The Truth (35 page)
‘Why did you decide to help me with the book?’
It was a moment before Melville spoke.
‘Because to start with, before I really bothered to check out who was behind it, I saw your book as an attempt to have one side of my story told, before I was blown up or run over. It would be the best
side of the story, the story of what motivated me, once upon a time, before I started playing power games with the environment. There was a risk, of course. You had a track record as an investigative journalist, so I had to be careful. I couldn’t let you get too close. I gave you the names of a few school friends that I’d all but lost touch with. People I once knew who were fond of me. A long time ago.’
Something made him laugh.
‘It was one of life’s little ironies that your admirable idealism and the nasties who controlled your man at Urgent Books combined very neatly to kill off the book.’
Still chuckling to himself, Melville reached under the pillow, brought out the bottle of Scotch, poured another measure and held the cup out to Mabbut.
‘Would you top me up?’
Mabbut poured in some water. He sat for a while, watching Melville as he raised the glass to his lips. He seemed slow and old, as if all the energy had gone out of him.
‘Why are you telling me all this?’
Melville took another sip, and when he turned back to Mabbut there was something of the old sparkle back in his eyes, some hint of mischief, some final jag of energy.
‘Because I
want
the book to come out.’
Mabbut looked aghast, but Melville raised a hand.
‘Only this time I want it to be the truth.’
There was a pause.
‘The truth?’
‘Yes.’
Mabbut spoke slowly and cautiously. ‘You mean the truth as in what you’ve just told me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Wouldn’t that be a suicide note?’
‘Not at all. It would be an interesting cautionary tale. And I trust you enough to know that you would tell it honestly, but charitably too. Everyone, however admirable they appear to be, is simply human. Prone to all the imperfections, temptations and mendacities that go with the territory.’
He smiled.
‘Environmentalists are particularly prone to self-righteousness, don’t you think?’
Mabbut shook his head.
‘I couldn’t. I just couldn’t do it. The world’s stock of role models is low enough. It’d be like telling the world Mother Teresa was a hooker. You’d be hounded by every newspaper and broadcaster on the planet.’
‘Suppose I wasn’t around to worry about it?’
Mabbut shrugged dismissively.
‘The wounds will heal. You’re tough. The way you’re going I might well have shuffled off before you.’
‘I don’t think you’ve quite got the picture, Keith.’
‘What do you mean?’
Melville gestured to the bandages.
‘These wounds are self-inflicted. At considerable cost.’ He chuckled. ‘Though my daughter, bless her, has given me a special rate.’
Once again, Mabbut’s incredulity seemed to energise Melville.
‘I’m taking evasive action, that’s all. I’m getting rid of Hamish Melville before anyone else does.’
His playfulness had returned and his voice seemed lighter, less strained. It was, Mabbut realised, this life force that was driving him to plan his own extinction.
‘By the time my daughter and her technicians have finished with me – and as you can see, they’ve already begun their work – there will be no more Hamish Melville. There’ll be me, but not a me that anyone will recognise. Don’t look so shocked, Keith. Everybody has nips and tucks these days, I’m just having a few more than most.’
‘You don’t need to do this. It’s madness.’
‘I’ve never done the conventional thing in my life. Despite everything I’ve told you, I still do value honesty above everything else. If I can’t be a good man I can at least be an honest man. You can tell the world my story and I won’t be around to get in your way. But someone very like me may get to read it one day. A retired Brazilian rubber planter, perhaps, or a Tibetan monk, though my preference is for an ancient Swedish fur trapper.’
His laughter was cut short by another grimace of pain.
So hard had Mabbut been concentrating on Melville’s words that he hadn’t heard the soft swish of the door opening. He looked round. It was Ursula. She said nothing, but looked at her father. He seemed calm now. At peace.
‘Mr Mabbut,’ she said softly, ‘time to go.’
There was a pause.
Melville held out his hand to Mabbut.
‘I’m sorry I let you down. But don’t you let me down, Keith. Promise me that.’
Mabbut reached across and grasped the long, thin, surprisingly powerful hand. He felt it tighten as Melville looked up at him. Mabbut stared back into those piercingly, irresistibly clear blue eyes.
‘I’ll try my best.’
Behind him, Mabbut heard Ursula clear her throat. He stood as she pulled the door open for him.
‘Might we meet again?’
Melville pulled a last bright smile from somewhere, and shook his head emphatically.
‘No. Goodbye, Keith.’
Neither said much as Mabbut and Ursula took the lift back down to reception. She offered him coffee, but he could see she was keen to get back to work. They shook hands.
‘My father was fond of you.’
Mabbut couldn’t resist a smile. ‘Eventually.’
‘He said he wished he’d met you a lot earlier.’
‘I’m glad we met at all.’
She picked up a package from the desk.
‘He told me to give you this. They’re transcripts. Something he and I have been working on together. But he asked that you open them only in the event of his death.’
‘He’s not really going to die, is he?’
Ursula nodded.
‘Around the end of September, if all goes well.’
Mabbut walked out into the increasingly busy streets. He sat down at a café across the road, choosing a table from which he could still see the white stuccoed front of the clinic. As he raised his eyes to the decorated frames of the dormer windows on the fifth floor, he had
to shade them from the sun. Beside him, in a concrete culvert, the Tepla trickled down from the mountains. The bells on the red-hatted horses tinkled as carriages passed by. Mabbut reached for the bulky brown envelope and slipped it into his bag.
T
wo months later Mabbut was in his workroom wondering whether he should have a second coffee. It was one of those early autumn days that seemed to suit London well. The night had been cool and clear and there had been a light mist when he’d first sat down to write. He’d established a productive daily routine and was deep in the creation of an attack from the Isterians in the land of volcanoes. His decision to abandon the pseudo-archaic language he’d invented for his characters had proved crucial and
Albana
was now moving forward by leaps and bounds. His daughter Jay, now much recovered, had a place at Goldsmiths and was living back at Reserton Road. Sam had a small part in the new series of
Doctor Who
. Krystyna was still with Rex but was finding not having to earn a living deeply unsatisfying and was looking for some new challenge on which to expend her energies. Mabbut had just turned fifty-seven, and in all respects his life had slipped into a remarkably orderly pattern.
The phone beside him rang.
It was a voice he hadn’t heard for months.
‘Silla! How are you?’
‘Keith, I’m so sorry.’
She sounded strained and far away.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Haven’t you heard?’
‘Heard what?’
‘Hamish Melville. It’s so dreadful.’
Mabbut started. His mouth was so dry that for a moment he couldn’t reply.
‘Haven’t you seen the news?’
‘No.’
He flicked over to the BBC home page. The story was just breaking.
‘Apparently it was the steering.’
Melville had been involved in an accident. His car had plunged off a coastal road in a remote part of southern Argentina.
‘He was on his own, apparently. Must have lost control. They’re looking for another vehicle that was seen on the same road earlier in the day.’
A helicopter had been deployed, but this was the storm season and the authorities were saying it might be difficult to find the body.
‘Apparently he was working down there, on some land rights issue. I suppose that’s the way he would have wanted it . . .’
Mabbut found himself both tense and detached.
‘Keith. Are you there?’
‘Thanks, Silla, I’m sorry, I’m just in shock.’
‘There’ll be a memorial, I suppose.’
‘I guess so.’
‘Look, I know it’s none of my business, dear boy, but since the book went belly up, how have you been keeping?’
‘Oh . . . I’m fine, thanks, Sill. I get by.’
She sounded relieved.
‘Well, see you around, dear boy. I do miss you.’
As the news broke, the media tried to do what they could with background on Melville, but there was precious little to go on. What was above and beyond doubt was that a brilliant if unorthodox man had paid the price for a life of tireless travel across the world, defending the rights of those whose voices might never have been heard.
Shortly after midday, Mabbut returned to the Capital Storage Company in St John’s Wood and removed a strongbox. In it lay the package that Ursula had given him nearly three months earlier. He took it back to Reserton Road, and opened it at his desk. There were three sealed envelopes inside. Two of them contained micro-cassette tapes. In the third, a longer envelope, was a letter. The same old
Foreign Office heading, smartly struck through with a red pen. Beneath it, in sweeping italic hand, was the message:
For the book they never published, and the book that lies ahead
.
Hamish
Stapled to it was a cheque for one hundred and twenty thousand pounds. It had been post-dated to 19 September. The day of his death.
Hamish Melville’s body was never found. He was given a posthumous knighthood by the Queen and a hall was named after him at the University of Strathclyde. Two years later
Melville: The True Story of a Legend
became the most successful self-published work of all time
.
The company that issued it, Slow Books, run by Keith Mabbut and his ex-wife, Krystyna Naismith, was set up with £120,000 capital from an anonymous investor
.
Their next book
, The First Men,
volume one of
The Albana Trilogy,
was published three years later, to universally lukewarm reviews
.
At the last count it had sold eight and a half million copies worldwide
.
The author gratefully acknowledges the help of all at TransIndus, and Wendy and Billy Stove in Lerwick.
Fiction
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Non-Fiction
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A Weidenfeld & Nicolson ebook
First published in Great Britain in 2012
by Weidenfeld & Nicolson
This ebook first published in 2012
by Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Copyright © 2012 Michael Palin
The right of Michael Palin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 0 297 86023 5
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