Hanif Kureishi - The Last Word

‘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?’