The Censor, page 4
‘Absolutely certain. I’d tell you if it was. Honest truth Junie, it’s horrible David Askelon and his bloody book.’
‘Don’t worry then. I’ve told you. You’ll find a way out. I promise.’
The resilience and optimism of youth was a real force. A live thing. Again he pulled her closer, slipping his hand between her thighs and up to her crotch. She made no movement to part her legs.
‘Junie, what the hell are you wearing? Armour plating?’
‘You like me to look slim. Right?’
‘Right.’ He pulled at her skirt to get a look.
‘So I’ve bought two new panti-girdles. I’m wearing one of them.’
‘But you’ve got about two-dozen layers down there.’
‘You like me to be fashionable and wear short skirts. That means I have to wear tights.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you like to catch a glimpse of sexy panties when I bend down.’
‘You mean you’re wearing a panti-girdle, tights and panties?’
‘Yep.’
‘Do you all ...? I mean, do your ...?’
‘Most of my friends wear the same. Yes.’
‘Jesus, and the older generation gripes about the immorality of the mini-skirt and nothing left to the imagination. You’re as safe as in a chastity belt inside that lot. When I was your age ...’
‘The girls all wore silk cami-knickers and a quick feel was really easy. As for anything else you just had to undo a couple of buttons. You already told me you dirty old man.’
Later, in bed, he moved really close to her, pressing his body hard into her. She was stiff, unbending. He tried to feel her under the nylon of her nightdress but her rigid stomach contracted, jumping away from his hand, tense and rigid as though repulsed by him.
He turned over, patting her naked thigh. She laid a hand on him for a second, comforting, then withdrew it as she felt him swelling.
‘I’m sorry darling.’ Whispering close to his ear. ‘I’ll be all right. It’s silly I know, but I can’t, not after you’ve been down there with them. I just can’t. Tomorrow I’ll be all right. Please don’t be cross.’
He stared into the darkness and returned his mind to David Askelon. He did not even hear June crying, stuffing her mouth with a corner of the pillow.
IV
WHEN YOU TILTED the book from side to side the gold disk, set centrally against an overall deep black, revolved in a neat optical illusion. In the trade it was known as a prismatic effect. This had been the first idea put to Peter Goldsberg when the team at Dean & Ruttenham began to think about jacket design and promotion for The Golden Spin.
It had worked splendidly. An unqualified success, the gold circle becoming almost a trade mark.
The finished jacket incorporated the title, set in matching gold forty-eight point Futura Display above the disk, while David Askelon’s name ran below in a reduced twenty-four point.
Sir Humphrey Carmichael, MP, smiled as the circle seemed to revolve before his eyes. He played, moving the book at different speeds, for a few seconds, before putting it back onto the green leather of his desk top.
‘Very clever design,’ he said, still smiling, looking up at the three men who sat, relaxed, before him.
It was evening, and, with the lighting on, Sir Humphrey’s office at Carmichael Properties Ltd appeared clinically hygienic. Light oak desk, leather chairs and a glass table provided the only furnishings. For the rest, a white carpet and white walls, unrelieved except for a solitary Bruegel reproduction hanging, characteristically, on the wall behind the desk, where Sir Humphrey did not have to look at it. The Children’s Games, a canvas rioting with small figures, leapfrogging, bowling, pitchpolling. Gay and full of movement.
‘Very clever,’ Carmichael repeated, tapping the book jacket. ‘An optical illusion. Like a party game. It adds an innocuous touch.’ He talked in short bursts, pausing between each spurt of Words. ‘I have copies for each of you. Unhappily, the content is not as innocuous as the jacket.’ Again he picked up the book, weighing it in his hand. ‘This is, of course, the American edition. Dean & Ruttenham did it over there. Big, runaway seller. There’s talk of a film. William Sutton & Son are due to publish here in the Autumn. I have no information regarding any alterations.’
Carmichael smiled again. A generous smile as though he was about to share a secret. ‘As usual this is absolutely confidential. I need your opinions. Your valued opinions. Mine, I will declare now. I think this book is just about the most filthy piece of work masquerading as literature that has come into my hands for a very long time.’
There was no malice in Sir Humphrey’s voice or manner. He spoke softly but with the authority of one who has lived most of his life in the eye of the public.
‘Counsel seen it yet?’ The man who questioned was a portly sixtyish. A touch of pomposity clad in sombre clerical grey. White hair and rimless glasses. He was older than his two colleagues, contrasting drastically both in years and appearance. They were half his age. Sharp, with the chiselled ambitious executive look.
‘No Bob.’ Carmichael rose. ‘I don’t think we need counsel at this stage. But I trust, for his own sake, that Mr John Sutton has taken an opinion.’
Standing, Sir Humphrey Carmichael made an impressive figure, an attribute which his political enemies claimed to be half the reason for his success.
At the last election he had been opposed by a wasp-tongued Welshman who complained. ‘God gave Humphrey Carmichael the build of a professional soldier, which he never was; the vocal characteristics of a theatrical hypnotist, which he is by nature; and the looks of a screen lover, which he never could be. I have been beaten by Colonel Svengali out of Ronald Colman.’
When the story was told to him, Carmichael merely laughed and said, ‘He may be right at that.’
‘I think I’ve covered it all.’ Sir Humphrey moved forward to hand a copy of The Golden Spin to each of them. There was a pinch of deference in the simple action. The visiting celebrity presenting prizes. ‘I don’t think I need keep you any longer.’
He shook hands with the two younger men who murmured polite courtesies. Carmichael thanked them for coming, again reminded them of the need for care, wished their wives well, bowed them from the room and turned to his older companion.
‘I give you a lift Bob?’
Robert Primrose, editor of the weekly review, Truth, stared down at the book in his hand. ‘I have an apt text. Tell it not in Gath; publish it not in the streets of Askelon.’
Carmichael laughed. Primrose looked up with a beam, eyes sharp and twinkling behind the rimless glasses.
‘You offering me a ride in that elegant motor of yours Humphrey?’
‘Are you going home?’
‘Alas yes. To my sordid garret in Hampstead.’
‘Ah.’ Carmichael shepherded him towards the door. ‘Then I’ll drop you there in style. Do you know I was actually accused in the House the other day of running a Rolls as compensation for my narrow outlook on the nation’s standard of morals. Narrow outlook, Bob.’
‘Narrow, out-dated, puritanical and unbending, were the exact words, Humphrey. I read, mark and learn my Hansard, though most of it is indigestible.’
‘All right. I was understating.’
‘And if the honourable member concerned thought that your Rolls was a compensation he really ought to take your property into account. Good grief you own more than the Greater London Council.’
‘That, my dear Bob, is an overstatement.’
They crossed the wide landing and stepped into the elevator.
‘No,’ continued Primrose. ‘You’re not narrow, Humphrey. You’re simply an old fashioned capitalist. Unashamedly rich, but very ashamed of the way people behave. A good, solid upper middle class viewpoint that’s what we get from Humphrey Carmichael. Good grief is that the time? Half-past nine? It’ll be getting on for eleven before you get home. What does Dorothy say about the late nights and early mornings?’
‘She moans from time to time.’
The porter said goodnight. Cotterill, Sir Humphrey’s grey-uniformed chauffeur, helped them into the Rolls and they moved off in a purr of almost silent opulence.
‘How’s Dorothy keeping?’ asked Primrose.
Carmichael gave a small snort. ‘You know women. Got a thing about her weight now. Gone off to one of these nature farms in Kent.’
‘So you can afford not to worry about the kind of hours you keep.’
‘She’s back on Saturday I believe.’
‘You believe? Don’t you know?’
Carmichael turned his head to make sure that the stout little man was teasing him. ‘Back on Saturday. Unless she decides to visit her sister or one of the children.’
‘Ah.’ Primrose nodded with gravity. ‘If I had a wife. Perish the thought mind you. But if I had a wife half as good looking as Dorothy I’d keep closer tabs on her than you seem to.’
Carmichael sucked air in through his teeth. ‘You know Bob, you’re probably the only man alive who could say that and get away with it. From anyone else I’d assume it was an insult.’
‘But you know me.’ Primrose turned on his beam again, the eyes blank, innocent. ‘I would never presume to insult.’ He patted his copy of The Golden Spin which he held on his lap like a Prayer Book. ‘And how are the children? I thought Charles looked a little down when I saw him last week.’
‘You saw Charles? Where?’
‘Dining somewhere. The Royal Roof I think it was.’ Carmichael shifted. ‘And since when have you taken to dining at the Royal Roof, Robert?’
‘Being dined.’ The street lighting caused the interior of the car to be illuminated in regular, dying and rising bursts. ‘My tastes are somewhat less vulgar.’
‘And Charles was in the party?’
‘Er, no.’ The hint of hesitation. ‘I do not inform, Humphrey. But Charles was dining there.’
‘He didn’t mention it to me.’
‘Was he obliged to?’
‘If it’s to do with business.’
‘I don’t think he was acting in his capacity as General Manager for Carmichael Properties. It all seemed to be rather private to me.’
‘I see.’
‘How’s his wife keeping?’
‘I see,’ repeated Carmichael stiffly, acknowledging that he knew what Primrose was telling him.
‘And Joan?’ asked Primrose in the small pause which followed.
Carmichael relaxed slightly. ‘Joan is well. She’s living in town now. Nearer the Royal College you know. Comes to see us for weekends quite often. I give her lunch from time to time.’
‘All leather and mini skirts I suppose.’
‘It’s a uniform.’
‘For your own daughter the morals of the permissive society are all right?’
‘Mini skirts have little to do with morals and you know it.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘It’s what goes in here. What’s believed in the mind and heart. They’re the things that matter.’
Primrose lifted his left hand, holding the book so that the light caught, slanting, on the jacket design. ‘Ideas that develop from rubbish like this, eh?’
‘You might say that.’
‘What are we going to do about this one Humphrey?’ Patting the book again.
‘I know what I’m going to do about it.’
‘And?’
‘I am going to make a fuss. If you feel the same way I shall expect you to make a fuss as well. As I shall expect Rufus and Clegg to make a fuss. And a lot of other people.’
Carmichael stretched himself back and gazed out of the window at the lights of west London. The shops glittered. Money. Money chasing money. A drunk shambled along the pavement and leaned against a window displaying colour televisions. A cinematic cliché, thought Carmichael turning his mind back to Primrose.
Primrose was a good five years older than him but they had known each other since Cambridge. A lifetime ago. In honesty he did not like Primrose. He worried about the man’s motives. Yesterday he had seen a young pop idol quoted as saying, I trust nobody over thirty unless they’re rich. There was a germ of common sense in that seemingly glib statement. Primrose was at least thirty-two years over thirty, and far from being rich. Yet he had a certain power in his astringent section of the literary world, the world of purists and precision. If he came to the same decision as Carmichael about The Golden Spin it would not necessarily be for the same reasons. He would more naturally object to the book because its vulgar tone and style offended him, rather than the thoughts and ideas expressed.
You could never be certain about Primrose’s motives, or what he gained from the many situations in which he was involved. That business about Charles. He had to be devious, not actually saying that he had seen Charles with another woman. Why bother? Out of respect for Carmichael? Hardly.
Carmichael thought of Charles. Efficient, smart, educated, charming. A little too charming. The thoughts slid back to Primrose and then to The Golden Spin. The detail. The unqualified violence. The germinating idea that anything is for the taking, and that anything is good as long as you enjoy it. Advanced hedonism. The logical end result was, for Carmichael, too nasty to contemplate.
‘What do you get out of life, Bob?’ He sprang it suddenly from the darkness. The street lights were becoming more scarce.
‘No more than I put into it.’ Primrose evaded. ‘I suppose you really mean, why haven’t I made money?’
‘I wouldn’t ask you a question like that. Money’s no consolation.’
‘So the rich always say. You mean, then, what satisfaction?’
‘I think the same as yourself. Trying to appreciate that which is good in life. Separating the true from the phoney. Moulding.’
‘Mmm.’ It was a pompous reply. Would he have done any better?
Primrose was nodding like a trick Buddha. He was still nodding when the Rolls pulled up.
‘Give my best to Dorothy,’ he said, standing on the damp pavement. ‘Thanks for the lift. Oh, and regards to Joan and Charles. When you see them that is.’
‘I shall be seeing Charles.’ Carmichael sighed, raising his arm in farewell.
Cotterill closed the door, climbed back into the front of the car and they moved away leaving Primrose, a bulky dark shadow fumbling for his door key.
The Hall, North Oxley, had been built by Humphrey Carmichael’s grandfather. Solid, dependable, large and functional in design. The house was in darkness and, for a second, Carmichael felt that rare bleak pang. A brief moment of truth. Dorothy was away. Primrose had touched a silent painless sore tonight and made it flare with pain. Carmichael seldom bothered about Dorothy when she was at home. Now, near to the black hollow house, there was a wink of need.
Inside the hall, amber wallpaper and the big Victorian standard lamp, swirled brass flowers and leaves, Carmichael stood for a moment, then, as a man making a difficult decision, crossed to his study door.
Sitting at his desk, the reading lamp spilling a circle of light around him, he again experienced the twinge and recognised it for what it was. Vivid pictures in the mind. Impossible. Nobody. Fingers shaking fractionally as the key was turned in the long central drawer and he removed the thick volume. The scent of leather…
Humphrey Carmichael began to turn the pages. Silence, but for the soft swish of paper and his steady breathing.
V
THE RAIN HIT the small oval window to Askelon’s right in a series of thin needles. The Boeing 707 had banked out of thick uncompromising cloud into a grey mist through which no landscape could be seen. There was a sense of being close to the end of their journey. The stewardesses had changed back from shirtsleeves into uniform jackets and were visibly fresher in appearance. Hair shining and faces refurbished.
The little spears of rain began to join together. Spidery patterns reaching out over the outer surface of the window. The Nile Delta remembered from some childhood exercise book, badly drawn, sarcastically commented upon and then forgotten until this moment, suspended somewhere above the outer perimeter of London.
Askelon felt cramped and grubby, his mouth suffering from the hours of unnatural air and a surfeit of brandy during the early stages of the trip.
He still wondered if he was doing the right thing. Joe had briefed him well enough and there was no doubt that Freddy Cadogan would protect his interests. Yet, now away from the familiar, Askelon felt very much alone and uncertain. In some ways it was not even his book any more. It had been handed over to an alien people with rules and tribal customs of their own. Would they judge him as one who was presuming to tamper with their way of life?
The Nile Delta vanished, washed away in a fresh assault of water, the fine threads now becoming blobs. Through the murk, across and below the wingtip, fields and a patchwork of subdued green and brown emerged.
Askelon automatically reached for his seatbelt as the stewardess began her prattle about landing shortly at Heathrow Airport, London. She thanked them for travelling Pan Am, hoped they had enjoyed the trip and that they would fly Pan Am again.
Below, the green still looked hazy and the countryside was now broken by irregular monotonous rows of housing.
Red roofs and roads. The engine note changing, settling to a steady whine. The bump of landing gear going down. Heavy rain now. Wet Grey. Runway. Judder. Roar. Reverse thrust. The clutter of airport buildings.
Freddy Cadogan turned out to be a short neat man in his late thirties with the face of a fox. Relaxed, amusing, with a swift mind which did not immediately appear to be concerned with serious matters. He swept Askelon out to the hire car, chauffeured by a sullen heavy individual in navy gabardine raincoat and peaked cap.
The moment of bleakness, felt on the aircraft, enlarged itself and shrouded Askelon. The rain had settled into an unremitting downpour and, even by New York standards, the driving seemed suicidal. Askelon huddled into the corner of the rear seat. Factory buildings. Office blocks. Neon signs, some looking frayed. The traces of despair. A worn, shoddy look.
