The Secret Life of Evie Hamilton - Catherine Alliott [12]
‘Fan mail!’ she'd spluttered. ‘My God, Dad, like a pop star. They'll be wanting a photo next.’
And the very next one had asked for just that. Ant had declined, writing back saying he was terribly flattered, but really, he was no oil painting, which was why there was no author photo on the dust jacket. But it gave us a flavour of things to come, of the number of people who'd come to listen to him give a reading in New College and the sheer volume at the reception in the adjoining room afterwards, as we'd stood clutching glasses of warm white wine: quite a lot of dusty academics – colleagues, many of them – but also plenty of perfectly normal people too, and that was the clincher. To be celebrated amongst one's peers, the people Ant respected, was crucial, but to have gone over the wire, to have breached the gap between these hallowed, honey-coloured walls and entertained the man on the street, the woman in Tesco's, to have reached the real world, was something else. Joe Public's recognition was secretly craved by the high-minded, for only that brought fame and fortune.
And I'd been so proud, so proud, standing there beside him in my new wraparound dress, Anna, stunning in a Topshop number, laughing later with Ant as I recalled how someone had approached me and asked politely, ‘And what do you do?’ and I'd replied thoughtlessly, ‘Oh, nothing.’ ‘Nothing will come of nothing,’ the bearded cove had murmured before moving on, and I'd shrugged, used to quotes being flung at me in this city, used to people being surprised I didn't teach, or paint, or write, secretly knowing Ant did enough for both of us. ‘Should have told him to sod off,’ Ant had said, annoyed, but I'd just laughed.
But there'd been jealousy too, at his success. Intellectuals, despite, or perhaps because of, their brains, can be a mean-spirited bunch, and there'd been those who'd said Ant had sold out, been too commercial, betrayed Byron, in his flagrant depiction of him as a ‘yoof culture’ figure. But as Anna said, it was all bollocks, because if Byron had been alive today he'd have loved it. Would have turned up the collar of his leather jacket, flopped down on the sofa in his stately pile with his babe and given an interview to Hello!, unlike Wordsworth, who'd have headed for the Lake District in his anorak. And herein lay the rub. The fact that Byron would have been cool and Wordsworth a geek came as no surprise to anyone in the English Department: it was that someone had thought of saying it, of stating the obvious, that they didn't like.
So we'd been careful, in the face of this potential envy. Or rather, Ant had been careful. I, on the other hand, had gone shopping. House hunting, to be more precise. Recalling that, I cringed now as I wrapped my dressing gown around me and scooped up my breakfast tray, making for the stairs. Oh, we'd agreed we were moving, that much had been discussed – the college house was only rented and we needed to buy – but what we hadn't quite established was where. As I nipped up the stairs now to the ground floor, balancing my tea and toast, I passed the double doors into the drawing room – drawing room, God, we never thought we'd have one of those – following the curved, French-polished rail up to my bedroom. But this wasn't the house I was cringing about, no. It was the one off the Banbury Road, the one in Westgate Avenue with the six bedrooms, the acre of garden, the music room, the – God help me – orangery. I remember looking round it, excitement mounting, following the estate agent as more and more spacious rooms unfolded, and then the next day, breathlessly dragging Ant and Anna there, verbally incontinent with excitement. I explained, as I hustled them up the crunchy gravel drive, that it was just down the road from Grant Marshall's house – Grant, a medic, having also recently made it over the wire as a television psychiatrist