Death of a Literary Widow

by Robert Barnard

  ‘I’ve read your autobiography,’ he said at the end, to spare himself further re-hashes. ‘I think I understand now why you didn’t mention Walter Machin.’

  ‘Oh, Walter,’ said Gerald Seymour-Strachey, flapping an arm. ‘Of course, you’re interested in him because he’s becoming the rage. And he was enormously talented. But there were other fish in the sea too. Their hour will come. They’ll be revived. . . . We were a wonderfully promising generation!’

  ‘I’m sure,’ said Greg. ‘What I meant, though, about the difficulty in writing about Walter Machin was–well, that he was in a sense two people, wasn’t he?’

  Gerald Seymour-Strachey shot a sharp glance at Greg’s ingenuous enquiring face. ‘Well, of course, in a sense that is true,’ he said tentatively. ‘Yes, he was complex, definitely complex. I think we mentioned when you were here last that there was the political Walter, but also the great life-loving person–always drinking, and laughing, and womanizing. Yes, it must seem almost as if there were two different people.’

  It was a moderately accomplished performance, but at the end his voice seemed to fade away into silence before the polite disbelief he saw etched on Greg’s face.

  ‘I meant,’ said Greg, ‘that there really were two Walter Machins, weren’t there? The living Walter Machin, works foreman at Mattingley’s, and the writing Walter Machin . . . And the writing Walter Machin was you, wasn’t it, Professor Seymour-Strachey?’

  Greg was expecting a long silence, or perhaps indignant expostulation, but when he finished speaking Gerald was looking him straight in the eyes with an expression not perturbed, or frightened, or cornered, but simply of amusement, and quite considerable self-satisfaction.

  ‘Well now,’ he said, almost genially, all the tiredness and indecision gone, ‘I’d like to know how you work that out.’

  ‘Walter Machin was virtually illiterate,’ said Greg confidently. ‘I’ve seen his will, and what his schoolmates say bears it out. I wondered whether Hilda might have written the books–she certainly wrote some letters from him, to fool Kronweiser the American researcher. But if she wrote the books, why not publish them under her own name? Why go through this whole business of impersonation?’

  ‘Quite, quite,’ said Gerald. ‘But. . . ’

  ‘That applied to absolutely anyone in Walter Machin’s usual circle. It seemed to me there were two other possible candidates. There was your ex-wife.’

  ‘Ah yes. Viola. Now why not Viola? Or are you too intimidated to charge her with it?’

  ‘Not exactly. To tell you the truth, I don’t think she has the talent.’

  Gerald Seymour-Strachey slapped his thigh in high amusement. ‘Marvellous. Very sharp, m’boy! I’m sure you’d never dare to tell her that, but it’s true. The good lady’s all performance and no talent.’

  ‘And that left—you.’

  ‘Quite, m’boy, quite. Process of elimination–not the most conclusive of logical processes, though. By the way, no offence–but you never told me what you actually are. Are you a research student–a reporter? Eh?’

  ‘Neither,’ said Greg. ‘But of course there still is the question of why.’

  ‘Precisely,’ said Gerald, sitting back and to all appearances enjoying himself no end. ‘Why should we arrange this rigmarole for the publication of these two books because they were written by me–any more than if they were written by, say, Hilda?’

  ‘Because the whole thing was a hoax–in intention. I think that’s in character, isn’t it? You like pricking pretensions, you like showing up phonies, you like making a fool of would-be clever people.’

  ‘Well–well–’ said Gerald, with a modest twinkle, as if he were being accused of all the cardinal virtues.

  ‘I think in this case you wanted to make a fool of all the big London literary people–the critics, the left-wing writers. They represented the orthodox intellectual opinion of the time. You wanted them to praise this working-class novel to the skies, to say “how marvellously authentic, darling” and all the things they did say at the time, and then show them up. Reveal that the books were sheer fantasy, sheer parody, written by a middle-class colonial who had never been north of the Edgware Road. That’s why you were interested in the Ern Malley affair, wasn’t it? I’ve read your book: it was just your sort of hoax–ridiculing intellectual phoniness. They did in nineteen forty-four what you had intended to do in nineteen thirty-nine.’

  ‘Then why was the bubble never pricked in the Walter Machin affair?’

  ‘Because to be a really good hoax the books had to be successful. Otherwise the spoof of the decade was nothing but a squib. The first book was moderately well-received, with your help. But you were writing other stuff–short stories and another novel–and you expected those to do much better. But it didn’t work out like that. The war came, and people lost interest in proletarian literature. The whole thing fizzled out and became pointless.’ Greg let himself relax back in his seat. ‘That’s how I reconstruct it.’

  Gerald Seymour-Strachey was by now grinning broadly, and there was not a trace of fear or disappointment in his face. He looked like a man who has found that lawyers are trying to trace his whereabouts, and looks forward to a mysterious but exciting surprise.

  ‘Well, well, I’ll give it to you, you’ve done a good job,’ he said expansively. ‘It’s not that I haven’t been half expecting something like this to happen. Half hoping for it too, in a way, though it will cut off poor old Viola’s new source of income–which is why I’ve never said anything about it myself since the Machin boom started, of course.’

  ‘You seem pleased.’

  ‘Well, it will be a nine days’ wonder, and bags of fun. I must say I was expecting that if anyone got on to me it was going to be this American Viola has had working around the place–a typically stupid move on Viola’s part, I may say. Really, the silly woman deserves to have the whole thing exposed.’

  ‘I must say,’ said Greg, ‘that the whole affair still seems pretty fantastic.’

  ‘Fantastic? Not in the least. The truth is always odder than fiction–it’s only the way people tell it that makes it sound so dull.’

  ‘I’d like to hear your version of what happened.’

  ‘Oh–it’s quite simple, and more or less as you set it out now. I’d been writing The Factory Whistle, and it was nearly finished. I intended to publish it under a pseudonym, with a fancy, impeccably proletarian biography of the author attached. Then we met Walter and Hilda–in the interval of a Noel Coward play, just as I told you last time–priceless that! We clicked at once. Then I got this better idea. In the course of the evening’s drinking Walter told us that he was next thing to illiterate. He could read with some difficulty, but hardly write. He’d been to classes–that’s how he met Hilda–she was teaching them. But Walter was more interested in other things, and he never learned much, not more than was necessary to him in his foreman’s job. He wasn’t stupid, Walter, by a long chalk, but I suppose you’d have to call him analphabetic. Anyway, this seemed to make the joke so much better.’

  ‘So the thing was agreed then and there, was it?’

  ‘Not exactly. Actually, the next night–’ Gerald looked down embarrassed at his desk–‘bit ashamed about this, actually–that’s why I bit your head off last time. But the next night he came round on his own, and I went out to the pub for a bottle, and–well–I knew what Viola wanted, because she made no bones about it as a rule and it had happened now and then before. Anyway, I stayed out for an extra ten minutes or so to give them plenty of time to–see what I mean? Not that they needed extra time, I imagine, knowing both parties. Anyway, I thought it would cement the agreement. And after I got back we sorted the whole thing out over a bottle of Scotch and a couple of pork pies each.’

  ‘How was it done? I suppose you never appeared in the thing at all?’

  ‘No–not at all. I sent the handwritten manuscripts down to Hilda, and she typed them up. The early things were submitted to the pub
lisher handwritten–it seemed to give verisimilitude, somehow, for a writer from the working-class. Later Hilda typed everything including letters to the publisher, and she signed Walter’s name. Easy as winking. She’d given up working when the little girl was born, and she was glad of something to do. Of course, Walter was a bit more of a problem sometimes.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, for instance, Hilda was supposed to read him over The Factory Whistle so he could correct all the technical stuff. It was about factories rather than mills because I didn’t know Walter when I wrote it, but he should have known enough to see the details were right. Well, he corrected some things, but I think he dozed off now and again during the reading, because it wasn’t his cup of tea. Or perhaps he drank too much stout while he was listening. Anyway the publishers got letters–’

  ‘Yes, so I’ve heard. Weren’t you afraid about the publishers–when he went to meet them, I mean?’

  ‘I was a bit–that they’d give him something for immediate signature or something. But there was nothing to fear. He hammed it up to the skies, had a whale of a time playing the raw North Country lad, and they felt fearfully democratic that they could actually sit down to lunch with him. I only wish I could have been there, but I heard it went off very well, in fact.’

  ‘And you split the money?’

  ‘That’s right. Two-thirds to me, one to him–though I think it actually went to Hilda for doing the typing. For the next one I tried to get him to take more–because really he became a kind of collaborator. He was a marvellous story-teller, you know, of the tap-room type. I used to get him to tell me real events–things from his childhood, things about people he knew. Then I’d turn them into short stories. I got the feel of what it’s like to work with machines from Walter.’

  ‘Didn’t that rather blunt the point of the hoax?’

  ‘I suppose it did in a way. We never thought of that, because we enjoyed it so much. I suppose it became more oral literature, really. That story I told you to read–I had it from his own lips! Happened to a mate of his. That’s why the stories in Cotton Town are so much better than Factory Whistle, though nobody realized it at the time. They’re authentic. If only the second novel could have come out: it’s really very good!’

  Gerald Seymour-Strachey looked sideways at Greg, in a wheedling sort of way.

  ‘Why shouldn’t the second novel come out?’ said Greg slowly.

  ‘Well, I thought naturally, since you’re on to the hoax, you’d want to–expose us all.’

  ‘I’m not very interested in the hoax,’ said Greg.

  Seymour-Strachey stared at him, almost insulted. ‘Not interested in the hoax?’

  ‘I’m really only interested in the murder of Hilda Machin,’ said Greg.

  Greg was expecting Seymour-Strachey to exhibit surprise. Any moderately wary murderer could accomplish that. But what he expressed was surprise combined with a frank, hungry interest. His mouth sagged open, and his eyes sparkled with an old person’s relish for a sensation. It was a totally innocent reaction.

  ‘Murder?’ he said. ‘Hilda? But I’m absolutely staggered. ‘Nothing’s been said, has it?’

  Greg was momentarily pushed off balance by the oddity of Gerald’s reaction, but before he had time to gather his forces Gerald’s mind was off on a new track, working away with all the added zest of long disuse.

  ‘You said,’ he pondered, ‘that you weren’t a student and you weren’t a reporter. I don’t think you’re interested in the literary side of this at all. There’s something about you . . . I’ve felt it all along . . . an air . . . of rectitude, a dreadful uprightness. Are you trying to play amateur detective, or something?’

  Greg’s expression gave him away at once.

  ‘Ha! Got it in one! Just like the children’s books–teaching the police their business. Now, what’s all this about murder? Poor little Hilda. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer person. But what’s it to you? Why haven’t all the papers been on to it? Nothing’s been said in the Guardian.’

  ‘Hilda was a friend of mine,’ said Greg. ‘We palled up as soon as I moved to Oswaldston. I think she was killed, but the police have officially accepted the death as accidental.’

  ‘I see. You’re on to something suspicious, is that it? Found a vital clue. But are you really on to anything, though? It’s not just Enid Blyton stuff, is it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ admitted Greg, slightly nettled by his tone. ‘There’s very little to go on. But I think she was killed.’

  ‘You do, eh? Sad about that. Chirpy little body.’ Then, as a new thought struck him and seemed to give him great delight: ‘And you think I did it, eh? Is that it? You came down here to accuse me of murder, eh?’

  ‘It’s not quite like that,’ said Greg carefully. ‘I came down to get things straight. I thought you were a possibility–you are a possibility. But I couldn’t see why you should–’

  ‘This demands another drink, my boy. This has made my day. It’s something at seventy-four to be accused of murder. Hold everything while I get more beer.’ And he pottered off to the kitchen in a lather of self-congratulation.

  When he got back he was still in a state of high good-humour. Greg, on the other hand, having tried desperately to get his thoughts in order, still felt horribly at sea. Gerald set down the glasses on the table as if he were savouring one of his greatest triumphs.

  ‘Now–down to business! I suppose you want to ask me all the questions they ask in books, eh?’

  ‘Well,’ said Greg, ‘I suppose I could ask you what you were doing on the night of the eighteenth of May.’

  Gerald chuckled. ‘And a long way that will get us! I am retired, you know. Not much doing in my life these days–one day very like the next. About all I get asked to do is the occasional lecture. . . . I say, what date was it?’ He leant across the desk and seized his diary. ‘The eighteenth. There you are–wiped off the suspect list in one fell swoop. How depressing! I was asked to give a talk to the Borrowdale Bookman’s League. “The D. H. Lawrence Country”–one of my standards. There you are! I’m a wash-out!’ He sounded fearfully disappointed.

  ‘It’s only an entry in a diary,’ said Greg. ‘You may not have given the lecture.’

  ‘Ah, quite right.’ He brightened up. ‘I know what I’ll do.’ Seizing the phone, and consulting his diary, he rang a number. ‘Ah, Mrs Wriothesley? Nice to hear your voice. Gerald Seymour-Strachey here. . . . Yes, I enjoyed the visit immensely myself. Such a pleasant, interested group. But look, there’s something arisen here about that–a young man would like to–check up on my movements, you know? Nothing important–purely a personal matter. I wonder if you could talk to him about it, eh? Just a minute, I’ll put him on.’

  Floundering badly, Greg went though a routine of questioning: was Professor Seymour-Strachey in Borrowdale on the evening of the eighteenth? Yes, he was. Was Mrs Wriothesley sure it was he? Had she seen him before? Yes she was. Yes she had. He was conscious all the time that Mrs Wriothesley was under the impression that he was a suspicious husband or lover–and that that was precisely the impression she had been intended to get. When he put down the phone Gerald Seymour-Strachey was in ecstasies of lordly self-satisfaction.

  ‘Marvellous, m’boy. You sounded very young. I’m sure she was enormously impressed. I say–I’ll offer them my “Great Lovers In Literature” lecture next year. They’ll jump at it!’

  Greg sat down, depressed. ‘I was never that convinced,’ he said feebly. ‘I couldn’t see what motive there could be.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Gerald. ‘I’ve never had a penny out of those books since Walter died, you know. I suppose I could have screwed some out of Viola as the price of keeping quiet, but I never fancied doing it. She’s not the type to put pressure on. I thought she could regard it as a sort of alimony. I’d be better off if the hoax was revealed. That’s what I always looked forward to. Lots of fun–interviews, articles and so on. I’d enjoy it. But I couldn’t do that
to Viola. I’ll have to wait for it to come in its own good time. Perhaps I’ll just have to imagine it being revealed after my death. Melancholy satisfaction, m’boy–melancholy satisfaction!’

  Greg found Gerald Seymour-Strachey’s poses rather wearing. Together, he and Viola must have been one of the great theatrical partnerships of the century. He said despondently:

  ‘I seem to be back where I started.’

  ‘Can you tell me about it, m’boy? Nothing hush-hush about it, is there?’

  ‘Oh no–not really. I’ve done nothing I’d want to cover up–except make a damned fool of myself, perhaps.’

  ‘A thought occurs to me,’ said Gerald, with an expression of the simplest sort of greed on his face. ‘Can you cook?’

  ‘Well, certainly–if it’s nothing complicated.’

  ‘I have some pork chops in the fridge, but to be honest I’m not sure what one does with them. And potatoes–I’ve never understood potatoes, now. Would that be complicated, I wonder?’

  ‘Not unduly,’ said Greg, suppressing a smile.

  ‘Then why don’t we have a meal? You can cook, and tell me about it while you’re doing it.’

  So Greg cooked a meal, watched avidly by Gerald Seymour-Strachey, who kept saying things like ‘fascinating’, and ‘terribly clever’, until finally he pottered off and opened a bottle, which was something he could do. While this was going on, Greg told him about the case: of the relationship between Hilda and Viola; Viola’s attempt to shut Hilda up; the beavering activities of Mr Kronweiser; the row on the night of the fire; the fire in the attic and the supposedly accidental death of Hilda Machin. He added as a bonne bouche the information that Viola was slowly driving her daughter-in-law insane, and that Hilda’s daughter seemed to be having an affair with the younger Seymour-Strachey. He ended his recital as they were sitting down to table–an immense meal, since Greg suspected that Gerald was really very hungry indeed.