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8

The Mary Magdalene Treatment

‘No,’ said Sophie Almonds.

I’d barely had a chance to lay Black’s letter and the picture of the black sphere out on the table between us. She glanced down just long enough to recognise the handwriting on the note, then her bright blue eyes flicked up and locked on mine, steady as a boat on a calm sea.

‘But what is it?’ I said, meaning the object in the picture.

‘I don’t know, a snooker ball? Why did he send you this?’

‘Why does Andrew Black do anything?’

She didn’t answer.

‘Maybe it’s – well. He doesn’t have my father any more—’

Sophie folded her arms.

‘We’re not having this conversation.’

Sophie Almonds worked at Hayes & Heath as a literary agent. This meant that she got her clients – clients including me – contracts and cash advances for their novels, or whatever else she could get them hired to write. I took whatever she brought me, which wasn’t much by then to be honest, but I always got the impression that it never stopped her from trying. Unfortunately, Sophie Almonds was also Andrew Black’s literary agent, technically speaking, and that made talking to her about his letter a little . . . problematic.

Not only did Sophie make a point of never discussing one client with another – and doubly so if that client happened to be Andrew Black – but from a personal perspective, it was possible, in certain lights, to see her jaw tightening ever so slightly at any mention of the man’s name. A little over six years ago, Sophie Almonds pulled off the book deal of the decade, only to have it come crashing down spectacularly because of Black’s peculiar foibles (he would’ve said principles). If there had been anybody else I could have talked to about Black and his letter, I would have.

‘I’m worried he might be in trouble,’ I said, planting my elbows on the table and pushing on. ‘I think this might be – not a cry for help, but . . . it’s like he’s being as intriguing as he can, just so I’ll get back to him.’ I waited, but Sophie didn’t reply. ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about it,’ I said. ‘I mean, why not say more? Why just send this? I haven’t heard from him in years, and now . . . He’s trying to make sure that I reply. This and this,’ I waved a hand at the Polaroid and the note, ‘it’s a hook, isn’t it? A pretty decent hook too.’ I turned over the letter to show the address written on the reverse. ‘He’s letting me know where he is, and he wants to make sure that I’ll write back.’

‘And will you?’

‘Yeah. Well. That’s the plan.’

Sophie’s big blue eyes were hard and bright as polished glass. I felt as if I were being unpicked, one stitch at a time.

‘But you haven’t written back yet, is that what you’re telling me?’

‘No, I haven’t written back yet,’ I said.

‘Good.’ Her eyes flicked away from mine, to the Thames rolling by outside the pub window. ‘Then don’t. It’s for the best.’

Sophie Almonds stood around five foot four, with shoulder-length, dark brown hair, often tied back with a simple black ribbon, and increasingly threaded through with silver. She was a still, watchful woman, with big, expressive eyes, and the sinewy build of a long-distance runner. She reminded me of a small, wiry bird of prey, the kind that makes its living on blasted moorlands, and has to keep its wits about it to survive. I’d once thought – maybe because of the way she carried herself and those cool, unflinching eyes, or maybe because of her little black notebook that seemed to have half the world’s secrets tucked away inside it – I’d once thought that this Sophie bird could’ve been a sphinx once upon a time, defeated by some great hero of legend and now living on vastly reduced means. Certainly, it always seemed to me that it would be deeply unwise to cross or underestimate her.

Sophie Almonds was in her mid-forties I thought, and possibly of Scandinavian descent. I didn’t know these things for certain though, because she kept all personal information locked away as tightly as the affairs of her clients. And, as I’ve said, it was never wise to push her too far, except when absolutely necessary.

‘I’m worried about him,’ I said again.

‘What I’m going to suggest to you now,’ Sophie said after a moment, slowly knitting her fingers together, ‘is that you put that picture, and that note, back into that envelope there, and then pass the envelope to me.’

‘Why?’

‘So I can take it home and burn it.’

I looked at her. ‘Well, that seems extreme.’

‘No, not really. For one thing, I don’t think we should be leaving Andrew Black’s address around where anyone might find it. My agency still represents his interests, and that means protecting his anonymity as well as we possibly can.’

I raised my eyebrows.

Sophie sighed. ‘All right, look. You shouldn’t respond to this. If you’re asking for my advice, then that’s the advice I have for you. Do not respond to this.’

‘Okay.’

‘Good.’

‘No, I mean, okay but.’

‘But what?’

‘I know you don’t like him.’

Sophie waited.

‘And I don’t blame you for not liking him,’ I said. ‘You got him an amazing deal for the rest of his series and he went out and did—’

Sophie looked at me.

‘—what he did,’ I finished weakly.

A tiny smile with no warmth in it broke through her composed expression.

‘The rest of the series,’ she said, and she let out a small sound somewhere between bemused sigh and bitter laugh. It was a dangerous sound; it had broken glass in it.

I waited a moment, let a little time pass.

The clock ticked and the river rolled by.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘I know coming to you with this isn’t ideal but I think he might be in trouble.’

‘He’s not in trouble.’

‘Do you know that for sure?’

Sophie didn’t answer.

‘You see? Because he’d never just come out and ask anyone, would he, never just say what’s on his mind. He can’t do what normal people do, and there’s an urgency to this—’ I pushed the note towards her. ‘I’m – concerned about him; I really am.’

‘Why?’

‘What do you mean, why?’

‘Tom. You don’t like him either.’

‘That’s. That’s not—’

‘Of course it is.’

I looked at Sophie.

‘Of course it is,’ she said again. ‘And there’s nothing wrong with it. Why would you like him? Why would you care so much about him and his fucking book, Tom? Maybe you should spend some more time with that, rather than—’ She waved a hand at the note in from of her.

I held her gaze.

‘I’m concerned about him,’ I said. ‘And this—’ I slid the Polaroid up alongside the note. ‘Whatever this is, I’m concerned about this too.’

Sophie stared right back at me. Then she folded her arms and began searching my face, my expression, picking her way inside.

‘Is this about his thing?’ she asked at last. ‘His whole entropy, end of the world – thing?’

‘Just look at it.’

It took a moment, but Sophie’s eyes finally dropped from mine to the picture in front of her, perhaps seeing it properly for the first time. A pair of neat little frown lines appeared above her eyebrows. She picked up the Polaroid and took some time to look at the thing, like a jeweller with a stone. She tilted and turned it, this way and that way, held it up to the light, investigated the back, and then finally put it back down next to Andrew’s note. She nudged the picture with her index finger – tap, tap, tap – until the two objects were perfectly aligned, then considered them both for a while in silence. When she spoke again, it was in a quiet, even voice, without looking up from the table:

‘Tom, do you know what a raccoon trap is?’

‘I – no, I can’t say that I do.’

‘It’s really quite clever,’ she said, eyes still on the photo and the letter. ‘You start with a small cage, really small, say, as big as a teapot. Then you fasten the cage to the ground and you put something shiny inside it.’

‘Something shiny?’

‘It doesn’t matter what – something with glitter, a crystal, a diamond, if you want. All that matters is that the shiny thing is too big to pull out through the bars of the cage.’

Sophie flicked a glance up at me.

‘Okay,’ I said.

‘And when it’s all set up, you go home, leave it there. And then along comes the raccoon. He sees the shiny thing and tries pulling it out through the bars. He tries and tries, because raccoons love shiny things, apparently, but he can’t do it. He can’t bring himself to give up either; he can’t physically let go of the treasure he’s found, so he just stays there, holding onto it. Even when you come back with a sack in the morning and he wants to run away, he can’t make himself let go of the thing because it’s too shiny and wonderful and intriguing.’

‘And you’ve got him.’

‘You have. You unfasten the cage, lift it up with the raccoon still dangling from it, and drop them both into the sack.’

‘And that’s what you think this is?’

‘I wonder,’ Sophie said, still staring at the objects on the table.

Moments passed. Sophie continued to stare, lost in thought.

‘Sophie?’

‘After that, you knot the sack and you throw it in the river.’

‘What?’ I said, and when she didn’t answer: ‘You are joking, right?’

When she looked up, her expression was quite serious.

‘Can I show you something?’ she said.

‘Yeah. Yes. Of course you can.’

My agent reached down beside her chair and lifted a small black handbag onto the table. She took out her purse, opened it and removed a little square of greyish paper from one of its many pockets.

‘Just read this, if you would,’ she said, passing it to me.

The square turned out to be a neatly folded piece of newspaper. It folded out into a long, thin column of text. An old print review of Cupid’s Engine.

I began to read. Astonishing manipulation of expectation, countless twists and turns, flawlessly realised. On and on it went, the words masterpiece and genius showing up, and pulled double, triple duty, the review text escalating through the excitement registers as it progressed, leaving any attempt at even-handed, critical assessment of what was, after all, a murder mystery novel, far, far behind.

‘Wow,’ I said, refolding the clipping and handing it back.

‘Absolutely.’

‘She liked the book, I think.’

‘Absolutely,’ Sophie said again. ‘At the time, I cut that review out and kept it, just because I’d never seen anything like it. And because I was so pleased to be a part of something so special, you know? Now, I keep it with me as a reminder.’

‘Of what?’

‘To run,’ she said simply. ‘If a novel like Cupid’s Engine ever lands on my desk again, I will run. Nobody can do this,’ she held up the review, ‘nobody can produce a book like this one and be anywhere approaching sane or normal. The work, the focus involved, do you have any idea?’

‘I do.’

‘Then you know that anyone capable of achieving what Black achieved is, potentially, a very dangerous person.’

‘What? I don’t think—’

‘Oh, come on, Thomas,’ she said. ‘You’ve read that book. What is it – a thousand pages? – and not a single unnecessary word in the whole thing. The things he’s able to achieve, the level of manipulation. He has you believing that up is down and black is white.’ She pushed the picture of the sphere across the table towards me. ‘You’re right that this is a hook, but it’s not a pretty decent one. It’s a brilliant, and – I promise you – an extremely well-calculated one. What in God’s name makes you think it’s a good idea to bite?’

I sat back in my chair, not really knowing what to say.

‘I’m just telling you what I think,’ Sophie said, ‘and I think you should stay well away from this. A person with a brain like Andrew’s, well, they’re capable of anything. Can make you do and think anything, make you be anything.’

‘Oh, come on,’ I said, finding my feet. ‘I mean, I’d never deny that he’s a great writer, but—’

‘What do you think the world is, Thomas? No, don’t answer now. But I want you to take some time to think about it. Is the world you live in, each and every day, made more from rocks and grass and trees, or from articles, certificates, records, files and letters? Is it made more from soil and rivers and sand, or from thoughts and ideas, beliefs and opinions? Actually, let me ask you another question: is it the kind of world where nine words’ – she rapped her knuckles on Andrew’s letter – ‘nine words presented in just the right way, can compel a normally well-balanced person to charge blindly off into the unknown, to an address they’ve never visited before in their life?’

‘I didn’t say I’d go.’

‘Of course you’d go. This is what I’m trying to make you understand. With a person like Black, you might think he’s your friend, like you’re in it together, when all the time he’s dancing you like a puppet off the edge of a fucking cliff.’

‘ – ’

‘Oh, don’t look at me like that.’ Sophie’s cheeks flushed. ‘You know what I’m talking about, or you would’ve just written back to him without coming to me for – for fucking permission.’

I started to respond but the words didn’t come.

An awkward moment passed.

‘Not a cliff,’ I said quietly.

‘What?’

‘He mainly just told me I was a terrible writer, to be honest. He didn’t dance me off a cliff. He did that to you.’

Sophie stared at me, big bird eyes searching my face for meaning, as if meaning were a frightened mouse seen darting away through the heather. And then – she laughed. It was a tired laugh, a release of tension, an oh-fucking-hell and slumping-into-your-chair sort of a laugh.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

‘Oh, Tom. Listen, can you just drop this, please? I’ll sleep better knowing he’s just – gone.’

I looked at the objects on the table. I nodded.

‘Is that a yes?’

‘It’s an I’ll do my best.’

Sophie Almonds sighed a long, deep sigh. She picked up the note.

‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised if these are the most words he’s written since Cupid,’ she said. ‘I suppose you know that this text belongs to his publishers technically, under the terms of his contract?’

‘I do.’

‘You do.’ She held up the single sheet of notepaper, as if testing its weight. ‘What do you think? The long-awaited second Andrew Black novel?’

I stared at the small piece of paper dangling between her finger and thumb with its nine neat little words.

‘You’d be looking at some very generous typesetting,’ I said.

‘I’m not entirely sure that they wouldn’t try.’ She folded the letter and put it back into the envelope. ‘But let’s save them the trouble.’

‘I think that’s probably for the best.’

She slipped the Polaroid into the envelope as well, and slid it across the table to me. ‘You should save yourself the trouble too,’ she said. ‘I mean it.’

I picked up the letter and tucked it into my jacket pocket.

A flutter of old memories came back to me then. They hovered in the back of my mind, loitering around this meeting with Sophie, just like they always did, each one distilled down to a single movie frame from heavy use – The Open Leather Satchel Memory, The Water Dripping Down Gloss Paint Memory, The Shards Of Glass On The Doormat Memory – each one fluttering and batting at the edges of my thoughts, drawn to the light of our conversation.

I lifted my glass and took a long, deep drink, mentally shooing them away.

‘Would more have made a difference?’ I said, putting the glass down. ‘To what you think of him, I mean?’

‘More books? No,’ Sophie said. ‘But it would’ve paid off the mortgage. So, you know, it’s something.’

‘My father thought a lot of him.’

Sophie held my gaze.

‘Your father, who we’re not going to talk about, thought a lot of his talent.’

She took her purse from the table, unzipped it and slipped the newspaper clipping back inside. She was about to put it back in her bag when she noticed my nearly empty glass.

‘Another?’ she said.

o

‘Tom, have you ever heard of Frederick J. Klaeber?’

Sophie had returned from the bar with a round of drinks. I’d been staring out of the window, watching the river, lost in thought.

‘What? Sorry – who?’

‘Frederick J. Klaeber,’ she said, passing me a glass and sitting down. ‘Great academic. Early translator of Beowulf.’

‘Sorry. I don’t know much about Beowulf.’

This was true. For whatever reason, my parents had never owned a copy of Beowulf and I’d never felt the need to track one down.

Sophie looked surprised. ‘Really?’

‘I mean, I know the story, but nothing about the business end.’

‘Would you like to?’

‘Sure.’

‘All right then. So, the problems with Mr Klaeber’s translation of Beowulf,’ Sophie said, ‘begin with the Old English word aglæca’.

‘What does—’ My mouth lost its nerve, like a horse at Becher’s Brook.

‘Aglæca.’

‘Yeah, what does it mean?’

‘Well, that’s the thing. Nobody knows. The meaning of the word is lost, so we can only make an educated guess based on the way it’s used in the story. But Klaeber’s educated guess back in 1922 was a little . . . suspect.’

‘How so?’

‘Well, the word appears several times in Beowulf. For instance, it’s used to describe Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and the dragon at the end.’

‘Okay, so it means something like “monster”?’

‘Aha. This is what Mr Klaeber says too. In his book, which is considered the gold standard of Beowulf scholarship by the way, he translates aglæca as . . . hang on.’ Sophie dug her little black notebook out of her bag and thumbed through it until she found what she was looking for. ‘Monster, demon, fiend. In the case of Grendel’s mother, the word is modified to aglæc-wif.’

‘Female fiend?’

‘Klaeber charmingly opts for “wretch, or monster of a woman”, and where Klaeber’s translation goes, all the others follow.’ Sophie turned a page. ‘“Monstrous hag” is Kennedy’s definition, “ugly troll lady” from Trask, “monster-woman” from Chickering, “woman, monster-wife” from Donaldson. Even Seamus Heaney translated aglæc-wif as “monstrous hell bride”, can you believe it?’

‘I can,’ I said. ‘I mean, I can’t see why he wouldn’t. What’s the problem?’

‘The problem is that aglæca also appears in the poem to describe Beowulf himself.’ Sophie closed her book with a theatrical snap. ‘What do you make of that?’

I thought about it.

‘Beowulf wasn’t a monster, was he?’

‘No, and when the word appears in reference to Beowulf – the exact same word, remember – Mr Frederick J. Klaeber translates it as “warrior, hero”.’

‘Hmm.’

‘Yes.’

‘Sounds like Mr Klaeber was making it up as he went along.’

‘Doesn’t it just? A professor by the name of . . .’ the notebook again ‘. . . Sherman Kuhn makes the very sensible suggestion that aglæca should be translated as “a fighter, valiant warrior, dangerous opponent, one who struggles fiercely”.’

‘You’re about to make a point.’

‘I am. You see, Grendel and the dragon are clearly written as monsters, but there’s nothing in Beowulf to suggest that Grendel’s mother is a “monstrous hell bride” or a “troll lady”, or anything of the sort; quite the opposite, in fact. She’s a female warrior, an accomplished, powerful woman who’s every bit the equal of Beowulf. Then our Mr Klaeber comes along – this one man sitting alone at his writing desk, and with a few flicks of his pen, a few scratches of ink, he changes her. Turns her from one thing into something else. He reduces her into “a wretch”. A wretch. He steals her from every schoolgirl, from every young woman growing up in this world trying to understand what they can and cannot be, for the best part of one hundred years. Maybe for ever, because words have power once they’re written down.’

‘The Mary Magdalene treatment.’

Sophie nodded. ‘The Mary Magdalene treatment.’

I stared into my drink, unsure of what else to say. A Paul Auster line floated into my mind – a word becomes another word, a thing becomes another thing – but I didn’t speak. The second hand ticked around the large clock over the bar, the Thames rolled on, and the entropy of the universe steadily increased.

‘Why do you have notes on Beowulf? Is there going to be a book?’

I didn’t say ‘is one of your clients writing about Beowulf?’ but it amounted to nothing more than a slightly obscured version of the same question, and when I heard the words coming out of my mouth, I knew Sophie wouldn’t answer.

‘Someone has to keep track of these things.’ She shrugged. ‘Frederick J. Klaeber wasn’t really Frederick either, he was a Friedrich.’

‘In 1922? Well, we can’t blame him for that.’

‘No, we can’t.’ Sophie fixed me with her steady blue eyes. ‘But we can observe that he was a man who was fully prepared to rewrite the narrative, when he deemed it necessary.’

I took a sip of beer then set the glass down on the table between us. The head had completely collapsed by now, leaving a ring of white bubbles and a few little islands of foam gently fizzing themselves out of existence.

‘Sophie?’

‘What?’

‘What are we talking about here?’

Sophie leaned forward on her elbows.

‘Take it home and burn it,’ she said, quietly.