'No problems,' she said. 'He had Geoffrey fooled.'
'That's hardly surprising,' said Frensic, 'Geoffrey is a fool. Wait till Eleanor Beazley starts asking him about his portrayal of the sexual psyche of an eighty-year-old woman. That's when the fat's going to be in the fire.'
'She won't. I've told her he never discusses his past work. She's to stick to biographical details and how he works. He's really convincing when he gets on to pens and ink. Did you know he uses evaporated ink and writes in leatherbound ledgers? Isn't that quaint?'
'I'm only surprised he doesn't use a quill,' said Frensic. 'It's in keeping.'
'It's good copy. The Guardian interview with Jim Fossie is tomorrow morning and the Telegraph wants him for the colour supplement in the afternoon. I tell you this bandwagon is beginning to roll.'
That night, as Frensic made his way back to his flat with Piper, it was clear that the bandwagon had indeed begun to roll. The newstands announced BRITISH NOVELIST MAKES TWO MILLION IN BIGGEST DEAL EVER.
'Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive,' murmured Frensic and bought a paper. Beside him Piper nursed the large green hardback copy of Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus which he had bought at Foyle's. He was thinking of utilizing its symphonic approach in his third novel.
Chapter 6
Next morning the bandwagon began to roll in earnest. After a night spent dreaming of Sonia and preparing himself for the ordeal, Piper arrived at the office to discuss his life, literary opinions and methods of work with Jim Fossie of the Guardian. Frensic and Sonia hovered anxiously in the background to ensure discretion but there was no need. Whatever Piper's limitations as a writer of novels, as a putative novelist he played his role expertly. He spoke of Literature in the abstract, referred scathingly to one or two eminent contemporary novelists, but for the most part concentrated on the use of evaporated ink and the limitations of the modern fountain pen as an aid to literary creation.
'I believe in craftsmanship,' he said, 'the old-fashioned virtues of clarity and legibility.' He told a story about Palmerston's insistence on fine writing by the clerks in the Foreign Office and dismissed the ball-pen with contempt. So obsessive was his concern with calligraphy that Mr Fossie had ended the interview before he realized that no mention had been made of the novel he had come to discuss.
'He's certainly different from any other author I've ever met,' he told Sonia as she saw him out. 'All that stuff about Kipling's note-paper, for God's sake!'
'What do you expect from genius?' said Sonia. 'Some spiel about how brilliant his novel is?'
'And how brilliant is this genius's novel?'
'Two million dollars worth. That's the reality value.'
'Some reality,' said Mr Fossie with more percipience than he knew.
Even Frensic, who had anticipated disaster, was impressed. 'If he keeps that up we'll be all right,' he said. 'We're going to be fine,' said Sonia.
After lunch the Daily Telegraph photographer insisted, thanks to a chance remark by Piper that he had once lived near the scene of the explosion in The Secret Agent in Greenwich Park, on taking his photographs as it were on location.
'It adds dramatic interest,' he said evidently supposing the explosion to have been a real one. They went down on the river boat from Charing Cross, Piper explaining to the interviewer, Miss Pamela Wildgrove, that Conrad had been a major influence on his work. Miss Wildgrove made a note of the fact. Piper said Dickens had also been an influence. Miss Wildgrove made a note of that fact too. By the time they reached Greenwich her notebook was crammed with influences but
