The Agent

My friend Simon Trewin died a few weeks ago. He was tall, wore waistcoats, baker boy hats and shirts patterned with check and paisley. He was fiercely intelligent, wryly funny and adored by his family, friends and the authors he represented. He was someone I thought would be around forever. I always think there will be more time.

I first met Simon when I was working in the post room of one of London’s biggest talent agencies. I was ambitious and therefore impatient about ordering paperclips and biros. And that room was hot and airless, its one massive photocopier overheated by 9am from copying reviews of the agency’s clients from the morning papers. Tom Stoppard’s most recent play. Julian Barnes’ latest book. Kate Winslet’s latest film. The French and Saunders tour. Richard Curtis’ new film.

But within a few days I’d met everyone who worked there. The post room was shielded from the agents’ offices and so assistants, office staff, receptionists and accountants often stopped for a few moments to talk about their weekends, non-committal boyfriends and the new felafel place that had opened on Drury Lane.

By 11am the smell of ink and hot paper had been replaced with coffee and cigarettes. The fire exit had been propped open with a steel block and some of the agents would step out onto the steel grid steps to smoke. Agents rarely stopped to chat. Tired, probably, from being out late the night before at book launches, opening nights and studio recordings with drinks in the green room after – though they always looked well rested and immaculate. Silk scarves, expensive shoes and tailored suits.

All of them wore an enigmatic expression that I would later come to understand as total concentration: their minds caught in the endless construction of narrative, planning conversations with producers and clients, directors and editors. The delivery of good news. The delivery of bad news. The tightrope balance of diplomacy and toughness. Deliver what is wanted, but also what is needed. Flatter. Devastate. Iron fists in expensive velvet gloves.

I was always far more interested in them than I was the clients, because I wanted to be one of them. They were mythical beasts. Griffins. Part lions, part eagles, griffins are the guardians of treasure and sacred realms. They possess power you might intuit but will never understand.

And Simon Trewin was one of them. A hugely successful literary agent, he’d often walk through the office with that focused look of concentration, though he was always willing to break out of it and talk. We quickly became friends. His questions were direct. Who are you? What are you doing here? How are you going to do it? OK then. He told me who was who, who to watch and who to watch out for.

When I was promoted from the post room to admin assistant for the books department I was put in Pat Kavanagh’s office on Fridays, when she often worked from home. Pat was agent to London’s literary elite: Julian Barnes, Martin Amis and Jeanette Winterson among others. Her office interior was like her: beautiful, stylish, co-ordinated, controlled. One Friday afternoon I sat at her desk filling in mindlessly dull forms, overheating in my acrylic Hennes trousers, suffering peak hangover from all the pints I’d drunk the night before. My nights were often spent partying and staging shows in pub theatres with my comedy friends. All part of a wider plan to eventually become a griffin.

I leant back on Pat’s antique chair and stretched out my arms to yawn, accidentally swiping a Marks and Sparks Extremely Fruity pineapple yoghurt pot with the back of my hand. It fell off the desk and bounced, remarkably high for a small pot, and caused a surprising amount of damage to the surrounding antiques. My gasps brought the office manager and several staff running. It was like that scene in Monsters Inc. when a child’s sock is found on Sully’s back and both him and the area are decontaminated – only this time version had towels, water and panicked calls to the theatrical contract cleaners on Drury Lane.

I sat in Simon’s office while the carpet cleaners whirred, asking if I was going to be fired and he couldn’t stop laughing. It’s a good thing you’re liked around here.

Soon – possibly not soon enough for Pat, I was moved downstairs to the Film and TV department and then onto the Actors department where I began building a business in comedy with another of the griffin agents, though that is another story entirely. But I would often return to visit my friends in the books department, mostly sitting in Simon’s office to chat. By then, I’d learnt to work hard and was humbled by how much time and energy it took to build a business from other people’s talent, let alone a profitable one. And Simon would ask:

What news have you got for me today, HB?

What’s the biggest deal you’ve done so far?

Who should I be looking to sign for their first novel?

Why aren’t you representing X? (biggest comic in the UK)

His questions expected a lot of me. Designed to make me think far beyond what I thought I was capable of and so not always comfortable. Though I welcomed every one. It was like he’d met a version of myself that I was yet to meet. And any time I expressed a lack of belief in myself, his silence was deafening. A challenge. A call to arms.

Come on. Do better for yourself.

Simon conjured vivid images, stories and dreams of his books and his people. The way he spoke about his wife and son, it was as if they were perched in the office with him as he made calls and had meetings. He spoke about books that didn’t exist yet as if they were already on the shelves, about clients’ futures as if he’d visited them already. A good agent returns your calls and does the deal. An exceptional agent expands the story you tell yourself about what is possible.

In the years that followed we saw less of each other. He moved on to another agency and things happened in my own life that made me reassess how much energy I could give the job. It was always an all or nothing career for me. And so, I left. Instead I put all my visions and narrative into the novels I’d been quietly writing in my head for years - Simon’s words about the market always in my mind.

We stayed in touch on and off. I watched him build his own printing business and agency, and he kept tabs on the books I was getting published.

I last saw him a few weeks ago, after he’d been released from hospital, bringing him a tin of brownies I’d made that morning. His wife asked him how they were.

Seven out of ten, he said. And he wasn’t just talking about the brownies.

Fair, I said, smiling.

He lives on, I am sure of it. Not in memory alone, but in voice – his words factoring into the decisions his colleagues, family and clients make about their lives and work. Perching in their offices, at their desks and kitchen tables encouraging them to ask the harder questions. Challenge the narratives. Come on. Do better for yourself. Time is short.