Edward leaned over the railing and looked at the skaters below.
‘It’s a tough gig, this entertaining people.’
‘Do you want me to feel sorry for you?’ Eve teased. ‘I know what your royalties are, so I will find it hard to feel sad for you. But Dave? He deserves more. He works hard, he is married to that woman, he deserves the escape and adventure and instead you deliver him a dry history lesson.’
Edward groaned. ‘I know, that’s why I changed genre. Our Dave isn’t wrong. It was a boring book to write so it would have been equally boring to read.’
‘Unlike your new crime novel, which will soon become the greatest detective series since Dublin Murder Squad.’
Edward tapped the plastic lid of his takeaway coffee with his fingernail. ‘I was thinking, do you think I need to give my detective, Anna, a love interest? I was thinking she could have a husband who is tired of her always working so late and have some tension at home?’
Eve groaned and put her head down onto her hands. ‘Spare me.’
‘What? What do you mean?’
Eve turned to him. ‘You know, I watched this TV show a year or so ago, and it was about a woman who was a detective and she was investigating a serial killer, and one of the things I liked the most about the show – and it was a really good show by the way. I’ll try and remember the name and you should watch it.’ She paused. ‘What I liked about it was that it didn’t fall to some patriarchal trope of the man competing for the woman’s time. The husband of this detective was totally on board with her solving this crime. He said he was all over taking care of the kids and the home while she did the police work because it mattered to the community. It was more important than his bloody ego.’
Edward’s eyes widened.
‘So don’t fall for this trope that so many men write. You know what would be great? If she was either single and absolutely cool with it and had new lovers often and always, or she was happily in a relationship with a really supportive partner – male or female – who brings her cups of tea when she’s working late and folds the washing and tells the children that Mummy is actually making a difference to the world. Why isn’t mass murder enough drama? Why do we then have to show women supposedly neglecting their duties as a mother? Or a wife?’
He was silent for a moment.
‘You’re right.’ He walked to the rubbish and threw his coffee cup away and then came back to Eve’s side.
‘You’re so right that it’s embarrassing to hear to be honest. I’m embarrassed for every man who has ever resorted to that trope. It is insulting.’
Eve smiled and patted him on the arm. ‘When you know better you do better, Mr Priest.’
‘Do you think my writing is sexist?’ he asked.
She shrugged and made a face. ‘It’s a bit sexist, but not overtly like a James Bond book but more dismissive. Women often serve a purpose in your books to work as an exposition device but they’re archetypes. The wise older woman or the sassy, beautiful waitress. They aren’t even main characters; they merely point the way for your main character to go to next. And he never says thank you to them.’
Edward put his hand up. ‘Between you and Dave’s wife’s review, I’m feeling a little tender now.’
‘Come on, tender man, let’s go shopping,’ she teased. ‘I’ll buy you a notebook to write down your feelings about this new personal awareness.’
‘You know every writer is a sucker for a new notebook,’ he said and he wished she would tuck her arm in his and they could walk through Leeds showing off their love to the city.
Instead, her hands were firmly in her coat pockets, a warm scarf around her neck, partially covering her mouth, and a woollen hat on her pretty head, her bob cut framing her perfect face.
‘Do you have a list?’ she asked.
‘I’m not really a list sort of a person,’ he said, standing out the front of a bookstore. ‘Shall we see if they have any of my books?’
‘Get over yourself.’ Eve laughed but Edward walked into the store and headed to the fiction section.
‘Oh look they have four of the last one and two of the ones before that.’
‘Okay, feeling better now, Duke Needy?’
Edward looked at the spines of the books on the shelves.
‘You know, you never get tired of seeing them in store. It’s still my biggest thrill. Like the first time Serena took a chance on me and publishedThe Stained-Glass Mirror.’
‘That’s still a stupid title,’ she said, picking up a copy of a new book she had been meaning to read.
‘It is, but Serena titled it so you should tell her,’ he said. ‘We had an argument about it but it did make people think and she knew what worked for this market.’
