Dear generous Rosalind:
My future, my past, my everlasting – so glad for your postcard!
I am thrilled you are thrilled/quite pleased about my
impending success as a professional author.
Your few scribbled lines did two things to me: first, lay to rest any
lingering suspicion I harboured that you had given up on me following that poem; second, made me realise that
while you are as beautiful as the Venus de Milo (albeit with limbs intact!),
you are also a kind-spirited woman (I didn’t doubt this, but now it is clear).
In short: my heart is FULL.
Even if you were to turn out to be a gold-digger in future,
and I could see into a crystal ball that you would indeed relinquish me of my
literary millions, I would marry you all the same. Does that sound mad? Or romantic? Or plain
stupid? (hopefully not the last).
Yes, I am bracing myself for a deluge of interview requests
– the telephone is on the hook just now, but for how much longer? (You could
try calling it by the way). Who knows? I
may even be door-stepped by eager book reviews editors! I would very much hope the TLS (Times
Literary Supplement) and the LRB (London Review of Books) pick it up, and I
think an interview on BBC Radio 4 seems fitting. Perhaps ‘Private Passions’ on Radio 3 – I am
told you need to be more of a ‘household name’ to be asked by ‘Desert Island
Discs’, whatever that means!
Imagine though if I became a household name, my books (for I
fully intend for there to be more than one, especially if the marketing and
sales team at Collins pull their fingers out) sitting alongside Archer, Rankin,
Titchmarsh, Denis Thatcher in every home in the country – including yours,
Rosalind, of course! (I’d appreciate
your comments on that sample chapter I sent you a while back, even though
whatever you might say would be, in effect, irrelevant in view of the
publishing contract).
Speaking of which … the money for the advance on signature
came through the post yesterday (there’ll be more on publication!). As aforementioned, we won’t be going to Monte Carlo on it, but I
may just treat myself to a new pair of shoes (also aforementioned). I’ve for a long time wanted some proper
Gentleman’s loafers: the rich, darling, don’t bother with laces – beneath them,
too tiring, potentially heart-attack inducing (the bending down, stretching
etcetera).
By the way, the picture on the postcard you sent is of
Nice. Ever been there? The Boulevard des Anglais was made for you (I
know you’re of half-Scots descent, but England ,
Scotland ,
same as eggs and oeufs – just a different lingo).
I will stop now. I
can sense the rabid fingers of the press about to dial my number.
Yours all ears,
… full of possibilities.
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