by Mal Peet
Philip leaned his chin on his fist and waited three seconds before responding, as Minerva had advised. Then, frowning thoughtfully but somehow smiling at the same time, he said, ‘Well, I’ve always loved Tolkien, of course. He is the Everest we all aspire to climb. But I did not think that I was a mountaineer. So I explored the lower slopes, so to speak. The foothills of social realism. Of course, I always knew that one day I would have to tackle those peaks, let my imagination fly. But’ – and here Philip directed a benign smile at Virgil Peroni – ‘I suppose the fact is that until recently I felt too young to be truly original.’
A murmur of amusement swelled as the slower members of the audience caught on to this charming and self-deprecating paradox.
Gloria waited, then said, ‘I suppose the most striking aspect of Dark Entropy is the narrative voice. The voice of Pocket Wellfair. Who not only relates the story but interrupts the flow with earthy comments, explanations, asides to the audience and so on. One critic described him as Bilbo Baggins re-imagined by D.H. Lawrence with a bit of help from Chaucer. Where did he come from?’
Philip shook his head wonderingly. ‘I wish I knew. I can only say that it’s as if I’d dreamt him. Which is to say, I suppose, that he must have always been there, somewhere in my unconscious, a voice that I’d previously refused to listen to. But when I made the conscious decision to write a fantasy, he just sort of came through. It’s rather scary for me to admit this, but it might be that Pocket is my real voice, the voice that I’ve spent years developing without being aware of it.’
‘Amazing,’ Gloria said. ‘I have to admit that while I was reading Dark Entropy I felt, very powerfully, that I was being spoken to by Pocket Wellfair, rather than reading something written by Philip Murdstone. I hope you don’t mind my saying that.’
‘Not at all,’ Philip said generously. ‘That was precisely the effect I was trying to achieve.’
‘And in which you triumphantly succeeded.’
‘Thank you very much, Gloria.’ He leaned back in his chair and met Minerva’s warm gaze. She winked. Something south of his abdomen twinkled in response.
Later, at the lectern, Philip said, ‘Um … I thought I might do a request. Rather than just read a bit I’d chosen. So if there’s anyone who …?’
Several hands shot up. Philip recoiled, as if alarmed by such enthusiasm. The uplifted faces were bathed in the mellow light that the sunlit canvas threw upon them. He picked the wrongly hinged boy in the wheelchair whom Minerva had pointed out.
‘Well, let’s see … how about you, sir? The young man in the … er.’
A BBC girl poked a furry boom mike towards the invalid.
‘Yeff, err. I like when the Gremes, you know, err, when ve’re like tunnelling, and vey break frew into …’
Philip leaned to the microphone. ‘I think I know the passage you mean.’ He produced his copy of Dark Entropy, which he had held behind his back. A single yellow post-it protruded from the pages. ‘By the strangest coincidence, I have only one passage marked, which happens to be that very sequence. When the Gremes accidentally break through into the Megrum’s cave. Now, how weird is that?’
There was amusement, then someone called out good-naturedly, ‘Fix!’
More laughter, more calls of ‘Fix! Fix!’
The boy in the wheelchair twisted his head towards the voices, appalled. Viscid filaments stretched between his lips.
Smiling, Philip raised a hand. ‘I am deeply shocked by these cynical allegations,’ he said. He looked over at the disabled boy. ‘Help me out here, would you? We didn’t set this up, did we? Have you and I ever met before?’
‘No! No!’ The boy’s eyes swivelled and his buckled fingers clawed the air. There was a panicky dismay in his voice. ‘We never, I didn’t …’
The man with him, whose only obvious disability was a grey ponytail, reached across and laid a restraining hand on the boy’s arm.
‘Thank you,’ Philip said, and the audience applauded again, perhaps to muffle the last of the boy’s cries. ‘There you are, you see. I did not collude with my young friend here. No. The only reason I marked this particular passage is that it’s the one I always get asked to read. I can’t imagine why.’
Appreciative chuckles.
Philip opened the book. A silence like a warm snowfall filled the marquee. He began to recite, using a voice that was slightly lifted, slightly coarse, and overlaid with a vaguely West Country accent; the voice, it was assumed, of Pocket the clerk.
8
‘Cheers, darling.’
Minerva sipped champagne, then sent her tongue questing among her teeth. Philip watched, fascinated.
‘I love those king prawns in samphire,’ she said, ‘but the bits do lurk, don’t they? Anyway. Shall we run through the schedule now? You feel up to it?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Right, OK. We land at JFK at two, local time. There’ll be a car to take us to the Fox studios. You get an hour to wind down, then … Bugger. Here comes that mislabelled blonde again. Bet you a quid she’s after you.’
The stewardess with Virgin written on her breast came smiling through the Club Class cabin and rested her hand lightly on the rim of Philip’s pod.
‘I am so sorry to interrupt,’ she said. ‘I could come back later, if you like.’
‘It’s fine,’ Minerva said. Her smile might have been acid-etched on a statue of the Madonna. ‘Be my guest.’
‘It’s just that I happened to mention to the captain that you were on board and – can you believe it? – he was literally reading Dark Entropy and he asked me to ask you if you wouldn’t mind signing his copy. He loves it.’ She proffered a copy of the novel.
‘I’d be delighted,’ Philip said, fumbling for his Montblanc fountain pen. ‘And what is our gallant captain’s name?’
‘Kenneth.’
‘Of course.’
Philip tried to think of an inscription appropriate to a man who was flying two hundred and fifty people across the Atlantic while absorbed in a book about gnomes and necromancy, but his imagination failed him. So he wrote ‘For Ken, Best Wishes, Philip Murdstone’, using his new signature, the capital P looking slightly Greek, the S like a rearing snake.
‘So,’ Minerva said, when she had recaptured his attention, ‘you’ve got the second spot on Hope’s show. The second spot is good, the second spot is cool. I pulled strings, no, I pulled bloody hawsers to get it. That’s because the first spot is the freak spot. Hope has someone on that the audience will laugh at, OK? The third spot, the last spot, is someone the audience will laugh with, right? The second spot, the middle spot, your spot, is the serious spot. Hope’s people have got this thing going where pretty serious people watch the middle of his show because they’ve—’
‘Sorry, did you say his show? Hope is a man?’
‘Only very rarely. But in this case, yes.’
‘Right. Funny with names, aren’t they, Americans? So, er, who’s on first?’
‘Misty Turbo. Porn star and Born Again Christian who’s made a religious dirty movie called, um, Nail Me Again.’
‘Right. And the third slot?’
‘A gangsta rapper called No-Tag who’s way up in the ratings for a TV show in which he plays a single dad whose estranged wife has been killed in a hit-and-run and he moves back in with their two kids and finds that his teenage daughter wants to be a nun and his teenage son is a tranny.’
Philip frowned. ‘A radio?’
‘No, darling. A transvestite.’
‘Ah. That’s the one they laugh at?’
‘No, with. They laugh at the religious porno chick.’
‘Right, fine. It’s not live, is it?’
‘God, no. What do you take me for? Now then, Tuesday. I’ve booked a separate suite at the Marriott for interviews. There are only three because we don’t want people thinking you’re easy to get. The first is with Sword and Sorcery Monthly, the second is with the New York Review of Books, then it’s, um, something
called Dead Breast.’ She frowned at her iPad. ‘No, that can’t be right. God, my eyes are going. Dread Beast, that’s it.’
‘We’re making the New York Review wait for second place? That’s a bit cheeky, isn’t it?’
‘Yep, but Sword and Sorcery and Dread Thing are both paying for exclusives. OK? So I don’t want them meeting in the lobby. Besides, it means we can give the NYRB lunch, and they like lunch interviews because it’s an excuse to eat lunch, which is normally considered to be uncool. You’re supposed to use the break to take a bottle of Evian water for a jog. Anyway, that’ll all be over by four, at the latest. We can have a nice little lie down before heading off to WNYM for the radio show.’
‘Right. Remind me about that.’
‘Tip Reason. Lovely man. It’s a minority show, OK, but terribly influential. Everybody in the trade listens to it. Tip has the best radio voice in New York. There are people, unkind people, who say that he also has the best radio face in New York. And to be fair he does look like a boiled scrotum, but that’s by the by. He’s as gay as bunting, and if he cops a feel of your bum I want you to promise me you won’t make a fuss, OK? It won’t come to anything.’
‘Gosh.’
Minerva glittered happily. ‘Good,’ she said, ‘very good. When he feels you up, say “Gosh” just like you did then, OK? It’ll suggest that you are flattered and charmed but, unfortunately, utterly straight despite being British. Tip’ll be OK with that.’
‘All right.’
‘Promise?’
‘Sure.’
Philip sipped from his flute. Minerva studied him, sidelong. Her client’s rapid transformation from hopeless troglodyte to man of the world was surprising, to say the least. It ought to have reassured her. But it hadn’t, quite. Yet.
‘Where were we? Right, Wednesday. Up at seven for a workout in the gym. Only joking. Nothing for you in the morning. You might fancy getting pampered in Love Yourself, on the fourteenth floor. Jacuzzi, Turkish massage, aromatherapy, you know the sort of thing. They have this service where a shapely Jewish mother-figure gives you an oily workover while telling you that nothing’s your fault and you are right to neglect her in order to live your life. Hugely popular. No? Don’t fancy it? Never mind. Have the nine-course breakfast instead. Book signing at Barnes & Noble at midday, OK, catch the office lunchtime jog trade. Gorgon are organizing coverage. I’ll get there at ten to check things out. Afternoon, toddle along to Megalo Studios to record your bits for Weirdie Go.’
‘That’s the game show?’
‘It’s a Virtual Contest show, darling. I sent you a DVD, remember?’
‘Ah, yes.’
‘Which you didn’t bloody watch.’
‘Well, I meant to, but …’
‘But you’ve been a busy little celebrity, I know. OK, superstar, lissen up. Four contestants togged up as fantasy heroes compete to win this quest thing. They all wear these helmets with like visors over their eyes, OK, and what they see is computer-generated images of, you know, dragons and foresty bits and so forth. The audience sees what they see, if you see what I mean. Actually, it’s all done in a studio in front of these blue screens but you’d never know it. It’s terribly clever. Anyway, each week the contest is based on a different fantasy novel. Philip, sweetie, you’re drifting, I can tell. Do pay attention, because, listen, three episodes of Weirdie Go are being based on Dark Entropy, which is pretty bloody amazing, OK? Unprecedented, actually.’
The champagne had filled Philip’s head with a soft and manageable form of happiness. The view from his window, a flawless arc of morning-glory blue above undulating cloud-blossom, would have served as a metaphor for the state of his brain, had there been need of such a thing. He laid a sentimental hand on Minerva’s silky arm.
‘It’s absolutely bloody amazing. It is. You mustn’t think I don’t appreciate all this. You’re wonderful, Minerva. I mean it.’
‘Lordy, Mr Murdstone, the things you writers do say. Where was I? Right. So each week the author plays a sort of God-like intelligence, popping up to issue warnings or give clues, that sort of thing.’
Philip focused an eye on her. ‘You mean I have to act in this show?’
‘No, no, darling. All you have to do is dress up as thingy, the Sage, and have loads of digital cameras take pictures of you. Then you get computerized into this moving hologram-type thing, OK? What you have to say is all pre-recorded and dubbed on when the computer nerds make your mouth go up and down.’
‘What do I have to say?’
‘Oh, you know, “The Swelts are seven leagues from the Chancery.” “Remember Pellus’s Third Rule.” “Just open the door on your right, you fuckwit.” Stuff like that. You just have to read them off a sheet of paper. You don’t even have to worry too much about expression, because the computers will tricksy about with your voice. A piece of cake, darling. We should be able to knock the whole thing off in a couple of hours. Two hundred and fifty grand sterling, ba-boom.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. And when your hard day’s toil has ended, ye shall gather your reward. I’m going to take you to a fabulous little Sudanese restaurant in Greenwich Village that I happen to know about.’
Philip gazed hazily at her. ‘Shall we have some more champagne?’ he said.
‘What the hell,’ Minerva said. ‘We might as well start as we mean to go on.’
She reached for the attendant button, but the Virgin stewardess had already materialized at her side.
9
Philip stood waiting between two walls, one of which was real. His face had been painted Soft Californian Tangerine. He was holding hands with a bearded young man wearing a radio headset. Both of them were looking up at a TV monitor, which hung from the narrow ceiling. It showed happy cartoon chickens taking a bath in Stoller’s BarBQ Marinade. The cartoon chickens were replaced by a sort of coloured explosion followed by the words The Hope Withers Show Part Two.
The young man touched his headset with his free hand and said, ‘OK.’ There was a huge eruption of applause from behind the false wall. A man who looked like a Presidential candidate appeared on the monitor. He was seated behind a desk, absorbed in a book. He seemed unaware that he was on television. After approximately three seconds the audience started to laugh and he looked up peevishly.
He said to Camera One, ‘Gedowda here, willya? Cancha see I’m reading?’
Wild laughter became applause.
Hope threw his hands up in despair and closed the book with a show of deep reluctance. ‘You guys showed up just when I got to the bit where Morl creates the prototype Swelt. Wow. Awesome. But I guess if anyone’s gonna interrupt your reading of Dark Entropy, who better than its author. Ladies and gentlemen, let’s give it up for the incredible PHILIP MURDSTONE!’
On the monitor, multi-coloured studio lights played over a rapturous audience.
Philip’s minder gave him a gentle shove between the shoulder blades. ‘Go, baby, you’ll love it. Stand four seconds at the head of the stairs, remember.’
Philip stepped through a gap in the false wall and found himself at the top of a short flight of immensely wide curved steps, blind, in a blaze and roar of adulation. He clasped his hands in front of his body and bowed, counting one and two and. He straightened and raised his hands in a gesture of reluctant acceptance. Three and four and. Then he set off down the steps. Each one lit up electric lilac when his foot touched it. A vast invisible orchestra played a few bars from the overture to Gounod’s Faust.
In the Marriott, Philip reclined upon one sofa. Dyana Kornbester of the New York Review of Books perched, predatory, upon the other. On the low table between them was spread a goblin’s banquet of rich and strange canapés, along with Dyana’s voice-recorder and assorted bottles and glasses.
‘Well,’ Philip said, ‘you’ll probably find this a terribly English, good-sporty thing to say, but as a rule I don’t like to criticize my fellow writers.’
‘Go on, feller. Spoil yourself.’
‘Well, let’s just say that personally I find Zubranski’s deployment of Dantean symbolism just a little bit …’
‘Hokey? Ponderous? Apolaustic? Thrasonical?’
‘Hmm. I guess it’s just that I think the Fantasy novel should create, above and beyond all, an alternative world that is unique and perfect in itself. That has its own dynamic. So there’s a problem if you start to introduce ideas that … Well, if you use the form as allegory. As message. That’s always been the problem, it seems to me. That writers of Fantasy are actually tethered to reality. It’s no coincidence that most Fantasy writers are either ex-teachers or ex-preachers. That they drag the reader back into human socio-political issues or traditional modes of thought.’
He glanced at the watchful Minerva. Her widened eyes said: Thank you. Brilliant. I love you. Where do you get this shit from?
‘So,’ the pursuant Ms Kornbester said, ‘Dark Entropy is devoid of extraneous reference, huh?’
‘Well …’
‘Let me tell you something,’ Dyana said, swallowing a caviar tartlet. ‘Last week I was at a reception with no less a person than the President’s Deputy Spokesman on Homeland Protection, and he told me that the view in the White House is that Dark Entropy is, and I quote more or less accurately, “a dark but timely premonition of the imminent religious, ideological and military struggle between the forces of Freedom and the powers of Darkness and Terror, and a warning about what will happen if we do not prevail”.’
‘Praise the Lord,’ Minerva murmured, ‘a puff from the President. It’s not every day you get one of those.’
‘Amen,’ said Dyana. ‘I hope you don’t mind me eating all your canapés, by the way. They’re fantastic. Celestial. Preternatural. These little crunchy fishy things are to die for.’