Hanif Kureishi - The Last Word

‘Progressed where, my dear? You are alarming me, Harry.’

‘I am?’

‘I don’t want you to get carried away and inflame my skin too. Let’s keep everything gentle in your account, shall we?’

Alice had warned him to be careful; to endure being patronised and even insulted, and not to allow himself to give anything away, sucking rather than puffing, though that attitude had yet to get him very far. Still what he and Rob admired about Mamoon, they both agreed, was his talent as a provocateur, his ability to create anarchy and fury and then sit back to gaze out over the ruins. On occasion Mamoon was more Johnny Rotten than Joseph Conrad. Harry had begun to think that, as his father had suggested, he had been too passive. His fears had kept him too safe. He’d make some mayhem; it was time to go gonzo, and up the stakes.

He said, ‘Liana, I guess you already know all about it.’

‘About what?’

‘The background to the Marion story. How Mamoon humiliated and insulted a young woman at an American university, calling her “a career Negro”. He had to get out and quite soon after became violently bitter.’

‘Might this be in the book?’

‘When I’ve done the research. It was after this that Mamoon decided to give up on, or pull away from Peggy, while continuing to live with her. He and Marion began something of a perverse relationship, which made me wonder whether such a thing had been a feature of his life.’ Liana was silent. ‘Or whether it was just a one-off, as it were.’

‘Perverse?’

Harry said that some might call it that.

‘Do you know for sure?’

‘He confirmed it. When this material comes out, people will think about both of you differently. The hacks and papers simplify things. They might call it sadomasochism.’

She thought for a moment and said, ‘Whatever you do, don’t put this in, but I wondered why, at the beginning, he asked if he could watch me urinate. Being a lady, I said no. Why would anyone want such a thing?’

‘To experience a particular form of intimacy.’

She said, ‘Listen, Harry, what the bloody fuck are you hinting at? Can’t you actually be precise? I don’t want to live in the dark like an idiot! As a mature woman —’ she pressed her face close to his, ‘and don’t you like to remind me all the time that I am? — I need to know every detail of the Marion part.’

‘Why?’

‘How awful it would be if you knew things about him that I didn’t.’

He pulled on a tracksuit top and sat with her. It wasn’t long before she’d turned red, and was waving furiously at her face with her book as if trying to put out a fire but succeeding only in fanning the flames. To her credit she heard him out before saying, ‘And you say you’re going to put this filth in the book we commissioned?’

‘If it is relevant to the work, which around that time turns very dark and sometimes brutal.’

She began to cry, and covered her face. ‘Poor Marion. I think of her often and how she was rejected. That will happen to me!’

‘Why would it?’

‘She couldn’t do enough to keep him interested. He regrets leaving her.’

‘He does?’

‘She inspired him, she was intelligent. They loved to talk about Shakespeare. She was learning Arabic and he said she was cleverer than him. He read her letters with a dictionary. I had an intelligent father, so I know men love women who are useful to them, like assistants.’

He asked her if she’d be okay.

She said, ‘You did promise, Harry dear, that you’d help me earn his love and kisses. Now you come to me with this merda . He will blame me for stirring it up. What have you done!’ She got up and walked quickly away, into the woods, stopping only to turn and say, ‘I’ve cursed you. I thought of unleashing the bees on you only I’m too well bred. But a very bad thing is going to happen to you — tonight.’

That evening, while changing in his room, Harry could hear the two of them hollering, their voices overlapping as they interrogated one another. He had had, he guessed, something of an effect on their marriage. Too bad; he had a book to write. Writing was the devil. Writing was what he was employed to do.

He played music through his headphones and waited until it was nearly dark, although the kitchen light was on, when he crept out of the back door. He was smoking in the yard and about to get in the car when he heard a shout, or perhaps it was a shriek. Mamoon was coming out of the kitchen and heading towards the man chosen to make his portrait.

Mamoon was not leaning on his stick, as he always did now, the very stick Harry had cut for him, carving the head into the rough approximation of a rabbit. Mamoon was bearing it above his head with the genuine intention, Harry guessed, of bringing it into contact with the young writer’s cognitive equipment.

Harry turned and jogged across the yard towards the track. To Harry’s surprise, Mamoon was behind him, running and tripping, as if trying to throw away his limbs.

‘Mamoon, please, sir—’ tried Harry.

Harry ran some more, and so did Mamoon. He could hear Mamoon breathing heavily, and thought he must be tiring already. Harry was also keen to use reason and discuss literary matters. He’d had an expensive education and, even now, didn’t want to waste it.

‘Listen,’ he began, and stopped. The writer was on him. Harry dodged the coming stick by ducking and turning away. ‘I say, sir—’

Mamoon struck him across the back with the stick, as hard as he could. Harry fell down, and Mamoon followed up with two more blows. ‘See, Judas — I’ve still got the forehand!’

‘Stop that — Jesus! It hurts! What are you doing?’

‘You want the cross-court smash with top spin?’ said Mamoon, raising the stick again. He was ready to strike Harry across the face with it. ‘The horse whip is coming — ha!’

‘No, it’s not!’

Harry crawled away as quickly as he could, got up, manhandled the stick away from Mamoon, and took it across the yard, placing it on the top of his car. The old fool, full of adrenaline, stumbled after it, and soon learned, after attempting to jump up, that his days as a sportsman were done. He tripped and fell face down, grovelling in the gravel.

‘Don’t touch me. You blabbed about what Marion alleged,’ puffed Mamoon, as Harry hauled him to his feet and brushed the dirt off him.

‘You agreed, sir, that nowadays not a moment of existence goes unrecorded.’

‘How would you like it if you had everyone you’d ever fucked dragging behind you forever? Perhaps they will, a ghostly crowd of dead souls, howling hostile curses. Then I’ll laugh.’

‘You’ve always been dissident, nonconformist, anarchic. Aren’t most good books about sexual weakness?’ Spying an opening for the intertextual discussion he’d long anticipated, Harry said, ‘You adore Strindberg, adapted his work for the stage and wrote an essay on him. Kafka’s agonised hysterical letters to Felice have long fascinated you. Let’s think about how male writers have characterised the force of female sexuality—’

‘Shut it, bastard! Liana’s killing me, screaming and raving. She can’t believe I’ve had a good time with anyone but her. She dismissed me from the bedroom into the room next to yours. Now she insists I tell her every detail of my life with Marion. How can I do that? How will I get her back?’

‘Do you want her?’

‘If I have a terrible dream or become ill in the night will you give me the kiss of life?’

‘My kisses are soft and deep, sir. But to be honest, this material was going to come out anyway, by Marion’s hand or mine. What else am I doing but teasing out the truth, knot by knot — like Goole in An Inspector Calls ?’