The Anniversary

ContentsTitle PageEpigraphBook OneChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Book TwoChapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Book ThreeChapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17Chapter 18Chapter 19Book FourChapter 20Chapter 21Chapter 22Chapter 23Chapter 24Chapter 25Chapter 26Chapter 27Chapter 28Chapter 29Chapter 30Chapter 31Chapter 32Chapter 33Chapter 34Chapter 35AcknowledgementsCopyright ‘To be sure, the future of the woman I have been may turn me into someone other than myself.’– Simone de Beauvoir, All Said and Done Book One 1We must have taken fifty photographs for that book jacket. At least fifty. Go on, my husband said, Do it for me? Say it?I rolled my eyes, and then did as Patrick wished. Honey-honey-honey. I said. Money-money-money. He clicked away. It was a joke, and it was true what he said – repeating the phrase made me laugh. It got him what he wanted, a sly grin of sorts, if not exactly a smile, a reasonable photograph. I don’t know why they need a photo anyway, I said, complaining while I took up a new pose. You know why, he told me. Because if we make you look beautiful people will buy the book. And if the reader can’t put a face to a character, they can at least give them yours. I know, he said. But we have to do it. Now go on, say it for me again.I was nervous. I hated photographs. And soon this one would be printed thousands of times over. Patrick didn’t know this then, or not exactly. A week earlier I had received a phone call from my publisher who told me, in a state of great but hushed excitement, that I had won a major prize for the book that the photograph was intended for. No, Ada said. I’m not joking. This is not a joke. She had entered it as a manuscript, the release date was not supposed to be until spring. I’d not long ago handed in the final corrected proofs. But now they would go to press earlier. It will be tight, Ada said. We’ll have to bring everything forward by four months to make sure there are copies for the awards ceremony, and we’ll need to increase the print run. The news, she said, was under embargo, you cannot tell anyone, not even Patrick, she warned.Not even him? I said. Why?Because he is a total gossip, and because he loves you so much. I know things have been hard lately, but he really does, and because he couldn’t help but go tell people, and if word gets out that you’ve leaked the news – well, I don’t know. She was speaking quickly, but in a whisper. Her office was made of glass, and although it was thick safety glass, if she cried out with joy she would arouse people’s interest and suspicion.Are you sure? I asked. This was not something I was expecting. It was a different kind of book to those I’d written before – more personal and sprawling, and it had taken a ridiculously long time to write.My hands were trembling. I could feel sweat collecting under my armpits, my shirt dampening. Are you sure you’re right? I said again. I felt drunk, unsteady, a little sick.Yes, she replied. I have the letter right here in front of me. The awards ceremony is in New York on December second. They say they’ll send more details in a couple of days. She had been speaking in a breathless gush, and now said, Wait, someone’s waving at me: there’s a meeting. Oh my God, I forgot about the meeting! I have to go, I’m so sorry, I’ll call you back.I kept my word and didn’t tell Patrick, not before the photograph and not after. But I did tell my sister, May. After all, it was a book in which she herself featured as a character, a fact she liked to boast about even before the thing went to print. But I knew she could keep a secret if I asked her to. And of course I told Valerie, my agent. Normally, Ada had explained, the awards ceremony was held in London. But that year, in an attempt to curry favour with the Americans, it would be in New York. This was to the chagrin of many committee members, but somehow the power of American opinion held sway. It was, without doubt, the biggest event in the international literary calendar. The whole thing seemed so extraordinary to me, so unexpected. I felt almost afraid of what was happening, superstitious even, maybe paranoid – to the degree that I couldn’t bring myself to say the name of the award aloud or even in my own head, less I jinxed it. In conversation with Ada, and in my private thoughts, I called it just The Prize. It made taking the photograph seem so much worse.Come on, Patrick said. Just one last picture for luck. Smile for me!My publishing house had offered to pay for a professional photographer, but I could think of nothing I wanted less. If anyone asked me to put on a smile the left side of my mouth froze and the muscle beneath my right eye started to twitch. I tried it once for a previous book at Ada’s request, when I was too naïve to know I could refuse, and spent three hours in a room chilled by air conditioning, repeating this phrase, Honey-honey-honey. Money-money-money. It keeps your lips open at the right aperture, the photographer said. If you don’t want to actually smile, I mean. Because you want to appear inviting, he said. Like you’re about to speak, a slightly open mouth is what we want. Like you’re talking to the person who is looking at the photo, confiding. Open, but not overly friendly, like that, yes, perfect, if you could just hold that. Then we changed position and I repeated my mantra: honey-honey-honey, money-money-money, as the camera clicked away. Later we laughed about it, Patrick and I. But you never say that for me, he said.