The Paper Men (18 page)

“You were calling me Rick, Wilf, sir. When would that be?”

“Come now! Right after I left here last time about a century ago, when you followed me down to Rome. That was clever. Luck too, of course.”

But Rick wasn’t listening. He had returned to staring at the paper on the polished table as if it might fly away at any moment. To make the situation plainer I took it up and held it.

“There is absolutely no reason for you to do that, Wilf, sir. I assure you.”

“How come you speak the way you do, Rick? Years and years in England I don’t doubt.”

“How come you speak the way you do, Wilf? The tones, I mean. They’ve flattened.”

“Let’s not bother about geography, Rick. Just tell me as a matter of interest what you were doing that time in Evora.”

His eyes blinked. They were a little less bulging.

“Where’s Evora, Wilf?”

“Be your age, Rick. I just wanted to know what you were doing there. Well, I see you’re determined to keep your own counsel and after all why not? For the present you’ll be interested to hear that I’ve acclimated. I’ve been
twice
back to that place. You knew, didn’t you? Just down there in the fog with me hanging on for dear life, shit-scared of smashing, perhaps a yard under my feet there was a bloody great meadow, an alp, as they say. If I’d fallen I’d have gone a yard, and then if I’d wanted to fall any more I’d have had to canter across the meadow and throw myself off the other end of it. Don’t shake your head like that. You knew. You were up there only the day before spying out the land and you led me back to that place—oh I admit you probably didn’t arrange the rock fall but it was all a huge slice of luck for you, wasn’t it, the fog, the rock, the rock breaking the rail and me going to lean over? You’re a quick thinker, professor, I give you that, you did fool me, you bastard, Rick—”

“No sir, I did not, not in any way—”

“Quote, it seems I owe you my life, unquote.”

“But sir, you said that, not I, and—”

“Of course the old insect lent a hand laying his eggs under my carapace, I’ve no doubt about that, but by Christ you were on the side of creation, weren’t you?”

“I don’t—”

“If I hadn’t had the common cowardy sense to cut and run, God knows what would have happened.”

“Wilf, I must tell you. Remember, I’d been all the way out to just under the Hochalpenblick. I only did that once in daylight. With you, it was in fog. I
couldn’t
have known the path yard by yard and be sure what was under the fog, gee, I’d have to be a computer.”

“You knew.”

“OK. So I knew. But what I knew was a guess and I couldn’t be sure. Believe me, I thought I was risking my neck there, Wilf, and for you. I swear it.”

“Scout’s honour.”

“You’re distressing me, Wilf.”

“Have a good cry then. When you’ve done we’ll get on with the dog.”

It’s strange; but my memory is that Rick’s eyes really were filled with water and as if to make the point he took a tissue out of somewhere and wiped them with it.

“After all these years, Wilf—”

“Shut up, man. Don’t you want the paper?”

He took a bit of time over that, sniffing and wiping his eyes. When he spoke his voice was smaller.

“Yes, Wilf. I do.”

“Righty-ho. Bang on. Good show, Tucker.”

“You were calling me—”

“I know, Tucker. Now. Tell me about Halliday. Don’t skimp. You can’t frighten me, you see. I want every fascinating detail.”

It took Rick quite a while to get himself together that time.

“He’s a wonderful—well, those who know him—”

“Mary Lou.”

“You know she majored in flower arranging and bibliography, sir, so there’s a great deal of scope for her in his collection.”

“He collected Mary Lou.”

“No sir. It’s his manuscripts.”

“Ha et cetera.”

“I know you aren’t interested in literary history, Wilf, after all, you’re part of it—”

“I’m not interested in history, period. It should be rolled up like a scroll. Halliday! I want more Halliday!”

“For example he’d pay anything for that.”

He reached out his hand towards the document I’d typed. I smacked it hard and moved my hand farther away.

“Naughty!”

“But, Wilf—”

“And while we’re about it, why are you dressed up like something out of a circus?”

Rick looked down at himself, pondering the little he could see of his own clothes beyond the thicket. Mary Lou had wept into that thicket—or had she? Was that a fact or an imagination? I found to my surprise that I couldn’t distinguish between the two.

“What’s wrong with the way I’m dressed? Hell, I was wearing this and more the last time you saw me. Then I had my necklace on. I’ve put it away because I didn’t think the Weisswald was the place for it.”

“Don’t be wet.”

“Well. It isn’t.”

“I don’t mean that. The last time I saw you, you were as trad as the Beatles. Come on, Rick. I know all about it.”

“And you come on too, sir. You waved that paper at me!”

“When? Where?”

“Marrakesh. Remember?”

“Rick—”

“I must say it wasn’t very kind of you, Wilf. But then I’ve always allowed that you and the few people like you have privilege.”

I examined his eyes carefully. They were like a politician’s after he’s had more exposure than he can take, more anxiety, belief, accommodation, ambition, suspense. There was white showing all round the irises. It’s not an infallible mark but it does reveal a degree of strain, tending towards what I said about hell. It can indicate pain too, or fear. Well, why not? Man bites dog.

“Tell me about Marrakesh then, Rick.”

“Must I? Oh well. It was outside the Hotel de France. For God’s sake, Wilf! It’ll be in your journal somewhere, you’ve only got to look!”

“More. Come on. More details!”

Rick flung his arms wide. It was so unlike him I knew how desperate he was.

“You were on the balcony to the left side of the main door—first floor. You saw me. You laughed and waved the paper at me. Then you disappeared into the building—what a joke for you! I can take a joke, Wilf.”

“How did you know the paper was permission to be my literary executor?”

“What else could it be? I didn’t mind the joke, Wilf, only—like I said I went in to reception but they said you weren’t staying there. I said to myself you were visiting with someone and I went up to the first floor and knocked on doors and listened.”

“You must have been popular.”

“You could have helped. A joke is a joke like I say, but when they threw me out—an American, Wilf. That hurt.”

“Rick.”

“Huh?”

“When was this?”

He thought, frowning.

“Six—no, seven months ago.”

“The last time I saw you, Rick, was just over a year ago. You were walking down one side of the cloisters in that hotel in Evora. You were wearing a light grey suit and you were walking away so you didn’t see me. I had to leave at once.”

“I have never—”

“Quiet. If I say I am going to tell you the exact truth and swear by all that I believe in, heat, light and sound, intolerance, necessity—would you believe me?”

“Yes sir. Yes I would!”

“Rick. I say this with all the force and all the precision at my command. I have never been to Marrakesh!”

Pause.

His eyes popped! I mean by that, the white round the irises widened then as suddenly seemed to narrow. He let out a long breath and laid his two hands flat on the table. Deliberately he made of his eyes the normal ellipse or near-ellipse with the irises partly covered. He seemed not so much to deflate as to come down to his true size from some sustained effort to make himself imposing. He began to smile. He nodded and nodded.

“Of course. I see it all, Wilf. It was somebody else. I’d been thinking so much about you and the need for me to do your biography and Mr Halliday always on wanting it, and then after picking up clues here and there, to see someone just like you—”

“The hunter and the slain.”

“—and, hell, you got a beard, Wilf, and all those Ayrabs got beards—”

I was nodding in time to his nodding. Two porcelain mandarins. I smiled at him helpfully.

“I expect you were looking into the sun.”

“Why that coulda been it, Wilf. Yeah. South-west at that time, just after siesta, the sun right above the hotel, above—that man I saw laughing and waving a paper at me—”

“You see? Simple.”

“But right now I know where you are—”

“You don’t know where I am. Nobody knows.”

“Why surely, sir, there’s no need—but now we can keep in touch, and you, being what you are—”

“You don’t know who I am! Nobody knows who I am!”

“No, no. Of course not. OK, sir. Look we’d better—”

“Halliday now. He knows. No one else.”

“We’d better—”

“Say ‘Yap yap’.”

“I don’t get it. Are we playing a game?”

“That’s right, professor. Say ‘Yap yap’.”

“Yap yap.”

I let out my breath and sat back. I unfolded the document and read it through. It seemed solid enough but then I was struck by the thought that of course it should have been vetted by a solicitor. I was vexed to think of having wasted so much time and effort; but after all there were solicitors or lawyers in Zurich. I was a little cross with myself, however, and brooded.

“What do you say now it’s your turn, Wilf?”

“Turn?”

“This game. You know. ‘Yap yap’.”

“Oh that! I don’t say anything.”

“I don’t get it, Wilf.”

“All will be revealed in time.”

“That paper, Wilf—”

“You don’t get that either. Now don’t take on so, Rick old friend. My chum the manager’s nephew and the new young fat woman will throw you out. I mean you don’t get this one. But if you’re a good, shall we call it, fellow, you’ll get a nice piece of paper signed and sealed—”

“Wilf, sir, I don’t know how to—”

“—when to and where to. However. There are necessary preliminaries.”

“Anything! I got less than two years left, Wilf. You just don’t know—”

“That bad?”

“Anything. Yes, sir.”

“Well, as we agreed, I have to know the whole set-up between you and you-know-who.”

“Mr Halliday?”

I bowed my head solemnly. Rick scratched his nose and looked puzzled. He was at ease though. Happy.

“It’s simple enough. He staked me, you see. Seven years so I could devote myself to—”

“How long does he get Mary Lou for?”

“Mary Lou has ceased to mean anything to me, sir.”

“You don’t even get the occasional use?”

There was a long pause. I broke it, helpfully.

“A hard taskmaster, Mr Halliday. If you haven’t brought me to heel in seven years and achieved my authorized biography—incomplete, of course, as I am still to some extent on stream—there’ll be wailing and gnashing of all those lovely teeth.”

“He ceases to support the research. But listen, sir. I’m not helpless. I can go other places—”

“Don’t be wet. There is but one of them. I thought at first, oh years and years ago, I thought it was like you might say Guggenheim or Fulbright but not so. She wouldn’t have gone just for the money, Rick, and I wouldn’t be all screwed up, strung up and you strung up. You see? It’s like trying to serve me and him or it, it’s like serving God and Mammon. Guess which is which.”

“You promised that paper or one like it! You’ll not go back on your word, sir!”

“I won’t. But you didn’t give me time to lay down conditions, did you?”

“I can’t remember. This is awful.”

“I’m not giving you this paper yet and I’m not giving it to you here. You have to do certain things.”

“Anything—”

“I am going to allow you to write the official, the authorized biography of Wilfred Barclay, you lucky, lucky man. I shall give you relevant information. I shall appoint you custodian of all material concerning me.”

“I swear—”

“I shall oversee the biography word by word.”

“Surely, surely!”

“We shall meet at a time and place decided by me.”

Then he deflated all over again.

“But, sir—Wilf—your health—”

“You mean I might, like, drop dead?”

“No, sir, but your memory it isn’t all it might be. Writers are absent-minded, you know that, Wilf.”

“Not so absent-minded I’d put all my chips on one number the way you did. You see, I hold you in my hot hands. I permit you. Just that. You get a permit. I get a commit. Just that.”

“Sir.”

“Tomorrow morning I am going away again. I wish never to revisit this place where—I shall get in touch. You are not to follow or the deal’s off. At some point or other you can introduce me to Halliday.”

“That’s real difficult.”

“But you, wonderful you, can do it. You have the entrée.”

“No, sir, Mr Halliday doesn’t give that to anyone without she’s real pretty.”

“No boyfriends? No bestiality? No real kinky stuff, torture, murder? What’s his billions for, just
ewige
Weib
or whatever they call it? Well, Rick. You know how we really knowledgeable people are returning to the primitives to regain our health. One of the— My dear, Rick, I feel a lecture coming over me!”

“If you’ll only hold on a moment while I get my recorder out—”

He slid the camera from his sleeve.

“That
?
”

“Sure. It takes pics too. But, Wilf, I have never been near you without this up my sleeve only there sometimes it misses things so it’ll be better standing on the table.”

“You’ve never recorded me!”

“Yes, sir, always, even at dinner way back in your house. My one regret is I never got that time in the night when we met.”

“I don’t believe it!”

“And I got you even earlier than that, sir. Not on this machine of course but way back when I was a student. Why I swear in between even your accent’s changed!”

“Don’t be wetter than you need be. My accent is satellite and always has been.”

“No, sir.”

“Earlier? Back before you were with me and Liz?”

“When you were in the States. I’ll play it back to you one day.”

“No you won’t. On footsteps of our dead selves or something. You’ll wipe the lot or the deal’s off again.”