Rubbish and poppycock

Rubbish, poppycock, and swill.

William Roth ran through the derogatory nouns in his mind as he studied the books that lined the study walls. The books were all hardbacks, many with leather covers and gilded titles. The dust on them was proof of their dullness.

A jolly good put-on for the intelligentsia. Because the books are all poppycock and… claptrap. Yes, CERTAINLY claptrap.

Precis of the French Revolution. The Diary of Sir Wendell Swanswight. Talmud. Juris Studis.

They would make rather bully paperweights. The only thing they had going for them was that they fit the shelves perfectly. Roth sipped his scotch-and-water as he worked his way toward the small crowd that had gathered around Jefferson Spence. The great man's tremulous voice held forth on some didactic opinion or other. Spence went unchallenged by his admirers.

The Arab bird stood across the room, her ever-present camera around her neck. He mentally practiced her name, because it was difficult to fake a British accent while saying it. Zay-ih-nahb. He would have to teach her a few things about photographic codes of conduct. You don't blunder about like a rhino through the veldt. You stalk, you wait, you seduce your subject with infinite patience and care, you lull, you caress, and then-flick, click, thank you, prick.

But he could get Zainab anytime. She was easy meat waiting to be culled from the herd. She was a crippled gazelle, and Roth was a lion. First he had bigger game to snare.

Wait a minute, bloke. Bad metaphor. You know from your time in Afrikker that a lioness does all the hunting while the lion lies around licking his balls. But the bloody Yanks don't know that. King of the Jungle, and that bit.

He was thinking in his Manchester accent. He had descended into Liverpudlian in the mid-nineties during that brief Beatles revival, then had gone Yorkshire in the wake of 'The Full Monty.' Fads came and went, and so did his accent. He occasionally slipped in a 'righty-right' or 'bit of the old what for,' but Americans didn't notice his errors. The only time he had to be careful was when he met a real Brit.

And a fat bloody chance of that here, he thought, smiling to himself. He had reached the edge of Spence's circle now.

'And they say there are hermeneutic elements in Look Homeward, Angel,' Spence said, his jowls quivering for emphasis. 'I submit to you that Gant is no more than a symbol for the human heart. A flimsy extended metaphor propped up by a billion adjectives. If you sent that to an editor today, she'd say, 'Wonderful, now can you make it read like Grisham?' '

The eyes of the onlookers brightened with awe. This man was a master, a snake charmer. His ego was as ample as his belly. None dared to dispute his ephemeral pronouncements.

Spence drained half of his martini before continuing. 'The worst book of the twentieth century? Perhaps not. That jester's crown must go to Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. The critics raved about the undercurrent of tension that supposedly wends through the novel. Claptrap. It is nothing but Hemingway-in-a-bottle, quintessential Ernest. Too earnestly Ernest, one might say.'

Spence paused for the requisite laughter. It came.

Roth smiled. Spence was as great a deceiver as Roth himself. And he played the celebrity game just as successfully. Roth was constantly amazed by people's hunger for idols. Bring on your false gods. The masses needed an opiate, and that bit.

Roth worked his way to Spence's left, edging between a blue-haired biddie and an old chap with a hunched back. The cute little bird with the nice knockers was at Spence's side. She hadn't spoken a word all evening, even during dinner. Roth knew, because he had watched her and Spence at their private table. Roth calculated the chances of working her for a bit of the old in-out. That would be a dandy feather in the cap.

Spence blathered on about the moral instructions encodified in The Great Gatsby. The crowd nodded in approval, and occasionally dared to murmur. Roth figured the time was right to make his presence known. 'I say, Mr. Spence, didn't some editor supposedly say, 'Fitzgerald, get rid of that Gatsby clown and you'll have yourself a good book'?'

All eyes turned to Roth and then back to Spence. The writer looked at Roth as if measuring the reach of an adversary. Then Spence smiled. 'Purely apocryphal. Though it contains the seeds of possibility. Sir William Roth, is it?'

'Yes, a pleasure to meet you, my good man,' Roth said, extending his hand. A tingle of pleasure surged through him as the 'little people' oohed and aahed at this meeting of the gods.

Spence polished off his drink and handed the empty glass to his shapely companion. 'So what do you think of my analysis of Gatsby?'

'Scintillating. And I agree that Wolfe's book is absolute poppycock.' Out of the corner of his eye, Roth watched the girl's shimmering rear as she walked to the bar.

Spence turned away from his admirers and squared off with Roth. The photographer nudged Spence toward the corner of the room. The crowd took its cue and broke into small groups, some stepping onto the porch for smokes, others refilling their drinks.

'What brings you to Korban Manor, Mr. Roth?'

Roth rolled his scotch-and-water between his hands. 'Business, sir. Always business with me.'

'The devil, you say. That's just what the world needs, another four hundred negatives of this place. Or are you hired for a publicity shoot?'

'I'm freelancing.'

'Hmmph. I'm working, too, if you can believe it.'

Roth knew that Spence hadn't finished a novel in years. He had blustered his way through some opinion pieces and essays, and had penned a scathing introduction to The New Southern Voices Collection that had likely driven some of the anthology's contributors to tears. The critics had given him up. He was like a beached whale-fun to poke while blood could be drawn, but shunned after becoming a bloated, gassy corpse.

'I would think this place would be rather inspiring for a man of your genius,' Roth said, barely disguising the taunt.

Spence didn't rise to the bait. He'd probably read too many of his publisher's press releases, the ones that kept promising a coming masterpiece. 'This is the one, Mr. Roth. This is the work that will earn the Nobel Prize for Literature. It's about time an American brought home that particular piece of hardware. Nothing personal, mind you.'

Roth turned up one palm in submission. His British accent had fooled even Spence, a man who had trained himself to observe human behavior. Spence's girlfriend brought the writer his drink, put it in his hand, and dutifully returned to his shadow.

Roth smiled at her and then began the laborious task of drawing Spence into his trust.

CHAPTER 6

I'm a ghoulie-chasing fool.

Anna let the yellow beam of the flashlight lead her as if she had no will of her own. She found herself heading up a forest trail, onto one of the narrower worn paths crowded by laurel. The waxy leaves brushed against her face and hands. Crickets and katydids launched their choruses from the obscurity of the dark forest.

You follow and you follow and you never catch up. You reach out and they dance away. You run and they run faster. You look in the dark and see nothing but darkness.

Ghosts played by their own rules. Anna had a hunch that ghosts didn't need to unravel secrets, didn't demand explanations. Life's great mysteries must mean very little to those no longer living. Undoubtedly all spirits received the necessary explanations as a gift to welcome them to the afterlife. But perhaps the dead needed amusement. Eternity surely got tedious after a while.

Anna wasn't worried about getting lost in the woods, even though Korban Manor's lighted windows had disappeared from view. After leaving the house, she'd stopped by the barn and found four horses in their stalls. She

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