Hanif Kureishi - The Last Word

Mamoon said, ‘If you pick up Liana on your way to London, I will kill you straight away.’

Harry made Mamoon comfortable on the sofa and said, ‘Sir, I can tell you she won’t want to come with us.’

‘She talks about you all the time,’ said Alice. ‘If she didn’t love you so much, she wouldn’t be so worked up. She’s trying to give you a fright.’

‘I’ve got one, along with a chill and palpitations.’ Alice found Mamoon’s painkillers and brought him water. ‘This time I really will pass over,’ he said. He had started to sob. ‘I can’t take any more. You won’t leave me here like this, will you? Where’s Ruth? What will I eat? Who will look after the animals?’

Harry had already phoned Julia, who said she and her family would take care of it. Whatever happened, she did not want Alice and Harry out there; two hysterical and confused townies afraid of the dark wouldn’t help anyone. She knew the terrain ‘intimately’.

It wasn’t the easiest evening in Mamoon’s kitchen as Alice, Mamoon and Harry ate, made tea and worried about Liana. Julia, Ruth and Scott were scouting for her with torches, shouts and blankets. They didn’t believe she could have got far; she was probably going around in circles. Mamoon refused to allow Harry or Alice to leave him alone, and lay on the sofa staring into the distance, or he closed his eyes and seemed to drift off.

While they were waiting for news, Harry reiterated how competent and reliable Julia was. If anyone could find Liana, it would be her. Alice added that it had been helpful to have her staying with them in London. She wanted to make it a permanent arrangement, and Julia had agreed. Julia would look after them and the babies, for at least the next eighteen months.

Harry was surprised at this; his view was that it would be best if Julia returned to Liana and Mamoon, and the rest of ‘her community’. But Alice was firm; she’d heard catastrophic stories about au pairs and nannies. She couldn’t see any reason why Julia wasn’t suitable. She was willing, good with kids, and they knew her and her family.

He couldn’t win; he was fated to live with both of them. Mamoon may have been lying there contemplating eternity, but he wasn’t so oblivious he didn’t find the time for a micro-smirk.

It was another hour before Liana was located. Her fury had carried her quite far, but at last she had collapsed in a ditch and was found by Scott and Julia moaning and whimpering. She was taken to hospital, where she was checked over by a doctor who decided that since she was exhausted and suffering from minor injuries she should stay the night. Harry drove Alice and Mamoon to visit her. She slept well, and the next afternoon he brought her home, where Alice put her to bed. Mamoon was solicitous, kind and quiet.

The day after, when Alice and Harry were finally leaving, Mamoon was still worrying about whether he would have to share his writing room with Liana, and he kept asking Harry what he should do. He wouldn’t be able to work with Liana sitting next to him; it was absurd.

Going to the car, Harry found a film crew in the yard, unpacking their equipment. A German TV station, encouraged by Liana, apparently had an appointment to make a documentary about Mamoon. They said Mamoon had agreed, for a nice fee, to give his opinion on many contemporary subjects he knew nothing about.

‘One of them has a clipboard full of questions,’ said Mamoon to Harry. ‘I fear it will be my martyrdom video. Tell them to get out.’

‘Only you can do that,’ he said.

‘You’re just clearing off and leaving us like this?’

‘Yes.’

In London, mortified by what she believed she’d brought about, Alice went to bed for two days, wearing a woollen cap. Harry and Julia were deputed to bring her carrot juice and soup, hold her hand and hear her complaints.

‘It didn’t occur to me that they would be so vulnerable,’ Alice said. ‘I love them both so much. They’ve become like parents to me. What should I do? Write or phone to apologise? Oh God, she’ll never forgive me. . Harry, why didn’t you warn me? You didn’t seem to mind me being with him. Or were you just pleased I could fetch you material? Please, answer me. Will you be speaking to them tonight?’

Harry couldn’t answer. He was glad to be away from Prospects House. He had no wish to see Mamoon or Liana for a while; he would go into a room for at least eighteen months and write his book as he wished. Mamoon would remain Mamoon; Harry neither liked nor disliked him. In Harry’s mind he was becoming something else, an invented or made-up man, someone who had lived only so that Harry could write a book about him.

At a literary party, Harry felt flat and not at all like talking. Leaning against a wall, drinking and watching seemed a more agreeable idea, until he saw Lotte. She had been Rob’s assistant, had left for a while, travelled and had therapy, before going back to work with Rob, this time as an editor, looking after Mamoon’s collected essays. Harry was glad to see her, though he wondered if she might be annoyed with him after the Queen’s Park incident. She only laughed and said that Rob had exaggerated. She was glad to see Harry and had nothing arranged for later. Might they have supper together?

After two years of serious writing, Harry had time, indeed whole long nights of time, on his hands. He suspected he might have plenty to say to Lotte now. Having worked harder than he had ever worked before, he had at last stopped, and was waiting for Liana to read and sanction the biography, while wondering whether he’d accept the next job Rob had offered him.

He needed the money. The twins had been an event. They were born prematurely, and one of them almost died, remaining in hospital for a month. Alice and Julia were drained. When Alice did go out, it was with other mothers and au pairs, and the women talked about sleep as addicts talked about dope.

Harry’s father had liked being a father, as did Harry’s brothers, and Harry found that he took to it. He walked for miles across London, pushing the boys in their huge buggy. As their engine, umbilical and life-support, he existed now, mostly, to serve them, as they became flirts and celebrities, getting presents everywhere they went. He loved his boys’ mouths, their flesh, the smell of their hair — which might often conceal pieces of broccoli or corn — as he’d loved those of women.

Alice, whose company he’d quite enjoyed once, a long time ago, was only a tense mother, as if she had gained a burden she’d never be free from. Harry’s father, in his louche suit at his London club, and always the optimist, had said with a satirical giggle that Harry would become familiar, as at no other time in his life, with the parks and museums of London, while becoming increasingly unfamiliar with his partner and his friends. There were few lonelinesses like that of the new father, as Harry suddenly found himself in places and with people he would otherwise have avoided. It would, his father suspected, be at least five years before Alice emerged from the orgy of motherhood, and only then with considerable persuasion from Harry. The boys, wailing fascist phalluses in nappies, would be the only little pricks she wanted. He would have to wait, if he had the patience. When, after this advice, Harry was told by his father to plod off, his father slipped him £20, as he always did on these occasions, as if he were paying off a tradesman, murmuring, ‘Dear boy, do be sure you have female cover. And do make sure, next time, only to go with women who have had good fathers.’ Harry thanked him. His father went on, ‘And, otherwise, with a woman, be sure to find out what was done to her, because before long she’ll be doing the same to you. Ha, ha. .’