Carnage on the Committee (18 page)

At a few minutes to ten, the baroness bounded in. 'Where's the butler?' she asked Amiss.

He pointed to the far door, through which she marched. She returned with Birkett, smiling. 'Satisfactory,' she announced as she strode to the head of the table and sat down. 'Lunch sounds satisfactory.'

She was wearing an eye-catching ensemble, chosen. Amiss deduced, to confuse. On the one hand, her fedora and severe suit - King Edward check with mid-calf skirt - were reminiscent of lesbians of the 1930s, but the cascades of pink chiffon at her throat made an aggressively feminine statement, while the vast piece of costume jewellery on her left breast - a diamante and green enamel parrot - caused even Den Smith to goggle. 'I'm Jack Troutbeck,' she announced. 'Which ones are you?'

'Robert, will you do the honours?' asked Prothero.

Amiss came to with a start. 'Sorry, Jack, this is Dervla. Dervla, this is Lady Troutbeck.'

'Hi,' said Dervla nervously.

'Hello,' said the baroness, looking her up and down

appreciatively. 'Nice to have someone young and decorative in the middle of such a decrepit gathering.'

'And this is Rosa Karp/ said Amiss, pretending not to see the furious expression engendered by this remark.

The baroness nodded. 'I know,' she said rather ominously. 'And I know Denzil Smith. As he knows me. We had a reunion last week many years after a dramatic parting.' She smiled seraphically.

Smith grunted and avoided everyone's eyes.

'Beside Den is Geraint Griffiths.'

'You're welcome,' said Griffiths, 'but I should tell you that...'

'Later,' the baroness said. 'Let's get the platitudes over with.'

'And Hugo Hurlingham and Felix Ferriter.'

'Good God, why are you wearing a picture of that old bore?' she demanded of Ferriter. 'Met him once, and of all the self-regarding, pretentious old queens .. . !'

'And Georgie Prothero,' said Amiss hastily. Prothero, who was looking dazed, managed a wan smile, it's very good to speak to you in person. Lady Troutbeck. But where is Lady Wilcox? Weren't you giving her a lift?'

'I did.'

'She's in the ladies, is she?'

'I don't know where she is now. I left her downstairs having first aid.'

'Did you have an accident?'

'No, but she claimed she was having a heart attack because of my driving. It was like giving a lift to a neurotic hen. She kept clucking. Indeed at times she sounded as if she were laying an egg. It's all stuff and nonsense, of course, as Robert will tell you. Nothing wrong with the way I drive.'

is she really ill?' asked a worried Prothero.

'Of course she's not ill. She's just looking for attention.

Wysteria's a creaking gate - she'll outlive the lot of us. You'll see, she'll be along in a minute. Wouldn't want decisions reached without her. I told her to hurry up or we'd start anyway.'

Birkett left the room quietly and shortly afterwards returned with Wysteria. Amiss, who was already having a severe attack of guilt, looked with alarm at the ashen-faced little figure who tottered in on the butler's solicitous arm.

Rosa rushed to her side along with Prothero and Amiss and amid a chorus of 'Are-you-all-rights?' Wysteria fell into a chair and pawed at her chest. 'Of course I'm not all right,' she quavered. 'How could I be all right? That woman is a cold-hearted lunatic. For two hours I've lived a nightmare. A nightmare during which regardless of my desperate pleas, there was no pity, no compassion, no mercy.'

'Nonsense, Wysteria. It's all in your imagination. You're just a nervous Nellie. But you look fine now. There's nothing wrong with you and it's time we got down to business.'

'I'll leave you now, Lady Troutbeck,' said Birkett. 'Mr Prothero can fetch me if you need anything.'

'When's lunch?'

'One o'clock.'

'And you won't forget what I said about the lamb being pink.'

'I don't like pink lamb,' whispered Wysteria.

'Rubbish. It should always be pink.'

'I will make sure that there is a choice, your ladyships.'

'Waste of good meat,' grumbled the baroness. 'But if you must, you must, I suppose. Where's the coffee?'

'It will arrive at eleven unless you would prefer it at another time.'

She nodded. 'Very well. I'll want a double espresso.'

'Certainly, your ladyship.' 'And make sure it's hot.'

'I will ensure that it is extremely hot, your ladyship.'

'Good. You can leave us now, what'syourname.'

'Birkett.'

'Birkett.' She suddenly produced one of her sunniest smiles. 'Thank you, Birkett. I'm very pleased with you so far.'

'Thank you, your ladyship,' said Birkett. 'It's a pleasure to be of service.'

The baroness turned her attention to her colleagues. 'Right, the meeting is now convened.'

'Just a moment, Chair,' said Rosa.

'I will not answer to Chair,' said the baroness. 'Or Chairperson, for that matter. I am Madam Chairman.'

Rosa and Ferriter looked at her, as Amiss put it later, as if she had just announced she intended to slaughter the first-born. 'You can't,' said Rosa. 'I cannot use such an inappropriate term. No one has used it for a decade.'

The baroness beamed. 'I do. And so do my colleagues at St Martha's. However, to show how extremely reasonable I am, we'll have a compromise. You may call me Chairwoman.'

'But it's gender specific and ...' began Rosa.

'Oh, knock it off, Rosa,' said Griffiths. 'She's a woman and she's in the chair and there's no point in ...'

'Thank you, Dr Griffiths,' said the baroness, 'but you will speak through me in future. I believe in observing the formalities. Anyone else got any beefs?' No one else spoke. 'Right, we have fewer than three hours to sort these long-lists out and produce an agreed one. I've compared them, and, on the face of it, it looks as if doing this would tax Solomon. But if it has to be done, it has to be done. Now, first I want you to .. .'

Rosa broke in. 'Chair . . . woman,' she said, with an ill grace. 'First, I want to complain about your grossly offensive remarks in
The Guardian
this morning.'

'What remarks?' asked Griffiths.

'I spoke to some reptile last night,' explained the baroness genially. 'I gather Lady Karp didn't like what I said.'

'How can you possibly justify your attack on our dear Hermione, not to speak of what you said about .. . about...'

The baroness leaned over and grabbed the newspaper. 'I expect she's beefing about the quote, "I've always thought those Gloomsbury wankers self-regarding snobs and creeps who would have disappeared from the public consciousness if it hadn't been for their titillating sex-lives."'

Dervla giggled, Griffiths shouted, 'Well said,' Ferriter and Smith made protesting sounds and Wysteria clutched her chest again.

The baroness looked at Rosa. 'So?'

'So, I would like you to apologise.'

'I suggest you stop being silly. I can assure you that every time I read anything you say I am not only offended; I am intellectually insulted. Here is what I propose. I will say what I like. As a quid pro quo, you can say what you like.' She turned and addressed the committee. 'Any objections?'

Smith opened his mouth and then thought better of it. The baroness turned back to Rosa. 'What was the second issue you wished to raise?'

'I've made the decision-making process much easier, as I've done a full analysis of all the long-lists according to objective criteria. That way, we can eliminate a large number of books at the very beginning, so that what we end up with will be appropriately balanced. Please look at the spreadsheet in front of you.'

'Lady Karp, who asked you to do this?'

'Hermione Babcock.'

'Hermione Babcock has been dead for several days. Do you not think it would have been . . .' she paused, 'appropriate ... to ask me if I concurred?'

Rosa flushed, it didn't occur to me that you wouldn't. This has been so much a part of the consensual decisionmaking process until now that I assumed . ..'

it is unwise to make assumptions where I am concerned, Lady Karp. And one assumption you should certainly not make is that I am driven by the need to achieve consensus. However, I am an open-minded woman, you appear to have done a great deal of work and I am prepared to listen to you explain what it has yielded.'

Rather flustered, Rosa shuffled her papers. 'There are ten long-lists ...'

'Come again?' The baroness looked around the table and ticked names off on her fingers: 'Me, you, Proffessor Ferriter, Miss Dervla, Mr Amiss, Mr Smith, Professor Griffiths, Sir Hugo Hurlingham and Lady Wilcox. I make that nine.'

'But Hermione did a list. You're surely not going to ignore it?'

'Lady Karp, as I have already had occasion to point out, Hermione Babcock is dead and I have replaced her. I shall bear her list in mind should we become deadlocked at any stage, but that will be at my discretion.'

Rosa looked close to tears. 'But my list is based on the ten.'

The baroness's patience snapped. 'Oh, for heaven's sake get on with giving us your general conclusions. We haven't got all day.'

Rosa began to gabble. 'The ten lists have come up with on average twenty-seven titles, making a total of two hundred and seventy, but many of these are common to several lists, so there are just one hundred and thirty-four novels that need to be reduced to an agreed short-list of twenty-five. To help us decide which ones to drop, I've analysed them by author and by content according to various categories, awarding scores for certain elements; my proposal is that no book scoring less than five points should be on the long-list.'

'Fewer than five points. Lady Karp. I assume grammar isn't one of your criteria.'

Amiss clenched his teeth like an embarrassed parent. Dervla, he observed, was gazing at the baroness awestruck.

Rosa ploughed on. 'First, obviously, I have a breakdown for each writer by such categories as gender, age, ethnicity, origin, physical ableness and sexual orientation - but there are subsections within some of these, obviously. And then I grade the progressiveness of the content into which obviously gender, ethnicity and so on are replicated, but there are also considerations such as inclusiveness, anti-racism, attitudes to the European Union, social responsibility, the progressiveness of the ideas expressed and so on.'

'Let me take a shot at this. Lady Karp. Let us suppose we have two authors, one of whom is female, seventy, Asian, lesbian and suffers from Aids and the other is a middle-aged, fit, heterosexual, male, white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant from Tunbridge Wells. How many points would each get?'

Rosa had been taking notes. 'She would get six and he would get none.'

'Where does the sixth point come from?'

'One for a disability, but an extra one because it is a disability which attracts discrimination.'

'I see. So the man's only chance of catching up is if she has written about a middle-aged, fit, heterosexual male WASP living in Tunbridge Wells and he has written about a female, Asian, lesbian, seventy-year-old suffering from Aids?'

Rosa shook her head vigorously. 'Oh, no. We don't

accept that oppressors can validly write about the oppressed.'

Ferriter nodded equally vigorously and Griffiths and Smith squawked competing noises of disagreement.

'Hold on, gentlemen. Just let me get to the bottom of this. So how many points does our male author have now?'

'He still doesn't have any, since whites lack the ability to understand the plight of the colonised and those afflicted by racism any more than the abled understand the physically challenged or the straights understand people with other sexual orientations or the young understand the old.'

'Goodness me,' said the baroness. 'Poor chap. He doesn't stand much of a chance. How would it be if she's an anti-Semite and he's a Jew?'

it depends on if he's a Zionist or not. If he is, he's automatically disqualified. And she would lose no points for being anti-Zionist.'

'What about if she's like me, a reactionary and a Europhobe and our Tunbridge Wells scribbler is a Europhile and what you call a progressive?'

in that unlikely event,' said Rosa rather stiffly, 'he would get a point. Maybe two, however ...'

Griffiths was waving his arms wildly.

The baroness gazed at him benignly, it's all right, Dr Griffiths. Don't get worked up over this. I'm in charge and all will be well. Now, Lady Karp, can you enlighten us as to what all this has to do with literature?'

it has to do with the relevance of literature to life. To social responsibility.'

it's a matter of civilising cultural conversation,' added Ferriter. 'I'm with Rosa.'

'And so am I,' said Den Smith. 'Mostly.'

'No surprises there,' said the baroness gaily. 'I, however, regard everything Lady Karp has said as balls. I've gone through this charade because I'm accommodating, but here's an end to it.' She picked up the spreadsheets in front of her and tore them up. 'Now, let me make it clear how the judging is to be conducted henceforward. I have decided on the criteria and there's only one: literary excellence. If you don't accept that, Mr Prothero here can issue a statement that I'm resigning.' Observing the pleased look on several faces, she added, 'I should add that I've talked to Ron Knapper about this and he said if I resign he's scrapping the prize.' She smiled broadly. 'Everyone happy to go ahead on my terms? Yes? Good. Georgie, tell the excellent Birkett to hurry the coffee along.'

Her eyes flickered up and down the table, looking in the eyes of each committee member. 'Right, now we get started on the sensible part of this. Which means everyone volunteering in the first round to sacrifice their least favourite five. And I want no histrionics. Try to behave like grown-ups.'

13

it was grim and hilarious by turns,' said Amiss over dinner to Pooley. 'For reasons best known to herself, Jack had set out to alienate most of the judges, which added further rancour to the inevitable arguments. Naturally, the books half the judges wanted to get rid of were the ones the other half liked most and vice versa. Not, you understand, that there is anything as simple going on as two blocs. Rosa and Ferriter are usually agreed ...' He paused. 'Oh, yes, there was an enjoyable moment when we were considering the gay logger and Jack referred to Rosa's and Ferriter's choices as being of a particular bent, Ferriter said that proved she was homophobic and Jack said, "That, Professor Ferriter, is a fallacy, spelt 'p h a 1 1 a c y'."'