Sheila Hailey - I Married a Best Seller: My Life with Arthur Hailey

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I Married a Best Seller

My Life with Arthur Hailey

Sheila Hailey

To my husband, ARTHUR HAILEY

in the faint hope that this will shame

him into dedicating a book to me

P.S. I am not holding my breath.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

A Helluva Way to Start a Romance

In 1976 Arthur Hailey and I celebrated our silver wedding anniversary. We had four parties: a dinner-dance for 160 in the Bahamas, where we live; a luncheon for 100 in the Napa Valley, California, where we used to live; a dinner-dance for 50 in Toronto, Canada, where it all began; and a small dinner for 10 in Auckland, New Zealand, on the actual date of our marriage. As a friend remarked, Sheila, arent you milking this a bit?

Youre damn right, I replied.

For to stay happily married to anyone for twenty-five years is an achievement. To stay happily married for that length of time to a writer is a miracle.

Why? Because a writer is temperamental, ruthless, sensitive, impatient, emotional, unreasonable, demanding, self-centered, and excessively hard-working. That is, he has to be most of these things if he is to be a successful writer. My husband is all of them.

Craven-Pamlico-Caiterez

Regional Library

He is also precise, pig-headed, fastidious, fanatically clean, maniacally tidy. And he works at home. In fact, hes done so for twenty-one years. (This alone would send many women running to the nearest divorce court.) Yet here we are still in love, still each others best friend, still laughing at each others jokes.

But it hasnt been easy. I mean, Can you imagine your old man complaining because the stamp you stick on an envelope is slightly crooked? Or being peeved because youve handwritten a batch of checks instead of typing them?

Arthur once came home from a two-week trip and, after settling down at his desk, buzzed me on the intercom.

Sheila, did you use my scratch pad over here while I was away?

Oh, yes, I said. I was taking down all those instructions you were giving me when you phoned from London.

Well, he said, you left part of several pages attached to the pad. Theyre all ragged at the top.

My God, I cried. How could I? Will you ever forgive me?

A slight chuckle at the other end and I hear no more about it. Once again, I have survived an incident.

You think Im kidding?

I should have been warned the first time we met, in August 1949. I was working in the stenographic pool of a magazine publishing company, Maclean-Hunter, in Toronto, Canada. Much to my chagrin, it was the only job available when, fresh out from England two months before, I made the rounds of book publishers, touting four years London experience in the publishing field.

I had left England looking for adventure. Postwar Britain was dreary, its citizens already deprived of financial freedom. A traveler was allowed to take out of the country 35 sterling, which, in June 1949, was barely enough for a modest two-week vacation. I longed to see other lands, so a one-way 35 ticket to Canada, and an emigrants status (which enabled me to seek a job) seemed the best way to start traveling. I didnt intend to stay longer than eighteen months, in which time I could earn enough money to see the country. Then I vowed either to return to England, or journey on to someplace else.

A day in the M-H steno pool consisted of transcribing Dictaphone cylinders, the heavy black wax forerunner of the lightweight recording belts and cassettes used today. I had to charge my time to whatever magazine had been unlucky enough to get my services. My services were a disaster. Half the time I couldnt make any sense out of the broad, unfamiliar Canadian accents on the cylinders. Once I described an editor as an odd coarse man when he was explaining in a letter that he was an ardent horseman. Then one day I picked up a cylinder marked A. F. Hailey, Editor, Bus & Truck Transport. What came out was a beautifully clear, clipped English voice, dictating letters deliberately and precisely, with every name spelled out and all the punctuation carefully specified. It was impossible for even me to go wrong. I typed the letters in record time, and they were comma-perfect. I was overjoyed. At last a voice I could understand. So a little handwritten note went back with the batch of typed letters, a note which said: Thought I would let you know how much I enjoyed hearing the first homeland voice since I started this job.

I was hoping he would seek me out and ask for a date or somethingespecially when I learned that A. F. Hailey, too, had emigrated from England two years earlierfor I rebelled at the impersonal atmosphere of the steno pool, where I never met any voice I worked for. But I was disappointed. Nothing came of it except a note to the head of steno asking if I could please handle all Hailey correspondence.

Eventually, though, we did meetin one of the editorial offices where I was pinch-hitting for a vacationing secretary. We were unimpressed with each other. He was overweight and glum. I was overweight and tweedy. I discovered later that Hailey was unhappy because his marriage was breaking up. My excuse for being overweight was that I liked to eat a lot; I still do, but over the years I have learned some self-control.

Promoted at last, in January 1950, to a junior editorial job, I received a note: Congratulations, and even though it now means I shall have to read my dictated letters before they are mailed, I wish you well in your new job. How about lunch sometime?

Looking back at this beginning, I think I must have been attracted first by his voice, second by his energy, and thirdly by his highly organized mind. It was obvious that Mr. Hailey was attracted by my ability to type perfectly, to spell correctly, and to follow instructions implicity. Without answering back. A helluva way to start a romance, one that could have been the beginning of a smooth, dull life for both of us. But Arthur found out, when he got to know me, that I was exceptionally gifted at arguing and answering back. Its been his cross ever since.

Arthur was sad and cynical on our first date. He told me over dinnernot lunchthat his wife and three small sons had left him. He was obviously suffering a real sense of failure, and seemed to want to castigate himself for it. I remember thinking, Why is he telling me all this? I couldnt be less interested. I dont need to know. I must have communicated this feeling on our second meeting, because more than two months went by before he asked me for a third date.

Small wonder. Neither one of us looked great. Arthur was heavy, with a big moon face, a big mouth, and big teeth. His hair was outrageously short in the North American 1950s style, which made his face look even fatter. He had a penchant for light, spivvy suits. He once escorted me to a Toronto Byline Ball (an annual wingding for the newspaper crowd) in a turquoise-colored suit. I thought his taste was atrocious.

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