you think you might come?
Jim: I’m sure I can’t think of anything I’m doing that night. Whichever night it’ll be. Do you want me to do the music?
Me: Oh, Jim, that’s so kind, but Thom and I haven’t really discussed the music yet. I’m not sure if we’re going with something more … music-y – dance-y – or something.
Jim: Ouch! Maybe we should leave that discussion there, don’t you think? Well, great news for both of you, tin-eared bastards that you may be.
Oh, he’s some kind of good friend. Jim also reckons he’s done a couple of gigs at country houses in the area and will find out if mates’ rates are available for weddings there.
October 18th
Bloody hell! Investigations bear fruit: Alice confirms that Carol and Norman are, in fact, ‘an item’. But apparently they are top-secret-hush-hush, and Alice only knows because she came back into the office late last night to pick something up, and found Carol and Norman smooching against the temperamental photocopier-printer. I felt my gorge rise a little bit, but Alice said I was a prude and we should celebrate Love In All Its Forms. Not when it’s getting all over my printouts, I won’t.
October 19th
Raff Welles came into the office today. He’s an ageing comedy actor from the seventies, famous for catchphrases that may have swept the country at the time but now don’t mean anything to anyone but the most hardened vintage TV and film fans. He’s charming and softly-spoken, always dapper – he plays the role of ageing and forgotten star to perfection. But he requires a lot of reassurance. We bought his memoir (called AutobiogRaffy, which I quite like) for peanuts, in the hope we could build some retro-wave for him to ride, but our legal team is working overtime to check his dangerously risqué anecdotes (can Sid James and Raff really have had an orgy with seventeen young nurses?) and it’s turning out to be more work than we can possibly reap in sales. And Raff is in daily, requesting comfort, validation, and encouragement, that his semi-pornographic recollections of semi-forgotten actors is absolutely what the reading public has been waiting for. Our average conversation goes like this:
Raff: [pokes head around door, stage whispers] Hello! Hello all! Sorry to bother you all, working so hard!
Me: [keeps typing in the vain hope he’ll get the message this time] Hello, Raff. [silence] How are you doing?
Raff: Oh, Kiki, it’s so kind of you to ask. I thought I should pop in and help you with this book of mine – do you think we need more on X’s alcoholism/Y’s fetishism/Z’s drug abuse and sexual aberrations?
Me: [gripping knees with claw-hands under the desk to keep from shrieking] Really, Raff, your book is brilliant as it is. I think you’ve really captured the fun/darkness/cultural importance of those times, and it’s best if we all focus now on what we can do to promote the book in March.
Raff: Promotion! Goodness! Of course, you’ll need me out in front of the public again. Yes, you’re quite right, I’ll start thinking about appearances. I’m sure Wogan will want me again – he’d better do, after that party I threw him in ’78. But are you sure this book is right for today’s audience? I’m sure they can’t care about me, can they?
Me: [momentarily tempted to answer honestly] Raff, this book is going to be perfect. Your writing is fantastic and it will be the perfect gift book for anyone who’s ever watched TV. Honestly, Raff, just let us take care of this now. You’ve done a brilliant job with your book and you should be very proud.
Raff: Marvellous! Kiki, you are a wonder of the world. Thank you all! [leaves, entire room sighs with relief]
It doesn’t seem like much, but when he’s round to Polka Dot Books every afternoon I despair of him, then always remember Raff’s six marriages – ending up again and again with the One Who Didn’t Stay. I’m so happy with Thom, and I’m reasonably sure that neither industrial quantities of uppers/downers nor Hollywood producers shall come between us. And that thought makes me feel a little bit warmer towards poor Raff.
TO DO:
Get some invitation samples
Caterers – match to colour scheme? Fish if blue colour scheme, steak if pink, etc.
Start investigating any friends’ special dietary requirements (so can ensure we don’t invite them hahaha)
Look into photographers
Car or transport – will we need it, or will ceremony and reception be at the same place? How far will it be? What’s available?
October 22nd
Speaking of photographers, Jacki has requested ‘Pedro’ as the photographer for the book. They started their
careers at roughly the same time and have travelled up the ladder together – but I imagine our profit on this book will be approximately 3p per copy, such are Pedro’s fees these days. At least when Polka Dot Books goes bust we can all sleep on the streets under the beautiful glossy images we’ll have produced. And I do look forward to meeting him.
October 24th
Alice and I are still searching for the right place, after having seen twelve venues. They all pull faces when I say we’re looking at August dates, and some of them suck their teeth like plumbers as they flick through their desk diaries. ‘August?’ they say, as if I’ve asked whether they could manage tomorrow night. Some of them shake their heads at me – Sorry, love, I wish I could, their plumber equivalents would say – but some of them flick back and forth, back and forth, pretending to calculate something, before saying, ‘Yes, I think we’d be able to do that.’ I wonder if the fact that you can’t cross a road around here without running into a wedding venue means that the demand isn’t what it used to be, but there are several that can fit us in, even though I don’t think they’re quite right.
TO DO:
Keep looking
October 27th
For the most part, the authors we work with – like Jacki – are lovely. They’re professional, most of them having worked in the public eye for several years already; they’re prompt, thoughtful, helpful and co-operative. Then there are the other 49%.
These authors would be a nightmare to work with even at a Trappist monastery. They are selfish, greedy, needy babies who need their hands holding and their noses wiped. Some of them are sexually aggressive (a knock on Alice’s hotel room door at 11pm, a memoirist in a towel saying, ‘It’s a beautiful night. Would you like to come skinny dipping with me?’ Alice: ‘We’re in Slough, not Thailand. I think I’ll leave it, thanks’), some of them spoiled (I spent four days sourcing an antique tiara for one author. What’s almost worse is how much she’s worn the damn thing), some of them merely drunks. One of our authors, a ‘towering master of suspense’ (– The Times), insists that he must be chaperoned to every event we want him to do. It’s not so much that he wants company, but that he needs someone to carry the bottle of whisky he requires for each appearance. We have to wrap it in a plastic bag so he can reach in, swig from it and not be spotted. Right. Because that’s so innocent-looking. I’ve been to one party with him where he was so drunk, he offered another guest some wine, then carefully poured a glass’s-worth into his cupped hand. When she didn’t seem about to sip from his upturned palm, he looked puzzled at the situation he found himself in, then reached forwards and wiped his hand down the front of her friend’s jacket.
I’ve had other authors for whom writing a book is the scales on which all their woes and successes balance. If it goes right, we are their best friends in the world, and our office is filled with chocolates, flowers, champagne. If things don’t go according to plan, we are the Destroyers of Hope, the Evil Forces of Capitalism. When one author – let’s call her Mary – received only a three-star review from Time Out magazine for her World War Two romance, she sent me an email saying simply: ‘This makes me seriously consider leaving the country.’ She spent the next three days making mock-inquiries into how she could write from France/Germany/Japan, until the Telegraph