My wife shuddered. ‘But why?’
I raised my eyebrows a couple of times. It was a gesture she remembered from our past, a touch of self-parodic raffishness, the erotic hooligan caught bang to rights, half-ashamed and half-proud of his offence, and it told her all she needed to know.
‘You’re not going to tell me you were lovers, you and this young man.’
I nodded. ‘We were lovers. Or rather, it was only love in the vulgar sense of the word. I was helping him with his work and then, somewhat unexpectedly, the help became more personal, less tutorial.’
The colour had drained from Marigold’s face. ‘Somewhat unexpectedly? You made love to a man.’ She gave a little gasp. ‘And then you made love to me.’
‘Don’t worry, it was safe. I was his first lover.’
‘Where?’
‘At the Gloucester Festival. And –’ I hesitated. Then, perversely anxious to avoid giving the impression that this had been a brief drunken fling, I added a fuller (falser) detail. ‘Later we’d meet at his flat occasionally. He was needy. It seemed such a small thing, really. Such an easy way to help.’
Marigold sat back in her chair and crossed her legs. My eyes flickered downward, remembering last night.
‘I don’t believe you,’ she said.
I imitated the guilty slump of the rumbled adulterer but, even to me, it seemed unconvincing. ‘I realize it must be something of a shock.’
‘A shock. Good grief.’
‘I don’t quite understand it myself, to tell the truth. It was an aberration.’
‘I mean it, Gregory. I don’t believe you. I know you too well. You’ve got the morals of a skunk. You’d do pretty much anything to advance your career. But you don’t like men.’
‘That’s probably what Mrs Cheever thought.’
‘Who’s Mrs Cheever?’
I sighed wearily. Normally a wifely confirmation of my red-blooded heterosexuality would have been welcome but right now a touch of hurt and confusion seemed more appropriate. I stood up. ‘A policeman called Beckwith might call you. I wanted to break it to you myself.’
‘Have there been other men?’
‘No. And there won’t be. It wasn’t about sex. It was something else.’
‘How often? With the boy, how often?’
‘Not that often. Five. Maybe six.’
‘You’re lying.’ She gazed at me evenly, as if she could hardly summon enough interest to be curious as to my motives. ‘I’m not sure what your game is but I know you’re lying.’
I stood up and made my way to the door. ‘You’ve got your lunch. I’m sorry you’ve taken it this way.’
‘You are not a homosexual,’ she said.
I closed the door quickly and walked down the stairs. Tania looked up at me from her desk. She seemed almost interested in me.
* * *
Top Eight Most Married Great Writers
Six wives: Norman Mailer
Five wives: Henry Miller
Saul Bellow
John Osborne
Four wives: John Middleton Murry
Bertrand Russell
Ernest Hemingway
Sherwood Anderson
Four husbands: Mary McCarthy
* * *
30
I was completing my novel, a strange and heady experience, the joy of which I had all but forgotten. My deft and complex pas de deux with the shade of Peter Gibson, transcribing, reshaping, ordering, editing, often creating several paragraphs of new material, was reaching its hectic and triumphant final chorus. I was now working so fast that, for therapeutic as well as practical reasons, I took my walks to the local recycling bins two or three times a day. With every cathartic shedding of the handwritten sheets, I felt more liberated, more myself. As I reached Peter’s last pad, I longed for that final discarding with which he would truly be lain to rest and terpsichore 4:2 would unequivocally be mine.
Wrung out yet exultant, I found myself acting in a manner that was more direct (more shameless) than was entirely normal for me. Several days had passed since Beckwith had visited me. I had rung him to discover whether a DNA sample would be required of me but, to my alarm, he had replied in the distracted manner of one who had moved on to more lively and appetizing cases. For the first time, it occurred to me that the details of my relationship with Peter might not be leaked to the press. Normally, in our age of tabloid morality, the police can be relied upon to enact this small act of bad faith, but I was not a TV personality or a politician. I was a novelist, a grey, negligible creature who, in the ecology of celebrity, hardly registered as a life form. An event that might have seemed noteworthy, sensational even, in the literary world was, it appeared, not even worth a casual call to the local paper, a £50 tip-off to a metropolitan diarist.
Only the more unworldly reader will be surprised that, at this point, I actually wanted to be publicly ‘named and shamed’. For the fact is that, in those few seconds after Beckwith had revealed his discovery, horror had quickly given way to the realization that, suddenly and fortuitously, the last piece of the jigsaw had fallen into place.
terpsichore 4:2 was clearly a work of startling originality; in a more serious age, that would have been enough. Yet today, the written word, the art itself, is but a minor part of the entire confection. There are more important matters to consider. Has the author had a problem with drugs? Are his parents famous? Was he abused as a child? Is he known to have been to bed with anyone interesting? Has he been attacked in print by a wife, child or by himself? Does he hit people at parties? Where, in others words, is the peg?
Now I had my peg. I had transgressed against generally acceptable behaviour in several interesting areas. I had betrayed trust. I had loved in a way that had proved fatal. My defence (I’m a writer, for Christ’s sake) would, with a bit of luck, enrage the bourgeois sensibilities of the middlebrow tabloids, instigate a tetchy debate about the artist and society, the muse and family, the sexual crisis of the middle-aged man, the unacceptable face of contemporary this, that and the other. My novel, surely, would now be launched on a churning swell of controversy, propelled into public consciousness on an irresistible current of outrage.
I waited. A week, ten days. The novel was reaching its conclusion. Nothing had appeared in the press. I took action. From a telephone box off the Askew Road, I called a scandal magazine that battened on tales of misdeeds in the media village. It was an anonymous call, from a friend of Peter Gibson’s who had been horrified by the police cover-up of the activities of Gregory Keays. A call to a local detective officer by the name of Beckwith would reveal more.
It worked. A paragraph appeared. One of the tabloids took the bait. Beckwith was obliged to provide details. Columnists picked over the bones of the story. As if by magic, my public persona, moribund for so long that it might generally have been assumed that it had passed away, twitched, then came to life. The calls started coming in.
There were other distractions during those strange, hazy days during which I struggled to complete my work.
Marigold had closed down on me. When we had experienced crises in the past, she had expressed wifely rage, disappointment, sarcasm and alienation in the various approved and accepted ways. I was usually obliged to sleep in shame and banishment on a mattress in my study. On this occasion, I had expelled myself, preferring to sleep with my work than with my disgruntled spouse. She avoided me, stepping past me in the corridors as if I were a stranger, vacating rooms as I entered. For two nights running, she stayed out – taking advantage of the situation, I assumed, to enjoy some guilt-free quality time with her lover.
None of this would necessarily have alarmed me – I had a novel to finish, the calm of marital freeze was not unwelcome – were it not for Doug. He seemed to have disappeared. When, during one of our rare exchanges, I had suggested to Marigold that we should inform the police, she told me that she knew he was safe, that he was staying with friends. He had been so devastated when he had read about me in the
newspapers that he had decided to stay away.
One night I worked late, then took a walk around the area to clear my head. It was around 2 a.m. I had walked a long way, into Acton, occasionally doubling back and checking that no over-enthusiastic reporter was following me. I was alone. I found a recycling bin that not even I, who had become such an expert in this area, had previously found. Glancing around me, I reached into my shirt and removed a newspaper within which was contained the last of Peter Gibson’s notepads. I held it in my hand for a few moments, then posted it, with a sudden, decisive movement through the flap.
I walked slowly home, feeling suddenly lonely without my collaborator. From now on, there was only one person to take the blame or the credit. At last, terpsichore 4:2 was mine.
I awoke late the next morning and, for an hour or so, lay on my mattress, staring ahead of me. On the desk was the neat, completed shining manuscript. Its white pages caught the sun. It looked like a holy item of worship, some sort of grail. I felt wearily triumphant, a victorious marathon runner who has just breasted the tape and now lies, breathless and dehydrated, beyond the finishing line.
I went downstairs. The house was deserted. My son had not been seen for weeks now, my wife had apparently spent the night out with her lover. Today, none of that seemed to matter. I was free, full of the novelist’s sweet sadness of completion. Soon my child (my literary child) would be taking its first halting steps in the world but, for these few moments, it was fully formed yet still part of me.
I took breakfast slowly, then went upstairs, leafed through terpsichore 4:2 one more time. It read well. It was good work. Perhaps, like V. S. Naipaul, I could say that it was major. I was content, ready to face the day. I switched on the answering-machine that had been accumulating messages for me over the past week.
Some were from journalists. A couple were from the editor of the Professional Writer. Then there were a few surprises.
‘It’s Fay, darling – your agent just in case you had forgotten. Just ringing to say how frightfully sorry I was to hear about that ghastly business with your student. It’s a youth thing, you know – I had a cousin who hanged himself. All very sad. But Gregory, life must go on and, if there is a teensy silver lining to this horrid cloud in your life, it’s that literary London has been beating a path to my door to ask about you and what you’ve been up to. Dare I ask about a novel, the novel – any novel? Or novella. Or even a short story, if you must. There are various journalistic, anthology thingies you might like to consider – you could do them in your sleep, darling, and I think we’re talking reasonable amounts of money. I know how you feel about such things. In other words, it’s a touch of the old carpe diems, darling. Give me a buzz when you have a moment. Love to, er … everyone.’
‘Brian here. We need to talk about business. The commission we discussed has been completed and there’s another proposal for you which I hope you might find of interest. Call me on my mobile – 0741 271 3421 – not at your convenience but very soon.’
‘Gregory, Tony Watson. Sorry to read about your troubles. So much for the quiet, contemplative life of the creative writing teacher. But seriously, I know how important your pupils were to you and he seemed a nice lad. Now, you’ll recall that we vaguely discussed your contributing to FatherLand, the little anthology I’ve been commissioned to put together. That offer’s still open and we might be able to do something about the money but, while you’re considering that, it occurred to me that you might be interested in a project on men’s first sexual experience that we’re calling Losing It. Sensitive but saucy – you know the sort of thing. We’d be really pleased to have you on board. Give us a bell at my usual number. Cheers for now.’
‘Greg, Brian. We need to talk.’
‘It’s me, your wife. I won’t be home tonight but I need some information from you. Something very odd seems to have happened to our account. Perhaps you could ring me at work. Don’t forget to feed Donovan.’
‘Are you all right, darling? Or have you gone into exile to avoid the publicity. It’s Fay. Now listen, I’ve got a few people on hold vis-à-vis features and I’m really going to have to give them a view a.s.a.p. Are you thinking about it, darling? This is a window of opportunity and you should seriously consider jumping through it or whatever one does with windows of opportunity. Ciao, darling.’
‘Don’t mess me about now, Greg. It’s all been going so well. Wouldn’t want things to get nasty. Oh, and how’s Doug these days?’
One is, I suppose, inoculated against the terrors of everyday life by immersion in the cauldron of creative endeavour. Thus, while under normal circumstances the unholy chorus of menace and demands contained upon that small tape might have sent me scurrying to the drinks cupboard or the medicine cabinet or both, now they seemed like distant cries of alarm relating to someone who was not me, the writer, but to a lesser person, some sort of minor cousin, to whom I was barely related.
Carefully, I placed the bright, virgin pages of my novel into the box-file which, some weeks ago, I had purchased in joyful anticipation of this moment. I opened the bottom drawer of my desk and withdrew an A5 brown envelope containing £2,000 in £50 notes and put it in my bag beside the folder containing terpsichore 4:2. I picked up the telephone, dialled Brian McWilliam’s home number and left a message on his machine suggesting we meet that night at his club. I checked the leather shoulder-bag now containing the two packages of paper which, I trusted, would close one door for me and open another, and went downstairs, out of the front door, into the car and headed east.
You will have heard of Fay Duckworth. Whenever there is a public literary bagarre (the death of the novel, the overpayment of writers, the decline in publishing standards, a plagiarism spat), Fay will be on first call. Elegant, lethal, funny, queen of the telling sound-bite, she is the lazy journalist’s friend, a joy for picture editors. In an age of power suits, high heels and shoulder-pads, she cuts a tall, modishly dishevelled figure, the flecks of grey in her riot of long black curls lending a sort of earth-mother integrity to her striking, matronly good looks. By ruthlessly excluding all but the best from her stable of writers, she has come to represent a steely literary virtue, which justifies, or even entirely obscures, conduct which, in other agents, would be regarded as predatory, unseemly or simply greedy. When Fay broke her contract with the large agency which had established her name to set up on her own, taking with her the more prominent of her clients (myself among them; Forever Young had just been published), attempts to take her to court were so successfully portrayed as giantist corporate bullying that her former employers dropped the case for fear of alienating their few remaining authors. When Fay seduced a succession of literary figures into leaving their (usually ageing, usually male) agents to join her, her motives were ascribed to a crusading spirit to acquire the best living for writers she admired rather than anything as base or banal as financial acquisitiveness.
Seduced. The erotic nature of deal-making can rarely have been more evident than in the business manner of Fay Duckworth. She cooed, she touched, she gazed, she gave great phone; even on the frequent occasions when she was angry, there was a piquant hint of intimate, perverse sado-play which only the most torpid of men or women could fail to find curiously arousing. Naturally enough, in a business whose every movement was oiled by the juice of adultery, flirtation and desire, Fay’s charm encouraged rumours of a flamboyant and colourful private life – like virtually every attractive and successful media female of her generation, she was said to have had a fling with Martin – but no proof of misbehaviour had ever been found. There was some sort of husband lurking in the background, but no children. Fay’s womanly energies, we had begun to suspect, were largely expressed in the coitus of contract, the delirium of deals.
A high-flyer, yet, after this period of low production, she was still my agent. Fay would never actually sack a client. She would simply go very quiet, replying to letters and calls later and later, speaking to clients who were out of favo
ur in an increasingly distracted tone, casually mentioning the vast sum being earned by her for her other, more blessed authors or reflecting with studied gloominess on how publishers were buying fewer and fewer novels of serious intent by the unpromotable, the unlovely, the unyoung. Almost invariably, her victims would huffily resign from her agency, to receive a brief, heartfelt, handwritten note of hurt regret from Fay.
I, on the other hand, had stayed, no doubt to her increasing irritation. After all, if she was silent, then so was I. Contrary to the belief of certain authors, literary agents are but conduits: they play no part in the writing process. What good would it do me to have some ambitious ten-per-center nagging me for work, gently suggesting projects, giving me the benefit of her infernal sympathy? When asked, while attending festivals and launches in my capacity as correspondent for the Professional Writer, who my agent was, I could reply, ‘Fay Duckworth’. It registered. While Fay represented me, I was still alive as a novelist. It was enough for me.
I had no confidence, for these reasons, that I would actually see my agent when I drove my modest, writerly, saloon car into the discreet, moneyed square in Islington where she lived and worked in two adjacent houses. I rang the bell at the right-hand blue door leading to her office (the other door was a warm and personal peach colour; by such zany, self-mocking devices, Fay maintained the illusion that she had a private life). Within seconds of my announcing myself on the intercom, a tall, willowy, sun-tanned creature with a careful hairstyle and the sort of perfect looks rarely associated with the literary world opened the door to me.
He announced my name more as an expression of the sheer pleasure of meeting me than as any kind of question, extending a languid arm. ‘I’m Simon,’ he said warmly, then, with a catwalk twirl, led me into a hall whose walls were strewn with items of African folk art. For as long as I had been her client, Fay had been attended by young males more notable for their looks and style than for any marked interest in books or authors. On the circuit, rumours abounded that they contributed more to her than their typing skills and telephone manner but, as so often with Fay, their function was essentially a matter of image. On average, they lasted a couple of years before drifting off into acting or travelling the world or, in the case of the less ambitious of them, becoming book editors.
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