The Map of Time (34 page)

“Very well,” he agreed reluctantly. “Come back tomorrow morning and you’ll have your letter.”

30

The first thing Wells did when he was left alone in the sitting room while Jane accompanied the young man to the door was to place Gilliam Murray’s manuscript once more out of his field of vision. Although he had not let it show, he found the appalling manner in which Gilliam kept his masquerade going deeply disturbing. Naturally, he had to surround himself with people who could keep their mouths shut, and although he could have achieved this with incentives, threats seemed to work much better. The discovery that Gilliam resorted so casually to such gruesome methods sent a shiver down his spine; not for nothing was the man his adversary, or at least that was what his behavior seemed to indicate. He picked up the leaflet Gilliam sent him religiously every week and looked at it with distaste. Sickening though it was, Wells had to accept that it was all his fault. Yes, Murray’s Time Travel existed thanks to him, thanks to the decision he had made.

He had only had two meetings with Gilliam Murray, but for some men that was enough to establish an enmity. And Gilliam was one of those, as Wells soon discovered. Their first meeting had taken place in that very room one April afternoon, he recalled, glancing with horror at the wing chair into which Gilliam Murray had squeezed his bulky frame.

From the moment he had appeared in the doorway with his visiting card and his unctuous smile, Wells had been in awe of his huge oxlike body, although even more astonishing was the extraordinary weightlessness of his movements, as though his bones were hollow. Wells had sat down in the chair facing him, and while Jane served the tea, the two men had studied one another with polite discretion. When his wife had left the room, the stranger gave him an even broader syrupy smile, thanked him for agreeing to see him at such short notice, and, without pausing for breath, showered him with rapturous adulation for his novel The Time Machine. However, there are those who only admire a thing in order blow their own trumpet, to show off their own understanding and intelligence to others, and Gilliam Murray belonged to this group of men. He launched into a furious eulogy of the novel, extolling with lofty speech the symmetry of its structure, the power of its imagery, even the color of the suit he had chosen for his main character. Wells simply listened courteously and wondered why anyone would choose to waste their morning inundating him with praise when they could put it all in a polite letter like the rest of his admirers. He weathered the glowing tributes, nodding uneasily, as one caught in an irksome yet harmless shower of rain, praying that the tedious panegyric would soon end and he could go back to his work. However, he soon discovered it had been no more than a preamble aimed at smoothing the man’s way before he decided to reveal the real reason for his visit.

After finishing his fulsome speech, Gilliam plucked a voluminous manuscript from his briefcase and placed it delicately in Wells’s hands, as though he were handing over a sacred relic or a newborn infant. Captain Derek Shackleton: The True Story of a Brave Hero of the Future, Wells read, dumbfounded. He could no longer recall how they had agreed to meet again a week later, after the giant wheedled him into promising to read his novel, and if he liked it, to recommend it to Henley.

Wells embarked upon the task of ploughing through the manuscript that had unexpectedly come into his hands, like someone undergoing torture. He had no desire to read anything issuing from the imagination of that self-important braggart whom he considered absolutely incapable of interesting him, and he was not mistaken. The more he read of the pretentious prose, the more his mind became fogged with boredom, and he quickly made a conscious decision never again to meet any of his admirers. Gilliam had given him an overwritten, monotonous piece of tripe; a novel which, in common with the many that were swamping bookshop windows, had copied the one he had written speculated about the future. Such novels were brimming with mechanical artifacts, veritable paper depositories of junk, which, drawing inspiration from the growing impact of science, exhibited every type of outlandish machine aimed at satisfying man’s most secret longings. Wells had read none of them, but Henley had related many of their hilarious plots to him over a meal; such as those of the New Yorker Luis Senarens, whose main characters explore the planet’s far-flung territories in airships, abducting any indigenous tribe they happen across on the way. The one that had stuck in his mind was about a Jewish inventor who built a machine that made things grow bigger. The image of London attacked by an army of giant wood lice, which Henley had described to him with contempt, had actually terrified Wells.

The plot of Gilliam Murray’s novel was equally painful. The pompous title concealed the madcap visions of an unhinged mind. Gilliam argued that as the years went by, the automatons—those mechanical dolls sold in some Central London toy shops—would eventually come to life. Yes, incredible though it might seem, beneath their wooden skulls an almost human form of awareness would begin to stir, so human in fact that the astonished reader would soon discover that the automatons harbored a deep resentment towards man for the humiliating treatment they had endured as his slaves. Finally, under the leadership of Solomon, a steam-powered automaton soldier, they swiftly and mercilessly decided the fate of the human race: extermination.

Within a few decades the automatons had reduced the planet to a mound of rubble and mankind to a handful of frightened rats, from amongst whose ranks, however, arose the brave Captain Shackleton. After years of futile combat, Shackleton finally put an end to the automaton Solomon’s evil plans, defeating him in a ridiculous sword fight. In the final mind-boggling pages of his already preposterous tale, Gilliam had the temerity to draw an embarrassing moral from his story, with which he hoped to give the whole of England— or at any rate the toy manufacturers— something to think about: God would end up punishing man if he went on emulating him by creating life—if indeed these mechanical creations could be described as possessing such a thing, Wells reflected.

It was possible a story like this might work as satire, but the problem was Gilliam took it terribly seriously, imbuing it with an air of solemnity which only made the plot seem even more ludicrous. Gilliam’s vision of the year 2000 was utterly implausible. In all other respects, his writing was infantile and verbose in equal measure, the characters were poorly drawn, and the dialogue dull as dishwater. All in all, it was the novel of someone who believes anyone can be a writer. It was not that he strung words together willy-nilly without any aesthetic pretensions; if he had, it would have made for dull but palatable reading. No, Gilliam was one of those avid readers who believed good writing was akin to icing a cake—a conviction that resulted in overblown, horribly flowery prose that was full of ridiculous verbal displays, indigestible to the reader. When Wells reached the final page he felt aesthetically nauseated. The only fate the novel deserved was to be flung on the fire; furthermore, if time travel were to become the order of the day, Wells would be honor-bound to journey into the past and beat the fellow to a pulp before he was able to disgrace future literature with his creation.

However, telling the truth to Gilliam Murray was an experience he had no wish to undergo, especially since he could get out of it simply by handing the novel over to his editor Henley, who would certainly reject it, but with none of the recriminations that would fall upon Wells.

When the day came for his next appointment with Murray, Wells still had not decided what to do. Gilliam arrived at the house with enviable punctuality, a triumphant smile on his face, but Wells immediately sensed the barely controlled anxiety beneath his cloying politeness. Gilliam was plainly desperate to hear his verdict, but both men were obliged to follow the rules of etiquette. Wells made small talk as he guided him into the sitting room, and they sat down while Jane served tea. The author took advantage of this moment of silence to study his nervous guest, who was pressing his fleshy lips into a serene smile. Then, all of a sudden, Wells was filled with a sense of his own power.

He, more than anyone, knew of the sense of hope involved in writing a novel and the insignificance of that illusion in the eyes of others, who judged the work on its merits, not on how many sleepless nights had gone into its creation. As Wells saw it, negative criticism, however constructive, was invariably painful for a writer. It always came as a blow, whether he responded to it like a brave wounded soldier or was cast into the abyss, his fragile ego in shreds. And now, as if by magic, Wells held this stranger’s dreams in his hand. He had the power to shatter them or to let them live. In the end, this was the choice before him, he realized; the novel’s wretched quality was irrelevant, and in any case that decision could be left to Henley. The question was whether he wanted to use his authority for good or not, whether he wanted to witness this arrogant creature’s response to what was in essence the simple truth, or whether on the contrary he preferred to fob him off with a pious lie so he could carry on believing he had produced a worthwhile piece of writing, at least until Henley’s diagnosis.

“Well, Mr. Wells?” Gilliam asked as soon as Jane had left the room. “What did you think of my novel?” Wells could almost feel the air in the room tremble, as though reality itself had reached a crossroads and the universe was awaiting his decision to know which path to go down. His silence was like a dam, a dike holding back events.

And still today Wells was not sure why he had taken the decision he had. He felt no real preference; he could have chosen either way. He was sure of one thing, though: it was not out of cruelty.

If anything, he was simply curious to see how the man sitting opposite him would react to such a brutal blow. Would he conceal his wounded pride, politely accept Wells’s opinions, or break down in front of him like a child or a man condemned to death? Perhaps he would fly into a rage and hurl himself at Wells with the intention of strangling him, a distinct possibility Wells could not rule out. Whichever way he dressed it up, it was an empirical exercise, a simple experiment on the soul of that poor wretched man. Like the scientist who must sacrifice the rat in pursuit of his discovery, Wells wanted to measure the capacity for reaction in this stranger, who by asking him to read his manuscript had given Wells an immense power over him, the power to act like the executioner of the despicable society in which they lived.

Once Wells had decided, he cleared his throat and replied in a courteous, almost cold voice, as though he were indifferent to the harmful effect his words might have on his visitor: “I read your work with great care, Mr. Murray, and I confess I did not enjoy any part of it. I found nothing in it to praise, nothing to admire. I have taken the liberty to speak to you in this way because I consider you a colleague and I believe that lying to you would do you no good whatsoever.” The smile on Gilliam’s face vanished in a second, and his huge paws gripped the arms of the chair. Wells studied his shifting facial expression even as he carried on wounding him, extremely courteously: “In my opinion, not only have you started out with a rather naïve premise, but you have developed it in a most unfortunate way, stifling its few possibilities. The structure of your narrative is inconsistent and muddled, the episodes are linked only tenuously, and in the end one has the impression that events occur higgledy-piggledy, without any inner cohesion, simply because it suits you. This tiresome randomness of the plot, added to your writing style—worthy of some legal clerk who admires Jane Austen’s romantic novels—inevitably produces boredom in the reader, or if not then a profound aversion to what he is reading.” At this point, Wells paused for a moment to study his guest’s contortions with scientific interest. The man must be a block of ice not to have exploded with rage at such remarks, he thought.

Was Gilliam a block of ice? He watched Murray’s attempts to overcome his bewilderment; chewing on his lip, opening then clenching his fists, as though he were milking an invisible udder, and predicted that he was about to find out.

“What are you talking about?” Murray finally burst out, sitting up straight, seized by a rage that made the tendons on his neck bulge. “What kind of reading have you given my work?” No, Gilliam was not a block of ice. He was pure fire, and Wells instantly realized he would not fall apart. His visitor was one of those people whose pride was so monumental that in the long run they were morally invincible; they were so full of themselves they believed they could achieve anything through simple pigheadedness, whether this was building a bird box or writing a science-fiction novel. Unfortunately for Wells, Gilliam had not been content to build a bird box. He had decided to employ his efforts in showing the world what an extraordinary imagination he had, how easily he was able to juggle with the words accumulated in a dictionary, and that he had been endowed with many if not all the writerly characteristics that appealed to him.

Wells tried hard to remain poised while his guest, shaking with rage, labeled his remarks as foolish. Watching him waving his arms about wildly, Wells began to regret the choice he had made.

Clearly, if he carried on in that vein, demolishing his novel with scathing remarks, the situation could only get worse. But what else could he do? Must he retract everything he had said for fear the fellow might tear his head off in a fit of rage? Luckily for Wells, Gilliam suddenly appeared to calm down.

He took a few breaths, twisted his head from side to side, and rested his hands in his lap in a stubborn attempt to regain his composure. His painstaking effort at controlling himself felt to Wells like a sort of caricature of the actor Richard Mansfield’s amazing transformation at the Lyceum Theatre during the performance of the play Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde a few years earlier.

He let him go on without interruption, secretly relieved. Gilliam seemed ashamed at having lost his temper, and the author realized that here was an intelligent man burdened with a passionate temperament, a fiery nature which drove him to those accesses of rage that he had undoubtedly learned to control over the years, achieving a level of restraint of which he should feel proud. But Wells had touched his sore point, wounded his vanity, reminding him his self-control was by no means infallible.