The world looked on at this drama played out in the primitive precincts of Peppercorn Cottage in the Shropshire hills. Taking a lesson from Delphick, I let myself go on the alliteration, and it worked. In poetry it was out of date, but in prose it was up to the minute, for the moment. From the opening vagina of the wife I went into the mind, if you can call it that, of the TV commentator and filled a page of phrases such as ripping the sky, tearing at the stars, clouting cloud out of the way – until Baby was born. Husband, who now had the shotgun, decided to make a run for it.
He climbed out of the top back window and, silhouetted in starlight, fell to the ground and broke his ankle. Copper grabbed him but, before the jump, our Lover had taken his gun and shot at the Copper but missed. Husband zigzagged between trees and went up the hill. (Film rights sold.) Moonlight also shone. At the top was the frontier of Wales. Once inside, he was saved. (Two pages on Welsh Nationalism.) He ran, a Druid got him with outstretched arms. It was a cloud. He leapt through it, athlete that he was. (A reading on Radio Three.) Back in Peppercorn Cottage, Lover tended Newborn Babe. The harrowing surrender scene had to be read to be believed.
Blaskin was satisfied. It was such an appalling shit-novel – the drivel of a fourteen-year-old – that he laughed. ‘Nothing better to get me off the hook. They’ll turn it down, and I can send my masterpiece elsewhere.’
‘Glad to be of service,’ I said. ‘I think we’re coming up to the climax. I only need a few more pages, so I can finish it in the morning.’
‘You’d better,’ he said. ‘Now get out of the way while I dress for my hour of glory. Where your mother is I don’t know, but she’ll show herself at the party, woe is me.’
Even though he hadn’t been present during a minute of my bringing up, I suppose I got my passion for snazzy dressing from him. In some matters blood tells more than circumstances, and the wish to be seen as smart by the outside world, no matter how ragged I felt within, or how scruffy inside my own abode, was something I’d had for as long as I could remember.
Blaskin donned a black suit and bow-tie, and I could have shaved by the shine of his ankle-length boots. ‘Mrs Drudge has a good hand for that.’ He looked critically at what I wore, and supposed it was the best I could muster.
When we got out of the taxi and went into the party at Bookman Hall he introduced me to his publisher, Tony Ampersand, as his research assistant. I did not deny it. To be known as his son would have lumbered me with too much I couldn’t live down. The brilliantly lit hall was half full, and I made for the table where champagne was poured and food laid out. Blaskin handed me a cigar, which I lit after eating half a dozen sausages, several cauliflower heads and a few smoked salmon titbits.
I stood with my glass at a vantage point to watch whoever came in, though it was soon difficult to see through the crush. Blaskin took me to Margery Doldrum and Mrs Drudge, annoyed at them being together, and hoping I would break up their twosome. Mrs Drudge was tall and icy and I could tell she didn’t like me, which made me want to get into bed with her, but knowing it would take too long to engineer, and not caring to run off my own father, I didn’t waste any chit-chat. I think she hated anyone connected with Blaskin, though she seemed annoyed when Margery turned sharply and left her alone.
The noise was like waves breaking on the shore at Brighton rather than Blackpool, though it was still hard to hear what was said. Blaskin was at the door, greeting newspaper and magazine people. When Margery asked me how his latest novel was getting on, I told her it would be out next month. She promised to tell Melvin Gomery, who might review it. They had it in for Blaskin, though it didn’t seem to reduce his sales. She pointed out the luminaries: Colin Camps of the Soho Review, Victoria Plumb of the Daily Retch, Peter O’Graffity of Private Lives, Christopher Hogwash of the Bookbag, Edwin Stowe of the Hampstead Review, and Susan Stopwatch of the Literary Mirror. They were not the first liners, she said. They had gone to another party, though maybe some would come later, if they hadn’t had enough to drink.
Raymond Mangle told me that his latest novel was about Iranian fanatics calling themselves ‘The Brothers of Cordoba’, a terrorist group working to bring Spain back into the fold of Islam. ‘They have thousands of members in training. Secret cells have been set up in Seville and Toledo. The Foreign Office knows about them but doesn’t mind really. In fact they are trying to do a deal, promising to give them a free hand in Spain – as far as the Pyrenees – if they won’t claim Gibraltar when they come to power.’
‘Is it a fantasy novel?’
‘Oh no. In twenty years it’ll happen. Mark my words.’
‘Don’t tell Blaskin,’ I said, ‘or he’ll write it.’
‘You think so?’
‘He’s sure to.’
Standing on tiptoe, he looked around the room. ‘I like this kind of party. I’ve had nothing to eat but kippers for over a week, washed down with white wine.’ His lipline, not quite lidded by his beard, became rippled with dislike when I answered his question by saying I only read Gilbert Blaskin, Sidney Blood and Ronald Delphick. His eyes turned a more intense grey to signal his disgust.
I told a girl with long auburn hair and a hare-lip who worked in publicity at Lock and Kee that I wrote book reviews for The Times, under a pseudonym. She tried to find out what my real name was, so I said that if she followed me into the cloakroom I’d tell her. ‘Now I believe you,’ she said, and vanished like a fish in water.
‘Who’s that big pompous-looking chap standing by the door talking to Blaskin?’ Mangle asked.
‘How the hell should I know?’ But it was Lord Moggerhanger, who gave Blaskin a friendly pat on the back, then turned to bury Tony Ampersand’s boyfriend in a cloud of cigar smoke. One or two middle-aged publishing women were punked-up to the eyebrows, and Moggerhanger shifted uneasily when they spoke to him. I got close enough to hear one say how privileged she’d be to publish his life story – or even a novel. ‘It’s taken care of.’ He nudged one who got too close, having seen Lady Moggerhanger and Polly observing what was going on. ‘Mr Blaskin is doing a book on me, so I expect he’ll take care of publication.’
‘How did you meet him?’ Punk-one asked.
Moggerhanger laughed. ‘Where does one meet Blaskin? I read a page or two of his books. Or my wife did. All I know is that he’s a gentleman.’
‘Do they exist?’ asked Punk-one.
Punk-two was scornful. ‘What is a gentleman?’ She had made a good job of trying to disguise her impeccable middle-class roots by adopting the fancy dress of the workers.
‘A gentleman is someone who never admits to being one – for a start,’ he told her. ‘Then it’s someone who doesn’t give a gnat’s fart – if you’ll excuse the language, though I expect you’ve heard worse – for anybody or anything, but keeps his eyes open and his trap shut. He knows the world belongs to him, but isn’t above a bit of generosity when the mood takes him.’
‘You sound as if you’d write the most wonderful book,’ said Punk-one, a little fawningly, I thought.
He slapped her on the back. ‘And you’d be quite an attraction if you agreed to work at one of my entertainment complexes, my dear. You’d be very good at it. I’ll pay you a nice fee. How about it?’
‘She already has a complex,’ said Punk-two.
‘I say, Claud, get me a drink,’ said Lady Moggerhanger.
‘Nothing’s ever any good unless you have two of it,’ he said. Then he saw me. ‘Michael! Come here, you naughty boy!’ He didn’t only push the finger with the bloodstone ring on it, but his whole hand, which I shook. Pressures were genuine and hearty. ‘I’m glad to see you, let me tell you. You’re always close to me, you know that. I was more than glad to know you’d extricated yourself from that Canada business. I knew you would, otherwise I couldn’t have sent you. But you’re a bit silly not to come straightaway for your debriefing, though I did understand you wanted a rest first. Anybody would have re-entry problems after a trip like that.’
Punk
-two indicated me. ‘Who is he?’
‘My chief courier.’ He was an emperor awarding promotion on the battlefield.
Punk-one, as quick as a flash, gave me her card. ‘Do you want to write a book?’
‘No,’ I said. Moggerhanger looked happy at my correct response. ‘In my job I sign the Official Secrets Act, and it’s for life.’
‘He could do it, though,’ he said. ‘He’s got it in him. I’ll bet he’d win a prize if he did.’
‘The Moggerhanger Prize,’ said Punk-one.
Punk-two spilled her champagne with excitement. ‘I say, that’s a wonderful idea, Jane. What do you say, Lord Moggerhanger?’
He was in a good mood, because it was his first literary party, as it was mine. ‘That depends. If it’s a money prize, forget it. But if I can pay in club memberships, or a stolen motor, or forged book tokens, or an ikon one of my lads got from Russia for a pair of tights, we might be able to talk about it.’
He was surrounded by the laughter of fairly young women, but even young men were turning to look. Punk-one came back leading a waitress with a tray of champagne glasses. Polly Moggerhanger took one, and saw me.
‘It’s been a long time,’ I said.
She tried to smile, and succeeded. ‘You haven’t altered – physically.’
‘You haven’t changed either, I’m sure.’ Her hair was just as black, her face fuller but paler. Her lips were as shapely and her figure had ripened. ‘In fact, you’re lovely. I was in love with you, and still am. You haven’t been out of my mind since all those years ago, but I’ve been out of my mind at not seeing you.’
She was a real Moggerhanger, as hard as nails. It was she who had connived with her old man in getting me sent to prison, and I thought that if I could get her put inside as well as him at some future date I wouldn’t hesitate. Otherwise I would settle for giving her a smack across the chops just hard enough not to loosen any of the perfect teeth which I saw when she smiled. ‘You never got in touch with me, though, did you? I often thought of you as well, and was always hoping to see or hear from you.’
‘I’d heard you were married.’
Her laugh carried all over the room, in spite of the noise, and Punk-one looked at her so lovingly I thought she would try to talk her into writing a book as well. ‘When did you let that stop you?’
‘Or you were busy having a kid. I forget which. But I’ll be around more from now on. Where do you live?’
‘Not far from Daddy. On Pipe Road, number twenty-three.’
‘I don’t even know your married name.’
‘My divorce came through last week. It’s the same as it was before.’
‘Convenient.’
‘We like it better that way.’ She touched my hand. ‘But I must circulate, and meet Mr Blaskin.’
‘Don’t,’ I said, horrified.
‘Don’t? Listen, I fuck who I like. And don’t you forget it.’
‘I’ll try not to.’
I turned from the next pointless conversation and bumped into my mother.
‘Don’t you know me, then?’ She kissed me and I hugged her tightly on the understanding that if I did any less I would have her following me around. It was almost seven o’clock and I had a date with Ettie and Phyllis at half past. All the same, my instinct told me to run, though not because I didn’t love her. In fact, when I banged into the startling wild-haired creature I thought she was just another appurtenance to the publishing profession, and only her brassy hilarity prevented me from assuming she was Punk-three. In that fatal few-seconds flash between first sight and the death of perception which comes from recognition, I saw this willowy, sallow-faced, attractive, well-worn forty-year-old (she was fifty-five) to whom I was about to say a few flirtatious words before making my way to someone else. ‘Gilbert told me you were back.’
Her beads rattled. ‘I’ve just been talking to him, but he told me to fuck off. He’s got some hopes. He was chatting up that syphilitic racketeer Lord Moggerhanger. I don’t know what he wants out of him. He’s the biggest whoremonger in Europe.’ Punk-one and Punk-two were standing by, but Moggerhanger was too far off to hear. ‘I came all the way back from that lesbian commune in Turkey to be present at my husband’s twenty-fifth book party, and the prick-head tries to ignore me.’
She took a glass of champagne from a tray swaying by like a magic carpet, and drank it like sherbet, then grabbed another. Dark hair crinkled down her shoulders, and her kind of beige sack dress was festooned with clinging gew-gaws. She asked how Bridgitte was, and I told her the score. ‘You lucky bleeder,’ she laughed. ‘Bridgitte was always too good to live with you. How are you going to support yourself now?’
‘I’m working for Moggerhanger.’
She put the champagne glass into a haversack decorated with CND symbols. ‘Well, if you go to prison like you did last time, don’t write and tell me. Only don’t let him send you to Turkey and get you put in jail there. You may be my son, but I wouldn’t like that. I used to belong to the Society for Cutting Up Men, but now I belong to the Society for Cutting Up Turks, and that means most Englishmen as well.’
Punk-one interposed her presence. ‘Can I introduce myself?’
My mother put an arm round her. ‘Any time, love. Do you want me to write a book?’
I slid away. My intention had been to cut it fine by leaving at seven twenty-five and taking a taxi to meet Ettie and Phyllis, but at seven fifteen I heard a loud shrill voice: ‘And you couldn’t fuck half a pomegranate stuck in a lift door!’
What was I to do? Pull her away and take her home? Such a suggestion would earn me a champagne glass thrown in my direction, which is what happened to Blaskin. The scuffle sounded like someone sandpapering the floor. A circle opened. People were shouting, but above all came Blaskin’s wounded roar: ‘I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you!’
He was blind Samson pulling out the props. An unliterary silence cleared the room even of tinkling glass. ‘Don’t touch me,’ she said, ‘or I’ll kill you.’
‘Put that glass down.’
‘Show me you love me, then.’
‘Did I ever love anyone else?’
‘You might be a writer,’ she shouted, as if just back from her elocution lesson, ‘but you’re an upper-class twit to me. You stick pins in people to make ’em jump, so’s you can write about ’em. Right now you’re writing your twenty-sixth. I know you, prick-head! I can see that little tape-recorder going behind your left eyelash.’
His moan ascended to a scream. ‘You push me back into the slime!’
‘It’s where you belong, you arse fucker. That’s all you ever wanted.’
A great Oooooh! went up.
‘That was to stop you becoming a lesbian,’ he threw back.
‘Any woman’s a lesbian who lays eyes on you.’
‘I don’t need you anymore,’ he laughed. ‘I’m at an age when I can get all the young women I like.’
‘So am I!’
I made a track through to her. ‘Come away. You’re going too far.’
Both had tears on their faces. If this sort of session was in store for me at fifty-five I wanted to run to the nearest bridge and jump in. Or I would accept any dangerous assignment that Moggerhanger could dish out. ‘Not half as far as that dirty bastard went. He’s English to the core, which means he’s worse than any Turk.’
‘You’re ruining my career.’ Blaskin hid behind his hands, though I suspect he was laughing. I didn’t wait. They were quite capable of looking after themselves. I envied them, in a way, while never wanting to be so outspoken. It was unfortunate, I thought, as I ran out and put my hand up for a taxi, that a man of thirty-five had to have parents, and just my luck that the quarrelsome pair would live so long that I’d no doubt still be a son at seventy-five.
Twenty-One
As soon as I was away from them the pall lifted. In any case, there’s something inspiring about the London crowds seen from the inside of a taxi on a weekday evening when it’s
still daylight. A girl ran across our track to get to Eros as we rounded the Circus, and lighted advertisements were already flashing, hardly dimmed by the sun. There was a feeling of luxury and well-being, and I would have told the driver to take me up Regent Street and down Gower Street to get to Covent Garden, except that it would have made me late. Some taxi drivers are a rough lot, but I’ve always had a soft spot for the way they earn their living. ‘You just come from that Blaskin party, mate?’ he asked, pushing back his window.
‘Yes. A good do.’
‘Is he drunk yet?’
‘Nearly.’
He laughed. ‘There are two Mr Blaskins. One is when he’s in a taxi, and then he’s as good as gold. Another is when he’s in his own car. Then he’s a devil, and you’d better keep clear. But we like him. You always know where you are with Mr Blaskin. A real sport. I only wish I could say the same for his brother.’
I swallowed twice, and craved a double brandy. ‘Brother?’
‘The Reverend George Blaskin. Must be older than Mr Gilbert, sixty-five, I should think. He’s a mean and cantankerous old so-and-so, believe me. I don’t think they get on well. He’s always trying to save Mr Gilbert’s soul and between you and me I think he’s got his work cut out. I heard them arguing once when I was driving them to Paddington. The Reverend George is a little thin chap with thick white hair, and he was really hammering Mr Gilbert. I could have laughed. Gilbert said he had no soul. Mind you, his sister can be an awkward customer as well.’
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