The Censor, page 5
‘Almost as bad as the ride in from Kennedy isn’t it?’ Freddy’s perpetual grin could become irritating, Askelon decided.
‘I was thinking it’s worse.’
‘Gets better once you’re in London itself. What we think of as London anyway. Pity about the weather.’
‘I gather it’s a talking point over here.’
‘We get a lot of it. Actually the last few days has been good. Maybe it’ll clear up later on.’
Askelon plunged into business. ‘What’s the situation? They still want all the cuts?’
‘On The Golden Spin? I spoke to John Sutton yesterday. He’s not happy. I haven’t congratulated you by the way. Splendid piece of work The Golden Spin.’
‘Thanks.’ Askelon accepted the praise formally. ‘Is it going to stay that way?’
‘You think the deletions’ll detract huh?’
‘Don’t you?’
For the first time Freddy looked really interested. ‘Yes. Yes I think they’ll detract. Even ruin. There’s honesty for you.’
‘What do I do about it?’
‘What do we do about it David? You’re not alone. I couldn’t be more pleased that you’ve come over. It’ll add some much needed weight. If you want the truth I think John Sutton’s had the shit scared out of him.’
‘The legal implications?’
‘They’re paying a lot of money and, if they make all the cuts, what are they going to be left with? A palsied giant. No, friend Sutton should’ve taken counsel’s opinion before he did the deal.’ He gave a self-satisfied smirk. ‘Joe Tireling and I rushed him slightly. He saw big profits. However, mate, the job now is to look after your work. I’ve made an appointment with Sutton for this afternoon, if you’re not too tired.’
‘I need a bath. What time? How do I get there? I don’t know London.’
‘First visit?’ Cadogan looked surprised. ‘Great we’ll have to show you around. Look, get settled in. Unpacked. I’ll pick you up about two-thirty.’
They were in Knightsbridge. The buildings began to assume character. A placid elegance. An assured air of self-sufficiency. Even in the rain there was atmosphere.
‘London’s a city I’ve never felt any attraction for.’ Askelon pounded his knee with a balled fist as though he was trying to force words from his body. The need to express himself. ‘I’m not a natural tourist. I don’t go for all that traditional thing with the Life Guards and the Palace of Westminster.’
‘London’s a great deal more than the tourist bit. Like any other major city it’s people. You might end up liking it.’
‘Does it still swing?’
‘Depends in what circles you move. You may find that publishing tends to have a different radius here than it does in the States.’
The car drew up in front of the impressive main entrance to The Carlton Tower.
‘What about our approach to Sutton? Strategy?’
‘Trust me David.’ You could read nothing in Cadogan’s face and Askelon had long since discarded vocal sincerity. ‘Believe me, I’m working for you. Let me lead and you follow. For the time being anyway.’
Askelon nodded and followed the porter through the big plate glass doors.
Marble, glass, rosewood, the quiet unobtrusive shades of beige and gold.
His room was high class unreality. The decorator should have worked in the movies. Askelon allowed the luxury to envelop him. Warm water on his skin. The soap had a touch of pine to its scent. Pines. Redwoods. The redwoods outside San Francisco. A cathedral, dark and high only letting in privileged slants of sunlight, the moss soft under their feet. What was the girl’s name? Debbie. Debbie from San Jose. Walking hand in hand, conscious of their bodies but doing nothing about them. Shrill bubbles of laughter and the slim rising trees as old as Christ.
He dried himself, wrapped in a white towelling robe, and walked to the main window. No redwoods. Just the green splash of Hyde Park and wet roofs inescapably English. Far away a couple of miniature skyscrapers made cutouts in the low cloud. A wheeling 707, its flashing lights visible. And the rain.
He slept until reception called him at twelve-thirty, dressed and went down to the Rib Room. Joe, at least he thought it was Joe, had told him they had the best beef in London at the Rib Room. A masculine decor. Much crimson and natural wood with Topolski drawings splattering the walls. The Adam Rib was excellent, but it was going to take his stomach a few days to adjust to the time change.
At two-thirty, Freddy Cadogan was in the lobby, but his presence did nothing to remove the sense of emptiness which gnawed and baffled Askelon. He thrived on being self-contained. His very work demanded solitude. Peace. Quiet. He had been in strange towns, strange cities, many times before. He was no stranger to travel. Yet here he felt adrift. He rationalised that it was probably The Golden Spin difficulties. Deeper, he felt it was more than that.
Askelon liked Sutton at once in spite of the preconceived notion that he was an unfeeling, frightened hatchet man.
‘I hear it’s your first time in London. How d’you like it?’ Sutton’s manner was easy, not at all the stiff reserve which Askelon had expected.
‘I haven’t had time to like or dislike. One hotel room and a restaurant. They’re both fine.’
‘You’ll have to see more than that.’
‘It depends on how long I’m here.’
‘Yes.’ Sutton frowned. ‘All right let’s not beat about the bush. You’re disturbed and I’m disturbed.’
He launched into a lengthy and careful outline of how things stood. It was much the same as Joe Tireling had explained in New York, but Sutton gradually began to move into deeper and more personal areas.
‘If I don’t publish your book almost as it stands I am going to lose a lot of money. Money my company cannot afford to lose. Yet counsel tells me I should not risk publishing The Golden Spin as it stands. And, quite frankly, David, I trust my counsel. He’s had a lot of experience in this field, even though you’d probably laugh at his name. D’Arcy Harrington.’
‘Sounds like something out of The Forsyte Saga.’
‘He’s the top,’ interjected Freddy Cadogan.
‘That’s why we should listen to him.’
Askelon, the worry showing in his eyes, blew a cloud of smoke onto the desk which stood between them. ‘If the worst came to the worst, who’d put the bite on?’
‘Well, it can happen in a number of ways. If enough pressure was brought to bear on the Director of Public Prosecutions he would institute proceedings.’
‘You mean a writ?’
‘Some gentlemen from Scotland Yard would arrive here one morning and ask me to accompany them to our warehouse where they would show me copies of your book and ask if I was the publisher. I would then be asked to explain why I was publishing obscene literature. It would be up to me to prove that The Golden Spin is not obscene. That’s a rough outline.’
‘You said, if enough pressure was brought to bear on the Director of Public Prosecutions. What do you mean by that?’
‘Just what I say. If enough people make a great deal of noise …’
‘People? What kind of people?’
‘Any people, as long as they’re not tangibly related. If he got a mass of protests from people from different walks of life and if that was backed up by public protests.’
‘Who’d want to make a public protest about The Golden Spin? It’s ludicrous,’ Askelon snorted.
‘I can think of two or three names.’ Cadogan said. ‘Sir Humphrey Carmichael to name but two. Eh John?’
‘He had a go last year,’ nodded Sutton.
‘Sir Humphrey who?’
‘Carmichael. Member of Parliament. A doer of good works. Very sensitive in religious areas. A man of great persuasion who, to some extent, sees himself as a public conscience where the arts are concerned.’
‘But why my book?’
‘You may just get lucky. If he goes for you, and it’s the kind of book he would go for, then he can exert an abnormal amount of pressure.’
‘Jesus. A one-man League of Decency.’
‘Apt,’ nodded Sutton. ‘Most apt.’
The discussion remained general and got nowhere. It was five o’clock before any of them realised.
‘We haven’t touched the nitty gritty.’ Sutton shuffled the papers on his desk. ‘It’s obviously going to take a considerable amount of time. We’ll both have to talk with counsel and go over the proposed cuts in detail. I’m as anxious as you. I don’t want to neutralise the book. You must realise that.’
‘To start with I had you set down for the biggest non-literary mind of the year.’
Sutton laughed. ‘I can believe that. Anyway, David, we’ll concentrate on Golden Spin. How long are you going to be over here?’
‘For just as long as it takes to iron things out.’ He paused, looking helplessly round the office. The spines of novels long forgotten. Four photographs, young faces on the wave crest backed by the trappings of the nineteen thirties. Through the window the huge dome of St Paul’s, a great grey ribbed breast rising above the clutter of uncertain architecture. The rain had stopped and a thin sun was trying to dry up the damp in the short time left to it.
‘Look,’ said Askelon, ‘I feel pretty bushed, but it’s my first night in London. Would you both have dinner with me?’
Freddy Cadogan answered quickly. ‘Love to, but I’m afraid not. I’ve a large portion of blonde warming for me.’
Sutton rose. ‘I should really be taking you out. After all the hospitality people give me in New York.’
‘There’s plenty of time for that. Can you make it tonight?’
‘If I can be very rude and invite someone else as well?’
‘Sure. What’s the difference? You just tell me a good place to eat.’
‘You’re certain about this? Even though you’re tired?’
‘I need company. Don’t get me wrong …’
‘I know what you mean. Wouldn’t it be best if we came down to The Carlton Tower? That way you wouldn’t be far from your bed.’
‘Okay. Great.’
As soon as they had left his office, Sutton picked up the private phone and called June.
Sutton introduced her simply as June. No surname. No explanation of who she was or why. A tall girl. About twenty-two years old. Short dark hair and magnificent large brown eyes, her body a beckoning magnetic sign of which she seemed totally unaware.
‘June’s a fan of yours,’ said Sutton as they took their places at a corner table.
‘I merely said that I thought The Golden Spin was the sexiest thing I’d ever read, and I thought John was a prude to try and take out all the best bits.’
‘You’re on my side then.’ Askelon gazed hard at her. She held it for a few seconds, then looked quickly away.
For a moment, warmth lapped around Askelon and he felt at home.
It was a comfortable evening with John Sutton making most of the conversation. He had a sly wit, his talk punctuated with pungent anecdotes graphic enough to give David Askelon a neat picture of some of the British publishing pleasures and problems.
They had reached the coffee when June suddenly asked, ‘Why do you write?’
‘Why?’ Askelon felt the warning in his brain. ‘Hey, you’re not a journalist are you?’
Sutton laughed. Loud and a shade hard.
‘No, and you shut up.’ She patted Sutton’s hand. Long white fingers. A large chunky gold ring. Nine diamonds symmetrically set. ‘I can’t even write a letter properly, let alone be a journalist. You afraid of journalists?’
‘I was told to be careful. While we’ve got troubles with the book.’
‘Really though, why do you write? I’m just nosey. I like to know the motivation behind people like you.’
‘Why do I write? I ask myself sometimes, it’s a good question.’ He felt the tension rising, looking down at his hands as though he had never seen then before. The glint of silver on the table. The weave of the cloth. ‘No, that’s not true. I know why I write, and it’s not for the usual reasons, the ones you give to journalists, like the easy answers. Because the only time I’m really happy is when I’m writing. Or because I’ve got to write. They’re a load of crap.’ He glanced up and took a sip of coffee, relaxing now. ‘As a writer, there is so much. Even if you’re a bad or indifferent writer. It gives you so much, and you can give in return. Do you realise that a writer holds the whole world in his hands? You can create out of nothing. You can be God. You can explore. Examine. You can take a human relationship and expand it, right to eternity if you like. And when you’ve done that you can return with what you’ve got, with what you’ve discovered, and it will affect someone. Someone will gain from what you’ve done. They’ll either laugh and feel happy, cry, look at something through new eyes, or they’ll be angry. But it’s you who’s done it.’ He stopped short, embarrassed at having opened his soul, for a moment, to comparative strangers.
June sensed his feelings. ‘What about technique?’ she asked quickly.
‘Oh, that’s part talent and mainly hard work. I’m only a beginner, but they tell me it comes in time.’
‘Like Constantine in The Seagull?’
‘What about him?’
‘You know. Where he’s moaning because Trigorin’s such a successful writer and has this super technique. He says something like — It’s easy for Trigorin. He’s worked out a method. He says, the neck of a bottle glistens on the dam, and the shadow of the mill-wheel grows blacker, and there’s a complete moonlight night. I would describe the tremulous light, the gentle gleaming of the stars and the distant sound of a piano, dying away in the still scented air. And it’s terrible.’
Pause.
‘I think it’s great the way you tell it.’
Sutton coughed into the silence. ‘Constantine shot himself soon after he said that.’ He spoke sourly. ‘I really think we ought to be going.’
‘Do call us any evening you feel like it.’ June pushed a book of matches over the table. ‘I’ve written our number in there.’
‘You were waxing a bit eloquent tonight weren’t you?’ Sutton said to her later as they were undressing.
‘Me?’ The mock look of surprise with raised eyebrows.
‘You with Askelon. All the Constantine and Trigorin bit. I haven’t heard you on that before. I didn’t even know you’d seen The Seagull.’
‘Just because I’m dead ignorant doesn’t mean that I don’t read. What else have I got to do all day when you’re at the office or being a country squire with your draggy wife.’
‘And giving him our number.’
‘Oh shut up and come here you old devil. That little American’s made me sexy.’
‘You’ll be lucky. I’m shattered.’
‘Come here and try.’
Reluctantly he slipped into bed and let June run her hands velvet round his thighs. There was a rustle as she pushed back the bedclothes and dropped her head, kissing away his fatigue and bringing him to life.
‘It’s all right darling,’ she whispered. ‘I told you it would be all right. Let me. Let me do it.’
She slid across him, worked him into her and began to bring him leaping towards their private magnificent ecstasy.
VI
ON WEDNESDAY, LADY Dorothy Carmichael felt the tug of the old habit. By Thursday she knew it had to be this week. On Friday, a day earlier than she originally planned, she checked out of the Shetlands Nature Farm.
The train got into Victoria just after eleven. The sun was shining and London had that familiar feeling.
The hotel was one of the large, reasonable one-night-in-town places. The haunt of salesmen and tourists doing the city on the cheap. They did not remember many faces, but they knew Dorothy.
‘Mrs Castle. Nice to see you again madam. Just the one night as usual,’ the clerk greeted her at reception.
Dorothy nodded and signed the register card. Dorothy Castle. ‘Two-oh-four,’ said the clerk pushing the key over the desk to the waiting page.
She telephoned down to the hairdressing salon. Made an appointment with Mr Paul, her usual, carried out a few running repairs on her face, then went down into the lobby and out into the sun.
At four she returned for the hair appointment. By six she was back in her room. She stripped, put on a nylon robe, removed her make-up and began the process from scratch. When she had finished she slipped out of the robe and walked across the room.
The fortnight at Shetlands had been highly successful. Dorothy saw its effect and smiled into the mirror. There were few women of her age, mothers of two grown children, who could boast such clean and even lines. She passed her hands up her thighs and onto the firm plateau of belly, trembling at the feel of her own flesh. Her fingers slid across the small crater of navel and down to the copse of pubic hair.
She let her hands rest for a second, then quickly brought them up to her breasts, holding them, below the nipples, lightly in the crotches between forefingers and thumbs. She squeezed and laughed out loud. So maybe they were a fraction slack. You couldn’t have everything.
Dorothy turned sideways, throwing her head back and letting her gaze drift admiringly down the reflected body. How would a man react? Humphrey excepted, nobody had complained before. But now? The endless glasses of lemon juice, aches of hunger, pummelling, the steam baths and all the agonies of the Farm were well worth the end result. And her face? She could always manage that, especially now that the skin was healthier than it had been for years.
She glanced at the new underset she had bought at Weiss in Shaftesbury Avenue that afternoon. Powder blue, a colour that always flattered her.
Slipping her breasts into the brassiere cups she snapped the fastening and reached for the garter belt. The smiling bliss of not having to wear a girdle. Stockings, belt and brassiere. She picked up the panties, holding them between thumb and forefinger, then, smiling again, she dropped them back on the bed wriggled into the slip and stepped into her dress.
Fifteen minutes later, Dorothy walked into the American Bar. She stood in the doorway for a second, looking around for a nonexistent partner and glancing quickly at her watch. After thirty seconds or so she walked slowly towards one of the empty tables, sank into a red imitation leather chair, set her skirt several inches above the knee and waited.
