Алан Джадд - The Devil's Own Work

Chantal and I became engaged shortly before Edward published his fateful review of O. M. Tyrrel's last novel. If no longer at the height of his powers, Oliver Tyrrel was still riding the crest of his reputation. He was, of course, known to admirers and enemies alike as Old Man Tyrrel, or simply as the Old Man, and by his recent rejection of the Booker Prize he had demonstrated that his flair for publicity was undimmed by his eighty-five years. His marriages — which until the age of forty had outnumbered his novels — had become the subjects of books by embittered or greedy former spouses and he featured regularly in the colour supplements. His novels were translated into more than twenty languages and sold hugely. He lived in impenetrable privacy at Villefranche, between Antibes and Monte Carlo, and his domestic arrangements, involving a woman over half a century younger than himself, were often the subject of press interest. Headlines were sometimes made by his forays into politics, usually because of the bizarre or contradictory causes he chose, and it was hard not to suspect that that was why he chose them. He had opposed almost everything at one time or another and had thereby acquired in the eyes of many, including nervous governments, a surprising moral authority, as though his really was a standpoint of untouchable objectivity. Others regarded him as credulous, interfering and posturing.

What no one had publicly questioned, until Edward's review, was Tyrrel's literary reputation. He was the doyen of English letters. For decades he had squatted like a toad upon the summit of literary fashion, not suppressing new movements so much as rising with them, always on top. It was as if they could not be properly established until straddled by Tyrrel and this had gone on for so long that it seemed the natural order of things.

At the time of Edward's review it was not of course known that this book was to be Tyrrel's last, though there were signs that he was nearing the end. It was a tired book, possibly a re-working of old material, a book in which the driving idea was not sufficiently bodied forth in character and action and so showed through like the ribs of an old ship. The Old Man no longer had the energy or imagination to endow it with independent life, yet it remained of interest because in both theme and treatment it was similar to the novels of his youth, before he had become famous. His first book had been a very traditional novel about a man haunted by an act of betrayal committed many years before, and now in his last Tyrrel attempted a modern version of the Faust theme. But it was done too nakedly, and too late, in a way.

Edward's review was really more an article which dealt summarily with the book in question and then transferred its fire to the whole of Tyrrel's oeuvre. He was writing for one of the weeklies and so had more space than usual but even that meant only a dozen paragraphs. It was a masterly piece of succinct and reasoned assessment which read like a summing-up by a judge of indisputable wisdom and impartiality, and it was quite devastating. The essence was that Tyrrel had started his career well but then, in thrall to the idea of himself setting the fashion, he had retreated from reality and from any notion of duty to his art and had succumbed to the illusion that he somehow embodied that art. The consequence was a perpetual straining after novelty and an increasing 'interiority' in his work. It was not his characters who mattered to him but his own reactions and thoughts; he assumed that they mattered equally to everyone else. It was as if nothing was real unless he had written it. This is not, of course, unknown among novelists and is only gradually fatal but Tyrrel, perhaps more perceptive than most, soon realized that his own thoughts were less sustaining and original than he might have liked and so he sought refuge in style. This was disguised self, this emphasis on style at the expense of everything, this insistence not only that matter and manner could be separated but that the one was more important than the other. In his most famous novels, said Edward, Tyrrel was little more than a fox chasing his tail, hoping by his antics to entrance his audience while all the time his books were about less and less. For all his fame, the great body of his work was really no more than a parody of what he might have done, a dance around emptiness.

As often with literary controversies, the effects of criticism were beneficial for all concerned. Discussion of Tyrrel's books further stimulated his sales, the weekly in which the review was published took a step nearer to establishing itself as a serious journal and Edward's name was made. In fact, what he had written was not actually controversial since nearly everyone agreed with it; the door was already ajar but none before him had thought to push it. Once he had, everyone else hurried through. Edward was immediately spoken of as if he were himself an established author, even a literary authority. His one novel was mentioned as if it were well known, which it then became. Yet it was not that he had said what no one before had thought; rather, he had said what they had all thought, if only they had realized it. He had arrived in one bound.

The most surprising consequence was the reaction of the Old Man himself. As famed for his refusal to discuss his books as for the secrecy of his personal relations, he nevertheless wrote asking if Edward would like to visit Villefranche and interview him 'if you are not already weary of writing about me'. Edward showed me the letter when I first took Chantal to his flat to introduce her. We were all three excited: me because I was with her and was introducing her to the man I thought of as my best, if not always my closest, friend; she because she was engaged and was meeting the youthfully famous author; he because of his letter.

He showed it to us with a smile, saying it would be typical of the Old Man only to have sent it when he knew he was dying and would be gone before Edward arrived. I remember noticing the tiny wavering signature which curled so far downwards at the end that the tail almost rejoined the body. I believe Hitler's did the same in his final years, the mark, perhaps, of a mind besieged. But there was something sinister, almost cabbalistic, about this signature which made me stop smiling. It seemed to speak of an intense pressure, a little circle of unending pain, unreachable and inexpressible, utterly private. But the others did not seem perturbed and I looked at it no more.

We all went out for a curry. Chantal and Edward were each at their best and I was happy to see them. I really was very happy and proud. There had been talk of one of Edward's girlfriends — an imprecise and fluctuating group of women, one or two of whom I had briefly met — coming to join us but he said he hadn't got round to ringing any of them. As it was, the three of us formed a sort of bond that evening which lasted many years. We agreed we would all meet in France. Chantal and I were going to Antibes during the school holidays to stay with her family there, whom I had not met. With no pressing from me — I had thought of it but feared rejection, always finding his polite, quiet rejections more demoralizing than anyone else's — Edward volunteered to join us down there and 'beard old Tyrrel', as he put it. Antibes would be a few miles along the coast from Tyrrel's house at Villefranche. We would all get together.

In so far as happiness consists in a state of anticipation, that evening marked the high point of the last happy period of my life. I have known contentment since, and busy productive engagement, but anticipation has become an ever darker matter and the knowledge of what was put in train then has in any case undermined my belief in the possibility of anything unalloyed.