Brought to Book (The Simon Bognor Mysteries) Page 5

  ‘You know Romany, of course.’ Milton smiled, though not, of course, with his eyes. It was a determining characteristic of all Hemlock’s big authors that they never smiled with their eyes. Nor did any of the characters in Big Books’ fiction lists. It was a house rule. ‘Romany asked if she could come along too. Thought she might learn a thing or two.’ He lowered his voice for Bognor’s benefit. ‘I thought it best, between you and me, if she got away for a few hours. It’s all been very upsetting for her and she is in a most delicate position, as I’m sure you’ll understand.’

  Bognor had formed only a fleeting impression of Ms Flange but he was absolutely positive that a delicate position was one thing she would never find herself in. Given Hemlock’s known proclivities she might have found herself in some pretty exotic ones but delicate never. If ever a woman was hard as the five-inch copper nails Bognor used for murdering rogue sycamores or as tough as old Doc Martens, it was Romany Flange. Attractive, mind, if you lusted after women like sandpaper marinated in Tabasco, but not if your analogies were more floral. If autumn rose was what you had in mind then Monica was the head and Romany the stem. She had the longest magenta fingernails Bognor had ever seen. Her hair was jet black and so were her eyes. Her eyes were black as prunes. She had a definite look of that Conservative woman who told people in the North not to eat chip butties. Bognor could never remember politicians’ names but he seemed to remember that the Conservative woman was proud of her legs. So was Romany Flange, and with reason. They were very good legs, and she flashed them ceaselessly at any male worth attracting.

  Her admirers said she could tell a Big Book by just sniffing at the first paragraph. Her detractors said she never progressed to paragraph two. Not even to sniff at.

  ‘Absolutely!’ said Bognor, trying to shuffle their elderly suitcase so that it was hidden under the skirts of his army-surplus overcoat. ‘Delighted to have her along! Very sound move!’

  ‘Good!’ said Milton Capstick.

  ‘Great!’ said Romany, all girlish. ‘Thanks awfully!’

  The Royal Institute of Letters did not seem to have anything very royal about it, nor indeed institutional, if Bognor’s sense that an institution was a large stuffy place with a pillared entrance and very old copies of The Field on glass-topped tables was correct. On the other hand it reeked of letters.

  The Bognors had been dropped off at Baron’s Court tube from which it was only one stop to Hammersmith and their new house, in one of the quieter streets near the Broadway. They were going to spend the night at home and rendezvous with Ronald and the Roller next morning after breakfast. In deference to what he suspected would be the mood of the evening, Bognor changed his Apocrypha College tie for a suitably thick woolly Fabian number Monica had bought him from the Oxfam shop some Christmases earlier, and found an old corduroy jacket with leather patches at the elbows. Monica put on more sensible shoes and removed her blazer, substituting an old fawn cardy.

  Arriving at the RIL they found that they were on the right tracks but just a touch too tweedy. This was clearly Eng Lit. on the hoof but, though inclined to shabbiness, at least among the males, it was also surprisingly dark and in some instances even pinstripe suited. Not, Monica and Bognor agreed, sotto voce, that they were in any way Banker’s or Advertising Man’s pinstripes. They were much more like the pinstripes Bognor would have expected on the British Council’s Representative in, say, Helsinki. He had only ever seen such suits en masse one night at the Tate when his old friend Fingest had asked him along for a private view. He guessed you wouldn’t get a job at the Courtauld Institute unless you wore that sort of suit at the interview.

  Several of the women wore just such fashionably high heels and just such nicely cut blazers as Monica had left behind at Hammersmith. There was the odd cardy and the occasional tweed skirt or kilt, but generally speaking the women – who greatly outnumbered the males – were more expensively dressed than they would have expected.

  ‘It’s Public Lending Right wot dunnit,’ said Monica, in a stage whisper, which earned her a very hostile stare from an immaculate dark suit with a pink, clever face and a mane of distinguished silver hair.

  ‘Guests of Mr Capstick,’ they said to the Eton-cropped woman on the door who looked at them with extreme suspicion.

  ‘Mr Capstick hasn’t put you down,’ she said, frowning at the list in front of her. ‘You’re not press, are you?’ But just as she said it another woman with the harassed, even mildly demented, air of a Lewis Carroll Queen, said, ‘Yes, yes, it’s quite all right, Mr Capstick said he was inviting two guests, a Mr and Mrs Simon Bognor. That’s quite all right! Do hurry along and whatever can have happened to Michael Holroyd, he’s usually so reliable?’ And she disappeared at a canter, clucking disapproval and saying something bothersome about dyslexia which Bognor didn’t quite catch.

  ‘It’s upstairs,’ said the ticket seller, looking happier now. ‘There’s a bar and you’ve still got time to order a drink if you’d like.’

  Upstairs the men and women of letters thronged a minute bar and a not much larger lecture hall. Nearly all of them were drinking wine and nibbling pieces of cheese while talking at each other. It was very noticeable that hardly anyone was doing any listening.

  The Bognors bought a couple of red wines from a small dimpled girl behind the bar who was dressed entirely in black and looked like a particularly gamine Italian peasant.

  ‘Did you get the impression she was laughing at us?’ asked Bognor, as they eased through the throng.

  ‘Don’t be so sensitive, darling,’ said Monica, apologising profusely as she stood on the toe of a very small, dapper man with an equally small moustache. He accepted Monica’s apology with a charm which seemed to Bognor to teeter dangerously on the brink of lechery. ‘It’s just that you look so much more like a writer than most of the writers. Anyway, I don’t suppose she was laughing at you really. Remember what Inspector Bumstead said: “You’re not half as funny as you think you are.”’

  ‘That’s not funny,’ said Bognor almost spilling wine on an important-looking dark suit of faintly Nordic appearance who was smiling distantly at one of the few men who looked almost as tweedy as Bognor. This person had very wild hair and a Shetland pullover. It was difficult to tell if the important suit was fantastically interested or fantastically bored. He was clearly an enigma, possibly even to himself.

  ‘Look, isn’t that Arthur Green?’ Monica had to shout above the hubbub. ‘Over there. He’s talking to Miranda Howard. I mean Wilfred and Cynthia Midgely. Shall we go and say hello?’

  Before they could do this a moth-eaten bearded aesthete of extreme pallor and restricted girth said, ‘Isn’t it Simon Bognor? I published a poem of yours once in the school magazine. It began: “What price the holocaust of noon-day’s sun in Brighton, now!” I’ve never forgotten it. Are you still writing poetry? I haven’t seen any of your stuff.’

  Bognor went very white.

  ‘God!’ he said. ‘I …er…’ But he was saved by the sudden advent of the woman who looked like a Lewis Carroll Queen who suddenly marched in grinning very broadly and clapping her hands. Behind her, looking rather sheepish but managing a smile of sorts was Milton Capstick, still in a blazer, clutching a clipboard to his chest and trying at one and the same time to appear terribly modest and fantastically successful. Behind him came an unappealing bald man of about fifty. He also wore a blazer but of a subtly different cut which Bognor tentatively identified as West Coast American. He also had an open-necked shirt with a gold chain underneath it. There seemed to be quite a lot of gold about his person. Gold at the wrist and on the fingers and, when he smiled, gold in the mouth too.

  The two men sat down behind an insubstantial table while the fierce woman with the grin gave the microphone two or three crisp whacks with the flat of her hand, blew into it and said, ‘Would everyone please sit down. We are about to begin.’

  To Bognor’s surprise everyone immediately made a dive for the nearest seat, including Si
mon and Monica.

  ‘She must have been an officer in the ATS,’ said Monica.

  ‘I guess she runs a pony club,’ said Bognor.

  In seconds everyone was silent and the Queen said, ‘We’re very lucky to have with us tonight Dr Milton Capstick, who is to speak on the subject of “Business as Literature or Combining Cash and Narrative Flow”.’ Bognor was aware of strangled squeaks coming from Capstick. The Queen turned round and cupped her ear to Capstick’s mouth. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, giggling a little, ‘“Literature as Business”, not “Business as Literature”. And to chair tonight’s meeting and introduce Dr Capstick I should like to introduce Mr Oberdorf Charles, the distinguished literary agent.’

  ‘Ever heard of him?’ Bognor whispered to his wife.

  ‘Never,’ she whispered back, ‘but I’m glad he’s not my agent.’

  ‘I bet he’d make you pots of money.’

  ‘At a price!’

  The dapper, small man with the white moustache who seemed to have taken such a fancy to Monica turned round from the row in front and said ‘Ssssh!’ much more loudly than either Simon or Monica had been talking. Simon went puce and shut up and the small man winked at Monica as much as to say ‘See you in the bar afterwards’.

  ‘Friends,’ said Oberdorf Charles in a sonorous Californian accent. The microphone let out a terrible ear-jangling shriek as if Mr Charles had mortally insulted it. Mr Charles hit it in the obvious belief that all it needed was firm handling. ‘Fellow men and women of letters,’ he continued, but the microphone had gone completely dead.

  From the back of the hall a twin-set, jangling with pearls and drop earrings, called out: ‘Kindly speak up, young man! We can’t hear a word you’re saying.’

  Mr Charles did not look pleased at this. ‘I can’t hear a word you’re saying either,’ he shouted back.

  ‘Thank you!’ said the lady at the back, ‘that’s a great deal better.’

  One of the RIL ladies advanced on the microphone and wrenched it like an osteopath dealing with a recalcitrant back. Suddenly her amplified voice could be heard quite clearly. ‘Bloody thing!’ she was saying. ‘For pity’s sake behave, now that we’ve got these monsters here.’ She beamed at Mr Charles and signalled for him to continue.

  ‘Fellow ladies and gentlemen of letters,’ he said, ‘it is my pleasant duty to introduce you to Dr Milton Capstick, one of our most successful men of letters, but before I do I want to pay tribute to one of the greatest of all British publishers who died so tragically last night. Ladies and gentlemen, I had known Vernon Hemlock…’

  Bognor settled back into his chair and switched off. All around the hall there were idealised paintings of naked or partially clad ladies. They were not very well painted and only mildly erotic but he felt that on the whole Hemlock would have approved and considered this an appropriate place for a eulogy. He switched back on briefly to hear Charles say ‘…a man of integrity…a man of vision…above all a man of honour…’ and switched off again hurriedly. Most of the Hemlock authors seemed to be in the front row. He could see Arthur Green nodding in agreement. Next to him the Midgeleys. Their heads too were bobbing about like southern baptists in the middle of a particularly exhortatory sermon. The back of Warrington’s head to their immediate left seemed less mobile as did that of Ann Belgrave. No sign of Marlene Glopff, who was presumably working out somewhere. This was hardly her scene. No sign either of Romany Flange. Capstick’s driver, Ronald, had mumbled something about her being tied up and coming on later. Not like her to miss a Hemlock author on an occasion like this. This was just the sort of occasion she was paid to attend. Bognor opened half an ear again and closed it again when he heard ‘…selfless regard for his authors, nurturing, encouraging, praising…’ Presumably the eulogy would soon be over.

  He got out his diary and scribbled on the page reserved for forward engagements for next year, ‘Where Flange?’ He passed it to Monica who looked peeved at being disturbed. She had either been having a good daydream or actually, listening to Mr Charles banging on hypocritically about Hemlock.

  After a quick craning of the neck Monica scribbled back: ‘Pas ici!!’ and gave her husband the lofted eyebrow. Meanwhile, on stage, Oberdorf Charles had finished with Hemlock and was dealing with Capstick in similar though briefer terms. Bognor sensed an imminent peroration and sat up to listen.

  ‘My friend and client Dr Capstick is, my friends, one of that rare breed who can transmute the basest raw materials into pure gold. When The True Self appeared five years ago it was recognised as a classic of its kind and translated into no less than seventy-three different languages. Looking After Number One may truly be described as one of the great books in this or any other language…’

  ‘What language?!’ called a voice from the back and there was a titter from the audience. Mr Charles ignored it. Bognor was dimly aware of a sense of well-bred irritation. Actually, on looking around and trying to pick up some vibes it was worse than irritation. The people of letters were, unless he was much mistaken, beginning to seethe a little.

  ‘And in his latest and seminal work The First Billion Capstick has, literally, broken the bank. That book has become the bible of the aspiring self-helper from Brazil to Bangladesh.’ Mr Charles’s chain jangled as he warmed to his theme. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, ‘a very great British press baron once said that owning a television company was “a licence to print money”. I realise that for very many of you, writing a book is a licence to lose money. But for Milton Capstick the art of authoring has always been what that great press lord said. Every time that Milton puts pen to paper – or, rather, ha ha, puts a finger to his wordprocessor – he is actually writing himself a substantial cheque. No man has done more to give writing the self-respect it deserves and so, ladies and gentlemen, I give you my very dear friend…Dr Milton Capstick.’

  The applause was, thought both Bognors, distinctly tepid. But perhaps that was just the way one did things at the RIL. This was, as it were, Lord’s Cricket Ground, not Yankee Stadium.

  ‘Thank you, Obe,’ said Capstick. ‘Friends, fellow toilers in the vineyard of creative writing, I want you to know that when it comes to turning one’s words into money one thing comes only second to having the creative genius in the first place – and that’s having a good literary agent.’

  No one moved. Some people might at this point have exuded a mild unease, adjusted the trim of their sails to catch a wind that showed signs of not blowing quite as one would have wished, but not Capstick. He might have an unequalled eye and ear for a worldwide audience in print but he wasn’t quite so assured when it came to a couple of hundred in person.

  There then followed his memorial tribute to Vernon Hemlock who came across as one of the great philanthropists of his time, a man dedicated to the pursuit of truth, of beauty, of friendship, of fraternity and – let’s not beat about the bush – yes, money. Bognor gave half an ear to this. It was rather like skimming the morning paper. He was able to do a tolerable precis of the contents while at the same time concentrating acceptably hard on the world about him. Thus he noticed Romany Flange’s entrance, five sentences into Capstick’s speech. It was a discreet but. stylish entrance. She was wearing what Bognor took to be mink. She also appeared pink and flushed and over-excited, as if she had been running or possibly engaged in some other more sensual activity. Bognor had read in one of Dr Belgrave’s works that it was always possible to tell if a woman had come straight from her lover’s bed but Bognor’s antennae were not all that well adjusted to that sort of thing.

  ‘Money!’ said Capstick. He had his hands firmly on the table before him and he now repeated the word several times, beaming at his audience and moving his head round the room so as to produce a semblance of eye contact with as many as possible. It was like watching a human lighthouse.

  ‘There is no virtue in being poor,’ he began. ‘In fact any writer worth a damn has a duty to make as much money as he or she possibly can. And if the writer
has an ounce of talent and an ounce of motivation and even half an ounce of audience awareness he or she will be a seriously rich person in no time at all. It happened to me.’ And here he paused and did another sweep of his smile. ‘And it can happen to you. And if it doesn’t happen to you, quite frankly you’d be a sight better off doing something else altogether.’

  Bognor winced. So did the man on his left. Monica glanced at him with a ‘What in hell does he think he’s doing?’ expression. Capstick went on his way undeterred.

  It was, in its way, a rather admirable performance, for it made no concession whatever to his audience or to the surroundings in which he found himself. Capstick must have known something about what to expect. It was no secret that the average English writer is a relatively impecunious figure – otherwise why had the Royal Institute of Letters asked Capstick along to talk to it? Answer: because Capstick was a phenomenon. Members of the RIL were almost by definition likely to be higher on pretension and lower on income than the average. Indeed they almost certainly belonged to that dwindling minority of what Hemlock would have called ‘arty-farty intellectuals’ who saw a direct equation between artistic merit and popular indifference. These people wrote because of some bizarre compulsion or (another of Hemlock’s cherished beliefs) because they were not capable of proper work. It was like a disease. Because they received scant financial reward for their efforts which went largely unread they convinced themselves that what they produced was too good for the vulgar populace – too difficult, too improving, too literate, too deeply meaningful. Once they had taken this position they had to accept the corollary which was that anybody who did appeal to the common herd was – by definition – vulgar, illiterate, boorish and philistine.

  Capstick’s first task, therefore, if he had wanted to be loved (which on the whole he did) should have been to convince the RIL that despite his vast international sales, his bulging Swiss bank account and his beautifully tailored blazer, he was, at bottom, embarrassed by all this. Naturally he would have been expected to advance a few useful tips about how serious Letters people might improve their material standards but he would be expected to do so from a position of self-avowed intellectual, moral and creative inferiority. It was one thing for him to admit to selling more copies and making more money but quite another to claim that his books were anything other than grossly inferior. Members of the RIL believed that they were the victims of a boorish, materialist, greedy society. They took comfort in the Reithian belief that they were nevertheless an elite. Their books did not sell and were not read because they were, in a nutshell, too bloody good. Their books, literature; Capstick’s books, junk. They were certainly not going to take kindly to a man like him who came along to tell them that they were not only material failures but creatively second-rate, too.