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written.’
    Watching Chubb, I was reminded of a completely unnerving séance I once attended in Pimlico where an oldWelsh woman suddenly began talking like a posh young man. That had been a striking mutation, and this performance now taking place on the tartan banks of the Highland Stream was more than its equal. Christopher Chubb was still sitting there in his oversized clothes with his large spotted hands, but the voice was from quite another place and body. As would happen often in the future, all those disturbing Malaysian locutions were suddenly leached away. Witnessing the depth and detail of the character, I wondered if this was not the mother he seemed to loathe so much.
    ‘I am no judge of poetry myself,’ said the voice of Beatrice McCorkle, ’but a friend who I showed it to thinks it is very good and told me it should be published. On his advice I am sending you the poems for an opinion.
    ‘It would be a kindness if you would let me know whether you think there is anything in them. I am not a literary person myself and I do not feel I understand what he wrote, but I feel that I ought to do something about them. My brother Bob kept himself very much to himself and lived on his own of late years and he never said anything about writing poetry. He was very ill in the months before his death last July and it may have affected his outlook.
    ‘I enclose a 2½d stamp for reply, and oblige. Yours sincerely. Beatrice McCorkle.’
    At that moment, devouring his sandwich, Chubb appeared monstrous—malicious, anti-Semitic, so grotesque and self-deceiving in his love of ‘truth and beauty’ I felt the Wode-Douglass temper rising like steam behind my eyes and I do believe I would’ve said something very sharp indeed had I not been interrupted by the Sikh doorman who’d met us on the traumatic night of our arrival.
    Your friend, he said. Mr Slater. He is very sick. You must go to him.

7
    Slater was waiting at his door. His face was green. From the gloomy room behind him there came the unpleasant aroma of a poorly ventilated lavatory.
    I’m so sorry, he said as he accepted my last Enterovioform. I am a selfish beast, I know it.
    Still standing in the open doorway, he gulped down the pill without aid of water. I rather hope it’s not amoebic dysentery, he said. I did have that once. Lost two stone in a week. You really should get to a doctor if you’re able, although they’ll charge a bloody fortune if you’re English. The Chinese chaps are better.
    He retreated into the room, which rather incredibly showed the remnants of two breakfasts. He followed my eyes.
    Yes, yes, he said, as he threw a napkin over the tray. I know, I know.
    You had a visitor, I asked incredulously.
    I’m a wretch, dear girl, I know I am. I thought a little massage might make me better.
    Breakfast with a masseur?
I have a visitor myself, I said.
    This perked him up a little—though in retying his dressing gown he revealed a great deal more of his legs than I wished to see. You devil, he said.
    No. It is Christopher Chubb.
    Chubb? No!
    He is downstairs still.
    Slater sat heavily on the bed. Now listen to me, little Micks, he said. You tell him to go.
    I’ll do no such thing.
    This is not a nice man.
    But rather interesting nonetheless.
    Oh he’ll be bloody interesting all right, he said, grunting with effort as he reached for the telephone. Call the bloody desk. They’ll get that big Sikh fellow on the door to see him off.
    I took the phone from him and returned it to its cradle. He’s my guest, I said.
    Your guest is barking bloody mad. What’s he selling?
    He isn’t selling anything. When you called he was telling me about the McCorkle Hoax.
    Jesus, Sarah, you’re the editor of an internationally respected poetry journal. You don’t even want to
touch
a thing like this. Did he show you poetry?
    No.
    Are you sure?
    Of course I’m sure.
    Well, you stay away from Chubb. I should never have drawn your attention to the leech. Has he