The Autograph Man (34 page)

His middle finger had been trying to get past cotton so it could touch her there. She drew back from him and straightened her clothes.

“Look, I’m going to go back in there. It’s too rude to leave her there alone. And also—
please
tidy your room properly. You can’t put her in there like that. There’s rubbish everywhere. She’s a freaking
movie star.
Actually, I can’t
believe
it,” Esther said, losing her control, breaking into her awesome smile, the flashbulb eyes. “Kitty Alexander. Kitty Alexander! Kit-ty-Al-ex-and-
er.
In your living room. In
your
living room. It’s
surreal.
”

“Yes,” said Alex, unable to feel it.

She kissed him on the nose. Ten years is a long time to have the same person kissing you in the same places, but he still felt some portion of the thrill. And the gratitude.

“Oi,” he said, as she turned to leave. “You’ve seen my news. I want to see yours. We had a deal, didn’t we?”

She stopped, and he approached, taking the vest by its ragged edge and lifting it slowly over her head. As her arms lifted to help him, the box lurched forward, pushing at the skin. He could see stitches and the outline of a wire. He took one hand to her right breast, one to this new heart. The kettle knew how to whistle.

FACT. WOMEN HAVE
an endless capacity for anecdote. Men prefer jokes and stories. Alex didn’t mind any of the above, as long as he was doing the telling, but Kitty and Esther had set off, before he arrived, on their open-topped bus, on their nostalgia tour. They rolled round the deserted soundstages of old studio lots, the penthouses of closed hotels. They did not pause and there was no opportunity for Alex to get on board. His exit from the room, after a pronounced sulk, went unnoticed. Only when he returned five minutes later to requisition Grace did he get some attention.

“Oh,” complained Kitty. “But she and Lucia, they are in love.”

Alex grabbed a disinclined Grace, shoving her head through his armpit. “She likes it upstairs with me. She likes watching me work.”

“Work?”
asked Esther, laughing. He glowered, disliking her when she was like this, performing, he felt, for somebody else’s benefit.

“Preparation” was his curt reply.

“You will call?” suggested Kitty, hopefully, stretching her arms up in expectation of a hug like an aunt. “Maybe you will call Max for me. Just to say I am all right. I leave the number on the bulletin board in the kitchen. Call him, I think. Make sure he is not angry with me.”

“Sure,” said Alex, stepping back and closing the door behind him.

Upstairs, Alex picked up the case from his trip and emptied the contents onto the bed. The clothes he lifted in one stinking bundle and dropped into the bathroom’s washing basket. Books he put on the floor and then kicked into a reasonable pile in a corner. He filed through the paper by hand, throwing every other piece of it into the bin including all receipts, for he had long ago decided that he would rather pay the tax in full than allow himself to be the type of man who remembers a beautiful day by the expenses he ran up on it.

A dealer’s card. A Playboy Bunny’s signature. A ticket to skate. A yellow envelope. Alex takes out the stalker’s letter and rereads it. Poor, crazy Max. But Alex is compelled by the tone; there is something in it that he recognizes. Great love, adoration, yes. But also cauterized resentment. It is a quality present in Alex’s own letters, too, although there it is better disguised. He didn’t realize it at first. And then an epiphany when he was still a teenager, one very rainy premiere, stuck against an iron barrier, soaking wet, watching the French actress he had come to see sweep down a red carpet under a giant umbrella, without giving him a second glance. He had written up the incident in his book under the subheading “Jewish Fame and Goyish Fanhood.”

Groupies hate musicians. Moviegoers hate movie stars. Autograph Men hate celebrities. We love our gods. But we do not love our subjection.

Alex sat down and switched on the box of tricks. He made a quick mental list, to be expanded later, of the various auctions in the ether he would put Kitty on. Back in New York, she had given him access to eight cardboard boxes of her private correspondence with the proviso that he could take anything he liked except letters to her family. As far as the other material was concerned, she was entirely unsentimental. On his desk now sat a selection of love letters. She’d had an affair with a famous actor; his widow had returned her letters when he died. And talk about content! In one she describes a Vegas hotel room, early in the morning, with yet another lover, a black actor. She remembers the color of the uniform the maid wore when she came in unannounced and spat on their duvet. Alex didn’t really dare to think how much such a thing would be worth, how much all of them were worth. From New York he had already sent a bundle of four to his London auction house. They would be sold tomorrow. He barely allowed himself the transcendent mental picture of sitting there in front of everyone with the Autograph Scoop of the century.

It was not the money that excited him. Not entirely the money. He told himself it was the joy of giving a gift, a gift back to Kitty, for what she had given him. But this was not quite right. It was the
perfection of vision.
An Autograph Man’s life is spent in the pursuit of fame, of its aura, and all value comes from the degree of closeness to it one can achieve. But now he had the aura. He had it in a bottle. He possessed it. It was part of him, almost.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Both Bull and Self Transcended

1.

It had been a wonderful night, that was the tragedy of it. Nirvana should be judged not by the quality of vulgar passions but by the subsequent repose, and they had slept together beautifully, curled around each other on the sofa as if they were part of its design. He awoke with his face at home in the cleft of her shoulder blade, his hair stuck to her skin. He was happy! Daylight swelled behind a closed blind. He squeezed her waist, kissed the back of her neck. This was happiness! But then she stretched, and her hand found its way into a fault-line in the sofa.

“What’s this?”

“Hmm? What’s what?”

She drew it out with theatrical slowness. In the half-light it seemed to Alex that she was skinning a snake.

“Alex, whose are these?”

Alex opened his mouth.

“Don’t say Kitty’s,” said Esther firmly, and with that, their closeness was over, she was ripped from him, suddenly sitting up. “They’re fishnets. Old women don’t wear fishnets.” And that was a fact.

“Es, wait—”

She swore quietly, expressively, and grabbed the remote control. The TV trembled into life, almost hesitating to intrude. She put on her underwear. A talking piece of furniture willingly filled the sound gap, one of its most useful functions. Alex opened his mouth.

“And please,” said Esther, ramming her feet into her shoes, even before her trousers were on, “don’t use the phrase
innocent explanation.
Or,
She’s just a friend.
Don’t tell me you’d
never do anything to hurt me.
Please. Please try not to say anything you’ve heard on television.”

In the middle of the East a man had boarded a bus with a bomb pressed to his navel. In Parliament a man accused another man of deceit. A child was missing. Her parents rocked and gulped and couldn’t finish their sentences.

“Do you think you can
play it out
?” she asked. She had those tears, waiting. She stood in front of the screen. He didn’t know what she meant by these words. He knew, however, what her body meant, naked except for knickers and shoes. Those fierce bulges that were her thigh muscles: she could walk away. She would.

“There will never be that moment, don’t you get it?” she asked, punching the arm of the sofa. “When you’ve had all the different people you want, when you’re done, when you
settle
for me. People don’t
settle
for people. They resolve to be with them. It takes faith. You draw a circle in the sand and you agree to stand in it and believe in it. It’s
faith,
you idiot.”

A musical was closing. Various songs would never be sung again on this stage.

“And so,” said the television, “after five thousand performances—”

“Boot,” offered mumbling Alex, sitting below her in apish pose, hairy, limp, hands hanging to the floor. “The one from before. ’Cept it’s not happening anymore. She slept here, that’s all.”

“I see,” said Esther.

The ceiling was thin. From upstairs, they could hear Kitty’s brisk steps followed by Lucia’s, like a stutter. Esther was getting dressed as if it were a fight she was having with her clothes.

“Es, calm down—for one minute—”

“My dear,” came Kitty’s voice from the landing, “Esther, I wonder if you could help me, possibly, just for a minute? It is a little awkward—Lucia, stop this, please—
Esther?
” With one shoe on and one in her hand, Esther pushed by Alex and started on the stairs. Grace, whose support Alex had hoped for, waited an indecent ten seconds before following her up.

Alex turned back to the television. He sat on the floor and tried to achieve
vajrasana
posture, but short of breaking and resetting his bones, he couldn’t see how this might be achieved. Instead, he settled for half-lotus. He found a hairy mint in the carpet and began to suck it. The news turned financial. Numbers went by on a ticker tape. Alex closed his eyes and tried to remember the rules of meditation.

1.
Sit quietly in the meditation posture.

Yes, thought Alex, yes, got that. Yes, and I’m bloody sat quietly. So? Next.
Next.

2.
Become aware of being in the present, here and now, and relax into this space.

Relax into the here and now? Relax
into
it? But I’m in it, aren’t I? That’s what I’m
doing,
I’m bloody in the present, bloody relaxing.
Christ.

3.
Resolve to let go of your thoughts, fantasies about the future, nostalgia about the past, mulling over problems, etc.

Finally, something you could get your teeth into. Alex opened one eye, stretched one arm, and grabbed the end of a bottle of red sitting on the coffee table. He polished it off and resumed the position.
I am resolving,
he thought,
to let go of my thoughts.

“And now, finally . . .” said the television.

Alex tried to rid himself of all nostalgia about the past. Every time he felt nostalgic about the past, he had to begin his breathing again as punishment, starting from one and counting to ten on the exhale. As a result, he was close to hyperventilation.

“Alex,” came Esther’s voice, “Alex, stop that, it’s a pain. Look, I’ve got to get to college, but you need to buy a separate towel for Kitty—she’s got nothing clean up there—Alex, I’m talking to you. Will you stop that, please? You sound like a bloody—” Esther’s voice disappeared. When it came back, Alex couldn’t locate it in the room. It had become a whisper.

“Oh my
God,
” she said.

“Died peacefully in New York last night . . .” said the television.

“Alex, Alex—
open your eyes
—Alex, look at this! Are you
listening
to this?”

Alex felt a kick in his flank, but refused to allow it to break his concentration. Because Alex-Li Tandem was a Zen Master.
I am letting go,
thought Alex,
of my fantasies about the—

MEANWHILE, THE TELEVISION
, well aware of the median age of its viewers, spent barely a minute on this new death, the 152,460th of the day. Here is a picture of the actress when young:

Here is one of the men she loved (he is broken now, and on wheels):

Here is the most famous moment of her most famous film:

Reclusive, in recent years. She was a talent. Joy to so many. Private funeral. Sorely missed. And now for the weather.

“Oh my God,” said Alex.

“Oh my
God,
” said Esther. They sat, she and Alex, side by side on the floor, freeze-framed. An attractive woman took the opportunity to try to sell them an air freshener.

“It’s Max,” said Alex, at last speaking aloud an earlier, silent conclusion. “He’s mad. He must have told them that she—”

“You have to call somebody,” said Esther, not listening, standing up and looking for the phone. “You have to correct this. This is
terrible,
she can’t see this. It’s
incredibly
bad karma.”

“No—wait, let me
think.
”

“What do you mean,
no
? What the hell is there to think about? She’s
upstairs.
”

Kitty was calling Esther again, quietly, apologetically, from the top of the stairs.

“I’m coming! Look, here’s the phone. Just call the papers. A paper. Just let them know a stupid mistake has been made, that’s all. It’s not hard.”

Alex took the phone and stood up. He closed the door after Esther. He bounced the cordless phone in his palm for a minute, thinking. Then he dialed, listening to the numbers sing an eleven-note song he knew by heart. Esther burst back through the door.

“She just wanted to know where the shampoo—are you calling them now?”

Alex put his hand over the receiver and held out a hand for Esther to be silent.

“Hello? Yes, could you put me through to the Columbard Room, thanks. No, listen,” he said, covering the receiver again. “Look, Es, hear me out—”

“Alex, who is that? Why are you calling—”

“No, Es, wait. Before you— It’s not for me. I could make her some serious money today—”

“
Excuse
me?”

“No,
think.
That’s what she wanted. Right? She needs to be independent—especially of that lunatic. I can make her independent.”

Esther sat down in an armchair with her mouth open. She made the International Gesture of disbelief (eyes closed for three long seconds and then opened with pupils dilated).

“
Esther?
It makes
sense.
”

“Don’t give me that,” she said, stiffly. “You just want your big day. You just want to show all those freaks—”

“Look,” said Alex, “tomorrow we can do the big truth thing and everyone can be confronted with their sins and a duke can come on at the end and marry everybody off—the whole works—I
swear.
Es, the stuff I put in the lot, yesterday—it will have
tripled.
It’ll be— Wait, hello? Yes, is that Martin? Is he there? Martin Sands? Yes, it’s Alex-Li Tandem, thanks, yes I’ll wait.
Es,
we just have to keep it quiet for a day. Nobody gets hurt, and she benefits most, right? Right?”

Down the phone came one of Bach’s cello things, to Alex always the music of judgment. Esther said something. Elsewhere, Alex’s mobile phone was ringing. It stopped, then Esther’s started, and then his began once more. What vultures used to do on the outskirts of a village is now the business of the telephone exchange, satellites. What comes after death happens on the phones.

“What did you say? Es? I didn’t hear you.”

“I said okay,” repeated Esther, and seemed to him defeated, small and unlike herself in his armchair. “Obviously, taken as read—not for you. For her. Not for you. But you can’t let people think it for any longer than necessary. She might have family—you don’t know. When the auction’s done then—”

“
Thank
you. Please, take her out—get her out of the house, don’t let her see the television. Please, thanks. We’ll talk properly, later. Thanks.”

He threw her the keys. He told her something he hadn’t told her in a while.