‘But if I can get what I think I can get for the Melville book, you can write whatever you like for the rest of your life. Shit!’
He heard a squeal of brakes, the blast of a horn and a cry of anger.
‘Sorry. Red light. Man in front being pedantic. Look, I’m your agent, Keith. My job is to get you work. And believe me, that has not always been easy. Now I’m just inches away from the best deal I’ve ever got for you, and I am not going to walk away from it. I took you on because I knew you were good. This is your chance to prove it. There is no “either or” here. This is a great deal. Trust me.’
The phone went dead. Mabbut slipped it into his pocket, pulled up the collar of his coat and set off in the direction of London Bridge station.
When he got home, Mabbut checked for phone messages. There were none. He made himself a plate of toast and a cup of coffee, which he carried back up to his study. Having put down a bowl of fresh water for Stanley and wondered, not for the first time, if his cat might be hydrophiliac, Mabbut settled at the keyboard and, adjusting his chair to Position Three – straight back, forward tilt – he set to work detailing the physical appearance of Albana, the world that would confront the first men as they emerged on to the wide and windswept plateau on which their lives would be played out. He enjoyed conjuring up the vista of hard limestone stacks, crumbling gullies and wind-worn cliffs still bearing the scars of some mighty eruption.
For at least twenty minutes the images spilled as fluently into his mind as if he were describing the walks he used to take with his father round Ingleborough and Malham Tarn. Then he realised that he was indeed describing the walks he took round Ingleborough and Malham Tarn and not south-eastern Turkey, where his story was putatively set. Rather than delete everything he’d just written Mabbut reasoned that there might have been a time when south-eastern Turkey could well have resembled Ingleborough and Malham Tarn, and in any case, who would know? There was one further problem. When at last he came to name this great forbidding wasteland, his original thought of calling it Da-Naa sounded all wrong. Like a holiday beach in Thailand. What he needed was something with more resonance, something both epic and evil. Mordor had just the right ring to it. Which was probably why Tolkien had come up with it in the first place.
Once Tolkien had come into his mind, Mabbut froze up completely. Middle Earth was a no-go area for him. That way fantasy lay, and he simply mustn’t let himself be led down that insidious path. All right, there were similarities between his vision and Tolkien’s, but Tolkien was old hat. Albana was certainly about the struggle between good and evil, oppression and independence, but it was about so much more besides. After some thought he rechristened the wilderness Uyea, and hoped that no one would know it was one of the Shetland Islands.
It was late afternoon when he finally admitted defeat. He rubbed his eyes and stared out of the window, which needed a clean. He was letting the house go. Krys would never have allowed it to get this far. He stood up, stretched and looked down at his work. This time yesterday morning, he was embarking on something strange and unpredictable, but at least it was a work of fiction. Thirty-six hours later what was strange and unpredictable was his own life. His wife had a man, his daughter had an Iranian refugee and he had an offer to write a Christmas book about a living legend. Yesterday’s certainties had become today’s confusions. What he needed was someone to talk to.
He wanted to ring Krystyna, but that would involve all the other stuff. The same with Jay. Sam would be at the theatre. He could suggest a late supper, build a few bridges. Yes, that was an idea. Father asks son for advice. A way to start talking again. He took out his phone and scrolled through the names. Then he stopped, scrolled forward, and after the briefest of hesitations, pressed once and pressed again.
‘Hello, Tess.’
SIX
Tessa was Mabbut’s secret. And as far as he knew, he was hers. They’d met on a night bus about six months ago. After a noisy Irish couple had got off at Highbury Corner, they’d been the only two left upstairs. They’d smiled at one another as the noise of the raucously arguing couple receded down the stairs. Vibrating from that nanosecond of contact they’d sat there, separate but aware, as five stops went by. All the way up the Holloway Road, past the Emirates stadium, under the bridge that carried the East Coast railway line, past the Odeon cinema on one side and the Beaux-Arts building on the other, both staring straight ahead. As he stood to get off, she’d stood too. It had almost felt choreographed as he followed her downstairs, and stood waiting behind her as the stop approached, the warning signal bleeped and the doors folded open.
They’d fallen in step with each other and began to talk as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He found out that she’d been celebrating a colleague’s birthday at a club in Leicester Square. She found out he’d been at a quiz night at a pub in Clerkenwell. As they turned off the main road, he had followed her to the door of a four-storey block of council flats.
Nine times out of ten, maybe even ninety-nine times out of a hundred, this would have been a very silly thing to do, but it turned out to be so easy and uncomplicated that neither of them could see a reason not to do it again. Their relationship was undemanding. It was of the here and now. They enquired very little about each other’s past. He knew she was about five years younger than him, divorced, with one grown-up child who was living in the north-west. She worked part-time at a children’s nursery and led a busy social life. He was fairly sure he wasn’t her only partner, which was quite a comfort. Outside of sex, their lives remained completely separate.
It shouldn’t really have happened, and it certainly shouldn’t have lasted, but here he was, six months on, turning off the main road towards her apartment building, because she was the only person he wanted to be with right now. Even Mae Lennox, whom he dreamt about on a weekly basis, wouldn’t have been the one for him tonight. He needed the welcome embrace of anonymity.
Tess’s voice crackled out of the intercom.
‘Come on up.’
And the metal gate swung open.
Tessa enjoyed the physical side of things. She was well built, a little overweight, but in good shape for her age. For her, sex was like a playground, full of different rides; some breathtaking, to be enjoyed with yelps and shrieks, others more traditional, but all to be tried at least once. Her small bedroom was cluttered with knick-knacks: mugs from Ramsgate, Eiffel towers, polar bears and royal wedding teacups. Russian dolls, wooden puzzles, miniature candlesticks and little rubber elephants, all of which could be sent flying in the course of a night.
When Mabbut awoke, light was coming through the curtains. He lay for a while, wondering what it was about this room and this woman that seemed so necessary to him. He concluded that it was because he could walk away and come back whenever he wanted. There were no expectations and therefore no consequences. And no lies. He dozed briefly until his mobile sounded. The first bars of Beethoven’s Fifth jangled beside him. It was just after eight in the morning.
Mabbut reached for the phone and swung himself out of the bed.
‘Hello?’
‘Am I interrupting the creative flow?’
He walked out into the living room.
‘Very funny.’
‘Things are moving fast. A contract’s arrived. I don’t want to keep these boys waiting.’
Silla was in steamroller mode.
‘Can you come in, dear boy? If at all possible.’
She laid on the sardonicism.
‘After you’ve been to the hairdresser perhaps? Before the gym? Maybe combine it with a visit to the chiropodist?’
‘Just a minute.’
He searched around for his clothes.
‘I’d like to get it signed. It’s quite a lot of money.’
‘Ah!’
Mabbut winced with pain as his foot made contact with a tiny glass rabbit.
‘Are you with somebody?’
‘No, I’m just . . . I’ve just put the milk on. Hang on a mi
nute.’
‘Only I rang the house and you weren’t there.’
‘No. I went to see Sam last night and stayed at his place.’
‘How was it?’
‘What?’
‘The play.’
‘Oh, it was good. You should go and see it.’
She lowered her voice.
‘The contract is looking good. Best I’ve seen in a while. But it has confidentiality clauses hanging on it like a Christmas tree, so just for now keep schtoom. Even with Sam, all right?’
‘Oh, sure! Sure!’
‘If you could make it here in an hour or so. There are things we need to discuss, and though I love Ron dearly, he’s not renowned for his patience.’
‘Look, Silla. We have to talk about this.’
‘OK. In an hour. My place. And say “hi” to Sam.’
The phone went dead.
Tess called out from the bathroom.
‘Another admirer?’
Mabbut peeped through the curtains. Outside he could see children playing, or hanging about.
‘My agent!’
He heard the toilet flush, and a moment later Tess joined him, piling up her long red hair as she walked.
‘Something exciting?’
‘I must get dressed.’
‘Don’t be so formal.’
He made to sidestep her but she was too quick for him.
‘I do breakfast, you know.’
Mabbut was enveloped.
‘Tess, I promised I’d be at my agent’s in half an hour.’
He felt her warmth as she pulled him close.
‘Look, I’ve got to get—’
‘They’re over there.’
She indicated his clothes, heaped on the red armchair like a small deflated pyramid, then stood back and finished pinning up her hair.
‘It was nice of you to call last night. I was beginning to think you’d lost the spirit of bachelorhood.’
Mabbut pulled on his underpants and reached for his shirt. As he started to button it up, a thought struck him and he paused.
‘Can I ask you something, Tess?’
She eyed him cautiously. ‘Try me.’
‘D’you read a lot?’
She put her head to one side.
‘Try to. So?’
‘When you do,’ he said, sitting down on the chair and rooting around for his socks, ‘do you prefer fact or fiction?’
‘Oh, fiction every time. I hate facts.’
‘Why?’
‘Facts are just facts.’ She shrugged dismissively. ‘They don’t amount to a row of beans. If you want the truth, read Jane Austen.’
SEVEN
Mabbut got off at Queensway on the Central Line, checked his watch and walked to the nearest coffee shop. As he stood in line for a macchiato he looked at the customers sitting at their tables: one or two alone, reading or staring at their phones, a couple holding hands, a group gathered around a laptop. All much younger than him, most of them preoccupied. What would excite them most? To know more about Hamish Melville or to be transported back sixty thousand years to the dawn of human history?
He sat down and sipped his coffee. Usually after a night with Tess he felt good. Comfortable, adjusted, whole. This morning something was troubling him and he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. He watched through the window as a telephone engineer, protected by a screen of red and white fencing, opened a terminal box and systematically worked his way through the cables inside. Mabbut observed him with a certain amount of envy. This was a man at work. Doing a job, tracing a problem, dealing with it, ticking it off on a worksheet and moving on to the next one. His tasks for the day were quantifiable, definable, achievable. If only writing could be that simple.
Priscilla Caldwell Associates operated out of Silla’s flat in a mansion block off Bayswater Road. Apart from some secretarial help three days a week, she ran the business herself from her kitchen table. This morning she was as animated as Mabbut had ever seen her. She almost skipped as she opened the door, phone to her ear, nodding agreement as she led him through her timber-floored sitting room with its eclectic mix of Corbusier chairs, leather sofas and pine dressers, to a long refectory table spread with sheaves of paper. With one last nod and a grunt of acknowledgement she clicked off the phone.
Her big eyes appraised him.
‘Sorry to ring you so early.’
Mabbut detected a dusting of disapproval in her voice.
‘I’ve managed to get a good deal from Latham. A very good deal. And I’d like to pin this down before their feet start to chill.’
She took a wine gum from a bowl, then pushed it towards him.
‘Look, Silla, you may have decided about this, but I haven’t.’
She made no appearance of having heard what he said. Instead, she licked her index finger and began to flick through one of the documents on the table.
‘Silla, listen to me. I have made a plan for next year and it doesn’t include Ron Latham or Urgent Books.’
His mobile buzzed. He glanced down. It was a text from Jay.
Where were u Dad? We were supposed 2 have dinner, right?
Oh God, he’d completely forgotten. And why? Because his new reordered life had been fucked up by Ron Latham.
Silla selected one of the sheaf of papers and held it out to him.
‘Contract. In less than two days, what I’d normally have to wait two months for.’
He took it from her.
She stabbed a finger at the pages he was holding.
‘Sixty thousand on signature, sixty thousand on delivery and sixty on publication. And I’m trying to push them into some kind of cut of foreign rights. They think they can sell this worldwide.’
Mabbut’s head ached and his mouth had gone dry. On his contracts ‘Sixty thousand’ usually meant the number of words.
‘What’s the catch?’
She shrugged and pushed back a lock of hair.
‘Must be delivered in six months max, direct interview material from Melville himself, and quite a tough little rider about publisher’s approval. But you’re new and Latham’s paying you well. You’d expect them to protect themselves.’
‘Protect me. Tell them we need more time. Tell them six months is impossible.’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ said Silla, drily.
‘I’ll need to check this, Silla. I need to check it carefully.’
‘Since when did you check a contract?’
This hurt. It had been so long since there’d been a contract worth him checking. Silla softened.
‘I’ve been over it three times this morning, dear boy.’
He dropped the papers back on the table.
‘Silla, aren’t you the weeniest, teeniest bit suspicious of all this? Does it not strike you as odd that all my previous contracts have taken weeks to finalise, and suddenly along comes the biggest one ever and they want it sorted out in twenty-four hours. I mean, this just doesn’t happen.’
Silla took off her reading glasses, rubbed her eyes, and slowly shook her head from side to side. She looked tired. Mabbut had the distinct feeling that she too might have been up all night, albeit for different reasons.
‘I’ve never had a fight with a client for getting them too much money, Keith. This just doesn’t happen either.’
‘It’s a perfectly natural question. Why am I suddenly worth all this?’
‘OK. If it makes you feel better, it’s not you who are worth all this, it’s the book. Latham has decided that this is what he wants. He wants the Melville story. He is convinced it could be a big earner. He also knows that Melville is pathologically opposed to having a book written about him – which incidentally adds more than a touch of spice to the project. So in order to get this book, he has to play a different game. He has to stalk his prey.’
‘You’re talking Ronspeak.’
Silla held up her hands.
‘Dear boy, hear me out,’ she said with an edge
.
A ginger cat sidled into the kitchen and stared malevolently at Mabbut.
‘That means no press releases, no fanfares, and no juicy rumours about some big shot signing up with Urgent to tell the Melville tale. Ron knows that for this to work, his tactics have to be completely the reverse.’
She tapped the papers on the table.
‘And I supply him with the magic ingredient . . .’
‘Hair dye?’
‘The best author we can find with no established record of success.’
Mabbut threw back his head and laughed.
‘That’s good, Silla. I should put that on my business cards. “Keith Mabbut. Author. No established record of success”.’
Silla stood up. She ruffled her hair and flicked on the kettle behind her.
‘It could be worse, Keith. Crap but successful. That’s a much longer list.’
Mabbut let out a deep sigh.
‘It’s unorthodox, dear boy, and I know that beneath that prickly radical exterior lurks a tight-arsed Yorkshire conservative. But believe me. For once, this is good.’
The kettle began to hum. Mabbut turned away, but there was no escape. Even the cat was staring at him expectantly.
‘What is this, Silla? The moment of truth?’
Silla held out a pen.
‘Enjoy it, old boy. Make up for all those moments of untruth.’
‘Untruth?’
‘All those times you’ve blamed me for leading you into things you didn’t believe in. What did you call them? “Parish magazines for blue-chip companies”. Official histories of pumping stations. Profiles of the chairman. I know you think I’m a cynical old cow, but while I happily admit the pleasure I get from screwing money out of tight-fisted corporate accountants I wouldn’t share a taxi with, I’m genuinely proud of this one. Hamish Melville is one of the few good men left, one of the rare people I want to know more rather than less about. And for some wholly inexplicable reason you have landed the dream job of satisfying my curiosity.’
She tapped one of the typed pages.
‘And my greed.’
She dropped the pen in front of him.
‘I honestly believe this is far and away the best thing you will ever do.’
The Truth Page 5
