I didn’t fancy making a career in that kind of trade and considered giving notice at the earliest opportunity, though I realised that the best way to do it – so stupidly had I fallen into it up to my neck – would be to send a telegram of resignation from a remote island in the South Pacific. Even then there would be no guarantee that the long arm of Moggerhanger or Lanthorn wouldn’t reach me. Strolling out of my palm-thatched hut to smoke an early morning cigar, a giant coconut would fall from a tree and squash me flat. The only way I could get free of such a job was by bringing the whole organisation crumbling down, and in that respect at least I knew that Matthew Coppice was right.
Sixteen
When I got back to Town I called on Blaskin, and found to my amazement that he was playing chess with Bill Straw. Dismal snapped at my collar and tie with affection. ‘I’d forgotten you could play chess.’
Blaskin poured us all a glass of wine. ‘He’s damned good at it. He beat me twice yesterday.’
Bill grinned. ‘I learned when I was in jail.’
‘He’s a boon,’ Blaskin said. ‘And I’m in despair, so it takes my mind off things.’
‘I thought you never got depressed.’
He made a move. ‘Don’t be insulting. My commitments are numerous and onerous. I have to show Moggerhanger a first draft of his life story in three months. I’ve also promised to deliver a Sidney Blood story to Pulp Books in a month’s time.’
I spluttered into my wine. ‘You’re Sidney Blood?’
A troubled grin exposed his long yellow teeth. ‘What an idiot you are. There must be twenty writers churning out a Pulp Book by Sidney Blood now and again. It pays my club subscriptions for one thing. It’s a bit of a challenge, for another. And then, I enjoy rattling off all that violence and obscenity. What’s more, to continue my litany of woe, I’ve also promised my ordinary publisher a new novel in a fortnight that he can bring out in the autumn, and apart from the fact that I want to give it to a publisher who’s promised me twice as much money, I tore up the first page this morning because it was no good, so don’t have anything to give anybody. I also have to write a lecture on the future of the modern novel before tomorrow. With so much work to do I can’t lift a finger.’
Bill gave his usual hee-haw laugh and made another move on the chessboard. ‘You’re up the creek with a hole in the boat and no paddle, and a three-hundred foot waterfall in the offing.’
Blaskin clutched the kind of head that should never have been without a hat. He was obviously not feeling well. Ever since the revelation that he was my father it had been hard to think of him as such. At twenty-five years of age, when the news broke, I no longer needed a father. Before then, he’d have been a bloody pest. Maybe if he and my mother had managed to live a normal life when they finally got married our connection would have been more convincing, but the last thing we knew she had gone on a bus to join a lesbian commune in Turkey. At least Blaskin said, and if so, who could blame her – the way he had treated her after the first weeks of their reunion had worn off? Not that she had given him much peace, either.
Blaskin resembled a mad uncle more than anything, meaning he was more likable than if he had been my father, because whereas a father might have cast me off when I got into trouble with the police, Blaskin had generously stood by and given some help.
‘If you listen to me,’ I said, ‘your troubles are over, the present ones, anyway. I’ll spill what I know about Moggerhanger onto a tape recorder, so that all you’ve got to do is get it typed. That’ll give you a nice wad to show him, and he won’t mind as long as you hand something over.’
‘He’s already had a fat packet of stuff from me,’ Bill said.
‘That’s good, then. And as for the novel by Sidney Blood, you can write that, Billy. Read a couple, and you’ll soon spew it out. The typist can correct your bad grammar.’
Bill poured more drinks. ‘I’ve read scores already. They’re on every airport bookstall I’ve been through, as well as in pirated editions all over India. I’m game for having a go at writing one. It’ll pay Major Blaskin back for his wonderful hospitality.’
Gilbert threaded his fingers together and smiled. ‘Acting Major, please.’
I stood up. ‘And so Gilbert can get on with his lecture, which he can finish by tonight.’
‘You mean I have to get to work right away?’ he wailed.
That was all the thanks and appreciation I got for my ingenuity. ‘I read in last week’s Guardian that the best medicine for a difficult menopause is work. In any case, if you don’t want to give your new novel to the present publisher – a novel that you haven’t yet written, I might add – why don’t you write a shit novel in a week and let them have that one to turn down? Then you’re free, and you can write a proper one for your new publisher.’
‘Work, work, work!’ he cried. ‘Will it never end? Now you’re asking me to write a trash novel that my present publisher will turn down, and so leave me free to go to another publisher with a real no holds barred genuine 22-carat Blaskin. Do I understand you to mean that I’m to write two novels instead of one?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Pour me another drink.’
Bill obliged. ‘You’d better come up with something better than that, Michael. Can’t you see Major Blaskin’s upset?’
‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do,’ I said, ‘and this is final. I’ll write the shit novel, Bill will do the Sidney Blood and you can get on with the proper novel for your new publisher – as soon as you’ve written your lecture. All I want is a title.’
Blaskin was very pleased with my arrangements. ‘Call it SPOOF.’
‘Then I want something to eat.’ A good heart, plus a sense of humour, were fatal for survival. I had promised too much. You had to be halfway good to cover two hundred pages with trash. I wouldn’t know where to start, and was too proud – and stupid – to ask Blaskin for advice, for whom such work was as easy as breathing in and out. I could have done the Sidney Blood tale better, but had palmed that off on Bill, who was already scribbling notes on the back of a cake packet: ‘It’s nice to have something to do again, Michael. You’re a winner. Never at a loss for a solution.’
Inside I groaned, but outside I grinned and said it made me happy to help. I spoke my adventures with Moggerhanger into a tape recorder, and Blaskin put it into a padded envelope for his secretary, Jenny Potash. He already had a wad of material from Bill, but I didn’t tell him (and he didn’t see Bill look up from his cake packet and wink with his wolf-like Worksop eyelid) that Bill was the biggest liar in the world.
I set the spare typewriter and a box of Croxley Script on the kitchen table, and made a couple of false starts on some crazy tale of adventure. Each time I screwed the paper into a ball and threw it to Dismal he caught it neatly in his jaws and carried it to the trash basket.
Write the first thing that comes into your mind, I told myself. That’s how they all do it. It never fails. So I began to type, and knew straightaway that it was the third time lucky – as long as I could keep my fingers pecking at the keys.
It’s true, of course, that you bite the hand that feeds you, but usually there’s no other hand close enough. Langham ran away with his best friend’s wife, thinking that because he was his best friend he wouldn’t hold it against him. In any case his wife had led him a dog’s life, made his existence positively dismal, so he thought he was doing him a favour. But when he saw him standing in the doorway with a stubby handgun pointing in his direction, Langham knew he must have been wrong.
I didn’t even stop to read, otherwise I’d have admired it for so long that I wouldn’t have got any further. The secret that came to me naturally was: go on, no matter what trash comes out of the typewriter. Maybe having an old man for an author was at least half the battle.
John Weems caught them in amorous passion on the rush matting of Tinderbox Cottage.
I described every object in the place, giving its price and history, shape and colour, which
took ten pages, before letting the reader (and myself) know whether Weems the husband was going to kill Langham the lover or not. I had fun. They wouldn’t know until the end of chapter two – neither would I – maybe not even till halfway through the book.
I thumped away and by midnight thirty pages had shot out of the roller. Dismal followed the carriage back and forth in a very encouraging way so that I even did the first sentence of Chapter Two:
The sound of his piss rattling into the pan was like the noise of her voice calling him.
Then I stopped. The others were asleep, Blaskin in the bedroom and Bill on the sofa. Dismal was nodding on the rug at my feet as if made of foam rubber. I picked up the first page of Blaskin’s lecture:
Begin by telling them that if the fantasy of truth is fact, the truth of fantasy is fiction. That’ll get ’em. Then go on to confess (there’s no better word for it) that I treat the novel like a symphony. I mean, in the way of alternating comedy and tragedy, farce and seriousness. I aim for perfect harmony out of widespread chaos. Many individuals inhabit the continent of a novel, but I’m the Big Chief who marshals their actions and emotions, which lesser folk put down to fate. From wanting to write a novel of serious intent at which there are nevertheless places where you laugh, I will henceforth weave a patchwork of interwoven set pieces, each with its tragic or comic mark, but all related by the desire of the hero to find God among the ruins of his moral but all too human ineptitudes. God help me, isn’t that enough? Change course, if you can, without drowning in the Seven Seas of Ambiguity. I wasn’t made for this. I’m only a writer.
I persist in writing novels (I’m glad you asked me that one) because I don’t yet think that ‘the novel’ as an art form has reached its apogee. No author should get lost in its twentieth-century cul-de-sac. I try to cure myself of the habit of thinking that the next novel will be my best. If I persist in this belief I will end by assuming, with many critics and reviewers, that the novel is dead – though a more ridiculous statement I’ve never heard. The best novel is the one you’ve just written.
England’s writers have always been attracted by the demotic. While their limitations in this endeavour have sometimes been obvious, the result has often been fair to middling. Some people like a good sprinkling of the demotic because it opens a window on what they would otherwise never have a hope of understanding. Others like it because, hearing it every day, it reflects their own life. Some may dislike the demotic because they see those who use it as a threat to their way of life. Most writers are unable to use it because if they did they would sound fake or patronising. And another reason is that every time I fart I get a pain near my heart. Say in lecture. Stop this waffle, and make ’em laugh. That’s all they want, and who can blame ’em?
It was a poor start, but what could you expect from someone who was better at telling lies than trying to find out what he thought? Sifting through Bill’s pile of paper, I was both appalled and impressed. He’d got the Sidney Blood tone perfectly, but on some pages he’d outblooded Blood in obscenity and violence to an extent that even I had to stop reading. It was bound to be a success. Blaskin didn’t know how lucky he was to be running such a dedicated workshop. I took a lamb chop from the fridge and threw it to Dismal as a reward for his cooperation and encouragement.
Restless after being cooped up writing for hours, I put on my Burberry and took a late tube to Piccadilly. I’d cashed money from the bank and it burned a hole in my pocket, so at The Hair of the Dog I flashed the blanket membership card that Moggerhanger issued to his inner circle and went in. One or two drinkers were flush against the walls, and Kenny Dukes sat near the bar. I bought drinks for us both. ‘Here’s the skin off your lips.’
Such a phrase, straight out of Sidney Blood, brought him back to life with a smile which showed his battered teeth. ‘I hear you been to Spleen.’
‘That’s right,’ I said.
‘A cushy billet.’
‘I’ve seen worse.’
‘Like Peppercorn?’
‘That was great,’ I said. ‘I’m in love with the place. The rats were very friendly.’
He shuddered. ‘I hate rats. When I went up there I slept outside. But the fuckers came out and ran all over me. So I walked up and down the lane all night. Don’t talk to me about rats.’
‘There are worse things.’
‘Not to me.’
‘If I had to live there I’d take a couple of cats,’ I said.
‘I hate cats as well. Kick the fucking things. And dogs.’
‘Who do you like?’
His face was flushed with sickly spite. ‘Women. I can hit ’em and love ’em.’
I shuddered – though didn’t let him see it. After a couple of minutes I said: ‘Want another drink?’
‘Got to keep a head on my shoulders. I’m waiting for a man who owes Claud some money. If he don’t pay, I’ve got to break his arms.’
‘Maybe he’ll break yours.’
He grinned again. ‘He’ll pay. He’s got lots of money. I’ll just frighten him.’
I stood up to go. ‘Do I know him?’
‘It’s Dicky Bush.’
‘Jazz pianist?’.
He nodded. ‘He wouldn’t like to lose the use of his arms.’
‘I only know him from the magazines. By the way, I’ve been most of the day with – you’ll never guess.’
He tried to look at me threateningly. ‘Who?’
I laughed at his half-closed eyes and hunched shoulders. ‘Your favourite author.’
He swallowed his bile and fumbled for a cigarette. ‘Sidney Blood? Yer don’t say!’
I nodded. ‘He’s in the middle of a yarn called The Mangled Duck. It’s a real snorter. He read me a couple of pages.’ I saw the question in his eyes. ‘Well, maybe one day I’ll see what I can do. He’s a very exclusive person. He lives alone at Virginia Water with a couple of Great Danes. Doesn’t like interruptions.’
Kenny understood. ‘Them fucking authors are funny people. I saw one once on telly.’
‘I’ll try and get you over there.’
‘I’d give anyfing to meet him.’
I patted him on the shoulder. ‘I’m off back to Ealing. I’m dead beat.’
Outside the street door, a tall thin black reeking of eau de cologne almost collided with me. ‘Are you Dicky Bush?’ I asked, quick as a flash. ‘If you are, you’re the greatest jazz musician in the world.’
His expression changed from absolute hatred to the most beautiful smile of goodwill. His hand came out: ‘Shake!’
I did. ‘By the way, there’s a beefy chap with fair curly hair down there wanting to break your arms because he says you owe money to somebody or other.’
A look of caution replaced the shining teeth of his smile. ‘Thanks, Whitey.’ He took out a knife and licked it. I went on my way, thinking that in the jungle the man with the blade is king, if not god.
I walked along Old Compton Street. There wasn’t much trade going on. One or two women plucked my elbow, but I thanked them for the compliment and told them not tonight, darling, wishing I had gone straight home rather than put myself between Kenny Dukes and Dicky Bush. They could take care of each other without my help. I pulled up my collar against the drizzle and walked across Cambridge Circus. Somebody was pushing a pram up St Martin’s Lane, and I tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Delphick, how’s life?’
He glared at me. ‘Fuck off.’
London isn’t a very friendly place. It even brings out the worst in those who come from the North. ‘That’s no way to talk to somebody who not only gave you a lift to Stevenage, but bought you breakfast as well.’
He had another look. ‘You forgot to pay me for the poem.’
The panda also glanced at me resentfully. The pram was battened down with cord and canvas. Delphick wore a fashionable jacket and cravat under his duffel coat. ‘Did you give a reading tonight?’
‘Reading?’ he said. ‘Well, I suppose you’d call it that. The place was full,
but when I sent the hat round it came back with six pounds fifty, four Deutschmarks and a Canadian cent with a hole in it. I sometimes think I’ll pack it in and get a job as a tally clerk in a corduroy factory, except that they’ve all closed down. I’m going back to Doggerel Bank tomorrow, but tonight I’ve got nowhere to stay, so I have to push this idle panda all over the place till dawn. The person who was going to put me up in Camden Town threw me out because his missis took a shine to me. Where do you live?’
I offered a cigarette, and he tried to take two. ‘I sleep above my employer’s garage. It wouldn’t be any good.’
‘I’m losing my faith in people, and that’s bad for a poet. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Nobody is happy to do me a favour anymore.’
I got annoyed. ‘When did you last do anybody a favour?’
A copper looked at us as he walked by. Being young, he didn’t know whether to wish me good night, sir, or take me in for questioning. ‘Me? Do somebody a favour?’
I heard an ambulance running in circles somewhere beyond the Marylebone Road. ‘You could give somebody a poem now and again. It wouldn’t hurt you.’
‘That’s my bread and butter. Poems are priceless and precious.’
‘I suppose you only give ’em to girls who sleep with you.’
He squinted. ‘How did you guess?’
A bundle of rags tied in the middle with a bit of rope, a bushy grey beard at the top, and a jellyfish of footcloths at the bottom, shifted down the road poking at cardboard boxes in shop doorways. Four bulging plastic bags, like airships at their moorings, hung from whoever it was, man or woman.
‘People like that should be shut up for life,’ Delphick exclaimed. ‘The place is crawling with ’em.’
The bundle of rags, about a hundred yards up on the other side of the road, stopped. He unclipped the plastic bags, rummaged in one, and took out a cigar. ‘Did I hear right?’ he called in a clear, loud and fairly unaccented voice. ‘Or did my hardened ears deceive me? Would my callous fellow man like to try shutting me up for life?’