by Mavis Cheek
Janice is astonished. She had expected, as ever, instant response. She is ready to do battle for her two-word title. By tomorrow both the impetus for that, and the scones, will be stale.
The little irritation becomes a bonfire. She tears with her teeth at a paper wrapper from a chocolate in the bowl she keeps by the telephone. Sylvia sent them. Sylvia is always very good at sending Janice little treats. She sinks her teeth into the centre. It is gritty. It is marzipan. The confectioner's mistake, not Sylvia's. Nevertheless, Janice hates marzipan. It was beneath the icing on her seven-year-old's birthday cake the day that Daddy left. She spits it out. The horrible taste lingers. The vexation grows.
'As a matter of fact, Sylvia,' she says, 'I've got a real problem with the title . . .'
Sylvia tries to bring herself back to the matter in hand. 'Just a moment,' she mouths to the idealistic young author, and to Janice she says, 'Well, dear, you don't really have to worry at this stage, do you? Why don't you just get writing and the title will come later. . .?'
Janice, raw with the series of irritations already, is made more so by the dismissiveness. Sylvia always acts as if it is so easy. 'Actually,' she says, 'I am so stuck and so fed up and so - well, so something that I don't know if I shall ever write again. I may well go into retirement. I think I've had enough of it all. Yes . . . very possibly ... I have had quite enough. You see I - hallo . . . hallo? Sylvia? Sylvia . . .?'
. . . But Sylvia has put down the phone. Janice has never spoken to her like that before. Janice is benign, bovine, bonded. Sylvia must go, fly, be there. Now. What are the twin orbs of sensual delight and fantasies about warm rosemary oil compared with this? No more Janice, no more rosemary oil, anyway.
In complete confusion the idealistic young author reels as the air before her nose is rent by whirling agent, and the scent of Arpege mixed with attar of roses. Like the flying saint of a
Tintoretto, Sylvia Perth exits. As she goes, she says something, but her companion cannot swear to its identity. It may possibly be that she is wishing her good luck.
Sylvia picks up her coat. Her heart, once so light, is now heavy. The impassive blonde at the reception desk looks up, smiles, says, 'Goodbye,' in the elegant way she was taught at finishing school and appears to notice nothing unusual, also a skill learned at finishing school. In years to come she will marry someone very rich and very well bred, and when she finds him in the afternoon shrubbery with the nanny she will apply these same skills and take her tea alone.
Sylvia Perth frantically hails a taxi. Her face has darkened to the colour of a plum and there are spots dancing before her eyes. She sinks into the seat. She is deeply afraid.
Janice is feeling contrite and she has put out the scones, jam and cream.
While she has been setting out the repast, Sylvia Perth has been caught up in traffic, and having palpitations. Sylvia is not having an easy menopause and has a tendency to get very warm under stress. She is very warm and very, very stressed at the moment. Eventually exhausting her store of expletives, which were good enough to make the taxi-driver blush, she leaves the cab and sets off on foot. At that precise moment the traffic clears and Sylvia is left standing on the kerb, twitching with fury, flapping her arms, mouthing obscenities and looking like an immaculate bag lady. The palpitations scarcely diminish when she finds another cab, and she sits in it with her chest feeling as if it were bound in steel. Her breathing exercises do not work.
What has happened? What has gone wrong? From where has Janice Gentle suddenly got this new-found streak of resistance? At the very thought of it the pain tightens and only the shallowest of breathing is possible. 'Janice!' she cries. 'Janice! I am coming. Wait for me!'
Janice presses her entry phone and awaits the noise of the click to say Sylvia Perth is inside the building. At least the lift is working today.
She is feeling even more contrite, since two of the scones have now disappeared. Still, Sylvia never eats very much, anyway -though how she can resist it . . . Janice sticks her finger in the cream and then licks it. She waits to hear the whine of the lift and the noise of the doors sliding open. She takes another swift scoop of the cream and she smiles. All her crossness and irritation have melted away and she is looking forward very much to seeing Sylvia's face when she tells her that all is well, that the new baby is on its way, that she is resolute about the title but apart from that she is ready and poised to begin . . .
Come on, she thinks, hurry up or - lick, lick, lick - all the cream will be gone.
But Sylvia Perth never arrives. At least, not in any useful condition. The lift doors slide open, but instead of stepping out, Sylvia Perth rolls out. Purple-lipped, white-faced, in the last twitching spasm of her death throe and on her way to meet that great publisher in the sky.
Her body lies between the lift and the passageway and the doors close and open, close and open, confused by their inability to go on their way. Slide, bang, they go as they hit Sylvia's torso; slide, bang, as they try and try again. And Janice, waiting, lost for a moment in the opening sentence of Red Gold's first words - Tt seems a very long time ago that I was kissed beneath the apple tree on that blossom-scented night. . .' - is disturbed.
The rhythmic thudding from the hallway is disturbing. That Sylvia has not yet rung her doorbell is . . . disturbing. She goes to her apartment door, opens it and looks out. What she sees is also disturbing. Seriously disturbing. What she sees makes her let go of the scone she holds, which falls cream side down (Sod's law yet again) and brings her back from that balmy night in early summer (does apple blossom actually smell? Check this), and she gasps.
The unthinkable has happened. A thing most terrible in its potential effect. Sylvia Perth, agent, financial adviser, friend, counsellor, upright woman of the world and guiding star, is rolling around on the floor and, it appears, stone cold dead.
Janice, first picking up the scone, pads across the passageway
and looks down. The doors go on with their rhythmic dance, using the rolling torso like a punching-bag. Janice kneels and puts a creamy finger on Sylvia Perth's cheek. There is no doubt about it. Even the latest exhortations by Harper's or Vogue, whose advice Sylvia had valued so much, could never have recommended blue lipstick, parchment cheeks, demonic eyes. And the tongue -how extensive these things are when distended — the tongue, lolling, is red. Too red.
She sits back on her haunches and stares. A little bit of cream plops down from the scone on to Sylvia Perth's cheek. Janice scoops it up with her finger. Absently she licks it clean. It tastes of face-powder. Janice stares. The unthinkable, indeed. Sylvia and Janice, agent and author, intertwined, interdependent: Sylvia, total guardian of Janice and all that she is; Janice, total protegée of Sylvia and nothing without her. So close that not a leaf, let alone another agent or publisher, can come between them. Sundered now, for ever, by the Great Leveller.
Impossible, unbearable, unthinkable.
But true all the same.
The cream cloys in her mouth.
Who will protect her now?
Janice Gentle's agency, so prized by Sylvia Perth, so defended from attempted coups, so utterly, utterly the property of one woman alone, is, quite suddenly, up for grabs.
Chapter Five
S
YLVIA Perth died a martyr to retail therapy. Through her relationship with Janice Gentle she had learned to worship and accrue the beautiful things that money could buy. She dreamt not of love but of objects, she yearned not for friendship but for possessions, tangible items that never let you down (and if they did, you could return them and get your money back — unlike a wasted life). Love was a singularly hollow affair, a specious deceit, and Sylvia had no time for it. Vowing eternity one minute, vowing murder the next.
Even had she broken her rule and gone for dinner with flower-face, it would not have been love that she sought, for love required feeding, time, attention, care, sacrifice, and Sylvia Perth delighted in having a life that required her to give up nothing. The ga
p that non-existent love had left in her was easily filled with nice things. Nice things were Sylvia's DNA. The prospect of a life without them was too cruel, too barren, for Sylvia to contemplate. When Janice Gentle had her innocent little flicker of rebellion, it was experienced by Sylvia as the very heat and jaws of hell itself. No Janice Gentle books, no more beautiful things. And, worse, if it went any further, if the truth got out, if those things only known and hidden in the darker recesses should shine forth, why, they might actually take all the beautiful things away . . .
Christ, thought Sylvia Perth, as she scrabbled out of the taxi-cab and stabbed at the door button, La Doughbag might just mean it. Stab, stab, she went again, mad at herself for having got sidetracked by mere passing fancy. That it was entirely her own fault made her passion ten times worse. Janice Gentle was not known for her flippancy. She had her big, spreading feet planted firmly on some damnably honourable medieval floor, and what she said she usually meant.
Panicking at the lift, waiting for it to descend, Sylvia could feel the sweat of fear breaking out. She pressed the button again. It wasn't as if, she muttered hysterically, the silly cow ever wanted to spend much of her money, anyway. Stab, stab. It wasn't as if she had taken anything away, not really, from that lump of obese immobility. There was nothing, nothing at all, that Janice Gentle had wanted for, nothing. Whereas she, Sylvia, was all splendid exuberance for the finer things. She understood Imelda Marcos even if nobody else did. Why not have a million pairs of shoes if it pleased you? At least shoes didn't stab you in the back, at least hats didn't slip down and strangle you, and money had no barriers of age, sex or religion - at least, at least it was something to make you feel really good.
The lift took an age. Sylvia Perth contemplated using the stairs, but she felt very tired. Why the devil didn't Janice move somewhere better? Across the water? Chelsea or Knightsbridge or somewhere refined. Battersea, I mean - punch, punch at the button - Battersea. And in a flat that looked as if it were owned by the council. Style and money - Janice would never have much of either. And anyway, she didn't want them - not at all. The only thing Janice had that she treasured was an old chest with a lurid old coat in it - that and her appetite. Whereas she, Sylvia . . .
She relaxed. She could hear the lift at last. She smiled and breathed out and waited for the tension in her chest to flow away from her. Once she was with Janice it would all be fine. She had a way with Janice. She made her happy, gave her what she wanted, listened to her rambling away so pottily about that Dermot Poll and soothed her whenever she showed signs of agitation over finding him. She hoped it wasn't all to do with that again. If Janice Gentle found Dermot Poll, it would break her illusion, and with the illusion gone . . .
Sylvia thought of the antique Beshir she had set her heart on, and her palpitations increased. To lose it all now was unthinkable, not fair. After all, what had she done? Nothing. She had taken nothing that Janice could possibly want. Indeed, she had given her all the things she wanted in the world: her inviolable home, her impenetrable privacy, her comforting food and an occupation that kept the dream alive. Dreams were never worth realizing, anyway. They were things that kept you going while they were unattained and always disappointed when they were reached. Find Dermot Poll and Janice Gentle would probably cease to want to live. In a way, Sylvia argued to herself, she had been doing Janice a kindness by not helping find Dermot Poll for her. Let the dream live on for ever. Her books gave her a route through life, didn't they? Though Janice wouldn't see it like that. But they gave her an interest. Find Dermot Poll and she would certainly cease to write. And if that happened it would lead directly to the thing Sylvia - twinge, twinge — feared more than anything . . .
*
Sylvia had not meant to start borrowing from Janice Gentle's income. It had begun quite innocently. Sylvia Perth deducted her own percentage, just as any literary agent must, and the rest had gone into an account for Janice. Since Janice was not at all worldly in such matters, it had seemed sensible, indeed imperative, for Sylvia Perth to have control of this account for the dispensation of the various moneys required to make Janice's life run smoothly. The problem was that Janice required so little. And the other problem was that she made so much. It was only a shift of emphasis that made Sylvia offer to be responsible for everything, and Janice had been heartfelt in her gratitude. Who would not, Sylvia said to herself time and time again whenever conscience poked out its ugly head, given half the chance, like to abrogate those responsibilities? And who would not, if finances were to hand, pay handsomely for the service? The only discrepancy, so far as Sylvia was concerned, was that Janice did not exactly know that she was paying, though initially she had only to ask and Sylvia would have told.
It was after the second book that things, or rather Sylvia's
fingers, got a bit stickier. Sylvia had worked very hard on her author's behalf and she felt the imbalance of reward rather keenly. After all, if it had not been for her, Janice Gentle would never have got published in the first place, would have remained, for ever, in Arterberry Road. Put like that. . .
And thus into the treacle well Sylvia Perth's fingers went.
By protecting Janice Gentle from the outside world, Sylvia Perth also protected herself from discovery; but it did not help her heart, that insular organ, which rebelled against the deceits and joined with conscience to form an unhealthy alliance. Sylvia had her ways of countering the stress and, as many do, thought herself immortal. The spending went on, the delights of possessions increased. It was beyond endurance to imagine it all being taken away.
She was very cautious with regard to Janice and the world outside her cloister. Over the years she had managed to deflect any attempt by members of the publishing world to make contact, and nowadays it was accepted that Janice Gentle was recluse and would always be so. Business was conducted through Sylvia Perth as her agent, and the situation was one of perfect accord. Occasionally this harmony was broken by some brash newcomer who thought he or she might move the pieces around on the board a little, but always it ended in defeat. Janice colluded with Sylvia in her anchorite existence, so it was based on free will. There were no chains, no hedge of thorns, no locked tower to be breached, and Sylvia could rest, almost, assured.
Almost, because there were always new contenders to the lists. For Sylvia these joustings were little more than pleasant interludes, although occasionally she felt she was required to be on her mettle. As with the Bulbecker woman today. Very intelligent, very positive and no bull-shitting. She had admired that at once. And they had enjoyed the lunch, both eyeing each other and talking of other things.
With coffee, Ms Bulbecker said, 'We both know what we are doing here.' And Sylvia, in her usual cat's-game way, replied, 'Well, I know why I'm here. I'm here because the langoustines are the best in town and you are paying.'
Sylvia Perth looked at Rohanne Bulbecker and Rohanne Bulbecker looked at Sylvia Perth.
Sylvia Perth shook her head. 'No, dear,' she said, 'no.'
'One book,' said Rohanne, holding up her freshly manicured finger. 'One book with that extra dimension and not attempting to dictate whatsoever . ..'
Sylvia smiled, cat-like. ' "Extra dimension" is rather a mouthful, don't you think? Surely we can say the word sex?'
'Sure!' said Rohanne Bulbecker hopefully.
'But the answer is still no.'
'May I ask why?'
'Janice Gentle is not interested in writing about sex. She wishes to continue to write as she chooses.' 'Money?'
Sylvia shook her head. She tapped the end of her cigarette so that ash fell into the spent bodies of the langoustines. It was designed to be provocative.
Rohanne pictured Morgan P. Pfeiffer sitting at his desk, impassive, waiting. 'I should like to meet Janice Gentle and talk to her about the project. And to say, face to face, how much we admire her over there; how very keen Mr Pfeiffer and I are to work with her. Would that be possible?'
'Impossible,' Sylvia said. 'Jan
ice never gives interviews. Everything is conducted through me. Put it in a letter and I will make sure she sees it.' She stood up. 'I have to go. Another appointment, I am afraid.'
Rohanne stood up.
'A very nice frock,' said Sylvia Perth.
'Thank you,' said Rohanne.
'Armani, I think?'
'Perhaps I could call her?'
'Afraid not. She distrusts the telephone.'
'Then I will write.'
They shook hands.
'I can be very persistent,' said Rohanne smiling. She watched her combatant moving away with irritating confidence. She put one of her fingers into her mouth and bit off the end of a much prized Bulbecker nail.
'And we’ said Sylvia Perth, also smiling, 'can be very impervious.' She walked away, still smiling, and said from the door, 'Over my dead body, I always say.'
And Rohanne, staring at her ragged fingertip in misery, thought that really wasn't such a bad idea.
*
Sylvia Perth tried not to remember those fateful words as she waited in the lobby of Janice's building. 'Damn the lift,' she said, having no energy to say worse, 'Damn, and damn, and damn it.' At each outburst she kicked the closed doors until, like some avant-garde version of Ali Baba, they slid open, the lift appeared and Sylvia Perth caught her breath, clutched at the pain beneath her breast, and entered her tomb. She leaned, half fainting, against the steel wall and for some reason, though she feared she knew why, images of the past floated into her mind.
Her mother, Mrs Perth, in her pinny and turban, reading the trade papers for seaside novelties with which to stock their shop. Never turning away a travelling salesman in case he should have any fresh trumpery tucked among his wares. Mrs Perth bought the new plastic buckets cheaply when the fashion for tin was just turning, Mrs Perth bought Taiwanese rubber shoes when the custom was for raffia, and her decisions were sound. She was the powerhouse. Sylvia saw her sitting at the round chenille-covered table in the back room smoking Weights and making notes on the back of an envelope while Mr Perth made jovial banter with the customers and did the display. Whenever Sylvia thought of those days, which was not often, she knew it was not her mother's talent with novelties that she despised, it was her mother's small-mindedness, her parochiality, her lack of breadth in exploiting such a talent. Tin buckets and rubber shoes, indeed. Tawdry, tacky, parvenu . . .