Ghosting Read online

  Everyone tells stories. And all story-tellers are liars—not to be trusted. They have an excessive need to make sense of experience, and so things get twisted and shaped to suit. It need not be deliberate, but it's as well to admit that it happens. We fumble about in the fog, and patterns come to us eerily like distant foghorns over water. We put forward versions of ourselves. And versions of others.

  What is known about any man is finite, but what is not known is infinite. Others who worked for Tiger might say, no, this is not the man I know. Or perhaps, yes, this is the man, but only in some measure, not the whole man. What they would probably all confirm is that he lived as people rarely do nowadays, dangerously and passionately. His obsessive personality could cause fury and despair in those around him, but his faults were all tangled up with virtues. And a warm heart more than made up for the failings. In an age of big business publishing characterised by remoteness and detachment, he was heroically original and human.

  The Greek turned out to be a charlatan, not so much a crook as a terrible fantasist. “Can you believe it!” Tiger squealed, as though it were a shock. But the main feeling seemed to be one of relief that it was finally over. Accountants moved in, but there was no dramatic Fall of Empire, no moonlight flit. They did their job and spoke calmly of temporary liquidity issues. Everything was going to be fine. And like a phoenix—a phoenix come true—Tiger rose from the ashes, wearing his brightest colours and finest jewels. Before long there was talk of the next book. “I have an idea—we could do a big book on God.” It was definitely time to leave now.

  When Tiger realised I was serious he announced his retirement from the literary world. The last thing to be written was a valediction. It was styled, in Donne's beautiful line, a valediction forbidding mourning. Poetic to the end.

  Three months later, I left the palace bearing the gift of a Mont Blanc pen. “We made a great team, you and I,” he said as we hugged each other goodbye. In Regent Street I caught a No. 12 bus and tears fell all the way to Waterloo.

  Things would never be different again.

  The author and publishers acknowledge the following sources of quotations reproduced in this book on the pages listed.

  pp. 94-95: Germaine Greer, “The Sultan of Soho and his harem,” The Observer Magazine, 11 October 1987.

  p. 103: (Enoch Powell): Naim Attallah, Of a Certain Age, Quartet Books, 1992, p. 235, reproduced by kind permission of the author.

  pp. 103–4: (Mary Soames, Diana Mosley): Naim Attallah, Asking Questions, Quartet Books, 1996, pp. 451-2, 278, reproduced by kind permission of the author.

  p. 104: (Francis Stuart): Naim Attallah, In Conversation with Naim Attallah, Quartet Books, 1998, p. 315, reproduced by kind permission of the author.

  p. 118: Henry Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi, Penguin, 1950.

  pp. 136-7: Gillian Glover, “Cat who got the cream,” The Scotsman, 18 November 1994.

  pp. 142, 154-5,155-6, 158-9, 159-60: Naim Attallah, A Timeless Passion, Quartet Books, 1995, pp. 1, 75, 75-6, 98, 30, 82-5, reproduced by kind permission of the author.

  p. 157: Carole Mansur, “Murder, metaphor and mystery,” The Daily Telegraph, 1995.

  p. 157: Ulick O'Connor, “Less sex please,” The Oldie, June 1995.

  p. 157: Cristina Odone, “A lusty Beatrice leads her Dante,” The Catholic Herald, 9 June 1995.

  pp. 179, 180, 192-4, 195-6, 200-1, 201-2, 202-3, 204-5, 206-7, 208, 210: Naim Attallah, Tara and Claire, Quartet Books, 1996, p. 1, flyleaf, pp. 175-7, 131-2, 47, 106, 115-16, 148-9, 166-7, 167-8, 120, reproduced by kind permission of the author.

  pp. 212-3: Nicola McAllister, The Daily Telegraph, Saturday Review, 23 November 1996.

  p. 214: Alice Thomas Ellis, “A sensitivity unusual in a man,” The Literary Review, October 1996.

  p. 222: Adam Nicolson, “All that twinkles,” The Sunday Telegraph Magazine, 9 June 1996.

  p. 222: Andrew Biswell, The Independent, 22 July 1995.

  p. 233: Philip Larkin, “This be the verse,” High Windows, Faber and Faber, 1974.

  p. 259: Naim Attallah, “Knickers in a twist,” The Erotic Review, Nov.-Dec. 1998.

  pp. 260, 261: Letters, The Erotic Review, March 1999.

  Copyright © 2004 by Jennie Erdal

  Anchor Books and colophon are registered

  trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the Doubleday edition as follows:

  Erdal, Jennie.

  Ghosting: a memoir / Jennie Erdal.—ist ed.

  p. cm.

  Originally published: Edinburgh, Scotland: Canongate Books, 2004.

  1. Ghostwriting. 2. Authorship—Collaboration. 3. Ghostwriters—

  Great Britain—Biography. 4. Publishers and publishing—Great Britain.

  5. Erdal, Jennie. I. Title.

  PN171.G47E74 2005

  808′0092—dc22

  2004056173

  eISBN: 978-0-307-48545-8

  www.anchorbooks.com

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