We clinked goldfish bowls.
‘So tell me, Marco, how are our friends up in Hampstead?’
‘Fine, fine...’ I returned the book to its brothers and sisters. ‘We’re up to 1947.’
‘Oh, really... What happened in 1947?’
‘Not much. Alfred saw a ghost.’
Tim Cavendish tilted back and his chair squeaked. ‘A ghost? I’m happy to hear it.’
I didn’t want to broach this topic, but. ‘Tim, I’m not sure to what degree Alfred is altogether...’
‘Altogether altogether?’
‘You could say.’
‘He’s as nutty as a vegan T-bone. And Roy has definitely been to Disneyworld once too often. What of it?’
‘Well, doesn’t it present some problems?’
‘What problems? Roy has enough dosh to personally underwrite the whole print run.’
‘No, I don’t mean that.’ Now wasn’t the time to broach the other topic of Roy and The House of Lords. ‘I mean, well, autobiographies are supposed to be factual, aren’t they?’
Tim chuckled and took off his glasses. Both pairs. He leant back on his squeaky chair and placed his fingertips together as though in prayer. ‘Are autobiographies supposed to be factual? Would you like the straight answer or the convoluted one?’
‘Straight.’
‘Then, from the publishing point of view, the answer is “God forfend.”’
‘I’ll try the convoluted answer.’
‘The act of memory is an act of ghostwriting.’
Very Tim Cavendish. Profundity on the hoof. Or has he said it a hundred times before?
‘Look at it this way. Alfred is the ingredients, the book is the meal, but you, Marco, you are the cook! Squeeze out the juice! I’m glad to hear there’s still some left in the old boy. Ghosts are welcome. And for God’s sake, play up the Jarman–Bacon connection when you get to that. Encourage him to namedrop. Stroke his udders. Alfred’s not famous in his own right, at least, outside Old Compton Street he isn’t, so we’re going to have to Boswellise him. The ear of postwar-twentieth-century London. That kind of thing. He knew Edward Heath, too, didn’t he? And he was a pal of Albert Schweitzer.’
‘It doesn’t seem very honest. I’m not writing what really happened.’
‘Honest! God bless you, Marco! This is not the world of Peter Rabbit and his woodland friends. Pepys, Boswell, Johnson, Swift, all freeloading frauds to a man.’
‘At least they were their own freeloading frauds. Ghostwriters do the freeloading for other frauds.’
Tim chuckled up to the ceiling. ‘We’re all ghostwriters, my boy. And it’s not just our memories. Our actions, too. We all think we’re in control of our own lives, but really they’re pre-ghostwritten by forces around us.’
‘So where does that leave us?’
‘How well does the thing read?’ A classic Cavendish answer in a question’s clothing. The intercom on Tim’s desk crackled. ‘It’s your brother on the line, Mr Cavendish.’ Mrs Whelan, Tim’s secretary, is the most indifferent woman in London. Her indifference is as dent-proof as fog. ‘Are you here or are you still in Bermuda?’
‘Which one, Mrs Whelan? Nipper Cavendish or Denholme Cavendish?’
‘I dare say it’s your elder brother, Mr Cavendish.’
Tim sighed. ‘Sorry, Marco. This is going to be protracted sibling stuff. Why don’t you drop in next week after I’ve had a chance to read this lot? Oh, and I know this is Herod calling Thatcher a bit insensitive but you really need to change your shirt. And there’s something white stuck in your hair. And a last word of advice, I tell this to anyone who’s trying to get a book finished, steer clear of Nabokov. Nabokov makes anyone feel like a clodhopper.’
I downed the rest of the whisky and slunk off, closing the door quietly behind me on Tim’s ‘Hello, Denny, how marvellous to hear from you, I was going to get in touch this very afternoon about your kind little loan...’
‘Goodbye, Mrs Whelan.’ To Caesar that which is Caesar’s, to God that which is God’s, and to the Secretary that which is the Secretary’s.
Mrs Whelan’s sigh would drain a fresh salad of all colour.
‘Marco!’
I’d wandered into Leicester Square, drawn by the knapsacked European poon, the lights and colours, and a vague plan to see if there were any new remainders to be found in the mazes under Henry Pordes Bookshop in Charing Cross Road. Warm, late afternoon. Leicester Square is the centre of the maze. Nothing to do but put off getting out again. Teenagers in baseball caps and knee-length shorts swerved by on skateboards. I thought of the word ‘centrifugal’, and decided it was one of my favourite words. Youths from the Far East, Europe, North America, wherever, drifting around hoping to find Cool London. Ah, that Cockney leprechaun is forever beyond the launderette on the corner. I watched the merry-go-round for a few revolutions. A sprog was smiling every time he bobbed past his gran and somehow it made my heart ache so much that I felt like crying or smashing something. I wanted Poppy and India to be here, now, right now. I’d buy us ice creams, and if India’s fell off, she could have mine. Then I heard my name and looked up. Iannos was waving a falafel at me from his Greek Snack Bar between the Swiss Centre and the Prince Charles Cinema, where you can see nine-month-old movies for £2.50, by the way. Katy’s scrambled eggs had long since vacated my stomach, and a falafel would be perfect.
‘Iannos!’
‘Marco, my son! How’s The Music of Chance?’
‘Fine, mate. Everything as it should be. Petty arguments about nothing, bitching, still porking one another’s girlfriends when we’re not porking one another. Did you buy the new Synth from Roger?’
‘Dodgy Rodgy? Yep. I play it in my uncle’s restaurant every night. Only problem is that I have to pretend I’m Turkish.’
‘Since when can you speak Turkish?’
‘That’s the problem. I have to pretend I’m an autistic, Turkish, keyboard-playing prodigy. Gets you down, man. Like being in Tommy and The King and I on the same stage. When’s The Music of Chance playing again?’
‘When is it not playing?’
‘Bollocks, man. How’s Poppy?’
‘Ah, Poppy’s fine, thanks,’
‘And her beautiful little daughter?’
‘India. India’s fine...’
Iannos looked at me thoughtfully.
‘What’s that look supposed to mean then?’
‘Ah, nothing... I can’t chat, but why don’t you come in and sit down? I think there’s a seat at the back. Cup o’tea?’
‘I’d love one. Thanks, Iannos. Thanks a lot.’
Iannos’s little snack bar was full of bodies and loud bits of sentences. The only free seat in the cramped place was opposite a woman slightly older than me. She was reading a book called The Infinite Tether — You and Out of Body Experiences, by Dwight Silverwind. I asked if I could take the seat, and she nodded without looking up. I tried not to stare but there was nothing else to look at. Her auburn hair — dyed — was in gypsy ringlets, and between her fingers, eyebrows and ear-lobes she was wearing at least a dozen rings. Her clothes were tie-dyed. Probably purchased when she’d gone trekking in Nepal. Landslid breast. She burns incense, does aromatherapy and describes herself as not exactly telepathic, but definitely empathic. She’s into pre-Raphaelite art, and works part-time in a commercial picture library. I’m not knocking these things, and I know I come over as arrogant. But I do know my Londoners.
‘I’m sorry to interrupt you,’ I sipped my tea with a cocked little finger, ‘but I couldn’t help noticing the title of your book.’ Her eyes were calm, and faintly pleased — good. ‘It looks engrossing. Is there a connection with alternative healing? That’s my field, you see.’