Алан Джадд - The Devil's Own Work

I assumed that Tyrrel's death meant that Edward's interview would be given sensational treatment — the Old Man's last words, his confrontation with his critic, his valedictory on literature and so on. Had he recorded it? I asked Edward.

He was staring out of the window at two girls in white who were talking by the steps that led up to the old town wall. 'No, I didn't,' he said absently. 'I could've but I changed my mind. I didn't think he'd like it. It was more a conversation than an interview. More an exchange.'

'But he'd invited you to do it. He must have expected you to write about him.'

'I think the interview was a pretext.'

'For what?'

He continued to stare at the girls by the steps and I thought he wasn't going to answer. 'He wanted to talk.'

'But it's such a good opportunity for you, after all you said about him. You'd get international coverage. You'd be made.'

He shook his head.

I did not mention my escapade in the garden. At half-past eleven in the morning of a bright breezy day, over coffee and with my bag of vegetables on the seat beside me, it seemed as unreal and silly as it had to Chantal at the time. There was more, much more, that Edward did not tell me then. He called it a postscript but he had always had a taste for understatement. What he said years later, when events had again moved him to a rare loquacity, was that as Tyrrel talked that night he had found it increasingly difficult to know what the Old Man was talking about. Nothing was demanded of Edward other than the semblance of mute attention and he found himself thinking that Tyrrel's talk was like so many of his books, a beguiling dance around nothing. At the same time he was reminded of what he himself had said about the last book, about the starkness of the theme showing through the skin. In this case, the theme was Tyrrel, a relentless, raging egotism, an invincible vanity that meant that every idea, every subject, every word came reeking with the stench of self. Those were Edward's words. Tyrrel talked about nothing for itself, nothing had significance except as it pertained to him. Edward let himself be carried along. It didn't seem to matter that he didn't attend since everything led back to Tyrrel. It was not an unpleasant process, rather the reverse. He had only to pay no heed to what words meant to feel that he was being borne along by a swift smooth current. At one point he did wonder if it was the whisky; it could have been that as well, of course.

The other sensation that came upon him was that they were approaching a climax. He sensed from Tyrrel's manner and appearance that something was coming. The Old Man's eyes were brighter, his clipped speech was quicker and he seemed, for a while, younger.

Eventually, he said to Edward: 'All my books have been taken from one text, you know, from one great manuscript that contains them.'

'You mean you'd written them before?'

'No, but they pre-exist.'

'A writer's notebook?'

The glitter in the Old Man's eyes was subdued. 'Not a notebook but a text, a blueprint, a Sort of literary genetic code.'

'You wrote all this years ago and you've been drawing on it ever since?'

'It is very old. I have never told anyone else about it.'

'It's nothing to be ashamed of.'

'Would you like to see it?'

'Well — yes.' Edward felt uneasy, as if there was something sinister in progress. Yet when he looked at the frail, stooping old man he felt ashamed of himself.

'It doesn't hurt,' said Tyrrel, perhaps sensing Edward's reactions, 'so long as you go along with it.'

He got slowly to his feet and shuffled over to his desk drawer. At that moment he no longer looked younger but seemed every day of his eighty-five years. He put one trembling hand on the desk to support himself while with the other he tried to pull open the drawer. Edward offered to help.

'No!' Tyrrel's voice was startlingly gruff, filling the room. He opened the drawer an inch at a time. Then, moving as in slow motion, he reached in with both hands and withdrew the manuscript. It was not as bulky as Edward had thought and it was bound in yellowing string. The edges were tattered and the paper looked old and unusually thick. If what Tyrrel had said was true, he had taken over twenty books from it. It did not look big enough.

Tyrrel held the manuscript close to his chest, breathing heavily.

'Come here,' he said. His voice was again gruff and though he faced Edward across the desk he did not look up.

Edward approached. There were drops — tears or sweat — on Tyrrel's cheeks. When Tyrrel did look up he was paler than before and his watery eyes were blank as if unfocused, or focused inwardly. He held out the manuscript.

'Take it,' he whispered. His big hands shook and Edward was sure now that it was sweat running down his cheeks. He prodded Edward with the manuscript. 'You must take it.'

Edward did not move. He was disconcerted and unaccountably weary. A heaviness of spirit seemed to have dropped upon him and he either imagined or actually said, 'I want to go home.' He thought he heard the words but they were as if from outside himself.

The Old Man's skin was almost grey now and his wet cheeks quivered. He continued to stare at Edward but Edward had the impression that he was actually seeing something else. Edward was too concerned with himself to ask whether Tyrrel felt ill. The deadening sluggishness that had fallen upon him had reached his limbs. It was as if his very blood were heavy. At the same time he felt the point of a sharp, fierce eagerness, an urge to go on whatever the consequences. He did nothing.

Tyrrel spoke again. The words sounded like, 'It is for you,' or, 'It is meant for you.' Edward couldn't be sure because the voice was less than a whisper. They were the last words Tyrrel spoke.

Edward took hold of the manuscript. For a moment Tyrrel did not let go. His knobbled hands held strongly despite their trembling and he stared into Edward's eyes with the same bleak unfocused intensity. It was as if Edward were receiving some sort of sacrament. Then Tyrrel's grip weakened and he began to sway backwards. His still-living eyes were filled with horror. They filled as from behind like sea in a ship's porthole, complete and blank. 'Horror' was an inadequate word, Edward said, but there was no other; it was simply that. At the time he thought it was because Tyrrel was reading his mind since even as the Old Man fell, Edward's thought was that the manuscript was now his and that he could plagiarize it without anyone knowing. I do not know whether that was an unusual reaction, but I suspect many writers would have had it even if they did not act upon it. He also thought that that was why Tyrrel's hands gripped the manuscript with such tenacity, relinquishing it only in his last moment.

He was a big man and fell loudly, knocking over the chair and banging his head upon the wall. Sprawled on his back, he looked even bigger than when upright. One shoulder was against the wall and his head hung twisted on the other like a chicken's when its neck is broken. Years later Edward still remarked on the size of Tyrrel's upturned feet. They must have been at least twelves, he thought. He stared at the body for some time, holding the manuscript close to his chest, as Tyrrel had. He felt no pity, and it occurred to him neither to seek help nor to confirm that Tyrrel was past it. Instead, he felt a deep and secret exhilaration. It was as if he were suddenly free after years of servitude.

'So you left without seeing the woman?' I remember asking him.

'She was at the other end of the house.'

Before leaving Tyrrel's study he closed the drawer. He did not want the rest of the world to know about the manuscript and he preferred people to assume that Tyrrel had died after he left. So they did; he was able to satisfy the police that he had not been there at the time of death and the autopsy confirmed that Tyrrel had died of natural causes. Edward left the room with only the manuscript and the memory of the horror in Tyrrel's dying eyes. He felt, he told me later, as if the stare were still upon him.