sat down behind his desk and wondered what advantages could be gained from Piper's infatuation.
'At least it gets me off the hook,' he muttered finally and went next door again. But Piper was back in his chair gazing with adoring eyes at Sonia. Frensic retreated and phoned her.
'From now on, he's your pigeon,' he told her. 'You dine, wine him and anything else that pleases you. The man's besotted.'
'Jealousy will get you nowhere,' said Sonia smiling at Piper.
'Right,' said Frensic, 'I want no part of this corruption of the innocent.'
'Squeamish?' said Sonia.
'Extremely,' said Frensic and put down the phone. 'Who was that?' asked Piper.
'Oh just an editor at Heinemann. He's got a crush on me.'
'Hm,' said Piper disgruntledly.
And so while Frensic lunched at his club, a thing he did only when his ego, vanity or virility (such as it was) had taken a bashing in the real world, Sonia swept the besotted Piper off to Wheeler's and fed him on dry Martinis, Rhine wine, salmon cutlets and her own brand of expansive charm. By the time they emerged into the street he had told her in so many words that he considered her the first woman in his life to have possessed both the physical and mental attractions which made for a real relationship and one who moreover understood the true nature of the creative literary act. Sonia Futtle was not used to such ardent confessions. The few advances she had had in the past had been expressed less fluently and had largely consisted of enquiries as to whether she would or wouldn't and Piper's technique, borrowed almost entirely from Hans Castorp in The Magic Mountain with a bit of Lawrence thrown in for good measure, came as a pleasant surprise. There was an old-fashioned quality about him, she decided, which made a nice change. Besides, Piper, for all his literary ambitions, was personable and not without an angular charm and Sonia could accommodate any amount of angular charm. It was a flushed and flattered Sonia who stood on the pavement and hailed a taxi to take them to Corkadales.
'Just don't shoot your mouth off too much,' she said as they drove across London. 'Geoffrey Corkadale's a fag and he'll do the talking. He'll probably say a whole lot of complimentary things about Pause O Men for the Virgin and you just nod.'
Piper nodded. The world was a gay, gay place in which anything was possible and everything permissible. As an accepted author it became him to be modest. In the event he excelled himself at Corkadales. Inspired by the sight of Trollope's inkpot in the glass case he launched into an explanation of his own writing techniques with particular reference to the use of evaporated ink, exchanged contracts for Search, and accepted Geoffrey's praise of Pause as a first-rate novel with a suitably ironical smile.
'Extraordinary to think he could have written that filthy book,' Geoffrey whispered to Sonia as they were leaving. 'I had expected some long-haired hippie and my dear, this one is out of the Ark.'
'Just shows you can never tell,' said Sonia. 'Anyway you're going to get a lot of excellent publicity for Pause. I've got him on the 'Books To Be Read' programme.'
'How very clever you are,' said Geoffrey. 'I'm delighted. And the American deal is definitely on?'
'Definitely,' said Sonia.
They took another taxi and drove back towards Lanyard Lane.
'You were marvellous,' she told Piper. 'Just stick to talking about your pens and ink and how you write your books and refuse to discuss their content and we'll have no trouble.'
'Nobody seems to discuss books anyway,' said Piper. 'I thought the conversation would be quite different. More literary.'
He got out in Charing Cross Road and spent the rest of the afternoon browsing in Foyle's while Sonia went back to the office and reassured Frensic.
