My Other Life

by Paul Theroux

  Space was money—the more column inches the larger the check. This was another lead review, and (because of Bellamy, not me) when it appeared it was widely read and quoted. It seemed I was now publicly associated with him.

  I was asked to be on the radio to discuss Bellamy's book, on the program Kaleidoscope, which was hosted by a small yellow-eyed man in a stained cardigan who had a powerful, growly voice and who belittled Bellamy's work while seeming to praise it. He then asked me leading questions about the book and after a few minutes thanked me out loud, saying my full name, and after a burst of music—it was "I like New York in June"—he said, "And now another curiously different American." He began discussing the new Woody Allen movie. For this I was paid twenty pounds.

  Never mind the fee—"money for jam," as Musprat used to say—the fact was that I had begun to exist in London. In my first years in London my agent had arranged for me to see a producer at Kaleidoscope —the idea was that I might become a regular contributor—and I had been rebuffed. It was important for me to have at last appeared on the program, because I now saw its triviality.

  Was triviality the key to success? After the program, many people mentioned that they had heard me, among them Walter Van Bellamy.

  "Dear boy"—he was in a good mood—"I heard you on the wireless."

  He invited me to tea at the Charing Cross Hotel. I wondered whether it might be another of his batty ideas, and I also suspected that he might not come. But there he was, big and wild-haired, standing in the lobby, ten minutes early.

  "This was once very grand," he said, frowning at the wan cushions of the chairs in the lobby as the Spanish waiter set out the tea things. He was silent a moment. "More and more I find this city insupportable."

  I was smiling. "I've just started to like it here."

  "Tell me why." He fixed his eyes on me like a headmaster and stared until I spoke.

  "My work is going well."

  "That I understand."

  "And this city is being good to me. I am making some friends. I have a sense of belonging that I didn't have before."

  "Yes," he said tentatively—it was not approving. I recognized the tone. He was not happy but he was giving me the benefit of the doubt. He suspected that I was kidding myself. He was exasperated and impatient, but there was too much to say for him to attempt to analyze. My mention of friends made him doubtful, perhaps a little envious and skeptical. All this he put into his yes. Then he elaborated.

  "When you first come to London it seems vast—as vast as England itself. With each passing year it shrinks around you, until it is a very tight fit—your house, your room, your desk. Your art."

  He poured—milk first, then tea, then sugar. He stirred the cup, and his stirring was like a process of thought.

  "I think about people who play with art. Some people in London do it. They are glamored by it. Don't play with art."

  I wondered whether he meant this personally—surely he knew better? It was obvious that I worked hard. I guessed that he was on a medication that was making him serious and single-minded.

  He said, "Who do you see in London?"

  It was a sudden question. Yes, he had been provoked by my mention of friends.

  "Do you know Ian Musprat, the poet?"

  "He doesn't exist," Bellamy said. "Not as a poet."

  "His last book won a prize."

  "There are more prizes in this country than there are writers to give them to. Name me an English writer who hasn't won a prize!"

  He said this very loudly, curling his lips in triumph, and hooting afterwards. Perhaps his medication was wearing off.

  Finally I said, "And Lady Max. She's a friend."

  "Oh, God," Bellamy said.

  He gave me a twisted smile of disgust, then he sipped some tea and recovered.

  "It struck me the other day that the British government ought to sell titles at the post office. They could do it the way they give out TV licenses. A little booklet with a grid of spaces. You buy stamps, a few at a time, and when you've filled it up you hand it over and get your M.B.E. Two booklets for an O.B.E. Three, a knighthood!"

  This little diversion cheered him up.

  "'Lady Max,' someone will say, and hearing the tide Lady, you'll immediately think, 'Three booklets.' What is a tide? What does it mean?"

  I said lamely, "I was only wondering what you thought of her."

  "One had a thing—years ago, when one first came to London and was being introduced, as it were. When one was impressionable. When one was a bit dazzled, because one knew ever so much less." He sipped his tea again. "But one was never glamored by her."

  I saw Bellamy to his train and walked home a little shaken by this talk. I had expected him to be crazed and colorful, but this was sobering advice—a sort of warning. It was clear that he did not approve of Lady Max. And it seemed that he was implying that my new visibility as a writer in London suggested triviality. His warning had been Don't play with art.

  And he had put me on the defensive. People often did that when they had something to conceal. One had a thing. What was that supposed to mean?

  But I had turned my back on the world, on Lady Max.

  This was in mid-February. I was still working hard on my novel and I had now been writing it for a full year, dating my pages. I wrote two or three pages a day. It was a solemn moment when I realized that a year ago I was sitting here doing exactly the same thing, and I was still not done—not even close. Yet I was not so impatient to finish that I wanted to hurry it and fail to enjoy its surprises, its growth, its improvement—writing, polishing, rereading, and moving on.

  What had changed? Lady Max had looked into my heart and stirred something and woken it with a word—made that little animal sit up and beg, then rewarded the mutt with a biscuit. Good dog. Beyond the routine of the day, which I had found satisfying, I had wanted recognition. And I had innocently imagined ways of being recognized—a lead review, my face on an advertisement, mentions in newspaper diaries.

  Soon, unexpected rewards came my way—more biscuits—and, surprised and delighted, I began to wag my tail.

  The Sunday Times Magazine ran an interview with Sir George Rackstraw, the banker. In the accompanying photograph—a portrait by Lord Snowdon—a copy of one of my novels lay next to a bunch of flowers on Sir George's coffee table, the book title and my name pleasingly visible.

  My book was Sir George's secret, as though part of his intellect and imagination, and so our names were linked. And afterwards when you saw him, you thought of me.

  A few days later a book of mine turned up on a bookshelf in a catalogue for Habitat furniture. Another book of mine was mentioned in a celebrity column called "On My Bedside Table."

  These appearances were better, more noticeable than good reviews, and naturally people mentioned them to me. Several of the people were publishers, interested in my next book. Another little miracle: a letter from a movie company in Wardour Street wishing to take out a film option for The Last Man.

  When had I revealed that now rejected tide to anyone?

  I called the movie producer, a man named Slack, and told him that my novel was not finished. He was not dismayed, he sounded enthusiastic—he encouraged me to finish it, and his encouragement gave me hope.

  "And when you're done, give us a crack at it."

  "How did you know about my book?"

  "I heard it on the street," he said. "There's a lot of talk about it."

  I mumbled that expression to myself. "On the street." My work had never been spoken about on the street before. In my mind it was a particular street, narrow and interesting, full of pedestrians. A London street.

  I had another inquiry from a movie company for a novel I had published a few years before, and a letter from a firm specializing in picture books asking me to consider writing the text for a volume of London photographs.

  "What we want is a sort of excursion," the picture book publisher wrote. "Your London."

  My London!
Except for what Lady Max had shown me of those churches and monuments and back streets, my London was mainly indoors, as I worked on my book the whole day, confident in the darkness.

  And all this time there were invitations. Since my lead review and first diary mention I had received more than a dozen invitations. I had received them before—to the sort of "It's a drink" book launches that Musprat never missed. As a reviewer, I was known to the publicity departments of some publishers. But now I began to get invitations to parties at gallery openings, wine tastings for charity, drinks to publicize new lines of cosmetics, and movie premieres. I put them on the mantelpiece, a London affectation—the thick white cards and invitations propped up over the fireplace, looking important.

  Alison snorted at them, because she never appeared on them, not as "Mrs.," not even as "and Guest."

  She said, "I wouldn't go even if I were asked."

  I too stayed away. London parties of this kind, always "six until eight," were given at the wrong time of day. My work kept me at my desk until five-thirty, and by then it was too late; I was too tired to change my clothes, to put on a tie and hurry to the West End. I had the evening meal to prepare, the boys to meet, the Standard to read, and rather than standing up in a noisy room drinking wine, I preferred a pint of Guinness in the funereal Fish. If I went anywhere these days it was to the topography section of the London Library to check facts for my novel, which was set in Honduras.

  At last I felt obliged to accept an invitation—it seemed rude to refuse to go to a party for the opening of a new exhibition, "Victorian London," at the Royal Academy. After all, I lived in a Victorian house, the authors who had defined London for me were Victorian, and the word "Victorian" was fascinating for its ambiguity—supposedly so strict and straidaced, but behind that pompous four-syllable façade, loaded with secrets of other lives.

  There were posters announcing the exhibition on the Underground, and banners flying across Piccadilly. We had been near here on one of our London excursions, when Lady Max had shown me Albany and its courtyard.

  Thinking of her in this way, I had her fixed in my mind, and so I was startled on entering the foyer of the Royal Academy to see her. Her face was as luminous as ever, her lips as lovely, and she wore a loose, shimmering black dress. When she spoke, she seemed impatient.

  "Where have you been?" she called out, and dropped her cigarette butt and stamped on it with one of her wicked shoes.

  7

  If I had been walking down Piccadilly past the Royal Academy that dark winter evening and seen the glowing room and this by-invitation-only preview among the brilliant pictures, I would have hated these partygoers and wanted to throw a brick through the window. What frivolousness! What privilege!

  But I was inside the Royal Academy, a guest at the private affair, eating smoked salmon and having a great time. It was like high mass, with all that space and light, and music too—a string quartet sonorously scraping away in a corner. We guests in the foreground were dwarfed by the looming portraits.

  Victorian London was depicted not only in paintings and period costume but in a series of elaborate interiors: a middle-class drawing room, a lighterman's cottage by the Thames, Oscar Wilde's bedroom, an ingeniously conceived view of Dickens's office at Household Words —each with voices and street sounds. "Eminent Victorians" was a separate exhibit, and so was "Clubland." Some of it was marvelously down-to-earth—whole exhibits given over to objects and pictures describing London plumbing or London shopping—food and clothes—in the age of Victoria.

  "Has this wine corked?" Lady Max was saying. "They serve bad champagne when a decent Chablis can be had for the same money."

  I was on my second glass. People were chattering with each other, their pink, eager faces close together, and no one was looking at the exhibits. Lady Max sniffed as she turned to put her glass down.

  "You would have thought they'd exhibit something a bit more uplifting than water closets," she said. "Think what an opportunity they lost, what portraits they could have hung. This is all a lowbrow cheapie, on the level of a primary school pageant. Pimping for punters!"

  That was not true. It was Victorian London from a new angle, and portraits of Victorians were hung everywhere. The pictures in this beautiful room made the guests seem smugger, but most of the people were improved by the setting and looked more prosperous, hopeful, and gentle. There was a sense of eagerness in the place, a vibration running through the room—the drink probably, but also the just-finished look of the exhibits, the hum of their newness—and I took pleasure watching the play of people and lights. I was glad to be here, delighted to be anonymous. The champagne made me slightly tipsy and gave to the party the warmth and blur of a good dream.

  "I can't stand another minute of this," Lady Max said.

  She hurried away and, stumbling a bit, I followed her into the foyer, where she handed me her cloakroom tag. I picked up her coat. The lining was still warm—she had not been here long. And sensing the scrutinizing gaze of the attendant, who had positioned himself next to a saucer of coins, I panicked and tipped him a pound.

  "Oh, good, there's a taxi," Lady Max said in the Royal Academy courtyard.

  Once again she was taking charge. She had the capacity to make me feel wonderful, but with that same power she could reduce me too, so that I felt stupid and spineless, just a snuffling creature waiting for a dog biscuit.

  In the darkness of the taxi, as we tore through Knightsbridge, she said, "You've been decidedly scarce."

  I agreed—yes, I had—and let myself be bullied, and even paid for the taxi and—fussed by all this abruptness—yet again over-tipped the cabby. Meanwhile, Lady Max had mounted her stairs and was under the portico, holding her large black latchkey out for me to take. The turtle knocker caught my eye—it was dark and stained, with big, damp fingerprints. I made a few feeble pokes with the long latchkey before Lady Max snatched it away from me and expertly rammed it into the keyhole in one thrust.

  To the clunking sound of the lock's works loosening, its parts engaging, she said, "That's how it's done."

  She went inside and I followed, as though by a prior arrangement.

  She switched on lamps, lighting our way to a side room I had not seen before. It was full of books and framed photographs—clusters of faces staring and smiling from shelves, from tiny tables, from the piano lid. They peeped from the shadows, but the room was so quiet and so dark at the edges they were like creatures from another life, another world. As I raised my eyes from all these strangers, I saw that she was holding a glass of wine and offering it, much as she had offered me her latchkey.

  "Sniff-sniff. You have a novelist's nosiness."

  Her directness embarrassed me. I picked up a bowler hat from the piano seat and put it on—much too big. There were gold initials, TRDA, stamped in the hat band.

  "He's out of the country," Lady Max said. "Please sit down. You're awfully nervy."

  Not nervy but still tipsy from the Royal Academy champagne.

  She sat opposite me on the sofa, then kicked off her sharp-heeled shoes and raised her legs and sank her feet into a blue cushion. She had lovely patterned stockings, and when she had swung her legs her dress was hiked up—it was a brief glimpse, but I did see her stocking tops tightened against her white thighs. I remembered, I never wear knickers.

  "You're frightfully busy these days," she said.

  "No more than usual."

  She pretended not to hear, so as to go on talking—a London habit.

  "Absolutely all over the papers," she said in her tone of approval. "I can't open one without seeing your name."

  "I'm doing the same amount of work. I'm getting more credit for it, though."

  "No more than you deserve," Lady Max said, and straightened one stocking with the tips of her fingers. "You're brilliant, and it's about time people knew it. There will be much more. This is only the beginning. Just watch."

  In the half-dark of this shadowy room, speaking from where she
sat coiled on the sofa, she sounded less like a well-wisher than one of the witches in Macbeth.

  "I wasn't doing badly before," I said, and it seemed to me that I was whining.

  "Of course," she said—she was amused at my shrilled little protest—and she patted the sofa with one bloodless hand and puffed her cigarette with the other. "Now come here and sit next to me and tell me why you never go to parties."

  Scattering sparks as she poked out her cigarette in the ashtray, she moved her long legs as though to make room, and feeling doglike I crept across the carpet and sat beside her.

  "What parties?" I asked.

  "The ones you're invited to."

  "But I just saw you at the Royal Academy party."

  "As though there weren't any others."

  So she knew—and she must have connived at having me invited. I felt a bit diminished, if not put in my place, because she had been responsible for my being on those guest lists.

  "These parties take place at a very inconvenient time of day."

  "Rubbish. It is a fact of life in London that there is nothing whatever to do between five and eight most evenings."

  "I find I'm pretty busy then."

  She did not hear that. She said, "As the French say, the hours between the dog and the wolf."

  I wanted to say: In the hours between the dog and the wolf I am usually simmering spaghetti sauce, or gutting fish or chopping vegetables, or reading the Evening Standard, or waiting for my wife to come home. But no—Lady Max might have understood the cooking, yet any mention of my wife seemed out of place or unwelcome at this moment.

  "I have been watching for you," she said, and slid closer to me. Now I could see the pattern on her stockings. Butterflies. "This is what I had planned. Precisely this."

  She smiled at me and smoothed her hair.

  "Thank you for being so cooperative."

  What was I to say to that?

  "Do you find me too blunt?" she asked.

  "No."

  "I wonder if you could bear to kiss me."

  Her way of asking the question made it impossible for me to refuse. She was deft at getting me off balance, and with just the simplest question she could control me, as though tugging at my leash. I thought: Woof-woof.