Алан Джадд: The Devil's Own Work

His leaving the manuscript with me that night in Antibes was one of his many attempts to separate it from Eudoxie. He was convinced that it would have nothing like such a hold over him without her presence, but she found him out. Their world trip was one long attempt to escape; he hoped he would give her the slip, that she would light upon someone else and leave him, that in the wanderings he described in his last books he would meet his death.

While still speaking he got up and shuffled into the other room to get more whisky. I was not drunk but I felt I didn't want any more. I was hungry, the boathouse was cold, the floorboards creaked and the rain drummed heavily on the roof. The old kitchen range looked dead beyond recall. My feet were still wet from the grass. When Edward returned with another bottle he brought with him the manuscript and a bright red alarm clock that ticked busily. He put them carefully on the table.

'I am expecting a visitor.'

'Do you want me to go?'

'Not yet.'

He saw me eyeing the manuscript and smiled. His smile seemed unreal after all this time, a relic of the old Edward. 'Don't worry, it's not for you. My only hope is to give it away to another writer. It will not leave me otherwise. It has to have someone it can latch on to, you see. I have found one as I was found, as Tyrrel was found before me. But this one will have a chance because I've separated it from her. The new owner might be able to master it rather than the other way round. That's why she must never know where it has gone.'

'How did you get away from her?'

'I jumped off a train.'

He was still smiling but his expression was sinister. I experienced one of those momentary disorientations, those mental seismic shifts that make you feel there has been some fundamental change yet leave everything looking the same. It may, of course, have been the whisky or an early sign of the heart condition I now have but I felt again that I was in a dream from which I was powerless to awake. Remotely, it struck me that perhaps this was how most of Edward's life had seemed to him. I saw his bloodshot face across the table and was suddenly unsure whether this was his great attempt to awaken or whether he was seeking to freeze me into his dream perpetually. As if in slow motion or moving under water, he opened the manuscript and held it before me, turning from page to page. Again I saw that neat, spiky malignancy, the gibberish that was so instantly, sickeningly, nonsensically familiar. I heard the scratching now, not only louder than before but as if from a multitude of pens, generations of nibs, a calligraphic cacophony.

I made myself look away. 'Burn it,' I said, pointing at the stove. 'Put it in there.'

He closed it carefully. 'I will not be the one to do that.' He still grinned but it was as if his lips were drawn back involuntarily. 'I must pass it on before she finds me and then I must hide, or she will tear me to pieces.'

'How? She can't. Don't let her near you.' I was convinced of the real world again. We were in a boathouse, it was raining, the paraffin lamp hissed and smelt. 'Chuck it in the river and come with me.'

'I can't.'

'Let me. I'll do it.'

He clutched it into his duffel coat and sat, hunched and rocking as if with a baby. He would not meet my eye or look at my outstretched hand.

Edward's visitor was expected at nine. I left at twenty-to. My last sight of Edward was of his standing at the top of the boathouse steps, the manuscript tightly in both arms, the flickering paraffin light behind him. I was to call again before getting my train in the morning.

I slipped a couple of times in the long grass and it was so dark that I had to grope along the rough stone wall for the gate. Once in the lane I walked as fast as I dared towards the town, several times stepping into deep puddles. The only sound was the rain, steady and drenching. I had not quite reached the bend after which you can see the lights of the bridge and its pub, the Mother Shipton, when a figure passed me in the dark. At first I was aware of it only as a patch of denser dark against the rocks and trees but then I sensed the movement and we may — though this could have been my imagination — have brushed shoulders. We had passed each other before I was really sure it had happened. I turned but saw nothing. All I can say is that it was short and moved quickly. It could have been a woman.

I got that job and since then have lived a silent, sedentary, solitary, private life in Knaresborough; not at all a discontented one. Occasionally I visit Chantal in Antibes. She lives, as people often can, as if much of her life had never happened. I cannot do that, can never let it go, must forever be raking it over.

The inquest verdict on Edward was that he had fallen in the river while drunk; the condition of the corpse was attributed to the battering it received during its time in the rock-strewn Nidd, which was in spate. The manuscript was never found. I know that because I helped the police go through his things.

As is well known, Edward's reputation collapsed from the day of his death. Like Tyrrel's, once seen to be a bubble, it burst. Despite what he did to me and Chantal, a great sadness informs my memory of him and I have written this in order that people be not too harsh. He was one of the lost, and I hope is so no longer.

For the rest, I can only say what I saw, heard and was told. I offer no explanations but I have no doubt that somewhere Eudoxie thrives. Three times since my retirement I have been convinced I saw her in the street and have followed, only to be presented with a different face at the end.

And so now, with time on my hands, I spend most of my days in the public library where I am an assiduous reader of contemporary literature. I seek out those rendered invisible by their own dazzle, the stars that burn brightest when dying within; and I pay particular attention to their spouses and lovers. I know the signs, I know what I am looking for.