The Liar in the Library. Simon Brett
a table was a cardboard box on which was written in blue felt pen: ‘JAM JARS FOR VERONICA’.
Three bottles of red wine stood on the work surface. Their screw-tops had not been unscrewed. Being allowed to ‘breathe’ would not have made much difference to wine of that quality. Presumably the white was still in the fridge beneath.
On her return journey from the Ladies, Jude noticed that the wine bottles were still there. And, back in the main library space, she found their delayed appearance was causing complaint.
‘Come on, we’re meant to be getting a drink! Speed it up a bit! There are people dying of alcohol deprivation out here!’
The shouts came from the man who had had a go at Burton St Clair about his photograph. Clearly, he had a habit of bad manners. The good ladies of Fethering moved a little further away from him and, once space had been cleared, they clustered round the table where Burton St Clair was signing paperbacks of Stray Leaves in Autumn. As well as setting up the display screens, his publishers had also arranged a healthy supply of the books. They clearly regarded this particular author as one to invest in. And the way copies were being snatched up suggested that their instincts were correct.
Because most of the audience was preoccupied with the evening’s author, Jude found herself one of the first in the queue once the drinks table had finally been set up. The only person ahead of her was, predictably enough, the man in camouflage kit. A junior member of the library staff, a dumpy girl with green-dyed hair and too many facial piercings, was rather shakily pouring white wine into lines of glasses.
‘You got any red?’ asked the man.
‘Yes, I was just about to pour—’
‘Well, move it along, darling. I’m panting for a glass of red.’
The girl fumbled with opening the relevant bottle. Thank goodness it was a screw-top; dealing with a corkscrew might have been beyond her. As soon as she had poured one glass, camouflage man had picked it up and downed the contents in one. Then he held the glass out for a refill.
The junior librarian looked confused. She must have been instructed that the five-pound admission charge only included one glass of wine, but she was too cowed by the man’s belligerence to argue with him. Her expression also suggested that she wasn’t too bothered. The girl carried with her an air of truculent boredom. She refilled his glass.
‘Thanks, sweetie,’ he said, and moved away from the table with the satisfaction of someone who’d proved a point. Jude picked up a glass of white and followed him.
‘I was interested in what you said about the photograph,’ she lied. But she did want to get into conversation with this man. Her work as a healer had increased her natural curiosity about human psychology, and the man’s behaviour had intrigued her. Immediate confrontational rudeness of the kind he had just demonstrated did not come from nowhere.
Before he’d had time to respond to her opening remark, she thrust out a hand to him. ‘I’m Jude.’
He only hesitated for a moment before taking it and squeezing with a little more pressure than was necessary. Close to, he looked more youthful, early forties perhaps. A decade younger than she was.
‘Steve Chasen,’ he said. Jude recognized from long familiarity the way he was appraising her. She had always been attractive to men and, even now when her body had filled out and the haystack of hair on top of her head might no longer be naturally blonde, the magnetism remained. It did not worry her. She was not offended by men’s interest. And, though she never exploited it, she recognized that her attractiveness could sometimes be useful.
‘Well, it was a bit ridiculous, wasn’t it?’ said Steve Chasen. ‘With the real him bald in front of that poncy image that looks like a bloody album cover.’
‘Publicity photographs,’ Jude observed, ‘have always been more touched up than air hostesses.’
He conceded her a giggle.
‘And are you a writer?’ she asked. It was an educated guess. Why else would he be at the library to insult another author?
‘Yes,’ he replied, with a glint of hope in his eyes. ‘Have you read any of my stuff?’
Jude was forced to admit that she hadn’t.
‘You and a few billion others,’ he said cynically.
‘What sort of books do you write?’
‘Bloody good ones.’ He curled his lip. ‘Not that any publishers have yet recognized that fact.’
‘Ah. So you never have been published?’
He raised an admonitory finger and shook it at her. ‘Ah, depends what you mean by “published”. Not so easy to define these days. There are more possibilities out there than chopping down trees to produce Stray Leaves in Autumn.’ He gestured with contempt towards the table where Burton was still signing, full of bonhomie and magnanimity. ‘My books may not be “published” in the traditional sense, but they’re out there.’
‘By “out there” do you mean they’re e-books?’
‘Better than that. You can read them online, through my website. And I’ve got links to them through social media.’
Jude nodded, thinking that it had never been easier for a writer to make his book available, but the old problem remained. How did you get potential readers to know that it was available? The established publishing houses with their publicity departments would always have the advantage over the individual, self-promoting author.
She found that a cheaply printed garish flyer had been thrust into her hand. Revenge of the Plague Planet was the book it touted. How had she known from the start that Steve Chasen would write science fiction? Though she read little fiction of any kind (except when she was on holiday), Jude had always had a strong resistance to anything involving other worlds or aliens. Through her varied life, she had encountered as much weirdness as she needed to in the real world.
‘You’ll like it,’ the author assured her. ‘Really got some ideas in it. Makes you think. Not like that bland pap which people like him produce.’ There was another derisory gesture made in the direction of Burton St Clair.
‘Do you actually know Burton?’ asked Jude.
‘What if I do?’ came the defensive reply.
‘Nothing, really. I just wondered what he’d done to annoy you.’
‘People like that don’t need to do anything to annoy me. His very existence annoys me. The world would be a better place if Burton St Clair wasn’t in it!’ Apparently deciding that he wasn’t going to better this as an exit line, Steve Chasen moved abruptly away from Jude. Saying, ‘I’m going to get another refill,’ he went across to cause further embarrassment to the young librarian at the drinks table.
‘Bit old to play the enfant terrible card, isn’t he?’
Jude turned at the sound of this urbane voice and found herself facing the man in pink trousers. Because her previous vantage point had been from behind the rows of chairs, this was the first time she’d seen him from the front. He was probably in his sixties, but he wore it well. His hair, ringing a central bald patch, was long but well cut. His generous lips wore a pleasingly sardonic expression.
‘I’m talking about God’s gift to the world of science fiction,’ he continued, nodding in the direction in which Steve Chasen had gone.
‘I thought you must be. So I gather you know him?’
‘Met him when the library set up a Writers’ Group. He was a member for a while; stopped coming when he discovered that other people wanted to talk about their writing too.’
‘Ah. Does that mean you’re a writer?’
‘Hardly. Spent my working life dealing with scripts, though.’ Jude looked at him for an explanation. ‘Television