The Great Pursuit

'That's right. He was quite fascinating.'

'Well then kindly explain all this about Graham Greene being a second-rate hack,' Frensic yelled and thrust the article under her nose. 'That's right. Hack. Graham Greene. A hack. The man's insane!'

Sonia read the article and had to admit that it was a bit extreme.

'Still, it's good publicity,' she said. 'Statements like that will get his name before the public.'

'Get his name before the courts more like,' said Frensic. 'And what about this bit about The French Lieutenant's Woman... Piper hasn't even written one single publishable word and here he is castigating half a dozen eminent novelists. Look what he says about Waugh. Quote a very limited imagination and an overrated style unquote. Waugh just happens to have been one of the finest stylists of the century. And "limited imagination" coming from a blithering idiot who hasn't got any imagination at all. I tell you Pandora's box will be a teaparty by comparison with Piper on the loose.'

'He's entitled to his opinions,' said Sonia.

'He isn't entitled to have opinions like these,' said Frensic. 'God knows what Cadwalladine's client will say when he reads what he's supposed to have said, and I shouldn't think Geoffrey Corkadale is too pleased to know he's got an author on his list who thinks Graham Greene is a second-rate hack.' He went into his office and sat miserably wondering what new storm was going to break. His nose was playing all hell with him.

But the storm when it did break came from an unexpected direction. From Piper himself. He returned to the Gleneagle Guest House in Exforth madly in love with Sonia, life, his own newly established reputation as a novelist and his future happiness to find a parcel waiting for him. It contained the proofs of Pause O Men for the Virgin and a letter from Geoffrey Corkadale asking him if he would mind correcting them as soon as possible. Piper took the parcel up to his room and settled down to read. He started at nine o'clock at night. By midnight he was wide awake and half-way through. By two o'clock he had finished and had begun a letter to Geoffrey Corkadale stating very precisely what he thought of Pause O Men for the Virgin as a novel, as pornography, as an attack on established values both sexual and human. It was a long letter. By six o'clock he had posted it. Only then did he go to bed, exhausted by his own fluent disgust and harbouring feelings for Miss Futtle that were the exact reverse of those he had held for her nine hours earlier. Even then he couldn't sleep but lay awake for several hours before finally dozing off. He woke again after lunch and went for a haggard walk along the beach in a state bordering on the suicidal. He had been tricked, conned, deceived by a woman he had loved and trusted. She had deliberately bribed him into accepting the authorship of a vile, nauseating, pornographic...He ran out of adjectives. He would never forgive her. After contemplating the ocean bleakly for an hour he returned to the boarding-house, his mind made up. He composed a terse telegram stating that he had no intention of going through with the charade and had no wish to see Miss Futtle ever again. That done he confided his darkest thoughts to his diary, had supper and went to bed.

The following morning the storm broke in London. Frensic arrived in a good mood. Piper's absence from his flat had relieved him of the obligation to play host to a man whose conversation had consisted of the need for a serious approach to fiction and Sonia Futtle's attractions as a woman. Neither topic had been at all to Frensic's taste and Piper's habit at breakfast of reading aloud passages from Doctor Faustus to illustrate what he meant by symbolic counterpoint as a literary device had driven Frensic from his own home even earlier than was his custom. With Piper in Exforth he had been spared that particular ordeal but on his arrival at the office he was confronted with fresh horrors. He found Sonia, whitefaced and almost tearful, clutching a telegram, and had been about to ask her what the matter was when the phone rang. Frensic answered it. It was Geoffrey Corkadale. 'I suppose this is your idea of a joke,' he said angrily.

'What is?' said Frensic thinking of the Guardian article about Graham Greene.

'This bloody letter,' shouted Geoffrey.

'What letter?'

'This letter from Piper. I suppose you think it's funny to get him to write abusive filth about his own beastly book.'

It was Frensic's turn to shout. 'What about his book?' he yelled.

'What do you mean "What about it?" You know damned well what I mean.'

'I've no idea,' said Frensic.

'He says here he considers it one of the most repulsive pieces of writing it's ever been his misfortune to have to read '

'Shit,' said Frensic frantically wondering how Piper had got hold of a copy of Pause.

'Yes, that too,' said Geoffrey. 'Now where does he say that? Here we are. "If you imagine even momentarily that for motives of commercial cupidity I am prepared to prostitute my albeit so far unknown but not I think inconsiderable talent by assuming even remotely and as it were by proxy responsibility for what in my view and that of any right-minded person can only be described as the pornographic outpourings of verbal excreta..." There! I knew it was embedded somewhere. Now what do you say to that?'

Frensic stared venomously at Sonia and tried to think of something to say. 'I don't know,' he muttered, 'it sounds odd. How did he get the blasted book?'

'What do you mean "How did he get the book"?' yelled Geoffrey. 'He wrote the thing, didn't he?'

'Yes, I suppose so,' said Frensic edging towards the safety of admitting he didn't know who had written it and that he had been hoodwinked by Piper. It didn't seem a very safe position to adopt.

'What do you mean "You suppose so"? I send him proofs of his own book to correct and I get this abusive letter back. Anyone would think he'd never read the damned thing before. Is the man mad or something?'

'Yes,' said Frensic for whom the suggestion came as a God-send, 'the strain of the past few weeks...nervous breakdown. Very highly strung you know. He gets into these states.'

Geoffrey Corkadale's fury abated a little. 'I can't say I'm at all surprised,' he admitted. 'Anyone who can go to bed with an eighty-year-old woman must have something mentally wrong with him. What do you want me to do with these proofs?'

'Send them round to me and I'll see he corrects them,' said Frensic. 'And in future I suggest you deal with Piper through me here. I think I understand him.'

'I'm glad someone does,' said Geoffrey. 'I don't want any more letters like this one.'

Frensic put the phone down and turned on Sonia. 'Right,' he yelled, 'I knew it. I just knew it would happen. You heard what he said?'

Sonia nodded sadly. 'It was our mistake,' she said. 'We should have told them to send the proofs here.'

'Never mind the bloody proofs,' snarled Frensic, 'our mistake was coming up with Piper in the first place. Why Piper? The world is full of normal, sane, financially motivated, healthily commercial authors who would be glad to stick their name to any old trash, and you had to come up with Piper.'

'There's no need to go on about it,' said Sonia, 'look what he's said in this telegram.'

Frensic looked and slumped into a chair. '"Yours ineluctably Piper"? In a telegram? I wouldn't have believed it...Well at least he's put us out of our misery though how the hell we're going to explain to Geoffrey that the Hutchmeyer deal is off...'

'It isn't off,' said Sonia.

'But Piper says '

'Screw what he says. He's going to the States if I have to carry him. We've paid him good money, we've sold his lousy book and he's under obligation to go. He's not going to back out on that contract now. I'm going down to Exforth to talk with him.'