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Rick Gekoski is a writer, rare-book deadler and academic. He has written several widely praise non-fiction books including Staying Up, Tolken’s Gown, Outside of a Dog and Lost, Stolen or Shredded. His debut novel Darke was published in 2017 when Gekoski was 72 years old and was shortlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award.
First published in Great Britain, the USA and Canada in 2018
by Canongate Books Ltd,
14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
Distributed in the USA by Publishers Group West and in Canada by Publishers Group Canada
This digital edition first published in 2018 by Canongate Books
Copyright © Rick Gekoski, 2018
This book is a work of fiction. While it draws inspiration from real people, places and events, the author’s interpretation of character and story have been fictionalised. Some details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.
Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologises for any errors or omissions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.
The moral right of the author has been asserted
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78689 343 7
eISBN 978 1 78689 340 6
Typeset in Bembo by Palimpsest Book Production Ltd, Falkirk, Stirlingshire
For my sister Ruthie, with love.
Contents
‘The reason why we find ourselves in a position of impotency is not because our only powerful potential enemy has sent men to invade our shores . . . but rather because of the traitorous actions of those who have been treated so well by this Nation . . . the bright young men who are born with silver spoons in their mouths are the ones who have been most traitorous. . . .
‘I have here in my hand a list of 205 . . . names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.’
– Senator Joseph McCarthy, Wheeling, West Virginia, 9 February 1950
1
Even when her morning started at a reasonable hour her first waking utterance was a groan, followed by a shuddering series of stretches and a string of torporous obscenities. The onset of day surprised her; she resented the imperative to consciousness, as if she had a right to sleep forever, like the dead. Addie turned off the alarm – it was five in the goddamn morning, for Christ’s sake – rolled over and covered her eyes with a pillow.
Ben had been up in the night, again. It was impossible to get a full night’s sleep, too much to think about, unwelcome plans to be made, worries that could not be resolved. Rather than counting beasts jumping over fences, he preferred to mix himself a double martini. No, not a martini, why bother? In company he would carefully combine one part of vermouth with five of Gordon’s gin, agitate in a cocktail shaker, pour over crushed ice. But on his own he dispensed with the vermouth.
He’d been trying to write, sitting at the kitchen table. Not on the typewriter, which made an awful clacking sound, curiously exacerbated in the night-time silence, but longhand on his yellow legal pads, appropriated by the half-dozen from his office at the Department of Justice. To each according to his needs? Another Communist lurking at the heart of government! One of 205 reds! Or was it now 57? The number didn’t matter, it was as unimportant as the number of metastasising cells in a tumour that threatened to annihilate the lives of so many, of his friends, of himself and his family.
And about this prospect he had nothing to say, nothing to write. It was unimaginable, beyond any language other than brute obscenity. Writing was in his past. It was absurd to try. He was a father of young children, had a constantly demanding job, would have been exhausted even without the additional stress, for these last few years, of constantly looking over his shoulder, being distrusted and investigated. His best friend from law school lost his job in the State Department last year, while other friends and acquaintances, presumed guilty by association, had resigned their positions in university life, in publishing and the film industry.
He had survived, just. Was still employed, could feed his wife and children. But he was exhausted, demoralised and morally compromised. He’d had enough, and twenty-five bucks for an occasional short story was hardly likely to sustain them all.
He’d wanted to be a writer, had always wanted to be one. Had written an 800-page roman-à-clef entitled Nature’s Priest in his late twenties, which prospective publishers praised in one paragraph and rejected firmly in the next. Rightly. The experience taught him a lot: what to leave out, how to separate, to refine, to focus. To make less into more, like Hemingway. He’d honed concentration by composing short stories and had one accepted – what a moment! – by Story magazine in 1946. He sent a copy to his parents with a proud inscription, but neither gave the slightest sign of having read it. It was just as well; the portrait of the marriage at the heart of it was depressing and familiar. Addie read it and handed it back with a single sentence. ‘Fair enough,’ as if she didn’t hold it against him. Or perhaps she did.
He finished his gin with a final gulp, put the glass in the sink and went back to the bedroom to fall briefly asleep before the other alarm rang. Addie was snoring unobjectionably, a tremolo that he found oddly attractive, like some sort of wind instrument, reedy and wistful.
‘Rise,’ he whispered. ‘Make no attempt to shine. I’ll make the coffee, get things going.’
He
