Philip Kerr - Research

‘I was only going to say that money gave John an enormous amount of freedom. He was free to behave like a fool. Free to marry, several times. Free to have many homes, and fast cars, and even faster mistresses. He was free to be his own boss, to say yes, to say no — free to be and to do whatever he liked. And yet, in the end he wasn’t free at all. I think it was the fifteen-book contract with VVL that did it. One morning John woke up with the idea that he was a prisoner not just of that but everything else too. It was the responsibility of his position as an employer and the sense that so much was riding on him that began to weigh on him.’

‘ Noblesse oblige ,’ said Amalric.

‘Perhaps. At least that’s what he told me. As a matter of fact I think it was me he told before anyone else.’

‘Told you when? How?’

‘We were on the autoroute, driving to Paris from Monaco early one morning about three months ago in an Aston Martin Vantage, ostensibly to discuss a book I was writing for him called Dead Red . But he’d been quiet and I could sense that something was bothering him, not least because he was driving below the speed limit. I thought it might have something to do with what I’d written and asked him about that, but he said it wasn’t, and finally he told me what was on his mind:

‘It seems only fitting that you should be the first to know, old sport.’

‘First to know what, John? Are you ill?’

‘No, but thanks for asking, Don. You were always the one who I could talk to like a friend. It’s just that I’ve had enough of all this — I’ve had enough of producing six books a year. I’ve had enough of overseeing websites, supervising blogs about my wonderful life and my books, employing all these fucking people, the marketing meetings in London and New York with VVL. I’ve had enough of agents, fucking agents. Did you know that Hereward drives a fucking Rolls-Royce? The other day I read an interview with him in The Times , and there he was pictured sitting astride the bonnet like he was Tom fucking Jones. The self-importance of the man staggered me; he talked like everything he’d achieved was by his own hard work; and like somehow I owe everything to him. He went on and on about his legendary New Year’s Eve parties at his legendary Windsor house with his smart lefty fucking friends. I thought, “What a cunt”, and “That cunt is your agent”; and then I thought, “Let’s see what happens to your legendary Windsor house and your smart Rolls-Royce and your legendary party when I’m not around to generate the ten per cent that pays for it, you cunt.” Did you know he didn’t invite me to his last party?’

‘He probably thought that living in Monaco, you wouldn’t come.’

‘Bollocks. It’s because he and his lefty friends all read the Guardian and the book world still regards me as a kind of literary pariah. That’s why he didn’t invite me. I vote Conservative. I don’t pay UK taxes. I’m his guilty little secret.’

‘Perhaps the invitation got lost in the Christmas post. I’m sure he didn’t mean to upset you.’ I shrugged. ‘But he didn’t invite me either, if that’s any consolation.’

‘So, I’ve had enough of all that,’ said John, ignoring me. ‘And I’ve certainly had enough of living in Monaco. It’s a dump. A housing estate for billionaires. A traffic jam. I’ve had enough of the travel. The tax-exile thing. The IRS and the Inland Revenue. The meetings with financial advisers. The accountants. The lawyers. The hedgies selling their funds. The boats. The plane. The cars. Do you know I rent a garage in Monaco with my own personal mechanic just to look after all the cars? It’s ridiculous. Who needs all these fucking cars, anyway? I mean some of them are just more trouble than they are worth. The Ferraris especially. The other day I spent a thousand euros just to have the wheels aligned on the F12. A thousand euros. I told them — I’m not Fernando Alonso, you thieving bastards. And as for the houses. Jesus, the fucking houses with their caretakers and gardiens . Whenever we go to our house in Courchevel we spend a whole morning listening to the gardien ’s problems: the roof has a leak, his child was sick, the gardener is unreliable, the sauna still isn’t fixed; could I have a cheque for this, and one for that? It’s the same everywhere else. Bastards moaning that you don’t pay them enough or stealing from you when you do. I think I know how God feels on a Sunday. All of these fucking people complaining about this and that must drive him mad; no wonder he sent a flood to destroy the world and drown everyone. I’d have done the same, just to get some peace and quiet. Several times over, probably. No, I’ve had enough of it, old sport.

‘Lately it’s all begun to weigh on me rather. When I was taken ill a few years ago, remember? And I was only able to produce three books in one year instead of five? I never told you this, but VVL’s share price actually fell by five per cent when that happened and so VVL’s publishing director — Bat Anderton — had to go to Wall Street to explain why VVL’s profits were going to be down on the previous year. And while he was there I had to do a conference call from my sickbed to reassure a load of wankers I’d never seen that my output would soon be back to normal. Then there’s the fact that VVL have employed a whole department of copy-editors and publicity people to look after my output.’

‘They are trying to keep you happy, that’s all.’

‘Oh, I understand why they’re doing it, old sport. I get it, all right. But it’s started to annoy me that I am personally responsible not just for the shares in some tosspot institutional investor’s pension fund but also the livelihoods of as many as forty people. And for what? So that my wife can blow it on fucking handbags and hats. Orla’s got more hats than Ascot races.’

‘Handbags and hats don’t sound so bad, John, in the scheme of things. It could be cocaine. Or American miniature horses, like your last missus.’

‘True. True. And as for my kids. They’re useless, one and all. Stephen has given up his legal studies at Bristol and decided he wants to go to film school, in L.A. While Heddy wants to open a shop in Chelsea selling her ghastly fucking jewellery. You know, the rough diamond stuff she designs herself that was inspired by her gap year in Thailand?’

I smiled; Heddy Houston’s jewellery designs — ‘every bracelet tells a story’ — were beloved of magazine editors and fashion mavens everywhere, but to me they looked childlike and naïve, and I guessed that like me John was a man who liked a diamond ring to look like a diamond ring and not a half-eaten boiled sweet.

But my smile lasted only as long as it took for it to dawn on me that I was probably out of work.

‘Let me get this straight,’ I said. ‘You’re saying that you want to wind the whole thing up. The atelier — everything?’

‘That’s right, old sport. The whole shooting match. Everything. I’ve bought a house in Chelsea — in St Leonard’s Terrace. As soon as the builders have finished with it I’m going to sell the penthouse in Monaco and move back to London. And to hell with the income tax. I want to go to the Garrick Club on a Friday, walk down the King’s Road on a Saturday, and see Chelsea play football on a Sunday. I want to watch the BBC and ITV and eat fish and chips in the Ivy and have Christmas with all the trimmings. And I’m going to spend the rest of the week writing a book — I mean not just the plot, but the whole thing, the way I did when I first started writing. I’ve got an idea that I might have one good book in me — the sort of book that might last a bit longer than the glue on the spine, if you know what I mean. I think perhaps that if I go back to basics, so to speak, I might even win one of those smaller awards — a dagger, or an Edgar. Maybe something better. Fuck knows.’