Paul Murray - An Evening of Long Goodbyes

‘Aren’t you putting any ginseng in?’

‘No,’ taking down a jar of herbs from the cupboard, ‘I have told you already, Master Charles, we have no ginseng in the house —’

‘All right, what about some rhino horn, do we have any of that ground rhino horn?’

‘Master Charles, I do not know this recipe that you think of, but me I am very sure that ossobuco he does not need ginseng or rhino horn or Spanish fly or any of these things that you say.’

‘Well, good, but… I mean there’ll be oysters at least, won’t there?’

‘Yes, Master Charles, but please, it is difficult to work here if you are all the time watching over my shoulder…’

‘Oh — all right.’

‘And you will not be able to eat dinner if you keep eating all those biscuits.’

‘I can’t help it,’ I said apologetically, putting the lid back on the tin. ‘I don’t seem able to stop, it must be nerves or something.’

‘Mmm.’ She took a pinch of coriander from a jar and stirred it into a smoking pan. ‘Master Charles, excuse me but I hear you talking with Miss Bel a few days…’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes,’ she continued hesitantly, keeping her back to me, ‘when you say the banks are coming to take away the house…’

‘I see.’

She turned to face me now; lines of distress stood out around her worn eyes. ‘What will happen, Master Charles? Where will we go?’

I didn’t feel like I ought to discuss it with her, the matter being primarily one for the family; nevertheless, she deserved some reassurance. ‘I shouldn’t worry about the bank, Mrs P. It’s a simple crossed wire, that’s all.’ I put a hand on her shoulder and added in a confidential tone: ‘Anyway, I’m taking care of it.’

She didn’t seem to take much comfort from this, but turned without further comment back to the cooker.

‘I’ll go and check on the dining room,’ I said airily, stretching myself. ‘You’ll be all right in here, won’t you? You’re not feeling, you know, mad or anything?’ She rattled a saucepan by way of reply. On my way out I paused to look back at her, trying to store the image: red elbows amid steaming pots, tight bun of hair, the kindly curve of her jowl…

‘ Ow !’

… and pushed through the door right into Bel. ‘Sorry,’ I reached down to help her up. ‘Here, let me take that…’

‘It’s okay — hang on, are you all right?’

‘Me? Yes, of course. Something in my eye, that’s all.’

I followed her into the dining room, where she set down her casket and brushed the dust from her blouse.

‘How much are you planning on bringing down? Because there’s boxes of Mother’s family’s stuff in the attic, if you want…’

‘Actually, I don’t think we could fit much more.’ We cast our eyes over the room.

‘It looks like Aladdin’s cave…’ From every corner treasures winked and glistened: bracelets, rings and ankle chains, jade and lapis, garnets and sapphires, Hindu statuettes, Turkish throw-rugs, antique pistols and scimitars, several inscrutable objets from Africa, spooky green Tahitian pearls, a Byzantine loros, amulets, orreries… ‘I don’t know Charles, it seems so ostentatious . I mean, if Ca lig ula were coming to dinner, it might make sense. But it’s Laura. And she’s coming to talk about insurance.’

‘Well, there’s lots of things here she can insure, don’t you think she’ll be happy about that?’

‘You should leave out a calculator and some actuarial tables, I bet that would get her going.’

‘Yes, that’s very helpful, now could you hold the ladder a moment…’

Initially, when I realized I had double-booked, as it were, I thought I would have to cancel dinner. On the face of it, there didn’t seem much point in sparking off a romance with Laura if I were going to be for all intents and purposes dead next morning. But the more I thought about it — how long I had waited for this night to come, how many times I had dreamed of the moment she would walk through the door — the more I began to wonder if the two events were in some way connected. Could it be that my first meeting with Laura and my flight from Amaurot were meant to coincide? Was this Destiny showing her hand, telling me that our fates were to remain intertwined? If the bond between us were as strong as I felt, could it be — I hardly dared think it — could it be that we might somehow go on together, beyond the grave, so to speak? That she would come with me into my new life?

In short, though it was a little inconvenient, I decided that the dinner would go ahead after all. Given the circumstances, however, and our mutual destiny notwithstanding, I thought it would be wise to hurry things along as much as possible. This was why I had inserted as many aphrodisiacs into the menu as Mrs P would allow, and why I had gathered up the family valuables from their various niches around the house and transferred them en masse into the dining room for the evening (though I had an ulterior motive for the latter action which would remain secret until much later). Bel was probably right, it probably was ostentatious, but it was the last chance I would have to blind anyone with fabulous displays of wealth, and I thought I should make the most of it. Furthermore, the pragmatist in me was urging me to do my romancing while I had access to the necessary hardware, viz., a bed; one didn’t want to rush these things, but at the same time I didn’t know where I’d be two days from now, and Casanova himself might have been at a loss if after all his hard work he had to invite his paramours back to a nice patch of grass, or behind a skip.

‘I meant to ask — yuck , Charles, where did you find this?’

‘That’s called shunga , it’s a very old and beautiful Japanese art form…’ propping it up beside a Victorian cameo brooch.

‘What’s he doing to her? Does he have two penises? — I meant to ask you about Mrs P, didn’t you give her the week off?’

‘Yes, but —’

‘Because she’s been slaving in there all day.’

‘Yes, but I could hardly cook dinner myself, could I? Not after last time, I mean I don’t want to poison the girl —’

‘The thing is — the topaz would be nice beside the chryselephantine, no the little ivory thing — I’m beginning to think you were right about her being a bit, you know… because you mightn’t have heard, but these last few nights she’s been sort of screaming …’

‘ Screaming ?’

‘Well, maybe not exactly screaming, but calling out for someone.’

‘You’re sure it’s not the peacocks?’ Since their infestation, the peacocks had been making a horrendous racket, the noise made my blood run cold –

‘No, it’s definitely her. Every night at three or four a.m. It’s frightening. I asked her today wasn’t she sleeping well and she didn’t seem to know what I was talking about.’

‘Her cooking doesn’t seem to be affected, though.’

‘But she shouldn’t be working, Charles. She’s worn out. Have I told you my theory about her? I’ve developed a theory about her.’

‘Hmmm?’ descending the ladder and pacing backwards to view the display from the far end of the dining table.

‘I think it’s what happened in Kosovo. You know she used to watch all those news reports. She was practically addicted. I think it must have upset her more than she let on.’

‘Mmm.’ I squinted at the dresser through a frame of thumbs and forefingers. ‘Isn’t all that over now, though? Didn’t NATO win?’ I seemed to remember the builders giving out recently about NATO winning some war by dropping bombs on people somewhere else.

‘Well, maybe it’s a delayed reaction, like, now that it’s over and the Kosovans are returning home, now it’s hitting her. Maybe the same thing happened to her when the Serbs invaded Bosnia or Croatia or wherever she’s from… God, Charles, can you imagine what it was like , all those unfortunate people in those miserable camps just waiting and listening to horror stories about the ones who didn’t escape — no wonder she has nightmares…’