Howard Jacobson: J

‘You are in danger,’ she said, ‘of describing the horror you see, not the horror they do.’

‘Why should I see horror?’

‘Don’t be naive.’

‘How am I being naive?’

‘When Hendrie raised his hand and told me I had been with them too long, that I didn’t belong there, that he wished they’d never rescued me from the orphanage, I saw what he saw. An outcast ingrate — with big feet — whom no one could possibly love. That’s the way it works.’

‘I’m sorry about the feet. I love your feet.’

He dropped to his knees and thrust his head under the table where her feet were, and kissed them. I could stay here, he thought. Never come back up.

But he did come back up. That was the grim rule of life, one always came back up. . until one didn’t.

She was smiling at least. Gravely, but a smile was still a smile.

‘Take my point, Kevern,’ she said.

‘I take your point. And I don’t hate myself, if that’s what you’re getting at.’

‘That’s not what I’m getting at. I don’t hate myself either. But criticism rubs off. How could it be otherwise? Sometimes the glass through which others look at you tilts and you catch a little of what they see. It’s understandable that you wish you’d made a better impression.’

‘ Impression ! You make it sound like a children’s story — The Little Girl Who Should Have Made a Better Impression. I’m not that little girl, or boy. I don’t crave anybody’s respect — except yours. I’m not trying to understand what people see when they see me — when they see us , Ailinn — because I think I ought to improve my appearance. I’ve no desire to wear a better aspect. I want to understand what they see on the principle that one should know one’s enemies. I want to know what they see so I can hate them better.’

She fell silent — not bruised by the vehemence of his words but because she wondered whether she was wrong not to feel what he felt. Was it feeble of her to reject resentment, even on behalf of her poor great-grandparents? This queer exhilaration she was experiencing — as though her life could be about to start at last and never mind where she’d been before — was it disloyal? Was Ez sending her on a fool’s errand whose futility was the least of it? Was it wrong? Was it treasonable?

But no. Whatever she was doing, right, wrong, feeble, gullible, treasonable, Kevern’s way was plain bad. Bad for him. Bad for his mental state. Bad for them. Bad for their future together. Bad. ‘This is unhealthy,’ she said at last.

‘It’s a bit late for health.’

‘You are also not being honest with yourself. You say you need to understand how others see you, but your curiosity isn’t dispassionate. It isn’t divided equally between those who don’t like you and those who do. You’re only really intrigued by those who don’t.’

‘Hardly surprising is it, given what I’ve just discovered, if it’s those who don’t like me I’m interested in right now. My friends I can think about later.’

Friends? Did he have friends? His recent conversation with Rozenwyn Feigenblat — not a word of which he’d mentioned to Ailinn — came back to him. She saw him as friendless — worse than that, she saw him as courting friendlessness. And now here was Ailinn saying the same. Why was his nature quite so pervious to women?

‘It’s not right now I’m talking about,’ she persisted. ‘You’ve always paid more attention to your enemies.’

‘Ailinn, I didn’t know I had enemies until five minutes ago.’

‘That’s ridiculous. Who do you lock your door against? Who are you frightened of being invaded by? You have lived in a world of enemies all your life.’

‘You can talk, you and Ahab.’

She waved Ahab away. ‘Now he’s found me I’ll deal with him,’ she said.

‘It’s as easy as that?’

‘No. But it’s good to confront him now he’s out of the shadows. It’s good to turn and face him. Look him in the eyes. Your point — know your enemy. OK, Ahab — do your worst. And it turns out he isn’t even called Ahab.’

‘No, he’s called Ferdie — who frankly I find more frightening.’

‘That’s because you want to go on being frightened. You know no other way.’

‘Are you calling me a coward?’

‘No. I’m sure it takes bravery to live with fear as you do.’

‘That’s patronising. I don’t “bravely” live with fear. It’s not something I choose. I have no choice.’

‘You do — you have the choice not to wallow. .’

‘You think this is wallowing?’

She did, yes she did, but declined to answer. She dropped her head between her fists, and this time beat the cymbals against her ears.

He wondered if he ought to get dressed. The first squeeze of narrow light was showing out to sea. He wasn’t ready for day, but if it had to come he should go and greet it. The cliffs would be a good place to be, on his bench, side by side with Ailinn, looking out to the dead, consoling sea. It wouldn’t change anything but weather was preferable to the cottage, and the great sea justified his fears. The world was terrifying.

‘Will you walk with me?’ he asked, in his gentlest voice. She was right, he knew she was right, morbidity was his nature. So what was new?

‘Of course I will,’ she said, putting an arm around him. Not everyone was his enemy, she wanted him to know. But the gesture made them both feel isolated. They had each other, but who else did they have?

It was only when they were on the bench that she realised he hadn’t double-locked and double-checked that he’d locked the door of his cottage. Had he kicked the Chinese runner? She didn’t think he had. She should have been pleased but she wasn’t. What was he without his rituals?

There was rain in the air. That squeezed sliver of light had been an illusory promise. Below them, the blowhole was clearing its throat in readiness for a day of tumult. A couple of gulls threw themselves like rags into the wind.

‘What now?’ he said suddenly.

‘Do you want to go back in?’

‘No, I meant what are we going to do with the rest of our lives?’

She knew but couldn’t tell him. ‘We can do whatever you’d like to do,’ she lied.

‘Well we can’t just carry on as though nothing’s happened.’

‘Why not? How much has changed really?’

‘Everything,’ he said. ‘Absolutely everything.’

‘You’ll feel differently in a few days. You’ll get back into the swing of things.’

‘What swing of things? I never was in the swing of things. I was waiting. Just waiting. I didn’t know what I was waiting to happen or find out, but I now see that the waiting made for a life of sorts.’

‘ Of sorts ! With me? Is that the best you can say of our time together — a life of sorts ?’

He put his arm around her waist but didn’t pull her to him. ‘Not you. Of course not you. I don’t mean that. We are fine. We are wonderful. But the me that isn’t us, that wasn’t us, when all is said and done, before I met you — before the pig auctioneer — that solitary me. . where do I go with it from here? I waited and I waited, scratching away at bits of wood, and now I know what I was waiting for and it’s. .’

‘It’s what?’

He didn’t know. Above him the raggedy gulls screamed desolately. Was it all just thwarted greed or did they hate it here as much as he did? He looked up to the sky and cupped his ears as though the birds might tell him what to do with himself from this moment on.

‘Nothing,’ he said at last. ‘What it is is nothing. In fact it’s worse than nothing.’

‘You could try feeling pride,’ she said.