Felix in the Underworld (2 page)

‘Just one more schlocky record and a bit of travel, then it's Felix.' The host of ‘Good Morning, Thames Estuary' had red curls, a high-bridged nose and the general appearance of an irritable dowager compelled to suffer the boredom of the village fête. The headphones were clamped on his ears like a cloche hat, his T-shirt, bearing the logo ‘Good Morning, Thames Estuary' and his own face, was stretched over a capacious bosom and a swelling stomach. He wore gold-rimmed spectacles which he balanced on the end of his nose while he stared with disapproval at the world. He didn't seem to approve of the record which was finishing either, although Brenda Bodkin, privileged to sit in on the author chats during the Denny Densher show, was moving her slender hands in a delicate little dance to the thump of the music. As she did so, Denny smiled at her. She was popular at Radio Thames Estuary because she brought authors in to fill up the gaps between the records and the advertisements.

‘His book going well, is it?' Denny asked Brenda the question as though Felix were deaf or a child.

‘Melting off the shelves . . .' Ms Bodkin, now lying, was what is known as a strawberry blonde. She was of the pale golden colour that strawberries take on in early summer before they ripen. She was beautiful enough not to have to worry about her clothes, wearing a striped football shirt, much too large for her, baggy tartan trousers and trainers. Felix knew that she carried, stuffed into her handbag, a long green dress for formal wear. He was surprised by the facility with which she lied. Terry, the rep, had, after all, told her the truth in the car:
‘Out of Season,'
Terry had said, ‘not really moving yet.'

Felix had been sitting beside the rep, blue-suited Terry, in the Vauxhall Astra. Brenda was in the back among the boxes of books and beside the cardboard cut-out of her author which would be part of the display at the literary lunch. As she leant forward to speak to Terry, Felix could feel her breath on his cheek, see the short, silvery hairs on her forearm and enjoy the clean smell of fruit not yet ripe. ‘Mind you,' Terry was consoling her, ‘you couldn't get Charles Dickens to shift. Not in the present climate, you couldn't.'

‘Nothing moving then, Terry?'

‘The new Tantamount's selling on well.'

Felix felt something roll against his foot and then emit a mechanical bleep. He stooped and picked up a small, space-age Genghis Khan with a flashing gun on his head. Terry took it from him and said, ‘Bloody kids! They leave their stuff everywhere,' and threw the invader over his shoulder where it lay beside Brenda and was immediately silent. Brenda said, ‘Is that
Grandslam
?'

‘What?' Terry asked her.

‘The new Sandra Tantamount.'

‘Yes. Right. Sex and shenanigans in the international world of contract bridge. You can say what you like about Tantamount. She certainly does her research.'

Felix wondered about his research, confined, as it was, to his life in the seaside town where he was born, a few love affairs and a marriage ended when Anne committed the final infidelity and died. Should he have explored some unknown country? Should he have learned to play bridge?

‘Out of Season
starting slowly?' Sometimes Felix took a melancholy pleasure in repeating bad news.

‘It's a bit of luck Brenda's fixed you up to do the Denny Densher.' Terry was trying to be kind. ‘He's got a huge audience and a few of them actually read books.' They had arrived in front of a building, gaunt as a disused warehouse, on which Radio Thames Estuary was written in broken letters. ‘Why don't I let you off here, sunshine?' Terry twisted in his seat to speak to Brenda. ‘And I'll go park.'

‘My special guest this morning, for those of you who are awake, is Felix Morsom. He's here with a new novel. Good morning, Felix.'

‘Good morning!' Felix said in a loud and cheerful voice which he hoped would appeal to those countless inhabitants of the Thames Estuary who were yawning, stretching, scratching their stomachs or attempting, with sleep-blurred eyes, to plug in their kettles. ‘It says here' – Denny was holding a press-cutting at arm's length, as though it had an offensive smell, and squinting at it over his glasses – ‘that you're the Chekhov of Coldsands-on-Sea.'

Taking in his ornamented T-shirt, his Diet Coke drunk from the tin and the fag-end of his Danish pastry balanced on the top of a pile of compact discs, Felix had put Denny down as some sort of local radio yob. Beware of stereotypes. This Densher was clearly a man of sensitivity with wide cultural interests. When the record had thumped to its ungainly end he had said to Brenda, while a disembodied female voice was describing the tailback round Gravesend, ‘After that sort of garbage I feel I want to wash my mouth out with a Haydn quartet.' And then he opened the subject of the great Anton Pavlovich himself.

‘That review gave me enormous pleasure. Of course I wouldn't dream of comparing myself to Chekhov,' Felix said modestly.

‘I don't suppose you would.' The reply, sharp and unexpected as a knee in the groin at a literary luncheon, renewed Felix's faith in stereotypes. Was he not face to face with a genuine yob after all? ‘Chekhov wrote about the cholera wards, the prison colony on Sakhalin Island. Know what I mean?
In Season
hasn't got much of the gritty side of life in it, has it?'

‘
Out of Season.
'

‘Oh, I beg its pardon. I mean, nobody shoots themselves. In Chekhov they do shoot themselves.'

‘Offstage.'

‘All right, offstage. What I'm getting at is, what's your novel got to offer a young kid brought up on
Pulp Fiction
?'

‘What I'm interested in' – Felix began a speech which had seen him through dozens of interviews and guest appearances on ‘Start the Week' – ‘are those unguarded moments which allow us to see, through the smallest crack in the door, the tragedy of a lifetime. If you know Chekhov (he restrained himself from saying ‘If you know so bloody much about Chekhov!'), you'll remember the moment when Uncle Vanya comes into the room with a few late roses for the woman he loves and finds her kissing another man. So he simply drops the roses on the sofa and –'

‘Goes out to get a loaded revolver, from what I can remember. Which he fires.'

Once again Felix felt the boot put in by the literature course his interviewer had taken but he fought back with, ‘All right, he fires. But he misses.'

‘So it's all right if he misses, is it?' Denny, clearly not in the best of moods, decided to end the game. ‘Let's turn you over to the punters. Tania from Tunbridge Wells, good morning. What's your question to my breakfast guest?'

‘Good morning, Denny. Good morning, Felix.' The voice, quiet and motherly, came out of a loudspeaker fixed to the wall.

‘Good morning, Tania!' Felix called out with an unexpected heartiness and Brenda studied her fingernails in embarrassment.

‘What I want to know about your writing, Felix,' Tania asked anxiously, ‘is whether you use a word processor?'

Felix confessed that he had no mechanical skills or time for many inventions since the introduction of the ring-binder.

‘So, Felix, could you please tell me, do you write with a pen or a pencil?'

Tania asked the question as though her life depended on it, and the right answer would enable her to finish a book which would get a mention on ‘Good Morning, Thames Estuary'. Felix, not wanting to pursue the secrets of his modified success, played a defensive stroke. ‘If you want to know what I write with,' he said, ‘I must be honest and tell you that I write with difficulty.' This was a saying which he had used at more literary lunches than Brenda Bodkin cared to remember. He punctuated it with an encouraging chuckle but there was no laugh from the loudspeaker. Brenda was groping into the depths of her handbag for a cigarette and Denny Densher looked increasingly grumpy.

‘All right, Tania. That seems to be all the information you're going to get out of my breakfast-time celebrity. So you can get on with the ironing, darling. Now, who's next?' There was a moment's awkward silence. Then Denny muttered, What do you write with? Bloody Tania! I know her sort. Probably writes with a poison pen. Nothing better to do in sodding Gravesend.' With which he bit savagely into what was left of his Danish and glared at the microphone when it said ‘My name's Gavin.'

‘Where are you from, Gavin?' Denny managed to splutter through the
crème pâtissèrie.

‘Good morning, Denny. As a matter of fact, and to be honest, I'm from the contraflow. And, I'll tell you something else, Denny.'

‘Get on with it!'

‘I'm a first-time caller.' The voice was ostentatiously modest, as though its owner had just won the lottery or got the OBE for services to animals injured on the motorway.

‘I don't give a damn if you're a thousandth-time caller! I'm not going to treat you with kid gloves, Gavin. I'm not going to send you a commemorative card and a slice of cake. I'm going to treat you just as I would any other caller. No better. No worse. Is that clearly understood?' Denny Densher sounded as though he wished to God the breakfast show would come to an end and he could get on with lunch.

The voice said, ‘I get the message, Denny.'

‘OK. So what's your question to Mr Felix Morsom? And keep it short.'

‘Thank you. Good morning, Felix.'

‘Good morning, Gavin.' At least this first-time caller would be easier to deal with than the distinctly stroppy Denny Densher.

‘I just wanted to ask you one question, Felix.'

‘Ask it for God's sake! We can't spend all day with you stuck in the contraflow.' Denny sighed heavily and searched for another record.

‘Let me first say I am a terrific admirer of your books, having gone through each and every one of them, page by page. I love your work, Felix.'

‘Well, thank you very much, Gavin.' Felix was starting to enjoy the breakfast show but Denny's finger was on the switch and his voice rose in a warning, ‘Your time's running out, first-time caller.'

‘I'm coming to my point, Felix. And my point is this. Denny put it to you very straight when he said your books don't have sensational events. No shooting or violence, or happenings of such description. Didn't you put that to him, Denny?'

‘Yes, I did,' Mr Densher had to admit. ‘And now your question to my celebrity guest,
please!
'

‘Very well. Understood. Now here's my question, Felix. You must have had dramatic events in your own life. Not shooting perhaps. Not guns. But highly dramatic events. Of great importance. Moments of passion. Times when you lost your usual self-control. Why don't you write about some of these times, Felix? I feel sure they would be of interest to your readers.'

‘I think a writer has to make a choice. I suppose I'm not one for the big moments. I just hint at them through glimpses of everyday life in a seaside town.' Felix ended with another small laugh, a nervous one this time. The disembodied voice of the first-time caller spoke again.

‘Or do you rely on other people to have the big, dramatic moments for you?'

The question hung in the air of the shabby little studio, unanswered. Denny had switched off Gavin and was slipping a CD into its slot as he announced his verdict to the entire Thames Estuary area. ‘Damn cheek! Asking that sort of kinky question to my celebrity guest! It'll be a time before he calls here again,
I'll
tell you. Kinky callers. At breakfast time! I ask you. Now let's get back to something serious . . .'

‘Price and publisher!' Brenda, bolt upright and pale with anger, hissed in a whisper that would be audible from the Isle of Dogs to the Goodwin Sands.

‘I am reminded' – Mr Densher lowered his head in mock contrition – ‘the work we have been discussing is
Out of Season
by Felix Morsom, published by Llama Books for a mere sixteen pounds ninety-nine p.' Then further conversation was submerged by the Stone Roses performing
I Wanna Be Adored.

In the car Brenda lit a cigarette and held it by one end, waving it vaguely about like a blind man's stick. ‘I thought,' she said, ‘Denny gave you a bit of a hard time this morning.' Felix didn't answer her. He remembered where he had heard the voice of the first-time caller. It had come, unexpectedly, out of his Orpheus sound system and had seemed to deal, exclusively, with the big, dramatic moments.

It was not that Felix's life had been without drama. There was a story that he had folded up, sealed in an envelope and locked in a drawer of his mind. He had never used any part of it in the books he had written and hardly allowed himself to remember it at all. When the memory came it was of the sweet, sickening smell of hospital corridors as he walked away from the sight of a woman dying. Perhaps he had given up thinking about Anne because, like most of science, computer technology and higher mathematics, she was something that existed outside the field of his understanding. She was an occurrence he couldn't explain.

They met during her first term at the University of the South Coast (in those days the Coldsands Polytechnic) where he taught English, where he lived in his parents' house on Imperial Parade, where he had turned his childhood bedroom into a writer's workplace, so that he could still look out of the window and see the seagulls circling and the distant blur of ships passing, where sky and sea became indistinguishable. It was the year his third novel had been compared to Chekhov and its success, like some strong medication, had numbed the ache of anxiety which usually troubled him. Anne came regularly to his lectures but he hardly noticed her.

With her sandy clothes, hair and eyebrows she was, he thought, even after they had got to know each other, as hard to pick out against the beige of the Poly walls as the flat, colourless fish that lay on the bottom of the tank in the aquarium. Perhaps he would have gone on not noticing Anne if she hadn't, suddenly and unexpectedly, sent him a Valentine's Day card, in which she had, breaking all the rules governing such communications, ostentatiously signed her name.