Essex Poison. Ian Sansom
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and erect barbed-wire fences, out among the vermin and machine-gun fire, on reduced rations and subject to ridicule and abuse. There were twelve of us on the Monday. By Friday, only ten of us remained, two men having been shot dead beside me. The crack of rifle fire overhead had reduced us to crawling in the mud among the rats to go about our work. One week’s disciplinary work.
I had a pretty good idea of how men like Delaney solved problems. They got rid of them. They used their disciplinary battalions.
‘My friends here tell me that you acted bravely in Spain,’ said Delaney. I glanced round at Gleason and MacDonald, who stood staring straight ahead. Acting bravely in Spain meant killing people before they killed you. It wasn’t exactly chivalric. It was a matter of survival. ‘Brave. Educated. Intelligent. When I look at you, Sefton, what I see is not what other people might see: a common thief, a cheat, a liar, a bitter and confused young man who has lost his way and wasted every opportunity in his life.’ As a summing-up you wouldn’t necessarily have wanted it on your gravestone but it wasn’t entirely inaccurate. ‘No. No. When I look at you, Sefton, what I see is leadership potential.’ What I saw was trouble. ‘Men like you can be very useful in my line of business. So.’ Delaney quietly and leisurely cleared his throat. ‘I’d like to offer you an opportunity,’ he said. I had a bad feeling I knew what was coming: in my experience, opportunity always comes with a cost, and often at a serious inconvenience to the opportunee. ‘If you were to come and work for me, Mr Sefton, I think we’d probably be able to write off your gambling debts.’ He stroked his chin. ‘And in time I think we’d also be able to overlook the unfortunate incident concerning the theft of goods. Though it might take us a while of course to really learn to trust one another. What do you think?’
Well. That was two job offers in one evening: first from Willy Mann on behalf of Mr Klein, and now from Delaney on behalf of Delaney. I had a feeling that Delaney’s offer was going to be harder to refuse. (On this theme – let us call it the Perennial Problem of Saying No – even Morley admits to a number of difficulties and confusions. In Morley’s Tried and Tested Temptations: Thinking About God, the Devil, Sin and Salvation (1931), for example, he provides a very troubling and troubled little gloss on Matthew 4:8–9: ‘Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.’ Writes Morley: ‘All of us will have been subject at some time to the temptation of intellectual pride. Intellectual pride is spiritually most damaging, an affliction of perhaps the most damaged among us, a sin that represents not only a defect of the will but which also betrays and betokens the deep scars of emotional wounds.’ Anyway.) Nonetheless.
‘That’s a very kind offer,’ I said. ‘But I’m afraid I’m going to have to turn you down, Mr Delaney.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Delaney. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.’ I had the feeling he was not a man who was used to being turned down. ‘I’m not a man who is used to being turned down,’ he said.
‘It’s just, I’m currently working for someone else,’ I explained.
‘I see. And who is this … “someone else” you’re working for?’ asked Delaney. ‘Anyone I know?’
‘A writer,’ I said.
Delaney laughed – loudly, uproariously, as if I were Frank Randle on stage at the height of the summer season in Blackpool.
‘A writer? Very good. And he pays you money? Or he pays you in stationery supplies?’
He wasn’t far off.
Gleason and MacDonald sniggered beside me.
‘I work for Swanton Morley,’ I said, expecting some sort of recognition. Morley wasn’t exactly unknown. He was at the time, and had been for many years, England’s best known and best loved journalist, editor and publisher.
‘Never heard of him,’ said Delaney. ‘Boys?’
I could hear Gleason and MacDonald vigorously shake their heads.
‘Swanton Morley. He writes for the newspapers. Writes books. He’s very … popular.’ The word died on my lips.
‘Well, if you don’t mind my saying so,’ Delaney said with a grin, ‘he’s clearly not that popular, Mr Sefton, is he?’ Delaney reminded me of someone in the way he spoke – the chimpish bravado – but I couldn’t for the life of me remember who it was.
‘Maybe not,’ I agreed. ‘You’ve never read one of Morley’s books?’ Everyone had read at least one of Morley’s books.
‘I am proud to say, sir, that I have never read any book.’
‘Never?’
‘I’m sure I may have read parts of books. But the average man does not read whole books, Mr Sefton. In this day and age I think you’ll find that the average man looks elsewhere for his entertainment. Which of course is where I come in …’
‘Of course.’
‘… as an entertainment provider. And I think I probably have a pretty good understanding of what is “popular”. A much better understanding, I dare say, than either you or your “writer”.’
‘I’m sure.’
Delaney glanced over towards the flashing neon of the Windmill Theatre.
‘In my position, Mr Sefton, in my line of work, you might say that I am blessed every day with a profound insight into the workings of the average human mind.’ He rolled his cigar between forefinger and thumb, savouring it – and there it was again, that reminder of someone else, that performance, that knowing nod and wink of the king or the jester. ‘And I’m afraid it is not always a pretty sight. You work full-time for your writer?’
‘I do.’
‘And you obviously enjoy your work?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, that’s good, that’s very good.’ Delaney rubbed a cigary finger along his protuberant bottom lip. ‘Yes, good. Because I want you to be clear, Mr Sefton, that I am offering you what is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join us in what we might call the new entertainment economy.’
‘I understand that.’
‘And yet you seem to be telling me that you’re not interested, is that correct? Just so we’re clear, you understand?’
‘Yes. That’s right.’
‘You’re not interested?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘You’re absolutely sure now?’
I hesitated. ‘Yes.’
‘Well,’ said Delaney, sighing deeply. ‘That is unfortunate, Mr Sefton. Very unfortunate.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed. I was disappointed myself.
‘Mmm. Well, as I say, it is a shame, because if you’re really not in a position to accept the offer it would mean that you and I still have a little bit of a problem to resolve, wouldn’t it?’ He rolled the tip of his cigar around the edge of the ashtray.
And in that moment I realised who Delaney reminded me of: he reminded me of Morley. They had a different repertoire of gestures and lines, of course, but it was a repertoire of gestures and lines nonetheless, a kind of performance, a top-of-the-bill performance in both cases, a captivating performance, a performance almost entirely uninhibited by petty concerns about the audience, which is ultimately what made it a great performance, a carefree performance closely resembling and mimicking the expression of the natural self, but a performance nonetheless. I always felt that I would never know Morley, in the same way I hoped I would never really know Delaney – perhaps because they would never truly know themselves. They were actors, being themselves. Which