A Closed Book
Page 10
‘Deceiving a blind man? I can’t get over it. That’s evil, John, that’s evil. How can you live with yourself?’
‘I know.’
‘Oh, you and yourself, you deserve one another!’
‘If you’ll only let me explain –’
‘Explain? What can there possibly be to explain? What on earth did you hope to achieve by such pathetic chicanery?’
‘Just let me speak, will you? When I was in the National Gallery, when I bought the jigsaw –’
‘It’s Holbein’s “Ambassadors”, right?’
‘Mrs Kilbride told you?’
‘Mrs Kilbride? She wouldn’t know Holbein’s “Ambassadors” from a turtle’s turd.’
‘So how did you find out?’
‘I felt it with my sensitive little fingertips. A jigsaw puzzle is in braille, after all.’
‘You did? Why, that’s –’
‘Oh, don’t be such an ass! I figured it out for myself. That’s all you need to know.’
*
‘So, John? You were saying?’
‘It’s true, there was no Rembrandt jigsaw, just as you suspected there wouldn’t be. But, and don’t ask me why, I decided to buy the Holbein instead. It was purely on impulse, it was just a whim. At that moment, I swear, Paul, I swear, I had absolutely no intention of passing it off as the Rembrandt. It just seemed like – I don’t know, it just seemed like a fun thing to buy. Then, when I got home, I mean when I got back here, and you asked about the trip, I don’t know what came over me. You seemed so low, so depressed, I suddenly found myself telling you I’d managed to buy the right one after all. Paul, I only wanted to please you. Since you wouldn’t be able to see it anyway, I didn’t think it would make much difference one way or the other.’
‘I see. It was just an impulse. Just a capricious whim. Yet you actually sat down and did the Holbein. You finished it. You chose to keep up the illusion. You even let me dictate to you a passage from my book about how such a jigsaw puzzle wouldn’t have to be imagined because it really existed. Why, John? For Christ’s sake, why?’
‘God, I felt awful about that. I felt so awful – I felt so awful I was convinced you’d be able to hear the panic in my voice. I didn’t know what to do. You must understand, I thought the jigsaw was to be just a – just a metaphor. I didn’t realize you actually planned to write about it. I repeat, it was stupid thing to do, but it was to please you that I did it.’
*
‘Well, John, I confess I no longer know what to think.’
‘If you want me to leave, I’ll understand. I’ll pack my bags and go right now if that’s the way you want it to be.’
‘It’s the way it ought to be.’
‘Then that’s it? You want me to go?’
‘Oh dear God, I wish I knew!’
*
‘If you do go, it means you leave me here with what? With a handful of pages and an expensive, useless computer. On the other hand …’
*
‘All right. All right. Now listen to me, John. I want you to listen very carefully to the question I’m about to ask you.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Then this is the question. Can I trust you?’
‘Paul, I –’
‘I may be mad, I may be digging myself into a deeper hole than ever, but can I trust you never to play such a stupid trick on me again? Never to humiliate me as you’ve done?’
‘I assure you, Paul, that wasn’t at all my intention.’
‘Answer the question. Can I trust you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Very well, John. I’m prepared to accept that what has happened was an aberration. End of story. We’ll have no more apologies, no more excuses. We’ll never speak of it again.’
‘You mean you’d like me to stay?’
‘It’s certainly what I seem to be saying.’
‘I really appreciate that, Paul.’
‘And, John?’
‘Yes?’
‘Get rid of the Holbein. Not just off the table but out of my house.’
‘I’ll do it at once.’
‘One last thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘I just made some remarks to you that weren’t very pleasant.’
‘Paul, I deserved them. You needn’t apologize.’
‘I know you deserved them and I haven’t the slightest intention of apologizing. It wasn’t at all what I was going to do.’
‘Sorry.’
‘And I’ve told you before, stop saying sorry all the time. I don’t like it.’
‘It’s just a tic. I’ll try to curb it.’
‘What I was going to say was that I made some extremely unpleasant remarks and one of them was something about “How can you live with yourself?” Do you remember?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘And then, you may also remember, I added, “You and yourself, you deserve one another!”’
‘Yes.’
‘Note it down, will you.’
‘Right.’
‘Brrr. It’s chillier than I thought.’
‘Maybe if you knotted up your scarf?’
‘Maybe you’re right. Hold on a second.’
*
‘Yes, that’s much cosier. Well, John, shall we take the opposite direction tonight?’
‘What, and walk out of the village altogether?’
‘No. Not if we turn right at the corner and go round the village counter-clockwise instead of clockwise.’
‘Okay.’
*
‘You know, Paul, when you speak of going round the village counter-clockwise, you make it sound a bit like the clock method. Church at eleven, pub at three, herd of sheep at nine.’
‘Sheep? Are there sheep out at this hour?’
‘Well, yes, yes. They’re grazing on the field beyond the common.’
‘Goodness. What time is it?’
‘It’s earlier than usual for us, don’t forget. Just after seven.’
‘Even so. What about the common itself?’
‘Kerb. What about it?’
‘No children playing on the swings, I suppose?’
‘Actually, there are. Three.’
‘Can you make them out?’
‘Just about. Up on the kerb.’
‘Describe them to me.’
‘There are two young girls on the roundabout. Twelve-year-olds, maybe thirteen. They may even be twins. They’ve both got on what look like navy blue overcoats, though I could be wrong about the colour, it’s already dark. Anyway, they’ve both got overcoats and scarves and they’re both wearing what I think you call bobble hats.’
‘I don’t seem to hear any girlish screams or giggles.’
‘They’re just silently spinning around.’
‘And the other, the third child?’
‘That’s a little boy, I think. Hard to tell from here. He can’t be more than five or six.’
‘Disgraceful. He ought to be in bed. Probably got oafish parents just out of their teens. Couldn’t care less what their offspring get up to. They should be made to pass a test before being allowed to reproduce. What’s he doing?’
‘Standing there. Watching the two girls. He’s a forlorn little creature.’
‘I bet he is. How’s he dressed? Snugly wrapped up, I trust?’
‘Appears to be. He’s got a bobble hat as well.’
‘And mittens? Is he wearing mittens?’
‘Mittens? Oh, I can’t possibly tell from here. Kerb.’
‘Pity. I have a great fondness for children’s mittens.’
‘Really?’
‘Mmm.’
‘May I ask why?’
‘I adore those little mittens that toddlers have. You know, the kind that are attached to their coat sleeves by a cord and dangle from their little wrists as they waddle about. Why I adore them I couldn’t really say. I just do.’
‘Yes, I suppose they’re quite cute. I mean – sorry.’
�
��Why sorry?’
‘Because I bet you hate that word “cute”.’
‘No. No, I’ve nothing against it. Why should I?’
‘No reason. Just thought you might. Shall we walk through the churchyard? It’s still open. Or else go straight on?’
‘Straight on, I think. Leave the dead in peace. Why don’t you describe the effect of the church steeple against the sky?’
‘Well, it’s very English. What you might call quietly dramatic. The steeple itself, as I’m sure you’re perfectly well aware, is oblong and rather chunky. Not pointed. Not the soaring type that seems to sway against the sky as you watch it. It’s got its two feet on the ground, it’s got no – it’s got no – no Gothic pretensions.’
‘No aspirations to the sublime.’
‘Exactly. And it doesn’t pretend to have. And the sky itself is English somehow. It isn’t lurid, it isn’t spectacular. Yet I still find it affecting in its modest way.’
‘Colour?’
‘The sky?’
‘Yes.’
‘Dark grey. Bluish-grey. Almost metallic. The clouds – there’s a bank of them hovering over the church – the clouds are drifting but very, very slowly. Trying to catch them at it would be like trying to catch a clock hand moving.’
‘Nicely put. You know, John, you may well end up becoming a writer yourself one of these days.’
‘Coming from you, that’s a serious compliment.’
‘I mean it. You have a real eye, a real visual imagination. Indeed, you’ve got too much imagination. Viz, as they say, viz the jigsaw puzzle.’
‘Look, Paul, I’d like nothing better than to apologize all over again for what I did. In fact, it’s actually frustrating for me not to be able to keep on telling you again and again just how sorry I am – kerb – to keep on telling you just how sorry I am till I’m blue in the face from apologizing and you’re blue in the face from listening to me. But you did insist the subject was to be a closed book, so I’m just going to have to hold it in.’
*
‘What did you say?’
‘I said I’ll just have to hold it in.’
‘No, no, no, before that?’
‘Before?’
‘Your exact words!’
‘I said the subject was a closed book.’
‘A closed book! Magnificent! That’s it!’
‘That’s what?’
‘A closed book, don’t you see? A closed book!’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Capital A, capital C, capital B. A Closed Book. The perfect title for my book!’
‘You mean instead of Truth and Consequences?’
‘Oh, I never did like that title! Truth and Consequences! So pompous! No, no, A Closed Book is ideal. It’ll look wonderful on the cover. Just imagine it in Dillons or Waterstone’s. A Closed Book! Just think of it. Who, now who, browsing in Waterstone’s and catching sight of a book with that title, could ever resist opening it?’
‘Yes, I see what you mean.’
‘Jot it down, will you, jot it down. Not that I’m likely to forget.’
‘Right.’
‘A Closed Book … You know, John, I have you to thank for that. I know we’ve sworn not to talk about you-know-what but this, I must tell you, more than makes up for it.’
‘You really feel that strongly?’
‘I love it. In fact – Oh! Christ! Ow!’
‘Oh shit, Paul, that was my fault. I’m terribly sorry. I was so busy thinking about – well, I forgot all about the kerb. You all right?’
‘Well …’
‘No, seriously, I –’
‘Not to worry, not to worry. A blind man must learn to take the odd bump and bruise in his stride.’
‘I’m really sorry.’
‘Frankly, I’m so euphoric I barely felt it. Alighting on the right title for a book is one of the very few privileged moments in a writer’s wretched existence. Well worth a stumble or two.’
‘It’s amazing. I’ve never seen you so happy.’
‘You can’t deny it’s been a remarkable day. It began so catastrophically, didn’t it? Yet, workwise, as the Americans say, workwise it’s turned out to be deeply satisfying. How many words did we get down on paper?’
‘On the screen? Fifteen hundred and something, wasn’t it?’
‘Our best yet. Then there were those delicious lamb cutlets you made for supper. And now this. A Closed Book. When you think about it, it’s almost symbolic.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Why, don’t you see? Apart from giving me the perfect title for my book, the phrase can also be applied to the unfortunate little incident of the jigsaw puzzle.’
‘Yes, Paul. Except, don’t forget, that’s precisely how it came up.’
‘Hmm?’
‘If you remember, it was when I was apologizing for the jigsaw incident that I used the phrase in the first place.’
‘Now now, John, don’t go spoiling things.’
‘It’s a heavenly day today, today!
What a heavenly day today!
It’s a heavenly day for makin’ –
Hey!
What do you say?
Goin’ my way?
Wanna make hay?
On this heavenly day, today, today,
This heavenly day today!’
A heavenly day? What, rather, a strange day it’s been. And what a strange person John is. And what a strange person I am, for that matter. Blindness, though, does make strange bedfellows. If anyone had told me I’d offer house room to an individual who had actually had the gall, the vicious gall, to take advantage of my blindness, I would have called him a cretin. And yet there he is, a man who committed an offence akin to stealing sweets from a baby, there he is, asleep in the room next to mine. No matter that he was responsible for giving me my marvellous title, I cannot forget that John also did that. But why? Why? Could he really have been trying to please? It’s possible, yes. Yet any intelligent person would have realized, would have known from a kind of intimate conviction, that it was absolutely the wrong thing to do, that it was the act of a moral philistine. It’s true, to be sure, that we all of us commit acts we know to be stupid and callous and wrong-headed, we know to be all of that even as we commit them. It’s what is called human nature. To err is human. And John too is human.
‘What on earth is that racket?’
*
‘John!’
*
‘Sorry? Oh, it’s you, Paul. Sorry, what?’
‘Can you please turn that off, whatever it is.’
‘Oh. Right.’
‘There. Sorry about that.’
‘Thank heaven! Where was it coming from?’
‘My radio. I have a little portable radio. Didn’t I mention it to you?’
‘No, you didn’t.’
‘Oh well, yes, I have.’
‘Did it have to be so excruciatingly loud?’
‘I’m sorry. I thought you were in the bathroom. I didn’t think I’d be disturbing you.’
‘I took my bath last night. So what was it?’
‘The music?’
‘Yes, John, the music.’
‘The Who.’
‘The what?’
‘Not the What, the Who. They’re a rock group. Sort of passé now, I guess, but –’
‘I know who the Who are. I’m not a dinosaur, you know. For your information, Freddie Ashton once commissioned me to write the argument, as it’s called – with, I assure you, very good reason – the argument of a ballet to music by Pete Townshend. Wasn’t he one of the Who?’
‘Yeah, he was. And did you?’
‘I did. It was called Rigmarole.’
‘Rigmarole? Afraid I’ve never heard of it.’
‘Not many people have.’
‘A flop?’
‘A hideous flop. As it deserved to be, I may say, with its cacophony of a score. Still, I did get to meet Townshend, which was a mildly vertiginous experience for both
of us.’
‘You two hit it off?’
‘Our encounter was, let us say, a semi-success. He hung on my every other word.’
*
‘This time, John, I fear I cannot hear you smile. Perhaps it’s because you feel I might have said that before?’
‘No, no. I was just thinking of you and Pete Townshend together. You have to admit it’s a bit of a mindblower.’
‘Would you like to paw the hem of my dressing-gown?’
‘Well, no, thanks all the same, Paul. I’m not that much of an admirer. Impressed none the less. Coffee?’
‘Please.’
‘You must have been quite upset to hear of his death.’
‘Whose death?’
‘Pete Townshend’s, of course.’
‘Pete Townshend? Pete Townshend is dead?’
‘Why, yes. Why, Paul, I’m sorry. You didn’t know, did you?’
‘Well, obviously I didn’t. Pete Townshend dead? Poor fellow, what did he die of?’
‘He was assassinated.’
‘Assassinated? You mean murdered?’
‘Sorry, of course I mean murdered. I’m sorry, Paul, I’m being – it just seems so strange that you – but of course you couldn’t be expected to have heard about it. It happened, oh, two years ago, a bit more than two years ago. He was gunned down by a fan. Well, by some young druggie who claimed to be a fan. Outside the Groucho Club. It made front pages all over the world.’
‘Yes, well, I never do see front pages, as you know. Or any other pages, for that matter.’
*
‘But, you know, John, what with … I mean to say, I’m really starting to think that maybe I should.’
‘Should what?’
‘Pay more attention to what’s going on.’
‘I’d be happy to read the newspaper to you if you like.’
‘Yes, that’s an idea … Yes, that might be … Pete Townshend dead … In a funny way I’m rather sorry to hear that. Not that I … Not that I ever knew him well or ever … Yes, maybe you could start to read the news headlines to me. One isn’t a saint, after all, one isn’t a monk. Blind as one is, one does continue to live in the world. I say, John, you wouldn’t have a newspaper here, by any chance?’