The Great Pursuit

Chapter 3

It was said of Hutchmeyer that he was the most illiterate publisher in the world and that having started life as a fight promoter he had brought his pugilistic gifts to the book trade and had once gone eight rounds with Mailer. It was also said that he never read the books he bought and that the only words he could read were those on cheques and dollar bills. It was said that he owned half the Amazon forest and that when he looked at a tree all he could see was a dustjacket. A great many things were said about Hutchmeyer, most of them unpleasant, and, while each contained an element of truth, added together they amounted to so many inconsistencies that behind them Hutchmeyer could guard the secret of his success. That at least no one doubted. Hutchmeyer was immensely successful. A legend in his own lifetime, he haunted the insomniac thoughts of publishers who had turned down Love Story when it was going for a song, had spurned Frederick Forsyth and ignored Ian Fleming and now lay awake cursing their own stupidity. Hutchmeyer himself slept soundly. For a sick man, remarkably soundly. And Hutchmeyer was always sick. If Frensic's success lay in outeating and outdrinking his competitors, Hutchmeyer's was due to his hypochondria. When he hadn't an ulcer or gallstones, he was subject to some intestinal complaint that necessitated a regime of abstinence. Publishers and agents coming to his table found themselves obliged to plough their way through six courses, each richer and more alarmingly indigestible than the last, while Hutchmeyer toyed with a piece of boiled fish, a biscuit and a glass of mineral water. From these culinary encounters Hutchmeyer rose a thinner and richer man while his guests staggered home wondering what the hell had hit them. Nor were they allowed time to recover. Hutchmeyer's peripatetic schedule London today, New York tomorrow, Los Angeles the day after had a dual purpose. It provided him with an excuse to insist on speed and avoided prolonged negotiations, and it kept his sales staff on their toes. More than one contract had been signed by an author in the throes of so awful a hangover that he could hardly put pen to paper, let alone read the small print. And the small print in Hutchmeyer's contracts was exceedingly small. Understandably so, since it contained clauses that invalidated almost everything set out in bold type. To add to the hazards of doing business with Hutchmeyer, most of them legal, there was his manner. Hutchmeyer was gross, partly by nature and partly as a reaction to the literary aestheticism he was exposed to. It was one of the qualities he appreciated about Sonia Futtle. No one had ever called her aesthetic.

'You're like a daughter to me,' he said hugging her when she arrived at his suite in the Hilton. 'What's my baby got for me this time?'

'One humdinger,' said Sonia disengaging herself and climbing on to the bicycle exerciser that accompanied Hutchmeyer everywhere. Hutchmeyer selected the lowest chair in the room.

'You don't say. A novel?'

Sonia cycled busily and nodded.

'What's it called?' asked Hutchmeyer for whom first things came first.

'Pause O Men for the Virgin.'

'Pause O Men for the what?'

'Virgin,' said Sonia and cycled more vigorously than ever. Hutchmeyer glimpsed a thigh. 'Virgin? You mean you've got a religious novel that's hot?'

'Hot as Hades.'

'Sounds good, a time like this. It fits with the Jesus freaks and Superstar and Zen and how to mend automobiles. And it's women's year so we got The Virgin.'

Sonia stopped peddling. 'Now don't get carried away, Hutch. It's not that kind of virgin.'

'It's not?'

'No way.'

'So there's different kinds of virgin. Sounds interesting. Tell me.' And Sonia Futtle, seated on the bicycle machine, told him while her legs moved up and down with a delicious lethargy that lulled his critical faculties. Hutchmeyer made only token resistance. 'Forget it,' he said when she had finished. 'You can deepsix that crap. Eighty years old and still fucking. That I don't need.'

Sonia climbed off the exerciser and stood in front of him. 'Don't be a dumbcluck, Hutch. Now you listen to me. You're not going to throw this one out. Over my dead body. This book's got class.'

Hutchmeyer smiled happily. This was Fuller Brush talking. The sales pitch. No soft sell. 'Convince me.'

'Right,' said Sonia. 'Who reads? Don't answer. I'll tell you. The kids. Fifteen to twenty-one. They read. They got the time. They got the education. Literacy rate peak is sixteen to twenty. Right?'

'Right,' said Hutchmeyer.

'Right, so we've got a seventeen-year-old boy in the book with an identity crisis.'

'Identity crises is out. That stuff went the way of all Freud.'

'Sure, but this is different. This boy isn't sick or something.'

'You kidding? Fucking his own grandmother isn't sick?'

'She isn't his grandmother. She's a woman a '

'Listen baby, I'll tell you something. She's eighty, she's no goddam woman no more. I should know. My wife, Baby, is fifty-eight and she's drybones. What the beauty surgeons have left of her. That woman has had more taken out of her than you'd believe possible. She's got silicon boobs and degreased thighs. She's had four new maidenheads to my knowledge and her face lifted so often I've lost count.'

'And why?' said Sonia. 'Because she wants to stay all woman.'

'All woman she ain't. More spare parts than woman.'

'But she reads. Am I right?'

'Reads? She reads more books than I sell in a month.'

'And that's my point. The young read and the old read. You can kiss the in-betweens goodbye.'

'You tell Baby she's old and you can kiss yourself goodbye. She'd have your fanny for a dishcloth. I mean it.'

'What I'm saying is that you've got literacy peak sixteen to twenty, then a gap and another LP sixty on out. Tell me I'm lying.'

Hutchmeyer shrugged. 'So you're right.'

'And what's this book about?' said Sonia. 'It's '

'Some crazy kid shacked up with Grandma Moses. It's been done some place else. Tell me something new. Besides, it's dirty.'

'You're wrong, Hutch, you're so wrong. It's a love story, no shit. They mean something to one another. He needs her and she needs him.'

'Me, I need neither of them.'

'They give one another what they lack alone. He gets maturity, experience, wisdom, the fruit of a lifetime...'

'Fruit? Fruit? Jesus, you want me to throw up or something?'

'...and she gets youth, vitality, life,' Sonia continued. 'It's great. I mean it. A deep, meaningful book. It's liberationist. It's existentialist. It's...Remember what The French Lieutenant's Woman did? Swept America. And Pause is what America's been waiting for. Seventeen loves eighty. Loves, Hutch, L.O.V.E.S. So every senior citizen is going to buy it to find out what they've been missing and the students will go for the philosophomore message. Pitch it right and we can scoop the pool. We get the culture buffs with significance, the weirdos with the porn and the marshmallows with romance. This is the book for the whole family. It could sell by the '

Hutchmeyer got up and paced the room. 'You know, I think maybe you've got something there,' he said. 'I ask myself "Would Baby buy this story?" and I have to say yes. And what that woman falls for the whole world buys. What price?'

'Two million dollars.'

'Two million...You've got to be kidding.'

Hutchmeyer gaped.

Sonia climbed back on to the bicycle machine. 'Two million. I kid you not.'

'Go jump, baby, go jump. Two million? For a novel? No way.'

'Two million or I go flash my gams at Milenberg.'

'That cheapskate? He couldn't raise two million. You can hawk your pussy all the way to Avenue of the Americas it won't do you no good.'

'American rights, paperback, film, TV, serialization, book clubs...'

Hutchmeyer yawned. 'Tell me something new. They're mine already.'

'Not on this book they're not.'

'So Milenberg buys. You get no price and I buy him. What's in it for me?'

'Fame,' said Sonia simply, 'just fame. With this book you're up there with the all-time greats. Gone With The Wind, Forever Amber, Valley of The Dolls, Dr Zhivago, Airport, The Carpetbaggers. You'd make the Reader's Digest Almanac.'

'The Reader's Digest Almanac? said Hutchmeyer in an awed voice. 'You really think I could make that?'

'Think? I know. This is a prestige book about life's potentialities. No kitsch. Message like Mary Baker Eddy. A symphony of words. Look who's bought it in London. No fly-by-night firm.'

'Who?' said Hutchmeyer suspiciously.

'Corkadales.'

'Corkadales bought it? The oldest publishing '

'Not the oldest. Murrays are older,' said Sonia.

'So, old. How much?'

'Fifty thousand pounds,' said Sonia glibly.

Hutchmeyer stared at her. 'Corkadales paid fifty thousand pounds for this book? Fifty grand?'

'Fifty grand. First time off. No hassle.'

'I heard they were in trouble,' said Hutchmeyer. 'Some Arab bought them?'

'No Arab. It's a family firm. So Geoffrey Corkadale paid fifty grand. He knows this book is going to get them out of hock. You think they'd risk that sort of money if they were going to fold?'

'Shit,' said Hutchmeyer, 'somebody's got to have faith in this fucking book...but two million! No one's ever paid two million for a novel. Robbins a million but...'

'That's the whole point, Hutch. You think I ask two million for nothing? Am I so dumb? It's the two million makes the book. You pay two million and people know, they've got to read the book to find out what you paid for. You know that. You're in a class on your own. Way out in front. And then with the film...'

'I'd want a cut of the film. No single-figure percentage. Fifty-fifty.'

'Done,' said Sonia. 'You've got yourself a deal. Fifty-fifty on the film it is.'

'The author...this Piper guy, I'd want him too,' said Hutchmeyer.

'Want him?' said Sonia, sobering. 'Want him for what?'

'To market the product. He's going to be out there up front where the public can see him. The guy who fucks the geriatrics. Public appearances across the States, signings, TV talk shows, interviews, the whole razzamattaz. We'll build him up like he's a genius.'

'I don't think he's going to like that,' said Sonia nervously, 'he's shy and reserved.'

'Shy? He washes his jock in public and he's shy?' said Hutchmeyer. 'For two million he'll chew asses if I tell him.'

'I doubt if he'd agree '

'Agree he will or there's no deal,' said Hutchmeyer. 'I'm throwing my weight behind his book, he has to too. That's final.'

'OK, if that's the way you want it,' said Sonia.

'That's the way I want it,' said Hutchmeyer. 'Like the way I want you...'

Sonia made her escape and hurried back to Lanyard Lane with the contract.

She found Frensic looking decidedly edgy. 'Home and dry,' she said, dancing heavily round the room.

'Marvellous,' said Frensic. 'You are brilliant.'

Sonia stopped cavorting. 'With a proviso.'

'Proviso? What proviso?'

'First the good news. He loves the book. He's just wild about it.'

Frensic regarded her cautiously. 'Isn't he being a bit premature? He hasn't had a chance to read the bloody thing yet.'

'I told him about it...a synopsis and he loved it. He sees it as filling a much-needed gap.'

'A much-needed gap?'

'The generation gap. He feels '

'Spare me his feelings,' said Frensic. 'A man who can talk about filling much-needed gaps is deficient in ordinary human emotions.'

'He thinks Pause will do for youth and age what Lolita did for...'

'Parental responsibility?' suggested Frensic.

'For the middle-aged man,' said Sonia.

'For God's sake, if this is the good news can leprosy be far behind.'

Sonia sank into a chair and smiled. 'Wait till you hear the price.'

Frensic waited. 'Well?'

'Two million.'

'Two million?' said Frensic trying to keep the quaver out of his voice. 'Pounds or dollars?'

Sonia looked at him reproachfully. 'Frenzy, you are a bastard, an ungrateful bastard. I pull off '

'My dear, I was merely trying to ascertain the likely extent of the horrors you are about to reveal to me. You spoke of a proviso. Now if your friend from the Mafia had been prepared to pay two million pounds for this verbal hogwash I would have known the time had come to pack up and leave town. What does the swine want?'

'One, he wants to see the Corkadales contract.'

'That's all right. There's nothing wrong with it.'

'Just that it doesn't mention the sum of fifty thousand pounds Corkadales have paid for Pause,' said Sonia. 'Otherwise it's just dandy.'

Frensic gaped at her. 'Fifty thousand pounds? They didn't pay '

'Hutchmeyer needed impressing so I said...'

'He needs his head read. Corkadales haven't fifty thousand pennies to rub together, let alone pounds.'

'Right. Which he knew. So I told him Geoffrey had staked his personal fortune. Now you know why he wants to see the contract?'

Frensic rubbed his forehead and thought. 'I suppose we could always draw up a new contract and get Geoffrey to sign it pro tem and tear it up when Hutchmeyer's seen it,' he said at last. 'Geoffrey won't like it but with his cut of two million...What's the next problem?'

Sonia hesitated. 'This one you won't like. He insists, but insists, that the author goes to the States for a promotional tour. Senior citizens I have loved sort of stuff on TV and signings.'

Frensic took out his handkerchief and wiped his face. 'Insists?' he spluttered. 'He can't insist. We've got an author who won't even sign his name to a contract, let alone appear in public, some madman with agoraphobia or its equivalent and Hutchmeyer wants him to parade round America appearing on TV?'

'Insists, Frenzy, insists. Not wants. Either the author goes or the deal is off.'

'Then it's off,' said Frensic. 'The man won't go. You heard what Cadwalladine said. Total anonymity.'

'Not even for two million.'

Frensic shook his head. 'I told Cadwalladine we were going to ask for a large sum and he said money didn't count.'

'But two million isn't money. It's a fortune.'

'I know it is, but...'

'Try Cadwalladine again,' said Sonia and handed him the phone. Frensic tried again. At length. Mr Cadwalladine was emphatic. Two million dollars was a fortune but his instructions were that his client's anonymity meant more to him than mere...

It was a dispiriting conversation for Frensic.

'What did I tell you,' he said when he had finished. 'We're dealing with some sort of lunatic. Two lunatics. Hutchmeyer being the other.'

'So we're just going to sit back and watch twenty per cent of two million dollars disappear down the plughole and do nothing about it?' said Sonia. Frensic stared miserably across the roofs of Covent Garden and sighed. Twenty per cent of two million came to four hundred thousand dollars, over two hundred thousand pounds. That would have been their commission on the sale. And thanks to James Jamesforth's libel action they had just lost two more valuable authors.

'There must be some way of fixing this,' he muttered. 'Hutchmeyer doesn't know who the author is any more than we do.'

'He does too,' said Sonia. 'It's Peter Piper. His name's on the title page.'

Frensic looked at her with new appreciation. 'Peter Piper,' he murmured, 'now there's a thought.'

They closed the office for the night and went down to the pub across the road for a drink.

'Now if there were some way we could persuade Piper to act as understudy...' said Frensic after a large whisky.

'And after all it would be one way of getting his name into print,' said Sonia. 'If the book sells...'

'Oh it will sell all right. With Hutchmeyer anything sells.'

'Well then, Piper would have got his foot in the publishing door and perhaps we could get someone to ghost Search for him.'

Frensic shook his head. 'He'd never stand for that. Piper has principles I'm afraid. On the other hand if Geoffrey could be persuaded to agree to publish Search for a Lost Childhood as part of tie present contract...I'm seeing him tonight. He's holding one of his little suppers. Yes I think we may be on to something. Piper would do almost anything to get into print and a trip to the States with all expenses paid...I think we'll drink to that.'

'Anything is worth trying,' said Sonia. And that night before setting out for Corkadales Frensic returned to the office and drew up two new contracts. One by which Corkadales agreed to pay fifty thousand for Pause O Men for the Virgin and the second guaranteeing the publication of Mr Piper's subsequent novel, Search for a Lost Childhood. The advance on it was five hundred pounds.

'After all, it's worth the gamble,' said Frensic as he and Sonia locked the office again, 'and I'm prepared to put up five hundred of our money if Geoffrey won't play ball on the advance to Piper. The main thing is to get a copperbottomed guarantee that they will publish Search'

'Geoffrey has ten per cent of two million at stake too,' said Sonia as they separated. 'I should have thought that would be a persuasive argument.'

'I shall do my level best,' said Frensic as he hailed a taxi.

Geoffrey Corkadale's little suppers were what Frensic in a bitchy moment had once called badinageries. One stood around with a drink, later with a plate of cold buffet, and spoke lightly and allusively of books, plays and personalities, few of which one had read, seen or known but which served to provide a catalyst for those epicene encounters which were the real purpose of Geoffrey's little suppers. On the whole Frensic tended to avoid them as frivolous and a little dangerous. They were too androgynous for comfort and besides he disliked running the risk of being discovered talking glibly on a subject he knew absolutely nothing about. He had done that too often as an undergraduate to relish the prospect of continuing it into later life. And the very fact that there were never any women of marriageable propensity, they were either too old or unidentifiable Frensic had once made a pass at an eminent theatre critic with horrifying consequences tended to put him off. He preferred parties where there was just the faintest chance that he would meet someone who would make him a wife and at Geoffrey's gatherings the expression was taken literally. And so Frensic usually avoided them and confined his sex life to occasional desultory affairs with women sufficiently in their prime not to resent his lack of passion or charm, and to passionate feelings for young women on tube trains, which feelings he was incapable of expressing between Hampstead and Leicester Square. But this evening he came with a purpose, only to find that the rooms were crowded. Frensic poured himself a drink and mingled in the hope of cornering Geoffrey. It took some time. Geoffrey's elevation to the head of Corkadales lent him an appeal he had previously lacked and Frensic found himself subjected to a scrutiny of his opinion of The Prancing Nigger by a poet from Tobago who confessed that he found Firbank both divine and offensive. Frensic said those were his feelings too but that Firbank had been remarkably seminal, and it was only after an hour and by the unintentional stratagem of locking himself in the bathroom that he managed to corner Geoffrey.

'My dear, you are too unkind,' said Geoffrey when Frensic after hammering on the door finally freed himself with the help of a jar of skin cleanser. 'You should know we never lock the boys' room. It's so unspontaneous. The chance encounter...'

'This isn't a chance encounter,' said Frensic, dragging Geoffrey in and shutting the door again. 'I want a word with you. It's important.'

'Just don't lock it again...oh my God! Sven is obsessively jealous. He goes absolutely berserk. It's his Viking blood.'

'Never mind that,' said Frensic, 'we've had Hutchmeyer's offer. It's substantial.'

'Oh God, business,' said Geoffrey, subsiding on to the lavatory seat. 'How substantial?'

'Two million dollars,' said Frensic.

Geoffrey clutched at the toilet roll for support. 'Two million dollars?' he said weakly. 'You really mean two million dollars? You're not pulling my leg?'

'Absolute fact,' said Frensic.

'But that's magnificent! How wonderful. You darling '

Frensic pushed him roughly back on the seat. 'There's a snag. Two snags, to be precise.'

'Snags? Why must there always be snags? As if life wasn't complicated enough without snags.'

'We had to impress him with the amount you paid for the book,' said Frensic.

'But I hardly paid anything. In fact...'

'Exactly, but we have had to tell him you paid fifty thousand pounds in advance and he wants to see the contract.'

'Fifty thousand pounds? My dear chap, we couldn't '

'Quite,' said Frensic, 'you don't have to explain your financial situation to me. You're in...you've got a cash-flow problem.'

'To put it mildly,' said Geoffrey, twisting a strand of toilet paper between his fingers.

'Which Hutchmeyer is aware of which is why he wants to see the contract.'

'But what good is that going to do. The contract says...'

'I have here,' said Frensic fishing in his pocket, 'another contract which will do some good and reassure Hutchmeyer. It says you agree to pay fifty thousand...'

'Hang on a moment,' said Geoffrey, getting to his feet, 'if you think I'm going to sign a contract that says I'm going to pay you fifty thousand quid you're labouring under a misapprehension. I may not be a financial wizard but I can see this one coming.'

'All right,' said Frensic huffily and folded the contract, 'if that's the way you feel about it bang goes the deal.'

'What deal? You've already signed the contract for us to publish the novel.'

'Not your deal. Hutchmeyer's. And with it goes your ten per cent of two million dollars. Now if you want...'

Geoffrey sat down again. 'You really mean it, don't you?' he said at last.

'Every word,' said Frensic.

'And you really promise that Hutchmeyer has agreed to pay this incredible sum?'

'My word,' said Frensic with as much dignity as the bathroom allowed, 'is my bond.'

Geoffrey looked at him sceptically. 'If what James Jamesforth says is...All right. I'm sorry. It's just that this has come as a terrible shock. What do you want me to do?'

'Just sign this contract and I'll write out a personal IOU for fifty thousand pounds. That ought to be a guarantee...'

They were interrupted by someone hammering on the door. 'Come out of there,' shouted a Scandinavian voice, 'I know what you're doing!'

'Oh Christ, Sven,' said Geoffrey and struggled with the lock. 'Calm yourself dearest,' he called, 'we were just discussing business.'

Behind him Frensic prudently armed himself with a lavatory brush.

'Business,' yelled the Swede, 'I know your business...' The door sprang open and Sven glared wild-eyed into the bathroom.

'What is he doing with that brush?'

'Now, Sven dear, do be reasonable,' said Geoffrey. But Sven hovered between tears and violence.

'How could you, Geoffrey, how could you?'

'He didn't,' said Frensic vehemently.

The Swede looked him up and down. 'And with such a horrid baggy little man too.'

It was Frensic's turn to look wild-eyed. 'Baggy I may be,' he shouted, 'but horrid I am not.'

There was a moment's scuffle and Geoffrey urged the sobbing Sven down the passage. Frensic put his weapon back in its holder and sat on the edge of the bath. By the time Geoffrey returned he had devised new tactics.

'Where were we?' asked Geoffrey.

'Your petit ami was calling me a horrid baggy little man,' said Frensic.

'My dear, I'm so sorry but really you can count yourself lucky. Last week he actually struck someone and all the poor man had come to do was mend the bidet.'

'Now about this contract. I'm prepared to make a further concession,' said Frensic, 'you can have Piper's second book, Search for a Lost Childhood for a thousand pounds advance...'

'His next novel? You mean he's working on another?'

'Almost finished it,' said Frensic, 'much better than Pause. Now you can have it for practically nothing just so long as you sign this contract for Hutchmeyer.'

'Oh all right,' said Geoffrey, 'I'll just have to trust you.'

'If you don't get it back within the week to tear up you can go to Hutchmeyer and tell him it's a fraud,' said Frensic. 'That's your guarantee.'

And so in the bathroom of Geoffrey Corkadale's house the two contracts were signed. Frensic staggered home exhausted and next morning Sonia showed Hutchmeyer the Corkadale contract. The deal was on.