Poppycock Enterprises, Ltd.

"Poppycock Enterprises, how may I be of service?....Mm-hm….yes…I see…Oh my…..well, that would be a matter for which I would need to refer you to Professor DeBusque…..that’s correct, we do not accept emails at Poppycock….are you ready? The address is Poppycock Enterprises, Ltd., Tardis House, near Truro Cathedral, Cornwall SE9…Yes, that’s right, Professor Emilia DeBusque. She will get you an answer directly by post. Thank you so much.”

Maude hung up the receiver of the Victorian candlestick telephone and leaned back into her cozy chair, tucking her bare brown feet neatly underneath her.

“Emily?”

“Yes, dear?” Emily looked up from her desk.

“You should be receiving a tricky plot synopsis in the next few days. Fellow seems to have done quite well commercially, but now he wants the Man Booker.”

“Heavens, not another one!” Emily took off her spectacles and rubbed her eyes.

“It’s that blasted article from the Times! We’ll have to be taken from the phone book, I think. I know that you don’t mind answering it, Maudie, but it’s cutting into your reading time. And if you have to explain to Mr. King one more time that he will never be eligible for the Booker, well I might just have to get on the phone myself!” Molly threw back the last sip of her latte with a flourish, placing the empty cup on a trivet that had been a gift from Juliette Winterson. After numerous attempts to woo each of the co-owners of Poppycock, she’d finally accepted that they simply weren’t lesbians, and she’d since looked for other ways to display her affection. On her last visit, Maude had mentioned that both girls could be so forgetful when it came to their antique desks (Molly’s had belonged to Thomas Hardy, and Emily’s to Elswyth Thane), and she was worried that their random placement of hot beverages and wine glasses might someday result in nasty rings on the furniture. Juliette’s gift had been coasters made from tiles removed from the floor of Tintern Abbey. The girls were trying to remember to use them.

“I don’t think we need resort to anything quite so drastic!” Emily placed a hand over her heart. “Gracious. I may just require a small session on the fainting couch now!”

“Naturally, Emily. You don’t have any rush projects at the moment anyway, do you?”

“Oh,” Emily said, falling into a half-hearted swoon on the chaise, “Just a bit of plot for Ian McEwan, but we’re not lunching again until next week. It’s nothing tricky anyway, he always loves everything we do. Have you got anything on at the moment?”

“Sir Salman wanted me to look over a few hundred pages for word discrimination, and we’re having drinks tomorrow night, but that’s really just to catch up. He always give us so much time for these projects, he’s such a lamb. It’s not even that tricky, you can always tell just what word he would have chosen if he thought just a few moments longer. Do you remember,” Molly chuckled, retreating to her own chaise near the crackling fireplace, “How upset John got the first time we did a bit of work for him?”

“Yes! Going on an on about ‘the Banville style’, and how maybe we should just take over for him entirely, if we were going to write his books so well.” Emily held out a hand and Maude immediately popped a marshmallow and kebab stick into her hand for easy roasting. “Maudie, what’s that hanging off the corner of Mr. Darcy’s miniature?”

“Oh, that’s the award for Excellence in Literary Pursuits that came in from the Queen yesterday. I know we don’t like to toot our own horn, but….well, it’s the Queen.”

“Quite right, Maude. We’ll leave it where it is. Have you written any more on your memoir of being a stolen child bride?” Emily tucked the lap blanket in around her knees and delicately nibbled on the piping hot marshmallow.

Maude blushed. “Only a bit. But I have a meeting later with Sir Salman’s agent, he’d like to see a bit.”

“Wonderful!” Molly held out her hand and Maude handed her a glass of red wine. “I – “

The bell by the door clanged.

“Mail!” everyone chimed in together. Maude leapt from her chair, slipped on her slippers, donned a wooly cardigan that Molly had finished yesterday, and answered the door.

“Too much for the mail slot again, Mr. Periwinkle?”

“Yes, yes, Maudie, once again, you are the most popular customers on my route!” Mr. Periwinkle began pulling things out of his mail cart as Maude closed the door behind him.

“Sherry, Mr. Periwinkle?” Emily proffered a glass, which was gratefully accepted.

“And you’re my favorite customers as well, no doubt! Let’s see what we’ve brought today….seems to be…manuscripts, I suppose, quite thick…from Peter Carey…Julian Barnes….more from Mr. Amis, goodness, he has been quite prolific lately, hasn’t he? And then there are the usual gifts….” Maude ran back and forth in the tiny office, handing each parcel to either Emily or Molly, whoever worked most closely with the particular author. If it was a new commission, then Maude read the query herself, and decided whose talents were better suited. Once the numerous boxes had been sorted out and opened (maracas from Oscar Hijuelos, the monthly bouquet of dried cornflowers from the estate of E.M. Forster, another rare early edition of Wilde’s poetry from Stephen Fry, quite a nice George Eliot letter from Zadie Smith, and a case of champagne from Nabokov’s son, with the first edition of “Laura”, in which the dedication read “To the inimitable Professors Emilia DeBusque and Moll E. P’ohlig, without whom this publication would have never been possible – long live Poppycock!”) Mr. Periwinkle, having finished his sherry, took his leave until tomorrow.

Emily and Molly sat for an hour or so in the drowsy glow of the fire, marking manuscripts and scribbling in the margins, Maude reading but always at the ready to fill a glass or crank the gramophone.

Around 2 Molly could no longer suppress a yawn, and Emily followed suit.

“What to you say we pack it in for the afternoon?” Emily stretched and pushed her glasses on top of her head.

“Capital idea, Professor. After a nap, I was thinking of another long session of whatever miniseries we seem to be on now.”

“Brilliant. Order in?”

“Of course. Let us repair to our rooms and meet again at seven.”

The girls rose and Maude removed a copy of “The Way We Live Now” from the shelf, thereby releasing the secret door which led to the estate house they all called home. Maude lingered a few moments more, to put out the fire and tidy up, but soon Poppycock Enterprises, Ltd. was in bed for the day, ready to wake again in the late morning for another day of diligent word-smithing.