Hanif Kureishi - The Last Word

‘Was it always like that at home?’

‘He’s very democratic, Dad, he listens to every idiot. That’s his job. He certainly didn’t find you superficial. He said you’d come far. And I know for sure that Mamoon will hang on your every word. I thought you didn’t like old men.’

‘You know how my mind scatters at the sight of a novel, but I’ve started one of Mamoon’s books.’

‘Do you like it?’

‘Don’t worry, there’s no chance of me becoming an intellectual. Do you prefer me stupid? Do you feel threatened?’

‘Darling, writing this book is doing my head in. India was difficult. I’m exhausted.’

‘Mamoon has been very sympathetic to you.’

‘He has?’

‘He’s desperately hoping Marion isn’t misleading you too much.’

‘What did he say about her?’

‘That not one word she says is true. He hopes, for your sake, that you aren’t taken in.’ She went on, ‘You know, I’m beginning to understand how brave Mamoon has been, attacking those corduroy-wearing Maoists when it was fashionable to be one. He broke the cult of silence. Wasn’t your dad a Maoist?’

Harry laughed. ‘Did Mamoon say that? I’ll have it out with him.’

‘No, please don’t, otherwise I won’t tell you what else he said.’

‘Why, what else did he say?’

‘He said his friends and acquaintances were as hypnotised by Marxism as some people are by fundamentalism. Everything they did was calculated to “benefit” the working class. And didn’t it turn out that Marxism was hardly a system which sponsored the freedoms they’re suddenly so keen on?’

‘Yes, he wrote a lovely essay about it, “The Superstitions of the Secular”.’

‘But that was incredibly foresighted of him, wasn’t it?’

Harry snorted. ‘Mamoon has always thought everything’s a lot of rot, and that anyone who believed anything was a deluded idiot. You can’t go wrong if you start off as a cynic.’

‘Are you still a socialist? He said you were.’

‘He did? A liberal democrat, Alice, and no more harmful than a glass of sparkling water with a slice of lemon.’

Alice asked, ‘What does your father think of Mamoon?’

Harry thought for a moment before saying, ‘Dad considers Britain’s finest post-war achievement, apart from the NHS, to be a multiracial society. Yet Mamoon wanted to be an Englishman, just when they were becoming obsolete, when the mongrels were taking over. Dad considers him deluded for never speaking about the contagion of British racism, particularly in the seventies, when it was at its most virulent. Mamoon liked to pretend it had never happened to him. He was also a risible snob, according to Dad, for identifying himself with a defunct class. At least, later, he criticised the Islamists, those heroes of the seventh century.’

Alice said, ‘You know, Mamoon said this lovely thing about me — I could become an artist.’

‘An artist?’

‘Why not? Perhaps one day, when our future child is asleep in his Moses basket, I’ll start to draw seriously. Mamoon says that if I find it difficult to speak, I should express myself more in other ways.’

‘Good idea.’

‘Mamoon’s wicked, too,’ she went on. ‘I shouldn’t repeat this: apparently a fan asked him how he created, with which pen or computer, and he replied that he liked to insert his finger into his arse in the morning and write directly onto the bathroom wall.’

Harry said, ‘Do you love me?’

‘Yes, of course. I’ve told you a thousand times.’

Harry asked, ‘How’s Liana?’

‘I haven’t seen much of her. She’s been gardening, then she rushed to London for a manicure. She saw her beloved psychic, and met someone else on business.’

‘How long was she there?’

‘Just three nights, I think.’

Harry immediately rang Julia, who claimed to have been tracking things. It was all eating and talk between Mamoon and Alice, she said. They sat up for hours in the late evening, by candlelight; next door Julia was reading Mamoon on the divan, his voice in one room, his words in another. She drifted off contentedly, dreaming of him. In the morning she was under a blanket. She couldn’t recall everything Mamoon and Alice had said; how important could a few murmurs be?

Harry said, ‘It wasn’t important! Just talk, you say! Talking is the most dangerous form of intercourse!’

‘Liana is okay with it, so I think it’s probably harmless. Otherwise, she’d kill him and then Alice.’

‘He got me out of the way, though. At least tell me if Mamoon has said anything notable.’

‘Only, “Anyone who gardens is lost to humanity.”’

Harry asked, ‘Do you love me?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘More and more. I so look forward to seeing you. I’m wearing your T-shirt.’

‘You are? Where did you find it?’

‘In your room. I put my face in your clothes.’ She said, ‘Do you love me ?’

He was morosely silent, listening to the sea between them. ‘Whoever you are, Julia, I’m yours.’

‘Did you read the notebooks I gave you?’

‘Yes, I’m going through them again now.’

‘What do you think?’

Harry had arranged to visit Marion again the next day, but as he walked around the block before going in, he wondered if it was worth returning. Alice’s enthusiasm for Mamoon was annoying him, and he wanted to take a cab to the airport, fly back to London, shove the old man away and remind her of his, Harry’s, existence. He needed to put more into his relationship with Alice otherwise it would slow down and end. What could Marion add now? He was reluctant to re-enter that tent of grief, regret and despair. But he spoke firmly to himself: although Mamoon had deliberately got rid of him, this was still business. He forced himself to buy flowers for her; he rang again at her door.

She was more lively, flirtatious even, today, in a skirt, plunging top and jewellery. She was brandishing photographs of herself and Mamoon together.

‘Harry, look how he holds my hands. How he needed me! In that house in the country they lived in an atmosphere of fear and anger. Does it seem haunted, that place?’

‘Yes, a bit.’

‘That’s her, Peggy — haunting but not living! His original home life had never been like that. Her wretchedness was corrupting him.’

‘How did you tell him that?’

‘I showed him the possibility of love. And sex. He was, you know, caliente . Steam came off him. But he hadn’t had proper sex for some time. Mamoon thought that needing a woman was like wanting a cigarette. The wish could be great, but you waited until it passed, you could get back to more important things.

‘To give her credit, Peggy was kind, she thought of him only. She led him through society, introducing him to people who might be interested, explaining to them that the world was bigger than Britain. But he was—’

‘What?’

‘Well, underfucked.’

‘I love the way you say that, Marion. The rolling tone.’

‘Darling, she had no sexual hold over him. Sad woman; hysterical. When it came to making copulation she was a plate of cold spaghetti, chattering inanely and forcing poor Mamoon to live as if passion didn’t have a place in the centre of the heart of every being. You have no idea how naïve he was, when it came to some things.’

He asked her what she meant by ‘naïve’.

‘In some ways he was like a teenager. As if he expected the other to take the lead. As you must know, his adolescent adventures were many and multifarious. The adults couldn’t keep their hands off him. He had been such a beautiful youth, with the dark hair and body of a film star, with a long thin cock. He was almost as beautiful as you, darling boy, but altogether more of a nuisance, with a stronger character and, obviously, more talent. I would imagine that you’re only a minor nuisance, though you have a haughty look.’ She’d been watching Teorema the other night. ‘Pasolini would have gone for you. Did an older man ever take you?’