Rarely pondered this for a moment, then blurted out:
“But why the devil do you work so hard?”
“For a living, my dear sir, to make a living. You of course wouldn’t know this, but ordinary people have to earn their crust. With you, its almost automatic. I’m not a popular writer, my books aren’t suitable for turning into films, I don’t have the sort of brazenness that would enable me to write plays. I’m just a grey literary journeyman, and I have to slave away morning, noon and night simply to make ends meet.”
“If I might ask a rather impertinent question, how much do you earn?”
“Five or six hundred a year.”
“What? For all that work? That is appalling. My heart really goes out to you. And you aren’t even a dying art-form, like the bagpipes.”
“I will be, sooner or later. Nobody wants the sort of thing I do.”
“Listen here, Maclean. I’ve a proposition to make. I’ll pay you a thousand pounds a year. Now, don’t jump up in excitement. Of course I’m not giving it to you for nothing. In return I would ask you, as from today, not to write another word. Not a single one. Do you accept my offer?”
“Do I accept? What a question! Do you think if my guardian angel flew in through the window I’d give her a good kicking? Sir, you are restoring me to life and humanity. There will be tears in my eyes every time I pronounce your name. Sir… my angel… henceforth I shall spend all my time fishing. And chasing women, women who don’t bring me manuscripts, and who never open a book. Illiterates, in fact. And I shall read The Ugly Duckling and the Summa of Thomas Aquinas. And I shall be the first happy writer in the history of literature. Because I won’t be writing.”
A month later Tom Maclean was visiting his sister Jeannie, the wife of Colonel Prescot, who lived in Bournemouth. They were talking over lunch about their far-flung family — Uncle Arthur the country doctor, and his wife who wore such very odd hats; Alastair, the famous seal hunter; John, who had bought a farm in South Africa and sent native penny whistles to the children; Mary, who had just married again; and poor Charles, who would never amount to anything.
“And how are you, Tom? Tell me about yourself,” said Jeannie. Since their mother’s death she had played a somewhat maternal role in his life. “Are you working a lot?”
“I’m not doing anything these days. I haven’t written a word for a month. I go fishing, and I read the foreign papers. I’ve learnt Portuguese — a wonderful language. Now I’ve come home for a week’s walking. I’ve bought myself two puppies — Sealyhams — and I’m training them up. And as for women…” And he lapsed into a bashful silence.
“Splendid. And are you happy?”
“Happy? I’m only now starting to feel really myself. I used to be a slave. The last dirty slave. These days I live like the Good Lord himself. In France.”
“I’m so glad, Tom, really glad. Because I’ve been wanting to say to you for some time that you should relax and join in with things a bit more. But what I don’t understand is why you look so unwell. Your face is rather pale and careworn. Why is that?”
“I’ve no idea. Perhaps all the walking—”
“It’s as if you’re not really satisfied, Tom. Look, I know your face. There’s something missing in your life.”
“No, no. You’re quite wrong about that. I’ve never felt so well. I feel like a god!” he shouted angrily.
Jeannie was so astonished she made no reply.
They took coffee in the sitting room. Then Tom went through to the family library to stretch out and do some reading. There he found his fifteen-year-old nephew Fred sitting at the desk, scratching his head.
“Hello, Freddie. Why such a miserable face? Is something wrong?”
“Wrong? It’s this pesky homework! I’ve got this essay to write for tomorrow, about Shakespeare and Milton. I’m supposed to ‘compare and contrast’ them. Isn’t that crazy? Why were these two blighters ever born? And it’s Bournemouth v Aston Villa this afternoon.”
“Shakespeare and Milton? Hmm. You know what, my lad? You go off to the match, and I’ll write your essay. It’d be a shame to waste such a fine Sunday afternoon. Shakespeare and Milton. What a joke!”
“Would you really, Uncle Tom? I always said you were a thoroughly decent chap, Dad can say what he likes…”
And out he dashed.
Two hours later Jeannie came into the library. She found Tom working away feverishly, surrounded by densely scribbled sheets of paper, with a Shakespeare on the floor and Milton and the other classics scattered everywhere. The moment she entered Tom glanced up at the ceiling to show his irritation. He clearly didn’t take kindly to being interrupted.
“What are you doing, Tom?”
“Oh, er… I’m helping Freddie with his homework. ‘Compare Shakespeare and Milton’, I ask you! At first glance, you’d never think what a good subject it is. I’ve written fifteen sides and still hardly touched on the matter. I think the teacher will be pleased.”
A few days later Tom Maclean called on Peter Rarely. He found the millionaire in his music room, working on an experiment to get thirty parrots to speak in chorus. He nodded briefly as Tom entered. The parrots, who were in the middle of “God Save the King”, fell silent.
“Sir,” Maclean began, very formally and clearly embarrassed. “I am compelled to renege on our agreement. I must ask you not to remit the usual sum next month. I’m terribly sorry. I know it’s not exactly playing the game, but I really have no choice in the matter.”
“What? You want to start writing again?”
“Again? Now I want to start in earnest. So far I’ve just been lazing around. I’ve got the outlines of a five-volume novel sequence, an autobiography of indeterminate length and a life of James IV of Scotland. It’s time I really got going on them.”
“But haven’t you been happy without your writing?”
“No, sir. It’s just no good. If you threw me in prison I’d write in blood on my underwear, like that Mr Kazinczy my Hungarian friend told me about. I wish you good day.”
1937
THE DUKE
An Imaginary Portrait
ANYONE WHOSE WANDERINGS around Italy have led him to the little town of Cortemiglia, in the Alban hills near Rome, will have been sure to look over the palazzo, the one feature of note in the place apart from the famous paintings in the cathedral, that so greatly resemble those to be seen in the cathedrals of every other little Italian city. Indeed the Palazzo Sant’Agnese itself is hardly different from the thousands of other fine Renaissance and Baroque examples across the land. But if you do ever find yourself there, take a closer look, and you will be struck by the mellow, formally correct beauty of the place, and the magical sense of the past that lingers broodingly over it.
Indeed the building has now arrived at precisely the state most appropriate for such musings — for the past, for history itself, to reach out to you as a living reality. Here there is no glittering spectacle such as you find at Assisi, cleaned and tidied up for the tourist; nor is it so stark in its abandonment as to convey a feeling of oppression, of exhaling the miasma of the ruin of centuries. Virginia creeper clambers the walls at will, with a sort of spontaneous Italian artistry. Grass grows unobtrusively between the paving slabs in the grand courtyard, but nowhere runs to wild profusion. The palazzo is maintained and open to the public, though it takes a full half-hour, with the help of the ever-obliging and undemanding local street urchins, to rouse the custodian from wherever he might be and procure his services.