by Tom Sharpe
*
But if Piper was radiant, Frensic wasn’t. ‘This thing could blow up in our faces,’ he told Sonia when she arrived. ‘We got the poor sod drunk and he signed the contract but what happens if he changes his mind?’
‘No way,’ said Sonia. ‘We make a down-payment on the tour and you take him round to Corkadales this afternoon and get him to sign for Search. That way we sew him up good and tight.’
‘Methinks I hear the voice of Hutchmeyer speaking,’ said Frensic. ‘Sew him up good and tight. Tight being the operative word. Good I have doubts about.’
‘It’s for his own,’ said Sonia. ‘Name me some other way he’s ever going to see Search in print.’
Frensic nodded his agreement. ‘Geoffrey is going to have a fit when he sees what he’s agreed to publish. The Magic Mountain in East Finchley. The mind boggles. You should have read Piper’s version of Nostromo, likewise set in East Finchley.’
‘I’ll wait for the reviews,’ said Sonia. ‘In the meantime we’ll have made a cool quarter of a million. Pounds, Frenzy, not dollars. Think of that.’
‘I have thought of that,’ said Frensic. ‘I have also thought what will happen if this thing goes wrong. We’ll be out of business.’
‘It isn’t going to go wrong. I’ve been on the phone to Eleanor Beazley of the Books To Be Read programme. She owes me a favour. She’s agreed to squeeze Piper into next week’s—’
‘No,’ said Frensic. ‘Definitely not. I won’t have you rushing Piper—’
‘Listen, baby,’ said Sonia, ‘we’ve got to strike while the iron’s hot. We get Piper on the box saying he wrote Pause and he ain’t going to back out nohow.’
Frensic regarded her with distaste. ‘He ain’t going to back out nohow? Charming. We’re really getting into Mafia-land now. And kindly don’t “baby” me. If there is one expression I abominate it’s being called “baby”. And as for putting the poor demented Piper on the box, have you thought what effect this is going to have on Cadwalladine and his anonymous client?’
‘Cadwalladine has agreed to the substitution in principle,’ said Sonia. ‘What’s he got to complain about?’
‘There is a difference between “in principle” and “in practice”,’ said Frensic. ‘What he actually said was that he would consult his client.’
‘And has he let you know?’
‘Not yet,’ said Frensic, ‘and in some ways I rather hope he turns the idea down. At least it would put an end once and for all to the internecine strife between my greed and my scruples.’
But even that relief was denied him. Half an hour later a telegram was delivered. CLIENT AGREES TO SUBSTITUTION STOP ANONYMITY OVERRIDING CONSIDERATION CADWALLADINE.
‘So we’re in the clear,’ said Sonia. ‘I’ll confirm Piper for Wednesday and see if the Guardian will run a feature on him. You get on to Geoffrey and arrange for Piper to exchange contracts for Search this afternoon.’
‘That could lead to misunderstandings,’ said Frensic. ‘Geoffrey happens to think Piper wrote Pause and since Piper hasn’t read Pause, let alone written the thing …’
‘So you take him out to lunch and liquor him up and …’
‘Have you ever considered,’ asked Frensic, ‘going into the kidnapping business?’
*
In the event there was no need to liquor Piper up. He arrived in a state of euphoria and installed himself in Sonia’s office where he sat gazing at her meaningfully while she telephoned the literary editors of several daily papers to arrange pre-publication interviews with the author of the world’s most expensively purchased novel. Pause O Men for the Virgin. In the next office Frensic coped with the ordinary business of the day. He phoned Geoffrey Corkadale and made an appointment for Piper in the afternoon, he listened abstractedly to the whining of two authors who were having difficulties with their plots, did his best to assure them that it would all come right in the end and tried to ignore the intimations of his own instincts which were telling him that with the signing up of Piper the firm of Frensic & Futtle had bitten off more than they could chew. Finally when Piper went downstairs to the washroom Frensic managed to have a word with Sonia.
‘What gives?’ he asked, a lapse into transatlantic brevity that indicated his disturbed state of mind.
‘The Guardian have agreed to interview him tomorrow and the Telegraph say they’ll let me—’
‘With Piper. Whence the fixed smile and the goggle eyes?’
Sonia smiled. ‘Has it ever occurred to you that he might find me attractive?’
‘No,’ said Frensic. ‘No it hasn’t.’
Sonia’s smile faded. ‘Get lost,’ she said.
Frensic got lost and considered this new and quite incomprehensible development. It was one of the fixed stars in his firmament of opinions that no one in his right mind could find Sonia Futtle attractive apart from Hutchmeyer, and Hutchmeyer had evidently perverse tastes both in books and in women. That Piper should be in love with her, and at such short notice, intruded a new dimension into the situation – which in his opinion was sufficiently crowded already. Frensic sat down behind his desk and wondered what advantages could be gained from Piper’s infatuation.
‘At least it gets me off the hook,’ he muttered finally and went next door again. But Piper was back in his chair gazing with adoring eyes at Sonia. Frensic retreated and phoned her.
‘From now on, he’s your pigeon,’ he told her. ‘You dine, wine him and anything else that pleases you. The man’s besotted.’
‘Jealousy will get you nowhere,’ said Sonia smiling at Piper.
‘Right,’ said Frensic, ‘I want no part of this corruption of the innocent.’
‘Squeamish?’ said Sonia.
‘Extremely,’ said Frensic and put down the phone.
‘Who was that?’ asked Piper.
‘Oh, just an editor at Heinemann. He’s got a crush on me.’
‘Hm,’ said Piper disgruntledly.
And so while Frensic lunched at his club, a thing he did only when his ego, vanity or virility (such as it was) had taken a bashing in the real world, Sonia swept the besotted Piper off to Wheelers and fed him on dry Martinis, Rhine wine, salmon cutlets and her own brand of expansive charm. By the time they emerged into the street he had told her in so many words that he considered her the first woman in his life to have possessed both the physical and mental attractions which made for a real relationship and one who moreover understood the true nature of the creative literary act. Sonia Futtle was not used to such ardent confessions. The few advances she had had in the past had been expressed less fluently and had largely consisted of inquiries as to whether she would or wouldn’t, so Piper’s technique, borrowed almost entirely from Hans Castorp in The Magic Mountain with a bit of Lawrence thrown in for good measure, came as a pleasant surprise. There was an old-fashioned quality about him, she decided, which made a nice change. Besides, Piper, for all his literary ambitions, was personable and not without an angular charm and Sonia could accommodate any amount of angular charm. It was a flushed and flattered Sonia who stood on the pavement and hailed a taxi to take them to Corkadales.
‘Just don’t shoot your mouth off too much,’ she said as they drove across London. ‘Geoffrey Corkadale’s a fag and he’ll do the talking. He’ll probably say a whole lot of complimentary things about Pause O Men for the Virgin and you just nod.’
Piper nodded. The world was a gay, gay place in which anything was possible and everything permissible. As an accepted author it became him to be modest. In the event he excelled himself at Corkadales. Inspired by the sight of Trollope’s ink-pot in the glass case he launched into an explanation of his own writing techniques with particular reference to the use of evaporated ink, exchanged contracts for Search, and accepted Geoffrey’s praise of Pause as a first-rate novel with a suitably ironical smile.
‘Extraordinary to think he could have written that filthy book,’ Geoffrey whispered to Sonia as they were leaving. ‘I had expecte
d some long-haired hippie and my dear, this one is out of the Ark.’
‘Just shows you can never tell,’ said Sonia. ‘Anyway you’re going to get a lot of excellent publicity for Pause. I’ve got him on the Books To Be Read programme.’
‘How very clever you are,’ said Geoffrey. ‘I’m delighted. And the American deal is definitely on?’
‘Definitely,’ said Sonia.
They took another taxi and drove back towards Lanyard Lane.
‘You were marvellous,’ she told Piper. ‘Just stick to talking about your pens and ink and how you write your books and refuse to discuss their content and we’ll have no trouble.’
‘Nobody seems to discuss books anyway,’ said Piper. ‘I thought the conversation would be quite different. More literary.’
He got out in Charing Cross Road and spent the rest of the afternoon browsing in Foyle’s while Sonia went back to the office and reassured Frensic.
‘No problems,’ she said. ‘He had Geoffrey fooled.’
‘That’s hardly surprising,’ said Frensic, ‘Geoffrey is a fool. Wait till Eleanor Beazley starts asking him about his portrayal of the sexual psyche of an eighty-year-old woman. That’s when the fat’s going to be in the fire.’
‘She won’t. I’ve told her he never discusses his past work. She’s to stick to biographical details and how he works. He’s really convincing when he gets on to pens and ink. Did you know he uses evaporated ink and writes in leatherbound ledgers? Isn’t that quaint?’
‘I’m only surprised he doesn’t use a quill,’ said Frensic. ‘It’s in keeping.’
‘It’s good copy. The Guardian interview with Jim Fossie is tomorrow morning and the Telegraph wants him for the colour supplement in the afternoon. I tell you this bandwagon is beginning to roll.’
That night, as Frensic made his way back to his flat with Piper, it was clear that the bandwagon had indeed begun to roll. The news-stands announced BRITISH NOVELIST MAKES TWO MILLION IN BIGGEST DEAL EVER.
‘Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive,’ murmured Frensic and bought a paper. Beside him Piper nursed the large green hardback copy of Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus which he had bought at Foyle’s. He was thinking of utilizing its symphonic approach in his third novel.
6
Next morning the bandwagon began to roll in earnest. After a night spent dreaming of Sonia and preparing himself for the ordeal, Piper arrived at the office to discuss his life, literary opinions and methods of work with Jim Fossie of the Guardian. Frensic and Sonia hovered anxiously in the background to ensure discretion but there was no need. Whatever Piper’s limitations as a writer of novels, as a putative novelist he played his role expertly. He spoke of Literature in the abstract, referred scathingly to one or two eminent contemporary novelists, but for the most part concentrated on the use of evaporated ink and the limitations of the modern fountain pen as an aid to literary creation.
‘I believe in craftsmanship,’ he said, ‘the old-fashioned virtues of clarity and legibility.’ He told a story about Palmerston’s insistence on fine writing by the clerks in the Foreign Office and dismissed the ballpen with contempt. So obsessive was his concern with calligraphy that Mr Fossie had ended the interview before he realized that no mention had been made of the novel he had come to discuss.
‘He’s certainly different from any other author I’ve ever met,’ he told Sonia as she saw him out. ‘All that stuff about Kipling’s notepaper, for God’s sake!’
‘What do you expect from genius?’ said Sonia. ‘Some spiel about how brilliant his novel is?’
‘And how brilliant is this genius’s novel?’
‘Two-million-dollars’ worth. That’s the reality value.’
‘Some reality,’ said Mr Fossie with more percipience than he knew.
Even Frensic, who had anticipated disaster, was impressed. ‘If he keeps that up we’ll be all right,’ he said.
‘We’re going to be fine,’ said Sonia.
After lunch the Daily Telegraph photographer insisted, thanks to a chance remark by Piper that he had once lived near the scene of the explosion in The Secret Agent in Greenwich Park, on taking his photographs as it were on location.
‘It adds dramatic interest,’ he said, evidently supposing the explosion to have been a real one. They went down on the riverboat from Charing Cross, Piper explaining to the interviewer, Miss Pamela Wildgrove, that Conrad had been a major influence on his work. Miss Wildgrove made a note of the fact. Piper said Dickens had also been an influence. Miss Wildgrove made a note of that fact too. By the time they reached Greenwich her notebook was crammed with influences but Piper’s own work had hardly been mentioned.
‘I understand Pause O Men for the Virgin deals with the love affair between a seventeen-year-old boy and …’ Miss Wildgrove began but Sonia intervened.
‘Mr Piper doesn’t wish to discuss the content of his novel,’ she said hurriedly. ‘We’re keeping the book under wraps.’
‘But surely he’s prepared to say …’
‘Let’s just say it is a work of major importance and opens new ground in the area of age differentials,’ said Sonia and hurried Piper away to be photographed incongruously on the deck of the Cutty Sark, in the grounds of the Maritime Museum and by the Observatory. Miss Wildgrove followed disconsolately.
‘On the way back stick to ink and your ledgers,’ Sonia told Piper and Piper followed her advice with a distinctly nautical flavour while Sonia shepherded her charge back to the office.
‘You did very well,’ she told him.
‘Yes, but hadn’t I better read this book I’m supposed to have written? I mean, I don’t even know what it’s about.’
‘You can do that on the boat going over to the States.’
‘Boat?’ said Piper.
‘Much nicer than flying,’ said Sonia. ‘Hutchmeyer is arranging some big reception for you in New York and it will draw bigger crowds at the dockside. Anyway we’ve done the interviews and the TV programme isn’t till next Wednesday. You can go back to Exforth and pack. Get back here Tuesday afternoon and I’ll brief you for the programme. We’re leaving from Southampton Thursday.’
‘You’re wonderful,’ said Piper fervently, ‘I want you to know that.’ He left the office and caught the evening train to Exeter. Sonia sat on in her office and thought wistfully about him. Nobody had ever told her she was wonderful before.
*
Certainly Frensic didn’t next morning. He arrived at the office in a towering rage carrying a copy of the Guardian.
‘I thought you told me all he was going to talk about was inks and pens,’ he shouted at the startled Sonia.
‘That’s right. He was quite fascinating.’
‘Well then kindly explain all this about Graham Greene being a second-rate hack,’ Frensic yelled and thrust the article under her nose. ‘That’s right. Hack. Graham Greene. A hack. The man’s insane!’
Sonia read the article and had to admit that it was a bit extreme.
‘Still, it’s good publicity,’ she said. ‘Statements like that will get his name before the public.’
‘Get his name before the courts more like,’ said Frensic. ‘And what about this bit about The French Lieutenant’s Woman … Piper hasn’t even written one single publishable word and here he is castigating half a dozen eminent novelists. Look what he says about Waugh. Quote “… a very limited imagination and an overrated style …” unquote. Waugh just happens to have been one of the finest stylists of the century. And “limited imagination” coming from a blithering idiot who hasn’t got any imagination at all. I tell you Pandora’s box will be a tea-party by comparison with Piper on the loose.’
‘He’s entitled to his opinions,’ said Sonia.
‘He isn’t entitled to have opinions like these,’ said Frensic. ‘God knows what Cadwalladine’s client will say when he reads what he’s supposed to have said, and I shouldn’t think Geoffrey Corkadale is too pleased to know he’s got an au
thor on his list who thinks Graham Greene is a second-rate hack.’ He went into his office and sat miserably wondering what new storm was going to break. His nose was playing all hell with him.
*
But the storm when it did break came from an unexpected direction. From Piper himself. He returned to the Gleneagle Guest House in Exforth madly in love with Sonia, life, his own newly established reputation as a novelist and his future happiness to find a parcel waiting for him. It contained the proofs of Pause O Men for the Virgin and a letter from Geoffrey Corkadale asking him if he would mind correcting them as soon as possible. Piper took the parcel up to his room and settled down to read. He started at nine o’clock at night. By midnight he was wide awake and halfway through. By two o’clock he had finished and had begun a letter to Geoffrey Corkadale stating very precisely what he thought of Pause O Men for the Virgin as a novel, as pornography, as an attack on established values both sexual and human. It was a long letter. By six o’clock he had posted it. Only then did he go to bed, exhausted by his own fluent disgust and harbouring feelings for Miss Futtle that were the exact reverse of those he had held for her nine hours earlier. Even then he couldn’t sleep but lay awake for several hours before finally dozing off. He woke again after lunch and went for a haggard walk along the beach in a state bordering on the suicidal. He had been tricked, conned, deceived by a woman he had loved and trusted. She had deliberately bribed him into accepting the authorship of a vile, nauseating, pornographic … He ran out of adjectives. He would never forgive her. After contemplating the ocean bleakly for an hour he returned to the boarding-house, his mind made up. He composed a terse telegram stating that he had no intention of going through with the charade and had no wish to see Miss Futtle ever again. That done he confided his darkest thoughts to his diary, had supper and went to bed.