insomniacs in the Bronx in mind. He portrays a developing relationship...'
'Sure, sure he does but '
'The hesitations and uncertainties of a young man whose feelings and emotional responses deviate from the socially accepted norms of his socio-sexual age grouping.'
'Right,' said Hutchmeyer, 'no question about it. He's a deviant and '
'He is not a deviant,' said Baby, 'he is a very gifted adolescent with an identity problem and Gwendolen...'
While Piper munched his Wheatgerm the battle about his intentions in writing Pause raged on. Since Piper hadn't written the book and Hutchmeyer hadn't read it, Baby came out on top. Hutchmeyer retreated to his study and Piper found himself alone with a woman who, for quite the wrong reasons, shared his own opinion that he was a great writer. And cute. Piper had reservations about being called cute by a woman whose own attractions were sufficiently at odds with one another to be disturbing. In the dim light of the party the night before he had supposed her to be thirty-five. Now he was less sure. Beneath her blouse her bra-less breasts pointed to the early twenties. Her hands didn't. Finally there was her face. It had a masklike quality, a lack of anything remotely individual, irregular or out of harmony with the faces of the two-dimensional women he had seen staring so fixedly from the pages of women's magazines like Vogue. Taut, impersonal and characterless it held a strange fascination for him, while her limpid azure eyes...Piper found himself thinking of Yeats' Sailing to Byzantium and the artifice of jewelled birds that sang. To steady himself he read the label on the Wheatgerm jar and found that he had just consumed 740 milligrammes of phosphorus, 550 of potassium, together with vast quantities of other essential minerals and every Vitamin B under the sun.
'It seems to have a lot of Vitamin B,' he said, avoiding the allure of those eyes.
'The Bs give you energy,' murmured Baby. 'And As?' asked Piper.
'Vitamin A smooths the mucous membranes,' said Baby and once again Piper was dimly conscious that beneath this dietetic commentary there lurked an undertow of dangerous suggestion. He looked up from the Wheatgerm label and was held once more by that masklike face and limpid azure eyes.
Chapter 11
Sonia Futtle rose late. Never an early riser, she had slept more heavily than usual. The strain of the previous day had taken its toll. She came downstairs to find the house empty apart from Hutchmeyer who was growling into the telephone in his study. She made herself some coffee and interrupted him. 'Have you seen Peter?' she asked.
'Baby's taken him some place. They'll be back,' said Hutchmeyer. 'Now about that proposition I put to you...'
'No way. F & F is a good agency. We're doing well. So what would I want to change?'
'It's a Vice-Presidency I'm offering you,' said Hutchmeyer, 'and the offer stays open.'
'The only offer I'm interested in right now,' said Sonia, 'is the one you're going to make my client for all the physical injury and mental suffering and public ridicule he sustained as a result of yesterday's riot you organized at the docks.'
'Physical injury? Mental suffering?' shouted Hutchmeyer incredulously. 'That was the greatest publicity in the world and you want me to make an offer?'
Sonia nodded. 'Compensation. In the region of twenty-five thousand.'
'Twenty-five...Are you crazy? Two million I give him for that book and you want to take me for another twenty-five grand?'
'I do,' said Sonia. 'There is nothing in the contract that says my client has to be subjected to violence, assault and the attentions of lethal frisbees. Now you organized that caper '
'Go jump,' said Hutchmeyer.
'In that case I shall advise Mr Piper to cancel the tour.'
