Ghosting (21 page)

Tiger was ravenous in the morning. The first meal of the day was a serious business and he was unfailingly eager to get on with it. If I happened to arrive at the table even a minute or two late, he would glower at me as if I had been off murdering children. I preferred to shower and dress beforehand, but for Tiger eating took precedence over his toilet. He would appear in a voluminous sleeping garment, a staggering creation in silk and blinding brocade that gave him the appearance of an opulent sheikh. It was always unwise to say anything beyond the normal courtesies before he had taken a certain quantity of food inside him. The first stages of breakfast appeared to be something he had to get through rather than enjoy, but he got through with a trencherman's appetite
and seized the food as if plundering and pillaging. He would then relax a little and declare, each day in fresh astonishment, “I am so hungry this morning! I don't know why I am so hungry.” Otherwise it was mostly a silent affair punctuated only by his exhortations to do what my mind and gut recoiled from.

“Eat! Eat! Beloved, why don't you
eat
?”

It was not enough simply to be there, and to supply companionship. Eating was the thing. Mercifully breakfast was not remotely a Full English, not even a Part English, but consisted of copious amounts of
fromage frais
drizzled with olive oil into which we dipped
pain de seigle,
delicious French rye bread. There were also olives and figs and various specialities of the region. Tiger pressed food on me constantly—his own
amour-propre
appeared to depend on it—and I became practised in the art of accepting as little as possible without seeming to lean too much in the direction of declining; than which there was nothing more likely to cause offence.

Though Tiger's conduct in this regard was challenging, it sometimes helped me to see it as an aspect of his sweeping generosity, albeit one that could drive the recipient quite mad. Generosity is one of the six transcending virtues of Buddhism, and it is through generosity that the true dialectics of compassion are revealed. I had recently learned this from the man in my life—in his youth he had spent some months in a Buddhist monastery in Japan. According to Buddhist teaching, so he said, it does not count as generosity if there is any expectation of return, or if something is given out of guilt, or shame, or pride. By these criteria Tiger passed the Buddhist test with honours. Moreover, the so-called Perfection of Giving is evidently best expressed without there being any conscious concept of giving; it should resemble a natural reflex—this
according to the founder of Western Buddhism, a man who took the name of Sangharakshita, though he had been born plain old Dennis Lingwood in South London. Again, Tiger could scarcely be faulted in this respect. His giving did seem to be something of a reflex action, involuntary, compulsory even. Perhaps, so I reflected, Tiger was on the path to Buddhahood, and I was in the presence of a transcendent spirit? This theory went so far and no further, however, because another Buddhist condition is that the giver should be joyful when he gives; whereas Tiger was petulant and thrusting, at least over breakfast.

At other times too his urge to share could feel like an assault on one's independence and free will, almost an act of aggression, and yet this was obviously so far from his intention that it would have been brutal to suggest it. But his generosity was emphatically not like other people's; it had an existential significance and seemed to answer an urgent need in him, extending far beyond the normal human desire to share. It came over as an extreme thing, wild and unfettered, capable of sprouting extra body parts and strange accretions till it became a gargantuan creature, both wonderful and terrible, and in danger of toppling over.

Women sometimes collided with this creature and felt oppressed by it. Yet occasionally I was moved by it. Over breakfast, for example, he even shared with me his own special supply of vitamins and other pills, counting them out into two equal rows, his tongue held tight in his teeth as he concentrated, being let loose only when he cited the essential constituents of each item, their respective efficacy and cost. He doled out tablets for the smooth working of joints (“so you can walk better”), vitamins for oral health (“they cost a
fortune
but they stop your gums bleeding”), zinc to maintain a healthy skin (“this is
amazing
—it will prevent
the pimples”), and a mud brown pill of truly alarming dimensions—“a secret concoction” available only from Harley Street. The one he saved for last was “the best that money can buy.” It was a long capsule containing powder the colour of tapioca and intended specifically for what Tiger called his “prostrate,” a factor that did nothing to lessen his largesse. “You can have one too,” he said. I was touched by this.

Shopping at the market was another opportunity for unbounded lavishness. He strolled up and down the food stalls, hands behind his back, like a king inspecting the troops, stopping occasionally to sample an olive or a morsel of cheese. He loved the abundance of produce, the freshness of the fruit and vegetables, the way the stalls were set out so colourfully. But he was a sentimental man, and if ever he saw rabbits hanging by their ears, with tears of blood stuck to their mouths, he would say, “It's awful what they do.
Les pauvres!
It shouldn't be allowed.” The
gardienne,
Monique, who always drove us to the market, stayed a couple of paces behind him, ready to receive whatever he bought into her basket. He asked for two kilos of everything, one for
la grande mai-son
and one for Monique and her family. This he did without expectation of gratitude or reciprocation, though it probably had the effect of securing her devotedness. On the day before our departure from France there was always a very grand spree. During the preceding week or two Tiger had earmarked certain items— mould-ripened cheese, jars of ash-covered
chèvre
suspended in oil,
Périgord
honey, truffle vinegar and other delicacies—for purchase on the last market day. On these days the
gardienne
brought with her a large shopping trolley for the great splurge.

Back at the house it took the whole afternoon to wrap everything and get it packed for the flight home. There was sometimes
so much stuff that an extra suitcase had to be bought to contain it all. The Wrapping was an extended ritual and I was required to be in attendance throughout, though only as a spectator. In the manner of solemn preparation for a sacred act, Tiger began by setting out everything on the large kitchen table—scissors, adhesive tape, tissue paper, bubble wrap, newspaper, tin foil and string. Then, as if he might be engaged in the salvation of his own soul, he proceeded to package and parcel, swathe and swaddle. Jars of olives and
harissa
were mummified in newspaper and brown tape, while rounds of cheese were encased first in wax paper, then in foil, and finally in newspaper and plastic bags. During this lengthy process he seemed to be in the grip of some mysterious energy that had arrived from nowhere and taken charge of his mind and body. He had a look of intense concentration and he sucked in air noisily. As he worked away, he provided a detailed commentary on the proceedings, describing each and every stage—first we do this, now we do that, then we take the newspaper, now we need the Sell-otape—and so on. Things had to be done in a particular way and in a precise order. The commentary seemed to be for his own benefit, and it took the form of a set piece, something learned by heart and recited by rote. He was completely absorbed, and yet he looked up frequently to check that I was watching and paying attention. If ever I tried to move away or do something else to relieve the tedium, he would shriek, “No! No!
Sit!
Don't move!”

I sat alone in the studio wondering what to do, how to begin. It was a blow to be required to write another novel, especially so soon after the first. If I was going to be able to deliver, by which I
mean produce not just a satisfactory number of words, but a book which would sustain my own interest, one I could finish as well as start, I felt I had to change tack.

My first resolve was to try to write from the inside out. The first novel was written from the outside in, in the sense that it is overly schematic and as a result lacks what might be called narrative truthfulness. It is sacrificed to the ideas it contains—everything from a homily on the categorical imperative to a description of life inside a white ant colony. This is hardly a surprise, for the book was written, if not exactly to order, then certainly with the customer in mind. And the customer in this case was not the reader, but the
soi-disant
author. Contemplating this new venture I felt curiously depleted, emptied of the will to repeat the exercise. If I was to commit to another novel, I would have to move away from what I saw as the flat, two-dimensional, soulless canvas. It had to be something layered and fully imagined, something more from the heart.

Then again, whose heart? Can one write from another person's heart? I am not sure it can be done. You can get all kitted out, only there's nowhere to go. Personal experience, which includes the imagination and what feeds it, is essentially the base from which people write. And personal experience is highly specific, each take on the world unique. You cannot write another's experience, only your own. Of course you can try, but it will always be in some sense attenuated. Without a doubt there is something intrinsically contradictory about ghosting a novel. It is of course
possible
to fake fiction, but it is difficult to see how it can be meaningful or eloquent. You have to write from inside your own skin, otherwise there is too much of a psychological struggle. It's like trying to fake sincerity.

Writers often say that they know a lot about their book before they begin. An idea has come to them some time before—perhaps it is no more than a faint humming in the head—but it is then stored away for a lengthy gestation period. At this point the writer's internal processes start to work. The idea is fed and nurtured, perhaps jottings are taken or notes of conversations heard on the bus. For a long time, perhaps even a year or two, the writer is responsive to everything that resonates with the idea, receptive to the smallest observable bits of daily life, the tone of someone's voice, the way the light falls on a building. It is a time, so it is said, of heightened sensitivity. This process allows the idea to grow and take on different features. Writers generally agree that this stage cannot be rushed or forced.

In the ghosting process there is no time to wait for the humming in the head. An idea has to be plucked from the air, and you have to run with it. The ghost is generally preoccupied with getting the job done, as I had been first time round. According to Martin Amis, a writer's life is all anxiety and ambition
*
, and the two are scarcely distinguishable from one another. I believe the ghost-writer is similarly afflicted, perhaps to an even higher degree because the work is done under greater constraints. The ambition is not publicly realised, because all honours accrue to the credited author, but there is plenty of personal ambition involved in trying to do the job well. Anxiety follows naturally from ambition and becomes part of it.

Being intent on getting the job done makes you concentrate on the technical problems, but it leaves no room for the spirit of the thing. You report for duty each day and you hope that the target
number of words will be written. You consider the architecture of the book, the dramatic structure; the characters, the voice. The trouble is that you don't believe the voice, and you don't quite trust the characters, and you certainly don't suffer with them. This time I wanted to change all that. I wanted the writing to be alive at the centre, not just a technical exercise. I wanted it to be something that sprang from my own energy. I had to write about something that moved me.

In 1987 I read Ian McEwan's
The Child in Time,
a chilling piece of fiction that starts with the disappearance of a young child, Kate, while on an ordinary shopping expedition to the supermarket with her father. The assumption is that the child has been snatched, but there are no clues, no leads, no ransom demand. No body is ever found. When I was reading
The Child in Time,
my own beloved Kate was just seven years old, and this no doubt led me to identify even more closely with the story. The book addresses larger political and social themes, but over time I forgot them. What held me, and continued to hold me, was the personal story of grief and anguish. I was struck by the way in which happy lives can be turned by a single moment in time into the bleakest of landscapes. Ian McEwan's spare luminous prose is perfectly honed to capture the essence of despair and the concomitant disintegration of ordinary lives. It is a consummate execution of sorrow, perhaps the cruellest sorrow of all. It seemed to me that the grief was almost too sharp to be borne. I was tormented by the book, and it went on haunting me for many years.