Paul Murray - The Mark and the Void

Paul holds up his hands pacifically, and we address ourselves to the speaker again — but he has quit the lectern, and the bookseller has retrieved the microphone to thank us for coming. I feel a surge of irritation at Paul, especially when he starts to tell me how ‘bourgeois’ and ‘derivative’ Bimal Banerjee’s reading was.

‘You didn’t even hear it! You arrived two minutes from the end!’

‘That was enough, Claude. The guy’s a hack, a total hack.’

Over the happy din, the bookseller announces that the author will be signing copies of his novel, and the crowd immediately redistributes itself into a long, snaking line. ‘You’re not going to — oh, for God’s sake,’ Paul says, rolling his eyes as I join the end. As we shuffle forward, though, he falls silent and his face becomes sombre. This is the life he could have had, or something like it; looking at him sidelong I wonder again if he cares more than he lets on. Has he really just come for a free meal? Or is he hoping that his editor’s interest was not, in fact, a formality, that this could be a doorway back into the world he abandoned?

As we draw close to the top of the line, I see that the editor and the willowy blonde girl have gathered by the low table where Banerjee is signing books.

‘Here comes the Inquisition,’ Paul mutters in my ear. ‘Better act like you enjoyed it.’

‘I did enjoy it,’ I am about to retort — but now, as we step to the top of the line, Paul wrests the book from my hands.

‘Towering reading,’ he says to Banerjee. ‘Truly triumphant.’

‘You made it!’ Robert Dodson exclaims. ‘Bimal, allow me to introduce Paul, an old friend of mine —’

‘Didn’t I see you come in at the end?’ Bimal Banerjee narrows his eyes.

‘No, that wasn’t me,’ Paul says. ‘Could you make this out “To Paul and Claude”?’

‘Ah yes, forgive me,’ the editor says, ushering me into the circle. ‘This is Claude, Paul’s partner.’

I want to protest, but the proximity of the famous author has rendered me speechless. He passes the book back to me, his black eyes glittering over me like an entomologist’s over a bug.

‘Thank you,’ I attempt to say, but it comes out, ‘Pancake.’

The blonde girl is called Ariel. She is Dodson’s editorial assistant — very beautiful, with enormous amethyst eyes, though the red rims suggest she has been crying not so long ago. Paul appears quite taken with her — so does Banerjee, who keeps shooting her glances that oscillate from amorous to hostile.

‘And this, of course, is William O’Hara, our very kind host for tonight,’ Dodson says, as we are joined by the man in tortoiseshell glasses, who is wearing a florid, raffishly under-buttoned shirt that gives him the look of an ageing dandy.

‘Oh, what a great pleasure.’ Paul clasps O’Hara’s hand. ‘I adore your work.’

‘I feel like I know your face,’ O’Hara says, wagging a finger at him. ‘Didn’t you … didn’t you write a book once?’

‘A youthful folly,’ Paul says modestly, though it is clear he is pleased.

‘The best kind,’ William O’Hara says.

‘How many did we sell?’ Bimal Banerjee asks Dodson. The editor goes to consult with the bookseller, then comes back with the figure. Bimal Banerjee receives it expressionlessly. ‘Cretins,’ he says, though whether he is referring to those who bought the book, those who didn’t, or indeed to us, is not immediately plain.

From the doorway I see Ariadne waving to me. There is no sign of the gaucho; affixing what I intend as an avuncular smile, I go over.

‘Look at you, talking to the famous writer,’ she says. ‘He is a friend of yours?’

‘No, no,’ I say. ‘I’m just, ah, going to dinner with him.’

‘Ha,’ she says, eyeing me speculatively.

‘Did you enjoy the reading?’ I say, adding casually, in the hope that it will sound like a natural extension of the original question, and not make her wonder, for example, how I know his name, ‘You are here with Oscar?’

She laughs. ‘No, this is not Oscar’s kind of thing at all . He will be bored after five minutes.’ I permit myself a tiny dose of Schadenfreude at this sliver of incompatibility, and adjust my position so that the signed Banerjee is on view.

‘So how are you? Your father?’

‘He is much better, thank you. But I have been thinking about you these days.’

‘Oh?’ I confine myself to an arch of an eyebrow, although she might as well have set off an atomic bomb inside my head.

‘Yes, I want to ask you about something. Last week the landlord has called and said he is going to put up the rent of the Ark. Not just put it up, he’s going to double it. The manager has told him, no one’s spending money right now, our take is down 30 per cent, there’s no way we can pay this much extra. But he just says, first of October, rent goes up. So now we have to …’

She looks so sad; as she goes on I find myself lost in a fantasy in which I stride into the Ark with a holdall full of money, which I pour on to the counter to tears of gratitude from Ariadne, while in the sky outside Oscar’s Médecins Sans Frontières helicopter explodes in a fireball and drops in hissing shrapnel into the river –

‘… think we should do?’ she says. The iridescent eyes wait on mine expectantly. I jolt from my reverie. What did she ask exactly?

‘Ah, um,’ I begin. ‘Well, that depends …’

‘Darling?’ I am being tapped on the shoulder; I turn to find Paul there, with Robert Dodson beside him. ‘We’re leaving for William’s now.’

‘Oh — I see …’ I suppose I should be thankful to him for getting me off the hook.

‘Come along, dear, we’ll be late,’ he says.

Ariadne is looking from me to Paul and back again with evident confusion. I raise my eyebrows at her in a way that is intended to connote that I am not actually this man’s homosexual lover, I am merely pretending in the hope that this will help reunite him with his editor. But this just makes her more confused. I tell her I will come into the Ark next week and talk to her more about it, then hurry after the others.

William O’Hara’s house is close by, so we set off on foot. The evening is mild, and the rain has thinned to a fine drizzle, although Bimal Banerjee walks with his shoulders hunched and the lapels of his jacket clutched to his throat, as if it bore him some mortal intent.

‘Hey! Claude!’ Paul pulls me back into a doorway. ‘We need to get this partner thing straight,’ he says.

‘I agree,’ I say, still annoyed with him for embarrassing me in front of Ariadne. ‘The fiasco has gone on long enough. Do you want to tell them? Or will I?’

‘Tell them what?’

‘Well — the truth. Isn’t that what you mean?’

‘The truth? That I’m a washed-up loser with nothing to show for the last seven years but a mortgage in arrears and a wife who hates my guts? Why would I want to tell them that?’

‘Because it is true?’

‘Jesus, what is it with you and truth? Can you stop banging that drum for five seconds and just think? Think about the opportunity I have here.’ The word arrests me: I lock my eyes on his, and he gazes back at me desperately, before continuing, in a quieter voice, ‘These are really influential people, Claude. This could really help me. I promise, down the line, I’ll explain everything. But for now …’

‘All right, all right,’ I say, secretly thrilled. ‘Although only on the condition you don’t talk about our “relationship” unless it’s totally necessary. I am not so good at lying as you.’

‘Fantastic. I really appreciate it.’ He coughs awkwardly. ‘There’s just one more small thing.’