A Closed Book

by Gilbert Adair

  *

  ‘Please hold the line while we try to connect you. The number you are calling knows you are waiting.’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘Please hold the line while we try to connect you. The number you are calling –’

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘I want to speak to Andrew Boles.’

  ‘Sorry? Andrew who?’

  ‘Andrew Boles.’

  ‘I’m sorry, there’s no one of –’

  ‘Don’t be silly. He’s only the senior agent, you know.’

  ‘No, he isn’t.’

  ‘Yes indeed he is.’

  ‘I say he isn’t. And I’ll tell you why. Because this is a private number. And you – whoever you are – you’re an asshole.’

  *

  ‘Oh God. What have I ever done to deserve this?’

  *

  ‘Could I have got the number wrong? 631.3341. 631.3341.’

  *

  ‘No! 631. 4 – 3 – 3 – 1. 631.4 – 3 – 3 – 1. Now, now I’ve got it. 631.4331. Oh God, after all this, Andrew, after all this, you’d bloody better be in. Here we go. 0 – 1 – 7 – 1 – 6 – 3 – 1 – hold it, hold it – 4 – 3 – 3 – 1.’

  *

  ‘Hello. Boles and Whitmore here. How can I be of help?’

  ‘Ah. Yes, I’d like to speak to Andrew Boles, please.’

  ‘Putting you through.’

  *

  ‘Hello. Mr Boles’s secretary speaking.’

  ‘Give me Andrew, please.’

  ‘What is the matter regarding?’

  ‘It’s personal. Just put me through.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’ll have to –’

  ‘I tell you it’s a personal matter. Don’t worry. Andrew will want to speak to me.’

  ‘Nevertheless. Before I can disturb Mr Boles, I’ve got –’

  ‘I’m telling you for the very last time. Andrew will want to take the call. Just do as you’re told and stop fucking around.’

  *

  ‘Who shall I say is calling?’

  ‘Ohhhhh. Look, tell him it’s a face from his past. No, no, wait. Tell him – tell him – it’s a ghost at whose feet he once sat.’

  ‘Hold the line. I’ll see if he can take the call.’

  *

  ‘Paul? Paul? Can that really be you?’

  ‘Hello, Andrew.’

  ‘Good Lord, it is you! Paul, how are you?’

  ‘Oh well. I am what I am, you know.’

  ‘Paul, this is terrific! I can’t believe it’s really you on the other end of the line! My God, I mean, after all these years!’

  ‘Four years, Andrew.’

  ‘Four years. Hmm. That is a long time, that’s a very long time. And you haven’t changed an iota, you old devil! At least, your telephone manner hasn’t changed. You’ll be pleased to know, I’m sure, that I have one very distressed secretary here. I can’t imagine what you said to her. Or should I say, I can well imagine. Devil, you!’

  ‘I assure you I was no more than my sweet reasonable self.’

  ‘I’ll bet. Oh, anyhow, what does that matter? What matters is that here you are, after all these years, on the phone just as though – I can’t get over it!’

  ‘It has been a long time, Andrew. Longer, I suspect, for me than for you.’

  ‘Probably so, probably so. But, you know, Paul, I did try to ring you. I mean, I hope you know that. That I tried several times to ring you. Just after the –’

  ‘I do know, Andrew, and – Well, let’s just say that, even though I refused to speak to you, I was very touched by the fact that you’d called. In fact, I’d have been extremely hurt if you hadn’t. It’s just that back then, as you can imagine –’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, I can imagine, old chap. And, well, I’m not going to bring it up now because I’m sure it’s the very last thing you’ll want to talk about. But I’d just like you to know that I – well, what can I say? I’ve thought a lot about you these last four years. Jane, too, I know.’

  ‘Thank you, Andrew, I appreciate that.’

  ‘Sorry. Can you hold on a sec, Paul?’

  *

  ‘Yes, yes, I know. Oh, look, get his number and tell him I’ll call him back as soon as I’m free. Oh, and Daria, hold all my calls, will you? Sorry, Paul, where were we?’

  *

  ‘Paul?’

  ‘I was telling you how much I appreciated your not having forgotten me.’

  ‘Well, of course, it’s perfectly true. And what I’d really love now is to see you. Of course – of course I don’t know how you’d feel about that?’

  ‘I’m going to surprise you, Andrew, and say I’d love to see you too. Yes. I do think maybe one day soon we might get together, just the two of us. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not suggesting you fix up a date now, so don’t bother riffling through your – your –’

  ‘My Filofax?’

  ‘When I’m ready, I’ll give you a call. If I may.’

  ‘If you may? You must! You must! I absolutely insist on it, chum! Jane, too. I know Jane’s dying to see you again.’

  ‘Well, Andrew, she may think she is. But I’m not a pretty sight, you know.’

  *

  ‘You never were, old boy. Look, Paul, I respect what you’re saying to me. I understand, I do. You must take your own good time and when you’re ready – I mean, when you’re ready to start seeing a few of your old, close friends again – well, you know what I mean – just pick up the phone. By the way –’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Just now? You did pick up the phone yourself, did you? I mean, it was you who made the call, was it?’

  ‘Yes, it was. After several false starts.’

  ‘Why, Paul, that’s wonderful! That’s really wonderful! And it’s just the beginning, you’ll see! There’s no knowing what you’re going to be able to do when you put your mind to it!’

  ‘Maybe. Don’t forget, though, that eyelessness is what you might call an incurable disease. I mean to say, there’s always going to be a ceiling on anything I achieve.’

  ‘A higher ceiling than you may think now, old boy.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe. Anyway, Andrew, I truly did need those dreadful years of solitude. I had to get them behind me before I could even contemplate doing anything new with my life.’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  ‘It’s a bit like winning a set in tennis. All the effort you put into winning the set – then you finally do win it – and you wipe the slate clean and – I don’t mean this in a pejorative sense – but then you can start all over again from square one. You follow me?’

  ‘Of course I do, Paul. And I’m delighted that the – that the period of adjustment seems to be coming to an end. To be blunt, Paul, it’s true I don’t know what you look like, but you certainly sound as though you’re back on form.’

  ‘Thanks. And I’d like to thank you, too, Andrew, for not patronizing me. Even though I couldn’t help noticing that the strain of not patronizing me, the strain of being so frank and all, so deliberately brutal, was just, shall I say, was just a wee bit audible, just a teensy bit self-conscious, no? Even so, I’m touched, I’m very touched.’

  ‘God, no one can ever get anything past you. Still as sensitive as ever to nuances, I see. Isn’t that how you once defined a writer? As an entomologist of nuances?’

  ‘Once? Many times, Andrew, many times.’

  ‘Which brings us neatly to – dare I ask?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No chance of a new book in the pipeline, I suppose?’

  ‘Well, Andrew, since you do dare ask, the answer is yes.’

  ‘Yes? Why, that’s absolutely wonderful, Paul! That’s wonderful news! I can’t tell you how happy I am! And how excited! Happy for you and excited for myself!’

  ‘It is rather exciting, isn’t it?’

  ‘And how! But what are we talking about precisely? What stage is it at? Is it still just a project? Still just a twinkle in … well, in �
�’

  ‘Awkward, isn’t it, Andrew?’

  *

  ‘Anyway, no. It’s already considerably more than just a twinkle.’

  ‘God, how exciting this is! A novel, I assume?’

  ‘No. No, in fact it isn’t a novel.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘I suppose we’re going to have to call it an autobiographical memoir.’

  ‘Better still! Better still! You know, Paul, even years ago when – you remember, I tried to persuade you to write your autobiography?’

  ‘Yes, except –’

  ‘I tell you I just can’t believe what I’m hearing. Has it got a title yet?’

  ‘A Closed Book.’

  ‘Sorry, what?’

  ‘A Closed Book. The title’s going to be A Closed Book.’

  ‘Oh, Paul …’

  ‘Why, don’t you like it?’

  ‘Don’t I like it? I love it! I. Love. It. A Closed Book, it’s genius! And listen – listen, Paul – you know, I think I can already begin to see the cover. Just listen. Tell me what you think. A closed book – I mean, the jacket illustration would be a picture of a closed book – and on the jacket of that book – I mean the book on the cover – there would be an illustration of another closed book – a smaller book, naturally – and then, on the cover of the smaller book, yet another closed book – and so forth. Ad infinitum!’

  ‘Only potentially, Andrew.’

  ‘Potentially?’

  ‘Only potentially ad infinitum.’

  ‘Pedant! You always were a pedant!’

  ‘And proud to be one.’

  ‘But don’t you think that would make a wonderful cover?’

  ‘Well, let’s not get carried away. There’s so much more to be written than already has been written.’

  ‘Already has been written?’

  ‘Why, yes.’

  ‘You’ve already started the thing?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Paul, I’m hurt.’

  ‘Oh, come on.’

  ‘No, really, Paul, I’m hurt.’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  ‘Why is it only now I’m hearing about this wonderful new masterwork?’

  ‘Come, come, Andrew, own up. You know quite well you’re interested in my books only when they’re finished. When there’s money to be made out of them.’

  ‘A lie, a barefaced lie. I’m interested in everything you do, whether it’s likely to make me money or not. Just so happens it always does.’

  ‘Hah! I hope you aren’t about to pretend you’ve ever read any of my novels? I mean, all the way through?’

  ‘What! Well, really, Paul, I won’t even dignify that unforgivable slur with a reply.’

  ‘I know you of old. You take ten per cent of my royalties and you read ten per cent of my books. If that.’

  ‘Another lie! Hah, you old devil! You haven’t changed a bit. But listen, listen. Even if I grant what you say is true – which I don’t, mind you, not for an instant I don’t, but, okay, for the sake of the argument and to allow us to go on with this conversation – well, you still might have let me know what was in the offing.’

  ‘Actually, Andrew, I did try to call you a few weeks ago.’

  ‘So why didn’t we speak?’

  ‘You were away.’

  ‘What? Out of the office?’

  ‘No, away. Out of the country.’

  *

  ‘Out of the country? When did you say you tried to call?’

  ‘Oh, two or three weeks ago.’

  ‘Well, Paul, I don’t know who you spoke to, or what you were told, but what with the new baby I haven’t been out of the country since – ouf, it must be since Frankfurt last year.’

  *

  ‘What about your trip around the world?’

  ‘My what?’

  ‘Your trip around the world?’

  ‘If only, old boy.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Paul, I haven’t been around the world. Ever.’

  ‘Weren’t you in Hong Kong? Australia? San Francisco?’

  ‘Well, yes, I have been to all these places, but not all at once and not for years. Last time I was in San Francisco was with you, remember? In 19 – oh, 1990, I’d say.’

  *

  ‘Paul?’

  *

  ‘Paul? What is it?’

  *

  ‘Paul, what’s that sound I hear?’

  ‘That sound, Andrew, is the sound of scales falling from my sockets.’

  ‘Falling from –?’

  ‘I’m going to hang up now, Andrew.’

  ‘Paul? Paul, tell me what’s going on? Suddenly you seem –’

  ‘Forgive me. I’m going to have to go. And please don’t try to contact me. Goodbye, Andrew.’

  ‘Paul?’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  How could I have been so blind! Yes, blind! For now, as God is my witness, and as I am God’s witness, now I am no longer playing with words. What a shallow, sentimental myth it is, that a blind man’s functioning senses gradually learn to compensate for the loss of his sight! If some poor, filmy-eyed wild beast were as insensitive as I have been to all the signs with which I’ve been bombarded for the past month, it would not survive for long in this vale of tears. For there were so many signs after all, and I was so gullible! Oh, John Ryder, John Ryder, JohnRyder! I gave myself up to you as I would have done to my son, to my own prodigal son. No one blessed with eyes would have accorded you such licence. Yet I, eyeless, I opened my home to you, and you abused me, humiliated me, degraded me. A blind old man! Why? For Christ’s sake, why? Who are you, John Ryder? Who are you? What is it you want of me? Are you some motiveless sadist who, as a child, enjoyed stripping the wings off flies and have now graduated to tormenting the old and blind and disabled? Or is it my money you hope to gain? Impossible, ludicrous, preposterous. However this story is destined to end, that, you must know, you will never have. Then – my life? Again, why? What conceivable reason could you have for wanting the life of a lonely, defenceless old man? Oh God, I don’t know! I don’t know! And there’s no one to whom I can turn for an answer. No one but you yourself, no one but the wretch that you are and that delights in stripping the wingsoff a blind man.

  Well, so be it, John Ryder. If it’s from you alone that enlightenment comes, then so be it. We shall see what we shall see.

  ‘There you are.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Get everything you wanted?’

  ‘Finally. It’s uphill work in Chipping Campden. Shopping, I mean.’

  ‘Is it really?’

  ‘Everything all right here?’

  ‘Oh. Fair, fair.’

  ‘Why are you sitting in the study?’

  ‘I really don’t know. Waiting for you, I suppose.’

  ‘Want me to make some coffee?’

  ‘Not unless you yourself want some.’

  ‘I had one in Chipping Campden.’

  ‘Then shall we set to?’

  *

  ‘Is something the matter, Paul?’

  ‘Why should anything be the matter?’

  *

  ‘Okay. I’ll switch on.’

  *

  ‘Need to be reminded where we left off?’

  ‘Don’t bother.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. While you were out, you see, I had an idea.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘A brilliant idea, if I say so myself. I don’t yet know, to be honest, where it’s going to fit into the book – though, given how disjointed the structure has been so far, that’s of no consequence in itself. I expect it’ll find its place in the scheme of things. But I do believe that when one gets an idea this good it ought to be put to use as rapidly as possible.’

  ‘Sounds exciting.’

  ‘We can only hope.’

  ‘Shall I create a new document?’

  ‘Why not? It is a new departure.’

  ‘What’ll we call
it?’

  ‘Well, you know, John, I was thinking, just for this section, that I might revive the title I dropped a couple of weeks ago. You remember, the title I originally planned to give the whole book? Truth and Consequences?’

  ‘Good idea. I’ll just call it Consequences, then, shall I? Unless you find that too hard to live up to?’

  ‘No. No, Consequences is fine. And, as you’ll see, really rather appropriate.’

  ‘Okay. I’ve already typed it in. Ready when you are.’

  *

  ‘All right. I’m starting – now. “It was Thomas Mann” – two n’s, by the way.’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Paul, I fancy I knew that already.’

  ‘“It was Thomas Mann who once defined a writer as” – open quotes – ‘someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people’.” Close quotes. “One knows, even if one is not a writer oneself, what he means. Yet definitions, aphoristic definitions, constitute what might be termed a genre and one of the absolutely immutable properties of that genre is that each definition in question be invested with what might be called an allure of improbability, even of paradox. It must, in short, be aback-taking.” That’s “aback” – hyphen – “taking”.’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘“In the case of Mann’s definition, for example, a far more sensible formulation would be, as we are all secretly aware, that a writer is someone for whom writing is less difficult than it is for other people.” Italicize “less”. “Yet, had Mann actually made such a statement, then no one would of course have thought it worth quoting.” Full stop. “And, to be fair, since mining one’s way to a pertinent paradox, which is what he did, is inherently more difficult than parroting a near-tautologous platitude, which is what I have just done, it could be argued that his definition of a writer is a nicely self-illustrating example of what it in fact proposes.” Ah, repetition there. Change the earlier “for example” to “for instance”.’

  *

  ‘Changed.’

  ‘I’m going on now. “In any event, whenever a writer defines a writer, he cannot do other than define himself” – dash – “not just in a generic but in an exclusively subjective sense. Mann’s definition thus cannot be made to apply to Henry James” – semi-colon – “just as Henry James’s would be unlikely to apply to, say, Ronald Firbank” – F, i, r, b, a, n, k – “nor Ronald Firbank’s to me.”’