by Rose Tremain
‘So you see, Walt …’
Walt picked up the Biofeed bottle and held it in his hand, as if trying to guess its weight. Then he sighed.
‘I’ve always trusted you, Ralph. You had some quirky ideas, okay. But I thought you were a guy to trust. I can tell you that this is very, very disappointing for me when I see you go right against me and against Bulletin Worldwide. Very disappointing indeed. And when I ask myself if I have a choice …’
‘It’s very hard to explain it all, Walt. You’ve got a meeting and I’ve had no sleep trying to make sense of it all. But I’ve got good material, Walt. And I mean really good. Stuff that no one else has ever bothered with – enough for four – maybe six – in-depth articles …’
‘No, Ralph.’
‘What d’ya mean, “no”?’
‘There isn’t the market for it, kid. Go copy it all out for some small-circulation literary rag, if they’ll take it. We’re not interested.’
‘Sure you’re interested, you punk! It’s one helluva life!’
‘The obit’s been done, Ralph.’
‘What d’you mean, it’s been done. Who did it?’
‘Just don’t quarrel, kid. It’s been done.’
‘Who by?’
‘I don’t recall.’
‘Let me see it. How long was it?’
‘Sure you can see it.’
‘How fucking long was it, Walt?’
‘Six or seven. I don’t remember.’
‘Six or seven what?’
‘Lines.’
Ralph put down his paper cup on Walt’s desk. He stared at his hands empty in his lap. Suddenly the coffee tasted sour in his throat and his head ached. He felt a wave of nausea. He twisted his fingers together, hating the inactivity of his hands. He knew that Walt was watching him and thought, I hate him. It’s as straightforward as that. I despise him. He didn’t look up. Another wave of nausea had come and gone, he heard Walt slap the Biofeed bottle down on his blotter.
‘I’m sorry, kid.’
Still Ralph couldn’t bear to look at him.
‘Sorry about what?’
‘I had great hopes for you at Bulletin and I know we were good buddies …’
‘Out your ass!’
‘Have it your own way. You always did, I guess. But it’s no birthday party firing a friend.’
Outside the Bulletin Worldwide building, Ralph stood and stared at the traffic. It was a bright morning, the sky above East 53rd Street a deep blue. Slowly, he set off in the direction of his apartment, but walking in the warm sunshine was no pleasure. His stomach was still nauseous and his legs felt unaccountably weak. He climbed gratefully into the first cab that stopped and rode home in exhausted silence.
Climbing his stairs, he held grimly to the polished rail. It’s as if, he thought, my sense of balance has gone: too much has happened; I’m ill with events. Yet the loss of his job came as no surprise. He’d known for some time – known but not admitted? – that he was pushing Walt too far. Walt was Walt, unchanging and unchanged in his enormous body. The body would push back, and that would be that. An ending. The canned music would go on and on in the elevators, the telephonists would simper their repetitious greeting: ‘Bulletin Worldwide, can I help you?’ Walt would swallow his daily laxative with his first cup of coffee, go round with the Biofeed bottle before the serious work of the day began … already it was meaningless, a world too contained in itself to contain him. And now that he was free of it …
His telephone was ringing.
‘Ralph? Walt here.’
He was breathless after the climb to his door. He carried the telephone to the bed and lay down.
‘Ralph? You there.’
‘Thought you had a meeting, Walt.’
‘Yes. I’m in a meeting. That’s why I’m calling. I’ve been reminded that you’re in possession of Bulletin property.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘The tapes. You said you had nine tapes.’
Ralph was silent. I can’t stand his voice, he thought. I hate it.
‘You there, Ralph?’
‘Sure.’
‘Okay. Well I’ve made a promise on your behalf that the Erica March tapes will be back in this office by tomorrow afternoon. Otherwise legal action will be forthcoming.’
‘Forthcoming?’ What an idiotic word to use, Ralph thought.
‘Watcha gonna do with ’em, Walt? Have them for breakfast?’
‘Tomorrow four o’clock. Okay?’
‘Put yoghurt and sugar on them?’
‘Cut the garbage, Ralph. Just bring the tapes back.’
Walt hung up. Ralph rubbed his eyes then put his arms behind his head and stared at the ceiling.
‘Sonofabitch,’ he whispered.
*
When he woke, there was a strawberry sky at his window. Across the hallway his neighbour, Joe Beale, was playing a track from Nina Simone’s Baltimore. He must have played that track a thousand times, Ralph thought, playing and playing that darn song, when he could have been watering my herbs, if only I’d remembered to give him a key. ‘Hi Joe!’ Ralph called. ‘I’m home and jobless!’ But Joe Beale didn’t hear and the song went on:
There is so little
left alive
you can be sure of.
Rain comes from the clouds,
sunlight from the sky,
humming birds do fly …’
Ralph got up and walked stiffly to the open window. It was hot in the room and already the cold of London seemed very far away. He leaned out and touched his plants. The soil was dry, yet all the herbs except the parsley had survived his absence and were in full leaf.
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Copyright © Rose Tremain 1981
Rose Tremain has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
First published by Vintage in 1999
First published in Great Britain by Hamish Hamilton in 1989
www.penguin.co.uk/vintage
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9780099284178