Free The Singer by Cathi Unsworth Page A

actually thinking about
our future
now?’ she said eventually.
    ‘Yes, I am. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since Sunday, Lou-Lou,’ I dared to use the pet name she once, a long, long time ago, usedto find so amusing. ‘And I know I’ve been letting you down for a long time. So I’m trying to do something to make it up to you…’ I was so convinced by what I was saying and the way I was saying it that my voice started to break without me wanting it to. ‘I don’t want to lose you, Lou,’ I stuttered, feeling hot tears suddenly jerk into my eyeballs.
    ‘Dear, dear!’ she exclaimed, looking more puzzledthan anything else. It was like she didn’t want to believe me, but despite herself she did.
    ‘Look,’ I waved a hand in front of my face, reached in my jacket pocket for a handkerchief. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be embarrassing.’
    ‘Edward Bracknell,’ she rose to her feet as languidly as a cat taking a stretch, stood over me with her feet apart. ‘I almost think you mean all this.’ She cockedher head to one side. ‘I almost believe you.’
    She smiled. ‘But don’t think that means you can come back to bed yet.’ She cuffed me round the head with the newspaper clipping, then dropped it back on the pile. ‘I want to see a bit more evidence first. Actions speak louder than words.’
    And with that she stalked back to her frosty boudoir.
    But something had melted in her, if only a droplet. Isaw it in her eyes.
    And as luck would have it, she didn’t have to wait too long for her evidence either. Once the synopsis was finished, Granger took it straight round to an agent friend of his with a long history of music biz association, Madeline Fuller, a Marianne Faithful lookalike with the same nicotine-ravaged but posh baritone.Granger said she’d reacted exactly as he had done in the Loungebar. Wanted to place the synopsis in a Swiss bank vault or something. Whatever her fears, her powers of persuasion were most impressive.
    Before Christmas, we saw three publishers who were interested and naturally went with the highest bidder, a well-established and pretty well-heeled house who gave us a reasonable advance for it and a year to deliver the manuscript.
    That Christmas was the warmestone in recent memory, not least because I finally blew a wedge of my advance on some heating for the flat. Following the film premiere, the flow of work I’d pulled in for the magazine and the speediness of mine and Granger’s contract, I was allowed back into the Ice Queen’s newly cosy lair.
    I was careful to keep the drinking down, and the attention to Louise up, keeping the friends she foundso undesirable away from the flat and myself away from the pub. The interesting by-product of this was that I found myself happier than I had been since I couldn’t remember, with a purpose to my life, a clear head set to achieve it, and the grudging admiration of the woman who I’d realised almost too late I didn’t want to live without.
    Mother was all over me at Christmas, parading me to the ceaselessround of old biddies that dropped by for mince pies and sherry as if I’d already won the Booker Prize. Louise stayed on the sofa, exchanging knowing glances with my father, but both she and Mother seemed to be making more of an effort to be cordial than I’d ever seen before. And when we got the hell out of Guildford for new year, Lou was even happy for me to invite over Granger, along withsome of her workmates, to see in the New Year with good food and wine and all the promise of the work we were about to embark on.
    We stood watching fireworks explode above the gothic towers of St Pancras Station from our window over Camden Road, all ofus linking arms and attempting ‘Auld Lang Syne’ while cracking up with laughter, toasting each other with champagne.
    ‘Here comes the biggie,’Gavin winked as he knocked his glass against mine. ‘2002. Somethin’ tells me, this is gonna be our year!’
    Louise was leaning