0:00:00 > 0:00:04as much money for them as possible.
0:00:04 > 0:00:07Now it's time for Meet the Author.
0:00:07 > 0:00:09Two children are inseparable.
0:00:09 > 0:00:12They're torn apart by an accident; late in life they meet again.
0:00:12 > 0:00:15Then we're taken into a parallel world, where they meet in middle-age
0:00:15 > 0:00:16and have a passionate affair.
0:00:16 > 0:00:19Then another, in which they marry young but confront unhappiness.
0:00:19 > 0:00:21They are Ivy and Abe, and in Elizabeth Enfield's novel,
0:00:21 > 0:00:25each of these stories reveals a part of their character as if all of us
0:00:25 > 0:00:28aren't just who we are here and now, but are always carrying with us
0:00:28 > 0:00:31the weight of the oldest question of all - what if?
0:00:31 > 0:00:33Welcome.
0:00:52 > 0:00:55In this book, we are reminded that life and your fate can change
0:00:55 > 0:00:56in the blink of an eye.
0:00:56 > 0:01:03Do you think of that as being reassuring or alarming?
0:01:03 > 0:01:06I think it's both but I think it's one of those tantalising thoughts
0:01:06 > 0:01:09that people have a lot, that sort of "what if I'd done this"
0:01:09 > 0:01:12and "what if I'd done that," and I think the thought is very
0:01:12 > 0:01:15alarming, especially if you've based your whole life or you've
0:01:15 > 0:01:21lived your whole life dependent on one route you've gone down.
0:01:21 > 0:01:23But I actually think the exploration of it,
0:01:23 > 0:01:26which I've tried to do in the book, is less alarming because
0:01:26 > 0:01:29I think that life...
0:01:29 > 0:01:32There are a lot of themes to the book, not just the issue
0:01:32 > 0:01:35of the relationship between the two people, but I think life has
0:01:35 > 0:01:38a habit of turning out as it's going to turn out,
0:01:38 > 0:01:41and those paths not taken have a sort of way of rejoining
0:01:41 > 0:01:44almost, so that you can look back and think, "If I hadn't done,
0:01:44 > 0:01:47that my life might have been very different," but very often it's not.
0:01:47 > 0:01:52It's similar.
0:01:52 > 0:01:54That is the reassuring answer, but what's interesting
0:01:54 > 0:01:57about Ivy and Abe of course - the couple we follow and then go
0:01:57 > 0:02:00backwards with in this book - is that it's not so much
0:02:00 > 0:02:02what they have done, decisions they've made,
0:02:02 > 0:02:04it's about things that have happened that are beyond their control,
0:02:04 > 0:02:06an accident for example when they are children,
0:02:06 > 0:02:07that throws them apart.
0:02:07 > 0:02:10A lot of it is accidental, so they're not to blame,
0:02:10 > 0:02:13or it is not something they have done that's produced good or bad,
0:02:13 > 0:02:23it's just stuff that happened.
0:02:24 > 0:02:26I've tried to work in...
0:02:26 > 0:02:28There's something else in that, that there are two things
0:02:28 > 0:02:29in the book that Abe's life...
0:02:29 > 0:02:32so the two people have different things going on in their lives
0:02:32 > 0:02:35and Abe's life, as you said, is there's an accident which happens
0:02:35 > 0:02:40in each of his parallel lives and it always has a different effect.
0:02:40 > 0:02:41So it's a completely random accident.
0:02:41 > 0:02:43Whenever it happens, the effect of that accident
0:02:43 > 0:02:44plays out differently.
0:02:44 > 0:02:47And against that, I wanted something that was more sort
0:02:47 > 0:02:49of set in the stars, if you like.
0:02:49 > 0:02:51So Ivy has something which is - when I was writing it,
0:02:51 > 0:02:54I was thinking what can she have that's just almost immutable,
0:02:54 > 0:02:56that's not going to suffer the same random effects,
0:02:56 > 0:02:59so she has something in her genes which also plays out,
0:02:59 > 0:03:04which I don't want to give too much away, but that was my thing
0:03:04 > 0:03:08of what can you have in your life that is absolutely set that
0:03:08 > 0:03:10you can't affect, and that seemed to me like it's
0:03:10 > 0:03:12something you're born with, your cards are marked,
0:03:12 > 0:03:15your genetic card is marked, and that's going to play out no
0:03:15 > 0:03:17matter what happens really in the rest of the world,
0:03:17 > 0:03:27the way that it will.
0:03:29 > 0:03:32We don't want to give too much away but we can say that we see them
0:03:32 > 0:03:38operating in parallel worlds.
0:03:38 > 0:03:41I mean they're children, then they meet when they are much,
0:03:41 > 0:03:43much older, elderly really.
0:03:43 > 0:03:46Then there are two other episodes when they're in midlife,
0:03:46 > 0:03:48and we see these things almost acting simultaneously.
0:03:48 > 0:03:51It is inevitable when this book is reviewed that people will look
0:03:51 > 0:03:54back to that film Sliding Doors and say, "Oh, that's the kind
0:03:54 > 0:03:55of thing we are talking about here."
0:03:55 > 0:04:01People will remember that movie.
0:04:01 > 0:04:03As you say, Ivy and Abe meet again and again,
0:04:03 > 0:04:07and it's like Sliding Doors but not in that it's not that same time that
0:04:07 > 0:04:10might have gone differently, it is at different times
0:04:10 > 0:04:11of their lives.
0:04:11 > 0:04:13They are children, they're in their 70s, in their 60s,
0:04:13 > 0:04:14in their 50s, 40s, 30s.
0:04:14 > 0:04:16We go right through, and within those chapters
0:04:16 > 0:04:20we have a little bit of background and a bit of information so we know
0:04:20 > 0:04:22what that particular life to date, how it's been slightly different
0:04:22 > 0:04:32than it was to another version.
0:04:34 > 0:04:37You are writing a fascinating story because it's absorbing, you know,
0:04:37 > 0:04:40what will happen in this circumstance and how does it compare
0:04:40 > 0:04:42with what's happened before or what's to come.
0:04:42 > 0:04:44Were you conscious at all, when you were writing the story
0:04:44 > 0:04:47and as the novel developed, that you wanted to say something
0:04:47 > 0:04:49about the nature of life or our own experiences,
0:04:49 > 0:04:52or how we look at our emotional lives, or were you just saying
0:04:52 > 0:05:02I want to tell a good story?
0:05:02 > 0:05:03Both.
0:05:03 > 0:05:04I think...
0:05:04 > 0:05:07You know, one of the premises of this novel was I gathered
0:05:07 > 0:05:09a lot of stories of, A, people who'd had relationships
0:05:09 > 0:05:13that they had thought maybe if I'd met someone at another time it might
0:05:13 > 0:05:15have played out differently.
0:05:15 > 0:05:18So the circumstances of their life at that particular time had affected
0:05:18 > 0:05:26a particular relationship.
0:05:26 > 0:05:28And, B, that almost everyone I suppose, especially as they reach
0:05:28 > 0:05:31the end of their lives, and the stance at the end
0:05:31 > 0:05:33of Ivy and Abe's lives has a sort of slight...
0:05:33 > 0:05:35Not really a yearning but a wistfulness.
0:05:35 > 0:05:38And I don't mean a deep sad wistfulness but a slight
0:05:38 > 0:05:39nostalgic "I wonder what might have happened..."
0:05:39 > 0:05:40A natural curiosity.
0:05:40 > 0:05:46Yes, a natural curiosity.
0:05:46 > 0:05:48"What if I hadn't done that?"
0:05:48 > 0:05:55I think generally people think, "I'm glad that I didn't because my life
0:05:55 > 0:05:56has turned out fine."
0:05:56 > 0:05:58I'm interested in the names, Ivy and Abe.
0:05:58 > 0:06:04Both very simple and almost very intimate.
0:06:04 > 0:06:06You know, my friends, Ivy and Abe.
0:06:06 > 0:06:07You can think of them.
0:06:07 > 0:06:08There's nothing artificial about them.
0:06:08 > 0:06:10It's the kind of question readers always want to know.
0:06:10 > 0:06:13How did you come to Ivy and Abe?
0:06:13 > 0:06:15Well, I started actually, and there are traces of this
0:06:15 > 0:06:21this still in the book, I started with Robert and Eleanor
0:06:21 > 0:06:24because I wanted names that I could change and give
0:06:24 > 0:06:25a variation of.
0:06:25 > 0:06:28And then when I finished the book, I decided it was too confusing
0:06:28 > 0:06:31and I just wanted names that were easily recognisable,
0:06:31 > 0:06:34not unusual, not "how do you spell that," but also unusual so that each
0:06:34 > 0:06:36time you met them it was obvious it was them.
0:06:36 > 0:06:39It wasn't another Tom, Dick or Harry, or Sarah or Kate.
0:06:39 > 0:06:40It was like, "Oh, it's Ivy."
0:06:40 > 0:06:42Then actually on the page, they look...
0:06:42 > 0:06:49They look nice together.
0:06:49 > 0:06:50They look sort of right.
0:06:50 > 0:06:53I like the way that words look on a page.
0:06:53 > 0:06:55I love the way they look on the cover of the book.
0:06:55 > 0:06:58You talk about the cover, it's interesting because you've got
0:06:58 > 0:07:02the names on Scrabble tiles and a heart on another tile.
0:07:02 > 0:07:05It's a lovely idea because we all know how infuriating and how
0:07:05 > 0:07:13wonderful that game is according to how the tiles fall.
0:07:13 > 0:07:14Exactly.
0:07:14 > 0:07:16It's a lovely analogy for the story really.
0:07:16 > 0:07:18Exactly and you can, you know, if you were playing Scrabble,
0:07:18 > 0:07:21they might land anywhere on the board, they might repeat
0:07:21 > 0:07:24themselves on the board so it is a great sort of metaphor
0:07:24 > 0:07:25for what the book is about.
0:07:25 > 0:07:27I come back to the idea of alternative lives,
0:07:27 > 0:07:29which were always waiting out there for us and we
0:07:30 > 0:07:31could have taken.
0:07:31 > 0:07:32How did the idea come to you?
0:07:32 > 0:07:42It came...
0:07:44 > 0:07:48I mean, I'd love to say there was a eureka moment but there wasn't.
0:07:48 > 0:07:49It came...
0:07:49 > 0:07:51I sort of am constantly collecting people's stories
0:07:51 > 0:07:53so from reading the paper, from listening to the radio,
0:07:53 > 0:07:55listening to television, talking to people, and I sort
0:07:55 > 0:07:58of ended up with this collection of stories which was the sort
0:07:58 > 0:08:01of theme running through them all was, you know, is there a right
0:08:01 > 0:08:02person or a right time.
0:08:02 > 0:08:06You've written a lot of short stories so your mind, in a way,
0:08:06 > 0:08:09you know, for some years, has been used to that idea of taking
0:08:09 > 0:08:11a lovely little episode and constructing a beautifully
0:08:11 > 0:08:13chiselled story, and this book, it seems to me, has a lot
0:08:13 > 0:08:15of that skill in it.
0:08:15 > 0:08:18You've put a lot of these things together and say, hang on a minute,
0:08:18 > 0:08:28there's a big mosaic here which hangs together.
0:08:28 > 0:08:31It was lovely to write from that point of view because it did feel
0:08:31 > 0:08:34much more like initially I'm writing a series of short stories
0:08:34 > 0:08:37but there is a thread of a lifetime and of similar circumstances
0:08:37 > 0:08:38which runs through them all.
0:08:38 > 0:08:41But I was almost able to let the characters live their life
0:08:41 > 0:08:43at a particular moment without worrying about the before
0:08:43 > 0:08:53or after, and then thinking about that afterwards.
0:08:56 > 0:08:58Elisabeth Enfield, author of Ivy & Abe, thanks very much.
0:08:58 > 0:09:07Thank you.