A Ladder to the Sky(112)

‘I don’t remember it.’

‘It was about five brothers living in America in the 1930s, working on their parents’ farm. Four join the army but one is left behind because he has flat feet and they won’t take him.’

‘Flat feet,’ I said, laughing. ‘I’ve never really understood what that means, have you?’

‘The story is built around how difficult he finds it, being the only young man in town when everyone else has gone away to fight. He feels emasculated, of course.’

‘I see,’ I said quietly.

‘And then there was another story, by Ho Kitson. A Chinese-American writer, if I remember correctly from the accompanying letter.’

‘And what did he or she write?’

‘He. A story called “A Statement of Intent”.’

‘Better title.’

‘Agreed.’

‘Oh, I’m so glad.’

‘And Ho Kitson’s story was about a girl who has abandoned her baby in a railway carriage in California, just as it’s about to set off for a cross-country journey.’

I nodded but said nothing.

‘You can see where I’m going on this, I presume?’ he asked after a lengthy pause.

‘The Breach,’ I said.

‘The Breach,’ he agreed. ‘The opening chapter of that novel sees a young woman leaving her unwanted baby in a railway carriage. Another woman boards shortly after, discovers the baby and, being unable to have a child herself, steals him. No one ever knows. She just takes him home and she and her husband raise him as their own. And when the boy turns eighteen, the Vietnam War breaks out and almost all the sons of the families in town go to fight, but when he goes for his medical test—’

‘You don’t need to recount my own novel to me, Theo,’ I said, growing annoyed now by his impertinence. ‘I wrote it. I think I remember what it was about.’

‘And then there’s The Broken Ones,’ he continued, looking down at his notes again. ‘Do I need to go on?’

‘Well, you’re obviously enjoying yourself,’ I said with a shrug. ‘So why not?’

‘Steven Conway. A story called “The Wedding Anniversary”. A husband and wife visit Paris to celebrate twenty years together and, while there, she has a brief affair. And then Anna Smith. A story called “Tuesday”. A comic story about life on a university campus where a professor is trying and failing to seduce his students. And if we look at the plot of The Broken Ones—’

‘All right, Daniel, for fuck’s sake,’ I said, raising my voice.

‘Theo,’ he said calmly.

‘Just tell me what your fucking point is.’

He looked at me with a certain contempt in his eyes and laughed. ‘It’s not obvious?’

‘Not to me,’ I said.

‘The ideas. They weren’t yours.’

‘And?’

‘Maurice, I’m not trying to be obtuse—’

‘Then you’re failing. Tell me this, Theo. Those four stories you read. Were they any good?’

He considered this for a moment and shrugged. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘I mean, they had some good ideas, story-wise, but the writing was weak and the characters were never fully developed.’

‘And if you had been the editor of Storī at the time, would you have published them?’

‘No. Definitely not.’

‘So what’s the problem?’

‘Your novels – those two novels – they weren’t your ideas. They’re a blend of other people’s stories.’

I smiled. Other People’s Stories. My new book. My unfinished book. The book that Daniel, the little snoop, had discovered and got so worked up over.

‘But their stories weren’t any good,’ I protested. ‘And my novels, the two that we’re talking about, were both very well received.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Look, Theo. I’m a writer. And what’s the most irritating question that a writer can be asked?’

‘I don’t know. Do you write by hand or on a computer?’

‘No, it’s Where do you get your ideas? And the answer is that no one knows where they come from and nobody should know. They evolve in thin air, they float down from some mysterious heaven and we reach out to grab one, to grasp it in our imagination, and to make it our own. One writer might overhear a conversation in a café and a whole novel will build from that moment. Another might see an article in a newspaper and a plot will suggest itself immediately. Another might hear about an unpleasant incident that happened to a friend of a friend at a supermarket. So I took ideas from badly written stories that had been sent to me – unsolicited, I might add – and turned them into something that was not only publishable but sold very well. What’s the problem with that?’

‘When you express it like that, nothing,’ said Theo, looking utterly frustrated by my reply. ‘But don’t you think—’

‘I think what I just said, that’s what I think. Are you trying to suggest that no one has ever written a novel about an abandoned child before? For God’s sake, Daniel, how does the story of Moses begin? The Pharaoh has condemned all male Hebrew children to death and Jochebed places the baby in an ark, where’s he discovered by Bithiah. Are you saying that Ho Kitson stole her idea from the Bible? And, what, a college professor who seduces his students? You’ve read Updike, I presume? Mailer? Roth?’