My Name is Legion

by A. N. Wilson

  He suggested at that time that they should move from the flat, where they lived perfectly comfortably and within their means, into a large Victorian house in Wandsworth which they could only afford if he wrote journalism regularly, rather than occasionally. A volume of poetry – he was reworking some lyrics by Rilke – was laid aside. So, too, was a vague idea that he might write a study of the philosophy of Heidegger.

  Both the Watsons often, in their secret hearts, looked back to the move to Wandsworth as the Fall, the point of no return. Julia had never discussed the matter, but she now, eighteen years on, believed that she could have had the courage then to divorce him, not to depend on his earning power any longer. He for his part secretly believed, with the addled optimism of a man who had long since lost any capacity for accurate moral judgement, that one confessional conversation, when the affair with Liz Stein came to an end, would have ‘saved’ him; that if he had confessed his sins to Julia, she would have forgiven him and thereby prevented his cascade into womanizing, workaholism, drink and cynicism.

  There had been a steady stream of women, and to numb the guilt, he worked harder and harder. He moved steadily downmarket, abandoning the travel pages of the broadsheets for ‘op ed’ pieces in middle-market tabloids. Then – at about the time that Martina Fax’s marriage to her proprietor was exciting every journalist in London – Lionel Watson met Mary Much.

  Knowing both of them, most journalists assumed that they had an affair – or at the very least went to bed together once. Julia pursued her usual policy of not wanting to know; but in this case she judged an affair between her husband and the editor of Gloss to be rather unlikely. Mary Much was a talent scout for the Marks. It was through Mary that the Legions, Daily and Sunday, bought L. P. Watson – an article in The Sunday Legion each week, and three articles each week in the Daily. L.P. had been a clever man when he was twenty, and he did not stop being a clever man merely because he was thirty-seven. But it was not possible to write with such facility and prolixity without watering the mixture, and in order to delight the fans, he resorted to the expression of wilder and sillier ‘opinions’ which Mary Much, like a trainer egging on an animal reared by hand, regularly assured him were killingly funny.

  Killing they might have been. It had certainly killed something inside him when he went to the Legion. Julia, too, had been harder and colder since they exchanged a house they could barely afford in Wandsworth for their present abode in Clapham, which would only be paid for if L.P. dropped dead and the life insurance paid off the life-consuming mortgage. The children were away, first at boarding schools – Rugby and Wycombe Abbey – then at universities – Glasgow and Sussex. Julia sank into alternate bouts of self-reproach and depression, wondering who Lionel was sleeping with and telling herself she did not give a damn. They avoided one another’s company. He slept in a small downstairs bedroom, she had the marital bedroom on the second floor, a room where they had never, after nine years in the house, made love. They gave dinner parties about once a fortnight, and were regarded, by those who came to them, as a ‘splendid’, ‘old-fashioned’, ‘almost Edwardian’ couple who did not go in for anything tawdry and modern like divorce but who stuck with one another.

  Mary Much, with whom Lionel gossiped on the telephone for hours each day, had been the presiding deity of the Watsons’ lives for the last decade. Julia referred to her, bitterly, but with a full sense of the phrase’s truth, as ‘our benefactress’. She felt utterly excluded by her husband’s friendship with the woman.

  Although Mary Much was the editor of Gloss, the impregnable queen of upmarket magazines, her real obsession was the world of newspapers, and she spent all available spare time discussing them, primarily with her closest confidante, Martina Mark, but by extension with other members of the Court, of which L.P. was a key member. Time was, Julia thought sadly (Lionel had the thought fairly often, too, but he had drifted too far apart from Julia to be able to share it), that in any one week, he would have reread one of Plato’s dialogues, or written some poetry, or thought about the Heidegger book, or tried out one of the new novels or biographies recommended in the literary pages. Thanks to his Faustian compact with Mary Much, there was very little time for any of that now. When he was not rattling out his pieces, or drinking with his friends, or seeing his mistress – an affair which, like his marriage, was not emotionally very satisfying – he was entering into the Mary Much obsessions. Chief among these was how competently or otherwise various editors or deputy editors or features editors were doing their job, or how ‘good’ the other papers and those who wrote for them were.

  These judgements were capricious and largely intuitive. They were not usually based on anything so prosaic as how well the paper or magazine in question sold. Mary, or Martina, would decide on a whim that the Evening Standard or The Times or The Spectator was ‘completely brilliant’; or, on another whim, that they weren’t any good any more. L.P. found himself contributing to these debates with alacrity, longing with a desire stronger than love to ring up Mary Much if he heard some tittle-tattle about the way in which some editor had made an ass of himself.

  The strongest feelings, of course, were recorded for the magazine and newspaper executives, and for the journalists, working for Lennox Mark’s titles. Time was that the orthodoxy, propounded first by the Martina—Mary Much axis, was that the Legions were essentially gentle, very, very British newspapers. What was needed at the Daily was a good, solid newspaperman. So they had promoted Anthony Taylor, with his gentle northern accent, his shirtsleeves, his passion for Scunthorpe Athleticals. The last thing they’d all wanted was either red-top cruelty or – God help us – social pretension. (They had quite enough of that from Mr Blimby, editor of the Sunday Legion, with his clubs, his place in the country, his titled friends.)

  Then all of a sudden, Martina had woken up one morning, or Mary Much had done so (did they sometimes wake in the same bed? wondered ‘Dr Arbuthnot’ with his sprightly malice), and realized that Tony Taylor was a ‘thundering bore’. A newspaper was not a vehicle for purveying news. You got news from TV. What a newspaper could do so brilliantly was create an atmosphere, give you a vision of the world. Taylor in his polyester-cotton, Taylor with his famous ‘campaigns’ – how the Court had groaned at his raising money from Legion readers to send a minibus to Mozambique during the floods! Or again, his expose of those dodgy children’s homes in the Midlands. That sort of thing was dead duck journalism. Tinkling with laughter down a dozen telephone lines, Mary Much had given an example of how out of touch Taylor was. He hadn’t heard of Nicole Kidman. This lie created itself the first time she spoke it. By the time she had repeated it a dozen times she – and They All – accepted it as part of the canon.

  So Taylor had to go – ‘good newspaperman’ he. For a few weeks, Mary had wondered whether to put L.P. in his shoes – a truly witty appointment, one which would buck all trends. Spottiswood, when Lennie mentioned it, had screamed with rage, and Mary Much had quickly rethought. Martina and she knew which side their bread was buttered. They needed something butch, something macho, something which everyone could see was ironical, something brutal, something from the primeval slimes. They needed Worledge.

  And tonight was to be the night. After a ‘party’ at LenMar House at which Lennie said farewell to Anthony Taylor, there was to be supper at Redgauntlet Road for the Worledges and the Court. No one was much looking forward to this, and L.P. was fully expecting Julia, at the last minute, to plead a sick headache. She had hardly ever been known to enjoy the social engagements generated by his Legion life – nor, indeed, to have made a positive comment about any aspect of the newspaper.

  That was why it was so extraordinary when she said, ‘Wonders will never cease – a decent article in The Daily Legion.’

  L.P. never read the paper through. In fact he had reached a stage of his career where it was no longer possible for him to read: he only skimmed other people’s work, though his own articles were endlessly rereadable.
His habit of rereading his own stuff was one reason for its tendency to self-parody.

  ‘Sinclo Manners.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He wrote this article about what’s happening in Zinariya. It’s bloody good – the first bloody thing I’ve read about the subject in the Legion which makes any sort of sense.’

  ‘It’s dangerous to make sense out of nonsense.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean? You haven’t read it – I know you haven’t.’

  ‘Of course I’ve read the Legion – I write for it.’ His weary schoolmaster tone.

  ‘In a surprise move,’ said the radio, but neither Julia nor Lionel were listening, ‘President Bindiga of Zinariya has said that his country would be well placed to host next year’s Commonwealth Games …’

  ‘This fucking little man’ – she pointed to the picture of President Bindiga – ‘allows slavery in the cocoa plantations. The nationalized copper mines have what amounts to a slave-labour force. He lives in a socking great palace with tall Scandinavian prozzies …’

  ‘Wait a minute …’

  ‘No, I will NOT wait a minute …’

  ‘The mystery to me is how that article got printed,’ said L.P.

  ‘Perhaps it has something to do with its being true. It’s also very well written.’

  ‘Women like him – always do – young Manners. Mary’s nuts about him, which makes me wonder whether she … but no, she wouldn’t have licensed him to rubbish Bindiga. The whole raison d’être of the Legion is to support Bindiga.’

  ‘You write articles praising this man – have you read about the public torture of that homosexual?’

  ‘It’s all more complicated than—’

  ‘Than a woman would understand? Is that what you were going to say? My God, to think of the things you’re prepared to say for money.’

  ‘You’re quite happy to spend the money,’ he said quietly.

  Later – doors had been slammed, he’d been left alone in the kitchen staring sadly at Sinclo Manners’s peculiar article – he’d prepared to go out.

  ‘So you’ll come to the dinner and not the party,’ he called up the stairs to her office. He knew she was in there; he could hear her computer bleeping.

  ‘I’ll see you at the dinner – but you won’t want to come all the way to Bermondsey for the party,’ he said – this time through the closed door on her landing.

  She flung open her office door and said, with eyes aflame, ‘Maybe I could be the judge of what I do or don’t want to do.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  Lily d’Abo wore her coat and hat. She had her basket ready, and her shopping list. She would go to the Blue Mountain Cash and Carry for Costa Rican plantain, sweetcorn, sweet potatoes and green bananas. Then she would go to the fishmonger and buy some parrot fish, if he had any in today. Then she would go to the shrine and thank Our Lady for Peter’s job, and the huge improvement in his character. So, okay, he hadn’t passed his exams. But there would be time enough for that. Lily knew that there were many Peters, but among them was a kind, considerate boy who could be nurtured. She wondered whether he would not one day follow in her footsteps and become a nurse. There was a midday mass at the shrine today. Lily would stay on for that, then bring her shopping home. She would cook the meal, and take half of it upstairs to old Mr and Mrs Simpson, neighbours for whom she did occasional good turns. Then she would set out to the hospital. She could work any shifts there, now that Peter was settled in his new work.

  ‘In a surprise move,’ said her radio, ‘President Bindiga of Zinariya has said that his country would be well placed to host next year’s Commonwealth Games in Mararraba, the country’s capital. Many have criticized the country’s human rights record, and the …’

  Lily had the radio on continuously, leaving it speaking to itself when she left the flat – a deterrent, she believed, to burglars.

  ‘Yes,’ she said to the telephone, and repeated the number.

  It was Mercy, who had got to work, and who had rung for a chat. Lily looked anxiously at the clock.

  ‘It’s surely better that he should be stable, and well behaved … Exactly … That’s what I say …’

  It was inevitable that her daughter should have wanted to talk about the whole situation, but it was simply a pity she should have done so when the morning schedule was tight. Lily pictured Mercy sitting comfortably in her office, coffee and biscuits on her desk, and a leisurely day stretching ahead.

  ‘Father Vivyan wants to talk to us about it,’ Lily told her. ‘… Because I asked him, that’s why he’s getting involved … I don’t know why you won’t come and meet Father Vivyan … You never come to church any more … Father Vivyan says he don’t think Kevin has been a good influence on Peter. He says he wants to talk to the both of us about it. I agree with him …’

  Mercy made the predictable response.

  ‘That’s not true – I would not agree with anything Father says. But what good was served by telling the boy his father was … I know … He’s not said one word to me about it. Not a word, love. Maybe he’s just bottling it all up inside him. Or maybe he thinks – what’s the use a big fella like him, my dad? He’s not going to want to confront him, is he? How could Peter get to meet a man like that? … I reckon Peter’s sometimes a bit more mature than people give him credit for. What can’t be done, can’t be done … I’m late now, darling … Okay … See you … Take care.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  ‘In Baban Bari,’ said the car radio inside Lennox Mark’s Bentley, ‘troops have been out all night firing on the crowds. In the copper mines to the south of Bomberra the so-called Happy Band, teenaged youths and young men, have been once again rioting. A small explosive device was detected in the Kanni-Karkara mines, identical to one which exploded in the mine shafts last month killing twelve people. Scotland Yard say that they are investigating reports that a similar device has been found in the Zinariyan High Commission in London, prompting speculation that the Happy Band is linked to terrorist organizations in Britain …’

  As the Bentley purred into the forecourt of LenMar House, the Chairman rested his large soft fingers on his belly. A late lunch had been unsatisfactory from the theological point of view. Kurtmeyer, with his fucking pocket-calculator and his auditor’s reports, had shown no stomach for the rerun of the Ontological Proof, Lennox’s own personal favourite among the various ‘classic’ arguments for the Almighty’s existence. At least Kurtmeyer had consented to have foie gras with a fried egg on top as a savoury. (Lennox had had three of these to give him strength for the journey to Bermondsey.)

  His plate-glass tower, the visible monument to his own achievement, was most satisfyingly far from the centre of things. No wonder Mary Much insisted that Gloss remained where it was when Lennox acquired it, in the old eighteenth-century house off Hanover Square. Not for her, as for all the journalists on Daily and Sunday Legions, the punishment of internal exile. It gave the proprietor and his wife enormous satisfaction to know that even by sprinting to Bermondsey station and catching a Jubilee Line train, the Nibelungs (Martina’s brilliant word) were a good three-quarters of an hour from Christopher’s or the Savoy, an hour from the Ivy. Those who tried to get into London by taxi at lunch-time were sure to be stuck in traffic for an hour and a half. Lennox, Martina and Mary Much all derived particular pleasure that the Would-be Gent (as they called the editor of The Sunday Legion) had to spend three frustrated hours in snarl-ups just for an hour or so of eating cutlets with some lords at a club in St James’s.

  Swooping up in the lift in his glass palace, Lennox’s eyes took in the plane tree straining towards the skylights; the cascades of water which fell towards the twin busts, one of his great-grandfather, old Lennox Mark, the other of General Bindiga; the open-plan offices stretching for visible yards on all four sides of the building; the swarms of journalists, who were such a constant drain on his purse. The ownership of newspapers gave Lennox an all but orgasmic sense of his own i
mportance. It was just a pity that the price to be paid for this pleasure was having to fund editors, ‘celebrity’ interviewers like Peg Montgomery, columnists, diarists, all of whom claimed ‘expenses’ for every luxury in their lives – their fucking restaurant bills, their fucking taxis, probably in some cases their fucking. How much more money could these bastards take from him?

  That was one of the questions at the back of his mind as he arrived at the editorial floor of The Daily Legion and found himself greeted by the outgoing editor.

  ‘Tony!’

  ‘Lennie!’

  Both men pumped one another’s hands and grinned. An anthropologist observing the scene would conclude that this was what these strange animals did when two of them aggressively loathed one another. When Lennox had emerged from 10 Downing Street that morning he’d wanted Tony Taylor’s guts for garters. If he could have stopped the man’s Golden Handshake and cancelled his pension, he would have done so. At the back of the Bentley he had roared and howled at the man via his mobile; about ingratitude and some things not being funny. Martina, when he had rung her, was already on the case, writing a riposte to ‘the Captain’ as she called Sinclo Manners, and setting out in no uncertain terms why Bindiga was a role model for all other African leaders to follow. This would be published in tomorrow’s Legion. She would dictate the ‘stand first’:

  We at the Legion believe in the free debate of important issues, which is why we have allowed an article highly hostile to President Bindiga to be published in yesterday’s issue. But, argues top Legion opinion-former Martina Fax, those who support the rebellion against West Africa’s stablest and most prosperous state are at best naive …