The Mark and the Void (27 page)

‘An excellent idea,’ I respond in kind. ‘Let us leave the heavy topics for another time, and simply take pleasure in our long-standing friendship.’

The ensuing silence continues until the waiter returns to relieve us of our plates, when I take the opportunity to add a side of potato dauphinoise to my main course. ‘And … how are the petits pois today?’

‘Delicious, sir. Fresh from our own farm.’

I see Paul glare at me hatefully from the far side of table. ‘Perhaps I will have a side of those as well,’ I say.

The waiter departs, the silence resumes. Then a machinating smile breaks across his face, and Paul says, ‘I meant to tell you – I saw a film last night, reminded me of you.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘Yeah, it was called
Anal Analyst
. What was the strapline … “We’ve all been fucked in the ass by banks … but here comes the biggest dick of all!” ’

The couple beside us look at each other in alarm. ‘Ah, superb,’ I say, as the mains arrive.

‘What it is, Rod McMaster is this banking analyst, okay? And in his office there are these two hot girls with really big asses …’

He proceeds to give me a lengthy and extremely graphic description of the banking analyst and his associates’ adventures at an asset management conference in Luxembourg. If he thinks he is going to embarrass me out of my meal, however, he is wrong.

‘On the subject of culture,’ I say, when there is a break in the narrative, ‘Bimal Banerjee is reading in Dublin tonight.’

Paul recoils violently, as if I had thrown acid in his face.

‘They say he will win the Raytheon again this year,’ I muse. ‘I hope so.
Ararat Rat Rap
is a staggering achievement.’

This time he does not react, other than to continue chewing and then, evidently with some difficulty, swallow.

‘You should come,’ I suggest. ‘It will be exciting to see a real writer, how do you say, in the flesh.’

‘I’d like to, Claude,’ Paul says, recovering his composure. ‘I’m always interested to see what feat of mediocrity the bourgeoisie have canonized now. Unfortunately I can’t manage to put out of my head what a vile excrescence that vile excrescence is. So for me, it’s like every word is written in pus, you know?’

This impressively unambiguous image brings the exchange to a close, and with it any further desire to eat; I push away my plate. The waiter comes over to clear the table. ‘Will that be all, gentlemen?’ he asks hopefully.

I have a meeting in less than an hour; nevertheless, out of bloody-mindedness, I order a
digestif
, which Paul watches me drink with unconcealed malevolence.

‘Had enough?’ he asks sourly.

I give the question some thought. His eyes widen fearfully. I decide to be merciful. Paul motions to the waiter for the bill.

‘They always insist on hiding it inside these stupid leather books,’ he grumbles when it comes. ‘Like maybe you’ll mistake it for some magical fairy tale.’

Clearly on this occasion the fairy tale does not have a happy ending. His face turns ashen; he rubs his eyes, and scans the bill again. ‘How can this be?’ he whispers.

‘Let me see,’ I say, and take the leather book out of his limp, unresisting hand. Everything appears to be in order. ‘Service is not included,’ I say, and pass it back to him.

‘And Ludmila wasn’t even here!’ Paul laments.

I sit back and fold my hands peaceably over my stomach.

He thrums his fingers on the tablecloth, then glances up at me. ‘Full disclosure. I only have twenty euro on me.’

‘Do you,’ I say.

‘Yeah,’ he says.

‘How did you intend to pay for the meal?’

‘I really hadn’t thought that far ahead,’ he says. ‘I suppose I figured that if I got you to invest right now, in cash, I could pay for it out of that.’

‘I see. That is unfortunate, because I left my wallet in the office.’

‘You did?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right.’ He looks troubled. The waiter, who is not eager for us to stay, glides close, glances at the still-unaddressed bill, glides on. Paul shoots me an up-from-under look and says in a low voice, ‘What if I told you I had a foolproof way for us to walk right out of the restaurant without us paying them a penny?’

I roll my eyes.

‘I’m serious. We walk out of here – walk, not run, with our heads held high – and it doesn’t cost us a thing.’

‘Look, just let me pay,’ I say, and reach for the bill.

‘I thought you didn’t have your wallet.’

‘Obviously I have my wallet. I will pay, and put it on expenses.’

‘No!’ Paul whips it away. ‘There’s a principle at stake here. These fuckers are totally scamming us.’

‘How are they scamming us? We have just eaten an enormous meal.’

‘They said Ludmila would be here and she wasn’t. I’m not letting them get away with it. All we have to do –’

‘I don’t want to hear your plan.’

‘Listen, it’s simple – all we do is, we pretend to have an argument. We have this big flaming row, then I storm out, and then you chase after me, trying to get me back, see? And when we hit the street,
that’s
when we run for it.’

‘We run for it, with our heads held high.’

‘It works, Claude. I’ve tried it before, in Turkey?’

‘I don’t care, I am not doing it.’

‘Although that was with Clizia – the thing is, it’s probably a bit more convincing if it’s a lovers’ tiff. That way, people are more reluctant to intervene.’

‘I am simply going to put the meal on my card. Excuse me!’ I call to the waiter.

‘Oh, you like the look of him, do you?’ Paul declares, yanking his chair back from the table.

‘What?’

‘All through the meal you were staring at him – devouring him, with your eyes!’

‘Excuse me, waiter –’

‘A boy, Claude! A mere boy! And you flirt with him right in front of me – like I’m not even here!’

‘I have no idea what you are talking about,’ I say. At the neighbouring tables the conversation has petered out, and patrons glance over with that combination of embarrassment and glee characteristic of eavesdropping on an argument.

‘Don’t play innocent!’ Paul exclaims. ‘You wish you were rid of me, don’t you! That’s the kind of person you are, you just use people up and toss them aside!’

‘Waiter!’ My credit card sits conspicuously on top of the leather book, but the staff are now giving us a very wide berth.

‘I was once a pretty boy like him,’ Paul notes sorrowfully. ‘Is it my fault I’ve got old?’

‘Please!’ waving my wallet in the air.

‘You can’t stop yourself, can you? Even now, you can’t stop yourself! Well, you can have him! You can have him, you heartless monster!’ He jumps to his feet and thrusts on his jacket. I realize that he is going to go through with this, and I will be left here with the whole restaurant staring at me.

‘Wait!’ I say faintly.

‘It’s too late for that!’ Paul sobs. He turns to go, then momentarily turns back; in a low, husky voice he says, ‘You made me love you.’

The staff and clientele look on, appalled; I push back my chair and lurch towards the waiter, proffering my credit card, but he flinches back as if I have just risen out of a swamp. Paul, meanwhile, has flounced over to the exit, a tiny gleam of triumph detectable beneath his ersatz heartbreak – when from a table near the door a man springs up and seizes him by the arm. ‘Paul?’ he says.

The man is in his mid forties, with curly hair greying at the temples. An array of wrinkles gives his face a kindly, careworn appearance, of a piece with his rumpled suit. Its effect on Paul, however, is Medusa-like: instant paralysis.

‘Possibly not the best time,’ the man says apologetically, in a tobacco-rich English accent, flicking a glance backwards at me and the roomful of staring diners. ‘But I just saw you there and I couldn’t, ah … I mean, how long has it been? Six years? Seven?’

Paul simply stares back at him, as if pinned to the air.

‘I’m sorry, I’m being terribly rude,’ the man says, turning to
me. ‘My name is Dodson, Robert Dodson. You must forgive me for barging in on your, ah, on your meal like this. It’s just that … The thing is, you see, I’m Paul’s … I was Paul’s editor.’

His editor! A ghost from his former life – no wonder Paul looks so shocked.

‘Claude Martingale,’ I say, shaking his hand. ‘Delighted to meet you.’

‘Likewise,’ he says. He looks me up and down. ‘Yes,’ he says.

‘Look, Robert.’ Paul has begun to revive. ‘If it’s about the money, I meant to contact you …’

‘What? Oh goodness, I never – that’s all water under the bridge,’ the editor says graciously, nodding his greying head.

‘And the car, I meant to contact you about that too –’

‘Yes, yes,’ the editor says placatingly. ‘I completely understand. Sometimes things don’t, ah, especially when the old, er, artistic temperament’s involved – are you an, um, artist, Claude, or … ?’

‘I’m a banker,’ I tell him.

‘Ah.’ The editor gives me a conspiratorial smile. ‘So you pay the bills.’

For a moment I am at a loss as to his meaning; then over his shoulder I see Paul ferociously gurning at me, and I realize what is happening. After witnessing our staged fight, this man has mistaken me for Paul’s homosexual lover! ‘No, no,’ I explain, ‘I am just –’

But Paul has grabbed him by the elbow. ‘What brings you to Dublin, Robert?’ he asks.

‘I’m here with an author, as it happens – perhaps you’ve heard of him? Bimal Banerjee?’

‘Hmm.’ Paul scratches his head. ‘No, can’t say I –’

‘Bimal Banerjee, author of
The Clowns of Sorrow
?’ I blurt over him. ‘And
Ararat Rat Rap
?’

‘Yes, that’s him,’ says the editor. ‘Do you know his work?’

‘Very well,’ I tell him, ignoring the withering look Paul is giving me. ‘He is truly a tremendous talent.’

‘Oh! How kind of you to say,’ says the editor. ‘He’s just over there, actually.’ He gestures at a nearby table where a swarthy figure glowers at his cutlery. ‘Perhaps you’d like to come over and say hello?’

‘We’re in a bit of a hurry,’ Paul says.

‘I could go over,’ I say hopefully.

‘You’re coming with me,’ Paul says. ‘I haven’t forgotten about that waiter, you know.’

‘Might be for the best,’ Robert Dodson says, thoughtfully twisting a jacket button. ‘Caviar didn’t agree with him, he’s not in the best of humours. But he’s giving a reading later, and afterwards we’re going to William O’Hara’s for dinner – you must know William?’

‘Only by his writing,’ Paul says. ‘Tremendous talent, truly tremendous.’

‘Yes, well, his partner’s the most marvellous cook. We’re staying with them for a few days – I’m sure they’d be only too pleased if you and your, ah, if you and Claude came along?’ He looks from me to Paul and back; Paul’s ferocious gurn switches on and off in synch. Surely he is not intending that we extend this farce?

‘We’d be delighted,’ Paul says. The editor beams like the biblical father at his prodigal son. ‘I’m so happy to have seen you,’ he says. ‘Seven years!’

‘Me too,’ Paul says. ‘Well’ – he reaches for the door, but then –

‘Sir?’ The timorous waiter has reappeared beside us. ‘Ah, the, ah … ?’

‘Oh good Lord! The bill!’ Paul cries, and pats about in his pocket for a wallet whose very existence I am now beginning to doubt.

‘Won’t you let me?’ the editor suggests.

‘No, no, Robert, I couldn’t possibly – where did I put that damn wallet?’

‘Please, let me,’ Robert repeats. ‘To celebrate this serendipitous meeting.’

‘No, Robert, I won’t hear of it, I simply won’t – oh, you brute, I can’t believe you did that.’ Paul’s shoulders slump in defeat as the editor passes his card to the waiter, who retreats gratefully.

‘You can repay me by telling me about all the exciting new ideas you’ve been working on,’ the editor says, with a rumpled smile.

‘Ha ha! No shortage of those!’ Paul laughs. ‘See you at the reading!’

He pushes through the door, and I follow him on to the street. ‘Well, Claude, let the record show, I did technically buy you lunch,’ he says. ‘I mean, you came for lunch with me, and you didn’t have to pay.’

‘I suppose that it is true, if you take the word “technically” to its logical limits,’ I reply. ‘Although, one can say also that technically I did have to pay, by being humiliated in front of a crowded restaurant and then forced to pose as your homosexual lover.’

‘Yeah, well, you should be glad you’re
not
my homosexual lover, or you’d have some explaining to do after all that fawning. Oh, Bimal Banerjee, he’s so terrifically talented! He’s so totally titanically true!’

‘I am glad I am not your homosexual lover for many different reasons.’

As we set off along the canal back towards the Centre, Paul seems preoccupied.

‘Your editor is very charming,’ I say. ‘Why is it you have not spoken to him for so long?’

He coughs artificially, and squints over at the far bank as if searching for a landmark. ‘We had different ideas, I suppose.’

‘Different ideas about what you should do with your advance?’ I suggest.

‘I don’t really want to talk about it.’

‘Was his idea that you should use it to write your second novel, and your idea that you should sink it all into your Internet start-up?’

Paul doesn’t reply.

‘What did you do to his car?’ I ask, but he doesn’t appear to want to talk about that either. ‘Anyway, he does not seem to hold grudges,’ I say. ‘He wanted to hear about your new book.’

‘That’s just what editors say. It’s part of the job, like a priest saying God bless you.’

‘To me it sounded sincere.’

‘He was just being polite. Anyway, I told you, I don’t do that any more.’

I can’t understand it: to me the chance meeting seems pure serendipity, but Paul just scowls and stuffs his hands in his pockets.

‘So you will not go to the soirée?’

‘Oh, I’ll go all right. William O’Hara’s dinner parties are legendary. Although his books, God, they’re like taking a bath in Rohypnol. You fall asleep after a couple of pages, wake up not remembering anything but feeling somehow
violated
.’ He turns to me. ‘You’ll come too, I hope?’

‘Me?’

‘You’re invited, aren’t you?’