Life Goes On (40 page)

At one stage they heard a scuffle and thought he was coming out to give himself up, but it was only a couple of rats fighting over a piece of bread. To keep the shotgun-lover calm, a policeman began to tell his life story through the door, about how he'd been underprivileged and poor, how he'd studied at home, but mostly at night school, and worked himself up the educational ladder as far as nine O levels and then joined the police force because he wanted that sense of belonging that you only got in the army or with the lads in blue. And he wasn't disappointed. He'd do the same again, because life was worth living, no matter who you were, though a rise in pay would never be unwelcome, because he'd got a wife and two kids. On the other hand, he also had a Vauxhall Viva and a nice flat in a police block and perhaps (fumbling for his wallet), ‘you'd like to see a photo of my two kids taken at Morecambe last year …?'

This drivel continued for ten more pages, because the policeman had a lot to say about catching burglars and punching skinheads (with which no reader can disagree) or chasing terrorists when they landed from the Middle East at London Airport.

I could end the book any time because there were two hundred pages on the table, but I went on and on. One policeman, having pissed into the nearby stream, suggested to his superior officer that they withdraw from the vicinity and send a gunboat. He is commended for his sense of humour, then told to go back to the mobile canteen for an extra mug of tea and a Mars Bar.

I went into the mind of the man with the shotgun, who told his prisoners about how he believed in God, otherwise he wouldn't be so ready to kill them, would he? He felt a great loneliness at the middle of himself. He dreamed of falling through it, and woke up screaming. It was a hole he could only fill with a holocaust. God is love, not emptiness.

‘Yes, sir, but you ought to put that shotgun down, you know.' The policeman perspired under the searchlights. His wallet was sopping. The argument about God went on. Everyone was waiting. It was on television. The woman hostage began to have a baby. More arc lights were brought up. A chopper hovered overhead. The Japanese television rights were sold. When a camera lens came through the window the husband and lover joined forces and attacked it with hammers because the fees weren't high enough. They tied a message to a rat and sent it to their agent waiting up the hill with a lump of cheese. But, unknown to any of them, a third, fourth and fifth camera took a film of their religious and human objections to having the world pry on them at this fraught time. They decided to brook no encroachment on the universal theme of the birth of a New Man but, dear reader, it availed them not – believe you me. Thomas à Becket was killed when a tip-up juggernaut shed its load of words.

The world looked on at this drama played out in the primitive precincts of Peppercorn Cottage in the Shropshire hills. Taking a lesson from Delphick, I let myself go on the alliteration, and it worked. In poetry it was out of date, but in prose it was up to the minute, for the moment. From the opening vagina of the wife I went into the mind, if you can call it that, of the TV commentator and filled a page of phrases such as ripping the sky, tearing at the stars, clouting cloud out of the way – until Baby was born. Husband, who now had the shotgun, decided to make a run for it.

He climbed out of the top back window and, silhouetted in starlight, fell to the ground and broke his ankle. Copper grabbed him but, before the jump, our Lover had taken his gun and shot at the Copper but missed. Husband zigzagged between trees and went up the hill. (Film rights sold.) Moonlight also shone. At the top was the frontier of Wales. Once inside, he was saved. (Two pages on Welsh Nationalism.) He ran, a Druid got him with outstretched arms. It was a cloud. He leapt through it, athlete that he was. (A reading on Radio Three.) Back in Peppercorn Cottage, Lover tended Newborn Babe. The harrowing surrender scene had to be read to be believed.

Blaskin was satisfied. It was such an appalling shit-novel – the drivel of a fourteen-year-old – that he laughed. ‘Nothing better to get me off the hook. They'll turn it down, and I can send my masterpiece elsewhere.'

‘Glad to be of service,' I said. ‘I think we're coming up to the climax. I only need a few more pages, so I can finish it in the morning.'

‘You'd better,' he said. ‘Now get out of the way while I dress for my hour of glory. Where your mother is I don't know, but she'll show herself at the party, woe is me.'

Even though he hadn't been present during a minute of my bringing up, I suppose I got my passion for snazzy dressing from him. In some matters blood tells more than circumstances, and the wish to be seen as smart by the outside world, no matter how ragged I felt within, or how scruffy inside my own abode, was something I'd had for as long as I could remember.

Blaskin donned a black suit and bow-tie, and I could have shaved by the shine of his ankle-length boots. ‘Mrs Drudge has a good hand for that.' He looked critically at what I wore, and supposed it was the best I could muster.

When we got out of the taxi and went into the party at Bookman Hall he introduced me to his publisher, Tony Ampersand, as his research assistant. I did not deny it. To be known as his son would have lumbered me with too much I couldn't live down. The brilliantly lit hall was half full, and I made for the table where champagne was poured and food laid out. Blaskin handed me a cigar, which I lit after eating half a dozen sausages, several cauliflower heads and a few smoked salmon titbits.

I stood with my glass at a vantage point to watch whoever came in, though it was soon difficult to see through the crush. Blaskin took me to Margery Doldrum and Mrs Drudge, annoyed at them being together, and hoping I would break up their twosome. Mrs Drudge was tall and icy and I could tell she didn't like me, which made me want to get into bed with her, but knowing it would take too long to engineer, and not caring to run off my own father, I didn't waste any chit-chat. I think she hated anyone connected with Blaskin, though she seemed annoyed when Margery turned sharply and left her alone.

The noise was like waves breaking on the shore at Brighton rather than Blackpool, though it was still hard to hear what was said. Blaskin was at the door, greeting newspaper and magazine people. When Margery asked me how his latest novel was getting on, I told her it would be out next month. She promised to tell Melvin Gomery, who might review it. They had it in for Blaskin, though it didn't seem to reduce his sales. She pointed out the luminaries: Colin Camps of the
Soho Review
, Victoria Plumb of the
Daily Retch
, Peter O'Graffity of
Private Lives
, Christopher Hogwash of the
Bookbag
, Edwin Stowe of the
Hampstead Review
, and Susan Stopwatch of the
Literary Mirror
. They were not the first liners, she said. They had gone to another party, though maybe some would come later, if they hadn't had enough to drink.

Raymond Mangle told me that his latest novel was about Iranian fanatics calling themselves ‘The Brothers of Cordoba', a terrorist group working to bring Spain back into the fold of Islam. ‘They have thousands of members in training. Secret cells have been set up in Seville and Toledo. The Foreign Office knows about them but doesn't mind really. In fact they are trying to do a deal, promising to give them a free hand in Spain – as far as the Pyrenees – if they won't claim Gibraltar when they come to power.'

‘Is it a fantasy novel?'

‘Oh no. In twenty years it'll happen. Mark my words.'

‘Don't tell Blaskin,' I said, ‘or he'll write it.'

‘You think so?'

‘He's sure to.'

Standing on tiptoe, he looked around the room. ‘I like this kind of party. I've had nothing to eat but kippers for over a week, washed down with white wine.' His lipline, not quite lidded by his beard, became rippled with dislike when I answered his question by saying I only read Gilbert Blaskin, Sidney Blood and Ronald Delphick. His eyes turned a more intense grey to signal his disgust.

I told a girl with long auburn hair and a hare-lip who worked in publicity at Lock and Kee that I wrote book reviews for
The Times
, under a pseudonym. She tried to find out what my real name was, so I said that if she followed me into the cloakroom I'd tell her. ‘Now I believe you,' she said, and vanished like a fish in water.

‘Who's that big pompous-looking chap standing by the door talking to Blaskin?' Mangle asked.

‘How the hell should I know?' But it was Lord Moggerhanger, who gave Blaskin a friendly pat on the back, then turned to bury Tony Ampersand's boyfriend in a cloud of cigar smoke. One or two middle-aged publishing women were punked-up to the eyebrows, and Moggerhanger shifted uneasily when they spoke to him. I got close enough to hear one say how privileged she'd be to publish his life story – or even a novel. ‘It's taken care of.' He nudged one who got too close, having seen Lady Moggerhanger and Polly observing what was going on. ‘Mr Blaskin is doing a book on me, so I expect he'll take care of publication.'

‘How did you meet
him
?' Punk-one asked.

Moggerhanger laughed. ‘Where does one meet Blaskin? I read a page or two of his books. Or my wife did. All I know is that he's a gentleman.'

‘Do they exist?' asked Punk-one.

Punk-two was scornful. ‘What
is
a gentleman?' She had made a good job of trying to disguise her impeccable middle-class roots by adopting the fancy dress of the workers.

‘A gentleman is someone who never admits to being one – for a start,' he told her. ‘Then it's someone who doesn't give a gnat's fart – if you'll excuse the language, though I expect you've heard worse – for anybody or anything, but keeps his eyes open and his trap shut. He knows the world belongs to him, but isn't above a bit of generosity when the mood takes him.'

‘You sound as if you'd write the most wonderful book,' said Punk-one, a little fawningly, I thought.

He slapped her on the back. ‘And you'd be quite an attraction if you agreed to work at one of my entertainment complexes, my dear. You'd be very good at it. I'll pay you a nice fee. How about it?'

‘She already has a complex,' said Punk-two.

‘I say, Claud, get me a drink,' said Lady Moggerhanger.

‘Nothing's ever any good unless you have two of it,' he said. Then he saw me. ‘Michael! Come here, you naughty boy!' He didn't only push the finger with the bloodstone ring on it, but his whole hand, which I shook. Pressures were genuine and hearty. ‘I'm glad to see you, let me tell you. You're always close to me, you know that. I was more than glad to know you'd extricated yourself from that Canada business. I knew you would, otherwise I couldn't have sent you. But you're a bit silly not to come straightaway for your debriefing, though I did understand you wanted a rest first. Anybody would have re-entry problems after a trip like that.'

Punk-two indicated me. ‘Who is he?'

‘My
chief
courier.' He was an emperor awarding promotion on the battlefield.

Punk-one, as quick as a flash, gave me her card. ‘Do
you
want to write a book?'

‘No,' I said. Moggerhanger looked happy at my correct response. ‘In my job I sign the Official Secrets Act, and it's for life.'

‘He could do it, though,' he said. ‘He's got it in him. I'll bet he'd win a prize if he did.'

‘The Moggerhanger Prize,' said Punk-one.

Punk-two spilled her champagne with excitement. ‘I say, that's a wonderful idea, Jane. What do you say, Lord Moggerhanger?'

He was in a good mood, because it was his first literary party, as it was mine. ‘That depends. If it's a money prize, forget it. But if I can pay in club memberships, or a stolen motor, or forged book tokens, or an ikon one of my lads got from Russia for a pair of tights, we might be able to talk about it.'

He was surrounded by the laughter of fairly young women, but even young men were turning to look. Punk-one came back leading a waitress with a tray of champagne glasses. Polly Moggerhanger took one, and saw me.

‘It's been a long time,' I said.

She tried to smile, and succeeded. ‘You haven't altered – physically.'

‘You haven't changed either, I'm sure.' Her hair was just as black, her face fuller but paler. Her lips were as shapely and her figure had ripened. ‘In fact, you're lovely. I was in love with you, and still am. You haven't been out of my mind since all those years ago, but I've been out of my mind at not seeing you.'

She was a real Moggerhanger, as hard as nails. It was she who had connived with her old man in getting me sent to prison, and I thought that if I could get her put inside as well as him at some future date I wouldn't hesitate. Otherwise I would settle for giving her a smack across the chops just hard enough not to loosen any of the perfect teeth which I saw when she smiled. ‘You never got in touch with me, though, did you? I often thought of you as well, and was always hoping to see or hear from you.'

‘I'd heard you were married.'

Her laugh carried all over the room, in spite of the noise, and Punk-one looked at her so lovingly I thought she would try to talk her into writing a book as well. ‘When did you let that stop you?'

‘Or you were busy having a kid. I forget which. But I'll be around more from now on. Where do you live?'

‘Not far from Daddy. On Pipe Road, number twenty-three.'

‘I don't even know your married name.'

‘My divorce came through last week. It's the same as it was before.'

‘Convenient.'

‘We like it better that way.' She touched my hand. ‘But I must circulate, and meet Mr Blaskin.'

‘Don't,' I said, horrified.

‘Don't? Listen, I fuck who I like. And don't you forget it.'

‘I'll try not to.'