It was a biography of Dash Hardy, the first, as far as he knew, that had been written about the American writer. The author’s name was unfamiliar to him. And the book itself was almost six hundred pages long, which suggested that it was an exhaustive account of the writer’s life. Did Dash merit such a work? he wondered. Gore did, certainly. And Erich, probably. But Dash? Hadn’t he turned into something of a second-tier writer by the end?
He took the book down and moved directly to the index at the back, running his finger down the names. To be included ran the risk of something negative being said but to be ignored would be wounding. But no, there he was, Maurice Swift, 131, 284. Just two entries and not spread across multiple pages. He flicked to the first, where the author mentioned Maurice’s initial encounter with Dash in the Prado all those years ago and how a friendship had struck up between them.
Hardy was a crucial factor in Swift finding a publisher for his debut novel [it said]. He took the young writer under his wing, as he had done for one or two boys of his type before, accommodating him in New York for two years and introducing him to publishers on the scene. That novel, Two Germans, was a huge success, although it precipitated the public disgrace of the novelist Erich Ackermann, with whom Dash had also been acquainted, in a manner that left a sour taste in the mouths of some readers.
Well, that was true enough, he reasoned. Nothing libellous there, although in fact he had only lived with Dash for nine months, so there was an error there. And what did ‘one or two boys of his type’ mean?
He flicked to the index for the other entry and then to here, where, despite quickly scanning the page, he could find no mention of his name. He turned back to here and then forward to here, but no, there was nothing there either, and he frowned, wondering whether another mistake had been made. But just to be certain, he began to read here in its entirety and came across this line, which appeared in an interview with Edmund White:
Dash told me a story about a young writer he met in Europe to whom he had taken a particular shine. The boy was beautiful, of course, and Dash was always a sucker for a pretty face. He did everything for him, introduced him around town, helped him find a publisher and an agent, and the moment success came his way, the boy just dropped him like a hot potato. He’d done it before, from what I’d heard. The boy was an arch-manipulator and impossibly calculating. An operator of the first order. I remember meeting him myself at some reading and he told me that he would be staying with his editor on a trip to the UK soon. ‘Why don’t you just get a hotel?’ I asked him, and he shook his head and said no, that he thought if he became friendly with the editor and the editor’s family then there was no chance that he’d ever be dropped. I thought it such a cynical move but I suppose there was something in it. It was my belief that the boy knew he was essentially talentless, nothing more than a good-looking hack, and that only charm and sycophancy could keep him in the game. It did, too, for a time.
Maurice slammed the book shut, causing some of the other shoppers to turn and look in his direction. He hadn’t been named, of course, so it was unlikely that he could sue, but the page reference in the index confused him. Of course, he realized, after a moment. His name must have been originally part of the Edmund White quote, and indexed, but then the lawyers must have taken it out before publication, forgetting to remove the reference at the back. He was almost amused by their stupidity. But was it worth pursuing? He couldn’t decide. He would have to acknowledge that the description was one that fitted him and he wasn’t sure he wanted to do that.
A moment later, Daniel returned with a brightly coloured paperback and Maurice took it, along with the Dash biography and the Maude Avery novel, to the till before walking hand in hand with him towards Union Square Park, where they sat on a bench, eating ice-creams.
‘When you’re older,’ said Maurice, ‘and you think back on this morning, don’t blame me too much for it, all right? It was only an hour of your life, and it’s saved us both a lot of grief. I’m proud of you for going along with it.’
‘Blame you for what?’ asked Daniel, who had seemed to rather enjoy telling a stranger all the details of his day-to-day pedagogical life and the sexual harassment that he’d suffered from a girl whose attentions he had never encouraged.
‘Blame me for anything,’ replied Maurice. ‘There’s a good chance that, when you’re a teenager and complaining about how I’ve ruined your life, you’ll bring this up and say that it all started here.’
Daniel shrugged; he wasn’t interested. His breath caught a little and he reached into his bag for his inhaler, taking a quick puff. Maurice sat quietly, his sunglasses resting on his nose, watching the people go by. One of his own interns marched past, oblivious to his presence on the bench, while reading something on his phone. He was carrying a luxurious brown saddle bag over his shoulder and Maurice wondered how the boy could afford it – it was an expensive brand – but then recalled that his mother was on the board of the New York Ballet and so, presumably, he came from money.
And then, to his dismay, he noticed Henrietta James walking in his direction, still covered in multiple layers of clothing, as if she were about to embark for the Arctic, and before he could tell the boy that it was time to go she’d spotted him too and was waving manically at him, as if trying to generate her own electricity with her arms.
‘Hello, you,’ she said, grinning like the cat who’d got the cream.
‘Henrietta,’ he said, standing up to kiss her on both cheeks. ‘How nice to see you!’
‘And who’s this?’ she asked, looking down at Daniel, who barely glanced up from his ice-cream.
‘This is my son,’ said Maurice. ‘Daniel.’
‘How charming!’ she said. ‘I’ll join you for a few minutes, if you don’t mind,’ she added, not waiting for an answer as she sat down. ‘I need to rest. It’s been a horrendous day. My publisher emailed me the proposed jacket for I Am Dissatisfied with My Boyfriend, My Body and My Career and it was so awful that I came all the way downtown to tell her exactly what I thought of it. I might not have been as polite as I could have been and we left things on a rather sour note. Lashings of apologies to make later, I daresay.’
‘Well, I’m sure you’ll figure it out,’ said Maurice.
‘What an adorable little boy,’ she said, smiling a little as she reached a hand out to ruffle Daniel’s hair, but when he looked up and narrowed his eyes, emitting a low growling sound from the back of his throat like a threatened animal, she changed her mind and made a hasty retreat.
‘Is he staying with you for the summer?’ she asked, and now it was Maurice’s turn to frown, uncertain what she meant, before realizing that she probably assumed he was divorced.
‘No, he lives with me,’ said Maurice.
‘Oh. And your … partner? Your …？’
‘My wife died some years ago,’ he said, a non-sequitur, of course, since Edith had borne no relationship to Daniel, but he had no intention of getting into the intricacies of his life with an author he barely knew and didn’t much like.