The Mark and the Void (8 page)

Back at the bank the situation only gets worse. ‘He keeps poking at the ceiling,’ Gary McCrum complains. ‘Prodding at it with some sort of a rod, right over my head.’

Joe Peston storms over. ‘That fucking Russian of yours unplugged my terminal!’

‘He’s researching a novel,’ I tell them both.

Computers are interfered with, files misplaced. Kimberlee approaches me in a state of disquiet to report that she sat down at her computer only to find Igor under her desk, apparently sniffing her seat. ‘He is examining the structure,’ I say. But the truth is that I have no idea what he is doing. As for Paul, he barely speaks to me; he is too busy lifting furniture, pulling up floor tiles, taking paintings from the walls and staring at the blank pale spaces that are revealed. When I approach him, he snaps at me, or nods without listening. Whatever has eluded him about BOT until now, Igor’s appearance hasn’t helped find. In the short time he has been here, he has aged visibly.

‘It’s not your fault,’ Ish says. It’s the next morning; we are in the canteen with the door closed, eating cereal bars. It feels strange to be hiding from our own narrator. ‘It’s what Jurgen said. The artistic process. Writing a book is hard. That’s all.’

‘Maybe a bank isn’t the right setting for a novel.’

‘Well, he’s got to make it the right setting, hasn’t he?’ Ish says. ‘That’s his job, not yours.’

‘I keep thinking he should’ve written about Howie. Cocaine, hookers, multimillion-dollar trades.’

‘He didn’t want that, Claude. He wanted an Everyman.’

‘It could be that he has not found the right one.’

‘You’re crazy!’ Ish exclaims. ‘You’re a brilliant Everyman.’

‘You think so?’

‘Definitely.’ She nods. ‘I’ve been watching you, Claude, and you’re doing a great job.’ She squeezes my hand in hers. ‘Just be yourself,’ she says. ‘Anyone would want to read a book about you.’

I am touched by her words, but it is increasingly clear that my non-life in Dublin has defeated Paul’s powers of representation – that there is simply not enough here for his art to gain a foothold. And when I emerge from the canteen, the final blow descends. Liam English, the head of the department, calls me over. ‘Look at this,’ he says. On the other side of the room, Igor is holding the water cooler steady while Paul balances on top of it, unscrewing the vent over the air conditioning, apparently with the intention of inserting some kind of camera into the interior. I try to make light of it, remarking on the incredible concentration that artists bring to bear on things that we take for granted, such as air vents. ‘Wrap it up,’ Liam English says.

I wait until Igor is not around, then approach Paul at the desk he has commandeered. He is scribbling in the red notebook, which he now shuts and covers with his hand. ‘Yes?’ he says.

‘Lunchtime,’ I say.

He casts about him, looking for an excuse to refuse me, but he can’t find one and reluctantly rises from the desk.

I don’t know how significant it is that the very same waitress seats us at the very same table where we had our first conversation. It mightn’t necessarily mean that we have come full circle. Yet how changed he is from the ebullient, garrulous figure who stepped into my life that day! Now he barely speaks; when our food comes, he merely picks at it.

‘You are not happy,’ I say.

‘What?’

‘You are not happy with the project.’

‘I’m perfectly happy,’ he says. ‘I’m deliriously happy.’

‘You have not said a word to me all day.’

‘Maybe I just don’t feel like talking.’

‘I don’t believe that is why.’

‘Oh, you can read my mind now?’

‘It’s obvious things are not working.’

Paul puts his hands on top of his head and lets out a long, slow, whistling sound. ‘I told you, there’s a structural issue. We’ll figure it out, if you’ll just get off my case.’

‘My boss wants you to finish your research.’

This at least produces a reaction. He bangs his palms on the table. ‘What?’

‘He says it’s becoming disruptive.’

‘That’s crazy!’ Paul protests. ‘Who are we disrupting?’

‘Everyone,’ I say with a trace of sadistic pleasure, then regret it. He is beyond crestfallen; he looks utterly sick. ‘Maybe I can talk to him, win you an extra day or two,’ I say. ‘But only you. Igor must go.’

‘Okay,’ he mutters. ‘Thanks.’

I watch him for a moment, his thoughts visibly in disarray. ‘What happened?’ I ask.

Something in him seems to give: he sets down his fork, gazes back at me starkly. ‘There’s nothing there, Claude,’ he says. ‘I can’t find anything there.’

Now it is my turn to feel sick.

‘I knew it wouldn’t work,’ he reflects. ‘Deep down I knew it.’

‘There must be something we can do,’ I say. ‘Some way to salvage it.’

‘I don’t see what, if your boss is kicking me out,’ he says.

‘There must be something.’

He sighs, puts his head in his hands. He stays like that for a long time. Then he lifts his head again. ‘Unless,’ he says.

‘Unless what?’

‘Unless …’ He stares at me, studying my face, as if trying to read something there. ‘Unless we change the angle,’ he says at last.

‘Change it?’

‘Right now I’m seeing two serious, two very serious problems with the book. The first is that
nothing happens
. There’s no story there. In the past a novel didn’t always need a story. You could just make it about a day in somebody’s life. But that was when life meant people, movement,
activity
. You guys in front of your screens all day long, selling each other little bits of debt – it’s a whole different order of nothing. I know there’s a big story behind it, I know the bank is expanding and growing and so on, but I can’t
see
any of that. It’s like a hurricane, you know? It’s this incredibly powerful entity, storming all over the world, levelling everything in its path, but at the eye of it, where
you
are, it’s just … it’s just a void. A dead space.’

I nod bleakly; this does not seem an unreasonable assessment.

‘And obviously that affects our Everyman,’ he says. ‘Which is problem two. Readers like to feel a connection with the characters they’re reading about. Visit a book club, that’s all they talk about. I loved Pip, I adored Daisy, Yossarian is so funny, we all hated Snowball. But with you – there’s just not enough showing up on the page.’

‘Oh,’ I say.

‘I know there’s more to you than some anonymous salaryman. But from the reader’s perspective, it’s not so clear. Unless they see some evidence to the contrary, my fear is they’ll see a banker and immediately think the worst.’

‘Yes,’ I say, seething with embarrassment.

‘Look,’ he says, ‘it’s not irremediable. We just need to give your character more agency. We need to get him
doing
something.’

‘Like what?’

‘Something dramatic,’ he says. He looks down at his coffee, stirs it but doesn’t drink. ‘Everybody,’ he says slowly, ‘even the guy with the most boring job in the world, at some point finds himself in a situation where he has to make a choice. A choice between good and bad. That moment – when the clock strikes
thirteen, when everything else drops away – that’s where we need to put you.’

Is it me, or as he says this does the air seem to tauten, to take on some tremulous energy? A cloud’s shadow rolls over the plaza; the dark-haired waitress stops at the window with her hands on her hips as the pigeons take flight.

‘For example,’ he says. He strokes his chin. ‘Okay, how about this. Rather than the Everyman just
working
in the bank, instead we have him
rob
the bank.’

‘Rob the bank?’ I repeat.

‘That’s right,’ Paul says, nodding.

‘Rob it?’ I say again, in case I have misheard.

‘Yes, rob it,’ Paul says.

‘This is Igor’s idea?’

‘No, it’s my idea. You can see where I’m coming from, right? It spices things up, gives the story momentum, as well as making your character a bit more attractive. Now you’re an outlaw, sticking it to the man!’

‘Yes, yes, I understand that.’ I dab my mouth with my napkin in case my expression gives me away. ‘But robbing a bank – is this really something that our Everyman would do?’

‘Why wouldn’t he?’ Paul returns. ‘Who hasn’t thought about robbing a bank?’

‘But nobody actually does it,’ I say. ‘It just doesn’t seem realistic.’

‘It’s not like I’m saying we send him back in time,’ Paul says testily. ‘He’s not breaking the laws of physics or anything.’

‘Nevertheless, it takes us far away from the authentic picture of modern life you wanted to create originally,’ I point out. ‘In fact it turns the story into exactly the kind of cliché you told me you wanted to escape. I am not trying to be negative,’ I say, seeing his face darken, ‘only, I don’t understand what kind of motivation our Everyman can have to do something as non-universal as rob a bank.’

‘Well, he’ll have motivation,’ he says. ‘I’m going to give him motivation, if you’d just let me finish.’

‘I’m sorry, please continue.’

Paul begins to speak and then stops, staring furiously into his coffee cup.

‘Because already the Everyman is paid very well for work that is quite legal,’ I clarify. ‘So it is difficult to imagine what will make him do something very risky like this.’

‘What if he wants something his money can’t buy,’ Paul says.

‘He wants to rob the bank to get something money can’t buy?’

Paul swears under his breath. ‘Okay, how about – how about he falls in love.’

‘In love?’

‘Yeah, with a … with a waitress. That girl there, for instance.’

We both turn to look. The dark-haired waitress is on the other side of the café, placing dirty crockery on to a tray; her long ebony tresses are tied up in a bun, from which a ballpoint pen pokes.

‘See, we need to be making better use of the resources we have. Fictionally speaking, someone like her is pure gold. She’s sultry, she’s exotic, she’s a struggling artist. A woman like that, as soon as she appears the story’s bumped up a couple of gears.’

‘She’s an artist?’

‘Well, yeah.’ He stares at me as if I am an imbecile, then points around the room at the various
Simulacra
.

‘Those are hers?’ I look over at the waitress again, then back at him. ‘She’s Ariadne Acheiropoietos? How do you know?’

‘Because I asked her.’

‘Oh.’ I sit back dizzily.

‘See? It’s a good twist, isn’t it?’

I am thinking of the many uncomplimentary things my colleagues and I have said about her paintings while she was standing right beside us.

‘So our lonely, bored, overpaid banker runs up against this
beautiful but impoverished painter,’ he goes on, warming to his new theme. ‘He finds they have something or other in common – it doesn’t matter what it is, French philosophy, say. Next thing he knows, he’s fallen head over heels in love with her. He’s breaking out of his sterile world of numbers, experiencing feelings he hasn’t had in years. But how’s he going to win her heart?’

I find I am gripped in spite of myself. ‘How?’

Paul spreads his hands summatively. ‘By robbing the bank.’

The intrigue dies away again. ‘I am not sure I see the connection.’

‘You don’t think robbing a bank will get her attention?’

‘There must be easier ways to do it,’ I say. ‘What about their shared interest in French philosophy?’

Paul rolls his eyes heavily. ‘Jesus, Claude, a woman like that, every dude who comes in here is going to be hitting on her. He needs to bring out the big guns. So how about this? He finds out her father – her father’s going to die unless he gets a vital operation. But it’s an extremely expensive operation, so expensive that even the banker doesn’t have enough money to pay for it. So he robs the bank. I know it sounds unrealistic on the face of it,’ he continues, before I can object. ‘But in terms of showing his inner life, it’s actually
more
realistic, do you see what I mean? She
inspires
him. She’s everything he’s not. She believes in things, in art, in love, in life! He looks at her, and he sees a chance to begin again!’ He’s gazing across the room at the waitress, his cheeks flushed, as if it is he, in fact, who’s being brought back to life. ‘From talking to her – because she’s Greek, so we can put in all the stuff about the financial crisis, what it’s done to her home and her family – the Everyman begins to become aware of all the injustice he’s part of. He’s not going to take it any more! He’d rather rob the bank and risk going to prison than see the woman he loves suffer another minute. Suddenly we’ve got a hero we can get behind!’

He falls silent, poring happily over the empty space of the café
as if seeing the story enact itself in front of his eyes, until at last I clear my throat; he looks up, startled, then waves his hand. ‘Well, anyway, those are just the broad strokes,’ he says. ‘The real question,’ his voice lowers; resting his elbows on the table he clasps his hands tightly together, as if warding something away, ‘is how he robs the bank.’

He looks at me expectantly.

‘How?’ I repeat.

‘If you were in that position, where you wanted to pay for an operation for Ariadne’s dying father, what would you do?’

‘Probably I would speak to the head of department about an advance on my bonus.’

Paul exhales sharply. ‘No, if you were
robbing the bank
, Claude.’

I give the question some thought. ‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘If I can be honest, since he decided to rob the bank, I have felt more and more estranged from our Everyman.’

‘Claude –’ With a murderous expression, Paul lifts his arms above his head, like an orchestra conductor at the thunderous apex of some violent symphony; then he lowers them again and slumps back in his chair, and he says, in a wan, tired voice, ‘I’m not going to lie to you. I need this. It’s been a long time since
Clown
. I need this book, and this book needs a story, and right now it doesn’t have one.’

I blink back at him. I want to help him, but his story no longer makes sense to me.

‘It doesn’t have to be your character, even,’ Paul says with a touch of desperation. ‘Say there’s a very wicked banker in there. That guy, what’s his name, the arsehole from the bar, he wants to rob the bank. What does he do?’ He is pale now, and his voice has a dry, prickly quality, like a fabric charged with static electricity. ‘I suppose what I’m asking you is, where’s the safe in this place?’