Free Midnight Sun by Ramsey Campbell Page B

"I'm not sure I ought to know. It works best if I just let the story tell itself to me. I think writers can be too conscious of their technique or what they're trying to say or who they're influenced by. I suppose I must be influenced by everything I've read, particularly when I was a child."
    "I'd say your stories read like nobody except yourself. Who did vou —"
    "I've never understood this thing about writers trying to find their own voice. It seems to me that if you've got one you're more likely to develop it when you're not straining to hear it yourself. I just try to tell the story as if you were listening to me tell it. I interrupted you."
    "I'm glad you did," Kerys told him, and Ellen sensed she was relieved that his enthusiasm had overcome the self-consciousness he always experienced with strangers. "Don't let your food get cold. I was only going to ask what you used to read."
    "Anything that helped keep my imagination alive." Ben chewed the forkful as if he was tasting his memories. "Children's fantasies, ghost stories. Science fiction one summer. And when I was a bit older, all the books I could get hold of that were supposed to get you sent to hell for reading them, or so my aunt who brought me up believes. Don't think I'm getting at Auntie Beryl, though, you two. Too much imagination scares some people, that's all."
    "Not you kids, I can tell. Which is your favourite Sterling book?"
    "The new one," they both said.
    "The Boy Who Caught The Snowflakesl Mine too. What do you think we should tell children about it to make them want to read it?"
    "About when he wishes he can't feel the cold," Margaret said, "and then the snowflake lands on his hand and he sees it not melting."
    "And his second wish is the world should never be cold again, and the cold all goes inside him."
    "Tell them about how the icecaps start melting and the seas begin to flood the land and all sorts of birds and other creatures start to die out. That was sad."
    "But it's all right at the end, because he uses his third wish to put the cold back in the world."
    "And you have to show them some of Mummy's pictures," Margaret told Kerys. "I like the one where the boy's standing in the snow and the two snowflakes are sort of perching on his hands like birds."
    "That's superb. I thought we might use it on the cover."
    "You remember I told you I've worked in advertising," Ellen said. "I was wondering if you'd want me to make suggestions about that side of things."
    "You bet. I'll introduce you to our publicity person and you can sort her out," Kerys promised. "But I just saw some little eyes looking at the sweet trolley when they thought nobody was noticing."
    Almost an hour later she ushered the family back to the Firebrand offices, where they were introduced to so many people who wished the book success, and shook so many hands, that Ellen promptly forgot all the names. She was left with a sense of general goodwill which more or less compensated for their being unable to track down the publicity director. "You can meet her next time you're down," Kerys told her, and led them through the children's book department to her office, grabbing an armful of books each for Margaret and Johnny on the way. She cleared a space amid the precarious piles of typescripts and memos and books on her desk while her assistant brought milk for the children and coffee for the adults, extra strong for Ben. When the drinks arrived Kerys raised hers in a last toast. "Here's to making this the year of the Sterlings," she said.

    TEN

    Twilight and traffic were gathering on the motorway out of London. Long before the car reached Cambridge Johnny was asleep. He was still her baby, Ellen thought as she glanced at his dreaming face in the light from an oncoming vehicle, even if he'd reached the age at which her telling him so annoyed him. Once they were past Cambridge she and Margaret and Ben took turns to spot strange place-names: Stow cum Quy, Snail-well, Puddledock, Trowse Newton