‘I am that which responds,’ said the head, ‘I’ve told you that. You said yes three times and I was compelled to tell my story.’
‘Before I said yes three times you asked me three times if I wanted to hear the story.’
‘Well, it’s a story that wants to be told, isn’t it.’
‘And you made me take it on me that the story would be finished,’ I said. ‘Why did you do that?’
‘The story is different every time,’ said the head, ‘and every time there are difficulties — I always need help with it and I’m always afraid it won’t go all the way to the end.’
‘Different each time. How can that be?’
‘How can it not be? A story is a thing that changes as it finds new perceptions, new ideas.’
‘Fallok was trying to do it with music,’ I said. ‘How far did he get?’
‘Not very.’
‘What do you think my chances are?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the head, ‘but if you can’t do it there’ll be somebody else.’
‘You mean if we can’t do it.’
‘Yes of course. Didn’t I say we?’
‘No, you didn’t. Why do you have to keep going through the story over and over?’
‘It’s got to come out differently one day,’ said the head.
I looked away for a moment. When I looked back the head had become a football, one of those plastic ones they sell at Woolworth’s for three or four pounds.
‘Well, Herman,’ said Sol Mazzaroth, ‘here it is round about midnight.’ He hadn’t bothered to ring, he just jumped out of the telephone wearing red silk pyjamas and a black silk dressing-gown with a gold monogram and was pacing backwards and forwards through the clutter on my desk. ‘How’re we doing?’ he said. Pretending not to hear I stuffed him back into the receiver and took the phone off the hook.
Hello, said my current account. I was just passing by and I thought I’d look in. You keeping well? Everything all right?
You said I had no balls, I said.
You know I was just kidding around, said the current account. I didn’t mean anything by it. What are you doing, where are you going?
But I’d already jumped into the telephone and hurled myself through the circuits to Sol Mazzaroth asleep in his red silk pyjamas which were monogrammed the same as his dressing-gown. I shook him roughly, averting my eyes discreetly from whoever else was in the bed.
‘Herman!’ he said. ‘What time is it?’
‘Three o’clock in the morning.’
‘What’s happening?’
‘I’m not going to do it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Orpheus wouldn’t like it.’
‘Herman, with respect, Orpheus was a wonderful musician but I doubt that he knew anything about magazine publishing. Stay with it and I’ll talk to you a little later in the morning, OK?’
‘Sol, I’m sorry but it’s not on. I really am not going to do it.’
‘Herman, you say you can’t do it but you still haven’t given me a reason I can understand.’
‘I can’t do it because it’s got to come out differently one day.’
‘That doesn’t make sense.’
‘It does to me.’ Through the dark and murmuring circuits I made my way back to my place. The current account lay dead on the floor, a thin trickle of blood coming from its mouth. From over the mantel the Vermeer girl smiled down on me.
Herman, she said, you’re a hell of a guy.
15 Life after Death?
I went to bed and the next thing I knew I was awake again and it was getting on for ten o’clock in the morning. Ring, ring, said the telephone, ring ring. Seize him.
‘I’m right here,’ I said. ‘I’m tired of running. Here I stand.’
‘I have a call for you from Sol Mazzaroth,’ said Lucretia.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘bring forth Mazzaroth in his season.’
Sol stepped out of the telephone and looked at me in disbelief. ‘Herman,’ he said, ‘was it a bad dream or did you actually phone me at three o’clock this morning and say you couldn’t do it?’
‘Yes, it was a bad dream and that’s what I said.’
‘But why, Herman? Surely you’ve done tougher adaptations for me: look at War and Peace, how you got through it in twenty-five pages, I still tell people about that.’
‘I know, Sol. This is just one of those times when something that was whatever it was becomes something else and all of a sudden it’s too much.’
‘Herman, when I think of what we’ve been through together since the old Hermes Foot Powder days I can’t believe this is happening. Together we built Classic Comics and made it a beacon of literacy at newsagents everywhere. John Buchan, Dostoevsky, Victor Hugo — you name it, we put it in speech balloons.’
‘Believe me, Sol, I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for me. If it weren’t for you I’d still have to bath and shave and go to an office every morning if I could find an office to go to.’
‘And you’re going to throw it all away.’
‘You know how it is,’ I said. ‘There comes a time when a road comes to an end and you have to say, “This is the end of the road.’”
‘But it’s not the end of our friendship,’ he said.
‘Of course not.’ We both looked at our watches.
‘Well, it’s going to be a more hectic day than usual. Take care, Herman.’
‘You too, Sol,’ I said as he climbed back into the phone and was gone.
So here we are then, I thought. This is the first day of the rest of my life. I got dressed, had breakfast, hurried to my desk. The corpse of the current account was half-buried under discarded pages. I uncovered it, went through its pockets and found enough to live on for six months if I managed very carefully.
‘All right,’ I said, ‘let’s get organized.’ My voice was frightening in the silence. I switched on the radio and got the Voice of Greece with male and female singers one after another singing songs with ‘S’agapo’ in the refrain. All of them sang the words soothingly, almost lullabyingly. S’agapo, s’agapo. I love you, I love you.
‘All right,’ I said again. The football was still on my desk. I took it to the usual place near Putney Bridge and dropped it into the river.
When I got back I sat down and typed on to the screen:
1 LOOK FOR FREELANCE COMIC WORK.
2 TRY TO FINISH ORPHEUS STORY WHEN HEAD TURNS UP AGAIN.
3 NO MORE OTHER PEOPLE’S ORPHEUS.
Ring, ring, said the telephone.
‘Hello,’ I said.
‘Hello,’ said a vigorous female voice, ‘this is Hilary Forthryte, I’m with Mythos Films. I hope you don’t mind my ringing you up out of the blue like this.’
‘Not at all.’
‘Can you talk for a moment or are you in full spate?’
‘Not yet, I’m a late spater.’
‘Ah! I know what you mean. What I’m phoning about is to ask you whether you might like to do a film with us. We’ve got Channel 4 funding for six one-hour films under the series title The Tale Retold; we’ll be doing new versions of old myths and legends with six different directors. The first one I’ve spoken to is Gösta Kraken and he said he wants to work with you and a composer called Istvan Fallok.’
There was a pause at my end.
‘Do you know Kraken well?’
‘No. I’ve only met him once.’
‘But you’re familiar with his work.’
‘I’ve heard about Codename Orpheus.’
‘But you haven’t seen it?’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘We’ve got a print of it, I can arrange a screening any time you like. What’s interesting is his use of Orpheus as semiosis rather than as story.’