Gossip Hound - Brossura

Grace stood on the edge of the party, clutching a glass of warm white wine and peering around hard for Henry. Concentrating on the search was difficult; everywhere she looked she saw someone distractingly famous. A mere paperback's toss away, Nick Hornby was deep in conversation with Helen Fielding, while, just behind them, V. S. Naipaul and Joanna Trollope were laughing uproariously at something Mark Wahlberg had just said . . . Marky Mark? Grace did a double-take. But yes, there was no mistaking that tight little rear end. Of course, Grace remembered, he'd been asked to be a Booker judge this year.

The St. Merrion Festival, long renowned for the number of celebrities it attracted, had clearly excelled itself this time around. Anyone doubting that books were the new rock and roll, Grace thought, only had to be here, at the festival's cocktail reception, to see how much more like a film premiere it looked than anything to do with the traditionally fusty world of writing. Hair shone, teeth gleamed, laughter tinkled. Everyone looked tanned, sleek, wealthy and confident; everyone, moreover, seemed to have film deals.

"So Warner Bros. have just optioned your book, then?" a blonde in diamant_ mules to Grace's left was asking a brunette in a leather jacket.

The brunette gave a self-satisfied nod.

"What a shame. Disney bought mine outright," simpered the blonde, tossing a cloud of split ends. "Much more money that way, of course."

Jenny Bristols and Sassy Jenks, Grace realized. Two of the best-selling young female writers in the country and bitter rivals in the same publishing house.

Grace longed for Henry's untidy head to make an appearance and rescue her. It was ridiculous he was not here yet, not least because, as an author his own mother would describe as obscure, it was a miracle he had been invited to the St. Merrion in the first place.

Grace considered a loo dash, but decided in the end that it was safer to stay put. Mainly because it maximized the chances of Henry finding her, but partly because the last time she had made such an escape she'd trodden on Louis de Berni_res's toe.

Snatches of literary gossip drifted over.

". . . so she came to the end of her author talk and the chairman said, 'Well, now, do the audience have any questions they'd like to ask Miss Atkinson?' and someone put their hand up and said, 'Yes, I want to know where Kate bought those shoes . . . ' "

". . . so there I was saying good-bye to Gore-Vidal, you know-and when I turned around, Susan Sontag had stolen my taxi . . . "

". . . yes, apparently she bookmarks all her rivals on Amazon to see how they're doing. And writes all her own Amazon reviews, so no wonder they've all got five stars . . ."

"I suppose you've heard I've been nominated for the Lemon," Sassy was saying loudly to Jenny. Grace raised her eyebrows in surprise. If this was a competition, that was definitely fifteen love to Jenks. The Lemon, after all, was no empty boast. Aiming to recognize what it saw as "challenging modern fiction," it was one of the most prestigious of the literary prizes. More so even than the Booker, in some eyes.

In reply, Jenny shot smoke out of her nostrils. It rolled like a thundercloud straight into her rival's face. "Well done, darling," she trilled in superior tones. "And marvelous you can be bothered, really. Quite frankly, the prize money wouldn't keep me in fags."

Fifteen all for such bravado on Bristol's part, Grace thought. Everyone in the book world knew how carpet-bitingly incandescent Jenny had been when Shooting Up, Sassy Jenks's first novel, had not only been snapped up for a record sum by the publishing house Ptarmigan, but had also garnered the blanket acclaim of the book world. A world that, so far, had failed to recognize the genius of Jenny Bristols. And in particular, her new novel, Airhead.

So universal had been the Shooting Up reviews that Grace actually remembered them: "Funky, urban and literary" (Guardian); "Urban, literary and funky" (Independent); "Literary, funky and urban" (The Times). The remaining reviews had been variations on the theme of "the humor, power and unstinting realism with which Jenks portrays life as a teenager in the South London projects."

Grace could remember this so clearly because many of the authors she looked after herself, in the publicity department of Hatto & Hatto, had constantly drawn Jenks's success to her attention, the implication being that they deserved similar acclaim and it was her fault they hadn't gotten it. Henry Moon had been practically the only Hatto writer not convinced that Grace's incompetence alone stood between him and worldwide domination.

"In any case," Bristols drawled, "Airhead's won more than its fair share of prizes. The Dyno-Rod Book of the Year, for instance. The Tipp-Ex Editor of the Year Award. And we're just waiting to hear whether it's won the Spud-U-Like PR Campaign as well . . ."

Thirty fifteen, Grace thought.

"Yes, I heard things were complicated by the entries being an even lower standard than usual," interjected Jenks with a sweet smile.

Thirty all.

". . . not to mention Airhead's notching up almost half a million in paperback sales," finished Jenny, tossing back her strawlike hair. (So much money, Grace thought, and not a bit to spend on conditioner.)

An angry red spot had appeared on each of Sassy's high cheekbones. Forty thirty; Bristols had scored an ace. Just as Jenks's literary acclaim annoyed Bristols, Jenny Bristols's huge sales figures irritated Jenks.

"And I hear congratulations are due on your Bad Sex Award nomination," Sassy purred, barely missing a beat. "They say Braindead's almost certain to win."

Deuce. Braindead, Jenny's last novel, had sold phenomenally well. Along with the rest of London, Grace had seen its retina-frying pink cover daily on Underground posters with the cover line, "A barnstorming bestseller set in the sex-'n'-scalpels world of neurosurgery." This was, however, the first she had heard of the book's being nominated for the most notorious literary award of all-the prize no author wanted to win-the annual prize given by the Literary Review for that year's worst sex scene in a novel.

Advantage Bristols, thought Grace, hiding a smile behind her near-empty wineglass. She looked for a waiter and saw that she was not the only one in need of topping off. Beth Allardice, literary editor of the powerful mid-market tabloid

The Globe, was staring around hopefully, empty glass in her hand.

"Beth!" Sassy yelled, "It's been ages."

Back to deuce, Grace decided, watching confusion ripple the Allardice features as both Sassy and Jenny, elbows out, plunged toward her at warp speed.

"We've met of course," Jenny urged, flashing all her teeth once more. "Jenny Bristols. Airhead."

"Bad Sex Award nominee," Sassy added sweetly.

Jenny's eyes suddenly bulged as her lips drew back in what could have been either a rictus grin or an expression of agony. Her arms went rigid, hands tensed and clenched like claws.

It wasn't until Grace dropped her gaze that she saw Jenks's stiletto, a thin, sharp shaft of what looked like steel, plunge straight into Bristols's big toe. As she watched, the stiletto twisted. Game to Jenks, thought Grace.

"Hi, Grace."

"Henry! Where the hell have you been?"

His thick, dark hair looked, as always, as if it had been dragged from bed less than five minutes ago. His thin, finely boned face looked tired and pale beneath its permanent tan. Yet when he smiled at her, his wide mouth splitting into a grin the size and shape of a watermelon, the bags beneath his bright hazel eyes crinkled fetchingly. There was, Grace thought, something irresistible about Henry. Something, moreover, that she was determined to resist.

"You look rough," Grace said, trying to sound stern. For all his faults, Henry was almost impossible to be angry with. Henry's skin stretched taut across the frame of his tall, broad-shouldered body like the canvas on a kite. She had always found it impossible to imagine him alone with a rucksack, exploring the Himalayas for a lost and legendary tribe who ritually sat around with pebbles in their mouth. Yet he had, and Sucking Stones was the result. "Dreams, drama and dysentery; the pursuit of a personal challenge by the last of the gentlemen explorers," as Grace had put it on the press release. She had been reluctant about the dysentery, but Henry had insisted.

"Makes it sound less serious," he said.

"But it is serious," Grace had replied. "You're a serious explorer."

"No I'm not. Well-I'm an explorer. But I'm not serious."

And about book promotion, Grace knew, he was even less serious. There was nothing she could do to make Henry regard the business of touting his tome as anything but a hoot at best, mild humiliation at worst. Even when the St. Merrion Literary Festival, to whose organizers she had written without the faintest hope that anything would come of it, had replied expressing its interest in having Henry, he had seemed oblivious to the great honor that was being done him. So oblivious, in fact, that in the hours just before he finally, incredibly made his appearance, she had become increasingly certain he had forgotten about the festival completely.

"Where have you been?" she demanded again, noticing, as Henry grabbed and gulped a glass of red wine from a passing tray, that he looked not so much tired as shattered. "Burning the midnight oil?" He had, she knew, been having difficulty starting his next book, yet refused to admit he had writer's block on the grounds that he hated to whine about anything.

"Midnight oil of a sort," Henry confessed, the wine restoring faint color to his cheeks. "I had a curry in Brick Lane at half past one this morning. Washed down with tequila slammers," he added ruefully. "Didn't wake up till eleven, so I had to get the train after the one you said to catch. But I'm here now," he finished hopefully.

It was difficult not to acknowledge the truth of this. "So we'd better get going," Grace retaliated. "I need to get you around as many newsp...