Hanif Kureishi: The Last Word

Not that Harry had minded about the tales of madness, being aware that it is only the insane who achieve anything significant. Besides, Rob’s publishing outfit had won numerous big prizes, and Rob was powerful, persuasive and potent. Having lunched and chatted with him at parties for five years, Harry couldn’t say, until today, that he’d witnessed much debauchery himself. Rob had the hippest list in London, and was as much an artist as an innovative movie or record producer. He made things happen and took risks; he was said to be ‘lateral’. Harry had never dreamt that Rob would invite him to work with him. Not only that, Rob would pay Harry a substantial advance for this book. If Harry borrowed money from his father, he should be able to afford the deposit on a small house he wanted to buy with Alice, his fiancée, whom he’d been seeing for three years, and who had moved into his bachelor flat. They had talked about having children, though Harry thought they should be more settled before committing to this.

It had occurred to Harry, in the last year, at least, as he matured, that he needed to be well off. It wasn’t his first priority, which was to be serious, but he was beginning to see that his list of life achievements might have to include a hefty amount of money in the bank, a token of his status, ability and privilege. Rob had volunteered to help with this, aiding Harry on his journey. It was about time. ‘I am your Mephistopheles, and I pronounce you now officially rock ’n’ roll,’ Rob had said. ‘The day will come, of course, when you will have to thank me for this. And thank me hard. Perhaps you might gratefully kiss me on the lips, or give me your tongue.’

As the train drew them closer to the meeting, Rob’s instruction was that Harry should write ‘as mad and wild’ a book as he could. This would be Harry’s breakthrough. He should practise his autograph; he would be feted at literary festivals in South America, India and Italy, appear on television, and give well-paid talks and lectures on the nature of truth and the biographer’s servitude to it. It would be his ticket to ride. If you wrote one successful book, you could live in its light for ten years.

‘Let’s not get carried away. It’ll be a fire-walk.’ Rob gulped at his beer. ‘The old man will exasperate you with his stubbornness and taunting. As for his wife, you know she can be sweet and amusing. But you might have to sleep with her, otherwise she could smoke you down like a cigarette.’

‘What? Why?’

‘In Rome, where she lived, and where she grabbed Mamoon, she was known as a man-eater who never passed on a meal. And you are a hog with a keen snout, when it comes to sniffing out the truffle of a woman.’

‘Rob, please—’

The editor went on, ‘Listen up: that clever old sly fox Mamoon might seem dull and dead to you, and indeed to everyone, including his own family.’ He leaned forward and whispered, ‘He comes on like someone who has never knowingly given pleasure to a woman, someone who has never loved anyone more than himself. He has stolen a lot of enjoyment. He has been a dirty bastard, an adulterer, liar, thug, and, possibly, a murderer.’

‘How common is this knowledge?’

‘You will make it known. Extreme biography: that is your job.’

‘I see.’

‘Marion, his ex-mistress, a Baconian torso on a plank, is bitter as cancer and spitting gobbets of hate to this day. She lives in America and not only will she see you, she’ll fly at you like a radioactive bat. I’ve organised your visit — some people accuse me of being a perfectionist. There is also the fact he drove his first wife Peggy over the edge. I’m sure he wrapped oranges in a towel and beat her blacker and bluer than a decayed Stilton.’

‘He did?’

‘Investigate. I’ve insisted you have access to her diaries.’

‘He agreed?’

‘Harry, the Great Literary Satan is weak and woozy now like a lion hit with a monster tranquilliser. It’s his time to be taken. And it’s in his interest to co-operate. When he reads the book and learns what a bastard he’s been, it’ll be too late. You will have found out stuff that Mamoon doesn’t even know about himself. He’ll be dead meat on the skewer of your insight. That’s where the public like their artists — exposed, trousers down, arse up, doing a long stretch among serial killers, and shitting in front of strangers. That’ll teach ’em to think their talent makes them better than mediocre no-brain tax-paying wage slaves like us.’

According to Rob, the publishers would sell the ‘juicy’ parts of the book to the Sunday newspapers; it would be reviewed internationally, and there could be excellent sales in numerous languages. And again, when Mamoon died — ‘I hope,’ said Rob, not someone to miss an opportunity, ‘in about five years’ time’ — the book would sell once more, with a new chapter ripping through the author’s final flirtations, last illness, death, obituaries, and the unacknowledged children and, of course, mistresses who would flock to the funeral, and then to the newspapers, thrashing at their breasts, pulling out their hair, and preparing their memoirs as they fought amongst themselves.

The train rolled through graveyard towns, and Harry found his body rioting at the thought of meeting Mamoon today; indeed, he felt afraid of the whole project, particularly since, as Rob drank more, he kept repeating that this would be Harry’s ‘break’. Rob ‘believed’ in Harry but had gone on to insist Harry was far from fulfilling his potential, a potential which he, Rob, had recognised against considerable opposition. With Rob a kiss was usually followed by a clout.

‘I have been priming Mamoon for you, man,’ Rob added, as the train approached the station.

‘Priming him how?’

‘He’s been told you know your stuff, and stay up for nights reading the densest material, Hegel, Derrida, Musil, Milton. . er. .’

‘You’ve said I understand Hegel?’

‘You’re not an easy sell. I was starting from zero with you.’

‘Suppose he asks me about Hegel’s dialectic?’

‘You’ll have to give him an overview.’

‘What about my first book? You must have sent it to him.’

‘I had to, finally. But it had its longueurs , even your mother would agree. The old man struggled to get through the introduction and had to lie down for a week with Suetonius to clean his palate. So reach the new level, man, or you’ll be so fucked you’ll have to get work as an academic. Or even worse—’

‘Worse? What could be worse than a former polytechnic?’

Rob paused and glanced out of the window before delivering the news. ‘You’d have to teach creative writing.’

‘Please, no. I’m not qualified.’

‘Even better. Imagine being lost forever in a dark forest of uncompleted first novels that require your total attention.’ He gathered his rags and got up. ‘I see we’ve arrived at the wasteland! Look outside — look at this bog, peopled by tattooed dolts, gargoyles and turnip heads sniffing glue. The horror, the horror! Are you ready for the rest of your life to begin?’

Mamoon’s pretty house, much altered in the last seven years of this marriage, was at the end of a winding potholed track surrounded by flat countryside, a good tranche of which Mamoon had bought up and now rented to local farmers who used the land to make hay. His land was surrounded by an electric fence, to keep deer off. The original house had been purchased in the seventies for Mamoon and his young wife Peggy, by her parents. Peggy had died, a furiously aggrieved alcoholic, twelve years ago, and a couple of years later, Liana, whom Mamoon had been seeing only for a few months, strode through the door bearing her suitcases.