Is This the Way You Said?

by Adam Thorpe

  ‘I hope not,’ he said.

  She smiled grimly. There was the alcoholic’s evil twinkle in her eye, but her mistake still made him feel (aside from the existential reminder that he no longer looked like a twenty-year-old) that he was in the wrong place. He was used to clapped-out staff rooms where ribaldry and depression battled for first place around a broken coffee machine and the air was full of smoke. He was not used to fencing with famous novelists. In fact, he had never met a famous novelist in his life, not informally. The odd playwright, yes. But they were different.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re an experimental fiction man.’

  ‘No. Just fiction.’

  ‘What sort? I’m supposed to know you, am I?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘You can’t be a beginner, not at your age.’

  He didn’t know what to say. She was eyeing him like one of the dark witches in New Demons. There were five of them, they all shared a house in Eltham and worked in Westminster in the typing pool, turning government into a frenzy of nonsense by planting auto-suggestive spells in papers and reports.

  ‘Anyway,’ she went on, her white hair awry, ‘we all love to ruin our lives, don’t we? I’ve completely buggered mine.’

  ‘Oh dear. That’s quite negative.’

  He was thinking: I can tell Marion, when I get back, that I met Anita Barry and had an intimate chat with her.

  ‘It’s not negative, it’s honest. I used to be scrummy, according to the men. Now look at me. And you were a mere boy when we first met.’

  ‘Sorry? We’ve met before?’

  ‘Haven’t we?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Maybe.’

  ‘What’s your book about?’

  The plastic bag was between his feet. Marion had insisted he take it in a plastic bag rather than his work bag, which was covered in dated political stickers. They’d chosen, from the kitchen drawer, a British Museum Bookshop bag with a discreet Lewis chess-piece on each side. It was hardly a fashion statement, but Jonathan had realised he would be on a stage where every prop and item of costume would invite a judgement about him.

  ‘Right. My book. Where do I begin?’

  ‘Oh, I know, one of those. Well, I can tell you what mine’s about in two words. Sex and money. That’s all they want in this awful dump, anyway. I remember when mine were proper publishers, in a most delightful ramshackle building in Ladbroke Grove. Now it’s like one of those airports. They’ll be examining your luggage soon. Are you well known? I know very few writers these days. I stop at Henry James, and even he’s a bit much. All we’re doing is telling stories, isn’t it?’

  ‘I agree with that,’ said Jonathan, warming to her. Like the subversive witches Emily Walnut and Janet Pitchfork in his novel, there was wisdom in amongst the spite and battiness.

  ‘Well, no one else seems to think that, these days,’ she said. ‘It’s all clever words. Decoration, I call it. Hiding the rot. Don’t listen to me, I’m an old bat.’

  ‘No you’re not,’ said Jonathan, blushing under her gaze. ‘You’re a famous author.’

  ‘Know my work, do you?’ she said, leaning forward expectantly, her face softening with grateful pleasure. It was pathetic and disturbing for Jonathan, to see how grateful she was, how expectant, with her black-and-white portrait beyond like a mocking double in its mane of dark hair.

  Eddie was walking up the track. Holly had given him half an hour, which he could stretch to at least forty minutes. You couldn’t get very far in a quarter of an hour, for God’s sake. He’d never make the church, that was obvious. This made the church, or hermitage, or whatever it was, even lonelier and more enticing. He looked at his watch to time himself; he’d taken five minutes just to scramble back up the slope and walk a few yards along the track. It was ridiculous, how fast time went. It only went slowly in meetings. Every bloody Monday morning they’d have a planning meeting, these days. Strategy plotting, it was called: when they were told what to do. He’d make the right noises and then ignore it all. Luxor was successful because he was a maverick, but there was no room for mavericks in Jansen House. The Americans were shadowing their every movement. As flies are we to the gods, they kill us for their sport. Something about wanton boys, too. This is why he got a poor Second: inaccurate quoting. And the word drunken. As drunken flies? Christ.

  He smiled. He realised he’d been staring at the ground as he walked. He could have been in Hounslow or somewhere, for all he was noticing the view. He looked up and scanned the horizon as he carried on striding. There was the Mediterranean, shining, glittering, not quite as blue as in the adverts, but still stunning. The wind had dropped and the early evening sun felt suddenly strong on his bare chest and neck. Maybe it could still burn. Surely not. He breathed the scented air deep into his soul, which stirred like an underwater anemone. Thyme, lavender and rue. Anise, maybe, like in California. Definitely wild thyme under his feet, in the middle of the stony track. This was good. This was quality time. You had to be alone to have it. Alone with the gods.

  A sudden, dark chill seemed to touch his insides. He turned round. He’d cleared a bend and a high rock and could look down on Holly and Ed. Just checking. They looked very small together on the flat black slab, with the sea apparently still but its swelling and subsiding given away by the odd whiteness expanding and dissolving around the rocks.

  He walked on further where it was quite steep and took a breath: he was not fit, not at all fit. Now the sun glittered on the sea around the rocks, and Ed’s tiny figure was a silhouette in the glitter. He seemed to be standing up, quite near to the edge of the slab, but it was hard to see properly. Holly was lying down, he could make that out easily enough. Reading that bloody manuscript. He didn’t like the idea of Ed being so near the edge, but even if he shouted down they wouldn’t hear him. The sea was noisy down there, and he was too far away. From up here the sea was a suggestive, faint sigh. It didn’t move, its blues and greens staying put like an abstract painting, and then the whiteness appeared, quite close to Ed’s confused silhouette. Ed must be looking out for fish.

  That was the trouble, Eddie thought, squinting to see through the glitter: I can’t get away for a minute, I can’t ever relax. I’ve got to let myself go, stop worrying. Trust, trust others. Trust my wife. Trust the gods. Or God. No, he didn’t believe in God. But he still said to himself: Dear God, protect my wife and son. Amen.

  And armed with a little glow of trust, he walked on.

  ‘Jonathan Lewis?’

  A large guy in a dark leather coat was standing there. Jonathan had rehearsed this moment, but he’d imagined being whisked up to the office by a flunky. He hadn’t expected Eddie Thwing to come down to the lobby, for some reason.

  ‘Yeah. Yes.’

  ‘Eddie Thwing.’

  ‘Oh, hi. Alright?’

  Jonathan stood up awkwardly and the plastic bag fell over. The heaviness of the manuscript and its lack of spine meant that you could neither stand it up nor keep it solid, like a brick. Now it was half out of the bag. Eddie Thwing was looking down at it. Staring. The guy had dark rings under his eyes and he was smoking, although there was a This is a Smoke-Free Zone sign on the wall. Anita Barry looked cowed and wicked at the same time, as if a powerful wizard had entered. Jonathan’s hand was stuck out but Eddie Thwing didn’t take it; his left hand was in his pocket and the right was holding a cigarette.

  ‘Hello, Anita. How’re you doing?’

  ‘How are you doing, Eddie?’ asked Anita Barry, who had stayed seated but was close enough to place a hand on Eddie Thwing’s arm.

  ‘Fine. If you’re into Fantasy.’

  Anita nodded and then laughed uncertainly.

  ‘I thought you couldn’t smoke here,’ she said, fishing in her handbag and breaking into a moist cough like a badly directed cue.

  ‘That’s the book, is it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jonathan. ‘Rather heavy. But that’s my fault.’

  Jonathan had picked th
e bag up and it was dangling by his knees. The book had curled up like an animal. An otter, maybe. It stretched and distorted the bag.

  Eddie Thwing didn’t smile. A hard man, that’s what Dave had suggested. Hard and cool and not looking in the best of shape.

  ‘Shall we go and get a bite, then?’

  ‘Yeah. That’d be great.’

  Ten, fifteen years younger than him, probably. Yet Jonathan felt about thirteen. Dave had been dead right about the ponytail. Eddie Thwing’s glance had just taken it in: a subtle moue of distaste, as if someone was blowing onto his face.

  ‘Who’re you waiting for, Anita?’

  ‘David, natürlich. Out to lunch. Once a year, it makes us feel wanted. It’s their job, you know,’ she added, addressing Jonathan, who smiled wanly. ‘Otherwise we’d go hungry in our little dens, wouldn’t we?’

  ‘I found eight Snickers wrappers in Roach’s basket yesterday.’

  ‘Dearie me.’

  ‘It’s OK. It’s killing him slowly.’

  Anita Barry laughed – she was lighting her cigarette – and collapsed into a raucous coughing fit, tapping her bird-like chest and trying to apologise. Her dark-maned double watched her from above like a disapproving daughter.

  ‘Like these bloody fags,’ she panted. ‘Dearie me.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Eddie Thwing. ‘They know we’re coming.’

  Jonathan followed him out. People nodded at Thwing on the shallow steps as they passed, their expressions oddly compassionate, as if the editor was fragile in some way. He all but ignored them. The pavement here was narrow and marked by Victorian-style bollards, which made it difficult to keep alongside him. Thwing walked briskly and Jonathan hung back just behind, a bit too dog-like. The long dark leather coat with its dangling belt was very smart and expensive, of that Jonathan (who knew very little about such things) was certain. He was wishing, clutching the plastic bag to his chest – weaving to avoid people coming the other way while Thwing didn’t seem to need to – that he had never come. He wished he was in the evil-smelling canteen, where the class would be coming to an end over the clash of dinner preparation, rather than here, where he was not a comfortable fixture, or a fixture at all.

  They walked for some ten minutes, in the end, towards Earls Court. The noise and the way Eddie Thwing kept on walking just in front made conversation impossible. Jonathan had dressed too warm and sweat started running down his ribs, as happened more and more when he was doing mime in overheated classes. They turned down a cobbled side-alley hung with pots of hanging ivy, off which was an even thinner alley leading to what looked like an old factory yard with a big closed gate at one end. They went up three steps to a metal door with, oddly enough, Nagasaki stencilled badly in black on its cream paint.

  ‘The coolest place in town,’ said Eddie, ‘and the best sushi.’

  Jonathan realised he must have looked as if he needed reassuring.

  The entryphone crackled and Eddie said his name and the door buzzed. Eddie pushed it open and Jonathan followed him into what at first reminded him of a theatre’s blackout curtains – that moment when you struggle to find your way off-stage, blinded by the lights and in a felty darkness. He groped forward until a further door opened to a dim, reddish light which turned out to be a bar with a few men playing cards around a couple of low tables: they were all, Jonathan presumed, Japanese. That was a good sign. Lounge music, the type that makes sense only when you’re stoned, beat like a very slow heart. He wondered where the food was. Eddie was talking to a pallid girl behind the counter, which was black with little lights set into it, like stars. Jonathan’s excitement was increased by the fact that he had never been in a proper club in his life – the type of club a lot of his students went to and endlessly used as settings for their impros. He felt he had begun to live. The men were looking up at him as if he didn’t fit, and he tried to smile but they didn’t smile back and he felt stupid.

  The girl led them through a bead curtain beyond the bar into a further room where there were two wooden tables: one was of normal height, with soft chairs, and occupied by a harassed-looking Japanese man totting up figures on a calculator in front of a sheaf of papers. The other was a large, low table encircled by tatami mats. The walls were a warm orange, with fake candles flickering behind pierced steel. Dagger-eyed leather masks glared down at them: Jonathan had expected shinto or zen, a black-and-white purity of paper screens, but this was more samurai in Western trousers. There were no windows.

  ‘Take your pick,’ said Thwing. ‘Back to the wall?’

  ‘Anywhere,’ said Jonathan, although he hated, it was true, having his back to other people.

  Thwing took his seat on the mat, resting casually against the wall. Jonathan sat opposite him in lotus position, with nothing to lean against and nothing to look at but the editor and a malevolent leather mask above the latter’s head. A young waiter came in and laid hot, scented towels in front of them. The Japanese guy (perhaps the owner) was snapping at the waiter: or perhaps it only sounded like snapping. Perhaps he was saying: ‘You’re doing a great job. I’m giving you a pay rise.’ Then the man got up and came over to Eddie Thwing and said something softly in his ear. Thwing nodded and the man went out. Jonathan wiped his hands on the hot, sweet towel, taking his cue from Thwing. He wiped his face, too, which felt soiled from the London air. Thwing, who had not wiped his face, watched him.

  ‘Happy?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. This is great. Sorry, I was drifting. I hardly ever go . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘These sort of places. I guess you go all the time. They seem to know you here, anyway.’

  Stop talking. Keep the patter minimal.

  ‘I’m sick of it. Restaurant food. It all tastes like restaurant food. But today will be different.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘There’s no need to look at the menu. I ordered this morning. It’s a very special dish. Actually, it’s under the counter.’

  ‘Under the counter?’

  ‘Because it’s banned.’

  Jonathan smiled. ‘Laced with dope, is it?’

  ‘I’m serious. They have a very special chef, here, who does a very special dish. It’s extremely expensive. Have you ever heard of the puffer fish?’

  ‘I think so, yeah. Blows itself up into a ball?’

  ‘Yup. Fugu, in Japanese. It carries inside its liver a deadly toxin, twelve hundred times deadlier than cyanide. The raw flesh of fugu is a great delicacy in Japan. But it has to be expertly prepared, or the toxin shuts down your nervous system within half an hour.’

  ‘Oh, great. We’re not eating that, I hope.’

  ‘We are.’

  The waiter came up with a bottle and two small glasses and filled them in one flowing gesture without a drop spilt.

  ‘Sake,’ said Thwing. ‘Fermented rice.’

  ‘Ah yes. Sake.’

  The editor said ‘Kampai!’ and drank his sake in one gulp. Then he slammed the glass on the table.

  ‘Your turn. The toast.’

  Jonathan hardly ever drank spirits, but a lot was at stake.

  ‘Kam . . . ?’

  ‘Kampai!’

  ‘Kampai! Here goes.’

  The sake was a crime to his throat, but a blessing to his head. It made him feel better within seconds. The waiter laid napkins on their laps and removed the towels. The napkins were starched white but soft and smelt of summery linen. The waiter whisked away their unused plates and it was all rather pleasant. Oh, much better than the canteen at Scots Avenue Secondary School! The puffer fish business was obviously a joke.

  ‘Kampai!’ sounded three more times. Thwing’s hand trembled slightly when he put the glass down.

  ‘Great place,’ said Jonathan. ‘Feels almost private.’

  ‘A favourite of the Japanese mafia, the Yakuza. They’re very big. They keep the Japanese economy afloat. Ours, too, probably. It’s called Nagasaki.’

  ‘I saw that. Very droll.’

  �
��Poker and heroin and puffer fish. High stakes. A gambling den one side and the best Jap restaurant in town the other.’

  ‘I’ll skip the heroin,’ Jonathan laughed.

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ Thwing growled, ‘would you, please?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Jonathan felt very good. This was real life. This was better than he’d expected.

  ‘So,’ said Thwing, staring at the glass. ‘You’re Jonathan Lewis. You’re the author of New Demons.’

  ‘That’s me. I hope that’s not a problem,’ he added, grinning, feeling even better with the fourth sake keen and burning cold in his chest.

  Thwing’s eyes swivelled upwards and settled on Jonathan. The eyes were bleared, very tired, almost defeated-looking, but there was something fierce in them that seemed aimed at Jonathan personally. Of course it couldn’t be aimed at him personally. This guy loved my book – at least, he called it ‘gripping, dark and dangerous’ – and he’s taking me out to lunch. This is what editors do, he thought. They take authors out to lunch and the authors feel wanted at least once a year. That’s what Anita Barry said. Out of their little dull dens into much more exciting dens.

  ‘A problem?’

  ‘I hope it isn’t.’

  ‘No, since you’re here, in front of me. Before, it was a problem. Not meeting the guy who’s . . . had such an effect.’

  ‘Effect?’

  ‘On your life.’

  Jonathan felt a delicious heat in his belly. Ironically, it was all so like the celluloid crap he kept insisting his students avoid. This hard-bitten guy was about to say that New Demons had changed his life, it was that good. No, he’d said it. That’s what he’d said. Ten years and this was it. This was the moment that made it all worth while: the struggle, the late nights, the clamp of despair and age. At the same time, he felt he’d wasted his life, coming in here and seeing what he’d been missing. The danger and the elegance. The sophistication. The fine, dark food of things.

  ‘On your life? Really?’