Читать книгу The Friends Forever Collection - Jean Ure, Stephen Lee, Jean Ure - Страница 20

We drove on through the countryside, down lots of twisty turny lanes, just like Harriet had said. I opened the window and ate peppermints and didn’t get sick, but it did seem a long way to drive. Well, to me it did. I thought probably it was because I wasn’t used to car journeys. Mum can’t afford a car, so we don’t really travel very much. It obviously didn’t bother Annie. She was bouncing all over the place like a rubber ball. She kept suddenly appearing over the back of my seat and poking at me.

“Hey, look! There’s a rabbit!” “Oh, look! Donkeys!” “Look, look! Lambs!”

“Yes, we’re way out in the country now,” said Harriet.

Rather shyly, not wanting it to seem like I was prying, I said, “I thought you lived in London?”

“Oh! Yes. London’s where I live. But in the country is where I write my books. Not many people know where I do my writing! I like to keep it a secret.”

She explained how nothing was worse, when you were concentrating really hard, and trying to think what to write next, than to have people come knocking at the door expecting to be invited in for a cup of tea, or ringing you up “just for a chat”.

I knew how she felt. It was what I sometimes feel when I’m writing an essay for school and Mum says, “Megan, put that away now, it’s time for tea.” I always wail, “Mum, I can’t stop in the middle of something!” But Mum never understands, because Mum isn’t a writer. By the time I’ve had tea and gone back to my essay, I have totally forgotten what I was going to write. I said this to Harriet, and she said, “Oh, you understand! We are obviously on the same wavelength.”

I just, like, glowed. I felt so proud at being taken into Harriet’s confidence! If I hadn’t been in the car I would have written things down in my reporter’s book that I had brought with me; but I can’t write – or read – in cars, because of car sickness. However, I knew that I wouldn’t forget it. It was something that Harriet and I had in common. We were both writers! And we didn’t like to be disturbed.

“This was another reason,” said Harriet, “why I didn’t want you telling anyone about our secret meeting … if readers discovered my hideaway, it would be the end! I’d never have a moment’s peace. I would have to move.”

Earnestly, I assured her that we hadn’t told a soul. “And we won’t. I promise!” I then turned round and pulled a face at Annie, ’cos Annie very nearly had told.

“Wouldn’t have made any difference,” said Annie.

“What’s that?” said Harriet. “What wouldn’t have made any difference?”

“If I’d told my sister we were coming to meet you.”

“But she didn’t!” I said, quickly. “I stopped her.”

“Good girl,” said Harriet.

“She still wouldn’t have known where you lived,” said Annie.

“She might have found out,” I said.

“Well, she probably wouldn’t have been able to,” said Harriet, “because not even my publishers have my country address. I don’t give my country address to anyone! It’s my very secret hideaway where I can be private.”

“Even from Lori?” I said.

“Lori? Oh, no not from Lori. of course not. But from the rest of the world … You have no idea what it’s like to be constantly bombarded by total strangers turning up on the doorstep wanting autographs, or wanting books signed, or just to come in for a chat.”

“It must be horrible!” I said. I really meant it. I wouldn’t want to be a celeb! Annie, however, said she thought it would be quite fun.

“It might seem so, just at first,” said Harriet, “but in the end it wears you down.”

“That’s right,” I said. “You want to write books, not keep on being bothered all the time.”

“Oh, Megan! You and I are kindred spirits,” said Harriet. Which made me glow all over again!

We finally reached what Harriet called her secret hideaway.

“Wasn’t there some writer,” she said, “who had a shed in the garden?”

“Roald Dahl,” I said. “Roald Dahl! I knew it was someone famous. He had his shed, I have my cottage.”

The cottage was at the bottom of a narrow lane. The lane ended up in a woody area, with a field on one side. It was rutted and bumpy, and hardly wide enough for a car.

“Sorry for the rough ride,” said Harriet, as we jolted and bounced. “Not many people come down here – which is why I love it so! Complete peace and quiet.”

“Don’t you get lonely?” said Annie.

“Lonely? Not at all! How could I get lonely when I have all my characters for company?”

“I would,” said Annie.

“You’re not a writer,” I said.

Harriet’s hideaway was like a little dolls’ house. Really cute! Harriet apologised for the fact that it was a bit tumbledown. She said, “It needs a lot of work done on it, but it’s such an upheaval!”

“It’s like the one in Hansel and Gretel,” said Annie.

“The witch’s cottage? Was that tumbledown?”

“No, but it was kind of … spooky.”

“Annieee!” I was horrified. How could she be so rude? “It’s not spooky, it’s lovely!”

I thought that if I were writing a description of it for English, I would say that it was picturesque. Just right for an author!

“I always have to watch my head,” said Harriet, ducking as she opened the door.

The door gave straight on to the sitting room, which was quite bare. Just a chair and table, and an old saggy sofa. No books! That surprised me, but Harriet explained that if she had books there she would keep breaking off to read them.

“I am so easily distracted! I have a mind like a flea.”

I was a bit puzzled by this as I had once read how Harriet Chance liked to sit at her kitchen table and write her first draft by hand, surrounded by her four cats. Surely cats would distract her? The lady who lives downstairs from us has a cat called Biddy, and when she comes to visit us, Biddy I mean, she always spreads herself out across my homework, if I’m doing homework, and starts grooming herself or purring. I find that very distracting!

I told this to Harriet. “Sometimes,” I said, “she even tries to chew the paper!”

“Oh, I couldn’t be doing with that,” said Harriet. “I couldn’t write with cats around! And I couldn’t write on paper … far too slow!”

Falteringly, I said, “I read this interview where you said how you always did your first draft by hand … you said you couldn’t write straight on to a computer.”

“Did I?” She laughed. “Well, I’ve been dragged kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century! One has to move with the times.”

“I still write by hand,” I said.

“That’s only ’cos you don’t have a computer,” said Annie.

“They are one of the blessings of modern technology,” said Harriet. “Imagine! If I didn’t have a computer, we would never have met. Now, then! How about some tea? Annie, clear a space on the table while I go and get it.”

I needed to go to the loo – I always do after a car journey. Harriet told me the bathroom was “directly ahead, up the stairs … but be warned, it’s a bit primitive!”

It was such a funny little place, the bathroom. Like a little cell. All it had was a washbasin and a toilet, with a cracked bit of mirror on the wall. Both the washbasin and the toilet were very old-fashioned. The washbasin was propped up on a sort of iron stand, and the toilet had a broken seat and a long chain with a handle that you had to pull when you’d finished, except that it didn’t seem to work, which was rather embarrassing. Red-faced, I told Harriet about it, and she said, “Oh, dear! Never mind. At least it’s better than having to go outside … imagine that on a dark night!”

“You could write a book about someone living in a place like this,” said Annie. “You could call it Spooky Cottage.