Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect

“Like all good advice, that’s easy to say and tough to follow.”

“Think about it this way—to Royce and Wolfgang, fresh meat like you is a scary thought, because there’re only so many spaces on a shelf. And you’re standing there, ready to jump in their graves. So to speak.” Jasper shrugged. “That’s how they see it, I reckon.”

It was too astute a summary to not be lived experience. I hazarded a guess. “Which publisher do you work for? Gemini?”

“He’s a writer, actually,” Harriet said.

“Part of the festival?” I asked.

Jasper physically waved my question away. “I have business with Wyatt Lloyd. This seemed as good a place as any to chase him down and do it. Not often you get the chance to go all the way up and down Australia.” In the air, he traced a finger in a line up and a line down. I remembered the Ghan went both ways. “Especially for the Irish.” He whispered it almost conspiratorially, nodding at Harriet.

She playfully punched his arm and said to me, “Don’t listen to him. My parents are Irish, but I was born in Melbourne.” That explained why her accent was so light.

“So you caught the train up from Adelaide just to catch it down?”

“We rented a car. Drive up, train down,” Jasper said.

“Long drive.” I thought of the seasickness tablets that he’d mistakenly handed Wyatt. They seemed unnecessary for a desert road trip; he must have been the queasy carsick type.

“If you’ve never done it, I recommend it. Beautiful country. Nothing better than open roads, dingy motels and clear air to finish some projects.”

“Okay then, writer to writer. Am I being fragile, or was everyone picking on me?”

“I think you crave their validation too much. Who cares!” He shrugged. “It’s the stories themselves, not the covers and the shelf space or the festival invites, that outlive us.” This struck me as poignant, but it sounded just a little rehearsed. It seemed to me in particular that he’d convinced himself a festival invite wasn’t important, partially in defense of never having had one. His mention of shelf space, and specifically how little it mattered, twigged a better understanding.

“You self-publish?” I guessed. An online success trying to make the jump into print made sense: it was a reason to tail Wyatt on the trip. There’s always at least one guest at every writers’ festival clutching a manuscript, waiting to shove it into an unsuspecting publisher’s hands. “Ebooks? I used to do that.”

“Ah—”

“He’s very good,” Harriet bragged. “Sold just as many books as McTavish.”

“Thanks, Harry, that’s enough.” He clearly disliked her speaking on his behalf, like a child bemoaning a proud mother. He turned back to me. “I do okay.”

It wasn’t quite humility. He was suddenly a little more shy, protective, and I wondered if it was a glimmer of the same kind of imposter syndrome I felt. Of course, Harriet may have been inflating his ego, but the truth was simple: even if Jasper had great sales for his self-published work, he’d still had to come chasing a publisher on this train.

I turned to Harriet to change the topic. “And you’re a fan of McTavish, I assume?” She had, after all, been the one to ask him a question.

Harriet smiled. “I’m a big fan of his books.”

“What about you?” Jasper cut in. He seemed to me a gentle guy, but one with the uncomfortable habit of interrupting his wife when she was talking, as he had during the panel, which was a little too possessive for my tastes.

“Yeah. I’m not, like, a Mongrel or anything. But a fan. Well,” I half-laughed, “I’m deciding if I still am, to be honest.”

“If it’s any consolation,” Jasper said, “I heard that lady—she’s your agent, right?—arguing with Wyatt about taking those reviews down.”

“You’ve seen it too?”

“Word gets around. Everyone gets a bad review sometimes. Don’t let it bother you. Hey”—he held up his empty glass—“we might freshen up before dinner, right, Harry?”

Harriet nodded. “It was nice meeting you, Ernest.”

They stood up to go, and like I was at a speed-dating table, the man who’d asked me the question at the panel—gold-rimmed glasses and graying, red-flecked beard—sat right down. He had a leathered face and black-diamond moguls for furrows on his brow, and he wore an Akubra that was too clean to have been purchased anywhere other than the Berrimah gift shop. He was holding two beers, and just as I wondered if his mystery companion was joining him, he slid one over to me. This was too many drinks for my constitution—I still had a third of my second beer to go—but I hooked the glass with my finger out of politeness and nodded my thanks.

“Douglas Parsons.” He extended a hand and we shook. I didn’t feel the need to give my name, considering he’d read my book and had addressed me at the panel, but then I felt self-conscious that I was being arrogant in assuming he knew who I was, and so spluttered out Ernest after far too long a pause.

“Yeah. I was in the audience before.” He spoke in a light Texan accent.