Literary Remains

by R. B. Russell

  By warning people Asphodel Books thus salved its conscience. Even in the instance of Mr Gabo, Jolly carefully put the warning into writing and satisfied his solicitors. But somehow their authors never realised that the warnings were meant for them. Marc warned Mr Gabo when he appeared in reception, unannounced, a few days before the publication of his book. The author arrived both excited and nervous.

  ‘I’m worried,’ he told Marc, ‘that we haven’t printed enough books. It was stupid of me not to insist on more. I need as many copies as possible.’

  Marc looked at the stock report and told him that it so happened that there had been a small over-run at the printers and 512 copies had been delivered to the warehouse. He had taken a few copies for review purposes, he explained, and had kept back a couple of file copies.

  ‘May I take them?’ Mr Gabo almost pleaded.

  ‘What, our copies?’

  ‘Yes, if I can?’

  ‘I would like to keep a few to send out for review.’

  ‘No need,’ he smiled for the first time. ‘Those responsible will ensure that it is read by those who matter.’

  ‘Well,’ Marc replied, a little facetiously, ‘I would like to do all that I can to help.’

  Mr Gabo sighed and smiled a patronizing smile. He had apparently sent in his cheque for the publication of his book without any comment, prompting Mr Jolly to wish he had asked for more.

  ‘I know that 500 copies will not be enough,’ Gabo said.

  ‘If the 500 copies sell, then we can always reprint it,’ Marc pointed out.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, taking the books from the desk. Marc couldn’t argue; after all, the man had paid for them.

  ‘I’m glad to see that the cover is grey, and the lettering gold,’ he nodded. ‘I said it was to be a paperback, but I should have pointed out that ideally it would fit in a coat pocket.’

  ‘It was produced to the specifications you gave us.’

  ‘And on the day of publication you are to come around that evening and tell me how many we have sold.’

  ‘Well,’ Marc was horrified. ‘That’s far too early.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ he smiled.

  ‘There will be some pre-orders from the library suppliers. But we really must allow for returns of unwanted books. Perhaps a statement after three months is the best…’

  ‘No, that will be too late.”

  “What will have happened?”

  ‘I will have been transfigured by then.’

  ‘I’m sorry if I sound ignorant, or sceptical, but why?’

  ‘When I was younger,’ he said once again, ‘I committed a great sin.’

  Marc had been feeling sorry for Mr Gabo all this time, defending the man against some of the worst jokes of Archie and the editor (who had not been allowed to touch one word of the book), but suddenly he did seem rather a comic figure. Marc rounded up their file copies, a proof copy and a loose set of running sheets, and gave them to the grateful man.

  He made the mistake of telling Archie of the conversation and the production assistant promised to remind Marc on the day of

  publication that he had to visit Mr Gabo in his south London flat.

  Marc also told Jolly of the discussion.

  ‘He’s seriously disturbed,’ Marc argued. ‘Why are we taking his money when he probably needs psychiatric help?’

  ‘He has serious religious convictions,’ Jolly excused himself from behind his large desk. ‘People have a right to their religious beliefs, don’t they?’

  ‘So the fact that his crackpot beliefs go under the guise of religion make them legitimate?’

  ‘I’m not going to discriminate against anybody because of their religion.’

  ‘Like you wouldn’t discriminate against anybody with a mental health problem?’

  ‘Exactly.’ He seemed satisfied that he had won the argument.

  As he said he would, Archie reminded Marc of his promise to visit Mr Gabo on the day of publication. He picked up the new stock report that Marc had not yet had a chance to look at.

  ‘You’ll need to explain to him why his book hasn’t sold,’ he said, looking through the titles. ‘How many do you think’ve gone? Let’s both make a guess and the one who’s furthest away…’

  ‘What’s up?’ Marc asked. He hadn’t really been listening to Archie, but he did notice that he had trailed off.

  ‘There’s a stock figure of zero.’

  ‘Ha, ha,’ Marc mocked. ‘What is it really?’

  Archie passed him the stock report and Marc could see that he was right. A phone call to the distributors confirmed this.

  ‘Where’ve they all gone?’ he asked over the phone. He did wonder whether Mr Gabo had bought them all himself.

  ‘The usual sources, library suppliers, wholesalers, individual shops and customer orders.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s not been mixed up with another book?’

  ‘Very sure.’

  ‘How the hell has it sold?’ Marc asked.

  ‘Quality will out,’ Archie reassured him. ‘Why are you looking so annoyed. At least you won’t have to explain to him why none of them have sold.’

  ‘No, but at least I’d know why they hadn’t sold. What I can’t explain is why they have.’

  Marc could not bring himself to telephone Mr Gabo with the good news. He remembered that he had told the author that a reprint was possible if the book sold out, and Mr Jolly had impressed upon him that although this was in the contract, they were never to encourage the idea. Marc thought about writing to the author, but put this off too. Several days later an odd bloody-mindedness came over him, however, and without thinking he tried to call the man, but the number was unobtainable. That lunchtime, as usual, Mr Jolly had left early and would not be returning until late, and Marc decided that he would visit Mr Gabo. He could probably do so in work time and if Mr Jolly returned first, well, after a liquid lunch he would probably not notice Marc’s absence. He took a five pound note from petty-cash and left for the underground station two streets away.

  It was a dismal day. London may not have smog anymore, but when it is damp and foggy the soot and grime seem to adhere to everything, and that included Marc’s mood. His spirits had been further dampened, as the train clattered south of the Thames, by the thought that he had stupidly, very stupidly, given Mr Gabo every copy of his book that they had. He had also returned the manuscript and given the old man the proofs and running sheets. A reprint would cause trouble; their printers were competent enough, but they used disposable paper plates. Asphodel Books reprinted their titles so rarely that it was more economical to set up new plates than use the metal ones. If Mr Gabo insisted on a reprint they might have to ask for his manuscript back, and that hardly looked professional. Perhaps the typesetter would still have a copy?

  The journey went quickly. Out of the station he consulted his A-Z and crossed into Mr Gabo’s road. It was a long, elegant street of white-painted terraced houses on three floors. As he passed them he noticed that most were flats and the author’s was no exception. Marc walked up the brick path and climbed the three steps to the mock-Georgian front door. Something was not quite right.

  The door had been forced open recently, and new locks had been fitted. The paintwork was mucky, and there was an acrid smell that he took a few seconds to identify. It was smoke. There had been a fire.

  There were two doorbells. Mr Gabo’s elicited no response, but when Marc rung the one over the name ‘Smith’ a bell rung from somewhere inside. Eventually he heard a door opening within the building, steps, and then the front door was opened.

  ‘Yes?’ asked a middle-aged, prematurely bald man.

  ‘I’m sorry to trouble you, but I was looking for Mr Gabo?’

  ‘Oh, are you a relative, or friend?’

  ‘Neither. He was a client of ours. I tried phoning…’

  ‘That wouldn’t get you anywhere. There was a fire. We assume he’s dead.’

  ‘I’m very sorry.’


  ‘Well, I didn’t know him that well myself. I’ve only lived here three months, and he was pretty quiet. But I came home the other day to find the fire brigade had smashed open our front door and his flat, upstairs, was burnt out.’

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ Marc said again. ‘Did it spread to your flat?’

  ‘The fire? No. And there’s not too much smoke damage, but the water! Sooty water through the ceiling and down the walls. It’s horrible. And the insurance! Who knows whether he had any insurance. I did, but they want to claim from his insurers… My carpets…’

  ‘But he died in the fire?’ Marc asked with very mixed feelings.

  ‘Yes, we assume so. It’s all very odd. Do you want to come in?’

  ‘No, thanks, really,’ he backed down a step.

  ‘They’re doing tests.’

  ‘On how the fire started?’

  ‘That as well. The main test is to see whether he died up there.’

  ‘You mean there’s nothing left? It must have been an inferno?’

  ‘Apparently not. The fire brigade say it wasn’t too bad. A neighbour alerted them immediately. She saw a flash through the windows. It must have been an explosion of some sort. She saw it in bright daylight. Anyway, come and have a look.’

  Marc really wanted to leave. He was sorry for Mr Gabo, but Marc felt that he could be forgiven for thinking that Gabo was one problem he no longer had to deal with. But Mr Smith was already inside and climbing the stairs. In no time he was out of sight and it would have been wrong for Marc to shout after him that he didn’t want to go up there. It would also have been very bad form to simply walk away.

  He entered the house and the first thing he noticed were all of the dirty footprints. There were horrible marks up the white walls of the stairs, from the firemen, he assumed. The door at the head of the stairs was wide open, but it was so dark within that he could see nothing.

  The acrid smell caught at the back of his throat. He entered in trepidation, wondering that everything could be so black. The carpet was charred horribly, the paper had burnt on the walls but still adhered to it, and the ceiling was black and in places sagging. There were remains of curtains, and the discoloured hulks of formless and almost unidentifiable furniture. Although it had obviously been a terrible fire, it was odd that it was all so damp. He knew that this would have been from the fire brigade, but he had never been in a burnt out room before and it was somehow unlike what he had expected; not that he knew what he expected.

  ‘There was a lot of muttering amongst the firemen afterwards,’ the neighbour said knowingly.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, they weren’t sure if they’d found his body up here or not.’

  ‘Really? Can’t they tell?’

  ‘They took some things away, all bagged-up, but nothing that looked the right size or shape.’

  Marc was uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation. He was glad to be able to ask:

  ‘What’s that?’

  The man had also heard it; from another room there was an irregular, angry flapping and the occasional sound of something hitting something solid.

  ‘The floor’s alright,’ said Smith, walking over to a door, frowning. ‘I had to pay an engineer to check that it wouldn’t fall in on my flat below if people walked over it. The insurance people sent someone out, but he would only report back to the company.

  The man pushed the door open with his foot and in the next room a bird was flapping uselessly around. It was even more frightened by their appearance and threw itself at the window. The panes were grey with soot and smeared where the bird had obviously thrown itself at the glass time and time again.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ the neighbour remarked. He gingerly made his way to the window and the bird cowered in the corner. The man tried to open the window and his hand was immediately filthy with soot. ‘Bloody stuff,’ he complained, looking for something to wipe his hand on, but there was nothing he could use. After some thought he decided that the soot was not worth worrying about. He pulled up the catch and gave the frame a shove.

  With an instinct that birds do not always seem to display, the frightened thing made straight for the opening and was out in a flutter of dirty wings.

  ‘I’d better be going,’ Marc excused himself, backing towards the door.

  ‘Oh, okay. So why was he your client?’

  ‘We were publishing his book.’

  ‘I didn’t know he was a writer? Odd.’

  ‘How would you know? Everything’s burnt.’

  ‘I’ve had a good look around and there’s nothing here but a few old sticks of furniture. Absolutely no personal stuff, and certainly no books.’

  Marc decided that if the neighbour had been rather too nosey, then he supposed that Mr Gabo was no longer around to care.

  He returned to the office around four o’clock to find that he had not been missed. Nobody mentioned Mr Gabo after that, and a month or so later Marc resigned and took up selling secondhand nautical books—a hobby of his that finally turned into a full-time job. Within the general book trade he often advertised for Mr Gabo’s book, but nobody seemed to be able to turn up a copy. Marc wondered if he had misjudged the man’s writings, or misremembered them, but he wanted to read again the part which dealt with the author’s end. All that Marc recalled for certain, because he had looked it up in the dictionary at the time, was the word ‘transfigured’.

  WHERE THEY CANNOT BE SEEN

  ‘I think that love is best left to the young,’ Donna said. ‘I expect that one day it will be viewed by psychiatrists as a mental health problem rather than anything wonderful or spiritual.’

  It was a pronouncement that nobody felt able to reply to immediately, and abhorring silence Donna continued: ‘And as for sex, well, is it really necessary? I’ve always preferred a nice cup of tea myself.’

  Donna found that she could not catch the eye of anyone else in the room. Her husband, Brendan, was staring at the crossword on his knee as though he had heard nothing. Terrance, on the two-seater sofa by the door with his wife Georgina was revolving the wine in his glass thoughtfully while she seemed to exchange a glance with Robert on the other sofa. Donna wasn’t sure if Robert had actually returned Georgina’s glance, for he was looking down at the magazine on his wife’s lap which she, Wendy, was idly flicking through.

  ‘So,’ said Brendan, slowly, not looking up from his crossword, ‘Do you not feel love for me anymore?’

  ‘Of course I do, silly,’ she replied. ‘But, practically, it’s really just another word for comfort or companionship.’

  ‘So, I’m no different from some old, well-worn cardigan?’ he asked, although without appearing to be hurt. He had long ago become resigned to his wife’s lack of interest in sex. She liked romantic gestures, but only because it made her think that she wasn’t being taken for granted. The previous year she had confided to Wendy that romance was rubbish but women insisted on it just to keep men on their toes.

  ‘Surely there are good reasons…’ Georgina asked, starting her question quite confidently but then losing heart; ‘…good biological reasons for love, and sex?’ She realised that it was not a discussion that was worth continuing. Donna wasn’t a woman who liked to explore ideas; she considered a good discussion to be when somebody of similar outlook made a statement that she could agree with, and perhaps elaborate upon. In turn the other person was expected to explore the implications of that elaboration, but at no time should there be any disagreement.

  ‘Well,’ Donna considered. ‘Advances in medical science mean that men and women don’t necessarily have to go anywhere near each other for a child to be produced.’

  ‘Apparently some people enjoy making babies the old-fashioned way,’ her husband said, still not looking up, and still without a hint of rancour.

  ‘And look at all the trouble and heartache it causes,’ Donna pointed out, and then yawned behind her hand. She saw the opportunity and everyone was happy for her to grasp it: �
��Well, it’s been a long and tiring journey to get up here today and I think I shall go up to bed. Goodnight everyone.’

  Perhaps she could have been accused of trying to escape a discussion while she was ahead. Nobody would have done so, though; it would not have been worthwhile on the first day of their holiday, and anyway, it was customary for her to go to bed early. Everyone wished her a good night, and her husband assured her that he would follow once he had finished the crossword.

  ‘There’s no rush,’ Donna told him, and she caught Robert grinning.

  ‘That’s enough of that,’ she admonished him. ‘You know me, I need my sleep.’

  Once she had left the room her husband said: ‘Well, she’s right to a degree.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Terrance. ‘How do you work that out?’

  ‘Well, some people do spend too much time and energy thinking about sex. Once you’ve actually got married and had children it does become an unproductive effort, and only leads to frustration. I’ve never thought of having an affair myself; I can’t believe that it would be worth all of the effort required? And the trouble it could cause?’

  ‘Some people would argue,’ Wendy said tentatively, ‘that they couldn’t help the attraction they felt for another person, and that it would actually be more trouble to try and repress their feelings.’

  ‘You mean, after they were married? If they found somebody else?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Well, I’m old-fashioned enough to believe that such feelings should be kept under control.’