A cardboard character
“Actually yes, my father did teach me something,” said
Bernard.
Diana sat up in her chair. “He did?”
“Yes,” he replied. He looked at her, but his gaze was
unfocused. He turned away, towards the Mediterranean that washed the cliffs 100
feet or so below the stone balustrade of the terrace; its surface glittered in
the afternoon sun.
He was in his 70s, and rather thin; his beard was grey, his flyaway
hair patchy, his eyes a very pale blue. He was slumped back in his chair, but
the latter was high-backed and capacious, with thick armrests that kept him
upright despite the amount he had drunk. He wore a faded Hawaiian shirt in
orange-and-lemon hues, and a gold chain around his neck that rested on the
white chest hair visible at the shirt’s open neck. We must seem an odd couple
to the other diners on the terrace, thought Diana. This louche being Bernard,
and herself – a trim blonde in her late 30s, dressed for the London office she
had left early that morning; a smart green cord blazer and white blouse that
flattered her figure and a dark skirt that ended not too far above the knee.
Delfi de la Rua/Wikimedia Commons
“What did he teach you?” she asked. She glanced at her
recording device to make sure it was working.
“It was a problem,” said Bernard. “That he had with Dexter.”
“Really?” asked Diana. Dexter’s Sacrifice. The novel
that had nearly won the Booker. Though she had never quite been convinced by
the ending. But the world had disagreed, and the book had brought Sir John
Coulter the Nobel Prize for Literature. The Nobel committee had talked of “the
profound humanity… of his depiction of the ultimate sacrifice by a man driven
by the nobility of the human spirit.”
I think there is a story here after all, she thought, and
the hairs stood up on the back of her neck.
*
“You’ll get nothing from his son,” the Arts Editor had told
her the day before as they sat in his glass-and-steel office in Canary Wharf.
“Remember, his own books were not well received. Compared with his father, Bernard
has been a failure.”
“I shall try flattery,” said Diana.
“He’ll see straight through it. He must know what a flop his
own career was in comparison.”
“Well, I should try,” said Diana. “We must mark Coulter
senior’s 100th. How is he seen, 30 years after his death? Is he still read, and
all that? – yes, we know he is. What does his son remember?”
“Also you get a trip to Italy… er, what’s the name of the
place where he lives?”
She told him. He chuckled.
“That’s where aristocratic German perverts went in the
1890s, to take pictures of bronzed naked teenage boys,” he said.
“So it was. Well, if I don’t get anything out of Bernard, I
can always do a feature on its history, and we can illustrate it with a
tasteful selection of filthy daguerrotypes.”
“I wonder if that might pull in more punters, actually,”
said the Arts Editor.
*
“So what was the problem he had with Dexter’s Sacrifice?”
she asked.
She wasn’t sure he had heard, but after a moment he began to
speak.
“I was about 16,” he said. “We were living in Hampstead. Dad
wasn’t an enfant terrible any more, you see. He’d made some money by
then. And he had this paper job as an advisor to the Arts Council.”
“That’s right,”
said Diana. “Surprising for a rebel.”
“Not really,” said
Bernard. “That is the way the Establishment does it in England, isn’t it? If
you tilt at windmills too often, they give you one of your own to shut you up.”
“I suppose so.”
“Anyway,” said
Bernard, “my father was in his 50s then. He wrote in an office that had French
windows onto the garden. It was early summer and they were open. My stepmother
was out somewhere, as she usually was; actually she was shagging a Tory MP but
I didn’t know that at the time, though I expect Father did. I was sitting on
the patio, revising for my French O-level. I failed it of course. He was very
angry about that…. It was mid-morning and he was writing. He had this rule.
Always write at least 500 words before lunch. He knew he wouldn’t after lunch,
you see. Because by then he drank.”
You would know
about that, thought Diana. Before lunch, they had gone through a bottle of
Lacryma Christi, which Bernard appeared to drink as an aperitif. During lunch
they had dispatched a bottle of Aglianico de Vulture. (“Vulture goes well with
grey meat,” he had quipped, nodding towards her plate of vitello tonnato.) Bernard had drunk most of this; he had now drunk several Avernas. Diana
drank little while working. She now cradled a limoncello.
He seemed to drift
off, and Diana prompted him.
“So what happened
about Dexter’s Sacrifice?” she asked. He seemed to jerk back to
life.
“I suddenly heard
my father roar out: ‘Damn! Damn! Damn!’ And he came through the French doors
almost violently. ‘Dexter does not work! He does not work! He would not do it!’
And he stood there on the patio, looking down the garden. He took no notice of
me.” Bernard hesitated for a moment. “But then, he never really did.”
That is what his
biographers say, thought Diana. Out loud she said:
“And did he say
anything else?”
“Not at first. But
after a moment I said, ‘Father, why doesn’t Dexter work?’ And he looked around
as if he had just noticed me and said: ‘Dexter is to perform this supreme
sacrifice, this monstrous act of self-abnegation. But he would not do it. I
am writing a book about an unselfish act by a selfish man; an act of redemption.
It is supposed to warm the cockles of the reader’s heart. But damn it all, the
man is a shit. I know that he
would not do it. Do you hear?’ And
he unclenched his fists and looked down at the grass and said, ‘He would not do
it. We would not do it. We are all shits.’
“And then he turned
and strode back through the French doors.”
“He wrote it that
way anyway,” said Diana.
“Yes,” he replied.
“I asked you if he
ever taught you anything, any piece of wisdom that has helped you write
yourself,” she said, “and you said yes.”
“He taught me two
things that day,” said Bernard. “First, that a character in a narrative must behave in character. Otherwise, they are cardboard. The book probably won him
the Nobel. But it never worked, you see. It never worked.”
“I know,” she said.
“I read it for A-Level English. It didn’t work.”
“The character lost
the plot, you see,” he said.
“Actually,” said
Diana, “it was the other way round. What was the second thing you learned that
day?”
“That we are all
venal,” said Bernard. “He needed to finish the book. It did not work. But his
publisher was waiting. So that must not be allowed to matter.”
DCRJSR/Wikimedia Commons
He looked at her,
his eyes unfocused.
“But he was better
than me,” he said. “I was never any bloody good, was I?”
“People read your
books.”
“For form’s sake,
to see if I was like him.”
“Do you still
write?” asked Diana.
“No.”
“What do you do,
day to day?”
“I collect
daguerrotypes,” said Bernard. “Have you heard of Wilhelm Freiherr von
Westofen?”
“Was he one of the aristocratic perv – er, photographers who
came here in the late 19th century?” asked Diana.
“Yes,” replied Bernard. “Although everyone calls these old
pictures daguerrotypes, by then they were using glass negatives and paper prints.”
“Weren’t some of these guys …dodgy?”
“Judge for yourself,” he said, and took out his phone. He
jabbed it a few times then handed it to her, saying: ”Here. Scroll down.”
So she did. She looked up at him.
“These boys look very young. Didn’t the locals object?”
“No. He was far too wealthy,” said Bernard. “And he paid off
the local men of honour. Wouldn’t work now. Anyway, most of these pictures were
thought lost. Destroyed, you see. By Fascists and priests. In a fit of
morality.”
Diana looked at the pictures and wondered if the priests and
Fascists might have had a point. She handed back the phone.
“You’ve got your story now, haven’t you,” he said.
“What?”
“You came to get something on my father. You didn’t really
come to see me. But I can be a story too, can’t I? I’m a failed writer and a
pervert who collects dirty pictures of boys. In the name of art history,
naturally.”
He took a gulp of Averna.
“Why don’t you do that?” He continued. “Poignant story of
famous writer’s failed son. The son who lost the plot.”
He was looking at her with what she suddenly realised was
pure, unalloyed hatred.
“Why would I wish to do that to you?” she said.
“Because you do. Because you all do.” His eyes glowed with
malevolence.
And then he cried.
It was a quiet time of the afternoon but a few tables were,
like theirs, still occupied from lunch. One or two people looked their way. She
looked her bag for a tissue and found she hadn’t one.
Then he fell asleep.
She sat with him for five minutes or so, wondering if he
would wake. He didn’t, and she looked around at the sea, now sparkling against
the sun as it swung round to the west. At length she stood and went inside,
where she found the head waiter and asked for the bill. She paid, then took a €50
note from her purse. “I wonder if you might do something for me?” she asked.
The head waiter nodded politely.
“When Mr Coulter wakes up, would you arrange for a taxi and
ensure that he returns home safely?”
“Yes, of course, Signora.” He took the note. “I have done so
before. I shall call his housekeeper; she is my cousin.”
“Excellent,” she said. “Thank you.”
She walked back to her hotel through a series of small,
shady streets and piazzas; most Italians were resting at this hour in summer,
and there was almost no-one about, the shutters drawn across many windows. The
occasional motorino hummed past and that was all.
At the hotel she sat at the small round table on her veranda
and began to type her story. By seven o’clock she had it, at least in outline. Coulter
Knew Dexter “Did Not Work”, read the headline. Knew Nobel book was
flawed, says son.
She listened to Bernard’s last rant on her earpiece.
At length she pressed the Save button and took a Peroni beer
from the minibar. The sun was sinking over the sea. She watched it for a few
minutes, then took out her phone and composed a text.
Please report on
status of joint projects
She smiled, and put the phone down. A moment later it buzzed
in reply.
First joint project
dormant
She replied: Good.
Second joint project?
Bedtime strop earlier.
Is now brushing teeth in compliance with project management
She chuckled.
How trip? How Bernard?
Has lost plot very sad
Oh. Sorry
Hate job sometimes
Understand. Large gin
waiting here
😊😊😊Love to joint projects
She put her phone down. No, she thought. I shan’t write
about Bernard.
She swallowed some beer, and watched as the rim of the sun
sank below the horizon and the sea began to darken.
More short fiction from Mike Robbins
The End A gun on a brownstone roof
The Last Time A figure skater leaves the ice
After the Flood An end? Or a beginning?
Remembered Time The past is a dangerous place
A Train Journey One's sister comes to visit
Time After Time When you have to warn the children
Fashion Wokeness and subversion. With style
A Time of Darkness History doesn't repeat itself. But it rhymes
Another Time A tear in the fabric
Evolution The world is turning
When Time Stands Still A hurricane lashes Pershing Square
Parallel Worlds Heat pumps and lentils. And a nice glass of Marsala
A Man for All Seasons Net zero. The Stranger's Bar. And a three-line whip
A History Lesson Why do we study it? So we can spot it happening
The Creatives Meeting a tech bro
Cold Everything is cold here
Homecoming A sort of love story
Solitude A Cold War memory
Rhodri Hactonby's Maps A question of social geography
Hiraeth A yearning…
Strange Places A spirit in the sky
A Sideways Journey Things might have been different
Displaced Encounter on E94th Street
Belonging Do you? Where?
Leaving Home A house has memories
Mike Robbins is the author of a number of fiction and non-fiction books. They can be ordered from bookshops, or as paperbacks or e-books from Amazon and other on-line retailers.
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