Paul Murray - An Evening of Long Goodbyes

‘Money?’ I said.

‘We don’t have any,’ she said. ‘I mean we should , we should have enough to keep afloat, at least. But any time I ask Mother about it she’s busy and when I look at the house’s accounts they’re like a labyrinth , or, or modern art or something. And without it we can’t do anything, we can’t afford publicity, so we can’t get audiences, so we can’t get a grant, it’s like a vicious circle.’ It struck me that the only way they could have got better audiences for Burnin Up would have been to go down to the docks and shanghai drunken sailors, but I kept this to myself. ‘So the drama classes and the outreach programme, all that’s been put on hold while we have these endless meetings, and meetings about meetings, and meetings about meetings about meetings, and everybody just talks and nobody ever does anything…’ The cloud in her brow darkened ominously. ‘Mirela wants to have a fundraiser for the next one. Put on an invitation-only event where we can woo corporate sponsors.’

‘Well, I suppose Mirela knows what she’s talking about,’ I put in. Apparently it was the wrong thing to say, because Bel immediately went pink and started lecturing me about how banks and e-businesses and phone companies and the rest of them were exactly what the theatre was supposed to be working against, and how she’d rather the whole thing failed than sell out like that, and so on and so forth.

‘I only meant that, you know, hasn’t she done this sort of thing before, with her group in Slovenia or wherever it was?’ I said. ‘So she probably knows how the whole thing works, that’s all.’

‘She likes to give that impression,’ Bel said icily.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Bel opened her mouth and closed it and opened it again, and said in a rush: ‘It means that she comes on like this great actress who’s seen it all before, but all she is really is a big void with no emotions of her own, I mean all she does is go around telling people what they want to hear so she can get her own way, and if you ask me the whole routine is getting pretty tired…’

I compared the Mirela that Bel was presenting here with the tender, hand-squeezing, Maybe-we-can-catch-up-later-Charles one I had encountered on the stairs. It was painfully obvious that Bel’s version didn’t hold up. ‘That’s nonsense,’ I said.

‘It’s not,’ Bel said petulantly.

‘What does she do, then, that’s so bad? Give me one example of her being a void and getting everything her own way.’

From the corner into which she and her cloud had retreated, Bel mumbled something about borrowing her clothes without asking.

‘Borrowing your clothes!’ I repeated scornfully. I looked her up and down; she scowled and twitched and pulled compulsively at her pendant. ‘You know, you’re acting awfully strangely.’

Bel sniffed and stared at the ground.

‘There’s nothing wrong , is there? This thing with Harry hasn’t blown up in your face, has it?’

‘Oh Lord ,’ she exclaimed, stamping over to the bed and retrieving her script. ‘Charles, has it ever occurred to you that I might occasionally have problems that aren’t related to men?’

‘I’m just asking,’ I said. ‘I’m just making sure that everyone’s thought everything through, and no one’s taking liberties —’

‘I mean is it so hard for you to believe that someone could actually want to be with me without having some ulterior motive, like, like wanting to steal the furniture, or having their eye on your bedroom —’

‘No, of course not,’ I said. ‘Although now that we’re on the subject I might as well mention that we do actually still have a pact. I mean it’s probably slipped your mind, but you did agree that when you and Frank broke up, as you tragically have, that you wouldn’t —’

‘Charles, what’s that smell?’

‘What smell?’ I said. ‘Don’t change the subject.’

‘There’s an overpowering smell of marzipan ,’ she said, sniffing the air.

‘I don’t smell anything.’

‘It seems to be coming from you .’

‘Oh that,’ I said. ‘It’s Yule Log.’

‘ Yule Log?’

‘It doesn’t seem to come off,’ I said sorrowfully. ‘Even in the shower.’

Abruptly her gloom was eclipsed by a peal of unladylike laughter. If I had been paying more attention, I might have found this transition too swift; I might have detected an uncomfortable treble note to her habitual Schadenfreude . But I was too busy being annoyed. Smelling of marzipan was a matter taken very seriously among the staff of Processing Zone B, several of whom had been attacked by roaming packs of hungry dogs. I told her this, but it only made her worse. She was practically doubled over with laughter.

‘It’s not funny,’ I insisted. ‘It’s all very well for you people with your plays and your ivory towers. This is the sort of thing we poor mugs down in the trenches have to put up with every day. Frankly, the roaming packs of dogs are just the tip of the iceberg.’

‘I never thought I’d see the day when you tell me I’m living in an ivory tower,’ Bel chuckled, massaging her midriff.

‘Well, it’s true,’ I said sanctimoniously, forgetting about the pact as I realized that here was a chance to take revenge for all the preachy speeches she had made to me over the years. ‘You people have it pretty easy. It’s no picnic for the working man, let me tell you. Especially when the first thing he hears when he comes in the door is Mother telling him how bracing it all is, honestly, to hear her talk you’d think the blasted world was some kind of exclusive tennis camp , where you go to learn which fork to use and work on your backhand —’

‘Maybe you should write a play,’ Bel taunted, going through her drawer of unmentionables.

‘I should take her out to Bonetown,’ I said. ‘See what she thinks of that, when the Common Man runs off with her damned handbag —’

‘Oh, for God’s sake — I’ve been in Bonetown, it’s not that bad…’ She stopped in front of me, a pair of briefs balled up in her hand. ‘Charles, why is it that every time I want to get changed I seem to find you in my room, even when you don’t live here any more?’

‘All right, all right.’ Taking her point I withdrew to a discreet spot in the corridor outside. The door closed behind me. I gazed vacantly at the boxes a moment. Then I went back to the door and reopened it a chink. ‘Anyway it is that bad. All of that stuff in Harry’s plays about the poor being jolly, or the salt of the earth, it’s a total fabrication. You’ve never seen such a crowd of malingering, dissolute layabouts. All anybody does is break things and drink and be sick on our doorstep —’

‘Well you should feel right at home then,’ came the reply, with the snick of a clasp.

‘Maybe I should write a play,’ I grumbled. ‘Shake up you people in your ivory tower a little.’ Raising my voice, I added, ‘And I’d show that charlatan a thing or two!’

There was a pregnant sort of a silence; and then the sound of bare feet stamping across the floor, and Bel appeared at the door. ‘Charles, I shouldn’t even bother, but for your information the reason why Harry is twice the man you are is because he has opened his eyes, he’s lived in places and worked all kinds of jobs and actually tried to like people, instead of covering his ears and clicking his ruby slippers and wishing he was back in Amaurot —’

‘Well, you wouldn’t know it to look at him today,’ I said, shielding my eyes from the sight of her bare legs, ‘hurtling about in Father’s Mercedes, gotten up like a country squire as if he owned the place —’