However, telling the truth to Gilliam Murray was an experience he had no wish to undergo, especially since he could get out of it simply by handing the novel over to his editor Henley, who would certainly reject it, but with none of the recriminations that would fall upon Wells.
When the day came for his next appointment with Murray, Wells still had not decided what to do. Gilliam arrived at the house with enviable punctuality, a triumphant smile on his face, but Wells immediately sensed the barely controlled anxiety beneath his cloying politeness. Gilliam was plainly desperate to hear his verdict, but both men were obliged to follow the rules of etiquette. Wells made small talk as he guided him into the sitting room, and they sat down while Jane served tea. The author took advantage of this moment of silence to study his nervous guest, who was pressing his fleshy lips into a serene smile. Then, all of a sudden, Wells was filled with a sense of his own power.
He, more than anyone, knew of the sense of hope involved in writing a novel and the insignificance of that illusion in the eyes of others, who judged the work on its merits, not on how many sleepless nights had gone into its creation. As Wells saw it, negative criticism, however constructive, was invariably painful for a writer. It always came as a blow, whether he responded to it like a brave wounded soldier or was cast into the abyss, his fragile ego in shreds. And now, as if by magic, Wells held this stranger’s dreams in his hand. He had the power to shatter them or to let them live. In the end, this was the choice before him, he realized; the novel’s wretched quality was irrelevant, and in any case that decision could be left to Henley. The question was whether he wanted to use his authority for good or not, whether he wanted to witness this arrogant creature’s response to what was in essence the simple truth, or whether on the contrary he preferred to fob him off with a pious lie so he could carry on believing he had produced a worthwhile piece of writing, at least until Henley’s diagnosis.
“Well, Mr. Wells?” Gilliam asked as soon as Jane had left the room. “What did you think of my novel?” Wells could almost feel the air in the room tremble, as though reality itself had reached a crossroads and the universe was awaiting his decision to know which path to go down. His silence was like a dam, a dike holding back events.
And still today Wells was not sure why he had taken the decision he had. He felt no real preference; he could have chosen either way. He was sure of one thing, though: it was not out of cruelty.
If anything, he was simply curious to see how the man sitting opposite him would react to such a brutal blow. Would he conceal his wounded pride, politely accept Wells’s opinions, or break down in front of him like a child or a man condemned to death? Perhaps he would fly into a rage and hurl himself at Wells with the intention of strangling him, a distinct possibility Wells could not rule out. Whichever way he dressed it up, it was an empirical exercise, a simple experiment on the soul of that poor wretched man. Like the scientist who must sacrifice the rat in pursuit of his discovery, Wells wanted to measure the capacity for reaction in this stranger, who by asking him to read his manuscript had given Wells an immense power over him, the power to act like the executioner of the despicable society in which they lived.
Once Wells had decided, he cleared his throat and replied in a courteous, almost cold voice, as though he were indifferent to the harmful effect his words might have on his visitor: “I read your work with great care, Mr. Murray, and I confess I did not enjoy any part of it. I found nothing in it to praise, nothing to admire. I have taken the liberty to speak to you in this way because I consider you a colleague and I believe that lying to you would do you no good whatsoever.” The smile on Gilliam’s face vanished in a second, and his huge paws gripped the arms of the chair. Wells studied his shifting facial expression even as he carried on wounding him, extremely courteously: “In my opinion, not only have you started out with a rather naïve premise, but you have developed it in a most unfortunate way, stifling its few possibilities. The structure of your narrative is inconsistent and muddled, the episodes are linked only tenuously, and in the end one has the impression that events occur higgledy-piggledy, without any inner cohesion, simply because it suits you. This tiresome randomness of the plot, added to your writing style—worthy of some legal clerk who admires Jane Austen’s romantic novels—inevitably produces boredom in the reader, or if not then a profound aversion to what he is reading.” At this point, Wells paused for a moment to study his guest’s contortions with scientific interest. The man must be a block of ice not to have exploded with rage at such remarks, he thought.
Was Gilliam a block of ice? He watched Murray’s attempts to overcome his bewilderment; chewing on his lip, opening then clenching his fists, as though he were milking an invisible udder, and predicted that he was about to find out.
“What are you talking about?” Murray finally burst out, sitting up straight, seized by a rage that made the tendons on his neck bulge. “What kind of reading have you given my work?” No, Gilliam was not a block of ice. He was pure fire, and Wells instantly realized he would not fall apart. His visitor was one of those people whose pride was so monumental that in the long run they were morally invincible; they were so full of themselves they believed they could achieve anything through simple pigheadedness, whether this was building a bird box or writing a science-fiction novel. Unfortunately for Wells, Gilliam had not been content to build a bird box. He had decided to employ his efforts in showing the world what an extraordinary imagination he had, how easily he was able to juggle with the words accumulated in a dictionary, and that he had been endowed with many if not all the writerly characteristics that appealed to him.
Wells tried hard to remain poised while his guest, shaking with rage, labeled his remarks as foolish. Watching him waving his arms about wildly, Wells began to regret the choice he had made.
Clearly, if he carried on in that vein, demolishing his novel with scathing remarks, the situation could only get worse. But what else could he do? Must he retract everything he had said for fear the fellow might tear his head off in a fit of rage? Luckily for Wells, Gilliam suddenly appeared to calm down.
He took a few breaths, twisted his head from side to side, and rested his hands in his lap in a stubborn attempt to regain his composure. His painstaking effort at controlling himself felt to Wells like a sort of caricature of the actor Richard Mansfield’s amazing transformation at the Lyceum Theatre during the performance of the play Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde a few years earlier.
He let him go on without interruption, secretly relieved. Gilliam seemed ashamed at having lost his temper, and the author realized that here was an intelligent man burdened with a passionate temperament, a fiery nature which drove him to those accesses of rage that he had undoubtedly learned to control over the years, achieving a level of restraint of which he should feel proud. But Wells had touched his sore point, wounded his vanity, reminding him his self-control was by no means infallible.
“You may have been lucky enough to write a nice novel everybody likes,” Gilliam said when he had managed to calm down, although the tone of his voice was still belligerent, “but clearly you are incapable of judging the work of others. And I wonder whether this might not be because of envy. Is the king afraid the jester might usurp his throne and do a better job as ruler than he?” Wells smiled to himself. After the outpouring of rage, came a false serenity and a change in strategy. He had just reduced Wells’s novel—praised to the skies days before—to the category of popular fiction and had found an explanation for Wells’s opinions that bore no relation to his own lack of literary talent—in this case envy. However, this was preferable to having to put up with his angry outbursts. They were now entering the domain of verbal sparring, and Wells felt a rush of excitement, for this was an area in which he felt particularly at ease. He decided to speak even more plainly.
“You are perfectly at liberty to think what you like about your own work, Mr. Murray,” he said calmly. “But I imagine that if you came to my house to ask my opi
nion, it is because you deemed me sufficiently knowledgeable in such matters to value my judgment.
I regret not having told you what you wanted to hear, but those are my thoughts. For the reasons I already mentioned, I doubt that your novel would appeal to anyone, although in my view the main problem with it is the implausibility of your idea. Nobody would believe in the future you have described.” Gilliam tilted his head to one side, as though he had not heard properly.
“Are you saying the future I describe is implausible?” he asked.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying, and for various reasons,” Wells coolly replied. “The notion that a mechanical toy, however sophisticated, could come to life is unimaginable, not to say ludicrous. Equally implausible is the suggestion that a world war could take place in the coming century. It will never happen. Not to mention other details you have overlooked, for example that the inhabitants of the year 2000 are still using oil lamps, when anybody can see that it is only a matter of time before electricity takes over. Even fantasy must be plausible, Mr. Murray. Allow me to take my own novel as an example. In order to describe the year 802,701 all I did was to think logically. The division of the human race into two species, the Eloi, languishing in their mindless hedonism, and the Morlocks, the monsters living below ground, is an example of one possible outcome of our rigid capitalist society. By the same token, the future demise of the planet, however demoralizing, is based on complex predictions made by astronomers and geologists and published daily in journals. This constitutes true speculation, Mr. Murray. Nobody could accuse my 802,701 of being implausible. Things may turn out quite differently, of course, especially if other as yet unforeseeable factors come into play, but nobody can rule out my vision. Yours, on the other hand, does not bear up under scrutiny.” Gilliam Murray looked at him in silence for a long time, until finally he said: “Perhaps you are right, Mr. Wells, and my novel does need a thorough overhaul in terms of style and structure. It is a first attempt, and naturally I couldn’t possibly expect the result to be excellent or even passable. But what I cannot tolerate is that you cast doubt on my speculations about the year 2000. Because in that case you are no longer judging my literary abilities, you are simply insulting my intelligence. Admit it; my vision of the future is as plausible as any other.” “Permit me to disagree,” Wells replied coldly, judging that at this point in the conversation the time for mercy had passed.
Gilliam Murray had to repress another access of rage. He twisted in his seat, as though he were suffering from convulsions, but in a matter of seconds he managed to recover his relaxed, almost blasé demeanor. He studied Wells with amused curiosity for a few moments, as though he were a strange species of insect he had never seen before, then let out a thunderous guffaw.
“Do you know what the difference is between you and me, Mr. Wells?” The author saw no reason to reply and simply shrugged.
“Our outlook,” Gilliam went on. “Our outlook on things.
You are a conformist and I am not. You are content to deceive your readers, with their agreement, by writing about things that might happen in the hope that they will believe them. But you never lose sight of the fact that what you are writing is a novel and therefore pure make-believe. I, however, am not content with that, Mr. Wells. The fact that my speculations took the form of a novel is purely circumstantial, because all it requires is a stack of paper and a strong wrist. And to be honest, it matters very little to me whether my book is published or not, because I suspect I would not be satisfied with a handful of readers who enjoy it, debating about whether the future I describe is plausible or not, because they will always consider it an invention of mine. No, I aspire to much more than being recognized as an imaginative writer. I want people to believe in my invention without realizing it’s an invention, to believe the year 2000 will be exactly as I have described it. And I will prove to you I can make them believe it, however implausible it might seem to you. Only I shan’t present it to them in a novel, Mr. Wells; I shall leave those childish things to you. You carry on writing your fantasies in books. I will make mine a reality.” “A reality?” asked Wells, not quite grasping what his guest was driving at. “What do you mean?” “You’ll see, Mr. Wells. And when you do, if you are a true gentleman, you will perhaps offer me an apology.” With that, Gilliam rose from his chair and smoothed down his jacket with one of those graceful gestures that startled everyone in such a bulky man.
“Good day to you, Mr. Wells. Don’t forget me, or Captain Shackleton. You’ll be hearing from us soon,” he said as he picked his hat from the table and placed it nimbly on his head. “There’s no need to see me to the door. I can find my own way out.” His departure was so sudden that Wells was left sitting in his chair, at a loss, unable to stand up even after Murray’s footsteps had died away and he heard him shut the front gate. He remained seated for a long time in the sitting room pondering Murray’s words, until he told himself that this egomaniac did not deserve another moment of consideration. And the fact that he heard nothing from him in the ensuing months finally made him forget the disagreeable encounter. Until the day when he received the leaflet from Murray’s Time Travel. Then Wells realized what Gilliam had meant by “I will make mine a reality.” And, apart from a few scientists and doctors who kicked up a fuss in the newspapers, the whole of England had fallen for his “implausible” invention, thanks in part to Wells himself having raised people’s expectations with his novel The Time Machine, an added irony that irritated him all the more.
From then on, every week without fail he received a leaflet inviting him to take part in one of the bogus expeditions to the year 2000. That crook would have liked nothing more than to have the very man who had unleashed the current obsession for time travel to endorse his company by sanctioning the elaborate hoax, which, naturally, Wells had not the slightest intention of doing. The worst of it, though, was the message underlying the polite invitations. Wells knew Gilliam was certain he would never accept, and this turned the invitations into a mockery, a taunt on paper that was also a threat, for the fact that the leaflets were delivered by hand suggested Murray himself, or one of his men, placed them in Wells’s letter box. In any event, it made no difference, since the objective was the same: to show Wells how easy it was to loiter around his house unseen, to make sure he knew he had not been forgotten, to remind him he was being watched.
But what most infuriated Wells in this whole affair was that, however much he wanted to, he could not denounce him, as Tom had suggested, for the simple reason that Gilliam had won. Yes, he had proved that his future was plausible, and, rather than sweep the pieces off the board in a fit of rage, Wells must sportingly accept defeat. His integrity prevented him from doing anything except stand by while Murray made a fortune. And the situation appeared to amuse Murray enormously, for by placing the leaflets religiously in his letter box, not only was he reminding Wells of his victory, he was also defying the author to unmask him.
“I will make it a reality,” he had said. And, to Wells’s astonishment, he had done so.
31
That afternoon Wells went for a longer bicycle ride than usual, and without Jane.
He needed to think while he pedaled, he told her. Dressed in his favorite Norfolk jacket, he rode slowly and silently along the Surrey byways while his mind, oblivious to the action of his legs, reflected on how to reply to the letter penned by the naïve girl named Claire Haggerty. According to the imaginative tale Tom had concocted in the tearoom, their correspondence would consist of seven letters, of which he would write three and Claire, four, and in the last she would ask him to travel through time to return her parasol. Otherwise, Wells was free to write whatever he liked, provided it did not contradict Tom’s story. And he had to admit, the more he thought about it the more intriguing he found the semiliterate young lad’s tale. It was evocative, beautiful, but above all plausible—assuming of course the existence of a machine capable of digging holes through the fabric of time and linkin
g eras, and also of course, if Murray’s view of the future were true. This was the part Wells liked least: Gilliam Murray being somehow mixed up in this, as he had been in saving the wretched Andrew Harrington’s soul. Were their lives destined to carry on being entwined, like creeping ivy? Wells felt distinctly odd now that he was stepping into the role of Captain Derek Shackleton, the character his adversary had invented. Would he be the one responsible for breathing the gift of life into that empty shell, like the God of the Old Testament? Wells arrived home after his ride pleasantly exhausted and with a rough idea of what he was going to write. He scrupulously set out his pen, an inkwell, and a sheaf of paper on the kitchen table, and asked Jane not to disturb him for the next hour. He sat at the table, drew a deep breath, and began penning his first ever love letter: Dear Claire, I, too, have been obliged to begin this letter several times over before realizing that, however strange it might seem to me, I can only begin by declaring my love to you, exactly as you requested. Although I have to confess to begin with I did not believe myself capable, and I used up several sheets trying to explain that what you were asking me to do in your letter was to make a leap of faith. I even wrote: How can I fall in love with you if I have never even seen you, Miss Haggerty? Yet, despite my understandable wariness, I had to face the facts: you insisted I had fallen in love with you.
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