Married couple Kate and Greg Mosse first met in Chichester in their teens, and went on to become mutually celebrated names in the arts. Kate’s 2005 historical mystery Labyrinth skyrocketed her name as an international bestseller, the first of a multimillion-selling series of novels. She is also the founder director of the Women’s prize for fiction. Greg has enjoyed success as a lecturer, founding member of writing schools, and playwright. His debut novel, The Coming Darkness, is out now. Kate’s latest book, Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries is out now, and The Ghost Ship will be published next year.
Kate
This was the launch party for the book that changed our lives, Labyrinth. There were about 150 people standing in the very hot Oak Hall of West Dean College, Chichester; friends and family, publishers, booksellers. It became clear – because I’m very small – that nobody would see me if I made a speech, so someone found me a stool.
The dress felt frivolous to buy from an independent designer off Kings Road, but I wanted something special, and I felt amazing in it. The footwear remains a peculiar decision. They were so incredibly uncomfortable, and they’re not boots, they’re not shoes – what are they? I normally choose big chunky platforms, so I’m not sure what possessed me that night. I haven’t worn them since (apart from this photoshoot).
I’m pretty sure that in that particular moment I was looking towards my beloved and much missed dad, who died in 2011. Greg, being wonderful, was at the side because he helped me up on the stool. It looks as if he’s worried I might fall.
Greg and I first met during a joint school production of Offenbach. I was leading the orchestra down on the floor and Greg was one of the leads up on the stage. He was a year above me, which was very exciting at the time, and I can remember thinking he was jolly good-looking.
We were together for two years, but broke up before we went to different universities. Many years later, in our 20s, I was on the train heading to visit my sister, who was in labour. The doors opened and a man who had just got off a train from Paris – having not been to England in three years – got on and sat opposite me. I recognised him straight away. Men don’t change quite so much, whereas I’d gone from being a frilly little girl growing up in Sussex with flicked-out hair like Farrah Fawcett, to a campaigning feminist with a buzz cut. So it took Greg a little longer to realise it was me.
It was an extraordinary moment – so ludicrous you couldn’t even write it – yet somehow it felt straightforward. We got off the train together and my lovely dad was waiting to pick me up, so I asked: “Do you remember Greg? Could we give him a lift home?” He said, “Of course”, and when we got to Greg’s, his granny Rosie said: “Oh hello! How are you doing?” It was as if she’d seen me last Thursday, and that was that. Years later, when we were helping my ma look after my dad, and granny Rosie, too, the fact we grew up in the same area and knew each other’s families so well made the very hard moments of caring a little easier.
Greg and I have had caring responsibilities for a long time, so we are terribly good at looking at each other, going: “Quick pub lunch?” and zipping off whenever we can. The other joy is we work together. Everything we do, we do in a shared space, although I’ve always worked very early in the morning, and loved the complete peace and quiet. Or I’ll wake up in the middle of the night to do a stint. But we are both extremely disciplined and respect each other’s space and patterns.
All you can want from a partnership is to know that when something amazing or awful happens, they are the first person you tell. Greg has been that person for me since I was 16. Labyrinth went on to sell millions, but it didn’t change anything in our relationship. The success made a difference financially and professionally, but Greg and I just continued being us.
Greg
It was super hot in the Oak Hall and there were a lot of people crammed in. It was a typical publishing event, in that there was an enormous amount of smalltalk that grew in volume, turning into a buzz so loud that Kate had to call for silence and say: “By the way! I’m on a stool now!” The shirt I’m in has since been made illegal because it’s so gaudy – it’s covered in lots of bright yellow and pink worms, a little like an acid trip. What’s lovely is Kate wore it when she was pregnant for both of our children, and our daughter used to wear it when she was at university in Brighton. I got it back in the end.
It was my friend John who first pointed Kate out to me. There was a pause in the orchestra for some reason and he took advantage of the silence to tell me all about the girls he fancied. He was 16, so that was all of them, without exception. “But,” he said when he got to the end of the list, “my goddess is Kate Mosse.” This obviously caught my attention because it was a new level of hyperbole, so when he pointed down into the pit to tell me who she was I made it my business to talk to her. I quickly discovered that she was brilliant. The complete package. It was clear that Kate Mosse had main-character energy.
Generally speaking, I switch off very easily, so in crowded spaces I can become completely self-contained. I was in that mode when I sat opposite Kate on the train, so was totally unaware what was in front of me until I looked up. All the good things that have happened since derive from that one moment. I wasn’t intimidated by the hair, either. To me, how you looked was how you looked, then you found out what someone was like. I already knew what Kate was like. She was perfect.
My parents separated when I was five. He [Greg’s biological father] was difficult and obstructive, making life harder than it needed to be for my mother. So when Kate and I decided we would have children and get married, we were confronted with this idea that society expected our children to be named after this awful man. That made no sense whatsoever, so I relinquished that name and we became a family unit of Mosse. It was a corrective decision but also one that reflected the emotional connection I had with Kate, with her parents, and would reinforce our family life, too.
Over the decades, our love has changed in that it is now more valuable to me than ever. Isn’t that partly to do with the trajectory of adulthood? The younger you are, the more you think everything is possible – that you could be a ballet dancer if you put your mind to it. Or go into space. It’s the same in all aspects of your life. A river becomes more diffuse and wider as it meets the sea, but life narrows down into what is most important as you get older. To me, the most important things are Kate and our children.
