Paul Murray - The Mark and the Void

‘It is only when it has ceased to beat that the world will realize literature was its heart,’ Banerjee says. ‘But that is no longer my concern.’

This revelation has clearly stymied O’Hara, who’s turned a dangerous-looking shade of pink; the Indian places a hand on his knee, and says, ‘Don’t worry — for those who are willing to sell themselves, there is still plenty of money to be made.’

At this the older man’s face goes from pink to brick-red — but how he responds we do not find out, because now, from behind us, there comes a long, strangulated cry. Igor has returned from the van; he is crouched over the painting, gazing at it in horror. Following his eye down, we see, newly emblazoned in large green letters across the black canvas, REMINGTON.

‘It wasn’t me,’ Remington pipes up pre-emptively.

Paul emits a cry of his own. ‘Oh God, Remington …’

‘I spelled it right,’ Remington points out.

Igor kneels over the desecrated painting in a convulsion of rage and grief, like King Lear over Cordelia. ‘No,’ he whispers, dabbing at the green letters without effect. ‘No, no …’

‘Maybe they won’t notice,’ Paul ventures.

‘Not notice?’ Igor’s eyes flick up balefully. ‘Not notice?’

‘I mean …’ Paul says, backing away as Igor rises to his feet, ‘they might think it’s just … you know … modern …’

‘I give you something to notice!’ Igor howls, lunging after Paul, who dodges behind the television, where interviewer and interviewee are glaring at each other in silence — and it has just occurred to me to wonder whether the broadcast is live when the door flies open and the light blinks on, and there in the threshold, as if he has escaped from the screen, is Bimal Banerjee.

For a long moment he gazes down at us; then, with a malefic grin, ‘So!’ he exclaims. From his tone it is plain that even if he does not understand the full significance of the scene, he sees, with a torturer’s instinct, an opportunity to inflict pain. ‘So!’ he declares again, with relish, and hands on hips he swaggers into the room. But almost immediately, he comes to a stop; then he crumples to the ground. Curiously, it is only after the fact that I realize what has happened — namely, that I have hit him on the head with a bronze statuette of a faun. Now he lies on the ground, utterly motionless.

‘Jesus, Claude, what have you done?’

‘What’s wrong with the man, Daddy?’

‘Claude’s killed him,’ Paul whispers, then looks up at me. ‘You’ve killed Bimal Banerjee!’

Without a word, Igor dashes to the window, throws up the sash and jumps out. We should probably think about doing the same — but already another figure has appeared in the doorway: Paul’s editor, Robert Dodson. Now it is his turn to take in the scene, piece by piece: the curtain flapping at the open window; the painting on the floor, with scissors, Stanley knife, plastic sheeting arranged about it; Paul, stocking rolled back over his head, and me, still clutching the sexually explicit sculpture; and lastly the celebrated author himself, lying prostrate on the carpet, although, I am glad to see, still breathing. Nobody says a word; then, from the TV, the pre-recorded Banerjee pronounces, ‘The problem with British publishing is that it is run by dinosaurs whose whole intelligence is absorbed in avoiding evolution.’

Robert Dodson frowns gently, sampling this thought just as one might the bouquet of a fine wine; then, stepping over Banerjee’s prone body, he shakes his umbrella into the fireplace, turns to us and says, ‘So I take it you’ve come to talk about the book?’

Thinking about it, it strikes me that this could be the best of all possible outcomes. To have stolen the painting would have been a disaster, the beginning of a new and unending story of guilt, paranoia and pursuit; to have bungled it in any other way than we did would have meant disgrace and very probably prison sentences. Instead, Robert Dodson takes care of everything; it’s as if he’s been tidying up botched art heists his whole life. ‘Might just stick this back on the wall,’ he says as if to himself, picking up the Texier.

‘It, uh, fell down,’ Paul says gruffly.

‘Oh yes, yes, they’ll do that,’ Dodson agrees. ‘A friend of mine works in the Tate, it’s a real problem — hullo, who’s this?’

From behind the curtain Remington steps out, his mouth smeared with the same green pigment with which he recently augmented the painting.

‘This is my son,’ Paul says reluctantly.

‘Ah — oh,’ Dodson says. He looks at the canvas, then at the boy. ‘Might his name be Remington?’

‘It might,’ Paul confesses.

‘Right, right. Hmm, well, if you could just give me a hand to get this chap back into place …’

The defaced painting is surprisingly heavy: we stagger over to the mantel and, gasping, hoist it back up on to its hooks. Dodson steps back and considers it. REMINGTON blares expensively back at us. ‘Tell you what,’ he says, and then, without elaborating, bends down, scoops a handful of soot from the fireplace and smears it judiciously over the sprawling letters. ‘I mean, it’s intended as a dynamic sort of a piece, changing over time and so forth,’ he says to me.

‘Interaction with the environment,’ I agree. ‘This is exactly the kind of thing Texier intended.’

As he makes a few more minor adjustments, he explains that William and Crispin are still at the festival, but that Bimal Banerjee had contracted a migraine after the interview. ‘He said it was probably the high concentration of mediocrity,’ he tells us, deadpan. ‘But I’m glad, because it means we can finally have a chat about Anal Analyst .’

Paul, hearing this, looks guiltier than he did when apprehended stealing the painting.

‘I must say, ever since you mentioned it that night, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it,’ Dodson says. ‘Perhaps I could tease a few more details from you? Characters, a rough idea of the length, and so on?’

Paul lets out a long sigh. ‘Look, Robert, there is no Anal Analyst .’

‘There isn’t?’ The editor looks confused. I am confused too. What’s he doing? He’s been offered a lifeline, why doesn’t he grab it? And then, almost simultaneously, it hits me. Paul doesn’t want a lifeline; he has never wanted a lifeline. The real goal of the heist and his other ludicrous schemes isn’t to haul himself out of the water — it’s to scupper the ship, to find rock bottom, to rid himself once and for all of any last vestiges of hope. The failure of his last book crushed him so thoroughly that he would rather steal a painting, be caught, disgraced and imprisoned, than write another one and see it fail too.

But this time I am not going to let him sabotage himself.

‘What he means,’ I interrupt, ‘is that since we saw you, the book has been significantly changed.’

‘Oh yes?’ Dodson’s interest is piqued anew.

‘And improved,’ I say. Paul is glaring at me, but I ignore him. ‘Instead of a promiscuous gay man, the book now tells the story of a banker who … who falls in love with …’ I trail off. The implausibility, the unwritability of a love story set in the IFSC suddenly seems incontrovertible. But what to put in its place? Fragments of abandoned narratives float surreally about my mind’s eye: detectives, wombats, James Joyce firing a revolver. My mouth opens and closes. Dodson considers me doubtfully; Paul’s glower transmutes into a smirk — and then, in a moment of perfect simplicity, it comes, or rather it has been there all along.

‘It tells the story of two men,’ I say. ‘The first is a lonely banker, who spends his days making money, and his nights searching for something to spend it on, a perfect circle of meaningless consumption. He has no friends, no family. Maybe he is running from something in his past, or trying to fill some loss with possessions. Or maybe he works simply so that he doesn’t have to think. But then he meets a writer who says he wants to put him in a book. For the first time the banker begins to come out of his ennui. In reality, though, the writer is planning to rob the bank.’