The Great Pursuit (7 page)

Frensic shook his head. 'Not a chance. You see we handled his work for him and he can't come
to London so it's all between the three of us. No one else will ever know.'

Piper smiled down into his spaghetti. It was all so simple. He was on the brink of
recognition. He looked up into Sonia's face. 'Oh well. All's fair in love and war,' he said, and
Sonia smiled back. She raised her glass. 'I'll drink to that,' she murmured.

'To the making of an author,' said Frensic.

They drank. Later that night in Frensic's flat in Hampstead Piper signed two contracts. The
first sold Search for a Lost Childhood to Corkadales for the advance sum of one thousand pounds.
The second stated that as the author of Pause O Men for the Virgin he agreed to make a
promotional tour of the United States.

'On one condition,' he said as Frensic opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate the
occasion.

'What's that?' said Frensic.

'That Miss Futtle comes with me,' said Piper. There was a bang as the champagne cork hit the
ceiling. On the sofa Sonia laughed gaily. 'I second that motion,' she said.

Frensic carried it. Later he carried a very drunk Piper through to his spare room and put him
to bed.

Piper smiled happily in his sleep.

Piper awoke next morning and lay in bed with a feeling of elation. He was going to be
published. He was going to America. He was in love. Suddenly everything he had dreamt of had come
true in the most miraculous fashion. Piper had no qualms. He got up and washed and looked at
himself in the bathroom mirror with a new appreciation of his previously unrecognized gifts. The
fact that his sudden good fortune was derived from the misfortune of an author with terminal
arthritis no longer disturbed him. His genius deserved a break and this was it. Besides, the long
years of frustration had anaesthetized those moral principles which so informed his novels. A
chance reading of Benvenuto Cellini's Autobiography helped too. 'One's duty is to one's art,'
Piper told his reflection in the bathroom mirror as he shaved, adding that there was a tide in
the affairs of men which taken at its flood led on to fortune. Finally there was Sonia
Futtle.

Piper's dedication to his art had left him little time for real feelings for real people and
that little time he had devoted to avoiding the predatory advances of several of his landladies
or to worshipping at a distance attractive young women who stayed at the boarding-houses he
frequented. And those girls he had taken out had proved, on acquaintance, to be uninterested in
literature. Piper had reserved himself for the great love affair, one that would equal in
intensity the affairs he had read about in great novels, a meeting of literary minds. In Sonia
Futtle he felt he had found a woman who truly appreciated what he had to offer and one with whom
he could enter into a genuine relationship. If anything more was needed to convince him that he
need have no hesitation in going to America to promote someone else's work it was the knowledge
that Sonia was going with him. Piper finished shaving and went out into the kitchen to find a
note from Frensic saying he had gone to the office and telling Piper to make himself at home.
Piper made himself at home. He had breakfast and then, taking his diary and bottle of evaporated
ink through to Frensic's study, settled down at the desk to write his radiant perceptions of
Sonia Futtle in his diary.

But if Piper was radiant, Frensic wasn't. 'This thing could blow up in our faces,' he told
Sonia when she arrived. 'We got the poor sod drunk and he signed the contract but what happens if
he changes his mind?'

'No way,' said Sonia. 'We make a down-payment on the tour and you take him round to Corkadales
this afternoon and get him to sign for Search. That way we sew him up good and tight.'

'Methinks I hear the voice of Hutchmeyer speaking,' said Frensic. 'Sew him up good and tight.
Tight being the operative word. Good I have doubts about.'

'It's for his own,' said Sonia. 'Name me some other way he's ever going to see Search in
print.'

Frensic nodded his agreement. 'Geoffrey is going to have a fit when he sees what he's agreed
to publish. The Magic Mountain in East Finchley. The mind boggles. You should have read Piper's
version of Nostromo, likewise set in East Finchley.'

'I'll wait for the reviews,' said Sonia. 'In the meantime we'll have made a cool quarter of a
million. Pounds, Frenzy, not dollars. Think of that.'

'I have thought of that,' said Frensic. 'I have also thought what will happen if this thing
goes wrong. We'll be out of business.'

'It isn't going to go wrong. I've been on the phone to Eleanor Beazley of the "Books To Be
Read" programme. She owes me a favour. She's agreed to squeeze Piper into next week's '

'No,' said Frensic. 'Definitely not. I won't have you rushing Piper '

'Listen, baby,' said Sonia, 'we've got to strike while the iron's hot. We get Piper on the box
saying he wrote Pause and he ain't going to back out nohow.'

Frensic regarded her with distaste. 'He ain't going to back out nohow? Charming. We're really
getting into Mafia-land now. And kindly don't "baby" me. If there is one expression I abominate
it's being called "baby". And as for putting the poor demented Piper on the box, have you thought
what effect this is going to have on Cadwalladine and his anonymous client?'

'Cadwalladine has agreed to the substitution in principle,' said Sonia. 'What's he got to
complain about?'

'There is a difference between "in principle" and "in practice",' said Frensic. 'What he
actually said was that he would consult his client.'

'And has he let you know?'

'Not yet,' said Frensic, 'and in some ways I rather hope he turns the idea down. At least it
would put an end once and for all to the internecine strife between my greed and my
scruples.'

But even that relief was denied him. Half an hour later a telegram was delivered.

'CLIENT AGREES TO SUBSTITUTION STOP ANONYMITY OVERRIDING CONSIDERATION CADWALLADINE.'

'So we're in the clear,' said Sonia. 'I'll confirm Piper for Wednesday and see if the Guardian
will run a feature on him. You get on to Geoffrey and arrange for Piper to exchange contracts for
Search this afternoon.'

'That could lead to misunderstandings,' said Frensic. 'Geoffrey happens to think Piper wrote
Pause and since Piper hasn't read Pause, let alone written the thing...'

'So you take him out to lunch and liquor him up and...'

'Have you ever considered,' asked Frensic, 'going into the kidnapping business?'

In the event there was no need to liquor Piper up. He arrived in a state of euphoria and
installed himself in Sonia's office where he sat gazing at her meaningfully while she telephoned
the literary editors of several daily papers to arrange pre-publication interviews with the
author of the world's most expensively purchased novel, Pause O Men for the Virgin. In the next
office Frensic coped with the ordinary business of the day. He phoned Geoffrey Corkadale and made
an appointment for Piper in the afternoon, he listened abstractedly to the whining of two authors
who were having difficulties with their plots, did his best to assure them that it would all come
right in the end and tried to ignore the intimations of his own instincts which were telling him
that with the signing up of Piper the firm of Frensic & Futtle had bitten off more than they
could chew. Finally when Piper went downstairs to the washroom Frensic managed to have a word
with Sonia.

'What gives?' he asked, a lapse into transatlantic brevity that indicated his disturbed state
of mind.

'The Guardian have agreed to interview him tomorrow and the Telegraph say they'll let me '

'With Piper. Whence the fixed smile and the goggle eyes?'

Sonia smiled. 'Has it ever occurred to you that he might find me attractive?'

'No,' said Frensic. 'No it hasn't.'

Sonia's smile faded. 'Get lost,' she said.

Frensic got lost and considered this new and quite incomprehensible development. It was one of
the fixed stars in his firmament of opinions that no one in his right mind could find Sonia
Futtle attractive apart from Hutchmeyer and Hutchmeyer had evidently perverse tastes both in
books and in women. That Piper should be in love with her, and at such short notice, intruded a
new dimension into the situation which in his opinion was sufficiently crowded already. Frensic
sat down behind his desk and wondered what advantages could be gained from Piper's
infatuation.

'At least it gets me off the hook,' he muttered finally and went next door again. But Piper
was back in his chair gazing with adoring eyes at Sonia. Frensic retreated and phoned her.

'From now on, he's your pigeon,' he told her. 'You dine, wine him and anything else that
pleases you. The man's besotted.'

'Jealousy will get you nowhere,' said Sonia smiling at Piper.

'Right,' said Frensic, 'I want no part of this corruption of the innocent.'

'Squeamish?' said Sonia.

'Extremely,' said Frensic and put down the phone. 'Who was that?' asked Piper.

'Oh just an editor at Heinemann. He's got a crush on me.'

'Hm,' said Piper disgruntledly.

And so while Frensic lunched at his club, a thing he did only when his ego, vanity or virility
(such as it was) had taken a bashing in the real world, Sonia swept the besotted Piper off to
Wheeler's and fed him on dry Martinis, Rhine wine, salmon cutlets and her own brand of expansive
charm. By the time they emerged into the street he had told her in so many words that he
considered her the first woman in his life to have possessed both the physical and mental
attractions which made for a real relationship and one who moreover understood the true nature of
the creative literary act. Sonia Futtle was not used to such ardent confessions. The few advances
she had had in the past had been expressed less fluently and had largely consisted of enquiries
as to whether she would or wouldn't and Piper's technique, borrowed almost entirely from Hans
Castorp in The Magic Mountain with a bit of Lawrence thrown in for good measure, came as a
pleasant surprise. There was an old-fashioned quality about him, she decided, which made a nice
change. Besides, Piper, for all his literary ambitions, was personable and not without an angular
charm and Sonia could accommodate any amount of angular charm. It was a flushed and flattered
Sonia who stood on the pavement and hailed a taxi to take them to Corkadales.

'Just don't shoot your mouth off too much,' she said as they drove across London. 'Geoffrey
Corkadale's a fag and he'll do the talking. He'll probably say a whole lot of complimentary
things about Pause O Men for the Virgin and you just nod.'

Piper nodded. The world was a gay, gay place in which anything was possible and everything
permissible. As an accepted author it became him to be modest. In the event he excelled himself
at Corkadales. Inspired by the sight of Trollope's inkpot in the glass case he launched into an
explanation of his own writing techniques with particular reference to the use of evaporated ink,
exchanged contracts for Search, and accepted Geoffrey's praise of Pause as a first-rate novel
with a suitably ironical smile.

'Extraordinary to think he could have written that filthy book,' Geoffrey whispered to Sonia
as they were leaving. 'I had expected some long-haired hippie and my dear, this one is out of the
Ark.'

'Just shows you can never tell,' said Sonia. 'Anyway you're going to get a lot of excellent
publicity for Pause. I've got him on the "Books To Be Read" programme.'

'How very clever you are,' said Geoffrey. 'I'm delighted. And the American deal is definitely
on?'

'Definitely,' said Sonia.

They took another taxi and drove back towards Lanyard Lane.

'You were marvellous,' she told Piper. 'Just stick to talking about your pens and ink and how
you write your books and refuse to discuss their content and we'll have no trouble.'

'Nobody seems to discuss books anyway,' said Piper. 'I thought the conversation would be quite
different. More literary.'

He got out in Charing Cross Road and spent the rest of the afternoon browsing in Foyle's while
Sonia went back to the office and reassured Frensic.

'No problems,' she said. 'He had Geoffrey fooled.'

'That's hardly surprising,' said Frensic, 'Geoffrey is a fool. Wait till Eleanor Beazley
starts asking him about his portrayal of the sexual psyche of an eighty-year-old woman. That's
when the fat's going to be in the fire.'

'She won't. I've told her he never discusses his past work. She's to stick to biographical
details and how he works. He's really convincing when he gets on to pens and ink. Did you know he
uses evaporated ink and writes in leatherbound ledgers? Isn't that quaint?'

'I'm only surprised he doesn't use a quill,' said Frensic. 'It's in keeping.'

'It's good copy. The Guardian interview with Jim Fossie is tomorrow morning and the Telegraph
wants him for the colour supplement in the afternoon. I tell you this bandwagon is beginning to
roll.'

That night, as Frensic made his way back to his flat with Piper, it was clear that the
bandwagon had indeed begun to roll. The newstands announced BRITISH NOVELIST MAKES TWO MILLION IN
BIGGEST DEAL EVER.

'Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive,' murmured Frensic and
bought a paper. Beside him Piper nursed the large green hardback copy of Thomas Mann's Doctor
Faustus which he had bought at Foyle's. He was thinking of utilizing its symphonic approach in
his third novel.

Next morning the bandwagon began to roll in earnest. After a night spent dreaming of Sonia and
preparing himself for the ordeal, Piper arrived at the office to discuss his life, literary
opinions and methods of work with Jim Fossie of the Guardian. Frensic and Sonia hovered anxiously
in the background to ensure discretion but there was no need. Whatever Piper's limitations as a
writer of novels, as a putative novelist he played his role expertly. He spoke of Literature in
the abstract, referred scathingly to one or two eminent contemporary novelists, but for the most
part concentrated on the use of evaporated ink and the limitations of the modern fountain pen as
an aid to literary creation.