A Ladder to the Sky(15)

I was still staring at the empty glasses and their expensive additions when Maurice appeared from around the corner, raising a hand in greeting as he sat down to join me. It was a warm afternoon, and when his beer arrived, he drank a third of it without pausing for breath, sitting back with a satisfied sigh.

‘I visited the Père Lachaise Cemetery while you were doing your interviews,’ he told me. ‘Placed my hand on top of Oscar Wilde’s grave.’

‘And I daresay you’ll never wash it again,’ I said.

‘I want to be entombed when I’m gone,’ he said, sitting up straight now. ‘Or have a memorial in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey.’

‘I hope you’re joking,’ I said.

‘Of course I am,’ he replied, bursting into laughter. ‘I’m not that arrogant. No, I don’t care what happens to me as long as my books survive.’

‘That’s important to you?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s the only thing. Well, that and, as I told you before, becoming a father.’

‘You’re still intent on that?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘But you’re so young.’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t see what that has to do with anything,’ he said. ‘Did you never want one? A child, I mean.’

‘Well, it would have been—’ I began, but he cut me off.

‘Just because you’re gay doesn’t mean you wouldn’t have enjoyed being a father.’

‘True,’ I said. ‘But I never gave it much consideration, to be honest. I knew it was never going to happen so it wasn’t something that preyed on my mind.’

I glanced out towards the street, where a pair of schoolgirls were walking past in short skirts. I watched to see whether Maurice’s eyes would follow them and they did for a few moments, but without any particular interest, as he finished his beer and ordered another.

‘By the way,’ he said, reaching into his satchel and pulling out a magazine that he handed across. ‘I have a present for you.’ The publication was titled Coney Island and I felt an immediate aversion to the cover image, a close-up of a clown vomiting letters on the heads of George Bush and Michael Dukakis.

‘Thank you,’ I said, uncertain why he thought I would be interested in such a thing.

‘Turn to page sixteen,’ he said, and I did as instructed, whereupon I discovered a title, ‘Red’, with the words ‘by Maurice Swift’ printed in large letters underneath. ‘My first published story,’ he said, grinning from ear to ear.

‘Maurice!’ I said, truly delighted for him. ‘Congratulations!’

‘Thank you.’

‘I didn’t know that you were even submitting to magazines.’

‘Well, I haven’t been, to be honest,’ he told me. ‘But I happen to know one of the editors there and he asked whether I might have something that would work for them. So I sent this along and he liked it.’

‘Well, I’m very happy for you,’ I said. ‘You must feel very encouraged.’

‘I do.’

‘And your novel? How is that coming along?’

‘Ah,’ he said, pulling a face. ‘Slowly. I have the opening chapters and a good hold on my characters but I’m not sure where it’s going as yet.’

‘You haven’t plotted it out?’ I asked.

‘Oh no,’ he said, looking at me as if I’d just accused him of spending his days watching television. ‘I could never do something like that. Doesn’t it all become a little boring if you know everything that happens in advance?’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said, and I might have challenged him further on it were it not for an interruption by our waitress, who came over holding a tray that carried the two glasses from the divorcing couple’s table and looking inside them with an astonished expression on her face. She asked whether I had seen who had left them there and I related the events as I’d observed them earlier and she shook her head in disbelief before making her way back indoors. A moment later, Maurice’s trusty notebook was on the table again and he was scribbling away.

‘What are you writing?’ I asked him.

‘The story you just told her,’ he said. ‘It’s a good one. I thought I might use it for something.’

‘As it happens,’ I said, ‘after they left I thought the same thing. That it might make for an interesting opening for a novel. I was working through some possibilities in my mind.’

He lifted his notebook and waved it in the air triumphantly. ‘Sorry, Erich,’ he said. ‘It’s mine now. I wrote it down first!’

‘All right.’

‘You don’t mind, do you?’

‘No, of course not,’ I said, a little surprised by his literary larceny. ‘You’re still coming to Shakespeare & Company tonight, I hope?’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘What time is your reading?’

‘Seven o’clock.’

‘And after that?’

‘Dinner with the publishers.’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Do you mind if I skip that one? I have a friend in Paris. We were thinking of meeting for a drink, that’s all. Of course, I’ll join you if you really want me to but—’