The world looked on at this drama played out in the primitive precincts of Peppercorn Cottage in the Shropshire hills. Taking a lesson from Delphick, I let myself go on the alliteration, and it worked. In poetry it was out of date, but in prose it was up to the minute, for the moment. From the opening vagina of the wife I went into the mind, if you can call it that, of the TV commentator and filled a page of phrases such as ripping the sky, tearing at the stars, clouting cloud out of the way — until Baby was born. Husband, who now had the shotgun, decided to make a run for it.
He climbed out of the top back window and, silhouetted in starlight, fell to the ground and broke his ankle. Copper grabbed him but, before the jump, our Lover had taken his gun and shot at the Copper but missed. Husband zigzagged between trees and went up the hill. (Film rights sold.) Moonlight also shone. At the top was the frontier of Wales. Once inside, he was saved. (Two pages on Welsh Nationalism.) He ran, a Druid got him with outstretched arms. It was a cloud. He leapt through it, athlete that he was. (A reading on Radio Three.) Back in Peppercorn Cottage, Lover tended Newborn Babe. The harrowing surrender scene had to be read to be believed.
Blaskin was satisfied. It was such an appalling shit-novel — the drivel of a fourteen-year-old — that he laughed. ‘Nothing better to get me off the hook. They’ll turn it down, and I can send my masterpiece elsewhere.’
‘Glad to be of service,’ I said. ‘I think we’re coming up to the climax. I only need a few more pages, so I can finish it in the morning.’
‘You’d better,’ he said. ‘Now get out of the way while I dress for my hour of glory. Where your mother is I don’t know, but she’ll show herself at the party, woe is me.’
Even though he hadn’t been present during a minute of my bringing up, I suppose I got my passion for snazzy dressing from him. In some matters blood tells more than circumstances, and the wish to be seen as smart by the outside world, no matter how ragged I felt within, or how scruffy inside my own abode, was something I’d had for as long as I could remember.
Blaskin donned a black suit and bow-tie, and I could have shaved by the shine of his ankle-length boots. ‘Mrs Drudge has a good hand for that.’ He looked critically at what I wore, and supposed it was the best I could muster.
When we got out of the taxi and went into the party at Bookman Hall he introduced me to his publisher, Tony Ampersand, as his research assistant. I did not deny it. To be known as his son would have lumbered me with too much I couldn’t live down. The brilliantly lit hall was half full, and I made for the table where champagne was poured and food laid out. Blaskin handed me a cigar, which I lit after eating half a dozen sausages, several cauliflower heads and a few smoked salmon titbits.
I stood with my glass at a vantage point to watch whoever came in, though it was soon difficult to see through the crush. Blaskin took me to Margery Doldrum and Mrs Drudge, annoyed at them being together, and hoping I would break up their twosome. Mrs Drudge was tall and icy and I could tell she didn’t like me, which made me want to get into bed with her, but knowing it would take too long to engineer, and not caring to run off my own father, I didn’t waste any chit-chat. I think she hated anyone connected with Blaskin, though she seemed annoyed when Margery turned sharply and left her alone.
The noise was like waves breaking on the shore at Brighton rather than Blackpool, though it was still hard to hear what was said. Blaskin was at the door, greeting newspaper and magazine people. When Margery asked me how his latest novel was getting on, I told her it would be out next month. She promised to tell Melvin Gomery, who might review it. They had it in for Blaskin, though it didn’t seem to reduce his sales. She pointed out the luminaries: Colin Camps of the Soho Review, Victoria Plumb of the Daily Retch, Peter O’Graffity of Private Lives, Christopher Hogwash of the Bookbag, Edwin Stowe of the Hampstead Review, and Susan Stopwatch of the Literary Mirror. They were not the first liners, she said. They had gone to another party, though maybe some would come later, if they hadn’t had enough to drink.
Raymond Mangle told me that his latest novel was about Iranian fanatics calling themselves ‘The Brothers of Cordoba’, a terrorist group working to bring Spain back into the fold of Islam. ‘They have thousands of members in training. Secret cells have been set up in Seville and Toledo. The Foreign Office knows about them but doesn’t mind really. In fact they are trying to do a deal, promising to give them a free hand in Spain — as far as the Pyrenees — if they won’t claim Gibraltar when they come to power.’
‘Is it a fantasy novel?’
‘Oh no. In twenty years it’ll happen. Mark my words.’
‘Don’t tell Blaskin,’ I said, ‘or he’ll write it.’
‘You think so?’
‘He’s sure to.’
Standing on tiptoe, he looked around the room. ‘I like this kind of party. I’ve had nothing to eat but kippers for over a week, washed down with white wine.’ His lipline, not quite lidded by his beard, became rippled with dislike when I answered his question by saying I only read Gilbert Blaskin, Sidney Blood and Ronald Delphick. His eyes turned a more intense grey to signal his disgust.
I told a girl with long auburn hair and a hare-lip who worked in publicity at Lock and Kee that I wrote book reviews for The Times, under a pseudonym. She tried to find out what my real name was, so I said that if she followed me into the cloakroom I’d tell her. ‘Now I believe you,’ she said, and vanished like a fish in water.
‘Who’s that big pompous-looking chap standing by the door talking to Blaskin?’ Mangle asked.
‘How the hell should I know?’ But it was Lord Moggerhanger, who gave Blaskin a friendly pat on the back, then turned to bury Tony Ampersand’s boyfriend in a cloud of cigar smoke. One or two middle-aged publishing women were punked-up to the eyebrows, and Moggerhanger shifted uneasily when they spoke to him. I got close enough to hear one say how privileged she’d be to publish his life story — or even a novel. ‘It’s taken care of.’ He nudged one who got too close, having seen Lady Moggerhanger and Polly observing what was going on. ‘Mr Blaskin is doing a book on me, so I expect he’ll take care of publication.’
‘How did you meet him?’ Punk-one asked.
Moggerhanger laughed. ‘Where does one meet Blaskin? I read a page or two of his books. Or my wife did. All I know is that he’s a gentleman.’
‘Do they exist?’ asked Punk-one.
Punk-two was scornful. ‘What is a gentleman?’ She had made a good job of trying to disguise her impeccable middle-class roots by adopting the fancy dress of the workers.
‘A gentleman is someone who never admits to being one — for a start,’ he told her. ‘Then it’s someone who doesn’t give a gnat’s fart — if you’ll excuse the language, though I expect you’ve heard worse — for anybody or anything, but keeps his eyes open and his trap shut. He knows the world belongs to him, but isn’t above a bit of generosity when the mood takes him.’
‘You sound as if you’d write the most wonderful book,’ said Punk-one, a little fawningly, I thought.
He slapped her on the back. ‘And you’d be quite an attraction if you agreed to work at one of my entertainment complexes, my dear. You’d be very good at it. I’ll pay you a nice fee. How about it?’