A Ladder to the Sky(35)

‘I’m not trying to shake anything off,’ said Maurice. ‘But yes, I’m from Harrogate. Although I’ve spoken this way since I was a child.’

‘You’ve wanted it that long, then?’ said Gore quietly, and the question might have been a rhetorical one.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘It doesn’t matter. I wonder what else I can show you that you might appreciate.’

He turned and walked around the library, looking for something appropriately impressive. ‘What were you reading on your journey here, by the way?’ he asked.

‘Dash’s new novel. He gave it to me when we met at Heathrow. I already had something in my bag that I’d been looking forward to but I had to set it aside.’

‘How incredibly crass. Do you mean to tell me that you sat on a flight next to each other – I’m assuming you sat next to each other – and were forced to read his book while he watched you turn the pages? And then on the train from Rome too?’

‘Yes,’ said Maurice.

‘Pathetic behaviour,’ said Gore dismissively. ‘It reminds me of an occasion when I agreed to meet another novelist for dinner in Cologne, a mediocre hack if I’m honest. He deliberately kept me waiting in the lobby of his hotel, possibly to assert some sort of dominance over me, and when he finally deigned to appear he was carrying a book with him, one of his own, and he claimed he’d been re-reading it on the flight. What an ass, I thought. Still, I suppose someone had to read the damned thing. It’s not as if the general public took to it.’

He waited for Maurice to ask who the novelist had been and, when the question didn’t arrive, he felt a mixture of disappointment and frustration.

‘What did you think of it, anyway?’ he asked. ‘Dash’s book, I mean.’

‘It’s not one of his better ones,’ replied Maurice quickly. ‘I still have three hundred pages to go too. I’d give up if it weren’t for the fact that he’ll want a full report later.’

Gore smiled and tapped his finger on the desk. Interesting, he thought. How easily the boy mocks his benefactor.

‘I should have asked,’ he said. ‘What was the book you were intending to read?’

‘Myra Breckinridge,’ said Maurice, and Gore couldn’t help himself. He burst out laughing.

‘Oh, my dear boy,’ he said. ‘You are good at this, aren’t you? I can see you’re going to be a tremendous success.’

Over dinner, the discussion turned to Maurice’s novel. Gore had avoided making any direct reference to it all afternoon but Howard, who had returned home in disarray, having had his wallet stolen in a café before unsuccessfully chasing the thief through the streets of Ravello, asked when it would be published.

‘Oh, but it’s already out,’ said Dash, delighted that the conversation was turning to his protégé at last, which was far more appealing to him than the lecture on the Emperor Galba that Gore had been delivering for almost forty minutes. ‘The British edition, that is. And some of the European ones. But the Americans don’t publish until September. That’s where you come in, Gore.’

‘Me?’ asked Gore, lifting a prawn from his plate and shelling it in a trio of expert movements before dipping the crustacean in Cassiopeia’s excellent chilli dressing and popping it into his mouth. There were hundreds of reasons for spending the autumn of one’s life on the Amalfi Coast but the quality of the seafood was near the top of that list. ‘What have I got to do with anything?’

‘We thought you might offer an endorsement. You don’t mind our asking, do you?’

‘We being …?’

‘Maurice and I.’

‘Dash, please,’ said Maurice, doing his best to look uncomfortable but proving himself an imperfect actor.

‘Is that what you hoped for, Maurice?’ asked Gore, turning to the boy and looking him directly in the eye. ‘Did you hope that I might endorse your novel?’

‘Actually, I’d prefer if you didn’t,’ he replied.

‘Maurice!’ cried Dash, appalled.

‘Really?’ said Gore, equally surprised by this remark. ‘May I ask why?’

‘Because I wouldn’t want you to think that’s the only reason I came here tonight. When Dash suggested you might host us for dinner, I knew I would cancel anything on my calendar in order to attend. I’ve been an admirer of yours for many years and the opportunity to meet you in person was one that was too good to pass up. But I wouldn’t want you to think that I came here only to exploit your good nature.’

Gore couldn’t help but laugh at the suggestion. Many outrageous things had been said about him over the years, after all, thousands of unkind comments from the likes of Truman, Harper, Norman, Buckley, Tricky Dick, Updike and all the rest of them, but no one had ever had the bad manners to accuse him of having a good nature. He glanced towards Howard, who was smiling too as he poured more wine.

‘So how about I say that, even if you were to offer an endorsement, I would reject it,’ continued Maurice.

‘If your editor could hear you now, he’d put a gag across your mouth.’

‘Of course, should you find the time to read my novel, I’d be very interested to know what you make of it. In a private capacity, of course. Man to man.’