David Lodge - Small World (47 page)

“It was Ronald Frobisher who set it adrift, as a matter of fact,” said Persse.

“Was it? I’ll tackle him about that this evening.”

“Is Ronald Frobisher here—at the MLA?” exclaimed Persse. “Everybody is at the MLA,” said Morris Zapp. “Everybody you ever knew.” He was now watching a film about boxing.

“Everybody except Howard,” said Thelma, with her head inside the wardrobe. “Howard is stuck in Illinois because he’s been barred for life by the airlines for soliciting sex in flight from a hostess.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Persse.

“It doesn’t bother me,” said Thelma with a chuckle. “I left that fink back in September, the best thing I ever did.” She shook out a black cocktail dress and held it up in front of herself, standing before a full-length mirror. “Shall I wear this tonight, honey?”

“Sure,” said Morris, without taking his eyes off the TV. “It looks great.”

“Shall I go to the bathroom to put it on, or is this young man going to do the decent thing and wait in the hall?”

“Percy, go take that shower while Thelma is dressing,” said Morris. “Borrow my electric razor if you need a shave. And by the way, in case your Irish Catholic conscience is shocked by the set-up here, I should tell you that Thelma and I are thinking of getting married.”

“Congratulations,” said Persse.

“Our romance started in Jerusalem,” Thelma confided, smiling fondly at Morris. “Howard never even noticed. He was too busy plotting to have sex with me in one of those cable cars at Masada.”

When Persse had showered and shaved, the three of them took an express elevator to the highest public floor in the hotel, and then a man with a key admitted them to a small private lift that took them up to the penthouse suite. This was a huge, magical, split-level, glassed-in space which afforded breathtaking views of Manhattan at night. It was already crowded and loud with chatter, but the mood of the company was relaxed and euphoric. It helped that the only drink available was champagne. Arthur Kingfisher had donated a dozen cases. “He must have something really important to celebrate,” commented Ronald Frobisher, who had commandeered one of the cases. He filled Persse’s glass and introduced him to a lean, shrewd-eyed, red-haired woman in a green trouser-suit. “Desiree Byrd, Section 409, ‘New Directions in Women’s Writing,’ ” he said. “I’m Section 351, ‘Tradition and Innovation in Postwar British Fiction’. Strictly speaking I’m just the Tradition bit. We were talking about that extraordinary spell of fine weather this afternoon.”

“I’m afraid I missed it,” said Persse, “I was indoors the whole afternoon.”

“It was amazing,” said Desiree Byrd. “I was in my agent’s apartment talking about my new book. I was really depressed about it—I mean, it’s virtually finished, but I’d completely lost faith in it. I was saying to Alice, ‘Alice, I’ve decided I’m not a real writer after all.
Difficult Days
was a fluke, this new book is just a mess,’ and she was saying, ‘No, no, you mustn’t say that,’ and I said, ‘Just let me read you some bits and you’ll see what I mean,’ and she said ‘OK, but I’m going to open the window for a minute, it’s so hot in here.’ So she opens the window—imagine opening a window in Manhattan in the middle of winter, I thought she must be crazy—and suddenly this extraordinarily sweet warm air comes drifting into the room, and I started to read at random from my manuscript. ‘Well,’ I said after a page or two, `that isn’t too bad, actually.’ `It’s tremendous,’ said Alice. I said, ‘It’s not typical, though. Listen to this.’ And I read out some more. When I finished, Alice said, ‘Fantastic,’ and I said, ‘Well, perhaps it’s not all that bad.’ And, you know—it wasn’t. It really wasn’t. Well, you can guess what happened. The more I looked for lousy passages, the more enthusiastic Alice became, and the more I came to believe that Men is perhaps quite a good book after all.”

“Marvellous,” said Ronald Frobisher. “I had a similar experience. I was sitting in Washington Square at the same time, thinking about Henry James and basking in this extraordinary sunshine, when suddenly the first sentence of a novel came into my head.”

“Which novel?” said Desiree.

“My next novel,” said Ronald Frobisher. “I’m going to write a new novel.”

“What’s it going to be about?”

“I don’t know yet, but I feel somehow that I’ve got my style back. I can sense it in the rhythm of that sentence.”

“By the way,” said Persse, “I met your Japanese translator last summer.”

“Akira Sakazaki? He just sent me his translation of
Could Try Harder
—it looks like a bride’s prayerbook. Bound in white, with a mauve silk marker.” He refilled Persse’s glass.

“I’d better get some grub inside me before I drink any more of this,” said Persse. “Excuse me.”

He was helping himself to the splendid buffet supper spread out along one wall when a long arm, encased in a charcoal-grey worsted sleeve, very greasy around the wrist, reached over his shoulder and twitched the last remaining slice of smoked salmon away from the platter under his nose. Persse turned round indignantly to find Felix Skinner’s yellow fangs grinning at him. “Sorry, old man, but I’ve a fatal weakness for this stuff.” He dropped the slice of smoked salmon on to a plate already heaped with assorted foods. “What are you doing at the MLA?”

“I might ask you the same question,” said Persse coolly.

“Oh, scouting for talent, testing the market, you know. Did you get my letter, by the way?”

“No,” said Persse.

Felix Skinner sighed. “That’s Gloria, she’ll have to go… Well, we got a second opinion on your proposal, and we’ve decided to commission the book after all.”

“That’s marvellous!” exclaimed Persse. “Will there be an advance?”

“Oh, yes,” said Felix Skinner. “Well, a small one,” he added cautiously.

“Could I have it now?” said Persse.

“Now? Here?” Felix Skinner looked taken aback. “It’s not normal practice. We haven’t even signed a contract.”

“I need two hundred dollars to get back to London,” said Persse.

“I suppose I could give you that on account,” said Felix Skinner grudgingly. “I happened to go to the bank this afternoon.” He took two $100 bills from his wallet and passed them to Persse.

“Thanks a million,” said Persse. “Your good health.” He drained his glass, which was refilled in an absent-minded fashion by a shortish dark-haired man standing nearby with a bottle of champagne in his hand, talking to a tallish dark-haired man smoking a pipe. “If I can have Eastern Europe,” the tallish man was saying in an English accent, “you can have the rest of the world.”

“All right,” said the shortish man, “but I daresay people will still get us mixed up.”

“Are they publishers too?” Persse whispered.

“No, novelists,” said Felix Skinner. “Ah, Rudyard!” he cried, turning to greet a new arrival. “So you got here at last. You know young McGarrigle, I think. You were sadly missed at the forum this afternoon. What happened?”

“A disgraceful incident,” said Rudyard Parkinson, puffing out his muttonchop whiskers so that he resembled an angry baboon. “I was just going through passport control at Heathrow—I was already late because I’d had a row with some impertinent chit at the checkin desk—when I was whisked off into a room by two thugs and subjected to a humiliating body-search and a third-degree grilling. I missed my plane in consequence.”

“Good Lord, whatever did they do that for?” said Felix Skinner.

“They claimed it was mistaken identity. No excuse whatever, of course. Do I look like a smuggler? I made an official complaint. I shall very probably sue.”

“I don’t blame you,” said Felix Skinner. “But was it worth coming so late?”

Parkinson began to mutter something about there being some people whom he wanted to meet, Kingfisher, Textel of UNESCO, and so on. Persse scarcely attended. Into his mind at the mention of “Heathrow” had swum the image of Cheryl Summerbee as he had last seen her, crying over her timetable; and it darted through him with the speed of an arrow, that Cheryl loved him. Only his infatuation with Angelica had prevented him from perceiving it earlier. As the consciousness of this fact sank in, Cheryl became endowed, to his mind’s eye, with an aura of infinite desirability. He must go to her at once. He would take her in his arms, and wipe away her tears, and whisper in her ear that he loved her too. He turned away from Skinner and Parkinson, spilling some of his champagne in the process, only to confront Angelica and Lily, each hanging on to an arm of the dark young man in the Donegal tweed jacket who had chaired the forum on Romance. He identified Lily by her red silk dress. Angelica was still wearing her tailored jacket and white blouse. “Hallo, Persse,” she said. “I’d like you to meet my fiancé.”

“Glad to meet you,” said the young man, smiling, “Peter McGarrigle.”

“No, it’s Persse McGarrigle,” he said. “You’re Peter something.”

“McGarrigle,” the young man laughed. “I’ve the same name as you. We’re probably related somehow.”

“Were you ever at Trinity?” said Persse.

“Indeed I was.”

“I’m afraid I did you out of a job once, then,” said Persse. “When they appointed me at Limerick, they thought they were appointing you. It’s been on my conscience ever since.”

“It was the best day’s work anyone ever did for me,” said Peter. “I came to the States in consequence, and I’ve done very well here.” He smiled fondly at Angelica, and she squeezed his arm.

“No hard feelings, Persse?” she said.

“No hard feelings.”

“I heard you were at my paper this afternoon. What did you think of it?” She looked at him anxiously, as though his opinion really mattered.

He was saved from having to reply by the sound of someone rapping on a table nearby. The party hubbub subsided. A man in a sleek pale grey suit was making a speech from halfway up the flight of stairs that connected the two levels of the penthouse suite. “Who is it?” Felix Skinner could be heard enquiring. “Jacques Textel,” Rudyard Parkinson hissed in his ear.

“As most of you know,” Jacques Textel was saying, “UNESCO intends to found a new chair of literary criticism tenable anywhere in the world, and I think it’s no secret that we have been seeking the advice of the doyen of the subject, Arthur Kingfisher, as to how to fill this post. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have news for you. ” Textel paused, teasingly, and Persse looked round the room, picking out the faces, tense and expectant, of Morris “Lapp, Philip Swallow, Michel Tardieu, Fulvia Morgana and Siegfried. ion Turpitz. “Arthur has just told me,” said Jacques Textel, that he is prepared to come out of retirement and allow his own name to go forward for the chair.”

There was a collective gasp from the listeners, and a storm of applause, mingled with some expressions of a cynical and disapproving nature.

“Of course,” said Textel, “I can’t speak for the appointing committee, of which I am merely the chairman. But I should be surprised if there is any serious rival candidate to Arthur.” More applause. Arthur Kingfisher, standing just below Textel, held up his hands. “Thank you, friends,” he said. “I know that some people might say that it is unusual for an assessor to put himself forward for the post on which he is advising; but when I agreed to act I thought I was finished as a creative thinker. Today I feel as if I have been given a new lease of life, which I would like to put at the service of the international scholarly community, through the good offices of UNESCO.

“To those friends and colleagues who may have been thinking that their claims to this chair are as good as mine, I will only say that in three years’ time it will be up for grabs again.” More applause, mingled with laughter, some hollow. “Finally, I would like to share with you a particular personal happiness. Ji-Moon?” Arthur Kingfisher reached out and took the hand of Ji-Moon Lee, gently pulling her up onto the step with himself. “This afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, this beautiful young lady, my companion and secretary for many years, agreed to become my wife.” Cheers, shrieks, whistles, applause. Arthur Kingfisher beams. Ji-Moon Lee smiles shyly. He kisses her. More applause.

But who is this little white-haired old lady who steps primly forward to confront the great literary theorist?

“Congratulations, Arthur,” she says.

He stares, recognizes, starts back. “Sybil!” he exclaims, amazed. “Where have you come from? Where have you been? It must be thirty years…”

“Twenty-seven, Arthur,” she says. “Just the age of your daughters.”

“Daughters—what daughters?” says Arthur Kingfisher, loosening his necktie as if he is choking.

“Those lovely twin girls—there.” She points dramatically to Angelica and Lily, who look at each other in amazement. Pandemonium among the audience. Sybil Maiden raises her voice above the hubbub. “Yes, Arthur, you remember when you took my long-preserved virginity during that summer school at Aspen, Colorado, in the summer of ‘fifty-three? I thought I was too old to conceive children, but it proved otherwise.” Now there is a breathless hush in the room, as all ears are strained to catch every word of this astonishing story. “A few weeks after we had parted, I discovered that I was pregnant—I, a respectable middle-aged spinster, fellow of Girton College, pregnant—and by a married man, for your wife was still alive then. What could I do but try to conceal the truth? Luckily I was starting a year’s sabbatical in America. I was supposed to be working at the Huntington. Instead, I hid myself in t he wilds of New Mexico, gave birth to the twins in the spring of ‘fifty four, sill smuggled them aboard a plane to Europe in a Gladstone bag I travelled first class to get extra cabin baggage allowance, and there were no luggage searches and X-rays in those days—took the hag to the toilet as soon as we were airborne, and claimed to have found the babies there. Naturally, no one suspected that I, a supremely respectable spinster aged forty-six, could have been their mother. For twenty-seven years I have been carrying this guilty secret around with me. In vain have I tried to distract myself with travel. In the end it was through travel that I was brought face to face with my own grown-up children. Girls—can you ever forgive your mother for abandoning you?” She throws a piteous look in the direction of Angelica and Lily, who run to her side, and sweep her on to Arthur Kingfisher. “Mother!”