First Person

by Richard Flanagan

  4

  We lived halfway up an old, steep street. With its rotting colonial cottages, the street always seemed on the brink of a gentrification that never came and never would come. No one much in the street seemed to work. Our next-door neighbour was a junkie family, the father of whom was up on eighty-three separate drug charges. They survived by dealing, and an unmarked police car sat outside most days watching who came and went. Occasionally, Meredith, one half of the junkie couple, would come out with a mug of tea, smoke quietly, enjoying the day, the air, the cars and people who passed. When her tea was drained and fag finished, she would straighten up, lean out over the low, cracked concrete fence, tense with a sudden rage, and scream, Fuck off pig cunts! And two figures in the car opposite would slump downwards.

  That night, chatting with Suzy after tea, both of us watching Bo playing in a cardboard box, I felt something unexpected: such an enormity of emotion that it seemed more had passed among the three of us in five minutes than could be described in a thousand-page novel.

  It was an overwhelming feeling, a transcendent few moments that was also an eternity, in which all was one—the sound of Bo’s breathing, the rustle of the bark and leaves she had collected from the park and was playing with, a toy black bird that Suzy circled Bo’s head with, Suzy’s smile, Bo’s laughter, the doll thrown under the table, its head half-gone, grey flock stuffing spilling onto the lino floor and some Argentinian ants crawling around it—yes, all was one, and even the smallest things seemed pregnant with revelation.

  And I knew that if I could just get a fraction of what I had just seen and felt into words and onto the monitor, I would have my book. I rushed up the stairs to my tiny writing room, climbed over the desk and slid down into my chair, jammed between the desk and the wall with just enough space that I could shimmy into it.

  But the Mac Plus froze almost immediately. I manually ejected the floppy disk with a paperclip I kept solely for that daily purpose, switched the machine off and on and reinserted the disk. As I waited for it to boot back up there came through the wall the sound of screaming as the junkie couple fought. I had a cassette player that I turned on at such times. Its sound, thin and crumpled, seemed only to amplify the thick noise of a world collapsing a wall away.

  After several more reboots the Mac Plus seemed to find its necessary equilibrium. But the words that I now typed conveyed not a speck of what I had felt. Not a jot, not a glimmer. When I went to write, all the things I had known so strongly and completely just before lost all feeling. They became nothing.

  Some cement dust appeared on the keyboard, shaken out from my fingernails by the tapping of keys. I flicked the keyboard upside down, drummed its back, and righted it. I tried to re-enter the dream, the drift I had known only a few minutes before with Bo and Suzy. But it was gone. I swept the cement dust off the desk and into the beer carton I kept for waste paper. The screen froze once more. When I went to eject the floppy disk and reboot the machine, the paperclip snapped from metal fatigue. From behind the wall came the sound of a bottle smashing, Meredith’s sobbing, then silence. I found a notebook and went to write, but when the pen touched the paper the words vanished. There had been a moment but the moment had gone.

  5

  I was still staring at a taunting cursor and empty screen when Suzy called from downstairs, saying there was a phone call for me. I went back down to the lounge room, the lazy heat of the fire, and picked up the receiver. The speaker didn’t introduce himself immediately but asked if I was Kif Kehlmann. The accent was private school Anglo-Australian, superior. On my saying I was, he introduced himself as Gene Paley, the head of Schlegel TransPacific Publishing and Siegfried Heidl’s publisher.

  I was dumbstruck.

  He asked what I had written. I told him about my history of Tasmanian modernism and the Wangaratta City Council short story prize. He fell silent for some moments, and in that silence I felt the full insignificance of my autobiography.

  Nothing else? he said finally.

  A novel, I said. Almost done. Just tidying up a few loose ends.

  I’ve looked at Dead Tide. Good title.

  Quiet Currents, I corrected. A History of—

  Mmm, Gene Paley said over the top of me. Well done. Titles are important. But can you ghost write a memoir?

  In the silence that followed silence followed.

  What do you think? Gene Paley said after some time, as Suzy pointed to the phone and I mouthed shock and mimed writing. You understand that if I was to employ you, you must accept our advice. Me. Editors. So on. If we say that must go, or this needs more work, you have to do what we say.

  I had no idea what editing entailed. Hoppy Head Press proved assiduous, even pedantic proofreaders. But that was all. I also felt confused: I hadn’t said I would be taking the job; I had readied myself to tell Gene Paley with what I felt was the easygoing casualness of a real writer who has a lot on his plate that I too had plenty on mine. I realised I needed to state my refusal quickly, as Gene Paley continued on about how it would involve working closely with Heidl, that I would need to come to Melbourne, that—

  I haven’t, I said, said yes.

  No? Gene Paley said.

  Yes.

  Good, Gene Paley said. You’ll be paid ten thousand dollars on delivery of an edited manuscript. No royalties. No rights. Just ten thousand dollars. It’s a lot of work, I’m the first to admit it. But it’s good money.

  Ten? I said, shocked, because I guess I hadn’t really believed Heidl, and the way I said it seemed in a strange way assent, or agreement.

  Yes.

  Expenses, I said, not knowing why I was saying such a thing. I had no experience of this sort of dealing, but I felt I had to push now. I would be in Melbourne, there’s accommodation, travel, food, and—

  How much?

  Sorry?

  How much do you want?

  This was an unexpected question to which I had no answer. I imagined that there would be tram fares, lunch—a pie or salad roll or some such—perhaps a coffee or two. I could sleep on the floor at Sully’s place—Sully was an old family friend, and was always welcoming when I visited the mainland—so that would more or less be it. I quickly calculated my daily costs would be in the vicinity of nine dollars.

  Eleven fifty, I said. But—

  I couldn’t finish the sentence. Even in 1992 eleven dollars fifty was an insignificant sum. It didn’t seem quite the right moment to say I was refusing the offer. And in not finishing the sentence, I sensed something was happening that I hadn’t intended, some shift in an unspoken balance of power, and I was not in control.

  Eleven dollars fifty? I heard Gene Paley say.

  Yes, I said, growing uncomfortable.

  Mmm, Gene Paley said.

  I wasn’t really arguing about expenses, I realised, but something fundamental: my dignity as a writer. And I was using a ludicrous demand for pie money to assert the very fact I was a writer, however dubious a fact that might have been. My dilemma was Gene Paley seemed to be agreeing I was a writer. And at that remarkable point I could have no argument with him and had to agree—

  Yes, I said. That’s it.

  I was already regretting not going in harder and pushing for a round fifteen dollars, when I sensed that was equally stupid and that I was very far out of my depth.

  Total? Gene Paley asked, the slightest tone of incredulity in his voice. He was relieving me of the painful charade of pretending I had a difficult choice. He understood my needs far better than me, but he wasn’t, as I was to discover, alone in that.

  I need to think, I said.

  Mmm, Gene Paley said.

  I sensed, wrongly, that this urbane-sounding publisher may have calculated that a salad roll, coffee and tram fare would be lucky to come to nine dollars, and now suspected me of shameful deceit. I heard what I feared was a stifled laugh.

  I can bring tea bags, I said. Or—

  Kif—may I call you Kif? Kif, let’s forget expenses. I’ll give
you a work car while you’re here. How does that sound?

  Amazing, I said, and regretted it immediately. I was so naive I was still impressed by such things; worse, Gene Paley now knew it.

  And you can eat at our canteen free of charge.

  I need to think about it, I said, trying to steady, seeking to ready him for my refusal while striving for the correct tone and failing.

  I’ll throw in a staff petrol card, Gene Paley said. That way you don’t pay for fuel.

  I haven’t said—I began, but for a second time I didn’t know how to finish. The words just drifted away. I hadn’t said—what? No? Yes? I want more money? I could hear my breath in the receiver.

  Kif, can I take you into my confidence? Did Siegfried give you any sense of a timetable?

  He said we’d need to do it fairly quickly.

  As I was saying, Siegfried Heidl goes to court in six and a half weeks’ time. He’ll be going to jail for a very, very long time. The book has to be finished before the trial.

  Six weeks to write a first draft?

  To finish a book.

  Mr. Paley—

  Gene. Please.

  Gene. I don’t think I—

  Don’t think now, Kif. Take all the time you need to think in the next twenty-four hours, and just give me your answer tomorrow night.

  And to this I agreed, because it’s always easier to agree than not. And besides, it played to my vanity to think that I had this momentous decision to make, when in my heart the decision had been long ago made: I would not be ghost writing any book. The only book I was going to make up was my own. The world begins with a yes. And so too hell.

  5

  1

  MR PALEY?

  Gene, please.

  There was a pause. A day had passed, my resolve not to sell out had only strengthened, and Suzy—though a little disappointed about the money we were forsaking—supported me in my implacable stand. And yet, somehow, I had started my second call with the publisher badly.

  It’s a very generous offer, Gene, I said. But—

  It is, he said, handsome.

  I was trying to think how I could phrase my refusal but retain some connection with Gene Paley—the only real publisher who had ever spoken to me—that might lead to his publishing my novel when I finished it. But it wasn’t simply that this necessary politeness was leading me astray. It was also as if there was an inevitability about the conversation that I hadn’t understood. Gene Paley, of course, knew what he wanted. I just hadn’t realised he also knew what I wanted.

  Gene, I was working on my novel last night—

  Yes! Your novel! he said, dragging out the word novel as though I were offering him the prospect of the original manuscript of Ulysses. I have had my secretary take the liberty of booking you a morning flight tomorrow to Melbourne.

  This took my breath away. I had been about to say no, and here it was, everything finally happening—the flight, work, a book. Money. All mine, if I just said yes. I didn’t say yes. But nor did I say no. I parried, I paused, I argued, thinking it was for time.

  You did say ten thousand dollars? I heard myself ask in a tone I didn’t recognise, as if seeking confirmation of a deal I still thought I was going to reject.

  Yes. Ten thousand.

  I heard myself say that my wife was eight months pregnant with twins and I heard myself insist that I wanted flights home every weekend, and, to my astonishment, I heard Gene Paley agree to my conditions.

  I drew breath, and, emboldened, continued.

  And if she goes into labour while I’m working in Melbourne, I want a flight home immediately, I said, albeit with a slight nervous stammer.

  Absolutely.

  And two thousand up front?

  I couldn’t believe what I was saying, but the idea of finally being a writer and, even more incredibly, being paid, was infinitely seductive.

  Those sort of details, Kif, we can sort out when you arrive—agree a plan, meet Siegfried, and you two can be at work by lunchtime.

  Okay, I heard myself agreeing although I didn’t really agree at all. Perhaps I just wanted to savour it all a few moments more.

  Some minutes later I put down the phone. I went to the kitchen, poured a glass of water, and put it down.

  What happened? Suzy asked. Did you say yes?

  No, I said. No, I didn’t.

  And I hadn’t. Instead I had felt a riptide grabbing me, taking me out, and rather than fight it I had swum with it.

  And here I was.

  For the first time in twenty-four hours I did what I’d said I’d spend the last twenty-four hours doing—thinking. Some people later said that I should have had moral qualms about working with a criminal; perhaps I said I did, but really what did I know about him other than vague memories of news items on TV and in the papers? I remembered a smile, some accusations, more rumours, nothing that would bring on outrage or make me feel he was morally beneath me. Wasn’t I a writer, after all? Nothing was beneath me.

  The only concern I can recall having was this: how on earth did you ghost write a book? I was a Kehlmann of all trades, a jack hammerer and a doorman, occasional roof painter, and a Bartleby of writing, forever saying No to finishing my own book. Now, in some way I didn’t understand, I found myself fully committed to writing another book for someone else. Yet there was no evidence I was capable of such a task. My presumption was that because I could do so many other things—admittedly menial, even trivial—well, surely, I reassured myself, I could write a book. It wasn’t the sort of idea writers confessed to in the Paris Review. But it was the only idea I had, and for no explicable reason I took comfort from it. I headed upstairs to pack the small duffle bag that was all I had for travel.

  What are you doing? I heard Suzy say from the bedroom door. I thought—

  And when I looked up and saw her, huge as a battleship with our two children inside her, ridiculous as it sounds, I laughed with joy.

  I’m going to be a writer, I said.

  2

  STP Publishing was a six-storey complex set in the wastelands of Port Melbourne amidst other such purpose-built bunkers, out of which poked black glass rectangles at irregular intervals. The landscaping was of the brutish bush banal then in vogue with aged-care facilities and other sundry reposes of last hope—state schools, warehouses, outer-suburban supermarkets—concrete planter boxes rendered in beige acrylics, bedecked with spiky grasses arranged like bouquets of olive-green stilettoes.

  As I drove up in a cab I saw Ray standing next to one such concrete garden bed, his tall figure stooping over a short, bearded man wearing sunglasses, a red baseball jacket and a baseball cap. Ray came over to the cab as I was paying the driver. His mood was at once conspiratorial and furtive, unlike anything I had ever known in him.

  Good you’re here, mate. Come and meet Ziggy.

  He’s inside already? I said, surprised.

  No, that’s him there, he said, gesturing with a tilt of the head in the direction of the short man in the baseball cap.

  Is that a false beard?

  He’s worried there might be a hit on him. He’s in disguise.

  It’s a false beard.

  Ray halted, as if confused, then his mind seemed to clear. Perhaps sensing the oddity of his own situation, he laughed.

  Could be anyone, mate—the hitman could be you!

  Me for sure, I said.

  The sky was flat, the street devoid of shadows, and there was something welcoming, even reassuring in such uniform mediocrity where everything had been reduced to the need to make money and only make money or otherwise not exist. I felt strangely moved. It looked like the future, and for a short time yet I felt part of it.

  In this transcendent frame of mind I wasn’t looking where I was going. As we walked over to Heidl I trod in a fluoro-green puddle of what I assume was leaked coolant. I felt the fluid wash in the torn gap between my Adidas Vienna’s sole and upper, and dampen my sock so badly it squelched.

  It wasn�
�t how I wanted to meet Heidl, to be introduced to a publishing company, to begin work, with one soggy foot slowly growing cold through the day. I took the runner off, tipped out what fluid wasn’t absorbed in my sock and felt my good spirits run away with the gritty green liquid. It was while so balanced on one leg, stooped in a semi-crouch, that I heard a voice say my name.

  On looking up I saw my distorted reflection in a set of mirrored sunglasses. The impression of my cringing self lasted only a moment and then the dull epoxy stucco, the tinted windows, the black track marks of silicon joining the tilt-slabs of STP Publishing came into view and, in front, there stood a short, slightly flabby man in aviator sunglasses wearing a ridiculous fake beard staring down at me. As disguises went, the beard, along with the American baseball jacket—an oddity in Australia—seemed to be about drawing attention rather than evading it.

  These days I take comfort from photoshopped images in cookbooks, or advertisements for watches which rise to an idea of serene hope watches can never attain. That, and instagramming food. But in those days, my better days, I guess, optimistic as they were for us all, I hoped to like people. Still, I felt surprised to meet in one of Australia’s greatest criminals somebody so mundane. But what human being ever is the equal of their works? As if reading my mind Heidl said in a soft voice, his accent a light German, less stilted than it sounded on the phone:

  All human contact is a form of disappointment. Adding, as he smiled: Tebbe.

  Only later did I realise he was talking about me.

  Ray made the introductions. Heidl called me Kif; I called him Siegfried. He had about him the unsettling manners of an unctuous undertaker, the sudden reforming of the mouth into an empty smile, the firm taking of your hand in his, the fixed staring into your eyes while his remained hidden behind his gold-framed sunglasses.