LEO
You’d have to be really dumb to do that.
MAUDE
Well, I can hardly work a pocket calculator, let alone a word processor. But I’m surprised you don’t have one, Simon. You’re usually so with it.
SIMON
No, I depend on the good old-fashioned fountain pen, for drafts anyway. See this small callus on my finger? (SIMON shows MAUDE his index finger) Writer’s corn. (He goes over to LEO) I don’t suppose you’ve seen one of these before, Leo. Most Americans never learn how to do joined-up writing, do they? (He holds his finger up at LEO) Writer’s corn. (LEO ignores the finger, looks SIMON in the eye as if he would like to hit him) Comes in handy for foreplay. (SIMON moves his finger suggestively in a rubbing movement.)
MAUDE
Simon, don’t be disgusting!
SIMON returns to the table. His hand hovers teasingly over the keyboard, fingers moving in the air.
SIMON
I daresay it’s only a matter of time before writing is fully automated in the States. (To LEO) Or can you already buy software that actually writes the stuff for you? Like a programme for writing the Great American Novel. What would it be called …? ‘MEGAWRITER,’ perhaps.
LEO
Very witty.
SIMON
‘WANKSTAR’ for Penthouse stories.
MAUDE
Shut up, Simon.
SIMON
And, of course, for the ever-popular story of Jewish hangups about sex and the Holocaust – ‘SOFTSOAP’.
LEO
You asshole! Have you been reading my manuscript …?
LEO moves threateningly towards SIMON, who retreats, raising his hands in a mock gesture of surrender. LEO picks up his yellow ringbinder from the table.
SIMON
Sorry! Is it not intended for publication?
LEO
I should have kept my promise to punch you in the nose as soon as I set eyes on you.
LEO pursues SIMON angrily. MAUDE steps between them.
MAUDE
For heaven’s sake, stop acting like children, both of you.
There is a knock on the door and JEREMY, looking slightly flustered, comes in.
JEREMY
Simon! How did you get here?
SIMON
By car.
JEREMY
You might have let me know. I’ve been to Wareham to meet the London train.
SIMON
Sorry, Jeremy! It completely slipped my mind.
MAUDE
Really, Simon, you are the limit.
JEREMY
Never mind, at least you’re here. I was beginning to fear this evening would be another fiasco.
SIMON
Oh? What’s been going on, then?
MAUDE
My reading was interrupted by a suicide scare, Leo’s by half the audience walking out.
SIMON
Sensational! Why did they walk out?
MAUDE
Oh … it’s a long story.
LEO (to SIMON)
You just read it, without my permission.
SIMON
I see. Well, I didn’t think it was that bad.
LEO glares at SIMON.
JEREMY (to SIMON)
Some of the students were a bit shocked. I hope you won’t do anything too controversial, Simon.
SIMON
You mean, I can’t read my harrowing story about bestiality among Dorset sheep-shearers?
JEREMY
No.
SIMON
Can I say ‘fuck’?
JEREMY
SIMON
Oh, come on, be reasonable, Jeremy!
JEREMY
English writers managed perfectly well without that word until 1961. I don’t understand why they’ve become so addicted to it since.
SIMON
As a concise description of the sexual act, I find I can’t improve upon it.
JEREMY
All I’m asking is that you exercise a little restraint. This course can’t afford another débâcle.
MAUDE
Oh dear, I detect a note of reproach.
JEREMY
Well, I must admit that things haven’t gone as well as I’d hoped … There have been some complaints from the students.
LEO
What complaints?
JEREMY
Well, that they can’t find you when they want you.
LEO
Jesus Christ! We gave tutorials all morning. What more do they want?
JEREMY
Several of them were wandering about after lunch looking for you.
MAUDE
I went for a walk with Mr and Mrs Baxter. The bank manager and his wife.
LEO looks at her in astonishment.
JEREMY
Well, that was very nice of you, Maude, I’m sure, but I’m afraid the other students tend to get jealous at the slightest hint of favouritism.
SIMON
You should have taken them to the pub at lunchtime, and got them all pissed. It’s the only way to get any peace here.
JEREMY
Simon, shall I show you your room? It’s in the farmhouse.
SIMON
Oh, can’t I sleep with the other professionals?
JEREMY
You know there are only two bedrooms here.
SIMON
I don’t mind sharing with Leo.
LEO
I mind. (He sees, too late, that SIMON is joking.)
JEREMY
They’re only single beds, anyway. You’ll be more comfortable in the farmhouse.
MAUDE
Yes, Simon, and you can make up for our delinquencies by being very matey with the students.
JEREMY goes to the outside door and holds it open. SIMON picks up his bag.
SIMON
That’s what worries me. They’ll keep me up all night with questions about narrative technique and how to get an agent.
JEREMY
You’ve got a room to yourself.
SIMON and JEREMY go out.
LEO
You seem to know St Clair pretty well.
MAUDE
We meet occasionally at publishers’ parties, literary festivals, that sort of thing. A few months ago we judged a book prize together.
MAUDE goes to the telephone, dials.
LEO
He’s even more obnoxious than I remember.
MAUDE
You mustn’t let him get under your skin. ‘He only does it to annoy, because he knows it teases.’ (Listens to phone) Damn, still engaged.
LEO
How come he’s the visiting writer on this course? I mean, what’s he written? Apart from journalism.
MAUDE re-dials.
MAUDE
He wrote a novel, when he was just down from Cambridge.
LEO
Was it any good?
Precocious. Outrageous. Poetic descriptions of nosepicking and masturbation figured prominently, I seem to remember. But undeniably amusing. (She puts down phone) Would you believe it, all weekend Henry’s been phoning me about trivia, and now I actually want to speak to him I can’t get through.
LEO
Has he published anything else?
MAUDE
A book of essays. No second novel, though he’s supposed to be working on one, has been for years. He does a lot of book reviews.
LEO
I know, I’ve read them. If he can’t write a book himself, he’s sure going to make life difficult for those who can.
MAUDE goes to window near the outside door and looks out.
MAUDE
I’m afraid Jeremy is disappointed with us.
LEO (approaches her)
Why should you care what Jeremy thinks? He’s lucky you set foot in this dump.
MAUDE
Well, I know, but … It’s probably sheer vanity, but I like to be liked.
LEO
Let me take care of that.
LEO places a hand possessively on MAUDE’s haunch. She glides away.
MAUDE.
I’m talking about moral approval. It’s a legacy of my schooldays. I don’t want Jeremy to give me a bad report.
LEO
Maude.
LEO follows her, takes her arm and turns her to face him. He kisses her. MAUDE quickly frees herself from his embrace.
MAUDE
Not now, Leo.
LEO
Why?
MAUDE
Students may come knocking on the door at any minute.
LEO
Let them knock.
MAUDE
Simon may come back. He won’t bother to knock.
LEO
Let’s go up to your room, then.
MAUDE
Don’t be ridiculous! It’s the middle of the afternoon.
MAUDE picks up a stack of manuscripts from a chair and carries them to the coffee table, where she begins sorting through them.
LEO
People have been known to make love in the middle of the afternoon.
MAUDE
In the privacy of their own homes, perhaps.
LEO
‘Privacy of their own homes’? What is this genteel crap, Maude? Come to bed.
MAUDE (protesting laugh)
No!
LEO
Last night was terrific, wasn’t it?
MAUDE
I’m not sure I want to discuss last night.
LEO
But you don’t regret it?
Beat.
MAUDE
No.
LEO
Well, then.
MAUDE
There’s a time and a place for everything. Now is the time for me to look at Mr and Mrs Baxter’s manuscripts.
MAUDE opens a file with the air of a teacher about to do some ‘marking’. LEO looks at her in bafflement.
LEO
Why the hell did you go walking with those creeps this afternoon?
MAUDE
They’re a very nice couple. Mrs Baxter has written a charming story about a little girl being evacuated in the War.
MAUDE holds up a sheaf of handwritten pages tied together with lilac ribbon. Then she examines a black ringbinder.
MAUDE
Mr Baxter’s work in progress is not quite so promising. Murder on the Eighteenth Green.
LEO
I don’t get you, Maude. Last night you were like an animal in heat.
MAUDE
I presume you mean to be complimentary?
LEO
A beautiful, desirable, naked animal. It was the most exciting sex I’ve had in years.
MAUDE (reading manuscript)
Good!
LEO
Today you’re back to the tight-assed English rose you seemed when you first arrived.
MAUDE
You certainly have a way with words, Leo. ‘Go lovely tight-assed English rose …’
There is a knock on the outside door.
MAUDE
Someone at the door.
LEO (intensely)
Look Maude, I’ve been going around all day rigid with desire. When are we going to do it again?
MAUDE
That depends.
Another knock on the door.
LEO (shouts)
Go away! (To MAUDE) On what?
MAUDE goes to door.
MAUDE
On lots of things. My mood. Your discretion. I wouldn’t count on it.
She opens the door, calls and beckons.
MAUDE
Lionel! Come back! (To LEO) It’s Mr Brigstock for you, Leo. He has a very big manuscript under his arm.
Blackout.
Act Two Scene Two. The evening of the same day.
SIMON, in loose white shirt and black trousers, is seated in spotlight, facing audience, like MAUDE in Act One Scene Four and LEO in Act One Scene Six, but with a glass of wine on the table beside him. He holds a stack of large index cards in his hand, on each of which is written one of the numbered sections of his text. After finishing each section he pauses and places the relevant card face down on the table.
SIMON
I’m going to read something I’ve been working on for some time, called Instead of a Novel.
He takes a sip of wine, then reads:
One. The Jacket.
The jacket is made of laminated paper printed in six colours. The front cover reproduces a painting in the style of Magritte, depicting a book held open by a pair of hands. The pages of the book are completely blank, and, mysteriously, the reader’s thumbs, which should be holding the leaves down, have disappeared into the white hole of the absent text. The title, Instead Of A Novel, runs across the top of the cover in inch-high lettering, and the name, ‘Simon St Clair’, across the bottom, in one-and-a-half inch lettering. Underneath the name, in smaller letters of the same typeface, is the legend, ‘By the Author of Wormcasts’. Printed on the inside flap of the cover is an enthusiastic description of the contents of the book, known in the trade as the blurb.
Two. The Blurb.
‘Instead of a Novel is, literally, indescribable. Is it an ingenious game? A shocking confession? A trap to catch the unwary reader? A dazzling display of literary virtuosity? All these things, perhaps, and more. Instead of a Novel fulfils the promise of Simon St Clair’s brilliant and acclaimed first novel, Wormcasts, and sets new standards for conceptual daring and technical innovation in contemporary writing.’
Three. The Photograph.
The photograph, in black and white, on the back of the jacket, is by Iain McKell, reproduced by permission of The Face, where it first appeared. It depicts the author in a loose ankle-length topcoat of creased grey cotton over matching baggy trousers, designed by Katherine Hamnett. He stares sulkily into the lens of the camera, leaning against a pile of damaged and obsolete juke boxes, video games, electric guitars and amplifiers, in some sordid corner of a North London junkyard.
Four. The Biographical Note.
Simon St Clair was born in 1957, and educated at Westminster School and King’s College Cambridge, where he gained a First in English, and edited an alternative student newspaper called Camshaft. While he was still an undergraduate he began his first novel, Wormcasts, which was published in 1980 to widespread acclaim. It won him a Somerset Maugham Award and the Whitbread First Novel Prize. After holding various editorial posts with Time Out, the New Musical Express and the Listener, he became a freelance writer, contributing reviews and articles to magazines and newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic on literature, rock music and other aspects of contemporary culture. A collection of his essays entitled Graffiti was published in 1985. Simon St Clair lives in London.
Five. From the reviews of ‘Wormcasts’
‘A new and exhilarating voice in contemporary British fiction (dot, dot, dot) scintillating wit and corrosive irony.’ – Observer.
‘Seldom have the pains – and pleasures – of adolescence been described with such devastating accuracy.’ – The Times.
‘The thinking man’s Sex Pistol.’ – Guardian.
‘Possibly the most brilliant fictional debut of the decade.’ – Time Out.
SIMON rolls his tongue in his cheek as if to suggest that he may have inspired this last tribute himself.
Six. The Title Page.
INSTEAD OF A NOVEL. A novel. By Simon St Clair.
Seven. Facing the Title Page.
Other books by Simon St Clair:
Wormcasts
Graffiti
Eight. The Dedication.
To Julian, for whom it was all too much.
Nine. Acknowledgements.
To Faber and Faber Ltd for quotations from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot. To Methuen & Co for quotations from Winnie the Pooh, by A. A. Milne. To EMI for quotations from Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd. To the Cambridge Arts Cinema where I whiled aw
ay many pleasant afternoons as an undergraduate assimilating the repertoire of Godard, Fellini, Antonioni, and Hitchcock. To Amanda, Cheltenham Ladies’ College and Newnham, who let me go the whole way with her after our first May Ball, or would have done if I hadn’t been too drunk to perform. To Julian, who held my head as I puked into the baptismal font of the Catholic church in Hills Road on my way home, and recommended cocaine as a less bilious method of getting high. To Amanda, who gave me next Michaelmas term a second chance to have her, which I seized, and enjoyed sufficiently to repeat the exercise on many occasions, until one day she forgot to take her pill and got pregnant, and I wanted her to have an abortion, but she didn’t want to, but allowed herself to be persuaded. To Julian, who borrowed from his father the money that paid for Amanda to have a quick and discreet operation in St John’s Wood, after which she said she never wanted to see me again. To Julian, who nursed Amanda through her post-abortion depression so that she was able to sit Finals, and himself in consequence only got a middling Two One, instead of the First he was expected to get, and so lost his chance of a Fellowship. To Amanda, who sensibly married a lawyer from Trinity and had three children in four years. To the author of a Sunday Colour Supplement article entitled ‘New Contenders for the Glittering Prizes’, who featured me as an up-and-coming literary genius, and to the photographer who took such a ravishing picture of me reclining in a punt in a white suit that they had to put it on the front cover. To the literary editors of London newspapers and magazines who subsequently fell over themselves to offer me work. To Verity Blackwell, genius among editors, who accepted Wormcasts within days of my submitting it, and wisely persuaded me to cut the scene in which the hero is fellated by a strange nun in the London Planetarium on the grounds that one could have too much of a good thing. To all my friends and acquaintances in the media, who ensured huge publicity and enthusastic reviews for Wormcasts on publication. To Julian, who wrote the only unfavourable, and only honest, review, in a little magazine that nobody reads, for which I stopped seeing him. To Amanda, who came to the launch party for Graffiti, gushing thanks for the invitation, and whom I fucked afterwards for old times’ sake. To Julian who turned up at my flat one night, high as a kite on cocaine, and put his arms round me, and kissed me on the mouth, and told me I was the only person he had ever loved, and whom I promptly threw out, quivering with righteous indignation like an outraged Victorian maiden. To Julian, who died two years’ later, a heroin addict. To all the publishers, literary editors, agents, PR men, PR women, TV producers, radio producers, record-pushers, chat-show hosts, party-givers, lunch-givers, freebie-givers, whores of every sex and profession, who have given me so many excuses to put off writing this novel.