by Tobias Hill
‘Waiting. Hopefully not for much longer. I was just passing through the neighbourhood, unpleasant as it is, and your lights were on. I tried calling, but there’s something wrong with your phone.’
‘They cancelled it.’
‘So they say.’ He holds up a bag. ‘All for the sake of breakfast.’
‘Lawrence –’ She pushes the bag out of her way. ‘What if I hadn’t been here? How long were you going to wait?’ And as she says it she thinks, Of course. But he has waited before.
‘It doesn’t matter now, does it?’
‘Alright. What did you get?’
‘Breakfast. It’s a morning meal, most people try to make themselves, with varying results. And coffee. Better than yours.’
‘Thanks.’
It is a fine day, only the wind chilling the air. The trees move above them. She pulls her dressing gown together, standing watching him until he shifts under her gaze.
‘It’s my pleasure,’ he says. ‘What are you looking at?’
‘You almost did miss me. I’ve been away for a couple of days. I only got back last night.’
‘Well, good. It’s about time you had a holiday. Where did you go?’
‘I found him.’
‘Found who?’
She doesn’t answer. It is only a moment before he understands. ‘I thought you would. I always knew you would, of course. You’re very good at what you do.’
‘Was,’ she says. ‘Did,’ and Lawrence sighs.
‘Was, did. What did he say?’
‘Not much.’ She takes the bag. ‘How much did he pay you? To stop me?’
There is a second, less than that, when he says nothing. Then he blinks and lowers his head, as if the light has hurt his eyes. ‘Not enough.’
She opens the bag. Two sandwiches, two cardboard cups. At the edge of her vision she is aware of Lawrence, very still, not quite watching her.
‘When you left the Revenue,’ she says, ‘it was me they came to. They asked me to tell them everything about you –’
She stops. His finger is at her lips, her cheek. ‘Enough,’ he says. ‘That’s enough, Anna. What are we arguing for?’
‘We’re not arguing.’
‘Of course we are. What else are we doing?’
She reaches up. With one hand she brushes his collar clean. There is something on him there, almost as white as snow.
‘What’s that?’ he asks.
‘Blossom,’ she says, and takes his hand, and walks him away.
Thanks and Acknowledgements.
Thanks to the Coll Hotel for hospitality, and the Inland Revenue for reluctant answers: also to Stretch and Moners; to Victoria, Sara and all at A. M. Heath, the best agents to be had for love or money; Julian and Angus, Stephen and Rachel, Joanna and Walter, Faber past, present and future; Minim, my number one palindrome; F. Scott Fitzgerald and Alain-Fournier; and any living descendants of John Law.
Acknowledgements to the Estate of T. S. Eliot for the quotations from Choruses III and VI from ‘The Rock’ in Collected Poems, and to the Estate of Ted Hughes for the quotation from Tales from Ovid. Acknowledgements also to Rumi, Li Po-Tu Fu, David West’s prose translation of Virgil’s Aeneid (Penguin), Malvina Reynolds for ‘The Money Crop’ and “There’s a Bottom Below’, © Schroder Music 1966 and 1970.
By the Same Author
fiction
SKIN
UNDERGROUND
THE LOVE OF STONES
THE HIDDEN
poetry
YEAR OF THE DOG
MIDNIGHT IN THE CITY OF THE CLOCKS
ZOO
Along with his hugely acclaimed previous two novels, The Love of Stones and Underground, Tobias Hill is the author of three award-winning collections of poetry and Skin, his debut collection of stories, which won the 1998 PEN/Macmillan Award for Fiction.
Further praise for The Cryptographer:
Tobias Hill has his own elegant, clear and complex, meditative way of inventing worlds. He is one of the two or three most interesting novelists working in Britain today … Hill’s book is a vision of something essential in the world: the possibilities for good and evil of the kinds of knowledge – and therefore power – that we possess … There is no other voice today quite like this, with this elegant sureness. It will be exciting to see what Hill does next.’ A. S. Byatt, Guardian
‘Hill has real grace and his prose is absolutely measured, even if what he describes is absolutely frenetic. Finest of all, I think, is the way Hill wriggles inside Anna’s head. He contrives to render Anna both vibrant and whole without losing his nerve and shying away from the tinny loneliness of single life.’ Rachel Cooke, Observer
‘Hill has a real feel for language, but a great talent for keeping his readers hooked, too. This novel about “love, codes and money” looks set to hook him some more readers too.’ Erica Wagner, The Times (Summer Reads)
‘Beautifully written … The Cryptographer is an absorbing work right to its astringent resolution.’ Sydney Morning Herald
‘A remarkable poetic imagination transmuted into prose.’ Matthew Branton, Independent on Sunday
‘This melancholic vision of fleeting happiness will stay with you for a long time.’ Vogue
‘Elegant and cryptic … The Cryptographer also goes where no novel has gone before, creating an ambience of sexual mystery around the figure of a tax inspector.’ Metro
‘Myth and the fabulous drive poet Tobias Hill’s fiction … [he] relishes the wonder of his subject. Highly original.’ Uncut
‘Hill has few contemporary equals in the range of his prose, in its ability to evoke both the textures of life in a technologically saturated world and the moral register that assesses its value … This novel sketches a wintry but ultimately consoling glimpse of our human capacity to adapt and resist.’ Globe and Mail (Toronto)
‘An intelligent, thought-provoking and seductively written piece of work.’ Conrad Williams, Time Out
‘A serious message encrypted in luscious prose.’ Good Book Guide
‘The Cryptographer strikes an elegiac note, with a sense of lament for vain human dreams of a perfect future … It is impossible to read it and not reflect on the fashionable economic theories which have led financial institutions into devastating risks, or on the great riches allotted to those masters of numerical acrobatics whom some believe capable of alchemy.’ Literary Review
‘Hill’s chief triumph is in detailing the obsession that grows between Law and Moore: there’s a palpable erotic charge as Anna becomes “not the watcher but the watched”.’ GQ
Copyright © Tobias Hill, 2003
First published in Great Britain in 2004 by Faber and Faber
This electronic edition published in 2013 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP
www.bloomsbury.com
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
eISBN 978-1-4088-4414-4
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