Hanif Kureishi - The Last Word

Now he opened the door to find her ‘whooshing up’: leaping ethereally in a loose white nightgown, her breasts exposed, with a glazed look of blissful happiness on her livid white face, a goddess or a butterfly. When he asked what was going on she was unable to stop, though she did stare briefly at the interrupter, but without recognition.

He moved towards her and noticed between them on the floor a plate of candles. She bent over to pick it up. Her loose hair fell into the flames and suddenly caught ablaze. In a moment she was a human sparkler, a halo of consuming fire around her face. As she danced wildly, the flames spread to papers on the table; the wind blew them onto his favourite Venetian carpet, which also began to burn. A blanket started to smoke. A book began to smoulder.

The old man hobbled to the table, lifted up a huge vase and poured the contents over the poor, hysterical woman, putting her out. He scurried into the kitchen for more water, which he threw across his beloved room — now gradually igniting — before it all went up. He scuttled back and forth, exhausted, weeping, pouring, cursing.

Mamoon held her at last, wrapping her in cool, damp things until her convulsions stopped. She was singed in places, and would have to cut off her hair, but she was not badly hurt. He comforted her, gave her downers and put her to bed. He sat with her, scratching in his notebook on a new piece. For a time she didn’t cook or attend to the place. When one of the spaniels caught a duck and killed it on the lawn, she refused to get up to help, and it made Mamoon sick to look at the bloody smears and innards across the grass. Scott had to be called for.

‘You know Scott does the dirty work without complaint,’ said Rob. In a terrible black rage and depression, Mamoon had made him throw away the burned carpet. ‘And, you know what? Scott rescued the carpet. He scraped it off and cleaned it up as well as he could, and said Julia could have it. She will give it to you, and you will keep it on your study wall to remind you of the months you spent falling through the decades, being forced to confront wonders and secrets, until you grew up.’

Mamoon had been having dizzy spells. He’d been falling down. Only Ruth had been picking him up and taking care of him, bringing him food and tea. As Harry might imagine, her corpse-like, Mrs Danvers visage horrified him. ‘You wouldn’t want her coming at you with clippers and cutting your toenails, would you?

‘Mamoon hates the phone, but he has started calling me. He is frightened that Liana has gone mad, that it will always be his destiny to be trapped in the countryside with a lunatic. It has become a death drive competition: which of them, remaining sane, will send the other one mad first. They provoke and curse one another continuously. So: good morning, Harry. This is where you come in.’ Harry asked if it was his fault. It was. ‘Yes, Liana has been mumbling about your influence. She hasn’t quite given the game away. But Mamoon has become convinced you’ve put a spell on her.’

‘How would I do that?’

‘I know exactly how. That stuff you gave her. Those fragments of utopia: the magic mushrooms and other things. Are you going to deny it?’

Harry put his hand to his face. ‘Oh Jesus, Rob.’

‘The woman has been bombed out of her skull. What were you playing at?’ Rob shook his head gravely and went on, ‘The old man’s got something else heavy on you.’ Rob leaned forward and whispered right into Harry’s ear. ‘Can Alice and Julia hear us?’

‘How do I know? They’re sorting out some clothes. Is there more? Is it worse?’

‘It’s her: Julia. She’s the thing here, and the question of convention — the convention being ridiculous, but it exists, nonetheless.’ Harry nodded slowly. ‘I see you humbled. It is admirable, of course, from one point of view, that you had the nerve to go with his staff right under his nose. Dangerous, but Mamoon would never let on.’

‘Why not?’

‘He is fond of you. But never push him. You don’t want anyone blabbing across the literary world that you behaved like a beast in his house.’

‘Rob, I swear, I crept about like a ghost.’

‘Ha ha — when you weren’t depressed, you were baiting him, cunt-teasing and provoking his wife. You even turned her against him. You screwed his staff while consuming large amounts of his booze, eating his wife’s food, stealing his notebooks, slapping him around the head, and accusing him of being a sadomasochist. What is ghostlike about that? You’ll be discredited, you’ll never get a job anywhere. You might have to give him something — see?’

There was a silence. Rob seemed to believe understanding was coming to Harry like the slow but inevitable action of a tranquilliser; and, while it enveloped Harry and smoked his brain, Rob stroked his author’s arm.

‘Good boy,’ said Rob. ‘Think, think. Think hard. You’re my sweetie.’

Alice came in holding her phone. She went to Rob and kissed him. ‘Liana has been texting me. Mamoon even rang and said he’s been making preparations.’

‘For what?’ said Harry.

‘Our arrival. It would be lovely to go down in the morning. I miss the openness, the views, and the water. We don’t even have to stay the night, if you don’t want to.’

‘Darling, are you absolutely sure you want to?’

‘You said there was still one person you hadn’t spoken to for the book. And you know my conversations with Mamoon give me strength.’

Harry looked at Rob and sighed. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘We’ll be there.’

‘You won’t regret it,’ said Rob. ‘You’re not quite done yet.’

‘No,’ said Harry. ‘It doesn’t look like it.’

They arrived in the morning, dropping Julia off at her mother’s on the way.

Harry had wondered if Liana did really want them there. But when they walked in they saw that she had gone to some trouble to make a fine early lunch of seafood pasta and avocado and mozzarella salad. As always, the table looked welcoming. Liana ran out and embraced them.

The conversation was cheerful and diverting; Mamoon was witty, but he only discussed what he’d been watching on TV. After, while Mamoon and Alice continued to sit in their places, discussing their all-time top five favourite puddings, as well as the places and circumstances in which they had consumed them, Mamoon said he had left a ‘special gift’ upstairs for Harry. ‘Go: you’ll be pleased. Keep it,’ said Mamoon.

Harry went upstairs to continue with his work, and found his gift on the bed, in a folder: a four-page handwritten early short story of Mamoon’s. Not long afterwards, having removed her wig, Liana came to the door wearing a Nepalese woollen hat to cover her singed hair, and asked if she could sit with him. Unusually, she didn’t chatter or boast, but put out her tongue.

‘Look at the purple colour of that! Have you seen the circles of hell under my eyes? You heard I caught fire, didn’t you?’

Liana had been in astral torment, traipsing about all night like the miserable undead, with her skin shrinking and her bones aching. She had been satisfying herself too much, four times a day on occasion. She had worn away her finger tip in those soft folds, and thought she might rub herself out. But it was hopeless. ‘The world is flying around and around in my mind. What can I do to stop it? Even Mamoon insisted you come back. It is the only thing we have agreed on lately.’

‘Why did he want us here?’

‘To smash our isolation.’ She put her head on Harry’s shoulder. ‘Won’t you walk with me? Despite all your trickery and determination, I’ve always believed you’ve a kind heart and love women. You listened to me for free.’