by Mavis Cheek
He peered at her. 'You look different.' He peered again. 'Brighter.'
'I expect I do,' she said, and swung off with her case into the waiting taxi.
*
Morgan Pfeiffer stared, his eyes misted over with rage, blinked, and refocused again. Then he roared. He roared with all the might of a jungle lion who has learned to tolerate the chronic pain of a thorn in his foot until a passing elephant steps on it. He closed the manuscript and looked at the photograph of his good wife, deceased, through a veil of pain.
His roar was not an inarticulate one. It got itself easily around the human larynx and formed the sound shape, 'Stoat!' It formed the sound shape twice more for good measure. And then he waited. There was a satisfactory explosion of activity outside his door. The roar had been heard. His secretary jumped.
Morgan Pfeiffer resettled himself at his desk, got up, paced about, sat down again, picked up his cigar, picked up the manuscript, flicked at its pages as if in a vain effort to be proved wrong, shook his head as if knowing that he was not.
'Mr Pfeiffer?'
'You did not knock, Stoat.'
Stoat stood there for a moment wondering what to do. 'Well, Stoat?'
Lunacy prevailed. 'Sorry, sir,' he said, and went out, knocked, and waited.
Morgan Pfeiffer crossed to the door in the gliding fashion that seemed to betoken calm - recognizable only as its opposite to the photographic one now deceased. He opened the door gently.
Stoat smiled and squeaked. 'May I come in?'
Morgan Pfeiffer gave an expansive sweep of his hand. 'By all means,' he said through syrupy lips. He watched Stoat enter and walk to the desk, and was slightly mollified to observe that he had shrunk by quite a few inches. That helped. It didn't make it better, but it helped.
'Bring in the Gentle contract,' he said smoothly to his secretary, 'if you would be so kind.' He noticed that she had spilled correction fluid all over her desk. That helped, too.
'Read,' he commanded Enrico Stoat, and he pushed the opened manuscript towards him. 'Read the sex scenes just to begin with, Stoat. I have marked them for you.'
Stoat did so, his mouth making silent word shapes as he forced his concentration over each page. 'My God,' he breathed from time to time. 'My God, my God, my God. . .' His jaw dropped, his shoulders sagged, his eyes bulged, he seemed to shrink even more, and he looked, Morgan Pfeiffer thought with satisfaction (it was the only satisfaction), like a dying Hobbit.
'But, Mr Pfeiffer,' he said when he had finished, 'we can't use this. This is . . . well . . . this isn't straight.. . Mr Pfeiffer, sir, this is . . . er . . . deviant. She can't do this!'
'She can, and she has, Stoat.'
Morgan Pfeiffer's secretary entered and handed him a file. Morgan Pfeiffer took it and the secretary scuttled away.
Enrico Stoat, expiring Hobbit, felt for his medallion and wept openly.
Morgan Pfeiffer waved the contract file under his dripping nose. 'And there is nothing in here, Stoat - nothing at all - to stop her.'
'Jeezus,' said Stoat. 'I don't believe it.'
'Believe,' said Morgan Pfeiffer, suddenly and frighteningly quiet. 'Believe.'
Stoat sat down, very suddenly and without requesting permission.
'Now,' said Morgan Pfeiffer, advancing. Stoat stood up. Morgan Pfeiffer pushed him back down as easily as if he were oiled. 'Read some of the story line. What you like to call "ballast". Tell me whether you don't think it's an itsy-bitsy bit chocolate box. Hah!' He spun Stoat's chair and walked over to the window. 'READ!' he roared.
Stoat read. He stayed in the revolving chair. Permitted or not, he very definitely could not stand. 'Oh my God,' he repeated. 'Oh my God,' he said and looked at Pfeiffer.
'Does anything strike you, Stoat? Anything not quite right? A bit out of the ordinary perhaps for the kind of market we are after? The sex scenes, for example? Our "Janice Gentle gets sexy" scoop? Anything in particular about that?'
Stoat nodded and groaned. 'Yes,' he whispered. 'Yes, Mr Pfeiffer.'
'And what in particular strikes you, Stoat?'
Stoat mouthed some words.
'I can't hear you, Stoat. Speak up now. Say it.'
'Oh, Mr Pfeiffer, sir,' said Stoat. 'Well ... urn ... er ... the women, the ... er . . . encounters mostly seem to be . . . er . . . gay . . .'
Morgan Pfeiffer permitted himself a bitter laugh. 'Lesbians, Stoat. Lesbians! More dykes than on a Dutch beach. Let me tell you, throughout the book there is not a desirable dick in sight.' He raised a finger. 'There is one . . . er . . . piece of masculine equipment offered the reader. Right at the beginning. You may have missed it. That rather over-friendly superintendent in the children's home. Remember him?'
Stoat shuddered.
'Apart from that? Not one. Dogs, we've got. Arthritic old dykes in wheelchairs, we've got. Even a kinky male fish merchant . . . We've got "home is a cardboard box", we've got a hose-down near the London Ritz, and we've got an abandoned baby. The only shopping that appears to get done is of the light-fingered variety and centres around sustenance, the only fashion notes seem to be of a hard-wearing and waterproof nature. And the sex scenes, as you say, are . . . nothing but deviant filth. Gay? He leaned on his desk so that even the photograph quivered. 'So, what are we going to do, Stoat?'
Stoat swallowed. 'We'll sue,' he said.
Morgan Pfeiffer thrust the papers he held into Stoat's hand. 'Sue? Sue for what?'
'Sue for breaking contract.' 'She hasn't done that, Stoat.
'Stoat,' said Morgan Pfeiffer, 'I think you should go away and concentrate on reading the whole book. I think you'll find the main character, the story and the plot all of great interest. It's
about an itinerant girl who lives on the streets, by her wits and with the aid of casual prostitution and the occasional sugar-mommy. Mommy, Stoat, not daddy . .. She gives up men for a variety of entertaining reasons, many of which will be an education to our readers!'
A small light entered the deadness of Stoat's eyes. 'Rohanne Bulbecker,' he cried. 'Rohanne Bulbecker. . .'
'Forget Rohanne Bulbecker. From now on I deal with this myself.' He picked up a small piece of notepaper attached to the manuscript. 'Miss Gentle has been kind enough to send Miss Bulbecker a copy all of her own. She has also appended her address in London. So I shall not wait for Ms Bulbecker's interference. I want to see Janice Gentle, I want to speak with her in the flesh. We'll see if she still thinks she can play this kind of trick when I'm through with her. Oh she thinks she has been so clever - laughing all the way to the bank. Recluse? I tell you, Stoat, by the time I've finished with her she'll wish she lived on Mars...'
Chapter Twenty-five
They have found him. He has an inn at Skibbereen! So here is the manuscript, sent with my love. I hope you like it, I do.
The little piece of paper fluttered to the floor as Rohanne Bulbecker reached eagerly for the manuscript. Whatever she had expected, it was not this. The glow of her snow-tan began to fade long before she reached the end and, by the time the very last page was laid aside, she both looked and felt quite pale. That it was good was not in dispute. That it had conformed, exactly, to the contractual requirements of Morgan Pfeiffer was not in dispute. Whether it was acceptable was not in dispute, either. It was not, and never would be. She weighed the pages in her hands, thinking. Even were she to find the best editors in the land, they could do nothing with it, nothing to make it the awaited, expected book. She puzzled over its sexuality. How could Janice Gentle have gone down that particular path? And then floating into her mind came the eager face of Gretchen O'Dowd and with it that familiar gesture of fingertips to moustache as she set off to get the video.
And then Rohanne laughed. It seemed like the best joke of all, though it was clear from Janice's writing that she did not see it as a joke, merely as a story, a good story, and one that she very much wanted to write - passionately wanted to write if the compelling qualities of the novel were anything to judge by. And what was more - Rohanne went over to
the telephone and dialled the Pfeiffer number - what was more,, it ought to be published. It was too good not to be published. And she would tell Morgan Pfeiffer so .. .
'He has gone to London,' said the flat voice.
'In that case may I speak to Enrico Stoat?' 'Enrico Stoat,' said the voice impassively, 'is no longer with us.'
*
Morgan Pfeiffer was not a happy traveller. Travelling alone and in angry mood to an uncertain destination for an uncertain and undoubtedly acrimonious meeting was not conducive to harmony. He could not even read the newspapers since there were reports on every page to remind him of Janice Gentle's nasty book.
By the time he reached Heathrow, he was ready for war. He shouldered his way through the milling airport travellers, each and every one placed there purely to annoy him. In the taxi he growled rather than spoke the address of the loathsome Janice Gentle in Battersea. When Mr Jones told him she had gone away, he assumed it was because she felt guilty.
'Where to?' he asked Mr Jones.
Mr Jones, annoyed to find that this was not the glazier, was quite short with him. 'A place called Skibbereen.'
'Near here?' asked Morgan Pfeiffer, lighting a cigar for comfort.
'Ireland,' said Mr Jones.
'Shit,' said Morgan P. Pfeiffer, and climbed back into the cab.
*
Janice Gentle sat in the plane and dreamt. She was ready now, more than ready, for love. She spread out comfortably in her seat and prepared to doze. Skibbereen.
Gretchen said Dermot Poll was alive and well and living in Skibbereen. Janice asked no further questions. 'I am coming,' was all she said.
It was curious that, after all, she had not needed to write this last book. The money was quite unnecessary. In the end his
pursuit had cost very little. Yet she had enjoyed the work, given of her best, enjoyed writing of a heroine other than herself, to control the experience rather than be controlled by it. Once she could write only her truth, now she had written the truth of another. She was sure Erica von Hyatt would be pleased . . . 'Who would be interested in me?' Janice smiled. Quite a lot of people would be now . . . She felt a little regretful that this was her last book, but she shook her head free of the thought. She had but one goal to achieve, which was now attained. She had found Dermot Poll. That was the peak, that was the pinnacle. Vous ou Mort, and she needed nothing more. Assuredly, assuredly, she was ready to yield unto love.
As her eyes grew heavy, she remembered she had still not released her tube travellers. That was unfair. She had no more use for them, yet still she kept them captive. I shall do it just as soon as I get back. I will. I promise .. . And, so saying, she pulled her coat of many colours about her ample form and fell comfortably asleep.
Chapter Twenty-six
THE Celtic Festival was causing an interesting confusion for travellers in Ireland. Rohanne reached Cork railway station after a train journey which would have made a sardine blush, and was swept out into the street by the noisy, anxious crowd, all of whom were determined to travel onwards that night and few of whom had forward-planned the means. Coaches, buses, taxi-cabs, private cars, motor bicycles and horse-drawn carts all turned up for hire by the throng. Irish, Manx, Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Scottish showed their blood bond and helped one another. Rohanne, who was determined to reach Janice before Morgan Pfeiffer, to warn, to protect, to defend her, lied about her origins, invented a grandmother from Wales, and was put in line to await whatever transport became available. It would not take long, she was assured, by a man with a lilt in his voice who was organizing the snake of waiting travellers. Rohanne believed this. She still clung to the belief several hours later.
*
Morgan Pfeiffer saw a deliciously fleshy pair of legs beneath an extremely bright coat disappearing into a taxi-cab. Since it happened to be the last taxi-cab available, on a freezing February night, this merely seemed more of Fate's ill will. He made a halfhearted attempted to run through the crowds towards the cab and its tantalizing occupant, but failed. Instead he leaned against the station doorway and allowed his anger with Janice Gentle to warm him. If she thought that running away to this obscure place would save her, she had reckoned without him. Morgan Pfeiffer was stirred from his suffering widowerhood, the sleeper awakes, and he responded with joy to the fire of the fight in his belly.
'Is it always like this in Ireland?' he asked the sky. 'And how the hell do I get to Skibbereen?'
He was brought back to earth by a man in uniform standing at the station entrance. 'It's the Festival,' he said. 'And the only thing that'll get you there is money. There's not a piece of public transport left to be had.'
Morgan Pfeiffer indicated that this was not a problem and sat waiting on a dusty window-ledge, pulling his coat more firmly around him. The cold whipped his wrath. When he got to Skibbereen, he would bring Janice Gentle to her knees.
The man returned, looking a little less confident. 'We'd a truck going out with Celtic crosses, bound for a mile or two the other side of where you want, but it's gone. But we may be lucky. If Cake and Confectionery is still in the Tabard finishing his stout, we can get you in there. Wait now.'
Morgan Pfeiffer lit a cigar, but the aromatic smoke gave little comfort in the bleakness. Cold, he thought, and no room to go to.
*
Janice asked her driver why everyone was journeying towards the south-west.
'A spiritual journey,' he said. 'And yourself?'
'The same,' she said, and settled back to dream.
'That's a very fine bright coat you are wearing,' said the driver conversationally. 'I like a bit of colour. Sometimes it seems to me that the world is in mourning for something. Black, brown, grey - the colours of dirt, the colours of decay — and you in yours so bright, cheerfully dazzling in the night. . .'
'You sound like a poet,' said Janice. 'Are you?'
'Of course,' said the driver, amused, 'I'm Irish.'
'Ah, yes,' said Janice dreamily. 'So you would be . . .'
*
Dermot Poll eyed Erica. Erica eyed Gretchen. Gretchen eyed Deirdre. And Deirdre eyed Leary.
'Time to go,' she said to him eventually. 'Residents only now.'
Leary swallowed and winked and let himself out.
'Snag the lock,' she called after him, 'when you have relieved yourself.'
But he forgot.
The only light came from the reddish glow of the oil-lamp and the flickering flames of the fire. The room was warm, closed in, as if separate from the world now that Leary had gone and the door was shut against the wailing night outside.
'Just hark at that wind,' said Deirdre. 'I wouldn't be a traveller on the road tonight.'
'Oh, I don't know,' said Erica von Hyatt. She was drawing rings in the wetness of the bar top, and Dermot Poll, hunched on his elbows opposite her, watched fascinated. He leaned forward and whispered something in her ear.
She stopped drawing and looked at him incredulously. 'You have to be joking,' she said loudly.
'Dermot,' said Deirdre, without looking up from the difficulty of turning the heel on a burgundy-coloured sock, 'leave the girl alone.'
He shrugged, yawned, rubbed his chest and reached for the whiskey bottle. He winked at Erica as he poured two substantial refills. Erica sipped it unenthusiastically and Gretchen O'Dowd, winding wool for Deirdre around the back of a chair, looked at her lover and sighed. She couldn't remember the last time Erica had taken a cup of tea.
Dermot began to sing. Softly at first with a crack in his voice, and then gradually, with each change of song, the sound became more beautiful, more musical. Deirdre closed her eyes: if she closed them and no longer saw him, then she could enjoy the beauty of it, she could let the music enfold her as once and long ago. She thought about Declan and a tear or two escaped from beneath her closed lashes. He would be fine. It had been the right thing for him to leave. All the same, another tear fell on to the half-turned heel. All the same, she missed him. She felt an arm slide arou
nd her and herself pulled towards a solid breast. She smiled up at Gretchen through her tears, keeping her eyes closed, and laid her head against the body that was offered.
'Ah,' said Dermot Poll, pausing between songs, looking down the bar, at the pair of them. 'Isn't that sweet now?'
'Yes,' said Erica. 'It is.'
And he began to sing more softly, like a piece of silk twining itself around the room. 'I'll walk beside you through the passing years . . .'
*
Morgan P. Pfeiffer rested his head against a stack of Double Flavour jelly babies. The packages were comfortable, and, if required, he could make a couch from nougat, toffee-chip block and cellophaned sugar almonds. There were heart-shaped boxes of chocolates and other fancies neatly piled about him. It was like heaven lying in the sweet vanilla air. As transport went, it was not uncomfortable and they were going at a steady pace. The driver said he knew a short cut. Some of his anger had melted into the confectionery cloud, and he was content to sit there, basking in it, waiting for the driver to stop at Skibbereen. The rolled-up manuscript knocked against his fleshy ribs, a reminder of why he had come. And the sugary air reminded him of joys once known. He was not going to have either his past or his future betrayed by Janice Gentle and her degenerate tale. He had paid her good money up front and he wanted a return. He would get it, too.
He breathed in the sweetness and took heart from it. To her knees, all right. For Mrs Pfeiffer, the Pfeiffer Organization and the Readers Out There. She'd capitulate. In the end nobody could resist the force of money. People had mortgages, people had families, people liked to pay their bills and keep the heating on. He could do it. He would do it. He brushed the sweet, white powder from his sleeve and then tentatively licked his fingertips. The taste of love denied.
*
