Two significant events occurred in my life before I started writing Misconduct. My father died, and my relationship fell apart. It made me realize I didn’t want to do what I’d been doing anymore, and I took myself off to Europe – thinking I might live in France or Holland for a while.

First I had a slightly fool-hardy plan to first the Frankfurt book fair. God knows why. It was a hugely overwhelming place of commerce, and not the best location if you’re feeling a tad fragile. Staying on a river-boat I got chatting to an American woman one day, who invited me to a “Publisher and Writers’ Retreat” in Dijon. She showed me the brochure and when I saw the $US 2500 fee I told her I didn’t think I could make it. She begged me to take part because they only had a couple of paying participants and needed to up the numbers. I could come for a contribution to the food cost only. Okay, I agreed. I didn’t have anything else planned that week (or at that stage for the rest of my life).
   
In the train it occurred to me that I was possibly being recruited into some desperate sort of cult, or something, but the view of the passing countryside was lovely.

The destination was a big isolated farmhouse, about twenty minutes drive outside of Dijon, where I was introduced to the fellow participants. Howard, the farmhouse-owner, was a Canadian publisher whose books were scattered around (mostly slightly pretentious attempts at fiction by his academic friends). Victoria, the highly-strung woman who had invited me, published a library guide for the American market. Her brother-in-law wrote evangelical financial guides that evoked ‘The Zen’. There was an ex-CIA man who had a two-chair kind of butt and had made millions on some sort of specialized computer programme. And an Israeli man with many peculiar idiosyncrasies who published how-to books on Krav Maga, an Israeli army hand-to-hand combat technique.

What an odd lot we were. Luckily it turned out the Howard was a completely masterful chef, with a passion for local produce. The meals consisted of several courses including escargot, canard, Dijon boeuf, cheeses, and many bottles of the local wine – which had the effect of numbing the “ideas-swapping” that was supposed to be going on. Barely was lunch over, when dinner began. The CIA man often suggested that we should all go to a nearby Cathedral to see a choir of lovely young boys, but the greedy way he talked of the lovely young boys terrified the rest of us.

One morning a helicopter flew up and hovered in front of the big bay window in the dining room. The two men inside were dressed in white jumpsuits, and this sent everybody into alarm.

‘Must be here to collect me,’ the ex CIA-man said. ‘Some sort of US crisis? Did you know, Bridget, that I was rather high up in the CIA?’

‘Do you think they’ve come to arrest me?’ the brother-in-law suggested. ‘I went for a walk across some fields earlier. Was I trespassing? Broken some law?’

Victoria screeched that she’d just saw a bird fall to the ground beside the barn. ‘It looks dead. It looks dead. What does this all mean?’

‘Wot? Do Interpol know I’m here?’ the Israeli man said.

The helicopter veered off, and Howard come in from the courtyard and explained it was just the local French farmer making a visit in a way that satisfied his particular sense of humour. It was a strangely quiet lunch that day – a certain reluctance to meet anybody else in the eye existed.

When the week was over Howard very kindly offered for me to stay in the farmhouse and write my book. He was going back to Canada for a while, and the only company would be Bruno the builder who came every day to convert the barn into an opera venue. Bruno was about 40, lived down the road with his mother, and had never been as far as Paris. He knew only enough English to gleefully utter the words – Ahh All Blacks – when he found out I was from NZ. And my French was terrible. Howard said I could drive the car during the day, but Bruno would take it home at night. The Israeli had claimed a few nightly visitations by a ‘presence’ in his upstairs bedroom, and Victoria mentioned people had complained of that before. A garlic necklace was recommended.

I didn’t stay. But I did make a firm decision. I decided not to run away, but instead return home and restructure my life to make completing a novel my priority. Because where better to have a writing kind of life than here? And now it’s done. But what madness might I have had to write about, had I stayed?

On the beach the other day I met an Italian tourist on his way to visit the seal colony. We chatted for a bit, as we wandered along, and he invited me to meet him for a coffee the next day. Over coffee he asked me how I came to write a book and I told him I’d always intended to write novels but up until a few years ago I’d worked in radio, becoming the marketing director of a big network.

He said, “Yesterday when I saw you out walking with your unpretentious clothes and your knitted scarf and your unbrushed hair I thought here is a true artist, and now you are talking like a business woman.” He didn’t say the words business woman particularly kindly, and because he was speaking in a second language it probably came out more unsubtle than he might have otherwise intended. 

And even though I knew it was stupid, I admit to feeling stung. He was suggesting that I had disappointed some romantic illusion he’d held for the previous 24 hours – an illusion I like to have of myself too. But I am a true artist, a squeaky little voice inside me said, I sort of am. Can’t you tell? Look, I only brushed my hair today because you’d invited me out for coffee…

But there was also that inner suspicion that claiming outright to be a true artist might be a little bit, er, splashy and pretentious after just one book. 

Lately I’m often asked if my novel, Misconduct, is autobiographical (and if that is the case then somebody ought to be on the way to arrest me right now). The Italian asked too. Sometimes the question feels like a short-hand enquiry into your level of creativity (which was already under his clumsy suspicion because I’d admitted to some kind of business capability). I mentioned this interest in finding where truth intersects with fiction in an email to my cousin and she replied, “I reckon no good book is ever free from truth, and never totally filled with reality. As a true artist it is not important what it is for you, but what it is for the reader.” Exactly. In a recent article Linda Grant (author of one of my favourite books When I lived in Modern Times) described her fury at the insistence that fiction must be autobiographical “because it reduces the imagination to material for journalism; it takes an axe to fiction”.  She also said – “what you are writing about is how you feel and understand, not what you did or where you lived or whom you slept with”. Exactly. 

Life does offer up its unexpected moments though, and these might be subverted. The day before, when the Italian and I had come to the end of our walk, I thought for a second it would be easiest just to say, “No I can’t have a coffee with you, but it was nice meeting you. Goodbye.” But he was Italian, and lived in Peru, and some part of me thought maybe you need to take up such opportunities because it could turn out to be interesting or even inspiring – although that sounds sort of ruthless (beware our casual conversation, my friend). 

After our final, awkward parting (it was nice meeting you, that’s a pity that you no longer feel any passion for your wife, no I really don’t want to have sex with you, thank you, goodbye) I raked over what he’d said. I wondered if any of it was interesting enough to toy around with for the novel I am writing now. Because sometimes the random things people say are more loaded than things you might make up… but then again that doesn’t mean a scenario can’t be invented around it. Or that I’ve even told the truth today.

Maybe I didn’t turn down his second offer after all. Maybe he wasn’t even Italian.