by Jonathan Coe
‘I’m not staying here to listen to any more of this,’ I said, making for the door.
‘Michael?’
I turned.
‘I’ll get a contract in the post for you tonight.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, and was about to leave, when something made me stop and say: ‘You hit a bit of a nerve, you know, when you went on about … an element, being lacking in my life.’
‘I know.’
‘Good sex scenes are very difficult to write, anyway.’
‘I know.’
‘Thanks, all the same.’ Another afterthought. ‘We must have lunch together soon, like in the old days.’
‘The firm won’t let me buy lunch for authors any more,’ said Patrick. ‘But still, if you know somewhere cheap, we could always go Dutch.’
He was pouring himself more water as I left.
3
My meeting with Patrick had gone on for much longer than I’d expected, and I was almost late arriving at Vanity House. I’d been hoping to have a meal somewhere on the way, but there wasn’t time, so I had to make do with some more chocolate instead. I tried one of these new bars called Twirls: spirals of flaky chocolate covered in a rich, creamy, succulent coat. Not bad, as a matter of fact, although they did have a bit of nerve describing it as ‘new’, since it clearly owed a large conceptual debt to the Ripple. This one seemed firmer, somehow, though: chunkier and more substantial. I’d bought a packet of Maltesers as well but didn’t feel like opening it.
I was looking forward to visiting the Peacock Press, and partly for a reason which will perhaps seem foolish. The first person I had ever spoken to there – the person who had actually approached me with the idea for the Winshaw book – was a woman called Alice Hastings, and we had, I thought, struck up an immediate rapport. I might as well add that she was also young and very beautiful, and not a small part of the attraction of the whole project lay in the opportunities it promised for further meetings with her. But this was not to be. After that initial encounter, I was passed on to the attention of one Mrs Tonks, a plain-speaking and by no means unfriendly woman of late middle age who subsequently assumed complete responsibility for overseeing the progress of the book. She took her duties seriously and did her best to make me feel well looked after: every Christmas, for instance, she would send me a parcel of her favourite books from the year’s catalogue, wrapped up in gift paper. This was how my library came to be adorned with such choice items as Great Plumbers of Albania, 300 Years of Halitosis, the Reverend J.W. Pottage’s pioneering study, So You Think You Know about Plinths?, and a frankly unforgettable memoir – although its author’s name escapes me – entitled A Life in Packaging – Fragments of an Autobiography: Volume IX – The Styrofoam Years. Much as I appreciated this generosity, it was no substitute for seeing Alice again, and on the rare occasions (no more than three or four) when I had visited the office in person, I had always made a point of asking after her. As luck would have it, though, she had always been out at lunch, or away on holiday, or busy dealing with an author. And yet even now, absurdly, eight years since I had last seen her, I felt a sweet ache of sexual nostalgia as I entered the building, and the thought that I might glimpse her again or even exchange a few words with her put a tiny spring in my step and a flourish in the movement of my wrist as I pressed the lift button for the ninth floor.
Today, in any case, even the unassuming efficiency of Mrs Tonks offered a cheering prospect: doing business with her would be a blissfully uncomplicated affair after my dealings with Patrick. That at least was my expectation, as I stood peering into the mirror and wiping a smudge of chocolate from my lower lip, while the lift carried me smoothly upwards.
I caught a sense that something different was in the air, however, when Mrs Tonks, instead of keeping me waiting in the reception area, hurried out to see me as soon as she heard that I’d arrived. Her stout, businesslike face wore more than its habitual flush, and her fingers fiddled nervously with the heavy wooden beads which hung low over her pendulous bosom.
‘Mr Owen,’ she said. ‘I’ve been trying to telephone you all morning. I was hoping to save you a journey.’
‘You didn’t manage to look at the manuscript?’ I asked, following her into a large, comfortable office, handsomely decked out with bonsai trees and modern abstracts.
‘I was intending to read it today, before you came in,’ she said, waving me to a chair, ‘but circumstances didn’t permit. The fact is, we’re in disarray. There’s been a little upset. Not to keep you in suspense any longer, we were burgled last night.’
I can never think of anything intelligent to say in response to such statements. My reply was something like, ‘How awful’. Followed by: ‘I hope you didn’t lose anything valuable.’
‘Nothing was stolen at all,’ said Mrs Tonks. ‘Except your manuscript.’
That shut me up.
‘It was in the top drawer of my desk,’ she continued. ‘It doesn’t seem to have taken long for the thief to find it. We haven’t notified the police yet: I wanted to talk to you first. Mr Owen, is there any reason why this should have happened now, so soon after we received it? Have you done anything recently which might have alerted someone to the fact that you’d resumed work on this book?’
I thought for a moment and said, ‘Yes.’ Pacing the room angrily (the anger directed at myself) I explained about the newspaper advertisement. ‘It was meant as a declaration of war, as much as anything else. A coded challenge. Well, someone’s obviously taken me up on it.’
‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ said Mrs Tonks. ‘Not given them our address, without consulting us first. Anyway, that leaves the field wide open. It could have been anyone.’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ I said, as a suspicion began to take shape within me. ‘There are certain members of the family who’ve already expressed an interest in suppressing this book, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised –’
Mrs Tonks wasn’t listening.
‘I think we’re going to have to bring Mr McGanny in on this,’ she said. ‘Come with me, will you?’
She led me out into reception and for a few moments disappeared into another office, leaving me alone with the secretary. Lulled by the gentle tapping of her computer keyboard, I drifted off into some random speculations as to which of the Winshaws might have pilfered my manuscript (or more probably hired someone else to do it). The obvious candidate was Henry: after all, he had already attempted to burn the thing once. But then none of the others could be entirely ruled out. Whoever was behind it, their objective was unlikely to be the suppression of the book: they would surely have anticipated my taking several copies, so the intention presumably was just to find out how far my investigations had proceeded. I decided not to worry about this until I was in possession of a few more facts. The time was ripe to ask another, more urgent question.
I wandered over to the secretary’s desk and said, with affected carelessness: ‘I don’t suppose … Miss Hastings wouldn’t be here this afternoon, by any chance, would she?’
She stared back at me, her eyes bored, without expression.
‘I’m only temporary,’ she said.
Just then Mrs Tonks re-emerged and beckoned me to follow her. I had never met Mr McGanny, the managing director of the Press, and wasn’t sure what to expect. The sumptuousness of his office took me by surprise, for one thing: it boasted leather armchairs and a huge picture window fronting on to the local park. As for the man himself, I placed him somewhere in his mid fifties: his face made me think of a horse – thoroughbred, perhaps, but slightly on the lean and cunning side – and instead of the Scottish brogue which I’d been anticipating, he spoke in the suave drawl of the Oxbridge- and public-school-educated Englishman.
‘Sit down, Owen, sit down.’ He faced me across the desk. Mrs Tonks stood by the window. ‘This is serious news about the Winshaw book. What do you make of it?’
‘I think my line of inquiry has started to prove a little too controv
ersial for certain members of the family. I think they may have wanted a foretaste of exactly what I was proposing to write.’
‘Hmm. Well, it’s a damned underhand way of going about it, that’s all I can say.’ He leaned forward. ‘I’ll be frank with you, Owen. I don’t approve of controversy.’
‘I see.’
‘But there are two sides to every coin. I didn’t commission you to write this book, and I don’t give a damn what you put in it. That’s Miss Winshaw’s business. It’s down to her what goes in and what comes out, and it seems to me that this arrangement gives you a pretty free hand, since we all know, and there’s not much point beating around the bush here, that she’s one or two fly-leaves short of a folio. To put it mildly.’
‘Quite.’
‘Now I’ll be frank with you, Owen. My understanding is that through her solicitors, Miss Winshaw has fixed up a pretty cosy financial arrangement on your behalf.’
‘You could say that.’
‘And there’s no harm in letting you know that she’s done very much the same for yours truly. By which I mean the firm.’ He coughed. ‘So the fact of the matter is that there’s no hurry for you to get this book finished. No hurry at all. The longer the better, one might say.’ He coughed again. ‘And by the same token, I would hope that there’s no question of you dropping it at any point, just because of a bit of intimidation from various interested –’
A buzzer sounded on his desk.
‘Yes?’ he said, jabbing at a button.
The secretary’s voice: ‘I finally got through to Wing Commander Fortescue, sir. He says he’s sure he put the cheque in the mail last week.’
‘Hm! Send him the usual letter. And don’t disturb me again unless it’s urgent.’
‘Also, sir, your daughter phoned.’
‘I see – cancelling dinner, I suppose. Some new boyfriend she’d rather be seeing instead.’
‘Not exactly: she said her audition this afternoon was called off so she’s coming to meet you early. She’s on her way now.’
‘Oh. All right then, thank you.’
Mr McGanny thought for a few seconds, then rose abruptly.
‘Well, Owen, I think I’ve said all I needed to say at this juncture. We’re both busy men. As indeed is Mrs Tonks. No point in hanging around when there’s work to be done.’
‘I’ll see you to the lift,’ said Mrs Tonks, coming forward and taking my arm.
‘Good to meet you at last, Owen,’ said Mr McGanny as she propelled me towards the door. ‘Head down and pecker up, eh?’
I was out of his office before I had time to reply.
‘How are you getting home?’ asked Mrs Tonks, who surprised me somewhat by travelling down with me in the lift. ‘Taking a cab?’
‘Well, I hadn’t really thought –’
‘I’ll call you one,’ she said; and sure enough, she accompanied me out on to the street and had hailed a taxi in less than a minute.
‘Really, there was no need,’ I said, opening the door and half-expecting her to follow me inside.
‘Don’t mention it. We like to pamper our authors. Especially’ (with a simper) ‘the important ones.’
The cab moved off and stopped at a set of traffic lights almost immediately. As we waited, I noticed a taxi pass us in the opposite direction and pull up outside the main entrance to Vanity House. A woman got out and I turned to watch, assuming that it would be Mr McGanny’s daughter and stirred by an idle curiosity to see what she looked like. But no; much to my surprise and – irrationally – my delight, it turned out to be none other than Alice Hastings.
‘Alice!’ I called out of the window. ‘Alice, hello!’
She was bending down to pay the driver and didn’t hear me: then the lights changed and my taxi pulled away. I had to be content with the knowledge that she was at least still working for the company, and that she hadn’t, from what I could see, changed very much in the years since our meeting.
Not many minutes had gone by when the driver pulled back the partition and said, ‘Excuse me, mate, but you wouldn’t happen to know anybody who might be following you, would you?’
‘Following me? Why?’
‘There’s this blue Citroen 2CV. Couple of cars behind us.’
I turned to have a look.
‘It’s difficult to tell in this kind of traffic, of course, but he’s still with us after a couple of short cuts I know, so I just wondered …’
‘It’s not impossible,’ I said, straining to get a look at the driver.
‘Well, I’ll speed up a bit and see what happens.’ He didn’t speak again until we had nearly reached Battersea. ‘No, we’ve lost him. I must’ve been imagining it.’
I breathed a quiet sigh of relief and sank back in my seat. It had been a long day. I wanted nothing more, now, than to spend the evening alone in my flat with the television and the video recorder. I’d had enough of people for a while. They were exhausting. I didn’t even want to see Fiona when I got home.
The taxi driver was counting out my change and handing it through the window when a blue Citroen 2CV chugged noisily by, gathering speed as it passed us.
‘Well, bugger me sideways,’ he said, staring after it. ‘We were being followed. You want to watch out, mate: I think somebody’s on your case.’
‘You might be right,’ I murmured, as the car disappeared around the corner of my mansion block. ‘You might very well be right.’
And yet at the same time, I couldn’t help thinking – a battered old Citroen 2CV? Would even Henry Winshaw be that devious?
Henry
November 21st 1942
Sixteen today! Mater and Pater gave me this smashing leather-bound notebook in which I shall record all my most secret thoughts from now on.1 Also, of course, another £200 in the old savings account, although I can’t touch that for another five years, more’s the pity!
In the afternoon they threw me a really super tea party. Binko, Puffy, Meatball and Squidge were all there, as well as one or two representatives of the fairer sex, such as the exquisite Wendy Carpenter, who didn’t speak to me much, alas.2 Thomas was aloof and snooty, as usual. But the real surprise was when Uncle Godfrey turned up out of the blue. Apparently he’s on leave at the moment, staying up at Winshaw Towers, and he drove all the way over just to look in on yours truly! He was wearing his full RAF kit and looked tremendously dashing. He came up to my bedroom to have a look at my model Spitfires and we got embroiled in a pretty deep conversation, all about El Alamein and how it’s provided just the fillip which was needed for everyone’s morale. He was saying that the chaps are already looking forward to how much better things are going to be after the war, and started waxing rather lyrical about something called the Beaveredge (?) Report, which apparently says that everyone is going to have a better standard of living from now on, even the working classes and people like that.1 When he left he slipped a fiver into my pocket without saying a word. He really is about as decent an uncle as any cove could possibly want.
December 15th 1942
The worst day of my life so far, ever, definitely. Frightful scenes up at Winshaw Towers as we came to pay tribute to poor Uncle Godfrey. Nobody can really believe that he’s gone: less than a month since he came to my birthday party.2 The memorial service was bad enough, what with Granny and Gramps looking so wretched, and the chapel being so freezing, with the wind howling outside and all that. But the night before, we stayed in the house itself, where there was the most terrible how-do-you-do. Poor Aunty Tabs has been driven completely bats by the news, and has started accusing Uncle Lawrence of murdering his own brother! She physically attacked him in the hallway as he was coming down for dinner: tried to bash him over the head with a croquet mallet. Apparently this was about the sixth time this has happened. They tried not to let me see what was going on but while we were all having dinner some doctors arrived and I could hear poor old Aunty screaming as they took her to the front door. Then I heard this van driving off and that�
��s the last we all saw of her. Mater says she has been taken somewhere where she’ll be ‘well looked after’. I do hope she recovers soon.
Mind you, I certainly know how she feels. The service certainly brought a lump to the old throat, and for the rest of the afternoon I was in a pretty sombre mood, full of deepish thoughts about the futility of war and all that sort of racket. As Pater drove us home I started writing this sort of poem in my head:
In Memory of Uncle Godfrey
Weep, yea weep, ye men of War,
For one among you is no more.
The wind that howls round chapel walls,
Each drop of rain, each leaf that falls –
In mourning, all, for Matthew’s son,
So cruelly killed by filthy Hun.
Though fight we must – and not give in –
What bitter joy, if yet we win!
We used to call him ‘Uncle God’,
But now he lies ’neath Yorkshire’s sod,
Never to share in victor’s mirth —
Just pushing daisies through the earth.1
When Pater came up to say good-night I told him I didn’t think I could bear to go to war, the whole idea was just too dreadful. I don’t know what I shall do when my call-up papers come. But he told me not to worry about that and said something mysterious about wheels within wheels. Not exactly sure what he meant, but went to bed feeling oddly comforted.
November 12th 1946
After a decidedly sticky tutorial with Prof Goodman, my new – though in fact rather decrepit – Probability Tutor, went for a walk around Magdalen gardens. Oxford looking very beautiful this autumn evening. Am beginning to feel more at home here. After that, finally decided to attend a meeting of the Conservative Association. Pater will be very pleased. (Must write and tell him about it.)
