The Great Pursuit

by Tom Sharpe

  *

  The following morning the storm broke in London. Frensic arrived in a good mood. Piper’s absence from his flat had relieved him of the obligation to play host to a man whose conversation had consisted of the need for a serious approach to fiction and Sonia Futtle’s attractions as a woman. Neither topic had been at all to Frensic’s taste and Piper’s habit at breakfast of reading aloud passages from Doctor Faustus to illustrate what he meant by symbolic counterpoint as a literary device had driven Frensic from his own home even earlier than was his custom. With Piper in Exforth he had been spared that particular ordeal but on his arrival at the office he was confronted with fresh horrors. He found Sonia, white-faced and almost tearful, clutching a telegram, and had been about to ask her what the matter was when the phone rang Frensic answered it. It was Geoffrey Corkadale. ‘I suppose this is your idea of a joke,’ he said angrily.

  ‘What is?’ said Frensic, thinking of the Guardian article about Graham Greene.

  ‘This bloody letter,’ shouted Geoffrey.

  ‘What letter?’

  ‘This letter from Piper. I suppose you think it’s funny to get him to write abusive filth about his own beastly book.’

  It was Frensic’s turn to shout. ‘What about his book?’ he yelled.

  ‘What do you mean “What about it”? You know damned well what I mean.’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Frensic.

  ‘He says here he considers it one of the most repulsive pieces of writing it’s ever been his misfortune to have to read—’

  ‘Shit,’ said Frensic, frantically wondering how Piper had got hold of a copy of Pause.

  ‘Yes, that too,’ said Geoffrey. ‘Now where does he say that? Here we are. “If you imagine even momentarily that for motives of commercial cupidity I am prepared to prostitute my albeit so far unknown but not I think inconsiderable talent by assuming even remotely and as it were by proxy responsibility for what in my view and that of any right-minded person can only be described as the pornographic outpourings of verbal excreta …” There! I knew it was embedded somewhere. Now what do you say to that?’

  Frensic stared venomously at Sonia and tried to think of something to say. ‘I don’t know,’ he muttered. ‘It sounds odd. How did he get the blasted book?’

  ‘What do you mean “How did he get the book”?’ yelled Geoffrey. ‘He wrote the thing, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ said Frensic, edging towards the safety of admitting he didn’t know who had written it and that he had been hoodwinked by Piper. It didn’t seem a very safe position to adopt.

  ‘What do you mean “You suppose so”? I send him proofs of his own book to correct and I get this abusive letter back. Anyone would think he’d never read the damned thing before. Is the man mad or something?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Frensic for whom the suggestion came as a Godsend, ‘the strain of the past few weeks … nervous breakdown. Very highly strung, you know. He gets into these states.’

  Geoffrey Corkadale’s fury abated a little. ‘I can’t say I’m at all surprised,’ he admitted. ‘Anyone who can go to bed with an eighty-year-old woman must have something mentally wrong with him. What do you want me to do with these proofs?’

  ‘Send them round to me and I’ll see he corrects them,’ said Frensic. ‘And in future I suggest you deal with Piper through me here. I think I understand him.’

  ‘I’m glad someone does,’ said Geoffrey. ‘I don’t want any more letters like this one.’

  Frensic put the phone down and turned on Sonia. ‘Right,’ he yelled, ‘I knew it. I just knew it would happen. You heard what he said?’

  Sonia nodded sadly. ‘It was our mistake,’ she said. ‘We should have told them to send the proofs here.’

  ‘Never mind the bloody proofs,’ snarled Frensic, ‘our mistake was coming up with Piper in the first place. Why Piper? The world is full of normal, sane, financially motivated, healthily commercial authors who would be glad to stick their name to any old trash, and you had to come up with Piper.’

  ‘There’s no need to go on about it,’ said Sonia. ‘Look what he’s said in this telegram.’

  Frensic looked and slumped into a chair. ‘“Yours ineluctably Piper”? In a telegram? I wouldn’t have believed it … Well at least he’s put us out of our misery, though how the hell we’re going to explain to Geoffrey that the Hutchmeyer deal is off …’

  ‘It isn’t off,’ said Sonia.

  ‘But Piper says—’

  ‘Screw what he says. He’s going to the States if I have to carry him. We’ve paid him good money, we’ve sold his lousy book and he’s under obligation to go. He’s not going to back out on that contract now. I’m going down to Exforth to talk with him.’

  ‘Leave well alone,’ said Frensic, ‘that’s my advice. That young man can—’ but the phone rang and by the time he had spent ten minutes discussing the new ending of Final Fling with Miss Gold, Sonia had left.

  ‘Hell hath no fury …’ he muttered, and returned to his own office.

  *

  Piper took his afternoon walk along the promenade like some late migrating bird whose biological clock had let it down. It was summer and he should have gone inland to cheaper climes but the atmosphere of Exforth held him. The little resort was nicely Edwardian and rather prim and served in its old-fashioned way to help bridge the gap between Davos and East Finchley. Thomas Mann, he felt, would have appreciated Exforth with its botanical gardens, its clock golf, its pier and tessellated toilets, its bandstand and its rows of balustraded boarding-houses staring south towards France. There were even some palm trees in the little park that separated the Gleneagle Guest House from the promenade. Piper strolled beneath them and climbed the steps in time for tea.

  Instead he found Sonia Futtle waiting for him in the hall. She had driven down at high speed from London, had rehearsed her tactics on the way and a brief encounter with Mrs Oakley on the question of coffee for non-residents had whetted her temper. Besides, Piper had rejected her not only as an agent but as a woman, and as a woman she wasn’t to be trifled with.

  ‘Now you just listen to me,’ she said in decibels that made it certain that everyone in the guest-house would. ‘You can’t get out of this so easily. You accepted money and you—’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ spluttered Piper, ‘don’t shout like that. What will people think?’

  It was a stupid question. In the lounge the residents were staring. It was clear what they thought.

  ‘That you’re a man no woman can trust,’ bawled Sonia, pursuing her advantage, ‘that you break your word, that you …’

  But Piper was in flight. As he went down the steps and into the street Sonia followed in full cry.

  ‘You deliberately deceived me. You took advantage of my inexperience to make me believe—’

  Piper plunged wildly across the road into the park. ‘I deceived you?’ he counter-attacked under the palms. ‘You told me that book was—’

  ‘No I didn’t. I said it was a bestseller. I never said it was good.’

  ‘Good? It’s disgusting. It’s pure pornography. It debases …’

  ‘Pornography? You’ve got to be kidding. Since you haven’t read anything later than Hemingway you’ve got this idea any book that deals with sex is pornographic.’

  ‘No I don’t,’ protested Piper, ‘what I meant was it undermines the foundations of English literature …’

  ‘Don’t give me that crap. You took advantage of Frenzy’s faith in you as a writer. Ten years he’s been trying to get you published and now when we finally come up with this deal you throw it back at us.’

  ‘That’s not true. I didn’t know the book was that bad. I’ve got my reputation to think of and if my name is on—’

  ‘Your reputation? What about our reputation?’ said Sonia as they skirmished past a bus queue on the front. ‘You ever thought what you’re doing to that?’

  Piper shook his head.

  ‘So where’s your
reputation? As what?’

  ‘As a writer,’ said Piper.

  Sonia appealed to the bus queue. ‘Whoever heard of you?’

  Clearly no one had. Piper fled down on to the beach.

  ‘And what is more no one ever will,’ shouted Sonia. ‘You think Corkadales are going to publish Search now? Think again. They’ll take you through the courts and break you moneywise and then they’ll blacklist you.’

  ‘Blacklist me?’ said Piper.

  ‘The blacklist of authors who are never to be published.’

  ‘Corkadales aren’t the only publishers,’ said Piper, now thoroughly confused.

  ‘If you’re on the blacklist no one will publish you,’ said Sonia inventively. ‘You’ll be finished. As a writer finito.’

  Piper stared out at the sea and thought about being finito as a writer. It was a terrible prospect.

  ‘You really think …’ he began, but Sonia had already changed her tactics.

  ‘You told me you loved me,’ she sobbed on to the sand close to a middle-aged couple. ‘You said we would …’

  ‘Oh Lord,’ said Piper, ‘don’t go on like that. Not here.’

  But Sonia went on, there and elsewhere, combining a public display of private anguish with the threat of legal action if Piper didn’t fulfil his part of the bargain and the promise of fame as a writer of genius if he did. Gradually his resolve weakened. The blacklist had hit him hard.

  ‘I suppose I could always write under another name,’ he said as they stood at the end of the pier. But Sonia shook her head.

  ‘Darling, you’re so naïve,’ she said. ‘Don’t you see that what you write is instantly recognizable. You can’t escape your own uniqueness, your own original brilliance …’

  ‘I suppose not,’ said Piper modestly, ‘I suppose that’s true.’

  ‘Of course it’s true. You’re not some hack turning books out to order. You’re you, Peter Piper. Frenzy has always said there’s only one you.’

  ‘He has?’ said Piper.

  ‘He’s spent more time on you than any other author we handle. He’s had faith in you and this is your big opportunity, the chance to break through into fame …’

  ‘With someone else’s awful book,’ Piper pointed out.

  ‘So it’s someone else’s, it might have had to be your own. Like Faulkner with Sanctuary and the rape with the corncob.’

  ‘You mean Faulkner didn’t write that?’ said Piper aghast.

  ‘I mean he did. He had to so he’d get noticed and have the breakthrough. Nobody’d bought him before Sanctuary and afterwards he was famous. With Pause you don’t have to do that. You keep your artistic integrity intact.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of it like that,’ said Piper.

  ‘And later when you’re known as a great novelist you can write your autobiography and set the world straight about Pause,’ said Sonia.

  ‘So I can,’ said Piper.

  ‘Then you’ll come?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I will.’

  ‘Oh, darling.’

  They kissed on the end of the pier and the tide, rising gently under the moon, lapped below their feet.

  7

  Two days later a triumphant if exhausted Sonia walked into the office to announce that she had persuaded Piper to change his mind.

  ‘Brought him back with you?’ said Frensic incredulously. ‘After that telegram? Good Lord, you must have positively Circean charms for the poor brute. How on earth did you do it?’

  ‘Made a scene and quoted Faulkner,’ said Sonia simply.

  Frensic was appalled. ‘Not Faulkner again. We had him last summer. Even Mann’s easier to move to East Finchley. Every time I see a pylon now I …’

  ‘This was Sanctuary.’

  Frensic sighed. ‘That’s better I suppose. Still the thoughts of Mrs Piper ending up in some brothel in Memphis-cum-Golders Green … And you mean to say he’s prepared to go on with the tour? That’s incredible.’

  ‘You forget I’m a salesperson,’ said Sonia. ‘I could sell sun-lamps in the Sahara.’

  ‘I believe you. After that letter he wrote Geoffrey I thought we were done for. And he is quite reconciled to being the author of what he chose to call the most repulsive piece of writing it had ever been his misfortune to have to read?’

  ‘He sees it as a necessary step on the road to recognition,’ said Sonia. ‘I managed to persuade him it was his duty to suppress his own critical awareness in order to achieve—’

  ‘Critical awareness my foot,’ said Frensic, ‘he hasn’t got any. Just so long as I don’t have to put him up again.’

  ‘He’s staying with me,’ said Sonia, ‘and don’t smirk. I just want him where I can reach him.’

  Frensic stopped smirking. ‘And what is the next event on the agenda?’

  ‘The Books To Be Read programme. It will help get him ready for the TV appearances in the States.’

  ‘Quite so,’ said Frensic. ‘Added to which it has the advantage of getting him committed to the authorship of Pause with what is termed the maximum exposure. One can hardly see him backing out after that.’

  ‘Frenzy dear,’ said Sonia, ‘you are a born worrier. It’s going to work out all right.’

  ‘I just hope you’re right,’ said Frensic, ‘but I shall be relieved when you leave for the States. There’s many a slip ’twixt cup and lip, and—’

  ‘Not this cup and these lips,’ said Sonia smugly, ‘no way. Piper will go on the box …’

  ‘Like a lamb to the slaughter?’ suggested Frensic.

  *

  It was an apt simile and one that had already occurred to Piper, who had begun to have qualms.

  ‘Not that I doubt my love for Sonia,’ he confided to his diary which, now that he had moved into Sonia’s flat, had taken the place of Search as his main mode of self-expression. ‘But it is surely arguable that my honesty as an artist is at stake whatever Sonia may say about Villon.’

  And in any case Villon’s end didn’t commend itself to Piper. To calm his conscience he turned once again to the Faulkner interview in Writers at Work. Mr Faulkner’s view on the artist was most reassuring. ‘He is completely amoral,’ Piper read, ‘in that he will rob, borrow, beg or steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done.’ Piper read right through the interview and came to the conclusion that perhaps he had been wrong to abandon his Yoknapatawpha version of Search in favour of The Magic Mountain. Frensic had disapproved on the grounds that the prose had seemed a bit clotted for the story of adolescence. But then Frensic was so commercial. It had come as a considerable surprise to Piper to learn that Frensic had so much faith in him. He had begun to suspect that Frensic was merely fobbing him off with his annual lunches but Sonia had reassured him. Dear Sonia. She was such a comfort. Piper made an ecstatic note of the fact in his diary and then turned on the television set. It was time he decided what sort of image he wanted to present on the Books To Be Read programme. Sonia said image was very important and with his usual gift for derivation Piper finally adopted Herbert Herbison as his model. Sonia came home that night to find him muttering alliterative clichés to his reflection in her dressing-table mirror.

  ‘You’ve just got to be yourself,’ she told him. ‘It’s no use trying to copy other people.’

  ‘Myself?’ said Piper.

  ‘Natural. Like you are with me.’

  ‘You think it will be all right like that?’

  ‘Darling, it will be fine. I’ve had a word with Eleanor Beazley and she’ll go easy on you. You can tell her all about your work methods and pens and things.’

  ‘Just so long as she doesn’t ask me why I wrote that bloody book,’ said Piper gloomily.

  ‘You’ll be great,’ said Sonia confidently. She was still insisting that everything would be just fine when three days later at Shepherd’s Bush Piper was led away to be made up for the interview.

  *

  For once she was wrong. Even Geoffrey Corkadale, whose authors seldom achieved a circu
lation sufficient to warrant their appearance on Books To Be Read and who therefore tended to ignore the programme, could see that Piper was, to put it mildly, not himself. He said as much to Frensic, who had invited him over for the evening in case the need should arise for a fresh explanation as to who had actually written Pause O Men for the Virgin.

  ‘Come to think of it, I don’t suppose he is,’ said Frensic, staring nervously at the image on the screen. Certainly Piper had a stricken look about him as he sat opposite Eleanor Beazley and the title faded.

  ‘Tonight I have in the studio with me Mr Peter Piper,’ said Miss Beazley addressing the camera, ‘the author of a first novel, Pause O Men for the Virgin, which will shortly be published by Corkadales, price £3.95, and which has been bought for the unheard-of sum of …’ (there was a loud thump as Piper kicked the microphone) ‘by an American publisher.’

  ‘Unheard-of is about right,’ said Frensic. ‘We could have done with that bit of publicity.’

  Miss Beazley did her best to make good the erasure. She turned to Piper. ‘Two million dollars is a very large sum to be paid for a first novel,’ she said, ‘it must have come as a great shock to you to find yourself …’