'Just don't shoot your mouth off too much,' she said as they drove across London. 'Geoffrey Corkadale's a fag and he'll do the talking. He'll probably say a whole lot of complimentary things about Pause O Men for the Virgin and you just nod.'
Piper nodded. The world was a gay, gay place in which anything was possible and everything permissible. As an accepted author it became him to be modest. In the event he excelled himself at Corkadales. Inspired by the sight of Trollope's inkpot in the glass case he launched into an explanation of his own writing techniques with particular reference to the use of evaporated ink, exchanged contracts for Search, and accepted Geoffrey's praise of Pause as a first-rate novel with a suitably ironical smile.
'Extraordinary to think he could have written that filthy book,' Geoffrey whispered to Sonia as they were leaving. 'I had expected some long-haired hippie and my dear, this one is out of the Ark.'
'Just shows you can never tell,' said Sonia. 'Anyway you're going to get a lot of excellent publicity for Pause. I've got him on the "Books To Be Read" programme.'
'How very clever you are,' said Geoffrey. 'I'm delighted. And the American deal is definitely on?'
'Definitely,' said Sonia.
They took another taxi and drove back towards Lanyard Lane.
'You were marvellous,' she told Piper. 'Just stick to talking about your pens and ink and how you write your books and refuse to discuss their content and we'll have no trouble.'
'Nobody seems to discuss books anyway,' said Piper. 'I thought the conversation would be quite different. More literary.'
He got out in Charing Cross Road and spent the rest of the afternoon browsing in Foyle's while Sonia went back to the office and reassured Frensic.
'No problems,' she said. 'He had Geoffrey fooled.'
'That's hardly surprising,' said Frensic, 'Geoffrey is a fool. Wait till Eleanor Beazley starts asking him about his portrayal of the sexual psyche of an eighty-year-old woman. That's when the fat's going to be in the fire.'
'She won't. I've told her he never discusses his past work. She's to stick to biographical details and how he works. He's really convincing when he gets on to pens and ink. Did you know he uses evaporated ink and writes in leatherbound ledgers? Isn't that quaint?'
'I'm only surprised he doesn't use a quill,' said Frensic. 'It's in keeping.'
'It's good copy. The Guardian interview with Jim Fossie is tomorrow morning and the Telegraph wants him for the colour supplement in the afternoon. I tell you this bandwagon is beginning to roll.'
That night, as Frensic made his way back to his flat with Piper, it was clear that the bandwagon had indeed begun to roll. The newstands announced BRITISH NOVELIST MAKES TWO MILLION IN BIGGEST DEAL EVER.
'Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive,' murmured Frensic and bought a paper. Beside him Piper nursed the large green hardback copy of Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus which he had bought at Foyle's. He was thinking of utilizing its symphonic approach in his third novel.
Chapter 6
Next morning the bandwagon began to roll in earnest. After a night spent dreaming of Sonia and preparing himself for the ordeal, Piper arrived at the office to discuss his life, literary opinions and methods of work with Jim Fossie of the Guardian. Frensic and Sonia hovered anxiously in the background to ensure discretion but there was no need. Whatever Piper's limitations as a writer of novels, as a putative novelist he played his role expertly. He spoke of Literature in the abstract, referred scathingly to one or two eminent contemporary novelists, but for the most part concentrated on the use of evaporated ink and the limitations of the modern fountain pen as an aid to literary creation.
'I believe in craftsmanship,' he said, 'the old-fashioned virtues of clarity and legibility.' He told a story about Palmerston's insistence on fine writing by the clerks in the Foreign Office and dismissed the ball-pen with contempt. So obsessive was his concern with calligraphy that Mr Fossie had ended the interview before he realized that no mention had been made of the novel he had come to discuss.
'He's certainly different from any other author I've ever met,' he told Sonia as she saw him out. 'All that stuff about Kipling's note-paper, for God's sake!'
'What do you expect from genius?' said Sonia. 'Some spiel about how brilliant his novel is?'
'And how brilliant is this genius's novel?'
'Two million dollars worth. That's the reality value.'
'Some reality,' said Mr Fossie with more percipience than he knew.
Even Frensic, who had anticipated disaster, was impressed. 'If he keeps that up we'll be all right,' he said. 'We're going to be fine,' said Sonia.
After lunch the Daily Telegraph photographer insisted, thanks to a chance remark by Piper that he had once lived near the scene of the explosion in The Secret Agent in Greenwich Park, on taking his photographs as it were on location.
'It adds dramatic interest,' he said evidently supposing the explosion to have been a real one. They went down on the river boat from Charing Cross, Piper explaining to the interviewer, Miss Pamela Wildgrove, that Conrad had been a major influence on his work. Miss Wildgrove made a note of the fact. Piper said Dickens had also been an influence. Miss Wildgrove made a note of that fact too. By the time they reached Greenwich her notebook was crammed with influences but Piper's own work had hardly been mentioned.
'I understand Pause O Men for the Virgin deals with the love affair between a seventeen-year-old boy and...' Miss Wildgrove began but Sonia intervened.
'Mr Piper doesn't wish to discuss the content of his novel,' she said hurriedly. 'We're keeping the book under wraps.'
'But surely he's prepared to say...'
'Let's just say it is a work of major importance and opens new ground in the area of age differentials,' said Sonia and hurried Piper away to be photographed incongruously on the deck of the Cutty Sark, in the grounds of the Maritime Museum and by the Observatory. Miss Wildgrove followed disconsolately.
'On the way back stick to ink and your ledgers,' Sonia told Piper and Piper followed her advice. In the end Miss Wildgrove returned to her office to compose an article with a distinctly nautical flavour while Sonia shepherded her charge back to the office.
'You did very well,' she told him.
'Yes, but hadn't I better read this book I'm supposed to have written? I mean, I don't even know what it's about.'
'You can do that on the boat going over to the States.'
'Boat?' said Piper.
'Much nicer than flying,' said Sonia. 'Hutchmeyer is arranging some big reception for you in New York and it will draw bigger crowds at the dockside. Anyway we've done the interviews and the TV programme isn't till next Wednesday. You can go back to Exforth and pack. Get back here Tuesday afternoon and I'll brief you for the programme. We're leaving from Southampton Thursday.'
'You're wonderful,' said Piper fervently, 'I want you to know that.' He left the office and caught the evening train to Exeter. Sonia sat on in her office and thought wistfully about him. Nobody had ever told her she was wonderful before.
Certainly Frensic didn't next morning. He arrived at the office in a towering rage carrying a copy of the Guardian.
'I thought you told me all he was going to talk about was inks and pens,' he shouted at the startled Sonia.