The Mark and the Void

by Paul Murray

  I want to tell him what I learned in the club: that alone might make him think again. But the words stick in my throat. Somehow Clizia’s secret career seems much more damning than infidelity; and even if he knew her intentions, he has missed his chance with Dodson, so what could he do to make things right?

  A door flies open; Igor barrels out like a methylated Sasquatch. ‘What is delay?’ he rasps. ‘Hurry, hurry!’

  I follow them into a room I recognize from our previous visit. Over the fireplace hangs The Mark and the Void, its myriad darknesses sparking blackly; my skin prickles in response, making me shiver.

  ‘Dad, can I help steal the painting?’

  ‘We’re not stealing anything. It’s a trick, remember? We’re just playing a trick on Daddy’s friend. Now why don’t you sit down there on the couch and watch the TV.’ Paul goes over to the corner and switches on the set. Remington sits down dutifully.

  ‘A child at an art heist,’ Igor grumbles again. ‘Who has heard of such a thing?’

  ‘Who’s heard of getting a babysitter for an art heist?’ Paul rejoins. ‘Plus do you know how much they cost these days?’

  ‘That’s a false economy!’ Igor bellows – but Paul holds up a hand, cutting him off.

  ‘Wait a second,’ he says.

  A familiar voice is issuing from the TV. ‘We live in a civilization in the late stages of necrosis,’ it is saying. ‘What we take for life is in actuality its decomposition.’

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Shh.’

  ‘Technology is the noose that mankind swings from.’ A bronzed, austere face fills the screen. ‘Too in love with its own erection to notice it is being asphyxiated.’

  ‘Dad, this isn’t cartoons.’

  ‘Shh, be quiet.’

  ‘And the writer, where does he fit into this?’ prompts another, more diffident voice – belonging, I realize, to the man whose living room we are currently standing in.

  ‘The writer is the most tragic figure of all,’ Bimal Banerjee says. ‘The parasite that does not realize its host is dead.’

  ‘Speak for yourself, pal!’ Paul tells the TV. ‘Can you believe people actually pay money to hear this guy? It’s like getting a civics class from Charles Manson.’

  ‘Hey! Let’s get to work!’ Igor claps his hands.

  ‘All right, all right…’

  In the faint glow of the television, the Texier radiates a strange and not entirely wholesome lustre, a kind of paradoxical darklight that as they draw near it makes the two men look shadowy and insubstantial.

  ‘What we call progress is in fact a vast and unprecedented project of dissociation,’ Banerjee intones from the television. ‘A separation into individual units, technologically cocooned.’

  ‘You are sure it’s not alarmed?’ Igor growls, studying the back of the canvas.

  ‘That’s what he told me. Though that was a couple of weeks ago.’

  ‘Right,’ Igor decides, and in unison both men raise their hands to the frame.

  ‘No!’ I cry – but it is too late: they have lifted the painting away from the wall and lowered it to the floor.

  ‘Where nothing is at risk, what need is there for art?’ Banerjee says.

  ‘Ach, I leave knife in van!’ Igor says. ‘Hold on, I return.’

  He clomps out of the room. I turn quickly to Paul. ‘There is still time to stop this. Think! Even if you get away with it, what does it bring you?’

  ‘If Igor’s buyer comes through, twenty-five thousand euro.’ He looks down at the painting; laid out on the carpet it resembles a fissure, a personalized abyss we are about to tumble into.

  ‘And you genuinely believe this will solve all your problems?’

  ‘No, but it’ll solve twenty-five thousand of them,’ he says.

  ‘But people still want stories…?’ On-screen, William O’Hara is looking bewildered.

  ‘Oh yes, they still want stories,’ Banerjee replies. ‘But increasingly those stories are coming from the Third World, from the past, from the lives of people who have not yet sold their souls to machines. More and more, art resembles a kind of narrative colonialism. That is why I have come to my decision.’

  ‘What decision?’ William O’Hara asks.

  ‘What decision?’ Paul echoes.

  ‘To stop writing,’ Banerjee says.

  ‘Ha!’ Paul exclaims.

  ‘Stop writing?’ On the TV screen, William O’Hara is agog.

  ‘I do not see my art as a consumer product,’ Banerjee says. ‘Therefore I am removing it from the marketplace.’

  ‘Can’t take the heat, eh?’ Paul jeers at the TV, evidently without awareness of any irony.

  ‘But surely the writer has a duty.’ William O’Hara takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. ‘That is, we can’t simply abandon the world to its fate…?’

  ‘It is only when it has ceased to beat that the world will realize literature was its heart,’ Banerjee says. ‘But that is no longer my concern.’

  This revelation has clearly stymied O’Hara, who’s turned a dangerous-looking shade of pink; the Indian places a hand on his knee, and says, ‘Don’t worry – for those who are willing to sell themselves, there is still plenty of money to be made.’

  At this the older man’s face goes from pink to brick-red – but how he responds we do not find out, because now, from behind us, there comes a long, strangulated cry. Igor has returned from the van; he is crouched over the painting, gazing at it in horror. Following his eye down, we see, newly emblazoned in large green letters across the black canvas, REMINGTON.

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ Remington pipes up preemptively.

  Paul emits a cry of his own. ‘Oh God, Remington…’

  ‘I spelled it right,’ Remington points out.

  Igor kneels over the desecrated painting in a convulsion of rage and grief, like King Lear over Cordelia. ‘No,’ he whispers, dabbing at the green letters without effect. ‘No, no…’

  ‘Maybe they won’t notice,’ Paul ventures.

  ‘Not notice?’ Igor’s eyes flick up balefully. ‘Not notice?’

  ‘I mean…’ Paul says, backing away as Igor rises to his feet, ‘they might think it’s just … you know … modern…’

  ‘I give you something to notice!’ Igor howls, lunging after Paul, who dodges behind the television, where interviewer and interviewee are glaring at each other in silence – and it has just occurred to me to wonder whether the broadcast is live when the door flies open and the light blinks on, and there in the threshold, as if he has escaped from the screen, is Bimal Banerjee.

  For a long moment he gazes down at us; then, with a malefic grin, ‘So!’ he exclaims. From his tone it is plain that even if he does not understand the full significance of the scene, he sees, with a torturer’s instinct, an opportunity to inflict pain. ‘So!’ he declares again, with relish, and hands on hips he swaggers into the room. But almost immediately, he comes to a stop; then he crumples to the ground. Curiously, it is only after the fact that I realize what has happened – namely, that I have hit him on the head with a bronze statuette of a faun. Now he lies on the ground, utterly motionless.

  ‘Jesus, Claude, what have you done?’

  ‘What’s wrong with the man, Daddy?’

  ‘Claude’s killed him,’ Paul whispers, then looks up at me. ‘You’ve killed Bimal Banerjee!’

  Without a word, Igor dashes to the window, throws up the sash and jumps out. We should probably think about doing the same – but already another figure has appeared in the doorway: Paul’s editor, Robert Dodson. Now it is his turn to take in the scene, piece by piece: the curtain flapping at the open window; the painting on the floor, with scissors, Stanley knife, plastic sheeting arranged about it; Paul, stocking rolled back over his head, and me, still clutching the sexually explicit sculpture; and lastly the celebrated author himself, lying prostrate on the carpet, although, I am glad to see, still breathing. Nobody says a word; then, from the TV, the prerecorded Banerjee prono
unces, ‘The problem with British publishing is that it is run by dinosaurs whose whole intelligence is absorbed in avoiding evolution.’

  Robert Dodson frowns gently, sampling this thought just as one might the bouquet of a fine wine; then, stepping over Banerjee’s prone body, he shakes his umbrella into the fireplace, turns to us and says, ‘So I take it you’ve come to talk about the book?’

  * * *

  Thinking about it, it strikes me that this could be the best of all possible outcomes. To have stolen the painting would have been a disaster, the beginning of a new and unending story of guilt, paranoia and pursuit; to have bungled it in any other way than we did would have meant disgrace and very probably prison sentences. Instead, Robert Dodson takes care of everything; it’s as if he’s been tidying up botched art heists his whole life. ‘Might just stick this back on the wall,’ he says as if to himself, picking up the Texier.

  ‘It, uh, fell down,’ Paul says gruffly.

  ‘Oh yes, yes, they’ll do that,’ Dodson agrees. ‘A friend of mine works in the Tate, it’s a real problem – hullo, who’s this?’

  From behind the curtain Remington steps out, his mouth smeared with the same green pigment with which he recently augmented the painting.

  ‘This is my son,’ Paul says reluctantly.

  ‘Ah – oh,’ Dodson says. He looks at the canvas, then at the boy. ‘Might his name be Remington?’

  ‘It might,’ Paul confesses.

  ‘Right, right. Hmm, well, if you could just give me a hand to get this chap back into place…’

  The defaced painting is surprisingly heavy: we stagger over to the mantel and, gasping, hoist it back up onto its hooks. Dodson steps back and considers it. REMINGTON blares expensively back at us. ‘Tell you what,’ he says, and then, without elaborating, bends down, scoops a handful of soot from the fireplace and smears it judiciously over the sprawling letters. ‘I mean, it’s intended as a dynamic sort of a piece, changing over time and so forth,’ he says to me.

  ‘Interaction with the environment,’ I agree. ‘This is exactly the kind of thing Texier intended.’

  As he makes a few more minor adjustments, he explains that William and Crispin are still at the festival, but that Bimal Banerjee had contracted a migraine after the interview. ‘He said it was probably the high concentration of mediocrity,’ he tells us, deadpan. ‘But I’m glad, because it means we can finally have a chat about Anal Analyst.’

  Paul, hearing this, looks guiltier than he did when apprehended stealing the painting.

  ‘I must say, ever since you mentioned it that night, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it,’ Dodson says. ‘Perhaps I could tease a few more details from you? Characters, a rough idea of the length, and so on?’

  Paul lets out a long sigh. ‘Look, Robert, there is no Anal Analyst.’

  ‘There isn’t?’ The editor looks confused. I am confused too. What’s he doing? He’s been offered a lifeline, why doesn’t he grab it? And then, almost simultaneously, it hits me. Paul doesn’t want a lifeline; he has never wanted a lifeline. The real goal of the heist and his other ludicrous schemes isn’t to haul himself out of the water – it’s to scupper the ship, to find rock bottom, to rid himself once and for all of any last vestiges of hope. The failure of his last book crushed him so thoroughly that he would rather steal a painting, be caught, disgraced and imprisoned, than write another one and see it fail too.

  But this time I am not going to let him sabotage himself.

  ‘What he means,’ I interrupt, ‘is that since we saw you, the book has been significantly changed.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Dodson’s interest is piqued anew.

  ‘And improved,’ I say. Paul is glaring at me, but I ignore him. ‘Instead of a promiscuous gay man, the book now tells the story of a banker who … who falls in love with…’ I trail off. The implausibility, the unwritability of a love story set in the IFSC suddenly seems incontrovertible. But what to put in its place? Fragments of abandoned narratives float surreally about my mind’s eye: detectives, wombats, James Joyce firing a revolver. My mouth opens and closes. Dodson considers me doubtfully; Paul’s glower transmutes into a smirk – and then, in a moment of perfect simplicity, it comes, or rather it has been there all along.

  ‘It tells the story of two men,’ I say. ‘The first is a lonely banker, who spends his days making money, and his nights searching for something to spend it on, a perfect circle of meaningless consumption. He has no friends, no family. Maybe he is running from something in his past, or trying to fill some loss with possessions. Or maybe he works simply so that he doesn’t have to think. But then he meets a writer who says he wants to put him in a book. For the first time the banker begins to come out of his ennui. In reality, though, the writer is planning to rob the bank.’

  ‘Ha!’ Dodson barks appreciatively, while Paul twists his mouth up and mutters under his breath.

  ‘At first, the two men seem very different. The banker is successful, solitary; his life is dominated by money. The writer has a family, but struggles to make art in a time when everything is defined by its price tag. Beneath the surface, though, both men are driven by the same urge to escape. The writer hides behind failure just as the banker hides behind wealth. They have lost faith in the world, and in themselves.’ I avoid looking at Paul when I say this, though I can hear his ever more irritated sighs. ‘For this reason, even though his book is just a trick, the writer and the banker become friends. And with this friendship, they begin to bring each other back to life.’

  ‘So it’s a love story,’ Robert Dodson says with a smile.

  ‘I suppose you could call it that,’ I agree bashfully. ‘Through the banker, the writer is inspired to start writing his book for real –’

  ‘Yes!’ The editor brings his hands together. ‘I can see it. It’s all about giving, isn’t it? The writer gives the banker companionship, the banker gives the writer faith, the writer begins a new book, about the banker, the same man he once believed was nothing more than an empty shell – and he gives that to us! We realize it’s the very book that we’re now holding in our hands!’

  ‘Yes, yes!’ I listen to this, grinning, with a sense, joyous as it is inexplicable, that everything has come together, all problems solved.

  Then Dodson looks back at me and says, ‘And the banker?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The banker, what happens to him?’

  ‘What happens…?’

  ‘He can’t just go back to the office after all that, can he?’

  ‘No, no, of course not … no, the banker…’ He can’t go back to the office, I can see that, but as to what he should do instead – ‘The banker … ah…’

  Dodson slowly nods his head, willing me on, but it’s no good, my mind has gone blank, and no matter how I try, all I can see is the banker at his desk, obediently tending to his work, his terminal full of numbers. ‘The banker has to … he has to…’

  ‘That’s enough,’ Paul says.

  I slump, gaze back at him wretchedly.

  Paul turns to the editor with a stony countenance. ‘He’s just trying to cover for me. The truth is that when I said, “There is no book,” that’s exactly what I meant.’

  ‘There’s no book?’ Dodson’s kindly, clever face puckers in incomprehension.

  ‘There’s no book, Claude is not my life partner, we’ve never been to Sweden. I don’t write anymore, Robert. I haven’t had a saleable idea in seven years. I didn’t come here tonight to talk to you about a manuscript. I came to steal that painting.’

  ‘Oh,’ Dodson says. His brows furrow and knead together, as though masticating this information – then once again the door opens, and William O’Hara enters in a state of panic.

  ‘The window in the alley’s smashed!’ he exclaims, then notices our presence. ‘Hullo,’ he says.

  ‘Bumped into these boys out for a walk,’ Dodson breezes. ‘Asked them in for a minute – hope that’s all right?’

  ‘O
ut for a walk?’ William O’Hara repeats, rainwater dripping off his coat into a pool at his feet.

  ‘Yes, babysitting this little chap here. Can’t sleep, poor thing –anyhow, they wanted to say hello.’

  ‘We were very sorry to miss the interview,’ I chip in.

  ‘Count your blessings,’ William O’Hara says.

  He steps back, inspects us thoughtfully. Remington is chewing on his crayon; the rolled-up stocking is still perched on top of Paul’s head, like a tiny beige beret. O’Hara clears his throat. He appears on the point of asking a question, a question that I suspect will prove very hard to answer, when he is distracted by a groan.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he says, and then, peering over the couch, ‘What’s Banerjee doing on the floor?’

  ‘Touch of migraine,’ Robert Dodson says.

  ‘Oh,’ William O’Hara says. He sounds cheered. He takes another look at the felled author and says brightly, ‘Well! Who’s for a drink?’

  ‘We should bring this little boy home,’ I say.

  ‘Suit yourselves,’ O’Hara says. ‘I’ll let you out.’ He turns for the door – then, as if it has yanked at his sleeve, turns back again and stares at The Mark and the Void. He remains staring for what seems like a very long time. ‘You know,’ he says at last, ‘I don’t mean to sound like I’m bragging, but every time I look at that painting I see something new.’ He shakes his head proudly. ‘That’s a real work of art,’ he says.

  Igor and the van are long gone, and neither of us has any cash, so there is no choice but to walk back towards the river. The rain has restarted, and descends on us in enormous drenching globules. The mood, it need hardly be said, is low.

  ‘You should not be disappointed,’ I tell him. ‘From what I have read, art theft is a very hard crime to pull off.’

  Paul nods morosely. ‘It’s Igor I feel bad for,’ he says. ‘He was going to buy a hot tub.’