Westlake, Donald E - Novel 42 Read online

  “I don’t ask it to come easy,” I said. “I just ask it to come. ”

  “She has a good reputation, Vickie Douglas,” Annie

  said.

  “Not with me.”

  “It was a first impression. Maybe she’ll grow on you.” But immediately she pointed a gnarled finger at my nose: “If you say, ‘Like fungus,’ I won’t represent you any more.”

  I had been deciding whether to say “Like fungus.” I said, “If she grows on me, I’ll have her surgically removed.”

  “That’s not much better. More baroque, but not better.”

  “Annie, the woman spent two hours talking about her mother. The only thing she said about the book was that my celebrities were yesterday. The book bores her. I bore her. Everything on God’s green Earth bores her except her goddam mother.”

  “She’s had her successes,” Annie said doubtfully.

  “She doesn’t intend The Christmas Book to be among them.” .

  “Do you want someone else assigned?”

  “Oh, Christ,” I said. “Who? If I say I won’t work with that bitch, I’ll have a reputation around the shop for being difficult and then nobody will be on my side. Is Wilson on my side? Is there anybody over there who’s committed to this book?”

  “Well, Wilson did approve it.”

  “Why doesn’t he take it over?”

  Annie smiled, shaking her head. “Robert Wilson is an executive now,” she said. “He doesn’t have to work for a living any more.”

  “My entire life is passing before my eyes,” I said. “What does that mean?”

  “It means you’re self-centered.”

  “I’m self-centered? What does that make Vickie Douglas?”

  Annie sighed. “It is a problem,” she acknowledged. “I’ll go along wdth you, it is a problem. I’ll have a quiet conversation with Wilson, just see what he thinks of things.”

  “When?”

  “Well, this is the wrorst possible time of year,” she said. “Worse than August. Tomorrow's Good Friday, so the Christians won’t be around, and the Jews are still contending with Passover.”

  “The rest of the year,” I said bitterly, “they’re all atheists.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” she said. “It’s hard to work in publishing without believing there must be a greater Intelligence somewhere in the universe.”

  So it was agreed that Annie would try to talk with Wilson on Monday, being today, and I went away to hang on my own cross over Easter weekend.

  Actually, Easter is Passover, plus additions, most of them pagan, starting with the name, which comes out of our dim half-forgotten Teutonic past. Just as the northern gods gave us Wednesday (Wodin-his-day; that’s why it’s spelled funny) and Thursday (Thor, of course) and Eriday (either Frey or her sister Freya; don’t blame me), Easter is derived from a dawn goddess named Eostre or Eostur or Eastre or Ostara or some damn thing, the difference being that maybe she never existed. A double nonreality, that; a mythical goddess without a myth.

  The problem is, the only reference to her is in the Venerable Bede’s (672-735) Ecclesiastical History, and Bede has taken some knocks recently from people who say he made her up by working back from the Anglo-Saxon name of April, which was Eostur-monath.

  Maybe so, but I’m with Bede. I mean, otherwise he’s pretty reliable, and the name sounds right. Anyway, if there ever was an Eostur, in the old days, and I mean the old days, her feast day was the vernal equinox, when bonfires would be lit in her honor, which makes sense. Also, the sun would start that day with three leaps up from the horizon in a dance of joy, and maidens clothed all in white would appear on mountains and in the clefts of rocks. What these maidens did if you went over and said, “Hi, you come here often?” I do not know, but spring festivals used to be pretty sexy before they reformed and got mixed up with the Christians. The original emphasis on fertility and fecundity is still palely visible in our Easter eggs and Easter rabbits, but the pizzazz is pretty well gone now, and it has merely become the only time of year when you can sell an otherwise sensible woman a lavender coat.

  A former Easter custom I wish was still with us was the Risus Paschalis, which started in Bavaria in the fifteenth century. The idea was, the priest would tell jokes and funny stories during Easter Mass, in order to make the parishioners laugh, the laughter supposed to be a good gift for the risen Christ. However, the jokes got to be a little sacrilegious sometimes, so in the eighteenth century the practice was banned by Pope Maximilian III.

  Whenever they hear anybody laughing, boy, they sure put a stop to it.

  Wednesday, April 6th

  YESTERDAY I took the boys—my boy Bryan and Gingers boy Joshua—to the Met’s opener out at Shea. We arrived by subway just before one, the boys as excited as if they were going to heaven instead of Shea Stadium, and we found ourselves in the midst of a large and young and happy crowd. Some people wore large orange buttons that said, in blocky black lettering, NOW THE FUN STARTS! The idea that there hadn’t been any fun up till now worked very well into my general mood, but 1 did my best to fight down my skepticism that things were about to change.

  It was perfect opening day weather, sunny and breezy and nippy, which had brought out the Mets’ largest opening day crowd since 1968. We had press level seats, out beyond third base, high enough to get a sense of the stadium but low enough to be involved with the game, which the boys certainly were. This was Tom Seaver’s return to the Mets after years of exile in Cincinnati, so the occasion began with a standing ovation for Seaver as he walked the length of the right-field foul line to the Mets’ dugout.

  Much learned discussion took place all around us as to whether the thirty-eight-year-old Seaver still “had it,” and how many innings he was likely to pitch; the consensus seemed to be that if he survived four or five, he could be considered to still have it.

  The Philadelphia Phillies were the opposition, and their pitcher was Steve Carlton, another thirty-eight-year-old veteran, and from almost the first instant it was clear we were going to be treated to a pitchers’ duel. In the first six innings, Carlton permitted only two singles while Seaver allowed three singles and a walk; neither team ever threatened to score.

  I spent more and more time watching the outer world beyond the outfield fence, where the big jets sailed slowly by, descending like stately matrons toward LaGuardia Airport, and where the unending traffic of the Van Wyck Expressway hurried along its busy antlike way, elevated above the scruffy neighborhoods. A tower of the Whitestone Bridge could be seen against the pale blue sky, contrasting beautifully with the rich green emptiness of the outfield. “What happens if they never score?” Joshua asked me. “Then the game never ends,” I told him.

  And through it all, I kept thinking about The Christmas Book. Baseball starting, spring in the air, and my mind is filled with Christmas. In the last week I’ve received several more contributions, and I’m beginning to think the final shape of the book will be a bit odder than I’d originally planned. I did return Diana Trilling’s “Christmas In The Gulag,” saying we were trying to avoid politics— particularly global politics—in The Christmas Book, but William F. Buckley Jr.’s “Floating Celebration” I just cannot resist. It is a description of a Christmas Eve party on a yacht in the Caribbean, involving himself and his wife Pat and several of their middleweight celebrity friends, and failing a submission from Louis XVI this one has absolutely got to get into the book. What makes it wonderful is that, when Buckley describes the darkies singing carols for the gentry on deck beneath the torrid tropic sun, be thinks the subject is the tropic sun.

  Isaac Asimov sent me another article, this one on the uses and meanings of gold, frankincense and myrrh in the ancient world. I returned it with thanks; why does he keep sending me things? I’ve already taken one.

  Roddy McDowall sent a nice letter, apologizing for not having written sooner and suggesting a series of photos of famous people opening Christmas presents with their children. He had already accum
ulated several such over the years—Elizabeth Taylor, for instance—so he sent a few contact prints to give me the idea; lovely luminous black- and-white pictures, very heartwarming in the best possible way. We don’t expect such expressions on famous faces; it could be that the human physiognomy never looks sweeter or more blessed than when a present is given to a child. I wrote McDowall how much I liked the idea, only suggesting en passant that he risked a certain sameness overall, which I trusted his genius to be aware of and deal with.

  Helmut Newton sent six photos of a naked woman dressed in various leather belts seated this way and that way on a department store Santa’s knee. I returned them with a note saying we’d abandoned the project.

  I like what Tomi Ungerer sent. I’m not sure I can use it, but I like it. In a series of drawings, Santa Claus walks through the forest with his sack over his shoulder, enters a cottage, takes toys and cakes and goodies from the sack as delighted children gather around him—coming in from other cottages in the neighborhood, presumably—and then Santa grabs up all the children and puts tbe?n in the now- empty sack. He walks back through the forest, sack over shoulder, and into his cave, where he removes the Santa suit and white beard and is revealed to be an ogre. Okay!

  I have also had occasion to write Andy Warhol.

  Dear Mr. Warhol:

  Thank you for the photos of the old round Coca-Cola tray with the smiling Santa Claus face on it. and the Santa Claus hand holding a Coke glass. The outlines you drew around everything in red and green are very thought-provoking, but unfortunately we have already made arrangements with the Coca-Cola Bottling Company, Atlanta. Georgia, to print a representation of the same tray in The Christmas Book. Not with your additions, of course, but perhaps the simple original will work best within our context.

  What I did, when I got the Warhol package, was immediately phone the Coca-Cola company, and spoke to a PR woman there, and once she understood this was a legitimate middle-class operation with a respectable publishing company behind it she agreed I could use the tray photo for free. Those who wish doodles on the picture can mark up their own copies in the privacy of their homes.

  In the meantime, despite Annie’s assurances, the greater shadow still looms over the book and me and all living things: Vickie Douglas continues to be my editor. Annies discussion with Wilson changed nothing. Day after day I am involving myself with this book—not only in correspondence with potential contributors, but also in library research for oldies and goodies, and in poring at home over endless anthologies and collections—and all the time, from the far distance, I can hear the slow beat of that muffled drum. “Vick-ie Doug-las,” the drum says, steady and deadly. “Vickie Doug-las. Vick-ie Doug-las.”

  I couldn’t even forget it yesterday during the ball game. At the top of the seventh Seaver, suffering a strained leg muscle, was replaced by a rookie named Doug Sisk, who maintained the steady pace, retiring the side without trouble. Unable to fight it any more, following that third out I got to my feet. As the Phillies trotted back onto the field, Carlton still leading them, and Dave Kingman (who had already struck out three times in this game) coming up to bat, I excused myself to the boys and walked back around the press level to the Diamond Club bar, where I found a phone booth and called Craig, Harry & Bourke and, after some small delay, spoke with my bete noire in more or less person. She remembered me almost right away, and I said, “Vickie, I’m worried.”

  “Worried? About what?”

  “About us” I said. “You and me. Maybe I was distracted or something last week, but I just don’t feel we had that real meeting of minds we should—”

  “Oh, you didn’t?” She sounded mildly surprised. “Well, of course, we were just getting to know one another, that sort of thing always takes ...” She faded away, apparently torn between ending the sentence falsely (“. . . time.”) or truthfully (“. . . forever.”). Outside, the crowd roared.

  “Vickie,” I said loudly, in case she was falling asleep, “I’m not one of your prima donnas, one of those people who can’t take advice or help. I believe in a strong relationship between author and editor. This is a very important project for me, Vickie, and I—”

  “Well, sure it is.”

  “And I want us to work on it together. I want your output, I want you to feel this is your book as much as it is mine.”

  “Oh, that’s sweet,” she said. “But honestly, Tom, I think an editor who stomps all over a book, leaves his own footprints everywhere, isn’t doing anybody any favors. This is your—”

  “Our, Vickie. Mine in concept, mine for the most part in execution, but yours in translating that concept and work into a marketable, sellable package, something that Craig, Harry—”

  “Oh, Tom,” she said, “you should never let commercial consid—”

  “I just want the best book possible,” I said quickly, desperately. When your editor tells you not to let commercial considerations stand in your way, you know you’re doomed. “And,” I scrambled on, “with you there to be sure I don’t go astray, I can—”

  “I have every confidence in you, Tom,” the bitch said, while far away the damn crowd roared again for some reason.

  We went on like that, flinging the responsibility like a baseball at one another, putting ever-increasing spin on it, neither of us getting anywhere. I was reminded of the old movie cartoons where Daffy Duck and Yosemite Sam would throw the smoking bomb back and forth until it finally exploded, and in every case it blew up while Yosemite Sam was holding it. I have considered our personalities and our relationship, and I have come to the reluctant conclusion that Vickie Douglas is Daffy Duck.

  The end result of the phone call was that we made another lunch date, during which we can get to know and hate one another even better. Next Tuesday it is, the twelfth. Another lunch. Now the fun starts.

  Another result of the phone call was that I missed the only action of the afternoon. Dave Kingman, whom I’d been relying on to strike out again, started the inning with a single into left field, followed by a George Foster single to right, moving Kingman to second. Hubie Brooks was next, and his sacrifice bunt was so perfect it wasn’t even a sacrifice; he beat the throw to first, loading the bases. Then came Mike

  Howard, who bounced another single into left, scoring Kingman. Brian Giles, up next, belted a long one into right field that Pete Rose caught for the out, but Foster scored after the catch, making it two to zip with men on first and second, and only one out.

  And that’s when I returned from my phone call, to find the boys careening around in our area like Mexican jumping beans. They both simultaneously tried to tell me all the terrific stuff I’d missed, while I sat there and listened and thought about Vickie Douglas and watched Steve Carlton get things back under control, putting out the next two men at bat and returning the game to its pitchers’ duel, which it remained until the end. So the Mets won their opener, two to nothing, making nine seasons in a row in which they’ve won the opening game, tying the record (1937—45) of the St. Louis Browns, and I am still flailing away with The Christmas Book.

  I do not want to hear any more about Vickie Douglas’s mother.

  Sunday, April 10th

  ANOTHER expense. Ginger and I just came back from Fire Island, where we looked at rental houses. The train from Penn Station got us to Bay Shore in time for the 1:00 ferry over to Fair Harbor on Fire Island, where we had about an hour and a half to look at houses and to walk in the thin sunlight on the cold tan beach, hand in hand, smiling foolishly, before taking the 3:10 ferry off again. It was nice to be out there, nice to see the early spring flowers and smell the salt air with its promise of summer, nice to stop thinking about Christmas (and that awful woman!) for just a little while.

  Summer house rentals are outrageous; they always have been, and they get worse every year. We saw at once that we wouldn’t be able to afford August, the more expensive month, so we resigned ourselves to the second-class existence of being July renters. (And even that can only be af
forded if

  Vickie Douglas and her superiors at Craig, Harry & Bourke agree on June first that five of my contributors are sufficiently today and famous to activate the next stage of the contract. With Capote and Galbraith already having been dismissed, who knows what names would impress that awful woman?)

  One of the complications in our rental search is that we need a very large house, since we will have all four kids with us—Ginger’s two and my two—and to be able to afford the full month of July we have to give accommodation to Mary for two weeks within it.

  Talk about being between a rock and a hard place! When Mary first suggested this insane idea, I quite naturally said no, no, a thousand times no and assumed that was the end of it. But it w?as not. The discussion took place in Marys kitchen, over cups of coffee, a couple of Sundays ago, after I brought the kids back from their weekend romp with Papa. Jennifer and Bryan had gone away to the living room to watch Sixty Minutes, leaving me at Marys mercy, and we spent a while looking at contact prints of a series of pictures she’d done for some goody-goody youth magazine. They showed a young girl (Jennifer) making a birdhouse; sawing, nailing, painting, etc. In every photo, Jennifer wore the identical solemn and rigid expression, which seemed to me wrong. I said, “She doesn’t look like she’s making a birdhouse, she looks like she’s posing for pictures.”

  “It’s very hard to break through that self-consciousness.” Mary sighed, tapping a fingernail on perhaps the worst of the batch: Jennifer, solemn, looked unemotionally at a hammer she held perched atop a nail partway stuck into a board. “I don’t want to send these in if they’re not right,” Mary said. “It’s a new market for me, I don’t want to screw it up.”

  I could only agree with that sentiment. Mary’s occasional photography sales, and her more frequent research jobs, were in truth a mere drop in the bucket of my financial responsibilities, but every drop helps. I said, “Why not have Jennifer build a birdhouse, and take pictures while she’s doing it?”