thought about his life's work. He would never finish Search for a Lost Childhood now. He would never be recognized as a literary genius. All his hopes had been destroyed in the blaze and its aftermath. He would go through what remained of his existence on earth posthumously famous as the author of Pause O Men for the Virgin. It was an intolerable thought and provoked in him a growing determination to put the record straight. There had to be some way of issuing a disclaimer. But disclaimers from beyond the grave were not easy to fabricate. He could hardly write to the Times Literary Supplement pointing out that he hadn't in fact written Pause but that its authorship had been foisted on to him by Frensic & Futtle for their own dubious ends. Letters signed 'the late Peter Piper'...No, that was definitely out. On the other hand it was insufferable to go down in literary history as a pornographer. Piper wrestled with the problem and finally fell asleep.
When he woke they had crossed the state line and were in Vermont. That night they booked into a small motel on the shores of Lake Champlain as Mr and Mrs Castorp. Baby signed the register while Piper carried two empty suitcases purloined from the Van der Hoogen mansion into the cabin.
'We'll have to buy some clothes and things tomorrow,' said Baby. But Piper was not concerned with such material details. He stood at the window staring out and tried to adjust himself to the extraordinary notion that to all intents and purposes he was married to this crazy woman.
'You realize we are never going to be able to separate,' he said at last.
'I don't see why not,' said Baby from the depths of the shower.
'Well for one simple reason I haven't got an identity and can't get a job,' said Piper, 'and for another you've got all the money and if either of us gets picked up by the police we'll go to prison for the rest of our lives.'
'You worry too much,' said Baby. 'This is the land of opportunity. We'll go some place nobody will think of looking and begin all over again.'
'Such as where?'
Baby emerged from the shower. 'Like the South. The Deep South,' she said. 'That's one place Hutchmeyer is never going to come. He's got this thing about the Ku Klux Klan. South of the Mason-Dixon he's never been.'
'And what the hell am I going to do in the Deep South?' asked Piper.
'You could always try your hand at writing Southern novels. Hutch may not go South but he certainly publishes a lot of novels about it. They usually have this man with a whip and a girl cringing on the cover. Surefire bestsellers.'
'Sounds just my sort of book,' said Piper grimly and took a shower himself.
'You could always write it under a pseudonym.'
'Thanks to you I'd bloody well have to.'
As night fell outside the cabin Piper crawled into bed and lay thinking about the future. In the twin bed beside him Baby sighed.
'It's great to be with a man who doesn't pee in the washbasin,' she murmured. Piper resisted the invitation without difficulty.
The next morning they moved on again, following back roads and driving slowly and always south. And always Piper's mind nagged away at the problem of how to resume his interrupted career.
In Scranton, where Baby traded the estate for a new Ford, Piper took the opportunity to buy two new ledgers, a bottle of Higgins Ink and an Esterbrook pen.
'If I can't do anything else I can at least keep a diary,' he explained to Baby.
'A diary? You don't even look at the landscape and we eat in McDonalds so what's to put in a diary?'
'I was thinking of writing it retrospectively. As a form of vindication. I would '
'Vindication? And how can you write a diary retrospectively?'
