“What do you say now it’s your turn, Wilf?”

“Turn?”

“This game. You know. ‘Yap yap’.”

“Oh that! I don’t say anything.”

“I don’t get it, Wilf.”

“All will be revealed in time.”

“That paper, Wilf—”

“You don’t get that either. Now don’t take on so, Rick old friend. My chum the manager’s nephew and the new young fat woman will throw you out. I mean you don’t get this one. But if you’re a good, shall we call it, fellow, you’ll get a nice piece of paper signed and sealed—”

“Wilf, sir, I don’t know how to—”

“—when to and where to. However. There are necessary preliminaries.”

“Anything! I got less than two years left, Wilf. You just don’t know—”

“That bad?”

“Anything. Yes, sir.”

“Well, as we agreed, I have to know the whole set-up between you and you-know-who.”

“Mr Halliday?”

I bowed my head solemnly. Rick scratched his nose and looked puzzled. He was at ease though. Happy.

“It’s simple enough. He staked me, you see. Seven years so I could devote myself to—”

“How long does he get Mary Lou for?”

“Mary Lou has ceased to mean anything to me, sir.”

“You don’t even get the occasional use?”

There was a long pause. I broke it, helpfully.

“A hard taskmaster, Mr Halliday. If you haven’t brought me to heel in seven years and achieved my authorized biography—incomplete, of course, as I am still to some extent on stream—there’ll be wailing and gnashing of all those lovely teeth.”

“He ceases to support the research. But listen, sir. I’m not helpless. I can go other places—”

“Don’t be wet. There is but one of them. I thought at first, oh years and years ago, I thought it was like you might say Guggenheim or Fulbright but not so. She wouldn’t have gone just for the money, Rick, and I wouldn’t be all screwed up, strung up and you strung up. You see? It’s like trying to serve me and him or it, it’s like serving God and Mammon. Guess which is which.”

“You promised that paper or one like it! You’ll not go back on your word, sir!”

“I won’t. But you didn’t give me time to lay down conditions, did you?”

“I can’t remember. This is awful.”

“I’m not giving you this paper yet and I’m not giving it to you here. You have to do certain things.”

“Anything—”

“I am going to allow you to write the official, the authorized biography of Wilfred Barclay, you lucky, lucky man. I shall give you relevant information. I shall appoint you custodian of all material concerning me.”

“I swear—”

“I shall oversee the biography word by word.”

“Surely, surely!”

“We shall meet at a time and place decided by me.”

Then he deflated all over again.

“But, sir—Wilf—your health—”

“You mean I might, like, drop dead?”

“No, sir, but your memory it isn’t all it might be. Writers are absent-minded, you know that, Wilf.”

“Not so absent-minded I’d put all my chips on one number the way you did. You see, I hold you in my hot hands. I permit you. Just that. You get a permit. I get a commit. Just that.”