Besides these few masterpieces he drew inspiration from The Moral Novel. It lay on his bedside table and before turning out the light he would read a page or two and mull Miss Louth's adjurations over in his mind. She was particularly keen on 'the placing of characters within an emotional framework, a context as it were of mature and interrelated susceptibilities, which corresponds to the reality of the experience of the novelist in his own time and thus enhances the reality of his fictional creations'. Since Piper's own experience had been limited to eighteen years of family life in Finchley, the death of his parents in a car crash, and ten years of boarding-houses, he found it difficult in his work to provide a context of mature and interrelated susceptibilities. But he did his best and subjected the unsatisfactory marriage of the late Mr and Mrs Piper to the minutest examination in order to imbue them with the maturity and insightfulness Miss Louth demanded. They emerged from this emotional exhumation with feelings they had never felt and insights they had never had. In real life Mr Piper had been a competent plumber. In Search he was an insightful one with tuberculosis and a great number of startlingly ambiguous feelings towards his wife. Mrs Piper came out, if anything, rather worse. Modelled on Frau Chauchat out of Isabel Archer she was given to philosophical disquisitions, to slamming doors, to displaying bare shoulders and to private sexual feelings for her son and the man next door which would have horrified her. For her husband she had only contempt mixed with disgust. And finally there was Piper himself, a prodigy of fourteen burdened by a degree of self-knowledge and an insight into his parents' true feelings for one another that would, had he in fact possessed them, have made his presence in the house utterly unbearable. Fortunately for the sanity of the late Mr and Mrs Piper and for the safety of Piper himself, he had at fourteen been a singularly dull child and with none of the perceptions he subsequently claimed for himself. What few feelings he had were concentrated on the person of his English mistress at school, a Miss Pears, who, in an unguarded moment, had complimented little Peter on a short story he had in fact copied almost verbatim from an old copy of Horizon he had found in a school cupboard. From this early derived promise Piper had gained his literary ambitions and from the fatigue of a tanker driver who, four years later, had fallen asleep at the wheel of his lorry, crossed a main road at sixty miles an hour and obliterated Mr and Mrs Piper who were doing thirty on their way to visit friends in Amersham, he had acquired the wherewithal to pursue them. At eighteen he had inherited the house in Finchley, a substantial sum from the insurance company, and his parents' savings. Piper had sold the house, had banked all his capital and, to provide himself with a pecuniary motive to write, had lived off the capital ever since. After ten years and several million unsold words he was practically penniless.
He was therefore delighted to receive a telegram from London which said URGENT SEE YOU RE SALE OF NOVEL ETC ONE THOUSAND POUNDS ADVANCE PLEASE PHONE IMMEDIATELY FRENSIC.
Piper phoned immediately and caught the midday train in a state of wild anticipation. His moment of recognition had arrived at last.
In London Frensic and Sonia were also into a state of anticipation, less wild and with sombre overtones.
'What happens if he refuses?' asked Sonia as Frensic paced his office.
'God alone knows,' said Frensic. 'You heard what Cadwalladine said, "Do what you please but in no way involve my client." So it's Piper or bust.'
'At least I managed to squeeze another twenty-five thousand dollars out of Hutchmeyer for the tour, plus expenses,' said Sonia. 'I should have thought that was a sufficient inducement.'
Frensic had doubts. 'With anyone else,' he said, 'but Piper has principles. For God's sake don't leave a copy of the proofs of Pause around where he can see what he's supposed to have written.'
'He's bound to read the book sometime.'
'Yes, but I want him signed up for the tour first and with some of Hutchmeyer's money in his pocket. He won't find it so easy to back out then.'
'And you really think the Corkadales offer to publish Search For a Lost Childhood will grab him?'
'Our trump card,' said Frensic. 'What you've got to realize is that with Piper we are treating a subspecies of lunacy known as dementia novella or bibliomania. The symptoms are a wholly irrational urge to get into print. Well, I'm getting Piper into print. I've even got him one thousand pounds which is incredible considering the garbled rubbish he writes. He's being paid twenty-five thousand dollars to make the tour. Now all we've got to do is play our cards right and he'll go. The Corkadales contract is our ace. I mean, the man would murder his own mother to get Search published.'
'I thought you said his parents were dead,' said Sonia.
'They are,' said Frensic. 'To the best of my knowledge the poor fellow has no living relatives. I wouldn't be at all surprised if we aren't his nearest and dearest.'
'It's amazing what twenty per cent commission on two million dollars will do to some people,' said Sonia. 'I've never thought of you in the role of a foster-father.'
It was amazing what the prospect of having his novel published had done to Piper's morale. He arrived in Lanyard Lane wearing the blue suit he kept for formal visits to London and an expression of smug self-satisfaction that alarmed Frensic. He preferred his authors subdued and a little depressed.
'I'd like you to meet Miss Futtle, my partner,' he said when Piper entered. 'She deals with the American side of the business.'
'Charmed,' said Piper bowing slightly, a habit he had derived from Hans Castorp.
'I just adored your book,' said Sonia, 'I think it's marvellous.'
'You did?' said Piper.
'So insightful,' said Sonia, 'so deeply significant.'
In the background Frensic stirred uncomfortably. He would have chosen less brazen tactics and Sonia's accent, borrowed, he suspected, from Georgia in 1861, disturbed him. On the other hand it seemed to affect Piper favourably. He was blushing.
'Very kind of you to say so,' he murmured.
Frensic asserted himself. 'Now, as to the matter of Corkadales contract to publish Search,' he began and looked at his watch. 'Why don't we go down and discuss the whole thing over a drink?'
They went downstairs to the pub across the road and while Frensic bought drinks Sonia continued her assault.
'Corkadales are one of the oldest publishing houses in London. They are terribly prestigious but I just think we've got to do everything to see your work reaches a wide audience.'
'The thing is,' said Frensic, returning with two single gin and tonics for himself and Sonia and a double for Piper, 'that you need exposure. Corkadales will do for a start but their sales record is none too good.'
'It isn't?' said Piper who had never thought of such mundane things as sales.
'They're naturally old-fashioned and if they do take Search and that's still not entirely certain are they going to be the best people to push it? That's the question.'
'But I thought you said they'd agreed to buy?' said Piper uncomfortably.
'They've made an offer, a good offer, but are we going to accept it?' said Frensic. 'That's what we have to discuss.'