‘Liana—’
‘And you love my salty raita. It was going to be followed by apple crumble and cream. Choose now — food or mood.’
‘Food or mood? Don’t throw that away! I choose food.’ He was hurriedly tucking his napkin into the neck of his shirt. ‘Will there be tomatoes? I love how you cooked them last time.’
‘Did you?’ she said, winking at Harry. She went and kissed Mamoon, sliding her hand down the front of his shirt. ‘Did you like that, habibi, my love?’
‘It might be more tasty if you cooked everything that way.’
‘I will do it like that — if you make me.’
‘One more thing.’ He thrust his finger at Harry. ‘Where is Alice?’
‘Why?’ asked Liana.
‘She has calming hands,’ he said.
Liana rolled her hands over Mamoon’s belly. ‘Don’t I?’
‘She’s professional.’
‘I’ll do what I can,’ said Harry.
‘Looks like you’ve been given a last chance,’ said Liana. ‘You’d better get that book done. Soon we will read some of it. And we had better like it. .’
Twenty-three
Alice and Liana sat in the heat on the lawn, passing a tub of vanilla ice cream between them and conspiring to bring young people to Prospects House. Her face hidden under an umbrella to protect it from the sun, Alice had her feet up on a stool; when she wasn’t scooping up Ben and Jerry’s, she laid the back of her hand on her overheated and worried forehead, and sighed deeply. Then she noticed Harry and started on the considerable business of sitting up.
Liana was writing lists and thinking aloud; she used the words ‘young’ and ‘artist’ a lot, as well as ‘yoga centre’ and ‘writers’ retreat’. In contrast, Mamoon didn’t look like a man whose home would soon be open to the public. Sitting in the shade a decent distance away, working on the proofs of his collected essays, Means and Ends, he couldn’t hear his wife. Occasionally, he would interrupt his humming of a tune by Everything But the Girl to groan and complain about his irrelevance, but no one listened. On Liana’s instructions, Julia bustled over with tea until he accused her of trying to poison him with Lapsang Souchong. Despite the sight of Harry pacing up and down outside the back door, Mamoon was cheerful. He had been active: recently, with a few remarks, he had made a lot happen.
Alice had been there for two days, swimming in the river and resting, while Mamoon was working again. Harry, after his conversations with Marion, had been settling back into his work. It had become difficult and frustrating as he fought to find clarity in the chaos of his research. For days he had read letters and written to friends, colleagues and possible lovers of Mamoon, while considering the work in relation to the life, making links across the decades.
But Rob had been attempting to harry Harry, as Mamoon had insisted he should. Harry might have been reinstated as official portraitist, but only on condition, Mamoon had concluded, that Liana get tough with Rob. It was time, Mamoon had said, for Harry’s work to be thoroughly inspected by the editor before Harry became waylaid or dangerous to literature, perhaps going too far in a ‘strange direction’, or becoming ‘self-indulgent’ with the book. Mamoon wanted to look like himself.
Mamoon might be annoyed, but it wasn’t as if Rob had been unprovoked by the biographer. For some time Harry had been ignoring his communications, claiming he was ‘out of range’. However, that morning, waking up late with Alice, Harry had pulled the curtains and stopped dead. Rob was stumbling up the track bearing a large suitcase and rucksack. It wasn’t long before Rob had walked into the house, demanded breakfast from Julia, and, when Harry went to greet him, insisted on seeing his laptop.
When he began to read through Harry’s work both aloud and to himself, Harry said, ‘I’m not ready for this, Rob. These are notes. Why are you doing it?’
‘Liana is right. I have got to know.’
‘Know what?’
‘That man out there is an artist.’ Rob pointed out of the window where Alice and Ruth were trimming a tree to Mamoon’s instructions. ‘He met Borges in Paris in the mid-seventies. They had dinner two or three times. What did they talk about? Kafka? Adjectives? Their agents? Why don’t you tell us?’ He rapped his knuckles dangerously against the screen of Harry’s computer. ‘Talent is gold dust. You can pan among a million people and come up with barely a scrap of it. Commitment to the Word stands against our contemporary fundamentalist belief in the market. Have you forgotten that?’
‘Rob, I’m telling you, he’s vile to ordinary people and charming to fascist monsters.’
‘Put that in.’
‘He’s insane. He attacked me with a stick.’ Harry pulled up his shirt and showed Rob the site, still visible. ‘Joyce didn’t do that to Ellmann!’
‘Jesus, that’s bad. Still,’ he sniffed, ‘any simpleton can be good. Mamoon has the balls to be a sinner. Liana has been phoning me. She says among other things that you have inflated ideas about yourself.’
‘She said that?’
‘It was reported by Ruth: Alice and you — the long, blond boy, with his impossibly tall and thin platinum fashionista girl, strolling with the dogs around town, in fashionable raggedy clothes and scuffed boots, disappointed you couldn’t find somewhere that served nettle fettuccine, staring at the tattooed chavs as though you’d just discovered an African tribe. I heard you even photographed a chav’s dog. Liana had to personally apologise.’
‘To the dog?’
Rob removed his skull ring before taking aim and slapping Harry across the face. He stared at him, daring him to respond. ‘Tell me, how come you haven’t been beaten up more?’
‘Should I be?’
‘The party’s dead. We’re on truth time.’ Rob lowered his eyes to Harry’s efforts on the screen. ‘You sit close enough to inhale every emanation of me, and we will examine what you’ve been doing. Are you having a breakdown? You look crazed and seem sad and manic.’
It was true: since Alice had found herself pregnant with twins, her anxiety had entered the red zone, as had Harry’s. Harry’s father had even summoned his youngest son to London for a talking-to. It was like visiting a mischievous cardinal and, cheerfully, Dad had been glad to repeat his homily that a baby in a family, or worse, two babies, was like a hurricane hitting a crowd. All that which had been blown apart had to be put back together, in a new, broader configuration: this was the work of a man, not a boy. Being a father was not a given; one had to assume the throne, stated Dad the throne-sitter. ‘There will be difficulties,’ he added, dabbing his eyes in amusement. But he was also pleased; Harry, with his easy cleverness and tendency towards arrogance, dissipation and frivolity, particularly when it came to women, had given his father good reason to believe he’d achieve zero. In fact Dad had almost become reconciled to it.
Now, having finished her ice cream, Alice came across the lawn towards Harry. If Rob had already wrung him out, it was Alice’s turn.
Not only feeling sick and faint, Alice now found Harry too noisy, overbearing, with his breath too oniony, his fingers sweaty and his eyes suddenly too beady. Meanwhile he was forbidden, of course, from finding her repulsive though she described herself as ‘just sludge’.
She touched him gently on the back and they walked. Worrying about where they would live, she hadn’t been sleeping at all. They would require, at least, a much bigger place, a house in a safe neighbourhood with a garden. How would she look after the children? For that she would need help since he couldn’t expect her to do the housework and childcare while he was in a library, no doubt sipping espressos with publicity girls who would bring him croissants.