Paul Murray - An Evening of Long Goodbyes

‘Not that important,’ I assured her, as she folded the coat over her forearm and brought it away to the cloakroom. There was a creak on the stairs behind me. I looked around — and with a little kick of exhilaration saw Bel coming into view.

‘Charles!’ she exclaimed.

No, wait, it wasn’t Bel, it was Mirela wearing Bel’s silver kimono: I felt my heart back up, as if it had taken a wrong turn down a one-way street –

‘My goodness, how are you?’

‘What?’ I said distractedly, trying not to look at the shapely halfmoon of flesh disclosed by the aperture of her kimono as she leaned out over the banister. ‘Oh — tolerably well, tolerably well…’

‘I wish I knew you were coming,’ she said, sashaying down the intervening steps. ‘You catch me looking like this. Why haven’t you come to visit before? Did you forget about us?’

‘Oh,’ I croaked, ‘you know…’

‘I suppose your new life is much more exciting. But couldn’t you have called me, at least?’

I should explain that I had given considerable thought before coming out here as to what strategy to adopt if, as was likely, I ran into Mirela. In the end I’d decided against making any direct accusations as regarded her negligence or general heartlessness, in favour of a tone of polite but implacable froideur . However, everything already seemed to be getting confused; for she — paused just above me with her hand resting on the stair-rail like the flower of some exquisite vine — seemed adamant that it was I who had neglected her . ‘I thought we had such a good talk that night after the play,’ she said. ‘But then you were just gone. You didn’t even say goodbye.’

I could only gape. Had I got everything back to front? Had she been pining for me all this time?

‘You look well, Charles,’ she said softly, coming down on to the second-to-last step.

‘They changed my bandages,’ I whispered.

Who knows what might have happened had she been allowed to reach the bottom of the stairs. But without warning, our idyll was shattered — by Mrs P, who arrived back from the cloakroom and took up a stance behind me, from which she launched into a wordy and by the sounds of it highly critical speech in Bosnian.

‘Oh Mama, speak English, can’t you?’ Mirela shouted. This served only to increase the volume of the harangue. ‘Why can’t one of the boys do it? They’re just sitting in there playing backgammon —’

Mrs P folded her arms and eyed her daughter squarely; and after a moment’s token resistance, Mirela buckled. ‘All right, all right, in case anyone should forget my mother is the maid .’ She turned to me entreatingly. ‘Sorry, Charles. But maybe we’ll have a chance later to catch up,’ and I felt her hand slide coolly over mine to squeeze my fingers, before she hoisted her head and marched down the hallway, her prosthesis clattering defiance on the parquet as she went.

‘See what I mean?’ Mrs P expostulated beside me. ‘Everybody so important!’

‘Yes,’ I said faintly, caressing the fingers of the lucky hand. ‘Yes…’

Mrs P went to pick up her tray of cakes. ‘I must go and bring these to the others. Master Charles, you have eaten lunch?’

‘Hmm? What’s that? Lunch?’

‘Perhaps I make you a sandwich?’

‘Oh, no, Mrs P, I’m perfectly all right, I’m sure you have enough to do without —’

‘Or we have some cheese, if you like?’

‘Cheese, eh…’ It had been a long time since I’d had a decent piece of cheese. ‘Well, tell you what. Why don’t you get the cheese and I’ll deliver these for you, wherever they’re going.’

‘Ah, you are always so kind, Master Charles.’ She told me they were for the actors in the rehearsal room, patted my arm and waddled away into the kitchen: from which Vuk and Zoran emerged a moment later, rushing past me like scalded cats in the direction of the garden shed.

Now that she mentioned it I was feeling rather peckish, so I ate the rest of the buns and drank the orange juice. Then I went into the recital room, where I found practically the whole menagerie had gathered to rehearse their lines. In one corner, a tubby fellow and a girl with barrettes were arguing over a hat and whether it looked legal enough; here and there along the wall, people sat in the lotus position with their eyes closed and lips moving. The majority, however, were pacing the floor, frowning at the scripts in their hands and murmuring to themselves. Some kind of sixth sense seemed to keep them from bumping into one another; the effect was rather uncanny, like being at a sleepwalkers’ convention.

‘Darling!’ Mother’s voice came from behind me. ‘Oh, how good of you to come and see me! But how pale you look, my dear. Please, sit and tell me what’s the matter —’

‘Oh, hello Mother, nothing really, just a little over-tired I suspect…’

‘What?’ She looked up distractedly from the pages in her hand. ‘Oh, hello Charles, what are you doing here?’

‘What?’ I blinked. ‘Oh… I just came over with the wheelchair.’

‘The wheelchair, bravo! We must tell Bel, it’s for her part — Charles, why are you carrying around a tray of dirty dishes?’

‘Mrs P gave them to me,’ I said.

‘Tsk, tsk,’ Mother said, shaking her head. ‘Is there no end to that woman’s corner-cutting? Well, put them down, dear, we’re rather busy but you might as well have a glass of something while you’re here.’

I left the tray on the sideboard and followed her into the hallway. ‘You look well, Charles,’ she declared, nodding at various passing Residents. ‘There’s a bit of colour in your cheeks.’

‘They changed my bandages, if that’s what you —’

‘A fortitude , that’s what it is. I knew it would do you good, getting out there into the rough and tumble of the real world.’

‘Yes, Mother,’ trailing after her into the dining room.

‘There’s something bracing about an honest day’s work,’ she reflected, pouring a glass of sherry for me, then one for herself, ‘doing one’s bit, getting one’s due, going home on the tram with the satisfaction of knowing that the part one plays, small as it may be, is indispensable to the whole. One can’t put a price on that kind of satisfaction, can one, dear?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘although in terms of actual pay , they’ve managed to put a —’

‘Good, because that’s what keeps the whole world turning, Charles, isn’t it? What are you doing, exactly? Wasn’t it something about the Civil Service? Is it terribly bracing?’

‘Well, I suppose it’s moderately br—’

‘You know that we’re all terribly proud of you…’ glass in hand she clipped back out. ‘Though as I say we’re very busy here ourselves, Harry’s new play is going up in three weeks and we’re all working like blacks. Not that any of us is making any money from it — perhaps we could enlist you as one of our patrons, Charles?’

‘Ha ha,’ I rejoined dully, shying away from the Pandora’s box of Oedipal and economic problems inherent in that particular idea.

‘A remarkable piece of work, remarkable. That boy has such a touch for the stories of everyday life, the stories of the Common Man, you might say. Because it’s all very well for us in our ivory towers and our cosy Civil Service positions, Charles, but what about the less fortunate? It’s no picnic for them, you know.’

‘Yes, I can imagine —’

‘Which is why they are so lucky to have a writer like young Harry to give them a voice. Although I can’t claim to be entirely impartial, seeing as I myself have a small part, as the ailing mother.’ She laughed, and tossed back her sherry. I took advantage of the interval to ask Bel’s whereabouts so I could tell her I’d brought the wheelchair.