The Great Pursuit (10 page)

'How very interesting,' said Miss Beazley.

'Well at least he's said something even if it wasn't very edifying,' said Geoffrey. Beside him
Frensic stared at the set forlornly. He could see now that he should never have allowed himself
to be persuaded to agree to the scheme. It was bound to end in disaster. So was the programme.
Miss Beazley tried to get back to the book.

'When I read your novel,' she said, 'I was struck by your understanding of the need for a
mature woman's sexuality to find expression physically. Would I be wrong to suppose that there is
an autobiographical element in your writing?'

Piper goggled at her vindictively. That he should be supposed to have written Pause O Men for
the beastly Virgin was bad enough, to be taken for the main protagonist in the drama of
perversion was more than he could bear. Frensic felt for him and cringed in his chair.

'What did you say?' yelled Piper reverting to his earlier explosive mode of expression. This
time he combined it with fluency. 'Do you really think I approve of the filthy book?'

'Well naturally I thought...' Miss Beazley began but Piper swept her objections aside.

'The whole thing's disgusting. A boy and an eighty-year-old woman. It debases the very
foundations of English literature. It's a vile monstrous degenerate book and it should never have
been published and if you think '

But viewers of the 'Books To Be Read' programme were never to hear what Piper supposed Miss
Beazley to have thought. A figure interposed itself between the camera and the couple in the
chairs, a large figure and clearly a very disturbed one that shouted 'Cut! Cut!' and waved its
hands horribly in the air.

'God Almighty,' gasped Geoffrey, 'what the hell's going on?'

Frensic said nothing. He shut his eyes to avoid the sight of Sonia Futtle hurling herself
about the studio in a frantic attempt to prevent Piper's terrible confession from reaching its
enormous audience. There was an even more startling crackle from the TV set. Frensic opened his
eyes again in time to catch a glimpse of the microphone in mid-air and then in the silence that
followed watched the ensuing chaos. In the understandable belief that a lunatic had somehow got
into the studio and was about to attack her, Miss Beazley shot out of her chair and dived for the
door. Piper stared wildly round while Sonia, catching her foot in a cable, crashed forward across
the glass-topped table and sprawled revealingly on the floor. For a moment she lay there kicking
and then the screen went blank and a sign appeared. It said OWING TO CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND OUR
CONTROL TRANSMISSION HAS BEEN TEMPORARILY SUSPENDED. Frensic regarded it balefully. It seemed
gratuitous. That circumstances were now beyond anyone's control was perfectly obvious. Thanks to
Piper's high-mindedness and Sonia Futtle's ghastly intervention his career as a literary agent
was done for. The morning papers would be filled with the exposé of The Author Who Wasn't.
Hutchmeyer would cancel the contract and almost certainly sue for damages. The possibilities were
endless and all of them awful. Frensic turned to find Geoffrey looking at him curiously.

'That was Miss Futtle, wasn't it?' he said.

Frensic nodded dumbly.

'What on earth was she doing hurling herself about like that for? I've never seen anything so
extraordinary in my life. A bloody author starts lambasting his own novel. What did he say it
was? A vile monstrous degenerate book debasing the very foundations of English literature. And
the next thing you know is his own agent behaving like a gargantuan banshee, yelling "Cut!" and
hurling mikes about the place. Something out of a nightmare.'

Frensic sought frantically for an explanation. 'I suppose you could call it a happening,' he
muttered.

'A happening?'

'You know, a sort of random, inconsequential occurrence,' said Frensic lamely.

'A random...inconsequential...?' said Geoffrey. 'If you think there aren't going to be any
consequences...'

Frensic tried not to think of them. 'It certainly made it a very memorable interview,' he
said.

Geoffrey goggled at him. 'Memorable? I should think it will go down in history.' He stopped
and regarded Frensic open-mouthed. 'A happening? You said a happening. Good Lord, you mean to say
you put them up to it?'

'I what?' said Frensic.

'Put them up to it. You deliberately stage-managed that shambles. You got Piper to say all
those extraordinary things about his own novel and then Miss Futtle bursts in and goes berserk
and you've pulled the biggest publicity stunt...'

Frensic considered this explanation and found it better than the truth. 'I suppose it was
rather good publicity,' he said modestly. 'I mean most of those interviews are rather tame.'

Geoffrey helped himself to some more whisky. 'Well I must take my hat off to you,' he said. 'I
wouldn't have had the nerve to dream up a thing like that. Mind you, that Eleanor Beazley has had
it coming to her for years.'

Frensic began to relax. If only he could get hold of Sonia before she was arrested or whatever
they did to people who burst into TV studios and disrupted programmes, and before Piper could do
any more damage with his literary high-mindedness, he might be able to save something from the
catastrophe.

In the event there was no need. Sonia and Piper had already left the studio in a hurry
followed by Eleanor Beazley's shrill voice uttering threats and imprecations and the programme
producer's still shriller promise to take legal action. They fled down the corridor and into an
elevator and shut the door.

'What did you mean by ' Piper began as they descended.

'Drop dead,' said Sonia. 'If it hadn't been for me you'd have landed us all in it up to the
eyeballs, shooting your mouth off like that.'

'Well, she said '

'The hell with what she said,' shouted Sonia, 'it was what you were saying that got to me.
Looks great, an author telling half a million viewers that his own novel stinks.'

'But it isn't my own novel,' said Piper.

'Oh yes it is. It is now. Wait till you see tomorrow's papers. They're going to have headlines
to make you famous, AUTHOR SLAMS OWN NOVEL ON TV. You may not have written Pause but you're going
to have a hard time proving it.'

'Oh God,' said Piper. 'What are we to do?'

'Get the hell out of here fast,' said Sonia as the lift doors opened. They crossed the foyer
and went out to the car. Sonia drove and twenty minutes later they were back at her flat.

'Now pack,' she said. 'We're moving out of here before the press get on to us.'

Piper packed, his mind racing with conflicting emotions. He was saddled with the authorship of
a dreadful book, there was no backing out, he was committed to a promotional tour of the States
and he was in love with Sonia. When he had finished he made one last attempt at resistance.

'Look, I really don't think I can go on with this,' he said as Sonia lugged her suitcases to
the door. 'I mean my nerves can't stand it.'

'You think mine are any better and what about Frenzy? A shock like that could have killed him.
He's got a heart condition.'

'A heart condition?' said Piper. 'I had no idea.'

Nor had Frensic when she phoned him from a call box an hour later.

'I have a what?' he said. 'You wake me in the middle of the night to tell me I've got a heart
condition?'

'It was the only way to stop him backing out. That Beazley woman blew his mind.'

'The whole programme blew mine,' said Frensic, 'and to make matters worse I had Geoffrey
gibbering beside me all the time too. It's a fine experience for a reputable publisher to watch
one of his authors describe his own book as a vile degenerate thing. It does something to the
soul. And to cap it all Geoffrey thought I'd put you up to rushing on like that screaming
"Cut".'

'Put me up to it?' said Sonia. 'I had to do that to stop '

'I know all that but he didn't. He thinks it's some sort of publicity stunt.'

'But that's great,' said Sonia. 'Gets us off the hook.'

'Gets us on it if you ask me,' said Frensic grimly. 'Anyway where are you? Why the call
box?'

'We're going down to Southampton,' said Sonia. 'Now, before he changes his mind again. There's
a spare berth on the QE2 and she's sailing tomorrow. I'm not taking any more chances. We're
sailing with her if I have to bribe my way on board. And if that doesn't work I'm going to keep
him holed up in a hotel where the press can't get at him until we have him word-perfect on what
he's to say about Pause.'

'Word-perfect? You make him sound like a performing parrot '

But Sonia had rung off and was back in the car driving down the road to Southampton.

The next morning a bemused and weary Piper walked unsteadily up the gangway and down to his
cabin. Sonia stopped at the Purser's Office. She had a telegram to send to Hutchmeyer.

In New York MacMordie, Hutchmeyer's Senior Executive Assistant, brought him the
telegram.

'So they're coming early,' said Hutchmeyer. 'Makes no difference. Just got to get this ball
moving a bit quicker is all. Now then, MacMordie, I want you to organize the biggest
demonstration you can. And I mean the biggest. You got any angles?'

'With a book like that the only angle I've got is Senior Citizens mobbing him like he's the
Beatles.'

'Senior Citizens don't mob the Beatles.'

'Okay, so he's Valentino come to life. Whoever. Some great star of the twenties.'

Hutchmeyer nodded. 'That's more like it,' he said. 'The nostalgia angle. But that's not
enough. Senior Citizens you don't get much impact.'

'Absolutely none,' said MacMordie. 'Now if this guy Piper was a gay liberationist Jew-baiter
with a nigger boyfriend from Cuba called O'Hara I could really call up some muscle. But with a
product that screws old women...'

'MacMordie, how often have I got to tell you what the product is and what the action is are
two separate things? There doesn't have to be any connection. You've got to get coverage any way
you can.'

'Yes but with a British author nobody's ever heard of and a first-timer who wants to
know?'

'I do,' said Hutchmeyer. 'I do and I want a hundred million TV viewers to know too. And I mean
know. This guy Piper has to be famous this time next week and I don't care how. You can do what
you like just so long as when he steps ashore it's like Lindbergh's flown the Atlantic first
time. So you get yourself a pussy posse and every pressure group and lobby you can find and see
he gets charisma.'

'Charisma?' said MacMordie doubtfully. 'With the picture we've got of him for the cover you
want charisma too? He looks sick or something.'

'So he's sick! Who cares what he looks like? All that matters is he becomes the spinster's
prayer overnight. Get Women's Lib involved, and that's a good idea of yours about the fags.'

'We get a lot of little old ladies and the Ms brigade and the gays down on the docks could be
we'd have a riot on our hands.'

'That's right,' said Hutchmeyer, 'a riot. Throw the lot at him. A cop gets hurt is good. And
some old lady has a coronary, that's good too. She gets pushed in the drink is better still. By
the time we've finished with his image this Piper's going to be like he was pied.'

'Pied?' said MacMordie.

'With rats for Chrissake.'

'Rats? You want rats too?'

Hutchmeyer looked at him dolefully. 'Sometimes, MacMordie, I think you've just got to be
goddam illiterate,' he snarled. 'Anyone would think you'd never heard of Edgar Allan Poe. And
another thing. When Piper's finished stirring the shit publicitywise down here I want him put on
the plane up to Maine. Baby wants to meet him.'

'Mrs Hutchmeyer wants to meet this jerk?' said MacMordie.

Hutchmeyer nodded helplessly. 'Right. Like she was crazy for me to get her that guy who wrote
about cracking his whip all the time. What the fuck was his name?'

'Portnoy,' said MacMordie. 'We couldn't get him. He wouldn't come.'

'Was that surprising? It was a wonder he could walk after what he'd done to himself. That
stuff saps you.'

'We didn't publish him either,' said MacMordie.

'Well there's that too,' Hutchmeyer agreed, 'but we publish this Piper and if Baby wants him
she's going to have him. You know something, MacMordie, you'd think at her age and all the
operations she's had and being on a diet and all she'd have laid off a bit. I mean, can you do it
twice a day every goddam day of the year? Well, me neither. But that woman is insatiable. She's
going to eat this cunt-lapper Piper alive.'

MacMordie made a note to book the company plane for Piper.

'Could be there won't be so much of him to eat by the time the reception committee down here
is finished with him,' he said morosely. 'The way you want it things could get rough.'

'The rougher the better. By the time my fucking wife is through with him he's going to know
just how rough things can get. You know what that woman's been into now?'

'No,' said MacMordie. 'Bears,' said Hutchmeyer.

'Bears?' said MacMordie. 'You don't mean it. Isn't that a little dangerous? I'd have to be
fucking desperate to even think of bears. I knew a woman once who had this German Shepherd but
'

'Not that way,' shouted Hutchmeyer, 'Jesus, MacMordie, we're talking about my wife, not some
crazy bitch dog lover. Have some respect please.'

'But you said she was into bears and I thought '

'The trouble with you, MacMordie, is you don't think. So she's into bears. Doesn't mean the
bears are into her for Chrissake. Whoever heard of a woman into anything sexual? It isn't
possible.'

'I don't know. I knew a woman once with this '

'You want to know something, MacMordie, you know some fucking horrible women no kidding. You
should get yourself a decent wife.'

'I got a decent wife. I don't go messing no longer. I just don't have the energy.'