A Fair Trade

The storm blew itself out slowly, like a quarrel between tired people. By Sunday morning, the sea was grey and flat, and Davy’s boat was still tied up. The island’s only telephone, a heavy black thing in Mrs Pryor’s kitchen, had been ringing since seven o’clock.

It was Iris’s editor, Jacqueline, who had clearly been rehearsing in the bath. “Tell me you have something,” she said. “Page one is empty and the board meets tomorrow.” Iris looked through the open door. Cole sat at the kitchen table, eating toast that he could only half see, while Mrs Pryor cut it into neat triangles without being asked. “I might have something,” she said. “I’ll call you later.” “Might isn’t good enough, Iris.”

She found Cole in the garden, wrapped in the grey scarf, facing the sea. “My editor wants the story,” she said. “All of it. I could write it so that it respected you. But it would still be the end of Tern.” “Yes,” he said. “I have known that since you picked up that paperback.” He turned his face towards her, not quite meeting her eyes. “So let us be honest. I cannot stop you. But I can offer you a trade.”

“A trade?” “Tern’s next book isn’t finished,” Cole said. “It has a journalist in it, a stubborn one, who arrives on an island with a storm behind her and cannot leave. I have written four chapters in two days, Miss Calloway, and I don’t know how it ends.” He paused. “Read them. If afterwards you still want to publish my secret, I will not say a word to stop you. But if you decide not to, I will give you something better: the only interview I have ever agreed to give, on the day that book is published, under my own name.”

It was an extraordinary proposition, and Iris suspected she was being manipulated by a professional. She also suspected that she did not mind. “And if I say no?” she asked. “Then you will take the ferry tomorrow with an excellent story,” he said, “and I shall go on writing my books with a little less company.” Behind them, the kitchen window opened and Mrs Pryor announced that tea was ready, in a tone that suggested she had been listening all along. Iris looked at the sea, then at the house, then at her phone, which still had no signal. “Show me the pages,” she said.