The Great Pursuit (9 page)

'Pornography? You've got to be kidding. So you haven't read anything later than Hemingway
you've got this idea any book deals with sex is pornographic.'

'No I don't,' protested Piper, 'what I meant was it undermines the foundations of English
literature...'

'Don't give me that crap. You took advantage of Frenzy's faith in you as a writer. Ten years
he's been trying to get you published and now when we finally come up with this deal you throw it
back at us.'

'That's not true. I didn't know the book was that bad. I've got my reputation to think of and
if my name is on '

'Your reputation? What about our reputation?' said Sonia as they skirmished past a bus queue
on the front. 'You ever thought what you're doing to that?'

Piper shook his head.

'So where's your reputation? As what?'

'As a writer,' said Piper.

Sonia appealed to the bus queue. 'Whoever heard of you?'

Clearly no one had. Piper fled down on to the beach.

'And what is more no one ever will,' shouted Sonia. 'You think Corkadales are going to publish
Search now? Think again. They'll take you through the courts and break you moneywise and then
they'll blacklist you.'

'Blacklist me?' said Piper.

'The blacklist of authors who are never to be published.'

'Corkadales aren't the only publishers,' said Piper now thoroughly confused.

'If you're on the blacklist no one will publish you,' said Sonia inventively. 'You'll be
finished. As a writer finito.'

Piper stared out at the sea and thought about being finito as a writer. It was a terrible
prospect.

'You really think...' he began but Sonia had already changed her tactics.

'You told me you loved me,' she sobbed sinking on to the sand close to a middle-aged couple.
'You said we would...'

'Oh Lord,' said Piper, 'don't go on like that. Not here.'

But Sonia went on, there and elsewhere, combining a public display of private anguish with the
threat of legal action if Piper didn't fulfil his part of the bargain and the promise of fame as
a writer of genius if he did. Gradually his resolve weakened. The blacklist had hit him hard.

'I suppose I could always write under another name,' he said as they stood at the end of the
pier. But Sonia shook her head.

'Darling, you're so naïve,' she said. 'Don't you see that what you write is instantly
recognizable. You can't escape your own uniqueness, your own original brilliance...'

'I suppose not,' said Piper modestly, 'I suppose that's true.'

'Of course it's true. You're not some hack turning books out to order. You're you, Peter
Piper. Frenzy has always said there's only one you.'

'He has?' said Piper.

'He's spent more time on you than any other author we handle. He's had faith in you and this
is your big opportunity, the chance to break through into fame...'

'With someone else's awful book,' Piper pointed out.

'So it's someone else's, it might have had to be your own. Like Faulkner with Sanctuary and
the rape with the corncob.'

'You mean Faulkner didn't write that?' said Piper aghast.

'I mean he did. He had to so he'd get noticed and have the breakthrough. Nobody'd bought him
before Sanctuary and afterwards he was famous. With Pause you don't have to do that. You keep
your artistic integrity intact.'

'I hadn't thought of it like that,' said Piper.

'And later when you're known as a great novelist you can write your autobiography and set the
world straight about Pause,' said Sonia.

'So I can,' said Piper.

'Then you'll come?'

'Yes. Yes, I will.'

'Oh, darling.'

They kissed on the end of the pier and the tide, rising gently under the moon, lapped below
their feet.

Two days later a triumphant if exhausted Sonia walked into the office to announce that she had
persuaded Piper to change his mind.

'Brought him back with you?' said Frensic incredulously. 'After that telegram? Good Lord, you
must have positively Circean charms for the poor brute. How on earth did you do it?'

'Made a scene and quoted Faulkner,' said Sonia simply.

Frensic was appalled. 'Not Faulkner again. We had him last summer. Even Mann's easier to move
to East Finchley. Every time I see a pylon now I...'

'This was Sanctuary.'

Frensic sighed. 'That's better I suppose. Still the thought of Mrs Piper ending up in some
brothel in Memphis-cum-Golders Green...And you mean to say he's prepared to go on with the tour?
That's incredible.'

'You forget I'm a salesperson,' said Sonia. 'I could sell sunlamps in the Sahara.'

'I believe you. After that letter he wrote Geoffrey I thought we were done for. And he is
quite reconciled to being the author of what he chose to call the most repulsive piece of writing
it had ever been his misfortune to have to read?'

'He sees it as a necessary step on the road to recognition,' said Sonia. 'I managed to
persuade him it was his duty to suppress his own critical awareness in order to achieve '

'Critical awareness my foot,' said Frensic, 'he hasn't got any. Just so long as I don't have
to put him up again.'

'He's staying with me,' said Sonia, 'and don't smirk. I just want him where I can reach
him.'

Frensic stopped smirking. 'And what is the next event on the agenda?'

'The "Books To Be Read" programme. It will help get him ready for the TV appearances in the
States.'

'Quite so,' said Frensic. 'Added to which it has the advantage of getting him committed to the
authorship of Pause with what is termed the maximum exposure. One can hardly see him backing out
after that.'

'Frenzy dear,' said Sonia, 'you are a born worrier. It's going to work out all right.'

'I just hope you're right,' said Frensic, 'but I shall be relieved when you leave for the
States. There's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip, and '

'Not this cup and these lips,' said Sonia smugly, 'no way. Piper will go on the box...'

'Like a lamb to the slaughter?' suggested Frensic.

It was an apt simile and one that had already occurred to Piper who had begun to have
qualms.

'Not that I doubt my love for Sonia,' he confided to his diary which, now that he had moved
into Sonia's flat, had taken the place of Search as his main mode of self-expression. 'But it is
surely arguable that my honesty as an artist is at stake whatever Sonia may say about
Villon.'

And in any case Villon's end didn't commend itself to Piper. To calm his conscience he turned
once again to the Faulkner interview in Writers at Work. Mr Faulkner's view on the artist was
most reassuring. 'He is completely amoral,' Piper read, 'in that he will rob, borrow, beg or
steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done.' Piper read right through the interview
and came to the conclusion that perhaps he had been wrong to abandon his Yoknapatawpha version of
Search in favour of The Magic Mountain. Frensic had disapproved on the grounds that the prose had
seemed a bit clotted for the story of adolescence. But then Frensic was so commercial. It had
come as a considerable surprise to Piper to learn that Frensic had so much faith in him. He had
begun to suspect that Frensic was merely fobbing him off with his annual lunches but Sonia had
reassured him. Dear Sonia. She was such a comfort. Piper made an ecstatic note of the fact in his
diary and then turned on the television set. It was time he decided what sort of image he wanted
to present on the 'Books To Be Read' programme. Sonia said image was very important and with his
usual gift for derivation Piper finally adopted Herbert Herbison as his model. Sonia came home
that night to find him muttering alliterative clichés to his reflection in her dressing-table
mirror.

'You've just got to be yourself,' she told him. 'It's no use trying to copy other people.'

'Myself?' said Piper.

'Natural. Like you are with me.'

'You think it will be all right like that?'

'Darling, it will be fine. I've had a word with Eleanor Beazley and she'll go easy on you. You
can tell her all about your work methods and pens and things.'

'Just so long as she doesn't ask me why I wrote that bloody book,' said Piper gloomily.

'You'll be great,' said Sonia confidently. She was still insisting that everything would be
just fine when three days later at Shepherd's Bush Piper was led away to be made up for the
interview.

For once she was wrong. Even Geoffrey Corkadale, whose authors seldom achieved a circulation
sufficient to warrant their appearance on 'Books To Be Read' and who therefore tended to ignore
the programme, could see that Piper was, to put it mildly, not himself. He said as much to
Frensic who had invited him over for the evening in case the need should arise for a fresh
explanation as to who had actually written Pause O Men for the Virgin.

'Come to think of it, I don't suppose he is,' said Frensic staring nervously at the image on
the screen. Certainly Piper had a stricken look about him as he sat opposite Eleanor Beazley and
the title faded.

Tonight I have in the studio with me Mr Peter Piper,' said Miss Beazley addressing the camera,
'the author of a first novel, Pause O Men for the Virgin, which will shortly be published by
Corkadales, price £3.95, and which has been bought for the unheard-of sum of...' (there was a
loud thump as Piper kicked the microphone) 'by an American publisher.'

'Unheard-of is about right,' said Frensic. 'We could have done with that bit of
publicity.'

Miss Beazley did her best to make good the erasure. She turned to Piper. 'Two million dollars
is a very large sum to be paid for a first novel,' she said, 'it must have come as a great shock
to you to find yourself...'

There was another thump as Piper crossed his legs. This time he managed to kick the microphone
and spill a glass of water on the table at the same time.

'I'm sorry,' he shouted. Miss Beazley continued to smile expectantly as water dribbled down
her leg. 'Yes, it was a great shock.'

'You hadn't expected it to be such a great success?'

'No,' said Piper.

'I wish to God he'd stop twitching like that,' said Geoffrey. 'Anyone would think he'd got St
Vitus dance.'

Miss Beazley smiled solicitously. 'I wonder if you'd care to tell us something about how you
came to write the book in the first place?' she asked.

Piper gazed stricken into a million homes. 'I didn't...' he began, before jerking his leg
forward galvanically and knocking the microphone on to the floor. Frensic shut his eyes. Muffled
voices came from the set. When he looked again Miss Beazley's insistent smile filled the
screen.

'Pause O Men is a most unusual book,' she was saying. 'It's a love story about a young man who
falls in love with a woman much older than himself. Was this something you had had in mind for a
long time? I mean was it a theme that had occupied your attention?'

The face of Piper appeared again. Beads of perspiration were visible on his forehead and his
mouth was working uncontrollably. 'Yes,' he bawled finally.

'Christ, I don't think I can stand much more of this,' said Geoffrey. 'The poor fellow looks
as though he's going to burst.'

'And did it take you long to write?' asked Miss Beazley.

Again Piper struggled for words, looking desperately round the studio as he did so. Finally he
took a sip of water and said 'Yes.'

Frensic mopped his brow with a handkerchief.

'To change the subject,' said the indefatigable Miss Beazley whose smile had a positively
demented gaiety about it now, 'I understand that your working methods are very much your own. You
were telling me earlier that you always write in longhand?'

'Yes,' said Piper.

'And you grind your own ink?'

Piper ground his teeth and nodded.

'This was an idea you got from Kipling?'

'Yes. Something Of Myself. It's in there,' said Piper.

'At least he's warming up,' said Geoffrey only to have his hopes blighted by Miss Beazley's
ignorance of Kipling's autobiography.

'Something of yourself is in your novel?' she asked hopefully. Piper glared at her. It was
obvious he disliked the question.

'The ink,' he said, 'it's in Something Of Myself.'

Miss Beazley's smile took on a bemused look. 'Is it? The ink?'

'He used to grind it himself,' said Piper, 'or rather he got a boy to grind it for him.'

'A boy? How very interesting,' said Miss Beazley searching for some way out of the maze. Piper
refused to help.

'It's blacker if you grind your own Indian ink.'

'I suppose it must be. And you find that using a very black Indian ink helps you to
write?'

'No,' said Piper, 'it gums up the nib. I tried diluting it with ordinary ink but it still
wouldn't work. It got in the ducts and blocked them up.' He stopped suddenly and stared at Miss
Beazley.

'Ducts? It blocks the ducts?' she said, evidently supposing Piper to be referring to some
strange conduit of inspiration. 'You mean you found your...' she groped for a less old-fashioned
alternative but gave up the struggle to remain contemporary, 'you found your muse
wouldn't...'

'Daemon,' said Piper abruptly, still in the role of Kipling.

Miss Beazley took the insult in her stride. 'You were talking about ink,' she said.

'I said it blocked the ducts of the fountain pen. I couldn't write more than one word at a
time.'

'That's hardly surprising,' said Geoffrey. 'It would be bloody odd if he could.'

It was evidently a thought that had occurred to Piper too. 'I mean I had to keep stopping and
wiping the nib all the time,' he explained. 'So what I do now is I...' He stopped. 'It sounds
silly.'

'It sounds insane,' said Geoffrey but Miss Beazley would have none of it.

'Go on,' she said encouragingly.

'Well, what I do now is I get a bottle of Midnight Black and let it dry out a bit and then
when it's sort of gooey if you see what I mean I dip my nib in and...' Piper faltered to a
stop.