The Green Hills of Home (6 page)

John was stumped; he hadn’t quite
anticipated this sort of reaction from Gwen. Of course he was aware of the
issues with her mother, but he’d felt certain she’d see sense after a little
thought, and realise how illogical and impractical matters would be. Naturally
family was paramount, but surely Gwen must realise how inconsequential missing
a few hospital visits was when she had an opportunity to do so much more. Here
she had a chance to make something larger than herself, make something for the
future; her mother would want her to reach her potential, she would want to be
proud of Gwen’s achievements. She certainly wouldn’t want to be the thing holding
Gwen back. John thought how mortified his father would have been if he’d felt
he’d ever stopped John succeeding. This was right for Gwen, and right for her
mother; she was being given the opening to be appreciated for her worth, only
she wouldn’t get out of her own way to seize hold of it.

John tried to stay calm as he
replied:

 "It really is imperative
that we begin work as soon as possible. Couldn’t you hire someone to look after
your mother while you’re away?"

"No! Of course not!"
replied Gwen, obviously shocked by his suggestion.

John could tell that Gwen wasn’t
going to back down. He sighed deeply to himself. No matter how talented she was
there was no way they’d be able to work successfully together if she was going
to be this unprofessional. It really wasn’t fair on his other authors that his
time was going to be taken up dealing with someone like this.

But the business had to come
first. Before anything. If they didn’t meet Paul’s deadline it would be
disastrous for the company. It looked like it was going to be up to him to make
sure that this book was completed, and completed on time.

"Fine, I’ll come to you
then. I’ll stay in a hotel and we can work in-between hospital visits,"
John stated, calculating that it would be easier to deal with the rest of his
workload via email and phone than use these methods with Gwen at this early
stage of the editing process; she’d need his expertise in person.

"There aren’t any hotels
around here. There’s probably a bed and breakfast somewhere but a lot of them
will be full now the schools are on holiday."

"I’ll stay in your house
then," snapped John with exasperation, still not believing the direction
the conversation had gone.  He regretted his suggestion as soon as the words
came out of his mouth. He could hardly stop thinking about Gwen when she was
two hundred miles away, what on Earth would he be like under the same roof? But
he couldn’t really see any other option. If they couldn’t work together soon
then the book wouldn’t be ready on time and it would be his neck on the line
and his plans down the drain.

"Yes, I suppose so."
Gwen sounded very hesitant.

"Alright, I’ve got your
address, I’ll be with you Monday morning; shall we say eleven?"

"That’s fine," replied
Gwen.

"Goodbye then."

"Goodbye."

John didn’t think he’d ever been
happier to end a telephone conversation.

"Oh, help," said Gwen
wearily to herself as she put down the phone and looked at the state of the
house. The bags of shopping she’d been unloading from the car surrounded her.
She visited her mother every day and picked up anything she needed from town on
her way back home. Other than that and her shifts at the tearooms, she’d been
writing continuously and had thought little of housework.

She’d enjoyed the peace and
quiet, taking the dog for walks and working outside when the weather was fine
enough. When it wasn’t possible to write outdoors she used her study, which had
been her father’s office until he died. Gwen and her mother had found clearing
out this space far harder than getting rid of his clothes and shoes; it had
seemed to contain his whole life. The most obvious change was that his old
typewriter no longer sat proudly in the middle of the large leather-topped
table. Gwen’s laptop now spent most of its life in the typewriter’s place. She’d
kept all her father’s shelving and a lot of his reference books still
surrounded her as she worked.

Two Rayburns heated the house,
one at the front and one at the back. The study had its own wood-burning fire
(the wood chopping for which was one of the many jobs which Gwen had taken on
when her father died). Gwen kept a kettle next to her desk along with mugs,
teabags and coffee; she didn’t even need to get up to make herself a cuppa if
she was in the middle of writing.

Being an only child had made Gwen
quite independent, and living by herself for the last couple of months, working
every spare minute on her manuscript, meant she’d had very little time to
socialise, let alone have anyone staying in the house. The bare minimum of
housework had been done. The only reason there wasn’t more washing up piled in
the sink was that Gwen had been living on baked potatoes and ready meals since
getting back from London.

How ironic that her editor’s
visit meant she’d have to abandon her work to tidy the house for his arrival.
Gwen looked around, making a mental note of what would need to be done before
John arrived; she considered calling him back and agreeing to go to London to work with him there. It took less than a moment for her to firmly put that idea
to rest, her mother needed her here, she couldn’t be away from her for the best
part of a week, and she’d explained that to both Paul and John. Plus if she
went to London she couldn’t work in the tearooms and so would have no money to
live on until the publishers paid her advance and she wasn’t sure when that
would be.

What was worse than the physical
inconvenience of John coming to stay, was that Gwen had barely calmed down from
her last meeting with him, and here she was preparing to have the man living in
her house - she’d be a wreck by the end of it!

She called Bronwyn and Brian and
asked if they could arrange for someone else to cover her shift on Monday. She
couldn’t very well go to work half an hour before her editor arrived. They were
happy for her to do only a couple of shifts whilst John was staying. She knew
he wouldn’t be pleased but she’d just have to work extra hard for the rest of
the time, and at least her waitressing would give her a break from John,
thought Gwen wryly before getting stuck into the cleaning.

John set his sat-nav with Gwen’s
address and settled himself down for the long drive. He didn’t often get to use
his car in London, and rarely had the time to drive outside of the city, but
he’d never dream of giving it up. He liked to be independent at all times and
hated to rely on anything as unpredictable as trains or buses.

Although it was only just after
eight, it was going to be a warm day and the car was already beginning to heat
up; John turned on the air conditioning and loosened his tie a little. He was
dressed in a pristine grey suit, one of several identical outfits that he wore
for anything to do with work – it was important for him to look professional,
particularly as the thoughts he’d had about Gwen the night before were extremely
unprofessional: he’d woken up cross at his lack of self-control, and after a
cold shower, had sternly reminded himself of how important it was that he
concentrated on business and business alone.

Just focus and get all these
corrections done, said John to himself as he joined the M4. The sooner they
were finished the sooner he could be away from Gwen and get back to the
reassurance of his life in London; a life where everything was ordered and
tidy, and unpolluted by thoughts of pretty Welsh country girls.

If they could just get through as
much as possible now, then he could deal with any other small issues via phone,
or, even better, by email. Not that receiving an email from Gwen wouldn’t be
unsettling, but it was infinitely better than having her type away on her
computer right next to him.

Gwen estimated she had just under
an hour before John arrived. Should she spend that time finishing sorting out
the house or herself? She decided to go with herself. Gwen had her pride and
was at least going to look half decent when seeing John again.

As Gwen shaved her legs in the
shower, she once more considered the ridiculous fact that if it hadn’t been for
her editor coming she’d be working right now.

Gwen stood in front of her
mirror, trying to decide what else needed to be done. Her hair badly needed a
trip to the hairdresser, but there was no time to do anything about that now,
she’d just have to wear it tied up. She had good skin and didn’t need a lot of
make-up, but she put on more mascara than usual, feeling slightly silly for
doing so but knowing she’d regret it if she didn’t.

Next was deciding what to wear.
She didn’t want to seem like she’d made too much of an effort, but part of her
still needed to look nice when he arrived. Finally she settled upon jeans and a
white shirt, which she just had time to iron and put on before she heard John’s
car pulling into the driveway.

Gwen opened her front door. He
looked absolutely perfect, and not entirely unlike James Bond she mused, before
being rudely pulled back to reality as John looked warily down at her feet and
stated: "Oh, you have a dog." He continued to glance downwards and
eye Oscar suspiciously as the animal tried to nuzzle past Gwen and give John a
good sniff. Gwen took hold of Oscar’s collar but the dog appeared unperturbed
by John’s reaction to him and continued in his desperate quest to make friends.

"Yes," said Gwen, as
she attempted to restrain her over-zealous pet. "His name’s Oscar."

John raised an eyebrow.

"After Oscar Wilde, my
father’s favourite playwright," continued Gwen defensively.

When no comment followed, Gwen
said "Come on in, I’ll just get him out of your way."

Gwen quickly dragged a very put
out Oscar into the utility room where he had his water bowl and a bed to dry
out on when he came home muddy from walks.

"Right, where shall I set up
my stuff?" asked John as he strode through the front door.

Taken a little aback by his
brusqueness, Gwen told herself to stop being so silly: he was here as her
editor and obviously just wanted to get the job done as quickly as possible.

"Well, I work in here,"
said Gwen, as she opened the door to her study. As she said this she looked in
the room and immediately realised there was no way that there was space for
even the tiniest of laptops to fit on her desk. She wasn’t a naturally tidy
worker and, in the hurry to get everything ready for John’s arrival, cleaning
the shower and dealing with the dog hair on the sitting room sofa had seemed
the priority. How could it not have occurred to her that they’d need to spend
most of their time in that very room?

"How about on the kitchen
table? There should be plenty of space for you there," replied Gwen as
cheerfully as she could manage. Despite his reserved, almost haughty manner,
just being in the same room as him was making her feel quite flushed and
light-headed.

"It’s through there,"
she said, gesturing towards the door.

"Fine," replied John, "I’ll
set up now. I’ve got some editing to go through with you straight away."

John didn’t move out of the
doorway immediately so Gwen went to walk past him. Unfortunately he started to
move at the same time and so they ended up doing a very awkward sort of dance
as they each tried to sidle around the other.

 "Would you like a tea or
coffee?" asked Gwen, trying to rescue the situation.

"A coffee"

Fussing about making the drinks,
Gwen kept one eye on John. His laptop was obviously much newer and far faster
than hers. It was ready with the files John needed before Gwen’s laptop had had
time to properly come to and work out just what was expected of it when its
‘on’ button was pressed.

Gwen noticed John fiddling with
his mobile phone, looking increasingly frustrated.

"Oh, you won’t be able to
get a signal in here I’m afraid. The valley blocks it. You need to go up the
hill a bit, that’s one of the reasons why I don’t bother with a mobile"
said Gwen with her forced cheerfulness.

John didn’t reply but his look of
disbelief was enough to make Gwen giggle to herself.

Gwen put two coffees on the
table. John moved his closer to himself and said brusquely, "Right, well,
I've got a copy of your manuscript with some preliminary corrections. I suggest
we start at the beginning and work our way through."

Expecting him to make some
comment about her writing, Gwen readied herself for his critique. John,
however, didn't seem to feel that anything else needed to be said. He signalled
to Gwen to sit down next to him and grimaced slightly as he took a sip of his
coffee.

At no point did John make any
mention of the standard of Gwen's writing, either good or bad. They went
through the first chapter with a copy each of the manuscript, Gwen scribbling
in John's criticisms into her margins. She agreed with the majority of changes
he suggested, but wasn’t completely sure she’d dare to say anything if she
didn't; he seemed so confident in everything he was saying. Besides, she didn't
think John was the sort of man who would take kindly to being contradicted.

Gwen discovered she was very
productive when she and John were working together: she was so anxious around
him that she didn't dare take her eyes off her laptop for more than a few
seconds. John was evidently completely immersed in the work and so she ended up
focussing more, not wanting him to think she was slacking. She felt his
presence nearby constantly, even when she was concentrating on her computer
screen.

Gwen was also finding it very
useful to have someone go through her writing with her. Sarah had read through
her work a few times and said it was fantastic but Gwen suspected that even if
Sarah thought it was complete rubbish she would be far too polite to say
anything. Gwen knew John wouldn’t hesitate to tell her what he really thought.