The Last Word (10 page)

It was the middle of the afternoon when Harry crossed the yard to Mamoon’s room to fetch the sequestered old man, who was still bent over his stick. After the incident on the tennis court, Mamoon’s doctor had diagnosed a herniated disc rather than a pulled muscle, and advised Mamoon to have an operation, not that he could guarantee that it would work at the old man’s age. While Mamoon discussed his dilemma at length, he gobbled handfuls of painkillers and, according to Liana, had become more ornery and truculent than usual over what he saw as a future of helplessness and decrepitude.

‘Another morning of nothing,’ he said as Harry brought him into the kitchen and led him to his chair. Julia bustled over with his favourite sparkling water without ice.

Alice went to him, sat down, took his hand, and looked into his eyes. ‘Thank you for having me here,’ she said. ‘What a lovely place.’

‘My dear, we’ve been waiting for you,’ he said. ‘Tell me, how is the world of fashion?’

‘It’s in not bad shape, thank you.’

‘Could you explain what the point of it is?’

‘Sorry?’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘It’s business. We buy and sell and stop people getting cold. What is
not
the point of it?’

‘Don’t think news of you hasn’t reached me already,’ said Mamoon, looking her over. ‘Liana here told me you compared me to a tailor.’

‘Which tailor?’

A vein, which ran from Mamoon’s hairline to his brow, was throbbing. ‘A tailor or cobbler, or some such handyman. Am I mistaken, Liana?’

Alice glanced at Liana, who was watching them, holding her breath. As Liana had no idea what to say, Alice said, ‘Have you ever seen an Alexander McQueen jacket?’

‘Of course not. What are you talking about? Has this queen read my work? Can he read without moving his lips?’

Alice said, ‘Perhaps I did mention, to help me locate you, that you are a maestro like the maestro Valentino, beloved of many, including Liana.’

‘You located me, did you? You
did
compare us.’

‘It is an honour, perhaps.’

‘In what possible way could that be an honour?’

‘Well, it is, to me.’

Mamoon was beginning to look irritable. He said, ‘We are talking about appearance only with these people.’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Sorry?’

Alice said, ‘It’s more than that. We are discussing how something should be made. How it looks. How it is. An attitude.’

‘An attitude. How do you mean?’

She said, ‘A kiss . . .’

‘Speak up. I’m almost deaf.’

‘A kiss, a curse, a cup, a shoe, a hem, a cardigan, a watch, a joke, an act of politeness – and of course a sentence, a paragraph, a page . . . Don’t all have to have style, grace, flair – and wit?’

‘Of course.’

‘Art isn’t only in a book?’

Harry whispered, ‘Flaubert wrote, “Style is life.”’

Mamoon said, ‘A more universal beauty might be something to strive for.’

‘Good,’ Alice said, sighing. ‘Yes.’

‘Good. Thank God, good,’ said Liana. She held up the wine. ‘This is the Guigal 2009. Or would you prefer the Chablis?’

‘Quiet please, Liana.’

‘Sorry, Mamoon?’

‘Unlike you, maestro, I read magazines,’ went on Alice. ‘And didn’t you say to a journalist that an artist has to sprinkle a little magic dust on what he does? Doesn’t that apply to every object? Look at this simple platinum ring.’ She offered him her hand, which he held and stared at. ‘Can you see what I mean? The ring has it.’

He said, ‘Yes, all right, it
is
a form of sensuality. Some people call it Eros, who was hatched from an egg, setting the whole universe in motion. The luminous radiation of love.’

‘You see.’

He looked up at her. ‘You almost cheer me up, my dear.’

‘Only almost?’

Mamoon said, ‘You remind me that language – indeed all real things – have to vibrate with sensuality. I see that. But if I seem slightly gloomy, it’s because I’ve been having this damned recurring nightmare. It’s a dull, common one, nevertheless it is persistent, and I want it away for good.’

‘Are you naked in the dream, sir?’ enquired Julia suddenly. She had been listening while serving.

‘The maestro is never naked,’ said Liana. ‘Now, Mamoon, please—’

Mamoon said, ‘Are
you
naked in your dreams, Julia?’

‘Never a stitch on, running wildly through the fields singing, with everyone looking at me.’

‘You silly thing.’ Mamoon wiped his brow and said, ‘Harry, if you’re imposing yourself on us for a bit longer, you could be of use. I believe you have set yourself up to be something of a dream reader.’

‘Have I?’

‘Liana informed me that you can see through a dream at the drop of a hat. You learned it from your revered father.’

Harry shook his head and said, ‘My father also warned me that you should no more tell others your dreams than you would give them your bank details.’

‘But you’re brilliant, Harry,’ said Liana. ‘Mamoon, won’t you tell us, please – can we hear where your soul has been travelling? Its wanderings have been paining us all for a long time.’

Mamoon said, ‘They have? Let me speak for once, Liana.’

‘Go forth,’ she said.

Mamoon cleared his throat and adopted what Liana referred to as his Nobel Prize acceptance speech face.

‘I am in a large hall with shapely, curved walls, for some reason. There I am taking my finals but I haven’t prepared. I sit there staring at the blank page until the horror of my failure increases, and I know I’m going to implode. I wake up in a sweat, and, as you know, Harry, sometimes screaming my head off. What’s it all about, Harry?’

‘I’ve said before, Harry, no need to hide your light,’ said Alice, squeezing his hand. She giggled, ‘Dance, monkey, dance.’

They were all looking at Harry now, who, hesitating to expose his light or to dance, hummed his anxious Pooh Bear hum, while wiping his hands on his jeans.

‘It’s very common, that dream—’

‘Yes, but why?’ said Mamoon.

‘Because it is about that which we can’t be prepared for – the great test we men have passed before, but have no way of knowing we will pass again.’

‘Thank you, Madame Sosostris,’ said Mamoon. ‘What test do you refer to?’

‘Potency. Phallic male effectiveness. And whether this time, as opposed to all the other times, a man can satisfy the woman. Or will fail to satisfy her. What does the man actually have – a fallible phallus? No wonder you’re sweating. Our dreams are always ahead of us, sir.’ He went on, ‘Very kindly, you let me see your beloved father’s letters. He insisted, repeatedly, that you bring glory to the family by succeeding – at everything. I was shocked, he was so tough. Worse than my own dad, with his insistences.’ Mamoon was staring at him. Harry recalled that Rob had suggested that a quote, real or imagined, from an ancient author always halted and impressed the writer. ‘We know that the wretched Christians want to renounce desire, but as the great Petronius puts it so well, “How can you be a soldier without a weapon?”’

There was a pause. ‘I see,’ said Mamoon.

Liana said, ‘Stop staring, Julia, and wipe that expression off your face. Get on with your work. Why do you stand there like a plum?’

‘What should I do?’

‘I’ve never been more filthy. Run my bath.’

‘Yes, miss.’

‘By the way, what are you doing with that book of Mamoon’s in your hand?’

‘This? Reading it, miss.’

‘You’re reading me, Julia?’ Mamoon said. ‘Are you really?’

‘I am – again,’ she said. ‘My favourite: the story of the five dictators – two from Africa, one from the Middle East, another from China, and the last more local – all in love with the girl. You show the soft improving quality of love, and the man in the monster. It’s beautiful, sir. It makes me laugh and cry every time.’

Mamoon blushed. ‘Good, good. You used to read a lot.’

‘When – when did she read a lot?’ asked Liana.

‘When she was little, and a lot of trouble and fun she was, too,’ said Mamoon. He reached up and pinched her cheek. ‘A sweet thing – eh,
beta
?’

Julia said, ‘Mamoon gave me books. He threw them all at me, like a test, thinking I’d never read them, but I sat down and got through them, and showed him.’

‘You did,’ he said.

‘Like what?’ said Liana.

‘Erm . . . Harper Lee, Ruth Rendell, Muriel Spark—’

‘
Grazie a Dio
, you are more than ridiculous,’ said Liana.

‘Don’t accuse me!’ cried Julia. ‘Don’t ever say I’m stupid. Are you saying that, miss?’

‘Liana wouldn’t dare say that,
beta
,’ said Mamoon.

‘She’s shouting in our house, Mamoon,’ said Liana. ‘Hear her!’

‘It’s all right,’ he said.

‘Don’t stand for it!’

‘I’m not,’ he said, calmly.

Julia sat down beside him and said, ‘It must be an amazing thing, sir, to have the skill to tell a story like that. You must wake up proud.’

‘Thank you, dear girl, I am proud now,’ he said. ‘I wake up sweating in the night with relief. I got away with it. To have once been a writer is something.’

‘Once?’

‘You mock yourself, sir, surely,’ said Harry.

‘Why?’

‘A friend of my father’s, a film-maker of your generation, has increased his output as he’s aged. He sees the necessity of getting on with things, of honouring the talent he has been blessed with.’

‘What the damn fuck for?’

‘Why should a man’s desire for potency and work diminish? After all, what other dignity is there? There is certainly none in feigned helplessness. “A man must follow his path even in the midst of ruin,” says Sophocles in
Antigone
. Titian did his best work after seventy. Goethe, at the age of seventy-four, asked for the hand – at least the hand – of a nineteen-year-old.’

‘It is uplifting to hear there are forms of satisfaction available to someone like me. I like – I really like – being a writer. But is work enough?’

Liana had been staring at Julia, before banging the table hard. ‘How dare you! Why are you sitting still like that? Have you forgotten you work here?’

‘Would you like me to continue clearing out your shoes?’

‘Yes, and don’t take anything without asking. I can’t run into you in town again wearing my purple Marc Jacobs. I asked you to wear them in for me, not wear them out.’

‘Sorry, miss. It won’t happen again,’ Julia said.

‘And do not fail to place orange peel in them overnight,’ called Liana. Then, when the girl had hardly gone, she said, ‘A skivvy who thinks she’s in the Bloomsbury Group – what attention-seeking rubbish that girl talks. It’s about time we replaced her with someone ignorant. Suppose she joins a trade union, Mamoon?’

‘I should have discussed it with Mrs Thatcher,’ he said.

When Julia had run out and Liana had gone into the garden to find the dogs, Mamoon, clutching the arms of the chair and groaning, attempted to get to his feet.

‘If only you knew, Alice, how an artist grunts and strains to keep the language full of beans, and how much my back hurts since the tennis incident, making me stiff in all the wrong places. I could be semi-crippled for good now, with your boyfriend steering my wheelchair.’

‘Maestro, why didn’t you say before? I can help you.’

‘How?’

‘Didn’t Harry tell you that I trained briefly as a masseuse?’

‘You did? No one has ever spoken sweeter words to me,’ he said. ‘Your darling Harry is no use at all, but only asks stupid questions about things that happened forty years ago!’

‘That would make an athlete ache.’

He wriggled. ‘Dear girl, are you sure you can bear to touch me?’

‘As a teenager, I worked as a geriatric nurse.’

‘Perfect.’

‘Let me find some almond oil.’

‘Try Liana’s bathroom. Hurry: we can retire to my barn for privacy. While Harry redrafts my history, you can realign my spine – if Harry gives permission.’

Harry said there would be nothing he would like more. He took Alice out into the hall, and they hugged and kissed, falling against the wall. He whispered, ‘You goddess, how did you do it – taking him on like that?’

‘I don’t know, Harry. He was like you said, tough, and he was at me and I was cornered. It was so quick and I couldn’t breathe. But I knew I had to fight or I’d be done for. It came out like that.’

‘You tiger, if you massage him, he’ll calm down, and we might get somewhere.’

She kissed him. ‘I’ll do it, and leave the rest to you.’

When Harry returned to the kitchen, Mamoon murmured, ‘Thank you for your dream interpretation.’

‘A pleasure.’

‘Clearly.’ Mamoon said, ‘The lovable, country child, Julia. The one who dreams she is naked and once, I believe, within my hearing, while you were playing pool in the afternoon, called you Fizzy Pants. While others talk, you look at her with some interest and amusement.’

‘I do?’

‘Why would that be?’

‘I guess in London you never see white people working.’

‘I agree it is a wonderful sight, and not something you see down here much either. I’ve long said it’s over for the white races, an obvious truth which caused much agitation amongst the journalists. The rich will rule as usual; they come in all colours, particularly yellow.’ He said, ‘But I admit it is good to watch people work.’

‘You feel superior?’

‘Not at all. It reminds me of my humble duty to contribute, which is what I want to get back to, once I’m free of this pain.’

‘Why have you been unable to work?’

Mamoon said, ‘I can listen to Bach, just about, and Schubert I can bear, because I am melancholic. Everything else depresses me – Beethoven, and particularly over-cheerful Mozart, chirruping away. The other day, when I pretended to dismiss Forster and Orwell, your little face looked upset. You still like to be impressed. In my teens and twenties, and even in my thirties, I loved to read, and could get absorbed in a particular writer for weeks, reading all their work, everything. Now I’ve forgotten it, and, besides, it’s all gone.’

‘Gone?’

‘Consider them, Bertrand Russell, A. J. Ayer, D. H. Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, Anthony Powell, Anthony Burgess, William Golding, Henry Green, Graham Greene—’

‘No, not
that
Greene. No –
never
.’

‘Good, plucky of you. But otherwise – unread, unreadable, discarded, departed, a mountain of words washed into the sea and not coming back. Popeye the Sailor Man has more cultural longevity. Only women and poofs read or write now. Otherwise, these days, no sooner has someone been sodomised by a close relative than they think they can write a memoir. The game’s up.’

Harry said, ‘Some of
your
books will remain.’

‘They will?’

‘Probably about four—’

‘Four?’

‘No, three big pieces. The first novel and a couple of long stories, which are top-drawer lasters. And, probably, the early essay on Ibsen’s and Strindberg’s women.’

‘So much?’ Mamoon said. ‘It’s done, and it’s too late. I shouldn’t complain. What is there left for me? How many older artists have made significant works?’

‘But sir, that was the true meaning of your dream: the desire to fail.’

‘Why?’

‘To infuriate your father, who never let you go with his expectations.’

‘Go on.’

Harry said, ‘To renounce work and women’s love for a pointless equilibrium or retirement is a destructive self-betrayal. The way you describe yourself is a far more limited narrative than anything I might say about you in my book. And look what happens to Lear. He allows others, indeed encourages them, to humiliate him. Surely a man can remain vital and alive if he feels strong.’

‘How does he do that?’

‘I have to say, sir, that while I’ve been here, I’ve learned something. You taught me that it’s frustration which makes creativity possible. You wrestle with the material, and become inventive, even visionary.’

Mamoon was holding his head. ‘You give me vertigo as well as lumbago. All I think is that I must continue, making words which will then be forgotten. I want that; I can do that. At the same time, it’s not enough. There must be something else.’

‘What is it – that something else?’

‘I don’t know. I will think now. This conversation has drained me.’

Harry helped him up. Not long after, Harry watched from the kitchen window, as Mamoon, in his slippers and stripy dressing gown, eagerly padded out to his barn with Alice. He was, Harry noted, resembling more and more the ever demanding question mark he had seemed to become. A moment later the barn door banged closed. It was the very place Liana – and everyone else – was forbidden to enter. All Liana was able to see of Mamoon, through the window, was the top of his head, which remained throughout the day in the same position. ‘The king is in his counting house,’ Liana liked to say. If she needed him urgently, she had to phone, though with the attendant fear that he would let the call run onto voicemail while he was whistling a tune by Stéphane Grappelli. Mamoon’s room was, Rob had said, full of generous gifts presented by perverted power freaks, kleptomaniacs and crazed killer dictators. Mamoon, it was said, had never met a dictator whose arse he didn’t want to kiss. But Alice was the only other person Harry had known to enter the room since he’d arrived.

Ninety minutes later, when he heard the dogs barking, Harry returned to the window, with Julia sweeping around his feet, to see Mamoon come back to the house looking cheerful and taller, like an inverted exclamation mark.

‘She’s got the head of Jean Seberg and the hands of Sviatoslav Richter,’ panted Mamoon. ‘With every caress I felt myself becoming a genius.’

Alice clapped her hands. ‘I made him more creative!’

Mamoon said, ‘If only I were sixty-five again . . . Harry, you’re a lucky man.’