The Murdstone Trilogy (6 page)

Wales is a net exporter of rain. Indeed, according to
Llyfr y Meirw
, the Welsh Book of the Dead, rain was actually invented in Wales when King Sagwynd appealed to the Gods for something to cool the sexual excesses of the dwellers in the Lower Valleys. Which it failed to do, as we know. But the myth remains popular and the rain persists.

The parts of England unfortunate enough to be closest to Wales are regularly drenched, so it’s strange, really, that one of England’s major literary festivals is held at Hay-on-Wye, bang on the border. Torrential rain does not suit books, but there are millions of them in Hay, a great many of them displayed out of doors. Consequently, the festival cowers beneath a vast higgledy-piggledy arrangement of canvas, tarpaulins and plastic sheeting, tents and marquees. Long lines of bedraggled people wind among these temporary shelters, queuing for food and drink, for toilets, for book-signings, for celebrity readings. Looking down from an aircraft flying below the cloud-ceiling, you might think you were witnessing a mind-numbing
humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh or one of the more tormented parts of Africa.

Philip Murdstone, peering through the streaming window of the Mercedes, was deeply worried about the effect the weather might have upon his suit, not to mention his expensively tousled new hair job. He need not have been concerned. Just before the car squelched to a halt, the rain relented and a watery sun made a miraculous appearance. He and Minerva were able to walk the duckboards to the Gorgon marquee without even soiling their shoes. By the time the air-kissing and handshaking were over, the walls of the tent were bright and gently billowing like the sails of a Spanish galleon borne softly towards the coast of Hispaniola.

When Philip and his fellow guests were miked-up and sound-checked (the show was being recorded for Radio 3) the audience surged in. Once the rustle and whisper of rainwear and plastic book-bags had subsided, Val Sneed, Managing Director of Gorgon Books, publishers of
Dark Entropy
, welcomed everyone to the Gorgon Fantasy Forum, sponsored by Gorgon Books, and said how thrilled and honoured she and Gorgon Books were to have three such glittering stars of Fantasy here this afternoon. At this point the PA system squealed feedback like a pig being gelded. A thin skinhead technician scuttled across the stage, fiddled with a cable connection close to Val Sneed’s feet, snuck a peek up her skirt, and scuttled off again. There was a light scattering of applause. Then, on behalf of Gorgon Books, Val handed over to
the Forum Chair, Gloria Rowsel, presenter of the BBC’s
Book Show
, who would introduce the guests.

Philip surveyed the audience. The marquee was full to capacity and then some. Disappointingly, most of the wet pilgrims were male. It was unfortunate that Gorgon’s Fantasy Forum coincided with Germaine Greer’s readings from
Painting the Pudenda
in the Virago tent. There was, though, a decent scattering of damp girls. They were here, he supposed, to relish the immensely long and intense youth folded into a seat to Philip’s left, who was biting small pieces from his fingers and washing them down with gulps of water. This was Virgil Peroni.

‘Who astonished the world,’ Gloria claimed, ‘with
The Dragoneer Chronicles
, written when he was sixteen years of age, which went on to be a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic and inspired the movie of the same name which is currently breaking box-office records around the globe. Now, at the grand old age of eighteen, he has authored his second novel,
The Dragon Agenda
, published in England this very week. Welcome to the Gorgon Fantasy Forum, Virgil.’

The prodigy swallowed, nodded vigorously and said something like ‘Glarr’.

Applause.

The second member of the panel was a middle-aged woman wearing a kaftan patterned with hieroglyphs above jeans and sandals. She was from Hebden Bridge and appeared to be asleep. Philip had forgotten her name as soon as Gloria had uttered it, but she was, apparently,
the author of something called
The Hemlock Chalice.

‘A debut novel,’ Gloria informed the audience, ‘which attracted a deal of controversy on account of its several episodes of inter-species sex and its unflinching depiction of violence.’

A modicum of applause. The sleeping woman nodded without opening her eyes.

‘Our third guest this afternoon is Philip Murdstone. What can I say? This is a man whose first novel,
First Past the Post,
won tributes too numerous to mention. He then went on to write a sequence of deeply sensitive, boy-centred novels that utterly revised the way we think about disability. Then, earlier this year, he made a massive transition into the realm of Fantasy which took everybody by surprise. He is, of course, the author of
Dark Entropy,
published by Gorgon Books.’

Huge applause.

‘Philip, if I may come to you first. Not merely because
Dark Entropy
is currently the number one bestseller for the twentieth week running.’

Laughter, some applause. Philip smiled in a modest, even rueful, manner.

‘The critics were united in hailing your book as an astonishingly original take on the classic Tolkienesque, um, template, as it were, for Fantasy writing.’ Here Gloria paused and placed two thoughtful fingers on her cheek. ‘I have to admit,’ she said, ‘that having read your earlier books, I found myself asking where on earth this came from.’

Philip leaned his chin on his fist and waited three seconds before responding, as Minerva had advised. Then, frowning thoughtfully but somehow smiling at the same time, he said, ‘Well, I’ve always loved Tolkien, of course. He is the Everest we all aspire to climb. But I did not think that I was a mountaineer. So I explored the lower slopes, so to speak. The foothills of social realism. Of course, I always knew that one day I would have to tackle those peaks, let my imagination fly. But’ – and here Philip directed a benign smile at Virgil Peroni – ‘I suppose the fact is that until recently I felt too young to be truly original.’

A murmur of amusement swelled as the slower members of the audience caught on to this charming and self-deprecating paradox.

Gloria waited, then said, ‘I suppose the most striking aspect of
Dark Entropy
is the narrative voice. The voice of Pocket Wellfair. Who not only relates the story but interrupts the flow with earthy comments, explanations, asides to the audience and so on. One critic described him as Bilbo Baggins re-imagined by D.H. Lawrence with a bit of help from Chaucer. Where did
he
come from?’

Philip shook his head wonderingly. ‘I wish I knew. I can only say that it’s as if I’d dreamt him. Which is to say, I suppose, that he must have always been there, somewhere in my unconscious, a voice that I’d previously refused to listen to. But when I made the conscious decision to write a fantasy, he just sort of
came through
. It’s rather scary for me to admit this, but it might be that
Pocket is my real voice, the voice that I’ve spent years developing without being aware of it.’

‘Amazing,’ Gloria said. ‘I have to admit that while I was reading
Dark Entropy
I felt, very powerfully, that I was being spoken to by Pocket Wellfair, rather than reading something written by Philip Murdstone. I hope you don’t mind my saying that.’

‘Not at all,’ Philip said generously. ‘That was precisely the effect I was trying to achieve.’

‘And in which you triumphantly succeeded.’

‘Thank you very much, Gloria.’ He leaned back in his chair and met Minerva’s warm gaze. She winked. Something south of his abdomen twinkled in response.

Later, at the lectern, Philip said, ‘Um … I thought I might do a request. Rather than just read a bit I’d chosen. So if there’s anyone who …?’

Several hands shot up. Philip recoiled, as if alarmed by such enthusiasm. The uplifted faces were bathed in the mellow light that the sunlit canvas threw upon them. He picked the wrongly hinged boy in the wheelchair whom Minerva had pointed out.

‘Well, let’s see … how about you, sir? The young man in the … er.’

A BBC girl poked a furry boom mike towards the invalid.

‘Yeff, err. I like when the Gremes, you know, err, when ve’re like tunnelling, and vey break frew into …’

Philip leaned to the microphone. ‘I think I know
the passage you mean.’ He produced his copy of
Dark Entropy
, which he had held behind his back. A single yellow post-it protruded from the pages. ‘By the strangest coincidence, I have only one passage marked, which happens to be that very sequence. When the Gremes accidentally break through into the Megrum’s cave. Now, how weird is that?’

There was amusement, then someone called out good-naturedly, ‘Fix!’

More laughter, more calls of ‘Fix! Fix!’

The boy in the wheelchair twisted his head towards the voices, appalled. Viscid filaments stretched between his lips.

Smiling, Philip raised a hand. ‘I am deeply shocked by these cynical allegations,’ he said. He looked over at the disabled boy. ‘Help me out here, would you? We didn’t set this up, did we? Have you and I ever met before?’

‘No! No!’ The boy’s eyes swivelled and his buckled fingers clawed the air. There was a panicky dismay in his voice. ‘We never, I didn’t …’

The man with him, whose only obvious disability was a grey ponytail, reached across and laid a restraining hand on the boy’s arm.

‘Thank you,’ Philip said, and the audience applauded again, perhaps to muffle the last of the boy’s cries. ‘There you are, you see. I did not collude with my young friend here. No. The only reason I marked this particular passage is that it’s the one I always get asked to read. I can’t imagine why.’

Appreciative chuckles.

Philip opened the book. A silence like a warm snowfall filled the marquee. He began to recite, using a voice that was slightly lifted, slightly coarse, and overlaid with a vaguely West Country accent; the voice, it was assumed, of Pocket the clerk.

‘Cheers, darling.’

Minerva sipped champagne, then sent her tongue questing among her teeth. Philip watched, fascinated.

‘I love those king prawns in samphire,’ she said, ‘but the bits do
lurk
, don’t they? Anyway. Shall we run through the schedule now? You feel up to it?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Right, OK. We land at JFK at two, local time. There’ll be a car to take us to the Fox studios. You get an hour to wind down, then … Bugger. Here comes that mislabelled blonde again. Bet you a quid she’s after you.’

The stewardess with
Virgin
written on her breast came smiling through the Club Class cabin and rested her hand lightly on the rim of Philip’s pod.

‘I am
so
sorry to interrupt,’ she said. ‘I could come back later, if you like.’

‘It’s fine,’ Minerva said. Her smile might have been acid-etched on a statue of the Madonna. ‘Be my guest.’

‘It’s just that I happened to mention to the captain that
you were on board and – can you believe it? – he was literally reading
Dark Entropy
and he asked me to ask you if you wouldn’t mind signing his copy. He loves it.’ She proffered a copy of the novel.

‘I’d be delighted,’ Philip said, fumbling for his Montblanc fountain pen. ‘And what is our gallant captain’s name?’

‘Kenneth.’

‘Of course.’

Philip tried to think of an inscription appropriate to a man who was flying two hundred and fifty people across the Atlantic while absorbed in a book about gnomes and necromancy, but his imagination failed him. So he wrote ‘For Ken, Best Wishes, Philip Murdstone’, using his new signature, the capital
P
looking slightly Greek, the
S
like a rearing snake.

‘So,’ Minerva said, when she had recaptured his attention, ‘you’ve got the second spot on Hope’s show. The second spot is good, the second spot is cool. I pulled strings, no, I pulled bloody
hawsers
to get it. That’s because the first spot is the freak spot. Hope has someone on that the audience will laugh
at
, OK? The third spot, the last spot, is someone the audience will laugh
with
, right? The second spot, the middle spot, your spot, is the serious spot. Hope’s people have got this thing going where pretty serious people watch the middle of his show because they’ve—’

‘Sorry, did you say
his
show? Hope is a man?’

‘Only very rarely. But in this case, yes.’

‘Right. Funny with names, aren’t they, Americans? So, er, who’s on first?’

‘Misty Turbo. Porn star and Born Again Christian who’s made a religious dirty movie called, um,
Nail Me Again
.’

‘Right. And the third slot?’

‘A gangsta rapper called No-Tag who’s way up in the ratings for a TV show in which he plays a single dad whose estranged wife has been killed in a hit-and-run and he moves back in with their two kids and finds that his teenage daughter wants to be a nun and his teenage son is a tranny.’

Philip frowned. ‘A radio?’

‘No, darling. A transvestite.’

‘Ah. That’s the one they laugh at?’

‘No,
with
. They laugh
at
the religious porno chick.’

‘Right, fine. It’s not live, is it?’

‘God, no. What do you take me for? Now then, Tuesday. I’ve booked a separate suite at the Marriott for interviews. There are only three because we don’t want people thinking you’re easy to get. The first is with
Sword and Sorcery Monthly
, the second is with the
New York Review of Books
, then it’s, um, something called
Dead Breast
.’ She frowned at her iPad. ‘No, that can’t be right. God, my eyes are going.
Dread Beast,
that’s it.’

‘We’re making the
New York Review
wait for second place? That’s a bit cheeky, isn’t it?’

‘Yep, but
Sword and Sorcery
and Dread Thing are
both paying for exclusives. OK? So I don’t want them meeting in the lobby. Besides, it means we can give the
NYRB
lunch, and they like lunch interviews because it’s an excuse to eat lunch, which is normally considered to be uncool. You’re supposed to use the break to take a bottle of Evian water for a jog. Anyway, that’ll all be over by four, at the latest. We can have a nice little lie down before heading off to WNYM for the radio show.’

‘Right. Remind me about that.’

‘Tip Reason. Lovely man. It’s a minority show, OK, but
terribly
influential. Everybody in the trade listens to it. Tip has the best radio voice in New York. There are people, unkind people, who say that he also has the best radio
face
in New York. And to be fair he does look like a boiled scrotum, but that’s by the by. He’s as gay as bunting, and if he cops a feel of your bum I want you to promise me you won’t make a fuss, OK? It won’t come to anything.’

‘Gosh.’

Minerva glittered happily. ‘Good,’ she said, ‘very
good
. When he feels you up, say “Gosh” just like you did then, OK? It’ll suggest that you are flattered and charmed but, unfortunately, utterly straight despite being British. Tip’ll be OK with that.’

‘All right.’

‘Promise?’

‘Sure.’

Philip sipped from his flute. Minerva studied him, sidelong. Her client’s rapid transformation from hopeless
troglodyte to man of the world was surprising, to say the least. It ought to have reassured her. But it hadn’t, quite. Yet.

‘Where were we? Right, Wednesday. Up at seven for a workout in the gym. Only joking. Nothing for you in the morning. You might fancy getting pampered in Love Yourself, on the fourteenth floor. Jacuzzi, Turkish massage, aromatherapy, you know the sort of thing. They have this service where a shapely Jewish mother-figure gives you an oily workover while telling you that nothing’s your fault and you are right to neglect her in order to live your life. Hugely popular. No? Don’t fancy it? Never mind. Have the nine-course breakfast instead. Book signing at Barnes & Noble at midday, OK, catch the office lunchtime jog trade. Gorgon are organizing coverage. I’ll get there at ten to check things out. Afternoon, toddle along to Megalo Studios to record your bits for
Weirdie Go
.’

‘That’s the game show?’

‘It’s a Virtual Contest show, darling. I sent you a DVD, remember?’

‘Ah, yes.’

‘Which you didn’t bloody watch.’

‘Well, I meant to, but …’

‘But you’ve been a busy little celebrity, I know. OK, superstar, lissen up. Four contestants togged up as fantasy heroes compete to win this quest thing. They all wear these helmets with like visors over their eyes, OK, and what they see is computer-generated images of, you
know, dragons and foresty bits and so forth. The audience sees what they see, if you see what I mean. Actually, it’s all done in a studio in front of these blue screens but you’d never know it. It’s terribly clever. Anyway, each week the contest is based on a different fantasy novel. Philip, sweetie, you’re drifting, I can tell. Do pay attention, because, listen,
three
episodes of
Weirdie
Go
are being based on
Dark Entropy
, which is pretty bloody amazing, OK? Unprecedented, actually.’

The champagne had filled Philip’s head with a soft and manageable form of happiness. The view from his window, a flawless arc of morning-glory blue above undulating cloud-blossom, would have served as a metaphor for the state of his brain, had there been need of such a thing. He laid a sentimental hand on Minerva’s silky arm.

‘It’s
absolutely
bloody amazing. It is. You mustn’t think I don’t appreciate all this. You’re wonderful, Minerva. I mean it.’

‘Lordy, Mr Murdstone, the things you writers do say. Where was I? Right. So each week the author plays a sort of God-like intelligence, popping up to issue warnings or give clues, that sort of thing.’

Philip focused an eye on her. ‘You mean I have to act in this show?’

‘No, no, darling. All you have to do is dress up as thingy, the Sage, and have loads of digital cameras take pictures of you. Then you get computerized into this moving hologram-type thing, OK? What you have to say
is all pre-recorded and dubbed on when the computer nerds make your mouth go up and down.’

‘What do I have to say?’

‘Oh, you know, “The Swelts are seven leagues from the Chancery.” “Remember Pellus’s Third Rule.” “Just open the door on your right, you fuckwit.” Stuff like that. You just have to read them off a sheet of paper. You don’t even have to worry too much about expression, because the computers will tricksy about with your voice. A piece of cake, darling. We should be able to knock the whole thing off in a couple of hours. Two hundred and fifty grand sterling, ba-boom.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. And when your hard day’s toil has ended, ye shall gather your reward. I’m going to take you to a fabulous little Sudanese restaurant in Greenwich Village that I happen to know about.’

Philip gazed hazily at her. ‘Shall we have some more champagne?’ he said.

‘What the hell,’ Minerva said. ‘We might as well start as we mean to go on.’

She reached for the attendant button, but the
Virgin
stewardess had already materialized at her side.