David Szalay - Spring

On his own, he wondered why he was there. Only out of habit, it seemed. He had spent so much time in that house. The memories merged together. Memories of school holidays. People from different epochs of his life mingled there as they never had in time. He listened to the sound of the rain intensifying on the olive trees, of thunder fraying like acoustic distortion down the valley. The house itself had little or no sense of memory. It was always the same. This dim ecclesiastical light in the stillness of the salon. No photographs on public display, except, as if they had been forgotten there, a few in an unlit whitewashed alcove where the hall turned, including one of his mother. It was a snapshot from the early Seventies in which she was flanked by Isabel and himself. Somehow the setting does not seem to be London. Paris? He does not think he properly understood, at the time, what was happening. She was ill. However, even that he did not understand—it was just an explanation—some words that he himself would offer in his husky voice to explain the situation—he did not understand what they meant. He has no memories of the hospital, nothing like that. All there is is the thick ivory shagpile in the vestibule of the Wimbledon vicarage. In his own flat there are several framed photographs of her, this person of whom he has no actual memories, this utterly mysterious, utterly numinous person. What he finds painful now is imagining it all—that is, those months in 1974—from her point of view. Imagining himself from her point of view. Thus he sees himself as if from the outside, through her eyes. Thus he fumbles towards some estimate of what he might have lost. Well.

The temper he had in the years that followed… They lived in a four-storey house in Kensington. Today it would be a multimillionaire’s house. Kensington was not the same in the late Seventies. Except for the light. The light was the same then—the London light, flat and plain on London streets. The green electric typewriter muttering in the study on Sunday afternoons.

In the seating plan, Isabel has put Ted between herself and Kevin Staedtler’s wife. Kevin is the senior partner at Quarles, Lingus, and he and his wife, being in their fifties, are nearest to Ted in age—that was presumably the thinking there. James is down the other end, Steve’s end, where topics in the early part of the meal include the films of Pier Paolo Pasolini—someone whose name James associates with Miriam. Yes, she once made him sit through The Canterbury Tales … Even so, he knows little or nothing about his films and does not feel able to participate. Nor does he particularly want to, though Miranda, who is sitting on his left, keeps making efforts to include him. He is touched by these efforts but he finds it hard to live up to them—every time she asks him what he thinks, he just shrugs and says some variant of I don’t know.

Eventually she tries a new line of approach. She turns to him and says, ‘So what are you up to these days?’

The main course is just being served—two waitresses are doing the serving. Isabel has pulled out all the stops for this one, he thinks. Probably to impress Ted, to show him how well she’s doing…

‘The last time I saw you,’ Miranda says, ‘you had a magazine. I even remember the name. Plush. ’

‘That’s right…’

‘Do you remember the last time I saw you?’

He thinks. ‘No,’ he says finally, laughing. ‘No, I don’t. I’m sorry.’

She hits him. ‘It was at the magazine launch party!’

‘At least I invited you to the launch party…’

‘No, you didn’t. I went with Izzy. I told you I thought Plush was a ludicrous name. You didn’t think that was very funny. Sorry if it upset you.’

He has no memory of the incident. Not even of speaking to her, not even of seeing her at the launch party. ‘That’s okay,’ he says. ‘And anyway, you were right. It was a ludicrous name.’

‘Of course it was. The magazine failed, I hear.’

‘It did.’

‘So what are you up to now? Izzy says you’re always up to something. When she told me the magazine had failed I said, “Poor James, is he okay?” And she laughed…’

‘She laughed?’

‘She laughed, ’ Miranda says, smiling, with a secretive inclination of her head, ‘and said, “Oh don’t worry about James. He always finds something new.”’

‘She said that?’

‘And now she says you own a horse. You know my parents are members at Newbury racecourse?’

‘No, I didn’t know that…’

‘I’ve been there loads of times. You should come one day.’

‘I’d love to.’

‘What’s his name? Your horse.’

‘Her name. Absent Oelemberg.’

When he says the name, she says, ‘Sorry?’

‘Absent Oelemberg.’

‘What sort of name is that?’

He shrugs. ‘A horse’s name.’

‘What does it mean?’

‘I asked the trainer—he said he had no idea.’

‘Has she won?’

‘Not yet.’

‘I suppose it’s all totally fixed like you hear. How come you have a horse anyway? You didn’t used to be interested in horses, did you?’

‘No.’

‘So?’

‘Last year,’ he says, pouring them both some wine, ‘I had a sort of tipping service.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean I sold tips on the Internet.’

‘What, horse-racing tips?’

‘Yes.’

She stares at him for a few seconds. Her eyes narrow nicely. ‘I can’t believe you were involved in something like that,’ she says. ‘And you look so nice and honest.’

‘Of course I do. I am nice. I am honest…’

‘Ha!’

‘It’s not dishonest,’ he protests.

‘Where did these tips come from? You?’

‘No. I employed someone.’

‘Who?’

‘A pro,’ he says innocently.

‘A pro? And did his tips make a profit? If his tips made a profit, why did he have to be employed by you? Did they make a profit?’

‘Sometimes.’

She laughs. ‘Sometimes? So much for being nice and honest!’ she says. Her eyes narrow smilingly again. ‘You really are quite louche, aren’t you?’

‘Not at all,’ he says, smiling also.

‘And then what happened?’

‘To the tipping service?’

‘Yes. Was it shut down?’

‘Not exactly. My tipster was arrested…’

Her loud laugh turns Mark’s head. For the last twenty minutes, he has struggled to seem interested in what some pregnant woman is saying to him while his peripheral vision was teasingly filled with Miranda talking and laughing and hitting James playfully on the other side of the table… What they were saying—though he wasn’t sure what it was—seemed infinitely more interesting than what was being said to him, though he wasn’t sure what that was either. Though he is still smiling fixedly in her direction, he has no idea what the pregnant woman is talking about, and when she finally stops—she may have asked him a question—he just says, ‘Yes, yes,’ and then turns to James and says, ‘Did I hear you say you’re a horseman?’

‘No,’ James says.

‘Oh. I thought I heard you say you were a horseman.’

‘I do own a horse. Or part-own it.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Mark turns to Miranda. ‘Your parents live in Newbury then?’

‘No,’ she says, ‘they don’t.’

‘Oh they don’t? I know Newbury quite well.’

She laughs. ‘Well they don’t live there.’

‘Where do they live?’

James leaves him to it and looks down the long table. At intervals there are vases of white flowers, and at the far end French windows into the garden. Most of the suits are up that end, and he sees Ted being introduced to Omar, while Mrs Staedtler looks on through an uninterested smile. Suddenly he hears Steve saying vehemently, ‘Now James was fucking loaded. I mean seriously fucking loaded.’