Stop Press (19 page)

Of what Timmy Eliot was an example was momentarily obscure – and therefore momentarily interesting. The man, Appleby reflected again, handled his conversational knives and forks nicely enough.

‘Timmy probably has the literary mind. When you get to know him you find him observing his own poses in a disinterested way, and that is the basis of imaginative literature. He can be tenaciously ingenious and inventive; clearly another characteristic. In a former age he might have become an impudent little playwright, or even an authentic minor poet. As it is, this particular university atmosphere of which you are speaking has given him a surfeit of literary attitudes and he is inclined to go after other things. The press will rust, for all that he will do for it. He is thinking of the Foreign Office, or something of the sort. One imagines he would find it desiccated; but that is the proposal at the moment. It would be most unfair to call Timmy a snob. Nevertheless, the idea reveals a certain direction of interests, does it not?’ Winter’s eyes flickered for a moment on Appleby’s and returned to his plate by way of the grotesque creature which had been suspended above the table. ‘Mrs Moule, I challenge you to shut your eyes and tell me how many legs there are to a spider.’

‘Thirty-seven,’ interrupted the man Wedge mysteriously. He guffawed pleasedly over his glass.

There occurred – largely because Gerald Winter was particularly fond of asparagus cropping up out of season – a local lull. Conversation from farther down the table was wafted to Appleby.

‘Fifteen per cent to five thousand,’ a fat woman was saying rapidly; ‘twenty per cent to ten thousand and twenty-five per cent beyond. You see?’

The man sitting beside her was cadaverous and sad. ‘Yes,’ he said; ‘yes, I see.’ He spoke as if what he saw were a vision tolerably in the middle distance.

‘But now, suppose that
x
sells ten thousand and one copies in six months. Then
y
will begin at twenty per cent and if
y
sells fifteen thousand and one copies in six months
z
will begin at twenty-five per cent. And so on. You see?’

‘No,’ said the cadaverous man, sadly but firmly. ‘No, I don’t see that.’

‘But it’s perfectly simple. To begin with you write three books:
x, y
, and
z
. You understand that?’

‘Yes,’ said the cadaverous man, brightening. ‘Oh, yes. I can understand that perfectly.’ Their voices were lost in a drift of talk from elsewhere.

‘I am afraid’, said Mrs Moule apologetically, ‘that the subject of authors’ royalties is one which they find – which
we
find, I ought to say –
rather
absorbing. It seems a pity, don’t you think? But I suppose it is inevitable. I read a book the other day which suggested that Shakespeare himself took a considerable interest in such matters. And it appears that he became quite prosperous not so much because he wrote those wonderful plays as because he got in on owning theatres, and that sort of thing.’ Mrs Moule paused and frowned. ‘
As
because
,’ she said. ‘I wonder if that is
quite
grammatical?’

And now, thought Appleby, we have got very far from the point indeed. ‘You must tell me’, he said firmly to Mrs Moule, ‘something about all these interesting people. The man, for instance, who has difficulty in understanding the talk of the stout lady.’

‘That’s Gilbert Overall.’

‘I don’t think I’ve heard of him.’

‘Nor’ – Winter shook his head decidedly – ‘have I. One couldn’t forget a name like that.’

‘You put the finger’, said Mrs Moule, whose conversation was briskening under the influence of Mr Eliot’s wine, ‘on the core of the situation. People simply refuse to have heard of Mr Overall. And I fear he has come to resent it.’

Winter nodded comprehendingly. ‘The irritable genus of writers – resentful of neglect and restive under commendation. This Overall, you will tell us, is his saturnine self because a public refuses to have heard of him?’

‘Yes. It is really so sad.’

‘Dear lady’ – Winter, Appleby conjectured, was restive beneath his urbane talk – ‘let us remember Keats and cheer up. And it is the same, you know, with scholars – indeed, their form of the disease is more extreme. I have known a man, held in almost universal esteem, fall into a melancholy and thence to a decline simply because this refusal-to-have-heard-of-him attitude was maintained by a single other scholar at the thither end of the world.’

‘Is Overall’, asked Appleby, ‘a novelist?’

‘Indeed he is; he writes rather the same sort of stories as Mr Eliot. To put the situation more exactly, Mr Eliot has virtually driven him off the market.’

‘Driven him off the market!’ exclaimed Winter in astonishment. ‘How very strange. I should have imagined that in such a popular sphere of literature as our friend’s there would be ample room for all.’

Mrs Moule nodded her tiara vigorously. ‘In a general way you would be quite right. But anything can happen it the writer’s profession.’

Wedge, who had been for some time in a profound abstraction, awoke as to a battle-cry. ‘Anything’, he agreed vigorously, ‘can happen in the book trade.’ He fell into abstraction anew.

‘I have no doubt’, continued Mrs Moule with spirit, ‘that it is because I have been mixed up with books so long that I have what Mr Winter considers laughable notions on how the universe is governed. Their ways are wholly unaccountable. Mr Winter, do you know how a best-seller comes into being?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘Nor does anyone else. Do you know why people don’t buy books?

‘Well, approximately – yes.’

‘Quite so. But when they do buy a book do you know why they do it?’

‘I have no idea at all.’

‘Exactly. And neither has anyone else – not even Mr Wedge. But about Mr Overall; his experience is just part of this general mysteriousness of books. When Mr Eliot’s novels underwent their last development – and you know they are famous for developing – the result was that they came rather into Mr Overall’s territory; he has been trying to get just the sort of effects Mr Eliot was now getting. I am afraid he was quite resentful about it, maintaining that Mr Eliot had deliberately adopted his manner – whereas really Mr Eliot was just another of the people to whom Mr Overall and his work were unknown. All of which would scarcely have mattered but for this very odd and exceptional behaviour ont the part of the public. The public stopped reading the Overall books. Mr Eliot added a few thousands to his readers and Mr Overall lost most of his. And I maintain that it is rather sad. Mr Winter will tell me to remember Rembrandt and cheer up. But Rembrandt was a genius and could lose a public in a good cause and not care a damn’ – Mrs Moule looked surprised at the vigour of her own language – ‘whereas Mr Overall is just a black-coated breadwinner like the rest of us.’

Winter, obliquely challenged, shook his head. ‘My heart’ – his voice was decently lowered – ‘is stony. And will continue so even if you summon up an anxious Mrs Overall surrounded by a band of hungry little Bibs and Tuckers.’ He contemplated this jest for a moment as if it had not come out very well. ‘I am more interested in Overall’s being here now. Surely it is a somewhat uncomfortable situation?’

Mrs Moule glanced in evident embarrassment across the table. ‘Mr Overall’, she said, ‘is one of Mr Wedge’s authors.’ As if determined to leave it at that she took a large bite of what was in front of her.

Wedge looked cautiously about him. ‘Everything’, he said, ‘is put down to me. And it’s true I got Overall to Rust; I think it’s going to do him a bit of good.’

Appleby looked down the table at Overall and wondered just what sort of benefit was being planned. Perhaps Overall was simply to be fattened up at his successful rival’s charge. If so, the plan was a failure. Overall sat like a spectre at the board and ate with the gloomiest restraint.

‘Old Gib Overall,’ continued Wedge, sliding into a vein of sentiment which was presumably some other man’s; ‘we
must
distribute him, after all.’ He appeared to place this virtuous sentiment on the table in front of him and contemplate it admiringly. ‘And we can’t sell him as a man Eliot walked in on. It wouldn’t be true.’ He shook his head judiciously. ‘What’s more, it wouldn’t work. But why not sell him as a man walking in on Eliot?’

‘Would that’, asked Appleby innocently, ‘be true?’

‘In three months it can be gospel. Overall has only to trim a little here and there and he’ll be chasing Eliot clearly enough. And put that way round something may be done with him.’

‘To be retired mind’, said Winter, ‘it appears a little hard on Overall.’

‘Dear old Gib.’ Wedge sighed with an excess of benevolence which yet implied that sacrifices must be made for benefits to be received. ‘If we can only set him up as a demi-semi-Spider he’s a made man.’

‘I cannot but feel’ – Winter was looking with a bland sideways glance at Appleby – ‘that we are surrounded by mystery. By what, I mean, Mrs Moule calls the mystery of books. In the Bodleian books appear to behave in the most decorous way; I have never once detected them in skittishness or impropriety. Or perhaps you know the Reading Room in the British Museum? Have you ever been startled by anything untoward in their conduct there? Frankly, I have not. But in the great world–’ He left his solemn foolery delicately in the air.

Appleby was going over in his mind what he remembered about Alexander Pope. Pope had written a long poem, the
Dunciad
, entirely given over to ridicule of the dull and unsuccessful writers of his day. Not a very nice or charitable thing to do, for Pope himself had made a very good thing of the profession of letters; had been quite an Eliot, in fact, in his own superior sphere. There was here something to explore, and once more he appealed to Mrs Moule. ‘I gather, then, that Overall is here for a little publicity, and as a hitherto wandering meteorite to be absorbed into the orbit of the Spider.’ The atmosphere of Rust seduced one to picturesque if inexact literary metaphor. ‘But what of his relations to our host? You seemed to suggest that he is a little resentful of the way things have gone.’

Mrs Moule looked nervously around. But the party was hotting up; its animation had returned to it with interest and their talk was securely islanded in noise. ‘I think it natural’, she said carefully, ‘that Mr Overall should feel a little sore. And I believe that he is of a somewhat morose temper to begin with. But Mr Eliot’s conduct would be so irreproachable in any situation–’

‘It was rather that aspect that I had in mind.’ Appleby proceeded cautiously, for he sensed that Mrs Moule’s attitude to Mr Eliot was something like that which, in a cosmic poem, the moon might be represented as bearing to the sun. ‘Mr Eliot himself would never do anything to make Overall bear him an active personal grudge?’

‘Oh, no!’

Mrs Moule’s denial was a shade too eager. Appleby tried again – more cautiously still, for he had come to the really delicate point. ‘It is just that it has occurred to me that there is something about Mr Eliot which might be very irritating to – to people in Overall’s situation. I haven’t seen much of him and I can’t express it very well. It’s Rust, I think, and the army and his antiquarian interest. It could be twisted into general sense that he is a superior amateur who has stepped in and scooped the pool, and who’ – Appleby looked warily at the lady who dramatized for Mr Eliot – ‘is secretly a little disdainful of the whole business.’

To Appleby’s relief the tiara twinkled in a sort of modified agreement. ‘Disdainful is not quite the right word, Mr Appleby. Mr Eliot is much too’ – she cast about for an adequate expression – ‘
Shakespearian
. I mentioned that I had been reading a book about Shakespeare? It seems that the absurdities of his theatre and simplicity of his audience’s taste made him restless at times, but
not
disdainful. And Mr Eliot’ – it clearly gave Mrs Moule great satisfaction thus ingeniously to equate the two – ‘is
just
like Shakespeare in that regard.’ She paused to make this point doubly emphatic. ‘But of course I know what you mean. Mere success like Mr Eliot’s is likely to alienate a great many people, and Mr Eliot does give a
teeny
impression that the books are something which he brings out from the nursery cupboard. And it’s true, too, that he
is
rather inclined’ – Mrs Moule hesitated, blushed, came firmly to a full stop. ‘But after all, we
are
at Mr Eliot’s dinner-table.’

Appleby, thus reduced to the inquisitive policeman, held his peace. Winter came to the rescue. ‘Very true,’ he murmured, ‘very true. But we are all concerned to get to the bottom of these unfortunate jokes, and it will be as well to pool all the information we have.’ He cast about the table a look of exaggerated caution which emphasized their isolation; even Wedge was now talking absorbedly to one of his neighbours.

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Moule; ‘very well. I was going to say that Mr Eliot is a little inclined – it’s difficult to express – to an occasional mild sadism.’ She cast about for means to throw this into an amiable light. ‘Mr Eliot’, she added, ‘is such a finely complex man!’

Appleby saw irritation and outrageousness hovering in Winter’s eye; he hastened to interpose a modified outrageousness himself. ‘You mean’, he said, ‘that he will sometimes throw fireworks at the cat – that kind of thing?’

Mrs Moule was indignant. ‘Certainly not; nothing of the sort! I merely mean that he will sometimes amuse himself by teasing and even tormenting people in an ironical way. Mr Eliot has such a command of irony. We must regard it’ – Mrs Moule took one of her inconsequent dips into the schoolmistressing past – ‘as one of the higher literary forms.’

‘And Eliot’ – Winter was still restless – ‘badgers people with this higher literary form? That is most interesting. Mr Appleby’s mind, I am quite sure, is on Pope.’

‘As you say,’ said Appleby equably, ‘my mind is on Pope. Would Mr Eliot’ – he turned to Mrs Moule – ‘amuse himself after that fashion; by writing lampoons, say, on people like Overall? Might he make enemies as result of that sort of thing getting round?’