the office boardroom. Along came Emma with her egocentricity, her capriciousness, and her magic and her charm. About so good a writer it seems pointless to say she might have made an excellent actress, but this was a thought her presence evoked.

She had decided to forget her complaints about me to Martin York, and simply presumed that I had decided to forget.

Now, my advice to anyone who knows a person with charm, wit, and talent like Emma, and with some wisdom and intelligence, too, and should fall out with them, is to accept any opportunity of making it up. Because life offers only a few of such people.

And in fact I was genuinely pleased when Emma Loy said, as soon as she saw me at the party, ‘Mrs Hawkins, Mrs Hawkins, I can’t tell you how relieved I am that you’re here. I don’t know another soul. I hope you’re going to look after my books.’

‘Your books look after themselves,’ I said.

Which was true. Opinions varied about Emma Loy, but nobody could ever deny that she was a marvellous writer. Ian Tooley had let me read the typescript of her new novel. After the drivel I had been dealing with, Emma’s work was a decided relief, it was sheer pleasure, that way of composing a book like a piece of music, that Loy style of ferreting out facts and juxtaposing them with inventions.

I told Emma Loy of my admiration while I eked out my one glass of sherry and she sipped her second. She radiated delight. I was glad, then, that my quarrel with Emma Loy was over and forgotten. Whether I could trust her or not was beside the point; in fact, I think she didn’t believe in friendship and loyalty beyond

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