The publicity machine trundles along, or in my case creaks, much like my aching joints as I hobble in heels along The Strand to Waddling Duck for a Meet The Press session with my fellow spring authors.
I’m a little nervous as readers of this blog will have by now ascertained that 'meeting' is not my strong point. I can sometimes enjoy a party, despite all claims to the contrary, but like marriage, monogamy and motherhood, it’s more the idea that appeals to me. I like the anticipation, the fantasy, the notion. By the time it's a reality it's too late - you're there, stuck in a corner, doing it, with only alcohol to dull the pain.
So what do you wear to meet the press? Once upon a time I was the press and I don't remember anyone dressing up for me. The other problem is lighting in as much as, at home, in the 4pm gloom of my bedroom, I don't have any. Naturally, this means that when I'm getting ready by 40 watt bulb, I look simply wonderful - but not so much when standing on the 10th Floor of Waddling House Corporate Headquarters under spotlights that do the same for the face as holding a torch under it, but in reverse. My eldest daughter had helpfully rubbed in a bit of unblended concealer before I left the house (breeding does, apparently, have its advantages) but after that I was on my own with a glass of cava in a room the size of Terminal 5 with a lot of people wearing sticky badges, most of which seemed to herald that they were not, in fact, Press, but employees.
Young employees.
It appears that the press were somewhat under-represented though those who did drag themselves across London for a free drink were quite senior literary editors lured, no doubt, by names like Alain de Botton - whose Waddling Duck minder stuck to his side like glue in a sweater - rather than that of, say, Marion McUnpronounceable. I was recently invited to one of his School of Life singles evenings by a friend. Even the thought made me want to curl up like a cold canape and throw myself into the nearest swing bin. Not least because I imagine they are full of women. Clever women. Everything is full of women. (Please God, women who read!) There are times, this being yet another in the long conveyor belt of such moments since the husband became unhinged and unhitched, when I realise that not only have I woken up to a brand new world full of women, but that I have also woken up to a brand new world full of young women.
At work the other day during a heated discussion over whether or not Russell Brandt should resign (American election, what American election?) I mentioned that the Beeb could always hire him back later: 'Remember, like they did with Kenny Everet?'
'Kenny who?' said one of my co-workers.
'You, know - Kenny..?' and then my voice trailed off. That's the problem. They don't.
'Leonard Cohen?'
'Is he one of the Burn after Reading brothers?'
And they are everywhere: sitting at the desks surrounding me in the office, standing in the huddle into which I insinuated myself the other night at the book launch, hanging around my house eating my food claiming to be blood kin, and now here, swarming at Waddling Duck. My lovely editor looks like she's stepped out of the pages of Tatler. My publicist, doe-eyed, winsome and slim as a bread-stick stands next to me and immediately supersizes me to a Happy Meal with extra fries, and then I see a tall, leggy girl with blonde curly hair tumbling down her back talking to Andrew Holgate from The Sunday Times and think she is the journalist from Vogue. It's not until the Publicity Director at Waddling Duck (also impossibly young) tells me her name that I realise she's actually my Publisher who, on the basis of one short meeting, I seem to have embossed in my memory on a pedestal of glossy, corporate seniority in a Chanel Suit and Anna Wintour shades. There are even boys, boys, with managerial titles, and less facial hair than some of my women friends...
So where are all the birds my age, I wonder (apart from hurriedly having electrolysis?) Have I stumbled into the publishing equivalent of Logan's Run?
(Logan's what?)
But no. They exist. They're out there writing books judging by the other female authors. All three of my fellow novelists must be at least in my ball park (okay I'm downscaling, on the grounds of tact). One of them, another mother of four, can surely remember Kenny. She has a daughter older than mine. Not a ruddy line on her face though, and no body fat. I know. I checked. That intent look when I'm talking to you is not me being absolutely riveted by what you say (though that too) - it's me desperately trying to identify a wrinkle so I can feel less like the Cryptkeeper surrounded by nubile nymphs.
None of the authors I wanted to meet appeared. How to meet a man after 40? Not a sign of her. (Get a wedding ring, I would say. It always seemed to have a magical effect for me, albeit with the wrong sort of sleazy man who touchingly imagines being married makes you 'safe'). Or Split: 'I want a divorce.' Surely we two would have a great deal in common? Even The Idle Parent would have been nice to know, since its a philosophy I have long held and practiced.
'I thought you must be the stalker woman,' said a male author.
'No' I said, offended.
'I meant the woman who had been stalked,' he added.
'Still no. Though I did have a stalker once,' I replied to his back.
'Yes, me too,' he said airily, lest I think I was special.
I asked Andrew Holgate if he was married. 'Yes, 29 years,' he replied defensively, stepping back just a tad (perhaps worried that I was about to apply my own criteria for sleaziness).
'Good,' I said. 'Please get your wife to read my book. It's about a woman who runs away,' I add, quickly, wondering if Will Skidelsky is also married and I can lean on him for his wife before he goes.
Target audience, darling, target audience.
