Spotlight on "The Red Tie"
“Books talk to the inner person, the secret person; they can make direct contact with all those subterranean feelings and desires you speak of.”
Vincent edits books. It is a modest and quiet occupation – yet one which is about to be thrown into turmoil thanks to the arrival of woman, her gift to him, and the words of his old mentor: “it’s not what we keep out of a book that counts, but what we might put in”.
Orwell meets Kafka in this tale of a dystopian future which could be a lot closer than we might realise…
The novel’s opening…
Marcus tested his bonds once again, trying to keep his shoulders relaxed as he did so, not wishing to betray his efforts. He felt discomfort at his wrists, pressure from the frame of the chair. Although he knew nothing would have changed in the previous five minutes, there was something in the futility of trying to free himself that kept him centred. The man sitting before him — a smallish weaselly individual — was talking. There was a small table in the space between them.
“…so of course your outcome is decided.”
“My ‘outcome’?”
“What will become of you.”
“Is that so?” Marcus paused, making it plain there was more to be said. He sensed a bluff designed to encourage confession. “So why am I here, trussed up like this, if everything is fixed?”
The Weasel looked over to the corner of the room near the door where a younger man sat, observing. He was just out of Marcus’s eye-line.
“You see, Will,” said the interrogator, “how clever our friend here is? Clever is dangerous, is it not? A word of advice: never aspire to be duplicitous or clever.”
“Is ‘clever’ supposed to be a compliment?” was what Marcus wanted to say, but refrained; his earlier question still hanging between them.
“What will become of you publicly. Is that better?”
Marcus inclined his head. “Which is — as if I didn’t know?”
“Different words for pretty much the same thing: conviction; disappearance; execution.”
The Weasel’s savouring of the final four syllables was self-indulgent, unnecessary. Marcus hoped he would come across him later, under more propitious circumstances. Again he tried to relax his shoulders, his wrists.
“And the other?” he asked
“What other?”
“If that is to be my public fate, then what about the non-public one. You implied there was another side to the equation.”
Standing, the Weasel made a slow circuit of the table. From over Marcus’s shoulder: “Clever, Will, see? Our friend here.”
The young man in the corner said nothing. Marcus waited. After a few moments — time punctuated by soft footfall on the faux oak flooring — the small man reappeared in front of Marcus, resumed his seat.
“The same. Or different. A little like your books, Professor; the public version and what lay beneath them.”
“You mean the original text.”
“You know very well what I mean.” A trace of anger surfaced in the Weasel’s tone.
“How different?” Marcus tried to diffuse it, knowing his captor was keen to speak, revelling in his position of power, however transient.
“Because of your choice. Simple as that.” Unable to disguise his agitation, the Weasel stood once more and walked the three paces to the far wall where he turned. There was a slight change of tone. “You know — because you are so clever, Professor — that much of our case is circumstantial. There is some evidence, clearly; after all, you have been editing these books of yours for long enough, getting your messages out.” Marcus wanted to interrupt and protest that the books were never his, but kept his counsel. “Subtle, never totally explicit. You must be aware that there are — what shall I say? — differences of opinion?”
“Because of what I’m given, what I have to work with?”
“Partly. And so the voice we hear — ‘voice’ is a term you clever book-people use, is it not? — the voice may or may not be yours, may or may not be that of the original writer.”
Again Marcus wanted to correct him, tell him the word he should use was ‘author’, but he did not. “I can see how that presents you with something of a dilemma,” he said instead. “I have taught as much to my students. From time-to-time anyway. How can you know which is which?”
A laugh. “You can know, my dear Professor; you can know.”
“Indeed; but that doesn’t really help you — or your young friend in the corner.”
The Weasel looked toward the silent young man for a moment. “Will? He’s just learning the ropes. ‘Work experience’, you might say.”
“The Master and the Apprentice, Mr. Simpson?”
Bowing slightly, the inquisitor offered acknowledgement — and Marcus instantly knew that he had missed both the literary allusion and the sarcasm.
“But there is simply too much evidence — if I may continue to use that word — for comfort. Too much suspicion. Too much potential cleverness. Hence the Ministry has decided that you need to be — withdrawn.”
“Publicly,” Marcus prompted.
“Indeed.”
“And privately?”
The Weasel paused for a moment, then resumed his seat before speaking. “In your case — for whatever reason — there remains the potential for some difference to exist between fiction and fact. Is that a suitable way of expressing it? I think that’s highly appropriate, don’t you?”
“The public is the fiction?”
“The public may be the fiction. If we do indeed execute you, then there is only fact, is there not? The fiction evaporates.”
Marcus wanted to ask him if he had been reading his lecture notes, but again refrained. He knew he was listening to a man essentially struggling, a man out of his depth. Behind him he heard the young man shift in his chair. “And all that depends on?”
“In its wisdom, the Ministry has decided that although the public outcome is settled — there will be an announcement made tomorrow as part of the Monday bulletin — what actually transpires may be different.”
“Depending on?”
“Depending on you, my dear Professor!” As if the entire conversation had been building to this point, the Weasel laughed again. It was a laugh underpinned by nervousness, by fear of repercussions, and an uncertainty over consequential outcomes many years hence. “There is ‘an opportunity’ for you to change sides.”
“Poacher turned gamekeeper?”
“If you like.”
“Always assuming that I was a poacher in the first place.”
“Which you are.”
“Which you accuse me of being.” Marcus corrected him.
“Have it your way.” There was a pause as Simpson checked his watch. “You have — and of this we are indeed certain — ‘connections’; whether you are a subversive or not (and at this stage that is more or less irrelevant), you have links to those who are anti-state, rebellious, traitors. We know that you know people…” Another pause. “On that basis, and irrespective of what I myself might think, I am authorised to make you this offer — which, incidentally, is one of the other reasons Will is here, to act as witness — the offer of immunity in return for continuing to work for the Ministry, though in an entirely different capacity. Something more ‘proactive’, you might say. We will provide you with a new identity, a new home for you and your family, the opportunity for you to redeem yourself. All in exchange for a minor sacrifice or two elsewhere — painless, as far as you are concerned. That is your choice.”
Marcus recognised how difficult it was for the Weasel to make this offer; given a free hand, he might just as easily have pulled out a pistol and shot him there and then. He felt the rope on his wrists; his fingers caressed the back of the chair as if to remind himself what feeling things was like.
Simpson was staring hard at him as if unprepared to release his gaze until he had his answer. Marcus told himself that he would never forget the Weasel’s face.
Then he gave his answer.
Behind him the door to room 1.51 opened.