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Charles Maxwell-House in ‘Publish … if you can’

Sir Charles Maxwell-House

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Ah, dear Readers! It is good to be back with you, nestled snugly in the confines of my literary column. The winter months were a strangely traumatic time for me and there were, I freely admit, a number of curious ‘incidents’ in the run-up to the yuletide. One of these I related to you, [Please see PP7 and the disastrous Toilet Duck incident – Ed] and a few others I prudently refrained from mentioning. [Disorderly behaviour in a library; violently drunk whilst in possession of a walking stick; and flagrant pipe-smoking in the Almeida and National theatres, respectively – Ed.]

Yes, indeed, a certain madness seemed to -descend upon me during the latter months of 2007, which my good doctor ascribed to fatigue and stress occasioned by the intensity of my literary investigations. Unfortunately, as a result, my concerned family insisted I accompany my nephew, Tarquin Rosias Maxwell-House II, and his shrieking brood on an appalling holiday to the Maldives, which all claimed would be beneficial to my ‘frazzled’ nerves. Even dear Mrs B seemed keen that I should get away and rest for a few weeks whilst she looked after the house. (Although I regret to inform regular readers that my stock of vintage sherry had significantly reduced and the good lady was possessed of a suspicious rosiness of the cheek on my return.)

I was intensely reluctant to go, but finally agreed when it struck me that I could work on a fascinating booklet (aiming for summer publication) regarding mysterious Sanskrit texts that are to be found on several of the islands. However, to my very great mortification, when we arrived at the ghastly tourist trap that Tarquin and co had selected in which to enjoy themselves, I discovered that they had employed a full-time carer to ensure that I never strayed from the confines of the resort without supervision and under no circumstances was I to exert myself in any way: all ‘for my own good’. Oh horror of horrors! I was trapped and ne’er so cruelly!

In protest and self-preservation, I withdrew further and further into myself, reluctant to even share my mealtimes with Tarquin, Salome (his buxom, nay, almost fat, wife) and his five irritating offspring. Nina (my minder, a very pleasant first-year tourism student from Loughborough) was kind enough to find some binoculars for me in the hotel’s lost property through which I studied the island’s reputedly abundant birdlife from my balcony. This, however, turned out to be unfulfilling to my eager mind – I am utterly convinced that I espied a Long-Toed Stint on one occasion, but predominantly it was sunburnt English people, seagulls and the Common Coot that filled the magnifying spheres.

Still thwarted in my attempts to find intelligent activity for my restless mind as my ‘evil’ family frolicked and consumed huge amounts of complimentary buffet food by the pool, I watched from an elevated position au balcon, my mind racing with possibilities of escape and revenge. However, in the end, I couldn’t come up with anything, so I submitted to Nina’s suggestion of a four-hour afternoon nap on the beach every day. Once young Nina had arranged my towel, parasol and made sure a whisky on ice was in reach (with instructions to the bartender to ‘fill her up’ as and when), I was left in peace. To the casual observer I seemed fast asleep, but let me assure you that my mind was whirring with ideas.

I do believe it was the still, sultry air blowing in from the Indian Ocean that set my mind racing back through time to places and memories I had not thought of for an age. Each afternoon as my lids drooped, I was transported to a different time in my life with a preternatural vividness. I thought back to my early childhood in Delhi, before my father’s heart condition sent him back to Kensington a disappointed man to a paper-shuffling job at the Foreign Office; our school holidays spent in the extraordinary Gothic splendour of the Maxwell-House seat at Hound Hall; my National Service being bullied in a bog somewhere in the middle of nowhere; my glorious renaissance as an English student at Oxford; my own years at the Foreign Office (including some very important top secret work in Outer Mongolia, the finer points of which I am not at liberty to disclose); and, of course, my current literary investigations and resultant long list of crucial discoveries.

I realised that my life was completely fascinating and such an existence had never been documented before! I realised, too, as I lay back in the stinking child-infested resort, that Fate had played her part in my presence here and my subsequent revelation most exquisitely. Since my return, then, I have done little but strive to set down my life story in full. (I have barely even been to the club and Major Chomondley-Chaser-Hound is quite distraught, so I am told.) In anticipation of my autobiography’s status as an international bestseller, I have, however, managed to find some little time to approach several reputable publishing houses. But their response has been most dumbfounding.

One respected publisher (that will remain nameless) eagerly offered me a contract on the strength of my ‘Early Years’ chapters with a decent advance and other benefits. Delighted, I was just about to pop a bottle of vintage Dom P with an equally delighted Mrs B, when I received a call from my most trusted confidante in all legal matters, Dr Montague Blifil. Montague, a learned man, well versed in all areas of arts and sciences, as well as being an esteemed (and ridiculously expensive) barrister, informed me that there was a serious problem. He had been about to OK the document when a corner of it had accidentally slid under the lens of a powerful microscope (through which he was about to examine an interesting fungus he had but recently removed from the underside of his cat). In that instant, some excessively small print was dramatically revealed to him, which stated, in a more formal language than I care to recreate, the following: everything I had written or ever would write was now their property, as was the writing of all my relatives alive, dead or unborn.

But, of course! They wished to get their greasy paws on the memoirs of my famous myopic bibliophile great-grandfather, Archibald Maxwell-House, which the family had consistently refused to release due to their unsettling (and possibly illegal) contents. (I suspected they may also have discovered that my great-nephew Tarquin III had recently received an ‘Excellent’ tiger badge for his creative writing task at primary school a few weeks before – the divills!) I ripped up the contract and tried other respected firms (also to remain nameless). One told me they would publish if I agreed to meet them halfway on the costs by contributing twenty thousand pounds; yet another informed me they loved my work, and furthermore if I gave them two thousand pounds, every time someone ordered my book online a computer in Reading would print it off and send it to them – preposterous! The remainder all sent ‘standard’ rejections.

Dear readers, how is a man of letters to get published in these dark and sinister days? I will continue in my efforts and feel sure that they will prove successful, especially when I have completed my chapters retelling my glorious years at Oxford – that will be most fascinating for everybody. And, of course, I almost forgot to tell you the title of my life story. I can only imagine you will approve: My Portals of Discovery by Charles Maxwell-House.*

 

* I’m sure my learned readers are well aware of the title’s derivation from the pen of Joyce: ‘A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.’ Works, doesn’t it? – CM-H

[Or how’s about: ‘Just as there is nothing between the admirable omelette and the intolerable, so with autobiography’ – Hillaire Belloc, A Conversation with a Cat –  Ed]