‘That’s because I’ve been devouring it all over again, Jack. You thought you might have copies for my fair helpers, didn’t you?’
‘So I have,’ Boswell said, struggling to spring the catches of his aged briefcase.
‘See what you think when you’ve read these. Some for you as well, Bren,’ Sedgwick said, passing out Boswell’s last remaining hardcovers of several of his books. ‘Here’s a Hugo winner and look, this one got the Prix du FantastiqueÉcologique. Will you girls excuse us now? I hear the call of lunch.’
They were in sight of Waterloo Station again when he seized Boswell’s elbow to steer him into the Delphi, a tiny restaurant crammed with deserted tables spread with pink-and-white checked cloths. ‘This is what one of our greatest authors looks like, Nikos,’ Sedgwick announced. ‘Let’s have all we can eat and a litre of your red if that’s your style, Jack, to be going on with.’
The massive dark-skinned variously hairy proprietor brought them a carafe without a stopper and a brace of glasses Boswell would have expected to hold water. Sedgwick filled them with wine and dealt Boswell’s a vigorous clunk. ‘Here’s to us. Here’s to your legendary unpublished books.’
‘Not for much longer.’
‘What a scoop for Cassandra. I don’t know which I like best, Don’t Make Me Mad or Only We Are Left. Listen to this, Nikos. There are going to be so many mentally ill people they have to be given the vote and everyone’s made to have one as a lodger. And a father has to seduce his daughter or the human race dies out.’
‘Very nice.’
‘Ignore him, Jack. They couldn’t be anyone else but you.’
‘I’m glad you feel that way. You don’t think they’re a little too dark even for me?’
‘Not a shade, and certainly not for Cassandra. Wait till you read our other books.’
Here Nikos brought meze, an oval plate splattered with varieties of goo. Sedgwick waited until Boswell had transferred a sample of each to his plate and tested them with a piece of lukewarm bread. ‘Good?’
‘Most authentic,’ Boswell found it in himself to say.
Sedgwick emptied the carafe into their glasses and called for another. Blackened lamb chops arrived too, and prawns dried up by grilling, withered meatballs, slabs of smoked ham that could have been used to sole shoes...Boswell was working on a token mouthful of viciously spiced sausage when Sedgwick said ‘Know how you could delight us even more?’
Boswell swallowed and had to salve his mouth with half a glassful of wine. ‘Tell me,’ he said tearfully.
‘Have you enough unpublished stories for a collection?’
‘I’d have to write another to bring it up to length.’
‘Wait till I let the girls know. Don’t think they aren’t excited, they were just too overwhelmed by meeting you to show it. Can you call me as soon as you have an idea for the story or the cover?’
‘I think I may have both.’
‘You’re an example to us all. Can I hear?’
‘Shadows on a ruined wall. A man and woman and her child, and another man reaching out to them, I’d say in warning. Ruined tenements in the background. Everything overgrown. Even if the story isn’t called We Are Tomorrow, the book can be.’
‘Shall I give you a bit of advice? Go further than you ever have before. Imagine something you couldn’t believe anyone would pay you to write.’
Despite the meal, Boswell felt too elated to imagine that just now. His capacity for observation seemed to have shut down too, and only an increase in the frequency of passers-by outside the window roused it. ‘What time is it?’ he wondered, fumbling his watch upwards on his thin wrist.
‘Not much past five,’ Sedgwick said, emptying the carafe yet again. ‘Still lunchtime.’
‘Good God, if I miss my train I’ll have to pay double.’
‘Next time we’ll see about paying for your travel.’ Sedgwick gulped the last of che wine as he threw a credit card on the table to be collected later. ‘I wish you’d said you had to leave this early. I’ll have Bren send copies of our books to you,’ he promised as Boswell panted into Waterloo, and called after him down the steps into the Underground ‘Don’t forget, imagine the worst. That’s what we’re for.’
* * * *
For three hours the worst surrounded Boswell. SIX NATIONS CONTINUE REARMING ... CLIMATE CHANGES ACCELERATE, SAY SCIENTISTS ... SUPERSTITIOUS FANATICISM ON INCREASE ... WOMEN’S GROUPS CHALLENGE ANTI-GUN RULING ... RALLY AGAINST COMPUTER CHIPS IN CRIMINALS ENDS IN VIOLENCE: THREE DEAD, MANY INJURED .. . Far more commuters weren’t reading the news than were: many wore headphones that leaked percussion like distant discos in the night, while the sole book to be seen was Page Turner, the latest Turner adventure from Midas Paperbacks, bound in either gold or silver depending, Boswell supposed, on the reader’s standards. Sometimes drinking helped him create, but just now a bottle of wine from the buffet to stave off a hangover only froze in his mind the image of the present in ruins and overgrown by the future, of the shapes of a family and a figure poised to intervene printed on the remains of a wall by a flare of painful light. He had to move on from thinking of them as the Aireys and himself, or had he? One reason Jean had left him was that she’d found traces of themselves and April in nearly all his work, even where none was intended; she’d become convinced he was wishing the worst for her and her child when he’d only meant a warning, by no means mostly aimed at them. His attempts to invent characters wholly unlike them had never convinced her and hadn’t improved his work either. He needn’t consider her feelings now, he thought sadly. He had to write whatever felt true - the best story he had in him.
It was remaining stubbornly unformed when the train stammered into the terminus. A minibus strewn with drunks and defiant smokers deposited him at the end of his street. He assumed his house felt empty because of Rod’s proposal. Jean had taken much of the furniture they hadn’t passed on to April, but Boswell still had seats where he needed to sit and folding canvas chairs for visitors, and nearly all his books. He was in the kitchen, brewing coffee while he tore open the day’s belated mail, when the phone rang.
He took the handful of bills and the airmail letter he’d saved for last into his workroom, where he sat on the chair April had loved spinning and picked up the receiver. ‘Jack Boswell.’
‘Jack? They’re asleep.’
Presumably this explained why Rod’s voice was low. ‘Is that an event?’ Boswell said.
‘It is for April at the moment. She’s been out all day looking for work, any work. She didn’t want to tell you in case you already had too much on your mind.’
‘But now you have.’
‘I was hoping things had gone well for you today.’
‘I think you can do more than that.’
‘Believe me, I’m looking as hard as she is.’
‘No, I mean you can assure her when she wakes that not only do I have a publisher for my two novels and eventually a good chunk of my backlist, but they’ve asked me to put together a new collection too.’
‘Do you mind if I ask for her sake how much they’re advancing you?’
‘No pounds and no shillings or pence.’
‘You’re saying they’ll pay you in euros?’
‘I’m saying they don’t pay an advance to me or any of their authors, but they pay royalties every three months.’
‘I take it your agent has approved the deal.’
‘It’s a long time since I’ve had one of those, and now I’ll be ten per cent better off. Do remember I’ve plenty of experience.’
‘I could say the same. Unfortunately it isn’t always enough.’
Boswell felt his son-in-law was trying to render him as insignificant as Rod believed science fiction writers ought to be. He tore open the airmail envelope with the little finger of the hand holding the receiver. ‘What’s that?’ Rod demanded.
‘No panic. I’m not destroying any of my work,’ Boswell told him, and smoothed out the letter to read it again. �
�Well, this is timely. The Saskatchewan Conference on Prophetic Literature is giving me the Wendigo Award for a career devoted to envisioning the future.’
‘Congratulations. Will it help?’
‘It certainly should, and so will the story I’m going to write. Maybe even you will be impressed. Tell April not to let things pull her down,’ Boswell said as he rang off, and ‘Such as you’ only after he had.
* * * *
Boswell wakened with a hangover and an uneasy sense of some act left unperformed. The image wakened with him: small child holding woman’s hand, man beside them, second man gesturing. He groped for the mug of water by the bed, only to find he’d drained it during the night. He stumbled to the bathroom and emptied himself while the cold tap filled the mug. In time he felt equal to yet another breakfast of the kind his doctor had warned him to be content with. Of course, he thought as the sound of chewed bran filled his skull, he should have called Sedgwick last night about the Wendigo Award. How early could he call? Best to wait until he’d worked on the new story. He tried as he washed up the breakfast things and the rest of the plates and utensils in the sink, but his mind seemed as paralysed as the shadows on the wall it kept showing him. Having sat at his desk for a while in front of the wordless screen, he dialled Cassandra Press.
‘Hello? Yes?’
‘Is that Carole?’ Since that earned him no reply, he tried ‘Bren?’
‘It’s Carole. Who is this?’
‘Jack Boswell. I just wanted you to know—’
‘You’ll want to speak to Q. Q, it’s your sci-fi man.’
Sedgwick came on almost immediately, preceded by a creak of bedsprings. ‘Jack, you’re never going to tell me you’ve written your story already.’
‘Indeed I’m not. Best to take time to get it right, don’t you think? I’m calling to report they’ve given me the Wendigo Award.’
‘About time, and never more deserved. Who is it gives those again? Carole, you’ll need to scribble this down. Bren, where’s something to scribble with?’
‘By the phone,’ Bren said very close, and the springs creaked.
‘Reel it off, Jack.’
As Boswell heard Sedgwick relay the information he grasped that he was meant to realise how close the Cassandra Press personnel were to one another. ‘That’s capital, Jack,’ Sedgwick told him. ‘Bren will be lumping some books to the mail for you, and I think I can say Carole’s going to have good news for you.’
‘Any clue what kind?’
‘Wait and see, Jack, and we’ll wait and see what your new story’s about.’
Boswell spent half an hour trying to write an opening line that would trick him into having started the tale, but had to acknowledge that the technique no longer worked for him. He was near to being blocked by fearing he had lost all ability to write, and so he opened the carton of books the local paper had sent him to review. Sci-Fi On The Net, Create Your Own Star Wars™ Character, 1000 Best Sci-Fi Videos, Sci-Fi From Lucas To Spielberg, Star Wars™: The Bluffer’s Guide...There wasn’t a book he would have taken off a shelf, nor any appropriate to the history of science fiction in which he intended to incorporate a selection from his decades of reviews. Just now writing something other than his story might well be a trap. He donned sandals and shorts and unbuttoned his shirt as he ventured out beneath a sun that looked as fierce as the rim of a total eclipse.
All the seats of a dusty bus were occupied by pensioners, some of whom looked as bewildered as the young woman who spent the journey searching the pockets of the combat outfit she wore beneath a stained fur coat and muttering that everyone needed to be ready for the enemy. Boswell had to push his way off the bus past three grim scrawny youths bare from the waist up, who boarded the vehicle as if they planned to hijack it. He was at the end of the road where the wall had inspired him - but he hadn’t reached the wall when he saw Rod’s car.
It was identifiable solely by the charred number plate. The car itself was a blackened windowless hulk. He would have stalked away to call the Aireys if the vandalism hadn’t made writing the new story more urgent than ever, and so he stared at the incomplete wall with a fierceness designed to revive his mind. When he no longer knew if he was staring at the bricks until the story formed or the shadows did, he turned quickly away. The shadows weren’t simply cast on the wall, he thought; they were embedded in it, just as the image was embedded in his head.
He had to walk a mile homewards before the same bus showed up. Trudging the last yards to his house left him parched. He drank several glassfuls of water, and opened the drawer of his desk to gaze for reassurance or perhaps inspiration at his secret present from a fan before he dialled the Aireys’ number.
‘Hello?’
If it was April, something had driven her voice high. ‘It’s only me,’ Boswell tentatively said.
‘Grandad. Are you coming to see us?’
‘Soon, I hope.’
‘Oh.’ Having done her best to hide her disappointment, she added ‘Good.’
‘What have you been doing today?’
‘Reading. Dad says I have to get a head start.’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Boswell said, though she didn’t sound as if she wanted him to be. ‘Is Mummy there?’
‘Just Dad.’
After an interval Boswell tried ‘Rod?’
‘It’s just me, right enough.’
‘I’m sure she didn’t mean - I don’t know if you’ve seen your car.’
‘I’m seeing nothing but. We still have to pay to have it scrapped.’
‘No other developments?’
‘Jobs, are you trying to say? Not unless April’s so dumbstruck with good fortune she can’t phone. I was meaning to call you, though. I wasn’t clear last night what plans you had with regard to us.’
Rod sounded so reluctant to risk hoping that Boswell said ‘There’s a good chance I’ll have a loan in me.’
‘I won’t ask how much.’ After a pause presumably calculated to entice an answer Rod added ‘I don’t need to tell you how grateful we are. How’s your new story developing?’
This unique display of interest in his work only increased the pressure inside Boswell’s uninspired skull. ‘I’m hard at work on it,’ he said.
‘I’ll tell April,’ Rod promised, and left Boswell with that - with hours before the screen and not a word of a tale, just shadows in searing light: child holding woman’s hand, man beside, another gesturing...He fell asleep at his desk and jerked awake in a panic, afraid to know why his inspiration refused to take shape.
He seemed hardly to have slept in his bed when he was roused by a pounding of the front-door knocker and an incessant shrilling of the doorbell. As he staggered downstairs he imagined a raid, the country having turned overnight into a dictatorship that had set the authorities the task of arresting all subversives, not least those who saw no cause for optimism. The man on the doorstep was uniformed and gloomy about his job, but brandished a clipboard and had a carton at his feet. ‘Consignment for Boswell,’ he grumbled.
‘Books from my publishers.’
‘Wouldn’t know. Just need your autograph.’
Boswell scrawled a signature rendered illegible by decades of autographs, then bore the carton to the kitchen table, where he slit its layers of tape to reveal the first Cassandra Press books he’d seen. All the covers were black as coal in a closed pit except for bony white lettering not quite askew enough for the effect to be unquestionably intentional. GERMAINE GOSSETT, Women Are The Wave. TORIN BERGMAN, Oracles Arise! FERDY THORN, Fight Them Fisheries...Directly inside each was the title page, and on the back of that the copyright opposite the first page of text. Ecological frugality was fine, but not if it looked unprofessional, even in uncorrected proof copies. Proofreading should take care of the multitude of printer’s errors, but what of the prose? Every book, not just Torin Bergman’s, read like the work of a single apprentice translator.
He abandoned a paragraph of Ferdy Thorn’s blunt chun
ky style and sprinted to his workroom to answer the phone. ‘Boswell,’ he panted.
‘Jack. How are you today?’
‘I’ve been worse, Quentin.’
‘You’ll be a lot better before you know. Did the books land?’
‘The review copies, you mean.’
‘We’d be delighted if you reviewed them. That would be wonderful, wouldn’t it, if Jack reviewed the books?’ When this received no audible answer he said ‘Only you mustn’t be kind just because they’re ours, Jack. We’re all in the truth business.’
‘Let me read them and then we’ll see what’s best. What I meant, though, these aren’t finished books.’
‘They certainly should be. Sneak a glance at the last pages if you don’t mind knowing the end.’
‘Finished in the sense of the state that’ll be on sale in the shops.’
‘Well, yes. They’re trade paperbacks. That’s the book of the future.’
‘I know what trade paperbacks are. These—’
‘Don’t worry, Jack, they’re just our first attempts. Wait till you see the covers Carole’s done for you. Nothing grabs the eye like naive art, especially with messages like ours.’
‘So,’ Boswell said in some desperation, ‘have I heard why you called?’
‘You don’t think we’d interrupt you at work without some real news.’
‘How real?’
‘We’ve got the figures for the advance orders of your books. All the girls had to do was phone with your name and the new titles till the batteries went flat, and I don’t mind telling you you’re our top seller.’
‘What are the figures?’ Boswell said, and took a deep breath.
‘Nearly three hundred. Congratulations once again.’
‘Three hundred thousand. It’s I who should be congratulating you and your team. I only ever had one book up there before. Shows publishing needs people like yourselves to shake it up.’ He became aware of speaking fast so that he could tell the Aireys his - no, their - good fortune, but he had to clarify one point before letting euphoria overtake him. ‘Or is that, don’t think for a second I’m complaining if it is, but is that the total for both titles or each?’
The Collected Short Fiction Page 135
