Frankie Styne & the Silver Man (19 page)

‘Silly?' she whispered. He didn't move. She pulled the covers down, and left the room. She closed her front door, and walked down the newly revealed path, which wavered slightly in the tears still seeping out. She continued through the gate, which clicked resoundingly behind her, then through Alice's gate, up the other side's path, and just as she'd sworn she never would, she crossed the threshold of number 129. She wiped her feet on the bristle mat that said ‘Home.' The place looked oddly familiar because all the rooms were the mirror image of hers.

‘Straight on!' Alice called gaily, but Liz knew, anyway, where the kitchen was. In it was Tom in jeans and his maroon track suit top. A glance passed between him and Alice, over Liz's head.

‘No need to make a big deal of it,' he said, pouring water into the coffee maker. ‘It's only our old gate, painted up. And the plants were left over from ours.' He and Alice stood next to each other, leaning on the kitchen cupboards. They wore the same style of jeans in different sizes. Liz seated herself at the table, and kept very still. The kitchen was bursting with stuff. It bristled with jars, packets, utensils, crockery, cutlery. She felt that if she moved even slightly all the things, the jars, kettles, mugs, pans, racks and machines, could come flying off the walls like in
Poltergeist.

‘Besides,' said Alice, ‘it's so nice having you next door. It's helped us both, having a chat with you now and then . . . You must need company, too, being on your own. In adult terms, I mean.' She pushed a small plate towards Liz. ‘Do take some of that banana bread. I made it yesterday. Go on.' Liz took a slice, but even though she was hungry she couldn't quite bring herself to break off a piece and put it in her mouth. The coffee machine burbled and spat, then made a horrible sucking noise… The thing could be almost be alive. It could liquidise you and spatter you around the room, Liz thought, as she wiped her face with a tissue from the box Alice had pushed towards her.

‘You already know a fair bit about our problems, so we might as well tell you we've decided to have exploratory surgery,' Alice said.

‘Even though they
say
there's nothing wrong physically,' Tom added. ‘Of course, because of that we're going to have to pay for it.
Costs an arm and a leg
!' No one laughed.

‘The thing is . . .' Alice began slowly.

‘The thing is,' Tom interrupted, grinning, ‘Who's going first?'

Alice frowned. ‘We want to do everything we can. It's been so difficult to tell what the real
problems are: whether it's something emotional that's stopping us, or whether it's the strain of not conceiving that's making us argue.'
She nudged Tom, who
set out three cups. Conversation was
paused while he decanted some coffee and handed it around. Drips fizzed on the hotplate.

‘Thanks,' Liz said as she took her cup: the second time that day. And being there was still, right now, far better than being on her own.

‘We've been seeing Dr Howatch,' Tom said, ‘Twice a week. The hypnotism we tried before was just too slow. And the homeopathy. And that woman Alice went to see.'

‘She said it might take years for me to know what I really
felt about all this,' Alice said in a rather puzzled tone of voice.
‘And that accepting my real situation might be very painful. But then, at the end, I'd feel better for knowing myself.'

‘Very airy-fairy,' said Tom. ‘Howatch does trend analysis. It's much more business-like. You plan out what's possible in order of preference, and go for them all; really go for them, one after the other, working down. But the trick is to timetable it, and never go over on what you've given each option. If nothing shows up medically, we'll try sperm donation, IVF and then adoption, in that order. Looking at eighteen months or so, I suppose.' Alice and Tom looked at each other, then moved closer, slipping their arms behind each other's waists. Only two days ago Alice had asked Liz to keep an eye on number 129 in case Tom brought anyone home while Alice was at her exercise class, but Liz had forgotten about it, and so, it seemed, had Alice, because she never asked.

‘It's very practical. What do you think, Liz?' Alice's gaze seemed to waver and struggle for focus reminding Liz in a strange way of Jim. So much inside––a whole world––and such an effort to bring it to the surface for someone else to see. A dangerous thing, too. She raised her coffee cup.

‘Best of luck,' she said, but she only pretended to sip. She'd never much liked coffee. What do they want? she wondered. There was something, for sure.

‘Feeling better, Liz?' She nodded, half-smiled.

‘The point is,' Tom said, ‘if you do what Howatch says, at the end you can say you've tried 
. . .
' Again, Alice and Tom exchanged a glance.

‘You know . . .' Alice began again, ‘we've been thinking . . . don't take this wrong–'

‘It's just an
idea
,' Tom interrupted, ‘you mustn't be offended.' They both hesitated. Are they going to ask if I'll have a baby for them? Liz thought. Screw him and then hand it over? Thank goodness she hadn't touched the coffee: suppose it was
laced with crushed sleeping pills.

‘But you do hear these things about mothers on their own who can't cope—you know, terrible things—but not their fault.' Alice looked quickly between Liz and Tom as she spoke. ‘And you're so young! It might not have been the best thing for you to have a baby. I mean, you could go to college. You could get some qualifications and a good job where you met people your own age. You must be lonely! And a baby doesn't make meeting people easy . . . Well, we just wanted to say that we know you're in a tough situation. If it ever got like that for you, if the strain was too much for you, well, we are thinking of adopting, if nothing comes . . .'

‘Well' said Tom, ‘we contacted the agency already, because it does all take so long, with tests, interviews, all that. Funny really, it's not as if they give them to people who have a kid in the normal way . . .'

‘Jim's such a sweetheart. It'd have to be all legal and proper, of course, but we'd make sure you were all right. Tom earns a good salary. And we've got savings . . . I mean that's only
if.
A
double
if, really.

So this was it: they wanted Jim. Liz wanted a ray gun. Shoot the bastards down! Leave them in a bloody heap on the floor, then steal the TV. Failing that, tell them Silly was going nowhere, stand up and get out of the kitchen. But their torrent of words, seemingly unstoppable, pushed her back and down onto her chair.

‘We'd rather, you know, that it was a baby we knew about and I expect you'd feel the same, knowing who he went to.'

She took a huge breath, held it.

‘As for seeing you all right,' Tom said, ‘was, well there'd be all those things like moving, of course, we'd be the ones that had to move, I can go anywhere, really in my line of work, and it'd be best anyway—'

‘Because of the memories here.'

‘But the thing is, if you wanted to make a clean break as well, we'd make sure you had funds to tide you over. And anyway, even if you stayed in the area, something to give you a bit of a start finding your feet, to buy a car or something like that . . .'

‘Of course, it's only a thought. At the moment, we're still trying
for our own. That's absolutely our first priority. You don't need to answer, or even think about it right now.'

‘No,' Tom agreed. ‘Maybe we shouldn't have mentioned it, because it might not happen. We wouldn't want you to feel let down. Just file for future reference. Let's change the subject! What do you fancy? Babies or babies?'

‘I've got to go,' Liz said, lurching to her feet. ‘I think he's crying'.

Annie Purvis sped on around the ring road, feeling that the moment she left it she'd lose herself in a tangle of one-way streets and dead ends. Near the end of the circuit a jam had built up at the roundabout; she decelerated to meet it and then leaned back against the headrest, feeling the faint vibration of the idling engine. She had absorbed the events of the morning, and felt calmer now. ‘Liz is coping very well,' she told herself. Maybe it was crazy to talk to one's self in a car, but there were only strangers to see it. ‘Jim is thriving. And so,' she added brightly, ‘I can have a baby. I can be a mother, and I can give Sim what he wants. What happened in my own family is just that, and it won't be repeated. I will make something––someone––new, and everything will be all right.'

The traffic inched forward, then stopped again
.
She was almost at
the front of the line, and any minute now, the light would change to green. She thought of Sim, standing in front of his class of thirty students of whom only one or two would ever love math. She thought of what he had said in the night and how brave it was of him to say it. In some way, Sim now seemed a rather distant figure. Bulky, but cast in shadow, and yet quite soon she and her child could be calling him
Daddy
…
She had no qualms about him, though, more a kind of curiosity. And now that she had come to it was such a relief to change direction, and to want such a sweet and simple thing as a family of her own.

Behind her, someone tapped their horn; she raised her hand, and slipped her foot from the brake.

In 125 Frank lay on the couch with his eyes closed. And if I win, he thought
—You will, John, I'm sure of it
,
I can feel it in my bon
e
s
Katie Rumbold had said, and soon she'd be feeling it there, up there—and when he won, if anyone said, the thing about Frank Styne, the thing about Frank Styne is . . . And they certainly would, oh yes, they would: they'd certainly have to analyse a bit, and they'd certainly have a bit to say when someone pushed open that door and found him dead and her, tied and bound, trussed. But he wouldn't be there to hear it.

‘Katie here
.
I have made excuses for you. I trust that at least you'll watch it tonight on TV? If you win, Pete will speak on your behalf.'

‘This is Brian Williamson of the Hanslett Trust. I understand from your agent that you are seriously ill
.
I am terribly sorry and wish you all the best for a speedy recovery 
. 
. .'

‘Michael Frean on 344567 . . . I
'
d like to interview as to your stance in the censorship debate . . .'

If it was possible to laugh from beyond the grave, he would be, oh yes, on both sides of his face
.
Frank couldn't remember ever before having slept through the morning and into the afternoon. He stretched and sat up and decided that he felt good.

He was surprised, then, that the imaginary radio chose
that moment to return. It was different, the words pronounced with a soft carefulness that was almost sympathy. It was worse, because it seemed yet more intimate. ‘The thing about Frank Styne is not, as one might think, just the outer ugliness of the man . . .'

He thrust his fingers in his ears, but he could still hear it.

‘The real thing about Frank Styne, the man and the work, is ugliness, yes, but not of a physical kind.'

‘Metaphysical?'

‘No, Gordon. It is a moral ugliness, barrenness, I think, that gives these books their terrible power. Reading them, one is aghast that Frank Styne can bear to live. Here is someone who does not belong to the human race. A monster like Grendel, he haunts the hearth of common humanity, drooling. Indeed the name itself tells us: Frank Styne, you know, was born John Green . . .

‘Can one make such claims on the basis of a work of fiction?
To do so, to me, would seem to violate an important distinction. One must not—ha—attribute to Styne himself the actions that take place in his books. Yes, they are his creations, but they are not real. Frank Styne has not put a woman's eyes out, nor sawn her arm off . . .'

‘But surely you know that he tied the wrists and ankles of his agent, Katie Rumbold, with washing line, then raped her?'

‘You're saying that because of events in his personal life, we should look askance at what are arguabl
y
some of the most—'

‘The thing about Frank Styne,' Frank said loudly to the
room, ‘is that he wrote pulp, simple pulp, right up to the end. His life was pulp. Pulp, pulp, pulp, and nothing more or less.'

It shut them up all right. He took the picture of the trussed
woman down, folded it in four and slipped it under the answering machine. Soon he might be seeing the real thing.

He switched the television on.

The Silver Man

J
im, too, had slept all afternoon and then through the first dusk, as if Purvis's touch had bewitched him. Liz took him out of the cot and set him, still sleeping, back on the bed. She put her hand on his tummy and shook, felt her fingers dig in a little too hard, stopped herself. ‘Wake up, Silly!' She couldn't bear silence, nor her own voice without him to listen. ‘I know!' she hissed. ‘I'm supposed to sleep when you do but I can't. I need to let off steam. Wake up! Wake up!'

Slowly his eyes opened, the right slower than the left. She
bent over till their noses almost touched. ‘An hour I was, next door this afternoon! They can't keep their hands off. Nobody'll leave us alone! Purvis wants us in some centre, the neighbours want to adopt you—what d'you think of that?' She picked him up and clutched him to her. Her voice kept breaking out of its whisper. It was an animal in her throat.

‘I haven't told them about your special advantage in life, Silver-boy. It'll be a while before they notice anything—years I should think, they're that fucking stupid . . .' One word dragged the next after it. She couldn't keep still, felt herself fighting the air she breathed the way she fought the water in the swimming pool. So much of it, everywhere. She carried him downstairs to the front room. It was gloomy, but she didn't notice, or bother with the light.

‘Pair of them haven't much more fucking brain than you, you know. Just enough to be a nuisance 
. . .
' Her arms, holding him, were alternately over-stiff and non-existent.

‘Between them, that is,' she added, stabbing her foot into
one of the cushions. Suddenly she was afraid of crushing him. She set him on the floor, face down. That's what it said to do in the book,
Infant Care.
His arms flexed and reached, flexed and reached; his fists clenched and opened, clenched and opened; his legs kicked, kicked—his muscles were growing. He would crawl one day and then walk: the doctor had saved that for last, like ice-cream.
Walking and so on? No problem there.
She breathed hard. She wanted to punch something, and tried the wall. Her torn knuckles stung and burned, but still it was not enough. She stopped, breathing hard.

The soft flesh on Jim's arms wobbled slightly with each movement and he made a rhythmical sound, half song, half grunt, in time to his effort. Infinitesimally, somehow, he was inching towards the wall. ‘We two were made for each other,' Liz proclaimed. She bit her lip, tasted salt. Beneath his song, she could hear Jim's knees making soft thuds as he began to move his legs in time with his arms. His head strained forwards, eyes set on the wall, sank, lurched up again. She crouched down. ‘Aren't we?' she said into the whorls of his ear, very loud. The head jerked away as if it hurt, down, up again.

‘Tell me, are you human?' she asked quietly as his hands made contact with the wall, slid up it, fingers spread. Then she found herself shouting again, right in his ear: ‘Answer! For fuck's sake, answer me!' Her skin pricked, flared with heat. She drew a deep breath and thought hard of thick, untrodden snow, glimpsing it, just.

‘Sorry, Silly,' she said after a few moments. ‘Not fair at all . . . Not that I mind anyway . . . I suppose that the answer's yes
and
no. Maybe more no than yes . . .' He pushed against the wall, shuffling his knees closer at the same time. It was almost, she thought, as if he were already trying to
stand:
though
Infant Care
said that wouldn't happen for months and months. It was a landmark, a thing to look forward to. ‘Well, definitely you're alive and kicking,' she said, closing her eyes.

There were noises everywhere. Outside, a group of women walked by in high heels, laughing. Someone was knocking on Alice's door. Even the quiet man on the other side had his TV on.

Inside, the tiny thuds, the catch of cloth on wood and Jim's breathing seemed to grow both faster and louder until it drowned everything else out. ‘A living thing, Silver-boy. A living, growing thing,' she said and then, suddenly, she saw him: full-grown, taller than her, stronger, his blubber turned to muscle, his skin coarse, pitted like cast metal, glistening
.
A silver man
.
He stood before her naked, bald-headed, stiff­ shouldered, his genitals hanging from a nest of silver-wire hair. A silver man, speechless, invented, beautiful. But when he took a step forward the boards beneath their feet, the whole house shook as if a train were coming down the line.

On Frank's television screen Gavin Millay, a thin-faced man in a very loose suit and a turquoise shirt unbuttoned at the neck, threshed at the air as he spoke: ‘The book chosen is one the judges were proud to select for the first Hanslett prize. It is controversial, and no doubt there are many who will find it offensive, but none who could call it slight
 . . . 
The Hanslett isn't a prize that panders to the squeamish or the effete. This is a book for our time and for the future, dealing as it does with the dark underbelly of the modern psyche, exposing the ugliness of humanity with refreshing candour and triple-edged wit. It is a shocking and an exciting book: a cross-genre novel that combines ingredients of the fairytale and horror story, then binds them together with the new realism of the nineties . . .'

Like mayonnaise, Frank thought. He felt his heart thumping steadily. The description was ludicrous, but he could see how it might be applied. Millay's voice faded as the camera moved in on a copy of
To the Slaughter,
which he brandished at shoulder level. Applause rang out.

Frank poured himself a small whisky. The programme cut to a discussion, a pile of copies of the book in the middle of a glass-topped table and others open at different places, set like dinner plates before the three men and one woman seated in the corner of a living room that could almost have been that in
The Procreators.
Their eager voices faded up.

‘I mean, put like that, the plot is ludicrous
,
but that would
be to miss the point—'

‘I couldn't agree
more.
The great strength of it is the language
.
I just love his language. On the face of it, cliché after cliché, and yet so honed and polished. I could read it till my eyes fell out, Gavin
.
I don't know how he does it—it's like some kind of miracle—the irony is ravishing—I'd beggar myself to be able to craft a sentence the way Mr Styne does.' The woman speaking closed her eyes when she emphasised a word
:
‘I'd
die
for it
,
literally
die!'
she concluded. Frank snorted
.

Gavin Millay leaned suddenly forward. ‘There's been much dispute about the ultimate meaning of this book,' he said, ‘with feminists, for instance, complaining that—'

Immediately the woman revived. ‘I don
'
t think a book like this can be
reduced
to a single
meaning.' Reduced?
Like making stock, Frank thought, sipping. ‘I think to do that would be to
commit murder.
This is a
huge
book.'

‘What do you think, Ian?' said Gavin, staring fixedly at a man in large round glasses.

‘Indeed, I think the whole censorship debate that this book has revived is indeed one of the things Styne has, albeit obliquely, addressed within it, so to speak. With a great deal of subtlety. Naturally, he cannot be expected to come up with any answers . . .'

‘Professor Green?' said Gavin Millay. ‘This is your field, isn't it?'

‘I agree with Ian Rushcroft here. I think the Hanslett has to be welcomed as an antidote to the tedious moralism that has beset other awards of late
.
The Hanslett looks all set to put
the flavour back into contemporary fiction. We live in a complex world and what we need is a multitude of mirrors, not a narrow vision . . 
.
'

‘The point is, that this is not a book we are supposed to take
literally,' said Ian Rushcroft.

‘No?' said Frank
.
He was, he realised, enjoying himself. Gavin Millay beamed and nodded, leaning back in his chair, the tips of his fingers pressed together to form an arch. A big watch with no numerals on the face glinted at his wrist.

‘And yet at the same time,' Professor Green rejoined earnestly, ‘naturally, one cannot escape doing so. It has a tremendous viscerality, at times produces reactions more akin to
watching
than reading, wouldn't you say?'

‘Oh yes. It's a tremendously clever and even frightening book, but one which also gives immense pleasure to those with the courage to read it.'

‘And given Styne is an author who already had a popular readership, this is a book that dissolves the distinction between the popular and the literary, the exploitative and the exploratory. It is a book which
everyone
will be talking about . . .'

‘And
reading!'
said the woman, closing her eyes again.

‘Well, there you are!' Gavin Millay filled the screen so that even the pores of his skin came into focus.
‘To the Slaughter.
Our choice for the Hanslett prize.' I am only sorry that the author of
To the Slaughter
cannot be with us tonight, but—' Applause rang out again. The camera pulled away and panned across the audience. Frank saw Pete Magee, twelve inches high in his living room as he navigated through a sea of tables and glassware towards a dais. The back of his jacket was crumpled and he stumbled slightly.

‘I've known Frank for almost twenty years,' said Pete Magee, breathless, a sheen of sweat on his forehead
.
His glasses flashed briefly in the lights. ‘He will be deeply honoured to receive this prize, and I would like to offer
heartfelt thanks on his behalf.' The camera panned around the tables again, lingering on Katie Rumbold's smile. She looked flushed, but perhaps it was the colour on the set. Perhaps, thought Frank, the viewers would assume her to be his wife. The other, losing, authors all seemed to have wives, or, in one case, a husband
.
He poured himself a little more brandy.

‘I well remember the first time he carne into my office—' Frank could bear it no longer, shrank Magee to a dot and the sound of tiny dust falling down. After, eight minutes passed, one by one
.
Suppose she didn't ring? It was a weakness in the plan, yet he had felt so sure she would call
.
He was sweating worse than Pete Magee; he felt as if he was watching a film, wanting the suspense and wanting it over at the same time, the music winding him up, until at last the telephone rang, and it was her.

‘Congratulations, John! You must be absolutely delighted
.
I do hope I'm the first to call?'

‘You are, Katie, actually,' said Frank. His voice was warm, hers paintbox-bright.

‘Are you feeling better now?'

‘I'm feeling pretty good,' said Frank.

‘I thought so. We really have to sit down and have a good talk, don't we? I've got a string of people asking for you. It can't go on. We've got to sort it out.'

‘Yes,' said Frank, ‘but not on the telephone. Why don't you come and see me in the morning?'

‘I'd be delighted—'

‘Get the early train. Arrives just after nine. You must ring me, please, if you'll be late,' he said. ‘It's important.'

‘I won't be late, John. Congratulations.' Tomorrow, he thought, I think I'll make you call me by my real name.

Now the room waited, clean and calm. Nothing would
move. Each item of furniture stood as if bolted to the floor, its shadow etched beside it. The disc was ready and waiting in
the player; he pressed the remote and then music began to seep into the air. He would listen to it until she came
.

The face of the silver man twisted, unreadable. A sound, half song, half grunt, emerged from his throat. He was trying to speak, but Liz couldn't understand. Her insides liquefied
.
Ants were crawling on her skin. ‘Are you real?' she tried to say
,
her throat shrinking tight. The silver man took another step towards her. She backed towards the door, half stumbled
.
His hands were outstretched, grasping or beseeching, she couldn't tell
.
He might weep or hurt her again, she couldn't tell. There was no meaning. ‘What do you want?' She glanced behind her, because she knew there was a precipice
.
She'd seen that, too, in a film years ago; how the body tumbled in space, a roaring cry coming and going, sudden quiet, then an echo, like here.

Fear clogged the words in her throat
.
‘What do you want? What am I supposed to do?'