herself on having navigated the Volkswagen into the West End despite the lunch-time traffic when they were confronted by a sign which said Oxford Street was closed to private cars. Now Ellen saw why it was surrounded by so many one-way arrows on the map. The car tailgating Ben's blared its horn at him for braking, and a businessman crossing in front of him brandished two fingers as if he had sounded the horn. 'That's a bad example,' ten-year-old Margaret advised her brother.
'I expect he was wishing us success,' Ben said. 'V for victory. I don't mean to change the subject, but where do I go now?'
The map appeared to have turned into a mass of arrows which collided and dodged away like a diagram of turbulence. 'Across and next right,' Ellen said, since that seemed to be the only way to go.
The route took them past the British Museum. 'That's where they have lots of old weapons, isn't it, Dad?' seven-year-old Johnny said. 'Could we go and see them if there's time?'
'I don't suppose they'd have an old tank we could use to make our way to where we're going,' Ben wondered, showing his teeth at a No Entry sign.
'Only if there's time,' Johnny said rather plaintively. 'We aren't going to be late, are we? Won't they publish your book if we're late?'
'I'm sure they will, sweetie,' Ellen said, turning 'to smile at his thin pale eager face, almost a miniature of his father's except for his hair, which was black like hers. 'Be a little quiet now until we get there.'
Shaftesbury Avenue led them across Cambridge Circus, beyond which Ben raced the oncoming traffic into a wide street, beating a double-decker bus to the intersection so narrowly that Johnny cheered while Margaret screamed and Ellen held her breath. Traffic wardens and women wearing fishnet stockings prowled a labyrinth of streets made even narrower by illegally parked cars, some immobilised by wheel-clamps. Whenever a gap opened in the traffic there seemed to be a taxi poised to dart into it. Ben drummed the wheel as if he was about to fling up his hands, and then he bumped the car over the kerb into a oneway street. 'A miracle. A space.'
Most of the parking meters in the street had bags over their heads, but the one at the end was working. He steered the car into the space and jumped out, and was reaching in his pocket when he read the sign on the meter. 'How much for ten minutes? At this rate we'll just about have time to walk to the end of the street and back. My curse on whoever's responsible. May their noses turn into sausages and be eaten by dogs, may their toes grow so long they have to tie them in knots to walk
Anxiety and mirth and dismay because she'd brought no money were chasing one another over Margaret's long delicate oval face. 'What comes after noses and toes?'
'Don't ask, or something might be after yours,' Ellen said, searching her own purse. 'Oh dear, the milkman took all my change.'
'Shall I ask that lady in the doorway if she can change your notes, Mummy?' Johnny suggested.
'I think she might misinterpret your intentions, Johnny,' Ben said, squeezing Ellen's knee and winking at her as he climbed into the car. 'Let's blunder onwards. I see now, this is like a kind of life-size board game where the object is to avoid Oxford Street. I only hope this isn't an illegal move.'
He backed to the intersection and was veering left when Margaret said 'What's the name of your and Mummy's publishers?'
'Any other time I'd enjoy repeating it. Ember, a subsidiary of Firebrand Books.'
'We just saw it.'..
'Across the road you just came out of,' Johnny gabbled, and Margaret added, 'Where a lady's jumping up and down and waving.'
Ellen looked back. On the far side of the crossroads a young woman was pointing at their car and gesturing with her other hand as she tried to cross the intersection. 'She's telling us to go left twice and come back,' Ellen guessed.
'You don't think her idea of fun could be misdirecting strangers.'
When they managed to return to the crossroads the young woman was still there. She ran to the car as it turned right. She was wearing a moss-green suit, green tights and dark green shoes, and struck Ellen as altogether pixie-like, even her smile which was disproportionately wide for her small triangular face. 'I didn't think there could be many families with children cruising through Soho. If I'd known you were coming by car I'd have given you better directions.'
'We thought driving would be cheaper than training it,' Ben said.
'Let me show you our car park and then we'll eat. You kids must be starving.' She jogged beside the car as it coasted down the ramp beneath the Firebrand building. 'I'm Kerys Thorn, as if you didn't know,' she said when the Sterlings piled out of the vehicle. 'It's really ace to meet you two at last after so much talking on the phone. How does Italian food for lunch sound? Slurp, slurp, if it's spaghetti, would you say, kids?'
Johnny giggled. 'Sounds like him eating most things,' Margaret said.
'You should hear me eating Chinese soup, Margaret,' Kerys said.
'My name's really Margery.'
'Do your mum and dad know?'
'We're kept informed of changes,' Ellen said, and gave Margaret a kiss when the girl frowned at her.
Kerys led the Sterlings into the dull January daylight and through a confusion of streets to the restaurant, racing Johnny to it when they reached the block where it stood. A fat waiter who looked ready to burst into song ushered the party to their table as soon as he saw Kerys and brought them a bottle of Krug. 'Here's to a bestseller. Success and long lives to us all,' she proposed, and nudged Johnny when he made a face at the taste of his token glassful while Margaret demurely sipped hers. 'We have to drink this stuff because we're grownups,' she told him and helped him read the menu, which was half as tall as he was. When he remarked loudly on the prices before Ellen could hush him, Kerys nudged him again. 'Ember's paying. You have whatever your mum and dad say you can have,' she murmured in his ear, and Ellen found herself growing increasingly fond of her.
Once the waiter had taken their orders, Kerys produced a notepad from her handbag. 'Kids, I'm going to ask your brilliant parents about themselves so I can tell our publicity department what to say about them but if you've any extra ideas, just shout. Who do I start with? Do you write the books around Ellen's pictures, Ben? What was it you said, Ellen, about each taking half the year?'
'Ben writes the book in the autumn and winter and then I illustrate it in the spring and summer when the light's better and the children are at school.'
'Was Ben already writing when you met?'
'Not until years after we were married. I managed to persuade him to write down some of the stories he used to tell the children, and you took some persuading, didn't you, Ben?'
'Some.'
'Don't worry, Ben, we'll let you talk,' Kerys assured him. 'We'll want everyone to hear from both of you when we send you touring to promote your book. We'd have done that with your other books if I'd been with Ember then.'
'We may have to go separately if it's when the children are at school,' Ellen said.
'The one of you who stays at home could be the inspiration behind the other one. The media should go for that.' Kerys sat back as their meal arrived and the waiter departed, blowing a kiss in appreciation of their choices. 'I mean, if it's true. Do you think you'd be a writer if you hadn't met Ellen, Ben?'
'I don't think I'd be much of anything.'
'Let me ask you the question I always like to ask writers. Where would you say your stories come from?'
Ben raised a portion of veal marsala to his lips, then laid it down on his plate. 'I'm not sure I ought to know. It works best if I just let the story tell itself to me. I think writers can be too conscious of their technique or what they're trying to say or who they're influenced by. I suppose I must be influenced by everything I've read, particularly when I was a child.'
'I'd say your stories read like nobody except yourself. Who did vou -'
'I've never understood this thing about writers trying to find their own voice. It seems to me that if you've got one you're more likely to develop it when you're not straining to hear it yourself. I just try to tell the story as if you were listening to me tell it. I interrupted you.'
'I'm glad you did,' Kerys told him, and Ellen sensed she was relieved that his enthusiasm had overcome the self-consciousness he always experienced with strangers. 'Don't let your food get cold. I was only going to ask
