The Paper Men

by William Golding

  “No sir, I did not, not in any way—”

  “Quote, it seems I owe you my life, unquote.”

  “But sir, you said that, not I, and—”

  “Of course the old insect lent a hand laying his eggs under my carapace, I’ve no doubt about that, but by Christ you were on the side of creation, weren’t you?”

  “I don’t—”

  “If I hadn’t had the common cowardy sense to cut and run, God knows what would have happened.”

  “Wilf, I must tell you. Remember, I’d been all the way out to just under the Hochalpenblick. I only did that once in daylight. With you, it was in fog. I couldn’t have known the path yard by yard and be sure what was under the fog, gee, I’d have to be a computer.”

  “You knew.”

  “OK. So I knew. But what I knew was a guess and I couldn’t be sure. Believe me, I thought I was risking my neck there, Wilf, and for you. I swear it.”

  “Scout’s honour.”

  “You’re distressing me, Wilf.”

  “Have a good cry then. When you’ve done we’ll get on with the dog.”

  It’s strange; but my memory is that Rick’s eyes really were filled with water and as if to make the point he took a tissue out of somewhere and wiped them with it.

  “After all these years, Wilf—”

  “Shut up, man. Don’t you want the paper?”

  He took a bit of time over that, sniffing and wiping his eyes. When he spoke his voice was smaller.

  “Yes, Wilf. I do.”

  “Righty-ho. Bang on. Good show, Tucker.”

  “You were calling me—”

  “I know, Tucker. Now. Tell me about Halliday. Don’t skimp. You can’t frighten me, you see. I want every fascinating detail.”

  It took Rick quite a while to get himself together that time.

  “He’s a wonderful—well, those who know him—”

  “Mary Lou.”

  “You know she majored in flower arranging and bibliography, sir, so there’s a great deal of scope for her in his collection.”

  “He collected Mary Lou.”

  “No sir. It’s his manuscripts.”

  “Ha et cetera.”

  “I know you aren’t interested in literary history, Wilf, after all, you’re part of it—”

  “I’m not interested in history, period. It should be rolled up like a scroll. Halliday! I want more Halliday!”

  “For example he’d pay anything for that.”

  He reached out his hand towards the document I’d typed. I smacked it hard and moved my hand farther away.

  “Naughty!”

  “But, Wilf—”

  “And while we’re about it, why are you dressed up like something out of a circus?”

  Rick looked down at himself, pondering the little he could see of his own clothes beyond the thicket. Mary Lou had wept into that thicket—or had she? Was that a fact or an imagination? I found to my surprise that I couldn’t distinguish between the two.

  “What’s wrong with the way I’m dressed? Hell, I was wearing this and more the last time you saw me. Then I had my necklace on. I’ve put it away because I didn’t think the Weisswald was the place for it.”

  “Don’t be wet.”

  “Well. It isn’t.”

  “I don’t mean that. The last time I saw you, you were as trad as the Beatles. Come on, Rick. I know all about it.”

  “And you come on too, sir. You waved that paper at me!”

  “When? Where?”

  “Marrakesh. Remember?”

  “Rick—”

  “I must say it wasn’t very kind of you, Wilf. But then I’ve always allowed that you and the few people like you have privilege.”

  I examined his eyes carefully. They were like a politician’s after he’s had more exposure than he can take, more anxiety, belief, accommodation, ambition, suspense. There was white showing all round the irises. It’s not an infallible mark but it does reveal a degree of strain, tending towards what I said about hell. It can indicate pain too, or fear. Well, why not? Man bites dog.

  “Tell me about Marrakesh then, Rick.”

  “Must I? Oh well. It was outside the Hotel de France. For God’s sake, Wilf! It’ll be in your journal somewhere, you’ve only got to look!”

  “More. Come on. More details!”

  Rick flung his arms wide. It was so unlike him I knew how desperate he was.

  “You were on the balcony to the left side of the main door—first floor. You saw me. You laughed and waved the paper at me. Then you disappeared into the building—what a joke for you! I can take a joke, Wilf.”

  “How did you know the paper was permission to be my literary executor?”

  “What else could it be? I didn’t mind the joke, Wilf, only—like I said I went in to reception but they said you weren’t staying there. I said to myself you were visiting with someone and I went up to the first floor and knocked on doors and listened.”

  “You must have been popular.”

  “You could have helped. A joke is a joke like I say, but when they threw me out—an American, Wilf. That hurt.”

  “Rick.”

  “Huh?”

  “When was this?”

  He thought, frowning.

  “Six—no, seven months ago.”

  “The last time I saw you, Rick, was just over a year ago. You were walking down one side of the cloisters in that hotel in Evora. You were wearing a light grey suit and you were walking away so you didn’t see me. I had to leave at once.”

  “I have never—”

  “Quiet. If I say I am going to tell you the exact truth and swear by all that I believe in, heat, light and sound, intolerance, necessity—would you believe me?”

  “Yes sir. Yes I would!”

  “Rick. I say this with all the force and all the precision at my command. I have never been to Marrakesh!”

  Pause.

  His eyes popped! I mean by that, the white round the irises widened then as suddenly seemed to narrow. He let out a long breath and laid his two hands flat on the table. Deliberately he made of his eyes the normal ellipse or near-ellipse with the irises partly covered. He seemed not so much to deflate as to come down to his true size from some sustained effort to make himself imposing. He began to smile. He nodded and nodded.

  “Of course. I see it all, Wilf. It was somebody else. I’d been thinking so much about you and the need for me to do your biography and Mr Halliday always on wanting it, and then after picking up clues here and there, to see someone just like you—”

  “The hunter and the slain.”

  “—and, hell, you got a beard, Wilf, and all those Ayrabs got beards—”

  I was nodding in time to his nodding. Two porcelain mandarins. I smiled at him helpfully.

  “I expect you were looking into the sun.”

  “Why that coulda been it, Wilf. Yeah. South-west at that time, just after siesta, the sun right above the hotel, above—that man I saw laughing and waving a paper at me—”

  “You see? Simple.”

  “But right now I know where you are—”

  “You don’t know where I am. Nobody knows.”

  “Why surely, sir, there’s no need—but now we can keep in touch, and you, being what you are—”

  “You don’t know who I am! Nobody knows who I am!”

  “No, no. Of course not. OK, sir. Look we’d better—”

  “Halliday now. He knows. No one else.”

  “We’d better—”

  “Say ‘Yap yap’.”

  “I don’t get it. Are we playing a game?”

  “That’s right, professor. Say ‘Yap yap’.”

  “Yap yap.”

  I let out my breath and sat back. I unfolded the document and read it through. It seemed solid enough but then I was struck by the thought that of course it should have been vetted by a solicitor. I was vexed to think of having wasted so much time and effort; but after all there were solicitors or lawyers in Zurich. I w
as a little cross with myself, however, and brooded.

  “What do you say now it’s your turn, Wilf?”

  “Turn?”

  “This game. You know. ‘Yap yap’.”

  “Oh that! I don’t say anything.”

  “I don’t get it, Wilf.”

  “All will be revealed in time.”

  “That paper, Wilf—”

  “You don’t get that either. Now don’t take on so, Rick old friend. My chum the manager’s nephew and the new young fat woman will throw you out. I mean you don’t get this one. But if you’re a good, shall we call it, fellow, you’ll get a nice piece of paper signed and sealed—”

  “Wilf, sir, I don’t know how to—”

  “—when to and where to. However. There are necessary preliminaries.”

  “Anything! I got less than two years left, Wilf. You just don’t know—”

  “That bad?”

  “Anything. Yes, sir.”

  “Well, as we agreed, I have to know the whole set-up between you and you-know-who.”

  “Mr Halliday?”

  I bowed my head solemnly. Rick scratched his nose and looked puzzled. He was at ease though. Happy.

  “It’s simple enough. He staked me, you see. Seven years so I could devote myself to—”

  “How long does he get Mary Lou for?”

  “Mary Lou has ceased to mean anything to me, sir.”

  “You don’t even get the occasional use?”

  There was a long pause. I broke it, helpfully.

  “A hard taskmaster, Mr Halliday. If you haven’t brought me to heel in seven years and achieved my authorized biography—incomplete, of course, as I am still to some extent on stream—there’ll be wailing and gnashing of all those lovely teeth.”

  “He ceases to support the research. But listen, sir. I’m not helpless. I can go other places—”

  “Don’t be wet. There is but one of them. I thought at first, oh years and years ago, I thought it was like you might say Guggenheim or Fulbright but not so. She wouldn’t have gone just for the money, Rick, and I wouldn’t be all screwed up, strung up and you strung up. You see? It’s like trying to serve me and him or it, it’s like serving God and Mammon. Guess which is which.”

  “You promised that paper or one like it! You’ll not go back on your word, sir!”

  “I won’t. But you didn’t give me time to lay down conditions, did you?”

  “I can’t remember. This is awful.”

  “I’m not giving you this paper yet and I’m not giving it to you here. You have to do certain things.”

  “Anything—”

  “I am going to allow you to write the official, the authorized biography of Wilfred Barclay, you lucky, lucky man. I shall give you relevant information. I shall appoint you custodian of all material concerning me.”

  “I swear—”

  “I shall oversee the biography word by word.”

  “Surely, surely!”

  “We shall meet at a time and place decided by me.”

  Then he deflated all over again.

  “But, sir—Wilf—your health—”

  “You mean I might, like, drop dead?”

  “No, sir, but your memory it isn’t all it might be. Writers are absent-minded, you know that, Wilf.”

  “Not so absent-minded I’d put all my chips on one number the way you did. You see, I hold you in my hot hands. I permit you. Just that. You get a permit. I get a commit. Just that.”

  “Sir.”

  “Tomorrow morning I am going away again. I wish never to revisit this place where—I shall get in touch. You are not to follow or the deal’s off. At some point or other you can introduce me to Halliday.”

  “That’s real difficult.”

  “But you, wonderful you, can do it. You have the entrée.”

  “No, sir, Mr Halliday doesn’t give that to anyone without she’s real pretty.”

  “No boyfriends? No bestiality? No real kinky stuff, torture, murder? What’s his billions for, just ewige Weib or whatever they call it? Well, Rick. You know how we really knowledgeable people are returning to the primitives to regain our health. One of the— My dear, Rick, I feel a lecture coming over me!”

  “If you’ll only hold on a moment while I get my recorder out—”

  He slid the camera from his sleeve.

  “That ? ”

  “Sure. It takes pics too. But, Wilf, I have never been near you without this up my sleeve only there sometimes it misses things so it’ll be better standing on the table.”

  “You’ve never recorded me!”

  “Yes, sir, always, even at dinner way back in your house. My one regret is I never got that time in the night when we met.”

  “I don’t believe it!”

  “And I got you even earlier than that, sir. Not on this machine of course but way back when I was a student. Why I swear in between even your accent’s changed!”

  “Don’t be wetter than you need be. My accent is satellite and always has been.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Earlier? Back before you were with me and Liz?”

  “When you were in the States. I’ll play it back to you one day.”

  “No you won’t. On footsteps of our dead selves or something. You’ll wipe the lot or the deal’s off again.”

  “They aren’t mine sir.”

  There was a long pause after that as I digested it. Of course. Halliday had them in the Barclay foundation. They as well as Mary Lou were part of the deal. The lord giveth and the lord taketh away, cursed be the name of him whatever one he chooses. Who knows his place? Who can affront, outface, attack, overthrow him? We can do nothing but strike his ministers in the forehead with a stone and hope it sinks in.

  “Wilf, you were going to say a piece.”

  “Ah yes. This lecture. It’s about rites of passage. You know about them, Rick, I’m talking to myself. For example a rite of passage is when you find that instead of fishing round for tintacks—thumb tacks you’d call them—in some saucer of mum’s, ashtray, paten, rich trifle on the mantelpiece or overmantel as toffs say you can walk into a shop and buy a whole packet. Then you know what you’ve done. You’ve become a householder. Another one comes when you kill something deliberately, a dog perhaps. Reminds me, what do you drink?”

  “Anything, I guess.”

  “Bourbon? They tell me bourbon’s come back in. Vodka? Whisky? I stick to wine myself.”

  “I’d like that, Wilf.”

  “When you have a vision of the universal wrath, intolerance—well hell, Rick, it isn’t a vision the way they get painted here and there, say in Italy, it’s real like a rock and you know it’s for ever like diamonds. That’s a rite of passage.”

  “Yes, Wilf.”

  “You recording?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Clever little thing! I feel like some coffee. Could you go and get me some coffee, Rick? Just to show the machine how much you venerate the old man?”

  He rushed off with the kind of eagerness a child might show when after being rebuked he is assured that the sun has come out again. I sat and stared at the machine. I made funny noises at it since the camera function wasn’t taking any notice of faces. Rick came back with a small tray and coffee for two.

  “We’ll have some wine first, Rick old friend.”

  “Whatever you say, Wilf.”

  “Just fill one of the saucers with wine, Rick.”

  “Sir?”

  “Well, whatever did you think I needed coffee for? To drink? Of course, come to think of it, tea would have done just as well.”

  Rick put the tray down on the table. His eyes were bulging again. He sank into the chair across the table from me.

  “This is a rite, son. After a rite nothing is ever the same again. You can go to bed and get up again and go on doing that till hell’s blue and nothing changes. This is different, isn’t it? Let’s see where we are? You will get authorization, like I said. But what assurance hav
e I that you will keep your side of the bargain? So you’ll do anything. Just to prove it—just a friendly test, Rick. Take one of the saucers and put some Dôle in it.”

  I waited, interested. He did nothing.

  “Come, lad. You’ve been following me and recording me and pestering me and, yes, tempting me and persecuting me and buying and selling me all for the purpose of your lout literature. Are you going to fail now? Why—think of the chapter on Wilf’s accent!”

  He was breathing hard.

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you mean, ‘yeah’?”

  “Your Limey accent.”

  “Too, too crude, Rick. Like I said, I’m satellite.”

  “No, sir, I don’t mean now, I mean way back.”

  “A fat lot you know about it!”

  “I got an ear. Had an ear. That was why I did phonetics. I was real good. I am real good. But there’s no future— Well. My prof said to get a sample of you for the archive. I was working my way through college and I couldn’t be there. A friend of mind did the job. He got it fixed up, a recorder under the guest chair in the Faculty Club. Later on I couldn’t believe in you when I heard you. Those diphthongs! And the tones—my God they were near enough Chinese.”

  “I was listened to in complete silence and with great respect!”

  “No, sir. Not what you said but the way you said it. Then later—what you said.”

  He was standing up, gripping the edge of the table and leaning forward.

  “They made a kinda party piece out of that record, Wilf. When I got my dee fill they played it at the party. No, sir, it was not my doing so don’t blame me. I’m just telling you, sir. In fact that party was the first time I listened to what you were saying, ‘stead of picking out phonemes. I was real sick of phonemes by then.”

  I found I had been standing too. I sat down, heavily.

  “That’s vicious. That’s really vicious!”

  “No, sir. Apart from the sounds it wouldn’t have been funny except for the coincidence. You were going on about the British social system—said the British were Greeks and the Americans Romans. You went on about the ‘Spartan incorruptibility’ of the civil service. You gave examples of their perfect devotion, like traditionally conservative civil servants organizing the nationalization of industry for the socialists. Only of course when he played the tape at my party we’d just heard the way your civil service was full of Philby and those guys. Laugh? People were falling about. They were real sore, too. Your civil service hadn’t just dropped you in the shit. They’d dropped us! You and your Limey accent!”