conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a book about Maskell, Untouchable, Victor with the genre: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, Thrillers & Suspense?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this book could be 'The Untouchable'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first five paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Untouchable
  After our first night together he moved in with me straight away—I still had the top-floor flat at the Institute then—and immediately set about reordering my domestic life. He was a tireless tidier-up, which suited me, for I am something of an obsessive myself, in that way (queers seem to come in only two varieties, the sloven, like Boy, or the monk, like me). He was quite uneducated, and of course, as was my way, I could not resist trying to introduce him to Culture. The poor boy really did work at it, much more diligently than Danny ever had, but still got nowhere, and was laughed at for his pains by my friends and colleagues. He minded this terribly, and smashed a cut-glass decanter one day in tearful rage after Nick had amused himself throughout a luncheon at the flat by imitating Patrick's Belfast accent and addressing cod questions to him on the subject of seventeenth-century painting, about which, I should point out, Nick knew somewhat less than Patrick did.
  Patrick had a great love of good clothes, and frequented my tailor with enthusiasm and a blithe disregard for the state of my account. But I could not resist indulging him, and besides, he was achingly desirable in a well-cut suit. There were many places to which I could not bring him, of course, for no matter how presentable he might look, he had only to open his mouth to reveal what he was. This was a recurring cause of friction between us, though his resentment was much alleviated when I took the risk and allowed him to accompany me to the Palace on the day my knighthood was conferred. Mrs. W. even had a word for him, and you can imagine the effect. (I often wonder, by the way, if Mrs. W. is aware of her iconic status among the queer fraternity. Certainly her mother in her day revelled in the role of the queers' goddess, and was fond of making jokes about being the one real royal among a palace full of queens. Mrs. W.'s humour, however, is less broad, though she does like to tease, in her straight-faced way. Dear me, I miss her, too.)
  The staff at the Institute accepted Patrick's presence in my life without remark. Of course, we were exquisitely discreet, at least during the hours when the galleries were open to the public. Patrick loved to throw parties, a few of which did become worryingly rowdy, for his friends tended to be on the rough side. The following morning, though, by the time my hangover and I had struggled up, the flat would be set completely to rights, the stragglers ejected, the cigarette stubs and the empty beer bottles cleared away, the carpets swept, the atmosphere as cool and calm as the bluish interior of Seneca's bedroom in the Poussin above my desk, which had not, after all, been stolen by one of the guests, or smashed in a romp, as I in my drunken nightmares had envisioned it would be.
  Vivienne never came to the flat. I met her in Harrods one day when I was with Patrick, and after I had made the mumbled introductions we stood talking for a minute, and I was the only one who was embarrassed. Nick thought Patrick a joke. I had hoped he would be jealous—Nick, I mean. Yes, pathetic, I know. Patrick on the other hand took a great shine to Nick, and had an irritating way when he came to visit of following him about, like a large, friendly and not very bright dog. It did not seem to matter how badly Nick behaved, Patrick always forgave him. Nick was advancing into middle age at a stately, seigneurial pace. He had put on flesh, but what would have been a coarsening in others was in him the assumption of a lordly mantle. He was no longer the downy, fascinatingly demonic beauty he had been in his twenties; let us be honest, he looked like a typical High Tory grandee, portly, pinstriped, with that marvellous, all-over pale-gold sheen that the very rich and powerful acquire with the years, I do not know how. That youthful pomposity, which I used to find both comic and endearing, had, like his physical self, grown steadily heavier, squashing the last traces of a sense of humour that anyway had never been one of his stronger qualities. Where once he asserted, with the enthusiasm and certainty of youth, now he pontificated, fastening on to one with the fixed, menacing stare of the bully, daring one to contradict him. He had progressed through the years, a one-man caravan, accumulating the precious goods of life, money, power, renown, a wife and children—two big bright girls, one the image of their mother, the other of her Aunt Lydia—and now wherever he appeared he carried the weight of these riches with him, like an Eastern potentate padding along in front of his retinue of veiled women and burdened slaves. Yet I still loved him, helplessly, hopelessly, ashamed of myself, laughing at myself, a prim, middle-aged scholar pining after this overfed, overconfident, pompous pillar of the Establishment. How deluded I was. Love, I have always found, is most intense when its object is unworthy of it.
  At the end of one of those drunken, revelrous parties at the flat I confessed everything to Patrick about my other secret life. He laughed. This was not the response I had expected. He said he had not had such a good laugh since the day his commanding officer in France was shot in the backside by a German machine-gunner. He had known that I had been something significant in the shadowy world of the Department, but that I had also been working for Moscow he thought a grand joke. He knew what it was to live clandestinely, of course. He wanted all the details; he was greatly excited, and was particularly ardent in bed afterwards. I should not have told him all those things. I got carried away. I even named names, Boy, Alastair, Leo Rothenstein. It was foolish and boastful of me, but oh, I did enjoy myself, just letting it all spill out.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: We shook hands awkwardly, the three of us. I thought of giving Boy a kiss, but could not bring myself to do it, with the Dour Scot looking on.
  Before I could respond—how would I have responded?— MacLeish beside me suddenly stirred himself and fixed a hand urgently on my arm.
  He stood a moment, nodding, those crazed Presbyterian eyes fixed on mine, then he turned and lurched up the gangplank. Finding Boy blocking his way, he gave him a hard push in the back and said something sharply which I did not catch. In my last sight of them they were standing side by side at the metal rail, and all I could see were their heads and shoulders; they were looking down at me, like a pair of Politburo members viewing the May Day parade, MacLeish expressionless, and Boy slowly, wistfully waving.
  I found a taxi and went home. Sleep was impossible. Patrick was in Ireland, on his yearly visit to see his aged mother. I was glad; I could not have faced the prospect of trying to account for my overnight absence—he always knew when I was lying, which must make him unique in my life. How he would have enjoyed it all, though; later, when he heard what I had been up to, he laughed and laughed. Never took me really seriously, did Patrick. I drank a cup of black coffee, but it gave me palpitations, and then I downed a beaker of brandy, and that made the palpitations worse. I stood at the window in the living room and watched the summer dawn come up bloodily over the rooftops of Bloomsbury. The birds had woken, and were making a frightful racket. I had a fluttery, hollow sensation, that was not just the effect of the caffeine; it was the same feeling that I used to have when I was still with Vivienne and would come home in the small hours after a night of trawling through the public lavatories. In every wrongdoer there lurks the desire to be caught.
  At nine I called the number Boy had given me for Danny Perkins and arranged to meet him in Poland Street. I slipped out of the house, feeling watched. Lemon-sharp sunlight, the smoky summer smell of London. I had not shaved. I felt like one of Querell's surreptitious villains.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Reverse the sentences.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: I felt like one of Querell's surreptitious villains.. I had not shaved. Lemon-sharp sunlight, the smoky summer smell of London. I slipped out of the house, feeling watched.
  At nine I called the number Boy had given me for Danny Perkins and arranged to meet him in Poland Street. In every wrongdoer there lurks the desire to be caught. I had a fluttery, hollow sensation, that was not just the effect of the caffeine; it was the same feeling that I used to have when I was still with Vivienne and would come home in the small hours after a night of trawling through the public lavatories. The birds had woken, and were making a frightful racket. I stood at the window in the living room and watched the summer dawn come up bloodily over the rooftops of Bloomsbury. I drank a cup of black coffee, but it gave me palpitations, and then I downed a beaker of brandy, and that made the palpitations worse. Never took me really seriously, did Patrick. How he would have enjoyed it all, though; later, when he heard what I had been up to, he laughed and laughed. I was glad; I could not have faced the prospect of trying to account for my overnight absence—he always knew when I was lying, which must make him unique in my life. Patrick was in Ireland, on his yearly visit to see his aged mother. Sleep was impossible.
  I found a taxi and went home. In my last sight of them they were standing side by side at the metal rail, and all I could see were their heads and shoulders; they were looking down at me, like a pair of Politburo members viewing the May Day parade, MacLeish expressionless, and Boy slowly, wistfully waving. Finding Boy blocking his way, he gave him a hard push in the back and said something sharply which I did not catch.
  He stood a moment, nodding, those crazed Presbyterian eyes fixed on mine, then he turned and lurched up the gangplank.
  Before I could respond—how would I have responded?— MacLeish beside me suddenly stirred himself and fixed a hand urgently on my arm. I thought of giving Boy a kiss, but could not bring myself to do it, with the Dour Scot looking on.We shook hands awkwardly, the three of us
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: He nodded, not surprised at all; that bit of laurel was still stuck to his brow. And to think I once thought him a god. He stepped back and lifted his arm in a curious, grave salute that seemed less a farewell than a sort of sardonic blessing. I walked away rapidly down the wet street, through sunlight and fleet shadow, swinging my umbrella, the string bag dangling at my side. At every other step the bag and its burden banged against my shin; I did not mind.
  What a noble sky, this evening, pale blue to cobalt to rich purple, and the great bergs of cloud, colour of dirty ice, with soft copper edgings, progressing from west to east, distant, stately, soundless. It is the kind of sky that Poussin loved to set above his lofty dramas of death and love and loss. There are any number of clear patches; I am waiting for a bird-shaped one.
  It is the sixteenth century. Princes and bishops send armies careening across Europe and order assassins into the bedchambers of their enemies. And in a remote corner of Poland, a modest canon is practicing medicine and studying the heavens, preparing a theory that will shatter the medieval view of the universe.
  On an unnamed island, a dayboat runs aground, forcing its group of shaken travelers to wade ashore. There they encounter a reclusive art historian and his assistant. But is the meeting truly an accident? If so, why does one of the castaways appear to know the reclusive scholar— and why is the latter so afraid of him?
  John Banville re-creates the life of Johannes Kepler and his incredible drive to chart the orbits of the planets and the geometry of the universe. Wars, witchcraft, and disease rage throughout Europe, and for this court mathematician, astronomy is a quest for some form of divine order.