Wishful Thinking by Jemma Harvey Read Free Book Online

less than a week to discover she hated it, though she stuck it out for six months.
    â€˜I’m no good,’ she told a girlfriend. ‘I hate having to be pushy, and pester journalists to write about people, and I hate it even more when they pester back. And all these stupid parties! I can’t afford a full-time nanny now; I have to be home with the kids. Besides, I’ve never been much good at the social scene. I can’t think of any small talk. I just start boring on about the twins’ school reports, or my broken washing machine, and people look blank, and I don’t blame them. I wish there was something I could do where I could be polite. And no parties.’
    â€˜There’s publishing,’ said her friend thoughtfully. ‘That’s still fairly polite. On the surface.’
    â€˜What about the parties?’
    â€˜You needn’t go if you don’t want to. Most launches are just given to pretend to the writer you’re doing something: they don’t actually matter. Of course, the writers all think they’re stars, which is a pain, but that doesn’t matter either because no one else thinks so. And the important thing about publishing PR is that nobody expects you to be any good at it. It’s always been the job for Sloanes, particularly those with literary connections. Serious PR types give it a miss.’
    â€˜I’m not a Sloane with literary connections.’
    â€˜Irrelevant. It’s who-you-know, darling.’
    â€˜I don’t know anyone in publishing,’ Lin pointed out.
    â€˜I do.’
    And so Lin came to Ransome Harber, sinking into the unglamorous background as into a haven. (On reflection, you shouldn’t sink into a haven. Perhaps she just moored.) Georgie has enough push for the entire department, indeed for several departments, and she quickly learned to make use of Lin’s admin skills. Lin is the sort of person who writes everything down, makes lists of every contact, never forgets an appointment, never loses a file. Nobody minded if she didn’t attend most of the parties. And authors, she discovered, are far less demanding than real stars. They have to live in the everyday world in order to write about it (except for Jerry Beauman); film stars and their ilk can only afford their otherdimensional existence because they don’t write the script. And while Lin settled comfortably into the world of publishing, juggling job and children, inevitably she lost touch with old friends of Garry’s who had only ever considered her in the light of a supporting role and, as such, dispensable. Mind you, Lin’s one of the few people I have ever met who genuinely wants to play supporting roles, and always shies away from the centre stage.

Chapter 2
    I never nursed a dear gazelle
    To glad me with its dappled hide,
    But when it came to know me well
    It fell upon the buttered side.
    THOMAS HOOD Jr: Muddled Metaphors
    Before I move on to Georgie, let’s stand back from them both for a minute. If this were a more serious kind of book, now would be a good moment to make a point about life, and destiny, and everything. If I had, as they say, the pen of George Eliot, instead of the PC of Emma Jane Cook, I’d take the opportunity for a quick moralise. Of course, modern writers don’t do that, moralising is out of fashion: they just throw in another lavatory scene instead. Personally, when I’m on the loo I read Vogue , possibly in the hope that the sight of all those super-thin models might drop a hint to my metabolism. Anyway, I shan’t attempt to moralise, but let’s just take a second for a spot of philosophy. Getting me into practice for the Great Novel I’m going to write one day.
    What I’m trying to say is, Lin is the sort of person to whom things just happen. She doesn’t make them happen, she doesn’t necessarily want them to happen, but the current of events picks her up and sweeps her