Remington, Underwood & Royal
Paul Leighland MacLaine

 

remington, underwood & royal

a short story from the collection:
the tales of socrates dancing
by
paul leighland maclaine


PLEASED TO MEET YOU.
I HOPE YOU GUESS MY NAME?
'SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL' – ROLLING STONES

‘Honey?’
The front door on the two-story terrace slammed - much too hard. Will had kicked it shut with a backward thrust of his foot. He paused for Nicole’s reprimand.
‘I never meant for the door to slam, it was the fault of that damn southerly blowing outside,’ he practiced quietly.
The door-latch still hadn’t caught so the wind blew the door ajar, then sucked it closed. The booming reverberated through the small entrance hall...
Will almost dropped the typewriter.
‘Shit! One day that little fucker’s going to break.’
and shook a loose pane of glass in one of the panels next to the door. He gave the door a quick kick, and the latch clicked home.
‘You here, Honey?’
  
Will’s footsteps boomed down the hall, his black soled shoes pressing close to the floor. The added weight and water on them created a squeaking sound as he walked. The muscles in his arms (long ago retired from lack of use) strained against the bulk of the typewriter.
‘Nicole?’
  
The screen on the rear door screamed in pain from lack of oil. A gust of wind blew into the house, lifting all the weekend reading off the kitchen table and depositing pages of newsprint onto the polished wood floor. Will bellowed at the backyard.
‘H E L L O, H O N E Y.’
  
The voice calling for his girlfriend is that of William James Kingsway, a man who has transformed painfully loud bellowing, mainly at his girlfriend, Nicole, into an art form. Will, a flexible sort of guy (screaming during the day or night with equal ease) is a nightmare next-door neighbour, and could quite possibly be audible if buried under wet cement with his mouth stuffed with candy.
‘HONEY, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE WHERE ARE YOU? GOT SOMETHING HERE TO SHOW YOU.’
That’s typical of people like Will. He’s not like you or I. He’s a great writer. Well, at least that's what Will believes, and he truly does believe it will happen because if there’s one thing Will is, it’s stubborn.
‘NICOLE!’
  
The singular childhood activity Will was good at was writing, creating his own fairy stories with titles like ‘The French Fox and Princess of the Tower’.
As an adult, Will’s perspective on life, his stories, and what it had to offer, changed. He wanted more than to entertain himself, and pass away lonely hours. Will desired the added fortunes that accompanied a best seller. The fame and riches beyond even his wildest expectations. He envisaged dinner party exchanges along the lines of, ‘Have you read any Kingsway?’
‘Of course. I have all his books at home.’
‘HONEYKINS?’
He craved to be one of those, now all too common, household words. What Will wanted, more than anything else in this world, was to create a name for himself.
  
‘Will-he-ever-write-anything Kingsway’, as he was labeled by clever friends, has just purchased the very machine to revitalize his flagging literary career – a 1962 model, Royal portable typewriter. Black as a Welsh coal miner’s fingernails with matching black base, and a wood slipover cover. Its seductive, enamel paint work, shiny buttons, and levers, instantly captured Will's limited attention as he passed the window of an antique store.
This ‘beast’ of a writing machine looked every bit as good as it had at its birth some thirty years prior.
A beautiful, cumbersome, weighty, non-electrical, paper chewing, tree eating, Royal typewriter.
Will especially enjoyed the weight of the Royal. He liked all the junk he purchased to have a bit of fat. The man at the antique shop had shown him two other second-hand typewriters, but Will had chosen the fattest.
‘The heavier the better,’ he had cried, and they had both laughed. It indicated to him that he had received his money's worth. The acquisition of the Royal, Will hoped, would end his seemingly never-ending bout of ‘writer’s block’.
  
He carried it up the stairs, yelled at the bedroom, and the bathroom - neither bothered to answer...
‘You here ? I’m home...I’m horny...I’m with another woman...we’re going into the bedroom.’
they’d heard it all before.
‘Writer’s block’ was a thundercloud over Will’s parade and, for almost six months, he has been slowly driving people bat-shit as a consequence. Nicole became pissed with his constant bitching about this mental barrier.
She knew the scientific term for his ailment – laziness.
‘Will, you're quite simply bone idle,’ she’d say.
  
Nicole, a loving, sweet girl, brown in hair, grey in eye, and, add to that (post-moving in with Will) the patience of a saint, the hide of a water buffalo, the punch of Tyson, and the come-backs of a seasoned stand-up comic disposing of a drunken heckler.
Nicole understood quite well that art had its price, but she had been under the impression that it was the artist required to pay the dues.
  
Satisfied he was alone, Will set his newly acquired purchase on the desk in his den, and arranged all the surrounding items to make it look as if it had been there for a lot longer than three minutes. He slotted a clean piece of A4 bond under the black roller, and wound the sheet through the Royal's paper feeding mechanism. The individual clicks from the ratchet when he turned the roller introduced a huge smile across Will’s thin lipped mouth.
He felt inspiration beckon immediate.
  
The wind outside moaned, whipping leaves into tight circles.
‘Are you ready to guess?’ said the whisper in the trees.
Will turned to see who had spoken.
He was alone.
He raised the paper guide, placed the bond under, and set the bar down onto the face of the blank sheet. Will started to hum ‘Feelings’.
He stopped when he realised that he hated ‘Feelings’, and continued winding the paper through the roller. He waved the return lever to commence the beginning of the page.
But the lever stuck.
He jiggled the return up and down, side to side.
Nothing. The lever held firm.
‘A shitful of crap.’
He tried once more.
Again nothing.
He lifted the Royal, and turned it over. The underside revealed no nifty release button, secret catch, or clutch mechanism. He flipped the Royal, returning the typewriter to its original position, and cursed under his breath.
‘Bloody thing needs a good service.’
  
That thought firmly entrenched, Will paced around the house in search of the few tools he possessed.
‘Tools? Where are the God damned tools? Bloody Nicole hides everything,’ he muttered.
Most of Will ‘Mr Fucks-it’ Kingsway’s tools were hanging on the back lawn, rusting, after he had brought home what was now only a good children’s book title: ‘THE BICYCLE THAT HADN’T WORKED PROPERLY’.
Will had made that purchase six months ago to improve his concentration, believing that fresh air and exercise may have helped him through the block. When he failed to repair the gears, the bike was turfed, without ceremony, into the garage - destined never to see the light of day again. The tools with which he had attempted the repairs were left to suffer under the elements in the backyard. That was the way Will bumbled through life, and no one had ever been successful in changing him. Nicole had tried, and tried, and tried until her grey hair count became a brown hair search.
  
A quick round up revealed a total of one screwdriver and a small key-ring spanner.
‘Talk about the last of the Mohicans! Still, if man could survive the elements, kill his enemies, clothe himself and make a woman happy with nothing but a stone axe then these were all that I, Mr W. Fixit, will require to get a poxy typewriter back on its rubbery little feet.’
  
Will returned to the den to commence operation Royalfix. He raised the front of the typewriter to inspect it for possible routes of access: screws, bolts and the such. The jet black Royal was clean and free from dust, the keys in perfect order, though they did remind Will of a smiling set of teeth.
It even had a fresh black ribbon.
‘Will, old boy, you were born to shop.’
  
The house creaked. There was a storm on the stove, as Will would say. He lowered the Royal carefully, and stood back to ponder the doctor’s first incision. A toaster, pulled to pieces on the kitchen table, popped into his head, trying, he imagined, to scare him into hiring a pro. The image vanished quickly, replaced by an increased pounding in his chest.
He stared, open-mouthed, at the typewriter on the desk.
The loose pane of glass rattled in the front door. Small drops of rain splattered upon the its transparent cheeks.
A cold shudder swept down his thick body.
Will rocked gently back onto his heels. The room darkened. Water on the glass increased, drops of rain raced to the base of the window. Tiny beads of sweat formed on Will’s forehead and upper lip, and raced to his chin. There he was, the great writer, alone in the den, staring at his typewriter.
And what was now typed on the page.
PLEASED TO MEET YOU,
I HOPE YOU GUESS MY NAME?
Will closed his eyes.
The words remained written on the black curtain. He opened his eyes, and cocked his head so as to half see the door and still keep his eye on the Royal. He opened his mouth to yell; then slowly closed it again.
‘I see. Play bloody games with me will she?’
He reached for the piece of paper and tore it from the Royal’s toothy grip. The roller spoke; zzzzzzip, then was silent.
Will grabbed a fresh sheet and wound it through. He placed his left hand on the return lever, and paused.
He pressed the base of the Royal firmly against desktop, gritted his teeth and, with one almighty stroke, threw his weight across on the return lever like he was slapping someone’s face. A bolt of lightning lit the room enough to cast shadows. A thunderclap, directly overhead, shook the house. Pain coursed skyward through Will’s fingers and up into his arm. He screamed in agony, and shook his hand as if he could toss the pain from the tips of his fingers. Bright-red flecks of blood splattered across the desk.
‘NICOLE!’
Will raised the injured hand to his face. The nails from his first two fingers were torn off, and the third was held by a small piece of skin. Instinctively he placed them in his mouth. The soft tissue scraped against his teeth. White pain exploded inside his brain.
‘NICOLE!’
There was no reply. He turned back to the Royal to curse it. Written on the sheet he had placed in the typewriter not one minute earlier was a message.
PLEASED TO MEET YOU,
I HOPE YOU GUESS MY NAME?
Will stared, hypnotised by the words. A large drop of blood fell from his hand onto the carpet. A clap of thunder boomed in Will’s head and his attention once again shifting to the injured hand.
‘Shit.’
  
He cupped his good hand under the damaged one to catch the flow of blood, walked to the kitchen, found a towel, and wrapped it round his damaged fingers. Will grimaced as the rough material touched the soft delicate tissue of his nail bed. A tear ran from the corner of his eye.
He had always been a sook.

The doctor on duty at the local hospital removed the nail on the third finger, and then bound and dressed all three. Will explained that he had hit them with an axe while chopping up sticks for the fireplace. The doctor jotted Will’s story on the medical record.
Probably quicker and easier not to ask too many questions, thought Will.

Two hours later he was back, in his den, sitting in front of the Royal. The prescribed painkillers started to wear off, and his hand throbbed. The storm’s fury ebbed, reducing to a steady rain. Will stared at the message written on the page in the typewriter.
He leaned forward and touched the keys. They were cold and splattered with drops of blood.
He pressed one, D.
A letter D appeared on the page under the other typing.
Will glared at it for a few seconds and pressed another key. A.
The bony type finger on the Royal shot forward and left its imprint.
A.
He pressed three more letters in quick succession: V, I, D.
The Royal responded as before.
On the page, under the original message, was...
D A V I D.
Will waited, expecting something to happen.
Nothing did.
The two stared at each other.
Will wide-eyed: the royal toothy.
He gingerly touched the return lever and pushed. The carriage mechanism moved across the top with the ease of any well-oiled piece of equipment. The page rose up one space ready to begin a new line. Will looked in disbelief.
‘Why the fuck couldn't you have done that before?’
  
He settled back into his chair, and opened his mouth to chew a favourite piece of skin on his hand. His lips tickled on bandage. He noticed the blood had started to seep through the dressing, so he swapped hands for something to chew on while he attempted to sort things out in his mind. He lent forward and grabbed the top corner of the sheet of paper.
Zzzzzzip, the page came out, and Will replaced it.
  
He started to type one handed. The keyboard moved with the action of an electric and words flowed to the page with an ease that had never been Will’s. The rain pattered softly on the den window. The first page was completed in a matter of minutes. Will replaced that sheet.
  
When Nicole arrived home later that evening there were fifty pages piled on the desk.
‘Where on earth did you get that filthy old thing?’ as she caught sight of Will bent over the Royal.
Will turned and looked blankly into her eyes. His own were so bugged they threatened to fall out of their sockets. He shook his head, and raised his hand to his forehead. Nicole spotted the bandages – now soaked red with blood.
‘Jesus, Will, what happened to your hand?’
She knelt beside him, and held his bandaged hand.
‘Will, for Christ’s sake, answer me. What happened to your hand?’
‘Nothing...umm, I hurt it...earlier today, that's all.’
Will pulled his hand back, and tried to conceal it in his lap. He pointed to the large pile of typed pages on the desk.
‘Look. Can you believe this.’
Nicole leafed through the sheets of paper and smiled at him.
‘You’re writing again. That’s great, Honey. I’m so pleased for you.’
She lent over and hugged him. Something was wrong she could feel it.
‘Come on I’ll make you some dinner. You can tell me what it’s about...
and what happened to your hand.’
  
Nicole coaxed Will from the warm confines of the den and into the kitchen. He relaxed a little during dinner, and told her about the funny little shop where he had purchased the Royal. He also explained some of the plot of the story he was writing, but truth was Will knew little of the plot save what he had written so far. It just seemed to happen. The excuse for his hand was the same he had given the doctor at the hospital.
He said nothing about messages on the typewriter, or the problems he had experienced with the Royal in the beginning. He opted to put those things in a mental tray marked: THINGS BEST LEFT ALONE.

Will returned to the den and completed more of the novel. Again the Royal performed its magic and he finished three more lengthy chapters before he crawled, exhausted, up the stairs to bed. Before he left the den he had placed a fresh sheet of bond in the typewriter.

The following day Will was up well before Nicole stirred. He padded down the stairs, and paused in the doorway of the den. His heart raced in his chest. His hand throbbed in time with every beat. Will walked to the kitchen, filled a glass from the tap, and swallowed two of the painkillers. He returned to the den, and looked at the sheet of paper he had placed in the Royal the previous evening.
PLEASED TO MEET YOU
I HOPE YOU GUESS MY NAME?
Will sat in front of the Royal and tried to move the return lever.
It jammed.
He typed J O H N, and tried the return again.
It glided, just like before, to the starting position. Will took out the paper and replaced it.
Words flowed onto the page.
  
Tapping from the den eventually woke Nicole. She moaned at the interruption, rolled to the edge of the bed and looked at the clock.
6am.
‘Christ in his cradle. What’s he up to now? Hasn’t written for over six months, now he wants to do it all at once. The man’s crazy.’
She rolled onto her back, and lit a cigarette. The smoke wafted upward, and she searched for pictures as it neared the background of the ceiling.
  
The tapping from downstairs was incessant. The den had never witnessed this much creative action. Will was writing at a furious pace. The pages hardly needed to be in the Royal for more than a few minutes before being replaced. The painkillers had masked the pain in his hand so well, only blood on the keyboard made him realise he was typing two handed.
The tips of the dressings were soaked. Will stopped and went to the bathroom to change the bandage.
Get ready for the agony, Will thought.
  
He was lucky. The fresh blood from the morning had loosened the dried blood from the day before. The gauze came off the first two fingers with a little warm water, but the third tore across the top of the unprotected skin and he bit back a scream of pain. Will soaked his hand, applied the drying anti-bacterial powder, and re-wrapped his fingers.
  
He returned to the den and continued typing until Nicole entered with his breakfast on a tray. She knew better than to disturb Will when he worked, placing the tray on a table near his reading chair and exiting the room quietly.

The tray, untouched, was taken away at lunchtime.

Two weeks of this routine passed before Will emerged from the den with a giant ream of paper in his hand.
‘Cole ?’
‘I’m in the lounge.’
Will entered and dropped the manuscript onto the coffee table. It landed in front of her knees with a dull thud.
‘Here, read this and see what you think. I’m really going to make a name for myself.’
He turned and returned to the den.
The tapping resumed.
  
Nicole picked up the pile of paper, and turned to the first page. She didn’t move from the couch until the last page was devoured seven hours later.
She sat stunned for half an hour, and then only moved to flick through some of the pages to re-read something. She drained her coffee.
Dear, sweet Jesus. He is good. I thought he was capable...but he is good. Good: he’s great, she thought.
  
The tapping continued to come from the den until 12.30 that night. Will had not made an effort to talk or see Nicole during that time, and she had not wanted to disturb him.

Nicole woke early in the morning, the typing again penetrating the peace of her slumber. She had a cigarette, made some toast and coffee, and placed them on a tray.
The tapping stopped. She pushed the door open with her foot and entered. Will was slumped at the typewriter a fresh sheet of paper surrounded the barrel. Nicole placed the tray on the table, took one piece of toast and held it in her mouth.
She scribbled on the pad next to the Royal.
WILL, THAT WAS THE BEST BOOK I HAVE EVER READ.
I LOVE YOU VERY MUCH.
PLEASE LET ME RE-DRESS YOUR HAND.
ALL MY LOVE
NICOLE xxxxxoooo
Before she left Nicole listened to hear if he was breathing.
There was something scary about him. Something was wrong. Her ear was next to his face. She strained to hear.
‘Dear God, please let him be alive,’ she whispered.
He was.

Will woke a couple of hours later to find that he had received two messages during his nap. The one left by his love and the other one that faithfully greeted him on his return to the Royal.
PLEASED TO MEET YOU,
I HOPE YOU GUESS MY NAME?
Will typed, P H I L L I P.
Nothing happened. Nothing ever seemed to. He pulled at his earlobe and chose a new name for tomorrow, his father’s name.

Will typed for three weeks, before another large wad of paper dropped in front of Nicole.
‘Will, please slow down a little. I’m worried about you. You don’t seem to sleep much, you don’t eat regularly, we don’t do anything together anymore...’
He turned and left the room.
‘Fucking women. Never satisfied,’ she heard him utter.
Nicole sighed and picked up the manuscript from the table. Tapping resumed in the den.

This book too, was great. Nicole read it from cover to cover in one sitting. She had become lonely. As much as she wanted Will to write, she also wanted him to spend some time with her. It was worse than if he had taken up with another woman, she could have fought that. The wall between them was one that she might not be able to climb. How could she compete with a lover that was a typewriter? She began to hate the Royal.
‘I love you, Will.’
Nicole started to cry. It was a new sensation. Will had never done anything in all their time together to make her cry, a fact that made the tears sting all the more.

Will’s first novel was a best seller. He was successful. Money followed and fame ambled after them, careful not to overtake its brothers.
Will’s first book topped the best seller lists in five countries, and the second, close behind, made the top ten. The royalties and film offers poured into his, very pleased, and much wealthier, publisher. Will and Nicole’s lives had changed dramatically in only seven short months, from scraping by: to having a small fortune in the bank, and all that went with the literary world’s latest and greatest talent.
  
Invitations to parties littered the entrance hall with each post. Will attended none of them. Nicole saw him as she went to work. He would be in the den typing. And she would see him upon her return each evening. Still typing. Her fearful hunch had been correct. She couldn’t compete with a lover made of metal.

Months wandered past, and Will rarely left the den. He had taken to sleeping nights on the chair. The constant tapping, broken by momentary silences when he changed pages, drove Nicole mad. Sometimes, during the silence, she could hear him talking. He muttered people’s names, but Nicole couldn’t make out what they were. She didn’t want to get too close to him anymore. She was scared. He was worse than when he hadn't been able to write.
  
Twelve novels sat, piled high, on the coffee table. Nicole had not read any after the third had been dropped in front of her some months back. She knew that they were all brilliant. He might as well have been killed in a car accident. At least she could have come to terms with that kind of loss.
  
She sat alone in bed and wondered if he really hated her, or if she had done something to bring it upon herself. Whatever the motivation, Nicole came to the conclusion that Will no longer loved her. A machine had taken her place in his life. It had taken her man, her life...and her happiness. She shook at the thought, then sobbed silently into her pillow until sleep came.

She left the house the following morning to stay at a friend’s place...
and never returned to the terrace.

Will suffered little over the loss. Life wasn't the same without Nicole but, try as he may, he couldn’t stop the flow of words, phrases, sentences and chapters. The typing continued, and Will’s health deteriorated slowly. Dark circles developed under his eyes. He grew thin, opting for little or no food each day.
Damn Royal is taking over my body.
He slammed his fist into the desk. He had intended to smash it down upon the Royal, but something had held him back.
Christ I’m addicted. Addicted like an alcoholic or someone hooked on drugs.
  
There was only one difference, Will wasn’t addicted to the constant need to write stories, the money, or the fame. He needed to know the name. Each morning, night or any other time he looked at that blank page that sat in the Royal it asked him the same question.
PLEASED TO MEET YOU,
I HOPE YOU GUESS MY NAME?

Over the next two years Will searched the bookstores for fresh names. He purchased all the books that contained names read by expectant parents and tried them all, boys and girls, but it wasn’t a simple matter of guessing over and over again. Each time he tried a new name, he felt compelled to write more stories. It was like blackmail payments, or buying a ticket to be in the lottery.
  
Thick manuscripts flooded not only the coffee table, but also now the front room. They were stacked up the walls and falling out into the hall. Hundreds upon hundreds of pages – more than any man had ever written before.

Will continued to write and, over the short period of two years, covered most of the floor throughout the house. In some rooms the manuscripts were stacked up to six feet high. Will could, long ago, have never written another word again and still supported umpteen future generations of his family in the finest luxury, but his quest to find the name continued.
Royalty cheques were now in six figure sums and film offers in the millions, but Will had no time to spend any of it. He didn’t realise, but he had finally achieved the goal he had yearned for all his life. People get so close to their goals and yet fail to see their accomplishments.
Will had achieved his.
It sat grinning on the desk in his den.
The thing that he had craved, scraped, cried, and lived for.
Making a name for himself.




 

 

Copyright © 1990 Paul Leighland MacLaine
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"