The Information Junkie

by Roderick Leyland

  He slapped me on the back, stood, stretched, said,

  'See you around, cowboy,' and walked off.

  'Where are you going?'

  He turned. 'I've lost my little girl.'

  20B

  There's a new tone, isn't there buddies? Yep, the fiction's fading, and being replaced by another reality. At last. At long, bloody last. Hey—but wasn't Burgess a guy, eh? (Oh, my brothers—remember that in The Mechanical Fruit...? Miss him. Miss his sanity in an insane world.) I must apologise for these leakages, by the way. I don't know where all that stuff's coming from. I mean—an ex-SAS man in the middle of the Kalahari? Anthony Burgess in Bloomsbury? JFK, MM and the King sharing a ranch house on the outskirts of Reno, Nevada? What next—will V. Woolf materialise and say: 'Hardy possessed genius but no talent. You possess neither—'?

  *

  So, there you were, in a meadow, before pumas prowled Piccadilly, before tigers roamed the Strand, before mammoths pastured in Berkeley Square. Then you saw her.

  Her image was constant, like that of stars centuries hence. She seemed familiar with her surroundings yet examined everything as if for the first time—the new girl in a heaven she had not foreseen.

  Had time stopped for her? No—it had ceased to exist. The concept had no meaning: everything was both transient and eternal; and her beatific expression reflected this. For she had seen more, and more deeply, than most.

  She stooped to pick a yellow flower, mouthing its Latin name: Gentiana lutea—after Gentius, King of Illyria in the second century BC. She smelt it and let her tongue play over its root, but at its bitterness grimaced; then she drew a finger across her mouth, turned in an unladylike way and spat.

  Time had stopped—past, present and future were omnipresent.

  You had fallen when she'd said that the boy would remember something for the rest of his life. That was the moment she'd become yours—or you'd become hers. Adoration from the start—even though she was dead; had died before you'd been born.

  ...he will remember that all his life.

  Because she was sensitive—vulnerable not only for herself but for others too; feeling their pain, living their hells—as if her own hell were insufficient.

  Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

  Somehow—how...? You'd not yet solved that, but in some way you'd slipped out of your own time and into her universe, where clocks had been stilled. Could this be Hell, or was it Limbo...?

  ...this is Hell. We are the damned.

  Her words ran through your mind like a half-remembered line of verse, a half-forgotten melody. You continued to watch as she waded knee-deep in the meadow that would become Berkeley Square, plucking and sniffing its flowers. She was not beautiful but handsome. And her dress—Victorian? Edwardian?—trailed below the level of the grasses and flowers: meadow rue, field horsetails, poppies.

  She was a mute Pied Piper of Hamelin, though a scientist would have been hard put to define exactly what it was that emanated from her.

  At a sound you turned. From an elm at the meadow's edge a blackbird issued notes, giving his account of the day. The sounds were an expression of pleasure, his song was constant and delivered with a simplicity you envied.

  'This,' sang the bird, 'is what happened today.'

  When you turned back, and your eyes met, there was the whisper of recognition. Up to this point you had been a mere observer; now you became a participant—on her terms. She smiled—she knew she had you. Did you dare?—but the thought was cut short as something high in the sky distracted her.

  The object was too distant to identify but, against the impossibly-blue sky, it looked like a dulled-metal cigar tube. Without sound, as you watched, it split into parts before disintegrating and disappearing. In its place, dust.

  'A silver pencil,' she said, 'and a puff of smoke,' before looking down at you. 'That's the one. One like that will take us out.'

  'How can you know?'

  Again the smile.

  'But here, first, you must suffer,' she went on.

  'Suffer...?'

  'Lost, unreturned love—call it what you will.' She paused to study your reaction. 'It'll test you,' searching your eyes and penetrating your core. 'You'll emerge a different man—stronger, more sensitive.' Once more that smile. 'Growing pains,' she concluded.

  Who is that love? you wanted to ask, but she continued:

  'You'll never love as deeply or completely again.'

  'And you—have you loved?'

  She smiled again. 'I hope so,' and looked back to the elm where the blackbird (or was it another bird...?) continued to dispense his notes.

  You found yourself, almost against your will, mimicking the bird. (Could it be a starling—and what sound did they make...?) Did the bird reply or was he mimicking you? Perhaps without understanding you were communicating with each other. The bird (curlew...?) seemed resigned to announce himself all evening—for, although time had ceased to exist, days seemed to share a shape determined by the rotation of the planet. This period, according to that scale, would have been classified a late sunny afternoon or early summer evening.

  What bird was this? Against the light (you were looking westwards) it seemed black, but had the sun been coming from the south you could have determined its colours.

  Looking south, now, you noticed the grassland sloping downwards, ending at a wide stream—too soon to call it a river. On the other side, marshland—a colony for a wealth of birds.

  'This is Hell,' she said, 'and I am condemned.'

  'Condemned...?'

  'To tramp this area.' She paused.

  That reminded you of another punishment—counting every grain of sand, a thought you used to terrify yourself with; extremes had always frightened and excited you. She paused before pointing to the east. 'This grassland will become a network of squares and thoroughfares and, after that—long, long, after that—it will be a riot of rhododendrons. But I am damned.'

  'Damned...?'

  'Yes, to wander these streets, questioning everything.'

  You looked around at the grasses. 'Streets...?'

  'It's a curse,' she said. 'I see too deeply and too much.' She paused. 'With me, the past, present and future are combined. I see it all—all the time.' She looked at your feet. 'You're standing on a tree.' You looked down; there were only grasses and flowers. 'One day, when your love affair has ended, your eyes will drill into it, searching for the answer. You'll find none—there is none.'

  'None?'

  'No—and you'll shake your fist at the sky, like Hardy.'

  'Hardy...?'

  'Thomas—a novelist-cum-poet who'll think of himself as a prophet or seer. But it will be all posture. He'll emerge as a genius with no talent.'

  'No talent...?'

  She nodded. 'But he'll have moments of vision.' She paused. 'And he'll love rhododendrons—they'll blaze across his landscape, and his child will be Egdon Heath.'

  'I don't understand.'

  'Egdon Heath will be his best-drawn character.'

  'Yes,' you said, now impatient, 'but what will I have?'

  'Pain,'—she watched the effect of that on your eyes, '—and a little insight.'

  'Little...?'

  She turned to leave.

  'I want more,' you shouted after her.

  She headed towards the sun and you stood, unsure how to proceed, as she disappeared into the sunlight behind the trees.

  Come on, give us the real thing. Come on, let's get real. You mean back to Charlie and Belinda? But they're not real, and neither is the narrator who sometimes talks like Charlie. I mean, how real do you want your real to be, buddies?

  Yet I can't leave Charlie and Belinda on their lounge carpet, can I? (Can I?) Perhaps I can. Previously I placed all the characters on back burners then had Charlie killed off by Martin. But Charlie wouldn't take death lying down. Oh, no, buddies. He was desperate for more life.

  How about you? Is he still real to you? I've written myself into a cul-de
-sac and can't see a way out. Then there are the practical problems of bringing all the strands together and offering a (convincing) conclusion. But, I'm tempted to say, real life ain't like that. It's un-neat. But it was you who asked me—begged me, for a story. Well, you've had that. (Yeah, says Charlie, you've had that!) You also requested a development. You've had that, too! In fact, you've had several. So, that just leaves an end.

  Not only would it be artistically incorrect to leave Charlie where he is—I know you never quite believed in Belinda (too good to be true? Don't be too swift in your judgement: she's real enough)—it would also be immoral. I am responsible for Charlie. But he resists my attempts to liberate him. Oh, and doesn't freedom have its own responsibilities? Ffion was happy to be freed. The doc was relieved too—getting a little tired of my visits. Martin still hovers. Little Martin. He is, I suppose, a composite: part Amis the younger, part Graham Greene, part any competent writer who is conscious of style, part my creative conscience.

  Some writers are said to commit their interior monologue to paper; I think mine's more of a duologue. Those mental niggles which won't go away. So, 'I' at last comes clean. I am the I, and I don't know how this ends.

  We can't have Charlie and Belinda riding into the sunset because this isn't a western. Charlie can't be killed: that's a vulgar fiction. Perhaps we can leave him on the plateau near the top of his mountain. No: shades of Pilgrim's Progress. He's learnt he's not a teenager any more and that he shares the same cycle as a flower which lives, grows and dies. So far, so un-new.

  Oh yes, there's a Charlie in me: that part of me which refuses to grow up. I hope Charlie never lets the Charlie inside him grow up. And I urge you, too, gentles, to ensure your interior Charlie (or Charlene) stays young. But Charlie has a choice: he can either leave his plateau and continue his ascent or decide he's high enough and allow the cable car to take him to the top, then take a leisurely stroll down the other side.

  How old do you have to be to get wise? I think that begins when you reach your plateau. If you're not there yet, buddy, trust me: you'll know. (Why did nobody tell me about this time of life? Why was I not taught in school about the profound volte-face that takes place? Why did no one tell me, warn me, that I would become responsible for my parents?) Forty plus, in round figures.

  Because Charlie is a fiction he asked me to write this for him. I've done my best, this is close enough (and yes: good enough is good enough) to the book he would have written had he been able to.

  More life, Charlie asked for. I'd give it to you, Charlie, if I could. And for a moment I sensed omnipotence, my power over Charlie, and perhaps that sense of the divine which is linked with creativity. But time is limited, mate, and you've had your allotment—an intense life like yours was always going to be a shorter one. But, you say, Charlie also asked for his childhood, why have I not given that to him? I did: from the time we meet him being injected by the Cybernurse up to the present, he's been acting out his childhood.

  I'm almost aware of Charlie and Belinda behind my screen. Do you remember school physics? A reflection is as far behind the mirror as the object is in front. This is worth pursuing. If you have a single-lens reflex camera try this. Stand a few feet in front of the mirror and focus the lens on the reflection of a few items. Note the distance. Then adjust the focus so that the mirror's surface is sharp. The items blur. Note the distance. The image is further from the camera than the surface of the glass. Now look behind the mirror: there's nothing.

  The act of reading is like looking in a mirror. Who do you see? Fiction isn't a way out, it's a way in. A way of getting behind the mirror. Fiction takes you through the mirror to the other side.

  So, there I was, on a plateau three-quarters of the way up Mount Peculiar, when I looked round and was a stranger to myself, felt alienated from everything. How the hell did I end up here? It all started when I woke up and found myself being injected by a nurse who made a middle-aged man feel adolescent again.

  'Will there be anything else today, Mr Smith?'

  'Er...actually it's Smith hyphen Jones hyphen Brown.'

  'That's too much of a mouthful.' She smiled as she checked my papers. 'Tell me, what does the 'C' stand for?'

  'Charles—Charlie.'

  'Charlie,' she said, 'we'll soon have you up and out of here.'

  Not, I thought, if I can help it....

  PART FIVE

  Collaborations of a Crimson Fish

  My notion of giving the reader his money's worth was to throw difficult words and neologisms at him, to make the syntax involuted.

  —Anthony Burgess,

  'Little Wilson and Big God'

  *

  Make Mine a Monkey's Bum.

  —Advertising slogan

  21

  'Ah, yes—NMBMBA. Tetrasyllabic, stress on the third syllable. Etymology? 'N' is from Latin numero, ablative of numerus, 'number'. 'MB'—we might be tempted to say from the Latin Medicinae Baccalaureus, 'Bachelor of Medicine', but we'd be wrong. It is, of course, a contraction of 'mob', abbreviation of mobile, short for Latin mobile vulgus, 'excitable crowd'. 'MBA'—a sloppy contraction of 'mamba'—a venomous African snake of the genus Dendroaspis, which are varieties of Dendroaspis angusticeps, from the Zulu imamba. So, a rough rendering would be—leader of excitable crowd with the potency of a poisonous snake. Or, someone not to be trifled with.'

  Burgess looked down at the typescript and up to me again.

  'Of course, you could call Nmbmba's bluff—or bluff yourself. Mitch could tell Nmbmba he has cancer and is bound to die.'

  —How about the heat—several hours in the middle of the Kalahari...?

  'Oh, few will check. Write with sufficient conviction and your readers will swallow anything. Take any spy novel...even Tremor of Intent...'

  —How about the critics, though...?

  'My views on them are clear. An academic would pull you through the mangle then shred you, but a novelist who enjoys reviewing might be kinder to you, particularly if you make him laugh. But as a first attempt yours won't get a mention. You're nobody, mate, and nobody you shall remain. You've nothing to lose so you'll lose nothing. If you focus on giving your readers pleasure—that complicated sort of pleasure which even an old word-wizard such as I find difficult (lexicologically, at least) to define—then you might build up a readership. But, as I say, you may think me the wrong guide. I'm more maverick than Mitch, more butch than buggered. 'Maverick', by the way—named after Samuel Maverick (who died in 1870), a Texas cattle-rancher who refused to brand his cattle. Hence an extreme individualist or person of unorthodox views.'

  —But...

  'In your own words: Good enough is good enough.'

  —Right, we've dealt with Mitch Maverick. Pity he has to die because I should like to have explored his past.

  'You could still.' Burgess left a silence. 'Leave him to simmer. Or, again in your words, stick him on a back burner.'

  —But I've got too many pots on the back burner.

  'Tell them you've got a commercial range.'

  —How about the misfits?

  'Oh, that's reasonably clear. Fiction intertwined with reality. Fowles is right when he says we're all trying to escape—but he takes such a long bloody time to say it. Some escapes are more subtle than others. Stick them on a back burner too. I did feel there was more to come from Gable. Grossly overrated actor, of course, but spoke some sense. Fictive sense, at least. Talk with him again when he returns and see if you can't create some moments of illumination.'

  —Finally, V. Woolf...?

  '...L. Woolf and the Big Bad Wolf... Oh, I tried the Big Bad Wolf myself once. When I'd finished The Blooms of Dublin I needed something to relax me so set The Big Bad Wolf to music. Oh, it's only a short piece and of little merit.'

  —No, no. I met VW in a meadow that would one day become Berkeley Square. How can I tie that in...?

  'Be careful your work doesn't appear too willed. It's one of, the better critics tell me, my many faults.
Often a seemingly random scene doesn't begin to make sense until later in the work. The late great Graham Greene, one of my detractors, said, allow your subconscious to do the work for you.'

  —But I could look a right prat...

  'Adopt a nom de plume.'

  —...if I can't bring it all together.

  'Oh, you'd be surprised, old man. Often it's the obscurest bits that are praised the most. Always build in some ambiguity. Critics like to feel they have found a depth to his work that the author himself was not aware of. Trust me...'

  —Does it always work out?

  'No, no—good God, no. I've got crates full of the stuff. It's a risk you take. Do you want to be a writer...?'

  —Yes.

  'A writer is a person who takes risks and is not afraid of falling over in public. You've got to act the clown sometimes.'

  —Well, I think that takes care of all my questions.

  Burgess finished his drink then rose, shook me by the hand, picked up the (my) half-empty bottle, and left saying, 'You always know where to find me.'

  Crumbs from a writer's table. I couldn't begrudge him the remains of the bottle of Monkey's Bum.

  Burgess hovered, hiding the bottle from me.

  'Small point, old boy. I know I've lost my gregariousness but why was I not invited to your literary bash?'

  —That wasn't real. It all took place in my head. And, anyway, Melvyn Bragg drew up the invitation list.

  'Ah, Bragg—able man. Useful writer—a not inconsiderable novelist himself, but sacrifices that to showcase others. Multi-talented. Formidable in his own way.'

  —If it had been real would you have attended?

  'I should like to have met some of the late greats—Dickens, Hardy, even Shakespeare. But Joyce, most of all.'