Meanwhile, Fleming was after him, Fleming was desperate to apologize, Fleming was bending over backward to make up for the night of the money and the tears, and for many days after that night he called Vivian’s apartment at least once a day to talk to Ferguson, but when Celestine slipped the messages under the door of Ferguson’s room, Ferguson would tear them up and not call back. Two straight weeks of unanswered calls, and then the calls stopped and the letters and notes began. Please, Archie, let me prove to you that I’m not the person you think I am. Please, Archie, allow me to be your friend. Please, Archie, I’ve met so many interesting students here in Paris, and I would love to introduce them to you so you can begin making friends with people your own age. Three straight weeks of two or three letters a week, all of them unanswered, all of them torn up and thrown away, and then, finally, the letters stopped as well. Ferguson prayed that was the end of it, but there was always the possibility he would run into Fleming at another dinner somewhere or accidentally bump into him on the street, and therefore the story wouldn’t be officially over until Fleming went back to America in August, which was still months away.
The nights continued to be gruesome, with no bed partner or kissing mate of either sex to pull him out of his isolation, but better to be alone with no one to touch than to be touched by a man like Fleming, he said to himself, even if it wasn’t Fleming’s fault for being who he was, and then Ferguson would switch off the light, lower his head onto the pillow, and lie in the dark remembering.
THE INDUSTRIOUS AND efficient PTT, which did the same work in France that was divided among three entities in America (the U.S. Post Office, Western Union, and Ma Bell), saw to it that the mail was delivered twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, and because Ferguson’s address was the same as Vivian’s address, his letters and packages made their initial landing in the downstairs apartment. Once they arrived, the good Celestine would carry them upstairs, slipping the letters under the door of Ferguson’s room or knocking on the door to hand him the things that were too large to fit through that narrow space — his American film magazines, for example, or the books Gil and Amy occasionally sent him. At ten past nine on the morning of April eleventh, as Ferguson sat in his room reading Calderón de la Barca’s Life Is a Dream (La Vida es Sueño), he heard the familiar light tread of Celestine’s feet on the stairs, then the creaking floorboards in the corridor as she approached his room, and a moment later a slim white envelope was lying on the floor just inches from his feet. British postage. A business envelope with a printed return address in the upper left-hand corner that read: Io Books. Fully expecting bad news, Ferguson bent down, picked up the letter, and then delayed opening it for six or seven minutes, long enough to begin asking himself why he was so scared of something he had already told himself didn’t matter.
It took another thirty or forty seconds for him to understand that the bad news he had been expecting was in fact good news, that for an advance of four hundred pounds against royalties it was Io’s enthusiastic intention to publish How Laurel and Hardy Saved My Life sometime in March or April of the following year, but not even the affirmative response from Aubrey Hull could convince him that anyone would truly want to accept his book, so Ferguson concocted a story to explain the letter by silently accusing Vivian of having put up the money to pay for the publication herself, no doubt buying off Hull in one of those sinister backroom deals that had included writing another check for many thousands of pounds to pay for more Io Books in the future. Not once since he had moved to Paris had he ever been angry at Vivian, not once had he ever spoken a harsh word to her or suspected her of being anything less than honest and kind, but this was taking kindness too far, he said to himself, this was turning kindness into a form of humiliation, and on top of that it was deeply and revoltingly dishonest.
By nine-thirty, he was downstairs in Vivian’s apartment, thrusting Hull’s letter at her and demanding that she own up to what she had done. Vivian had never seen Ferguson in such a foul temper. The young man was beside himself, fuming with outrageous, paranoiac visions of devious plots and vile deceptions, and as Vivian later told him, only two possible reactions occurred to her as she stood there watching him fall apart: either slap him across the face or laugh. She chose to laugh. Laughter was the slower of the two solutions, but within ten minutes she had managed to persuade the proud, overly sensitive, pathologically self-doubting Ferguson that she had played no role in the acceptance of his book and had not sent Hull a farthing, a sou, or a single red dime.
Believe in yourself, Archie, she said. Show some swagger. And for God’s sake, don’t ever accuse me of anything like that again.
Ferguson promised he wouldn’t. He felt so ashamed of himself, he said, so mortified by his inexcusable tantrum, and the worst part of it was that he had no idea what had gotten into him. Crazy, that’s what it was, pure craziness, and if it ever happened again, she should forget about laughing and slap him across the face.
Vivian accepted his apology. They made up. The storm had passed, and a short time later they even went into the kitchen together to celebrate the good news by having a second breakfast of mimosas and little crackers topped with caviar, but good as Ferguson was beginning to feel about the good news in Hull’s letter, his mad outburst continued to trouble him, and he wondered if that scene with Vivian wasn’t an early warning sign of an eventual crack-up.
For the first time in his life, he was beginning to feel a little afraid of himself.
ON THE FIFTEENTH, a second letter arrived from Hull announcing that he would be coming to Paris on Tuesday the nineteenth. The Io man apologized for being so terribly last-minute about the trip, but if Ferguson happened to be unengaged that afternoon, he would welcome the chance to meet him. He suggested a twelve-thirty lunch at Fouquet’s, where they could discuss plans for the book, and if the conversation needed to be extended beyond lunch, his hotel was right around the corner off the Champs-Élysées, and they could pop over there and continue. One way or the other, Ferguson could accept or decline by leaving word with the concierge at the George V. All good wishes, etc.