The Truth

by Michael Palin

  ‘To Hamish. And to you, Keith.’

  Their glasses clinked. Two men from the postal depot next door, in to collect a takeaway, looked round. Celebration was a rare event at Goldings, especially at lunchtime.

  ‘And to you, Sill. For everything.’

  They clinked again.

  To Mabbut’s regret, the comely Croatian waitress had moved on, as they do, and in her place was an English girl. Quite chubby, straight hair, thick mascara. Hint of a West Country accent. She took their order abstractedly, staring out of the window, as if that was where the real world began.

  Silla’s mobile rang. She picked it up and Mabbut reconciled himself to staring into space for a few minutes. But with a brief look at the caller’s name, Silla switched it off and dropped it into her bag.

  ‘I don’t want to be disturbed.’

  He’d never known her do this before. From the moment she’d given up smoking, the mobile had become Silla’s digital substitute; rarely, if ever, out of her hands.

  ‘It might be Latham,’ he said. ‘Wanting to know if we’d like the money in twenties or fifties.’

  Normally he’d have expected an earthy laugh in response, but Silla looked surprisingly serious. She leant back and stared briefly out of the window, before turning her eyes on him.

  ‘You know, dear boy, that I don’t do bullshit with you, so you have to believe me when I say that this is one of those moments when this whole shitty business seems worthwhile.’

  For the first time in a long while, Mabbut really looked at Silla. At her broad prison-warder’s shoulders, the inverted triangle of holiday sunburn running down to a well-chosen cashmere sweater; her wide, round face, her hair taut at the forehead and descending in a skilfully dyed auburn mane. Though her skin-tones were Scandinavian, everything else reminded Mabbut, suddenly, of the Gyara village and the women who lived below the sacred hill.

  ‘I’ve had so many bad days, you know, Keith. I mean genuinely bad days when I had to sell crap to people. They know it’s crap and I know it’s crap but neither of us can admit it because we all need the money. So when something like this comes along, totally out of left field, you have to thank whoever’s up there for showing you there can be good days too.’

  ‘I never thought of you as having bad days, Sill. I thought that was just me.’

  Silla threw her head back and gave a bark of laughter.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake. Listen to the pair of us. Les Misérables!’

  Two portions of pasta arrived. Silla brushed a wisp of hair from her eyes and called for two glasses of red wine.

  ‘Large or small, madam?’

  ‘Enormous!’

  She took two rapid forkfuls of pasta, dabbed at her mouth and pushed the bowl to one side.

  ‘Believe it or not, Keith, when I started out, all those years ago, I genuinely thought I could change things. That I wouldn’t be one of those “See you Monday”, lunch-at-the-club sort of agents. That I would go out there and find new authors. Go to universities and schools even. Visit writers’ groups. Find someone who had something fresh and original to say and help them say it. So that’s what I did. I went out and looked and listened. But no matter what I did or who I found there was always this undercurrent of disapproval. Why did I think it was more important to go to Newcastle to meet a new author when I should be at a book launch at the Savile Club? Especially as the author I was going to see had just completed three years for armed robbery.’

  Another hoot of laughter. The wine arrived. Silla took a sip and let out a satisfied sigh.

  ‘Mmm! Same old shit . . . I had to put up with all sorts of weird stuff in those days, Keith. That I was having affairs with all these boys – and girls. That I was on some mission to corrupt the purity of the English language. At talent meetings I’d be treated as if I was someone on work experience. Then came Abigail Morris, do you remember her?’

  ‘Counting the Dead?’

  ‘Still one of the best books about the drug scene. True and honest. No bullshit. A one-hit wonder as it turned out, but still a wonder. One hundred K in hardback, two hundred K in trade paperback; film options, foreign sales. And all at once I was taken seriously. Given a partnership at Nathan Bowles and a nice fat expense account. Suddenly everything seemed so easy. Why go bowling up to Glasgow on a wet Saturday evening when they could come to you? I did pretty well. I had a good table manner. I gave a good lunch.’

  Mabbut looked around at Goldings and grinned approvingly.

  ‘The money came in. Good money. I bought a flat in Marble Arch, hired a chauffeur to take me shopping in Sloane Street. And I didn’t really notice that the so-called authors I was bringing in were people just like myself. Successful people, leading the same successful lives. And, as you know, there was and is an insatiable appetite for the lives of the successful. How they dress, where they eat, who they fuck and where they go on holiday. None of which is very interesting.’

  She took a gulp of wine.

  ‘But being the nice sociable gal I am I listened to them and I encouraged them and the next thing I know I’m the celebrity publishers’ darling. The first port of call for overpaid footballers, models and chefs. And I’m persuaded, not that I took much persuading, to leave the agency and set up on my own. “Silla Caldwell Associates”.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘No, I didn’t know why I needed the “Associates” either. I think it meant my mother. Anyway, along came the nineties and the economy went belly up and suddenly everyone was reining in, looking after number one, and of course it was only the big boys who had the money to ride it out.’

  Silla drank again, swallowed and winced.

  ‘Those were the days before you knew me, Keith. And if you’d known me then you’d probably have been ever so polite and raced off in the other direction. I was a loudmouth drunk and I lost the will to give. I just took whatever was offered and that included authors.’

  She threw back her head.

  ‘Anyway, out of the blue came Sir Galahad, Ronald Arthur Latham.’

  ‘Ron Latham?’

  ‘The same. He was going up, I was going down. We met on the stairs.’

  She held his gaze. Her eyes were defiant and apologetic at the same time.

  ‘Don’t look so shocked, Keith. This is a story with a happy ending. Remember?’

  She clinked his glass.

  ‘Ronald had his golfing stars and a budget to bring them in, but he didn’t know how to deal with celebrities “from the wider world”. He wanted to learn from me, and he was the first person in a long time who’d wanted to do that. We spent a lot of time together. We got on pretty well but ultimately we weren’t the right gender for each other, and he was far too ambitious to want to come home at night and watch television. But I saw something of the younger me in him and I was happy to see him succeed. In return, he looked after me. Got me back on my feet. We did business together every now and then. Thanks to him I was able to keep the brass plaque and the chauffeur, and I began to look around as I had in the old days, to find things that other people didn’t. Which is how I met you. I’d read your newspaper articles. I thought you could write. Remember? After the arsenic leak story. I knew then that you had something else in you.’

  ‘So you put Ron Latham up to this?’

  Silla shook her head emphatically.

  ‘Ronald, for all his big talk, is one of nature’s conservatives. I’ve been on to him for years to do something with some class. I’ve suggested subjects but at the last minute he always plays safe. Then out of the blue, this Melville idea comes up. And stubborn as he can be, I knew that, at last, some of what I’d been banging on about had finally got through.’

  ‘So what prompted the Damascene conversion?’

  ‘Because he’s done bloody well with his golfers’ memoirs. He’s made a lot of money but I think now he wants “his place in history”. I know what you think of Ronald, but he’s not that bad. He lacks charm because he lacks confidence, espec
ially around people like you.’

  ‘Like me? A hack for hire?’

  ‘You’ve been to university. You’ve taught a creative writing course. He’s always been embarrassed by what he thinks of as his lack of education.’

  ‘Hardly seems to have done him much harm.’

  ‘That’s why I give him credit. I know you hate everything he stands for, but he’s come good now.’

  Silla drained the last of her red wine with a flourish.

  ‘Enough apologies! Ron’s come good and you’ve come good and I’ve come good. I call it the Melville Effect. Another glass?’

  When they parted, shortly after three, Mabbut felt lost. He crossed Tottenham Court Road. There were buses and trains that would have taken him home, but instead he followed a vaguely northerly route, walking through the back streets around the university and the big sober squares south of Euston station. Something was nagging at him and he needed time to pin it down. The fact was that beneath the elation of having completed the book there was an element, quite a strong element, of fear. Fear that deep down nothing in his life had changed. That these last few months had merely been a happy aberration before normal service resumed.

  Sullom Voe, with all its compromises and inadequacies, had taken up almost two years of his life. The Melville book, during which he had rediscovered the joy of doing something relevant and valuable, hardly seemed to have started before it was over. It had brought satisfaction, but was it enough to change him permanently? Had it been enough to rout the despair gene? Or whatever it is you do to genes?

  Mabbut found himself in Gordon Square. He remembered that Virginia Woolf had liked to sit in Gordon Square Gardens. Virginia, the doyenne of despair. He had read her diaries from cover to cover and advised all his students to do the same. Her books were classics, yet for her too the fear of failure had been stronger than the solace of success.

  He carried on across Euston Road, past the British Library and the curious Levita House, an incongruous public housing block inspired by the architect’s trip to Vienna in the 1930s. It had turned into one of those fresh spring evenings. A clear sky, a wind from the north-west and even the most mundane buildings seemed dramatised by the evening sunshine. Mabbut noticed things he’d never seen before. A modern art gallery tucked under a railway bridge in Kentish Town. A Somali barber’s shop, full of tall graceful men arguing fiercely, an old-fashioned ladies’ dress shop, squeezed between two supermarkets, a young man, grimacing wildly, being patiently accompanied down the road by what looked like a grandparent. His mind went back to India and the people he’d passed on the sacred slopes of the Masoka Hills. He’d been lucky enough to feel some sort of connection to these people. To be touched by lives so utterly different from his own. Which was another reason why, despite the long hours and the eye-aching research, he’d enjoyed writing the book so much. It was his way of paying something back to those whose way of life had been saved by Hamish Melville. He wandered along the back streets of Camden and Tufnell Park and it was nearly six by the time he turned into Reserton Road.

  The house was quiet, and threatened to darken his mood, so, after a shower and a celebratory glass of wine, Mabbut scanned his notebook, found a number and, after a moment’s pause, pressed ‘call’.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello, Mae.’

  For a moment there was silence. Then a voice, guarded at first.

  ‘Keith?’

  ‘How are you, Mae?’

  ‘Oh, I’m fine. Just fine. How are you?’

  ‘I’m very happy, Mae.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘I just wanted to ring and tell you that. You used to worry about me.’

  ‘Oh, aye. The despair gene.’

  He heard her laughter down the phone.

  ‘I’d be much better company now.’

  ‘You were always good company, Keith. You were the only one who didn’t think so.’

  ‘I’ve finished a new book, and it’s quite good. I’d like to send you a copy. See what you think.’

  ‘Well, that’d be an honour indeed.’

  Outside he heard a booming noise, deeper and more resonant than the usual passing plane. It sounded like thunder.

  ‘I might bring it up to you. In person.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Why not? I’ve handed it in today. I’m due a fair bit of money, so I could afford the crazy airfare. And I’d like to see you again.’

  ‘What sort of book is it?’

  ‘It’ll be a surprise.’

  ‘There’s no oil terminals in it, then?’

  ‘No. There’s an aluminium refinery, though.’

  Mae laughed again.

  ‘Unputdownable!’

  There was a pause, as if neither of them knew exactly where to go from there.

  ‘I’d like to be up there with you, Mae,’ Mabbut said cautiously. ‘I’ve been going stir crazy here. Eyes locked on a screen twelve hours a day.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘A bit of Shetland air’s just what I need.’

  He realised that this had come out with more of a slur than he’d have liked.

  ‘You sound as though you’re celebrating, Keith.’

  He peered out of the window. It had begun to rain and two figures were racing across the street towards the house.

  ‘Now how could you tell that, Mae?’

  With some relief, he heard her laughter again.

  ‘This, if you must know, is my first,’ Mabbut protested. ‘Since four o’clock, that is. And the strange sound you can hear in my voice is happiness. And when I think of happiness I think of you.’

  He heard a key in the front door.

  ‘I’d better go. I’ll call you again, Mae, if that’s all right.’

  ‘OK. Bye! And congratulations.’

  He put down the phone as his daughter and Shiraj came in from the hallway. They had one umbrella between them and it didn’t seem to have done much good.

  ‘You look cheerful, Dad. And dry.’

  ‘I am, my dear daughter. This has been a good day. How about you?’

  Jay threw down her bag and shook her wet hair. Mabbut, sensing something in the air, looked at Shiraj, who had collapsed the umbrella and laid it carefully by the door. The boy smiled back, politely, inscrutably, but Mabbut could see that something was bothering him. Jay headed for the kitchen.

  ‘Tea, Shiraj?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mabbut followed his daughter, rummaged in the kitchen drawer for a towel, then went back and handed it to Shiraj.

  ‘Sit down. You look tired.’

  Shiraj dabbed himself with the towel.

  ‘The news from home is not good.’

  ‘Ah.’

  In the kitchen the kettle began to hum. Mabbut looked at Shiraj, expectantly.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  After a moment Shiraj spoke, quietly, almost reluctantly.

  ‘We have heard that two more of my family have been arrested. My uncle and my younger brother. We don’t know where they’ve gone or what they have been charged with.’

  Despite the physical appearance of youth, there was a remarkable maturity about Shiraj. He was a tad serious, sometimes over-earnest, but bearing in mind the trauma he had endured he remained remarkably self-assured. It was a characteristic he shared with Mahesh and Kinesh. And like them, he had brought Mabbut face to face with a very different kind of life.

  Jay had filled two mugs with tea – both, he noticed, bearing the imprint of the NorthOil canteen at Sullom Voe. She set one down in front of Shiraj, lightly brushing her hand through his hair as she did so. He made a quick movement away with his shoulders, which Mabbut noticed.

  ‘So you’ve heard the latest?’ Jay asked her father.

  Mabbut nodded. ‘About the family? He’s just told me. I’m really sorry.’

  ‘The latest about Shiraj?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He has to go before another review pane
l . . . If he doesn’t get an extension he’ll be sent back.’

  Mabbut moved towards her and put a protective arm around his daughter’s shoulders. She took a breath.

  ‘He’ll be sent back . . .’

  She stopped, reached for a tissue and blew her nose.

  Shiraj looked away, his expression showing a mixture of embarrassment and wounded pride.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jay blurted through her tears. ‘This is so stupid.’

  ‘There must be something we can do,’ Mabbut said soothingly.

  ‘I asked Rex to help. He knows all these people on committees and stuff.’

  Jay sniffed and reached for another tissue.

  ‘And . . .?’

  ‘Well, you know. Mum’s not seeing him as much, and if I try to ask her if he can do anything for Shiraj, she just sort of, well, she gets quite snappy. So I don’t know.’

  She drew out the last word like a wail of desperation.

  ‘Look, I’ll have a try,’ said Mabbut. ‘I may have a contact or two myself.’

  ‘Whatever you can do, Dad.’

  ‘In the meantime, is there anything I can do to help your family, Shiraj?’

  ‘No, thank you, sir. You’ve been very kind already, letting me stay in your home.’

  Jay exchanged a glance with him.

  ‘There is something . . .’ she began.

  Shiraj shook his head firmly.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s nothing, sir. Thank you.’ He rose. ‘I think I shall go and do some study. The immigration people will ask me many questions.’

  When he’d gone, Mabbut looked with concern at his daughter. He hadn’t seen her like this for a long time. When the children were growing up, it was always Sam who had the crises.

  ‘Come on, love. What can I do?’

  ‘I can’t tell you. He won’t let me talk about it.’

  ‘He doesn’t have to know.’

  Jay puffed out her cheeks. Her eyes were red rimmed beneath the blotchy mascara. She cast a quick look out into the hallway then spoke softly and urgently.

  ‘The only way that they can get any information about what’s happened to his uncle and brother and where they’ve been taken is to pay money to the local prosecutor’s office. Everyone does it, but Shiraj has this stupid male pride thing about being different from everyone else. He says paying bribes keeps a bad system going. But if it’s that or never seeing your family again, what would you do?’