Hanif Kureishi - The Last Word

She was keen to show him how the walled garden was developing, and eager to have him see the carp and goldfish in the pond. She insisted on taking him behind the barns and via the swimming pool, which they had opened properly at last. It was early autumn, but it had been unseasonably warm, and the day was spectacular.

‘I expect we’ll find Mamoon there,’ she said. ‘You know, though he has hurt me more than anyone else, I still love to turn a corner and see him.’

‘I thought he rarely goes into that part of the garden.’

‘I can’t tell you how strangely he’s been behaving.’

Mamoon had become interested in their pool. Uncharacteristically, he had even forfeited a day’s work to oversee and scrutinise its cleaning by Ruth and Scott, ensuring that it was heated to a temperature he approved of, not something Mamoon would normally attend to himself. Even more unusually, Scott had been ordered to drive Mamoon into town to buy food and wine, as well as garden furniture, loungers and towels, Mamoon insisting that Scott get them to the house immediately. Liana was cheered by this, wondering if Mamoon was beginning to forget the burden of his work.

As they walked, Harry and Liana saw bare-chested Scott with a fishing net, dragging leaves from the pool. Beyond him was the increasingly large figure of Alice, in sunglasses, white bra and pants — she was admirably reckless like that — lowering herself into the water.

Mamoon sat close by, clapping his hands, encouraging her to go in. ‘Is it correct temperature?’ he was saying. ‘Surely it is! Go down! Good. Lower. That’s it. .’

He stood up to watch her swim a couple of slow, elegant lengths.

‘Well, well,’ said Harry to Liana. ‘Thank God Mamoon is using the pool at last.’ Liana asked what he thought they talked about. ‘Many artists have had a muse,’ he said, ‘and with Alice he’s found sensuality, inspiration and a pin-up. He hears her dreams and talks about them in relation to her history. She tells him what trousers suit him.’

‘He listens to her dreams, you say?’

‘Doesn’t he listen to yours? In his spare time he’s become something of an oneiromancer now. He learned that a dream can make or break a day.’

‘He shoos me away.’

Harry pointed towards them. ‘He’s not shooing her away. It looks like Mamoon’s ready for the Olympics, the way he dashes to fetch that towel, a frenzied old man hurrying to catch the last bus. “Forever panting”, as Keats puts it.’ Harry went on, ‘But I don’t actually believe he’ll seduce Alice. He’s too nervous. He just wants to pore over her.’

‘But why, why?’

When Alice emerged from the water, she appeared to be naked. Mamoon stood completely still, with a towel over his arm.

Harry said, ‘Mamoon did say to me, wisely, I believe — and this is advice I’ve taken to heart — that a man would be a fool to think he had to make love to any woman he fancied.’

Harry went to Alice, shivering on a lounger, wrapped in a towel, and kissed her on the side of the head. He took her hand and sat down next to her. He patted her stomach and addressed his children inside her, ‘Hi kids, how you doing? Was it too cold for you in that water? When are you coming to see us? We want you!’

Liana sat with Mamoon and grasped his hand. ‘What a wonderful job you have done. The pool must be cold, but it looks tempting, my dear. I will swim. Won’t you join me? It would be lovely if we went in together, side by side, and I could see how strong you are. Mamoon, can you hear me, are you fine?’ He shook his head vaguely. ‘In that case, will you watch me and make sure I don’t drown, my love?’

While Liana changed in the nearby hut, Harry said to Mamoon, ‘I’m shocked not to see you in your study at this time of the day, sir. Have you finished what you’re doing?’

Mamoon looked away. ‘I’ll never be finished.’

Alice had closed her eyes and was falling asleep. Harry said, ‘I love looking at Alice now she’s pregnant. She’s even more ravishing — her skin, her eyes, her hair just glows.’ Mamoon nodded sullenly. ‘You once said, sir, and under pertinent circumstances, “Rather a book than a child,” didn’t you?’

‘You invented that.’

‘I think I remember reading it in Peggy’s diaries,’ said Harry.

‘Why did you think such a thing?’ Alice said to Mamoon, opening her eyes. ‘Did you never want a child, maestro?’

‘Don’t believe a word you read,’ said Mamoon.

‘My blood’s gone to my feet,’ said Alice. ‘I feel quite faint. I thought I had more puff. The children are already taking my life.’

Harry stroked Alice’s hair. ‘Books are traps: rather a child than a thousand libraries. Stories are merely a substitute.’

‘For what?’ said Mamoon.

He kissed Alice. ‘The real thing. The woman.’ He looked up. ‘Ah, here comes Liana, doesn’t she look beautiful in her bathing costume?’ He stood up, helped Alice to her feet, and led her away with his arm around her. ‘Come on, let’s go inside and lie down together before you turn blue. I think it might rain. And Mamoon wants to be with Liana.’

‘Mamoon,’ called Liana. ‘Take my arm, darling, and help me drown — sorry, I mean down into the water. Where are you, my dear husband?’

‘See you later, we’re leaving you to it,’ shouted Harry.

Harry stood in the yard in the rain holding a box. He had the feeling someone was watching him, but what did it matter?

Ruth had come to the house to clear up after lunch, bringing Julia with her to help Harry empty his room. While Julia attempted to sort and order the papers and books Harry had neglected to take the last time they left, Harry carried the stuff out to the car. Lingering there in the yard a moment, something made him go to look over some quotes and take a final peep.

Mamoon had often dismissed and evaded Peggy, particularly around the time of the abortion, not long after they moved into the house. It was then, apparently, that he had said, ‘Rather a book than a baby.’ For Harry, Peggy’s version of Mamoon’s early history was authoritative and believable, and the material at the end, when she begged Mamoon, ‘If only my dear husband would relent and think to bring me some pages to edit, he knows for me this is the most important thing, our only connection now,’ when he had sat at her bedside with his head in his hands in awful silence, was unbearable. The ghost is always the one not admitted. As Harry flicked through the diaries and believed he could hear Peggy crying out to him, he assured her he would tell her story — whatever it was — as well as he could, alongside Mamoon’s.

‘Harry!’ Mamoon was standing at the kitchen door when Harry returned to the house. Mamoon removed the headphones he had now taken to wearing, through which he played music sent by Alice. ‘What are you doing in there? Looking at Peggy again? You’d better be done with that,’ he said. ‘It’s all going to the university this week. I should have stuffed it in the grate. Ted Hughes, whom I knew and loved, had the right idea with Sylvia’s diaries — push them in the oven after the woman’s head. Otherwise those unreadable academics never stop trying to make their careers and a good income out of it, while making the man look like an ogre. They see it as they wish, without imagination. And it is ordinary male sexuality that they hate.’

‘If we’re talking honestly, as you wanted,’ said Harry, ‘would you say there’s some regret there?’

‘Far from being merciless, I was too loyal and dutiful. What do you do with dead desire? I had none for her, and her desire was to suffer. The sensible thing would have been to scarper sharpish.’