From a ring-backed invoice book he extracted a page of ruled paper with the nearly-royal crest of the house of Pendel & Braithwaite at its head, and below it in Pendel’s copperplate hand an Account Rendered to Mr Andrew Osnard in the sum of two and a half thousand dollars at the address of his private apartment in Paitilla. Having set the invoice flat on the work surface, he took up an elderly pen attributed by mythic history to Braithwaite, and in an archaic hand that he had long cultivated for tailoring communications, added the words ‘your early attention would oblige’, which was a sign to say there’s more to this bill than a demand for money. From a folder in the centre drawer of his desk he then drew a sheet of white, unruled, unwatermarked paper from the packet that Osnard had given him and sniffed it which he always did. It smelt of nothing he recognised except, very distantly, prison disinfectant.
Impregnated with magical substances, Harry. Carbon paper without carbon for one-time use only.
What do you do your end when you get it, then?
Develop it, you ass, what do you think?
Where, Andy? How?
Mind your own bloody business. In my bathroom. Shut up, you’re embarrassing.
Laying the carbon gingerly over the invoice he took from his drawer the 2H pencil that Osnard had given him for the purpose and began writing to the resounding chords of Stravinsky, until Stravinsky suddenly annoyed him so he switched him off. The Devil always has the best tunes, Auntie Ruth used to say. He put on Bach but Louisa was passionate about Bach, so he switched off Bach and worked in friendless silence, which was unusual in him. Brows down, tip of tongue protruding, Mickie determinedly forgotten, the fluence beginning to rise in him. Listening for a suspicious footfall or the tell-tale shuffle of an enemy eavesdropper the other side of the door. Glancing constantly between the hieroglyphics in his notebook and the carbon. Inventing and joining. Organising, repairing. Perfecting. Enlarging out of recognition. Distorting. Making order out of confusion. So much to tell. So little time. Japs in every cupboard. The Mainland Chinese abetting them. Pendel flying. Now on top of his material, now under it. Now genius, now slavish editor of his imaginings, master of his cloud kingdom, prince and menial in one. The black cat always at his side. And the French as usual somewhere in the plot. An explosion, Harry boy, an explosion of the flesh. A rage of power, a swelling up, a letting go, a setting free. A bestriding of the earth, a proving of God’s grace, a settling of debts. The sinful vertigo of creativity, of plundering and stealing and distorting and reinventing, performed by one transported, deliriously consenting, furious adult with his atonement pending and the cat swishing its tail. Change the carbon, screw up the old one, toss it in the wastebasket. Reload and resume firing on all guns. Rip the pages from the notebook, burn them in the grate.
‘You want a coffee?’ Marta enquired.
The world’s greatest conspirator had forgotten to lock his door. Flames rising in the grate behind him. Charred paper waiting to be crushed.
‘A coffee would be nice. Thank you.’
She closed the door behind her. Stiffly, not smiling at all.
‘Do you need help?’
Her eyes were avoiding him. He took a breath.
‘Yes.’
‘What?’
‘If the Japanese were secretly planning to build a new sea-level canal and had bought the Panamanian government on the sly and the students got to hear of it, what would they do?’
‘Today’s students?’
‘Yours. The ones who talk to the fishermen.’
‘Riot. Take to the streets. Attack the Presidential Palace, storm the Legislative Assembly, block the Canal, call a general strike, summon support from other countries in the region, launch an anti-colonial crusade across Latin America. Demand a free Panama. We would also burn all Japanese shops and hang the traitors, starting with the President. Is that enough?’
‘Thank you. I’m sure that will be fine. And muster the people from the other side of the bridge, obviously,’ he suggested as an afterthought.
‘Naturally. Students are only the vanguard of the proletarian movement.’