“I was right to do it,” said Paul quietly, “and nothing you can say will persuade me otherwise.”
Rolf put his hands in his pockets and strolled away towards the water’s edge. For a long while he stood with his back to Paul and did not move. Eventually Paul came and stood beside him, prompting Rolf to say, at last: “You realize, don’t you, that I cannot possibly do what you’re asking of me? Some things are not worth saving. Even if you don’t believe that applies to human beings, it certainly applies to ailing companies.” He laid a hand on Paul’s shoulder, but the gesture felt awkward, and he let it fall. “I know that I’m in your debt. And I will help you, in any way that I can. I’ll give you money. I’ll lend you my summer house on the coast—somewhere to take your mistress this summer. I’ll give you the phone number of the best prostitute in the world, who lives in London, incidentally. But I cannot do this for you. I’m not strong enough. You’re asking me the impossible.”
“All I’m asking you to do is put it to the other members of the board— that they reconsider their options . . .”
“I already know what they would say. We’re not talking about pulling somebody out of the sea, Paul. We’re talking about something stronger than that, actually, something even more elemental. The market. Which can also be ruthless, and also be destructive. You believe in the market, don’t you? You and your party? Then you should be honest with people. You should make them aware that sometimes it sucks men under and tosses them back lifeless on the shore and there’s nothing that you or anybody else can do about it. Don’t lie to them. Don’t encourage them to believe that you can have it both ways.”
And then, behind them, in the distance, came the noise of an approaching engine. Both men turned and saw, as Paul had seen the previous evening, a black dot in the sky, growing bigger and bigger. Rolf glanced at his watch and nodded with satisfaction.
“Ten-thirty. Not a minute behind schedule. Come on, Paul, and wave goodbye to me if you will.”
He ran towards the helicopter, which was now landing on the western beach and attracting much interest from the tourists. They gaped at this portly, ungainly figure in his dark bespoke suit, running across the sand with his attaché case in one hand and his shoes and socks in the other, closely pursued by Paul. Some of them even started taking photographs.
They had to shout their farewells.
“It’s been wonderful seeing you again, Paul,” Rolf roared, his hair billowing in the tail wind. “And to see this place. Thank you so much for coming. Let’s not leave it another twenty years, yes?”
“We won’t,” Paul answered.
“I’m sorry,” Rolf said. “Sorry that I couldn’t do what you asked. But don’t worry. That situation will resolve itself.”
“I hope so.”
“I know it will. It’s your other situation I’m worried about.”
“It’s under control. Don’t worry.”
Rolf threw his things into the cabin, and clasped Paul in his arms. They embraced fervently. Then Rolf was about to climb into the helicopter when he turned, put his mouth to Paul’s ear, and said:
“All I would say, Paul, is—it’s an unusual woman who likes being a mistress. You are not a cruel man, so remember that: they find it a very uncomfortable role to play. One of mine committed suicide.” Finally he kissed Paul on both cheeks, in a most non-Germanic way. “I’m still not convinced that you were right to save me.”
After which, in a confusion of noise and movement and flurries of sand flung into the air, stinging Paul’s eyes, the helicopter leapt into the sky and was gone.
15
Benjamin sat in his office, on the seventh floor of a tower block overlooking St. Philip’s Place. He had worked at the same desk for more than ten years now, and he had always relished the view from here, this grey panorama of the city he still loved, despite all his cravings to break free from it. But today, he didn’t look at the view. Instead, for the second time, he picked the book up from his desk, read disbelievingly through the last sentences, and then let it fall from his hands.
It was lunchtime, and he had with him a large mocha from Coffee Republic, and a comically overpriced feta cheese and black olive ciabatta from the new sandwich shop in Piccadilly arcade. The biography of Francis Piper had been open on his desk and he had reached page 567. Doug wanted the review by the end of the week at the latest so Benjamin really needed to finish reading the book some time today. He was conscientiously taking notes as he went along.
Piper’s biographer had obtained access to the poet’s private diaries and was threading his narrative around quotations from these original sources. The diaries were extensive (interminable, some might say), and no very strong editorial hand appeared to have been exercised by the publisher. It had taken 550 pages, therefore, to reach the year 1974, and there were still a good 200 pages to go. Benjamin had got the hang of things by now: by this stage in the story, Piper’s greatest, most productive days as a poet were some thirty years behind him, he was writing nothing of any substance (apart from those endless diaries), and—having been sexually inactive for the best part of a decade—he had become prey to sexual fantasies and obsessions of a tiresomely morbid cast. The litany of somewhat pathetic non-encounters (builder’s mates followed forlornly for miles along suburban streets, incipient gropes in public toilets abandoned in fits of panic) was becoming frankly tedious.
Francis Piper’s income, at this time, seemed to have derived entirely from his occasional public appearances at schools and universities around the country, or the odd visit to some barren British Council outpost in Bucharest or Dresden. On March 7th, 1974, he had come to talk and read from his work at King William’s School, Birmingham. Benjamin himself had been in the audience. He had noticed that the school was mentioned in the index, but had not wanted to read any parts of the book out of sequence, and assumed—in any case—that it would be the subject of no more than a glancing mention. Thus the description of that visit, when it came, caught him completely unawares.
It was after reading this passage for the second time that he dropped the book to the floor and staggered out of his office, without saying a word to any of his colleagues, or to Judy, who sat at the receptionist’s desk. She looked at him strangely, but did not realize—why should she?—that the very foundations of his life had been blown asunder in the last few seconds.
Benjamin stepped out into the fast-moving traffic along Colmore Row—prompting a symphony of angry car-horns—and then wandered trancelike around the periphery of St. Philip’s, only dimly registering the headlines that were going up on the Evening Mail placards outside the new agents: “It’s a Deal! Phoenix Victory Saves Longbridge.” What did it matter to him, if hope and meaning had returned to the lives of tens of thousands of strangers, when they had abruptly, brutally, been snatched away from his?
His mobile rang. It was Philip Chase.
“Hello, Ben—have you heard the news? Rover’s been saved. BMW have accepted the Phoenix bid. It’s fantastic, isn’t it? I’m going to drive out to Longbridge, see what’s going on outside Q gate. Do you want to come? I could give you a lift.” There was no answer to any of this—prompting Philip to say: “Hello? Benjamin? Are you there?”
After a second or two, with what felt like a great effort of will, Benjamin said: “I can’t, Phil. Thanks, but I’ve got to work.”
“Oh. All right.” And Phil hung up, sounding puzzled and disappointed, not by the excuse, but by the tone of voice in which it was made.
But Benjamin did not go back to work. At least, he went back to his office, briefly, to retrieve his copy of the biography, but then he half-walked, half-ran all the way to New Street Station, and got there just in time to board the delayed 13:48 to London Euston.
Irina answered the door and looked embarrassed when Benjamin asked, “Are they in?”
“Well,” she said, “they are in, but I don’t think they are quite—”
“Who is it?” It was Doug’s voice, a
s he came down the stairs, trouser-less, out of breath, and fumbling with the buttons on his shirt.
“Benjamin—is that you?” This time it was Frankie calling down. She was leaning over the bannister, wrapped in a sheet but otherwise naked. Her hair was fabulously tousled and had Benjamin not been in a state of such blind panic he would doubtless have felt the usual hot waves of desire course through him. From the kitchen Ranulph could be heard, his screams growing louder and more indignant.
“I’ll go and see to him,” said Irina, turning on her heel.
“Benjamin?” said Doug, now at the bottom of the stairs. “What are you doing here?”
“Don’t tell me,” said Benjamin, “I’ve come at a bad moment.”
“Not really. It’s just that—you know—I haven’t been swearing much lately.” He took Benjamin’s arm and steered him in the direction of the downstairs sitting room. “Come on, come and sit down. You look shattered. What’s happened?”
“I’ll be right down!” Frankie called after them, and disappeared to get dressed.
“What are you doing in London?” Doug asked, as Benjamin collapsed on to one of the sofas. “Why aren’t you at work?”
“Something’s happened,” Benjamin said. “Something . . . terrible.”
“You and Emily have split up,” Doug said—instinctively, before he’d had time to check himself.
Benjamin stared at him. “No.”
“No. Sorry—I don’t know why I said that. Would you like a cup of tea or something? I’ll get Irina to put the kettle on.”
“I wouldn’t mind something stronger, actually.”
“OK.” This request was very out of character—it was only 4:15 in the afternoon—but Doug poured him a large Scotch anyway. “There you go. Get it down you, and tell me all about it.”
Benjamin drained most of the whisky in one gulp, winced as the acrid burn hit the back of his throat, and said: “It’s about the review.”
Doug let out a sigh of both incredulity and relief. “You came all the way down here,” he exclaimed, “to talk about that review? For Christ’s sake, Benjamin, what do you think telephones are for?”
“I can’t talk about this on the telephone.”
“Look—you don’t have to worry about it. If you write it, fine. If you don’t, it’s no big deal, I’m only going to be in that job for a couple more weeks anyway. You won’t be letting me down or anything.”
“It’s not that. There’s something in that book. Something about me.”
“About you?”
“Well, not directly. I mean, I’m not mentioned by name. But there’s a story about something in there and—it’s about me, I know it is.”
Doug was alarmed to hear Benjamin talking like this. Years of writing for a national newspaper and receiving dozens of readers’ letters every week had taught him—among other things—that mental illness, of varying degrees of severity, was more widespread than most people realized, and could take the most surprising forms. He was familiar with the concept of “delusions of reference,” which could cause people to become convinced that perfectly ordinary articles on matters of general interest were in fact full of hidden meanings intended only for them. These delusions could turn sinister. Not long ago a man in Chalfont St. Giles who had attempted to murder his wife had pleaded in mitigation that he was being instructed to do so by coded messages embedded in the TV listings.
He sighed again, and ran a hand through his hair. Had he been stupid to give Benjamin this commission in the first place?
Fortunately—for Doug had no idea what to say next—two things happened at this point. Frankie came into the room, and the telephone rang.
She leaned over Benjamin, kissed him on the cheek and hugged him. “It’s so nice to see you!” she said, and gave the impression—as always—of really meaning it. She had slipped on a V-neck cashmere sweater with no blouse or bra underneath, and Benjamin could smell on her neck the warm odour of recent arousal. She sat down beside him and they both listened to Doug’s half of the telephone conversation.
“I know, David, it’s fantastic news. They can hardly believe it down at Longbridge, apparently. No one in the London press was taking that bid seriously. They didn’t give a fuck about the factory—fifty thousand jobs lost made too good a story. That’s all they were interested in. Of course I will. How much do you want? Fifteen hundred words? I’ll do it now. You’ll have it by six o’clock. OK, leave it with me.”
Hanging up, he turned to Benjamin and said, apologetically: “I’ve jumped ship, as you may have gathered. Back writing the real stuff again. Technically I’m still on contract to the other lot, but—fuck ’em.” Seeing Frankie’s reproving glance he corrected himself: “I mean—they’ll just have to put up with it. Anyway—you’ve heard the news from Longbridge, have you? Amazingly, your brother has already managed to get himself on the radio saying that this was what he’d been hoping for all along. Which comes as a surprise to many of us, I must say.” He looked at his watch. “I’m sorry, Ben, I’ve got to start work. They want this thing by six. Can we talk about it over dinner?”
“Sure,” said Benjamin, glumly.
“Don’t worry,” said Frankie, “I’ll look after him.” And then, after Doug had run upstairs to his study, she refilled Benjamin’s glass and sat in the armchair opposite him, leaning forward attentively, her hands clasped together. “Now,” she said, her voice almost trembling with kindness (the sincerity of which Benjamin could never quite bring himself to doubt), “tell me what’s wrong.”
Benjamin wondered where to begin. In the end, there seemed only one way of putting it:
“I don’t believe in God any more.”
Frankie took some time to digest this. “Wow,” was all she could say, at first; and sat back as if impelled by a physical force. “But how . . . I mean— since when?”
“Since about ten past one this afternoon.”
“Wow,” she said, again. “I’m sorry, I’m not being very articulate about this, but really, Benjamin, this is . . . Well—surely you can’t be serious, can you?”
“No, I’m serious. Completely serious.” He stood up, paced the room a couple of times, then took the biography from the coffee table where he had laid it, and showed Frankie the portrait of Francis Piper on the front cover. “Do you know anything about this guy?” he asked her.
“No,” she admitted.
“Well. He is—or was, before he died—a poet. Pretty well known. He was famous in the 1930s and progressively less famous after that, and when he came to talk to us at school in 1974, none of us had really heard of him. And now someone’s written this book about him and Doug asked me to review it. And today, I got up to the bit where he came to our school. March the seventh, 1974.”
Benjamin sat down again, and tried to compose himself. The story he had to tell Frankie was long and complex, and probably worlds removed from her own experience. Could she really be made to understand the kinds of anxieties that gripped a thirteen-year-old boy, standing on the threshold of puberty, terrified of losing the fragile, capricious respect of his friends? Anxieties that seemed, now, to belong to an almost prehistoric era: although sometimes (and never more so than today) it felt to Benjamin that he was still trapped there, while the rest of the world had moved on . . .
“Well, in those days,” he began, with a deep breath, “I was pretty shy, and not very confident about things—physically—and fairly . . . ashamed of my own body, I suppose.” He smiled a grim smile. “No change there, then.” He waited for a smile of agreement—or perhaps contradiction—but Frankie’s face remained solemn and expectant. “And at King William’s they had this rule—I don’t know if Doug ever told you about it—that if you forgot to bring your swimming trunks to school, you still had to go swimming. Naked.”
“Gosh,” said Frankie. “That must have been cold.”
“Well yes—there was the temperature factor to take into account, obviously, but more important than that was the sh
ame of it. Boys at that age, as you probably know, are very cruel, and very . . . competitive, in certain areas. And very self-conscious, as I said, about their own bodies. So really it was the worst punishment they could possibly devise. And I lived in terror— literally sheer, mind-numbing, daily terror—of this ever happening to me.”
“And one day it did?”
“One day it did. My dad gave me a lift to school and I left my kit bag on the back seat of his car. And I don’t know how it happened, but within minutes, it was all over the school that Trotter had forgotten his swimming trunks. It was like it was the joke of the century. There was this kid in our year called Harding, Sean Harding, and he was probably the one who started it. It’s funny, he was my friend—one of my best friends, actually—but he wanted to humiliate me. How do you explain that? I don’t know. There’s a weird kind of mixture in kids. Cruelty and friendship—there doesn’t seem to be any contradiction between them.”
“I know all about Harding,” Frankie said. “When Duggie gave his talk last year, at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, that was who he talked about. Him, and your brother.”
“Yes.” Benjamin laughed. “Two of a kind, in many ways. Though we didn’t think so at the time. Anyway. I went to pieces. This guy—this poet— Francis Piper was coming to the school that morning, to give a reading in Big School, and there was a brief moment of respite when I thought that meant the swimming lesson was going to be cancelled. But it wasn’t. So during break that morning, just before the lesson was due to start, I went off to the locker room by myself and I had a sort of . . . breakdown, I suppose you’d call it. And that’s when it happened.”