by Paul Murray
The room is full now; late arrivals are being turned away, and as the clock ticks to the hour, the chatter becomes simultaneously feverish and hushed. Two booksellers arrive at the threshold and, not without difficulty, begin to clear a path through the bodies. Following a few paces behind them – to a thrill of silence from the assembly, like an inverted cheer – come the editor I met this afternoon, a willowy, platinum-blonde girl, a red-faced man with tortoiseshell glasses, and lastly (a rustle of delight now) Bimal Banerjee – short, with a tight, pugilistic frame, a bald head and an air of not suffering fools. Microphones are adjusted, water poured; Banerjee stands to the side, glowering at his feet, as one of the booksellers makes a stammering introduction. Finally, to rapturous applause, the writer takes the podium. He presses his lips together, fiddling with the button on his cuff and darting sceptical glances at the adoring crowd. At last the bookseller raises his hand for silence; the noise abates, the author leans into the microphone and utters: ‘Word.’
We, the listeners, nod to ourselves. It is the first word of the novel’s first New York section, set in the roiling heat of the summer of 2001, and following the book’s rodent narrator, the hip-hop-loving would-be MC Jephot, as he attempts to overcome ratism and master ‘flow’ in order to take part in a humans-only freestyle battle, which will be the first step on the path to becoming a chart-topping cross-species sensation. There is literally not a sound as Banerjee reads, until very near the end when a man appears in the door and, although there is patently no room for an extra body, proceeds to insinuate himself into the crowd, with a great amount of rustling, and drawing a wake of disapproving mutters from those whose view he has impeded and cries from those whose toes he has evidently stood on.
I deliberately refrain from looking in his direction, but there is no doubt in my mind as to who it is; three or four minutes later he hoves up behind me, smelling of rain and alcohol and still contriving to rustle, even though he is now standing quite still.
‘Don’t think anyone noticed me,’ he whispers heavily in my ear.
‘Shh!’ hisses a nearby woman.
‘Wow, a lot of people here,’ Paul murmurs, unzipping his raincoat.
‘Will you be quiet?’ a man says severely.
Paul holds up his hands pacifically, and we address ourselves to the speaker again – but he has quit the lectern, and the bookseller has retrieved the microphone to thank us for coming. I feel a surge of irritation at Paul, especially when he starts to tell me how ‘bourgeois’ and ‘derivative’ Bimal Banerjee’s reading was.
‘You didn’t even hear it! You arrived two minutes from the end!’
‘That was enough, Claude. The guy’s a hack, a total hack.’
Over the happy din, the bookseller announces that the author will be signing copies of his novel, and the crowd immediately redistributes itself into a long, snaking line. ‘You’re not going to – oh, for God’s sake,’ Paul says, rolling his eyes as I join the end. As we shuffle forward, though, he falls silent and his face becomes sombre. This is the life he could have had, or something like it; looking at him sidelong I wonder again if he cares more than he lets on. Has he really just come for a free meal? Or is he hoping that his editor’s interest was not, in fact, a formality, that this could be a doorway back into the world he abandoned?
As we draw close to the top of the line, I see that the editor and the willowy blonde girl have gathered by the low table where Banerjee is signing books.
‘Here comes the Inquisition,’ Paul mutters in my ear. ‘Better act like you enjoyed it.’
‘I did enjoy it,’ I am about to retort – but now, as we step to the top of the line, Paul wrests the book from my hands.
‘Towering reading,’ he says to Banerjee. ‘Truly triumphant.’
‘You made it!’ Robert Dodson exclaims. ‘Bimal, allow me to introduce Paul, an old friend of mine –’
‘Didn’t I see you come in at the end?’ Bimal Banerjee narrows his eyes.
‘No, that wasn’t me,’ Paul says. ‘Could you make this out “To Paul and Claude”?’
‘Ah yes, forgive me,’ the editor says, ushering me into the circle. ‘This is Claude, Paul’s partner.’
I want to protest, but the proximity of the famous author has rendered me speechless. He passes the book back to me, his black eyes glittering over me like an entomologist’s over a bug.
‘Thank you,’ I attempt to say, but it comes out, ‘Pancake.’
The blonde girl is called Ariel. She is Dodson’s editorial assistant – very beautiful, with enormous amethyst eyes, though the red rims suggest she has been crying not so long ago. Paul appears quite taken with her – so does Banerjee, who keeps shooting her glances that oscillate from amorous to hostile.
‘And this, of course, is William O’Hara, our very kind host for tonight,’ Dodson says, as we are joined by the man in tortoiseshell glasses, who is wearing a florid, raffishly under-buttoned shirt that gives him the look of an ageing dandy.
‘Oh, what a great pleasure.’ Paul clasps O’Hara’s hand. ‘I adore your work.’
‘I feel like I know your face,’ O’Hara says, wagging a finger at him. ‘Didn’t you … didn’t you write a book once?’
‘A youthful folly,’ Paul says modestly, though it is clear he is pleased.
‘The best kind,’ William O’Hara says.
‘How many did we sell?’ Bimal Banerjee asks Dodson. The editor goes to consult with the bookseller, then comes back with the figure. Bimal Banerjee receives it expressionlessly. ‘Cretins,’ he says, though whether he is referring to those who bought the book, those who didn’t, or indeed to us, is not immediately plain.
From the doorway I see Ariadne waving to me. There is no sign of the gaucho; affixing what I intend as an avuncular smile, I go over.
‘Look at you, talking to the famous writer,’ she says. ‘He is a friend of yours?’
‘No, no,’ I say. ‘I’m just, ah, going to dinner with him.’
‘Ha,’ she says, eyeing me speculatively.
‘Did you enjoy the reading?’ I say, adding casually, in the hope that it will sound like a natural extension of the original question, and not make her wonder, for example, how I know his name, ‘You are here with Oscar?’
She laughs. ‘No, this is not Oscar’s kind of thing at all. He will be bored after five minutes.’ I permit myself a tiny dose of Schadenfreude at this sliver of incompatibility, and adjust my position so that the signed Banerjee is on view.
‘So how are you? Your father?’
‘He is much better, thank you. But I have been thinking about you these days.’
‘Oh?’ I confine myself to an arch of an eyebrow, although she might as well have set off an atomic bomb inside my head.
‘Yes, I want to ask you about something. Last week the landlord has called and said he is going to put up the rent of the Ark. Not just put it up, he’s going to double it. The manager has told him, no one’s spending money right now, our take is down 30 per cent, there’s no way we can pay this much extra. But he just says, first of October, rent goes up. So now we have to…’
She looks so sad; as she goes on I find myself lost in a fantasy in which I stride into the Ark with a holdall full of money, which I pour onto the counter to tears of gratitude from Ariadne, while in the sky outside Oscar’s Médecins Sans Frontières helicopter explodes in a fireball and drops in hissing shrapnel into the river –
‘… think we should do?’ she says. The iridescent eyes wait on mine expectantly. I jolt from my reverie. What did she ask exactly?
‘Ah, um,’ I begin. ‘Well, that depends…’
‘Darling?’ I am being tapped on the shoulder; I turn to find Paul there, with Robert Dodson beside him. ‘We’re leaving for William’s now.’
‘Oh – I see…’ I suppose I should be thankful to him for getting me off the hook.
‘Come along, dear, we’ll be late,’ he says.
Ariadne is looking from me to Paul and
back again with evident confusion. I raise my eyebrows at her in a way that is intended to connote that I am not actually this man’s homosexual lover, I am merely pretending in the hope that this will help reunite him with his editor. But this just makes her more confused. I tell her I will come into the Ark next week and talk to her more about it, then hurry after the others.
William O’Hara’s house is close by, so we set off on foot. The evening is mild, and the rain has thinned to a fine drizzle, although Bimal Banerjee walks with his shoulders hunched and the lapels of his jacket clutched to his throat, as if it bore him some mortal intent.
‘Hey! Claude!’ Paul pulls me back into a doorway. ‘We need to get this partner thing straight,’ he says.
‘I agree,’ I say, still annoyed with him for embarrassing me in front of Ariadne. ‘The fiasco has gone on long enough. Do you want to tell them? Or will I?’
‘Tell them what?’
‘Well – the truth. Isn’t that what you mean?’
‘The truth? That I’m a washed-up loser with nothing to show for the last seven years but a mortgage in arrears and a wife who hates my guts? Why would I want to tell them that?’
‘Because it is true?’
‘Jesus, what is it with you and truth? Can you stop banging that drum for five seconds and just think? Think about the opportunity I have here.’ The word arrests me: I lock my eyes on his, and he gazes back at me desperately, before continuing, in a quieter voice, ‘These are really influential people, Claude. This could really help me. I promise, down the line, I’ll explain everything. But for now…’
‘All right, all right,’ I say, secretly thrilled. ‘Although only on the condition you don’t talk about our “relationship” unless it’s totally necessary. I am not so good at lying as you.’
‘Fantastic. I really appreciate it.’ He coughs awkwardly. ‘There’s just one more small thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘Yeah, I want it to be clear that I’m the one who … the one who, you know…’
‘Who what?’
‘Who … oh, come on, you know…’
‘I’m afraid I don’t.’
‘Well, okay, that I’m the one who, so to speak, goes on top.’
‘Who goes on top?’
‘Yes.’
‘You want it to be clear that whenever we have sexual intercourse, in our imaginary relationship, you are the one who goes on top.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘I’d just prefer it. I’d just feel more comfortable if it were made clear that I’m the one on top.’
I roll my eyes and move back onto the path.
‘Okay, look, we don’t have to tell people, but just so we agree ourselves that that’s the way it is. Trust me, even if you don’t use the details, it’s better to have your characters’ backstories fully mapped out. That’s an old writing tip.’
We catch up with the others in a beautiful Georgian square, at the centre of which is a small, damply verdant park where cherry trees sway beneath the arms of a magnificent oak and golden light glows from Narnian lamp posts. Even the traffic noise here seems less frenetic, more polite; it is like being in a different city, in a different century, perhaps even on a different, kinder planet.
‘How did he afford this place?’ Paul murmurs, as O’Hara mounts the steps to a red-brick on the western side.
I shrug. ‘He must have sold a lot of books.’
Our host ushers us inside and down a hall until we find ourselves in an exquisite dining room. A chandelier shimmers above us; silver gleams from the sideboard; every detail bespeaks comfort and hospitality.
It is here, nevertheless, that we encounter our first setback. Two more guests are seated at the long rosewood table. O’Hara makes the introductions: the tall, slightly gaunt woman with the scintillating black eyes is Victoria Galahad, a literary agent; ‘and this, of course’ – he extends a hand to the large, jolly-looking character squeezed not entirely successfully into a wispy ecru dress – ‘is Mary Cutlass.’
Mary Cutlass! The same critic who eviscerated Paul’s novel seven years ago! She shows no sign of recognition, merely flashes us a quick, heavy-mandibled smile and returns to her conversation; Paul, on the other hand, looks like he is about to faint. I swear under my breath, and on the pretext of fetching something from his coat pull him back out into the hall.
‘Are you all right?’ I ask him. His face is parchment-white.
‘I’m fine, I’m fine,’ he insists. ‘I’ve just never seen her in the flesh before. I’m a little surprised she actually has flesh. I always pictured her as a sort of floating skull.’
‘It’s not a big deal,’ I say. ‘She gave you a bad review, so what? This was a long time ago. You must not let her ruin your night.’
‘I’m telling you, I’m fine.’
‘Your hands are shaking.’
‘You haven’t heard the stories I’ve heard!’ he blurts, the façade of indifference crumbling. ‘That woman is evil, Claude! Evil! I heard about one writer she did a hatchet job on, he sent a whole package of anthrax to her office. But when she opened it up, the anthrax died! She killed that anthrax stone-dead, Claude! With a look! That’s the kind of person you’re dealing with.’
What can I do, except put my hand on his shoulder and tell him that I’ll be here to help him in whatever way I can?
We return to the dining room and sit down across the table from Dodson and Victoria Galahad. ‘William and I go back years,’ the editor is explaining to Mary Cutlass. ‘When I’m in Dublin I often stay with him –’
‘Asterisk saves money wherever it can,’ Bimal Banerjee comments, from the far end of the table.
‘Who’s hungry?’ Another man, wearing a paisley apron over a striped shirt, has whirled into the room, bearing a samovar of aromatic soup.
‘Ah, bellissima!’ O’Hara rejoices. ‘Everyone, may I present my other half –’
‘Better half, some would say,’ the new man interjects.
‘– Crispin O’Connell.’
‘Younger half, without question,’ this Crispin remarks.
‘I see you made it out of bed at last, mia carina.’
‘Oh, I had nothing to do there once the paperboy left,’ Crispin rejoins, to a mock-scandalized gasp from O’Hara: ‘Oh! Wicked!’
‘Ha ha,’ Paul says. ‘My Claude’s exactly the same, aren’t you, Claude? – Ah, bellissima!’ as Crispin serves him his soup. Everyone falls to, though Paul still appears on edge, and eats little.
‘So tell us, Robert, what does Asterisk have in the pipeline?’ asks Victoria Galahad.
‘Well, we’re publishing the autobiography of Jean-Pierre Lettrefits,’ Dodson says, then explains to the rest of us, ‘He was CFO at Credit Flanders, then Special Adviser to the Mitterand government, before heading the EU Commission’s task force on banking reform. Now he’s President of the International Credit Fund.’
‘And what’s his book called?’ O’Hara asks.
‘It’s called Who Da Man,’ Dodson says.
‘And how is Jean-Pierre?’ Crispin says.
‘You know Jean-Pierre?’ Victoria sparkles.
‘I took an economics seminar with him at Oxford,’ Crispin says.
‘You were at Oxford?’ Dodson says.
‘That’s where we met,’ Crispin says, folding O’Hara’s hand in his.
‘Bellissima,’ Paul interjects from the edge of the conversation.
‘Robert and I were both at Oxford as well,’ Victoria explains.
‘Though sadly the only sparks were at the debating society,’ Dodson adds, to a flick of her scarf. ‘And of course Bimal was there too, some years after us – at Jesus, wasn’t it, Banerjee?’
‘Magdalen,’ Banerjee says into his soup. ‘Although its homophone would be an apter soubriquet.’
‘Ha ha ha!’ laughs Paul. ‘I hear that.’
‘Stop interrupting,’ I mutter, nudging him under the table.
‘What? I�
��m just joining in the conversation.’
‘You’re embarrassing me,’ I say.
‘What about you, William?’ the agent turns to our host. ‘It’s a dreadful question to ask an author, but can we look forward to new work from you any time soon?’
‘As a matter of fact, I’m just putting the finishing touches to a novel,’ O’Hara says, ‘set in the slums of Dublin’s inner city. I call it The Phoenixer.’
‘Oh, bravo,’ Victoria says. ‘I know you probably hate to talk about i—’
‘It’s the tale of a boy.’ O’Hara rests his wrists on the table and raises his head like a medium at a seance, as though addressing his response to some invisible interlocutor hovering above the door. ‘A simple boy named Whacker, who is born into one of those disgusting scabrous tenements, and it’s – it’s simply his life, do you know, in this dreadful place, as he struggles to get by, with only his penny whistle and his beloved donkey for company.’
‘My goodness,’ Victoria says. ‘It sounds terribly moving.’
‘It is moving’ – O’Hara nods – ‘and I say that without arrogance, because I very quickly stopped thinking of it as mine – it’s Whacker’s book, it’s his story, he simply made a gift of it to me, because, I feel, he wanted me to tell people what it was like in these hellholes.’
‘Oh God, you’re not chewing everyone’s ear off about “Whacker”, are you?’ Crispin comes shouldering his way through the door with a tray. ‘Can’t I leave you alone for two minutes?’
‘I think it’s tremendously important that our artists give a voice to these people,’ Mary Cutlass avers. ‘To remind us that they too have feelings, and hopes and dreams and aspirations –’
‘Feelings, yes, “Whacker” certainly has no shortage of those,’ Crispin says. ‘Ever since William began writing this book, it’s been, “These pedal-pushers are just the sort of thing Whacker might wear,” “This Pot Noodle is all Whacker might eat for a week,” “Whacker would understand why those boys broke the antique lantern on the porch –”’