The Bad Book Affair

by Ian Sansom

  “Linda!” said Israel. “Good evening! Or should I say perhaps Bon soir!”

  Linda’s hand instinctively flew up and protectively patted her beret. Her face was set.

  “Ça va?” said Israel.

  “Mr. Armstrong,” said Linda.

  “What is the weight of a talent?” said Israel.

  “The weight of some our talents will be greater than others,” said Linda.

  “Ah, very good,” said Israel. “I see what you’re doing there! Very funny. Seriously, you don’t know the length of a cubit, though, do you, even Mr. Devine here was struggling with that one.”

  “No.”

  “Oh well, not to worry. Who’s on your team tonight?” said Israel.

  “You haven’t forgotten your appraisal meeting on Monday morning?” said Linda.

  “Sorry?”

  “Your six-monthly appraisal is scheduled for Monday morning. You haven’t forgotten about it?”

  “Yes, I had actually.” He laughed, and then, realizing that Linda was not laughing with him, he added, “No. No. Of course I hadn’t forgotten. Only joking.”

  Linda continued not to smile.

  “No. Sorry. I mean, yes.”

  “You have or you haven’t forgotten?”

  “I definitely haven’t forgotten it, Linda.”

  “Good. We have a lot to discuss.”

  “As always!” said Israel.

  “Probably more than always,” said Linda. “Given recent events.”

  “Recent events?”

  Linda leaned over to Israel. “Your unexplained absence. Leaflets promoting political parties. Maurice Morris.”

  “Maurice Morris?”

  “His daughter?”

  “Sorry, Linda, I have-”

  “Lending the Unshelved to the under-sixteens?”

  “Sorry, I have-”

  “I’ll see you Monday morning,” said Linda.

  “Right,” said Israel. “Yeah, yeah.”

  “First thing.”

  “Oui. Oui. D’accord,” said Israel.

  “Please do not speak French to me,” said Linda.

  “That’s not what the girls usually say to me!” said Israel.

  “Mr. Armstrong!”

  “Sorry,” said Israel. “Just the…beret. I…”

  “We are ready to resume, brothers and sisters,” announced the Reverend Roberts. “If you could take up your pencils, please.”

  A hundred Tumdrum Presbyterians laid down their chips and took up their pencils.

  “And we’ll start with a difficult one,” said the Reverend Roberts. “Just to get you in the mood. There are seven things that the Lord hates, brothers and sisters, seven that are detestable to him. Can you list them?”

  “George W. Bush!” yelled Israel.

  “Sssh!” said George, old Mr. Devine, and a dozen others.

  “Sorry,” said Israel. “U2?” he said more quietly.

  George punched him. But not in the usual punching him way she had. This was more of an affectionate, rabbit punch kind of a punch.

  “Haughty eyes,” said old Mr. Devine.

  “What?” said Israel.

  “A lying tongue.”

  “Are you making this up?” said Israel. “How do you know all this sort of stuff?”

  “Hands that shed innocent blood.”

  “Quite right.”

  “A heart that devises wicked schemes.”

  “George W. Bush. See, I said.”

  “Feet that are quick to rush into evil.”

  “There. There!” said Israel. “I’m right.”

  “How many have we got?” said old Mr. Devine.

  “Hold on.” George counted them up. “Five.”

  “We need two more,” said Israel.

  “Oh, well done. That’s the only question you’ve answered correctly all evening,” said George.

  “A false witness who pours out lies,” said Mr. Devine. “And a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.”

  “Bingo!” shouted Israel. “Housey housey!”

  “Thank you,” said the Reverend Roberts.

  The evening wore on.

  “What seed did manna look like? Was it (a) coriander, (b) mustard, (c) cumin, or (d) peppercorn?”

  “What part of King Asa’s body was diseased? Was it (a) his hands, (b) his bowels, (c) his stomach, or (d) his feet?”

  “What about his di-”

  George punched him a little harder that time, and Israel’s chair tipped back, and the last thing he remembered of the evening was lying on his back, George standing over him.

  “The ferret is mentioned in which book of the Bible?”

  7

  At precisely seven o’clock in the morning, as every morning, except on Sundays and Christmas Day and when he was away golfing in Turkey or in Spain, Maurice Morris sat down to breakfast, freshly shaved and eau de cologned, hair neatly combed, and wearing a red pullover and blue blazer, a reflection of his profound broad-mindedness. He had all of the papers laid out on the vast granite breakfast bar before him, and coffee in his bone china cup, and just a lick of un-salted butter on his granary toast; he was going to stay trim if it killed him; he wasn’t going to go down the traybake route. He had the big wall-mounted HD plasma screen television on, with the sound muted-he liked the lady who did the news in the mornings, even though she was a little chubby, and maybe even a little old to be doing the whole breakfast news on the sofa thing, but there was just something about her that gave him a kick, he was addicted to her, the slight sense of unpredictability in the way she moved, which reminded him of someone-and he was also listening to BBC Radio Ulster. He never missed the local news headlines. Knowledge was Power. That was another one of his mantras. He’d thought about having them all painted up on the wall, to remind himself: a kind of inspirational Wall of Positive Thinking. He could maybe get them mounted on boards: YOU ARE 100% RESPONSIBILE. FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION. FEEL THE FEAR AND DO IT ANYWAY. But his wife wouldn’t have allowed it.

  Maurice’s house was out in the country, but not so far out in the country as to be actually in the country; Maurice did not appreciate or enjoy the actual rural. He was uncomfortable with the country: he didn’t enjoy the solitude or the silence. He didn’t like mud and mess. He just couldn’t identify with trees and hedges and tillable land: you got nothing back from them; they just were. To Maurice, the countryside represented opportunity and potential, rather than being an entity in and of itself. To Maurice, the countryside was a suburb in waiting. Where his wife saw bosky woods and thickets, and the seasons and little creatures and leaves changing color, Maurice saw culs-de-sac-to-be, and opening-soon light industrial units thronging with people happily at their work. Maurice needed people as much people needed him: his every landscape, internal and external, imaginary and real, was a landscape with figures.

  The house itself-“The Grange,” as Maurice had styled it-was an old farmhouse that had been ambitiously extended and expanded over the years until it resembled now more a luxury gated community or a compound than a family home: it was a house that implied other people. What had once been outbuildings now housed rooms for guests and entertaining and playing games in, though the family rarely played games or entertained or had guests. The barn was an office, which Maurice Morris rarely used, preferring always to be out meeting people. And the stables housed a horse that their daughter no longer rode. Only the old grain store, which had been turned into a light-filled artist’s studio for Maurice’s wife, Pamela, saw much use, though Pamela hardly ever made any actual art in it: she would sit, rather, and smoke and drink coffee and stare out at the surroundings, as though perhaps they might inspire her to rediscover whatever it was she seemed to have lost during the past twenty years of her marriage to Maurice Morris.

  The house was surrounded on three sides by green fields and faced out on the other to the chill Irish Sea. The only approach was a long, sweeping drive, whose uniform, loosely crunching gravel gave Maurice p
erhaps more pleasure than any of his other achievements: to have your own long, sweeping crunchy gravel driveway! He had even gone so far as to plant lime trees to line the drive, which, though only now semimature, gave the requisite impression of approaching a stately home in the south of England rather than a coastal farmhouse in Ireland. If this was not one of the finest homes in County Antrim then Maurice Morris didn’t know what was. There was an indoor swimming pool, a dedicated golf simulator room. Even the kitchen-which had once been the old coach house-was a work of art, specced out to the highest standards imaginable and perhaps a little more, for who in their right minds could possibly imagine a use for a gas-fired Aga, and an eight-burner (plus wok burner) range cooker, and a wine cooler, and a fridge freezer the size of a closet? Not Maurice and Pamela. They ate mostly takeaways and prick-the-plastic ready-meals.

  Maurice looked away from the breakfast news lady and gazed out to sea. He’d considered having a helipad built out on the lawn, but his wife had felt it was vulgar, so that had been that. It was probably the right decision: the helicopter would have obscured the view. The sun was shining this morning-the sea looked like diamonds-and Maurice had been up since five, dealing with correspondence. This was one of the secrets of his success-by seven o’clock he had a two-hour lead on most of his rivals. Sitting on a stool at the breakfast bar, plasma screen to the left of him, diamond ocean to the right, two hours of good honest work behind him, Maurice Morris was the master of all he surveyed.

  He was scanning the newspaper headlines when his wife appeared. She was still in her pajamas, and her hair was scraped back, and she was thus far, at this hour, without makeup, but she still looked younger than her fifty-five years; she was lucky enough to have been blessed with a sharp chin and a firm jaw and piercing eyes, precious gifts to the woman in middle age, almost as precious indeed as a husband ready and willing to help her keep body and soul together and topped up with Botox and unguents and herbalistic creams. She was also possessed, Mrs. Morris, of a kind of natural, shocking vitality, the vitality of a tigress ready and willing to pounce at any moment but also, more importantly, to protect herself and her family from anything and anyone. If Mrs. Morris had purred and patted you down with a big taloned paw, you wouldn’t have been surprised. As it was, she sighed and poured herself a cup of coffee. Maurice didn’t look up. She sat herself down at the opposite end of the breakfast bar and lit a cigarette.

  “Would you mind?” said Maurice, without looking up.

  “What?”

  “Not.”

  “What?”

  “Smoking.”

  “And good morning to you too,” said Mrs. Morris.

  “Outside at least?” said Morris.

  “In my own house I’ll smoke where I want.”

  “The smell lingers,” said Maurice. “People can smell it on my suits.”

  Mrs. Morris chose not to respond.

  “Have you called her?” said Maurice.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m away here in half an hour,” said Maurice. He batted away the smell of smoke. “Sleeping late again.”

  “It’s a Saturday, Maurice.”

  “She has hockey.”

  “She’ll be down in a minute. She’s probably having a shower.”

  “If she’s expecting a lift-” said Maurice.

  “I can take her in later,” said Mrs. Morris, taking another long draw on her cigarette.

  Maurice tutted.

  “She shouldn’t miss breakfast,” he said.

  “Relax, Maurice. She won’t miss breakfast.”

  “Most important meal of the day,” said Maurice. “You can’t expect to perform at your best if you haven’t-”

  “She’ll be fine,” said Mrs. Morris. “Stop fussing.”

  “If you want to be on the top of your game you need to-”

  “We’ve heard it all before, Maurice,” said Mrs. Morris.

  “Fine,” said Maurice, looking at his watch. “Twenty-five minutes, or I’ll be late.”

  “For what?”

  “It’s a breakfast meeting.”

  “At the golf club?”

  “That’s right.”

  Mrs. Morris snorted.

  Maurice liked to get together every weekend with a few friends and fellow businessmen to play golf and to laugh loudly at one another’s slightly off-color jokes and to sit in the club house and enjoy a few drinks. This was Maurice’s downtime, among men who never spoke of their emotional lives or of their families-companions rather than friends. People you could trust; people you could do business with.

  They sat and sipped coffee in silence.

  “I met the librarian yesterday,” said Maurice.

  “The who?”

  “The librarian who’s been lending her those books.”

  “What books?”

  “Those books she’s been reading.”

  “What books are you talking about?”

  “Adult sort of books.”

  “Adult books?” Mrs. Morris’s eyes flashed, and she raised an already raised and plucked eyebrow. “She’s not mentioned any adult books to me.”

  “I don’t mean that sort of book. I mean…not children’s books.”

  “Maurice! She’s not a little girl anymore.”

  “I know she’s not a little girl anymore.”

  “So. She can read whatever she likes.”

  “I don’t think she should be able to read whatever she likes.”

  “Why not?”

  “She’ll get ideas.”

  “What sort of ideas?”

  “About…things. You know.”

  “Don’t all books have ideas, Maurice?” Mrs. Morris sighed.

  “Yes, but I mean ideas about…sex.”

  “Chip off the old block, then, eh?”

  Maurice reddened: being reminded of his infidelities was the one thing that could cause him embarrassment.

  Mrs. Morris let Maurice’s embarrassment fully ripen before continuing. “So, she’s been reading the Kama Sutra, has she?”

  “Good god, no!”

  “Lady Chatterley’s Lover?”

  “No!”

  “Well, she wouldn’t need to get that from the library. She could borrow my copy. Along with The Joy of Sex and-”

  “Sssh! She might hear you!”

  “She’s still in bed.”

  “Good.”

  “You wanted her up a minute ago.”

  “Anyway, I told him what I thought.”

  “Who?”

  “The librarian.”

  “Oh. Well, good for you, Maurice. Keeping the lower orders in their place. Librarians, lending people books? I don’t know. What’s the world coming to?”

  Maurice ignored his wife and glanced up at the TV; his friend was still there on the sofa.

  “Has she talked to you any more about her plans?” said Maurice.

  “What plans?” said Mrs. Morris.

  “Her GCSEs. Is she making any other plans you know of?”

  “No.”

  “So?” said Maurice.

  “She wants to stick with the art and media studies,” said Mrs. Morris.

  “Mickey Mouse courses.”

  “If she wants to go to the art college-”

  Maurice huffed.

  “There’s nothing wrong with the art college,” said Mrs. Morris.

  “Art college!” said Maurice. “She’d be better doing law.”

  “She doesn’t want to do law.”

  “She’ll come round,” said Maurice.

  “Not if you’re nagging at her she won’t come round.”

  “I didn’t work all these years so my daughter could-”

  “It’s nothing to do with you, Maurice.”

  “It’s everything to do with me!” said Maurice.

  “She’d be fine at art college.”

  “Doing what? Hanging around a bunch of dope-smoking layabouts!”

  “Layabouts? Nobody says ‘layabouts’ anymore, Maurice.
”

  “I say ‘layabouts.’”

  “Anyway, she’s got years to work it all out.”

  “You have to plan ahead for these things, I keep telling you.”

  “Maurice, you go on ahead and get yourself elected, and let me worry about her.”

  “She’s had a five-star education. Pony, clubs, the best of everything. When I was growing up on Corporation Street I’d have given anything to-”

  “Maurice, please. You’re on repeat. You’re making a speech to me. I’m your wife. Remember?”

  “How could I forget?”

  “And I’ve not had my coffee yet. So let’s not get into all this now.”

  “Fine.”

  Mrs. Morris stubbed out her cigarette and took a final sip of her coffee.

  “She’ll be late,” said Maurice, “if she doesn’t get up soon.”

  “She won’t be late! Now, just leave her be. God, you’re such a control freak.”

  Maurice was not a control freak. He had, for example, left much of the design and furnishing of the interior of the house to Mrs. Morris, whose tastes in home furnishings ran rather to the exotic. Left to his own devices, Maurice would have tended toward basic dictator chic-chandeliers and gold plates, with brocaded curtains and brand-spanking-new mahogany. Pamela had more bohemian tastes: tapestries, antiques, curiosities. He’d even allowed her to paint a mural on the kitchen wall, bold and Bloomsbury-style, when they first bought the house, depicting the mountains of Mourne and the cottage they had there and which they used as their bolt-hole. But the kitchen had since been vigorously extended with steel and glass and a table which could accommodate a large, catered dinner party, and the Mournes mural with its little cottage had long since disappeared.

  They sat in silence, the two of them, sipping their coffee, as distant as any long-married couple. Maurice looked at his watch.

  “All right,” said Mrs. Morris. “I’ll go and get her up.”

  “Thank you,” said Maurice.

  The right order had reestablished itself.

  As he explained to the police and to the press later that day, the first thing Maurice Morris knew about his daughter’s disappearance was the sound of his wife screaming.