‘It’s just that I feel your novels have a certain Groundhog Day feel to them.’

Beverley blinked. ‘I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean,’ she said.

‘They’re repetitive. The same stories, the same characters, repeated over and over. Don’t you want your books to surprise people?’

‘I most certainly do not,’ said Beverley, picking up the new drink and swallowing a third of it. ‘Nobody likes surprises.’

‘I do.’

‘Then you’re abnormal. My readers want to be comforted by my books. They want to open one and know that they can sink into it as they might their favourite armchair. And when they’re finished, they don’t want to remember a word of it.’

The ghost nodded, considering this. ‘Perhaps we have different expectations of what a book should be,’ she said.

‘Perhaps we do,’ agreed Beverley. ‘In your mind, it’s perfectly fine to write Marcel as a total bastard with no redeeming features at all—’

‘But there’s plenty of men out there with no redeeming features at all! Plenty of women too, for that matter!’

‘Yes, in real life! But is that what you want from a novel? Real life?’

‘Well, some semblance of it, yes.’

‘Then go read one of Maude Avery’s miserable dirges. But don’t bother with any of mine.’

‘In general, I don’t.’

‘In general you don’t what?’

‘Bother with any of yours. No offence.’

Beverley laughed. ‘How could that possibly be offensive?’ She closed her eyes for a moment and breathed in through her nose, trying to maintain some sort of equilibrium. ‘You’re quite the sly boots, aren’t you?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘I do. I wonder what goes on inside your mind.’

‘Quite a lot, actually.’

‘Well, you’ll never find a husband if you insist on proving that to everyone. Nobody likes a clever woman. But look, I’m not here to discuss your inadequacies as a person or your oh-so-highbrow taste in literature. I’m here to discuss my novel. The novel that will have my name on the cover and my name on the spine and that I will end up defending on Woman’s Hour while Emma Barnett takes pot-shots at me. Now look at this here.’ She lifted a page that was so full of red marks that it looked as if it had been leeched. ‘This flashback scene. Where Marcel is remembering his first romantic encounter with his late wife.’

‘Yes? What about it?’

‘I mean … have you read it?

‘Yes. I wrote it.’

‘This line. This outrageous line. Reader, he raped her.’

‘I thought that was rather good.’

‘And you’re the one who says you don’t want it to be all Jane Austen!’

‘That was Charlotte Brontë.’

‘Same difference. How on earth is Carolyn supposed to fall in love and marry a man who is a rapist? Do you honestly think the reader is going to want that to happen?’

‘No, but that’s the point. She’s not going to fall in love with him and she’s not going to marry him.’