The Last Word Read online

  Harry was reminded who he was. His brothers weren’t impressed or intimidated by Mamoon. There was a cold severity in Mamoon’s work, and, because he had never written a book the title of which everyone could recognise, and he rarely appeared on television, they didn’t give a damn who he was. What they didn’t like was their little brother being run ragged by a manic egotist who wanted a flattering portrait of his big head. Harry saw that, in the shadow of Mamoon’s personality, he had allowed his identity to be attacked; Liana and Mamoon seemed to be able to do or say anything they liked to him. And his father had said, ‘So far you’ve been the mirror he needs, Harry, and why wouldn’t he be happy?’

  ‘He’s benign.’

  ‘Are you sure? Why don’t you mess with his mind a little, twist his penis, confront him, and see what happens? Sometimes a little disorder can be creative.’

  Harry and Alice went to Paris for the flim-flam of the fashion shows, before taking the overnight train to Venice – Harry’s mother’s favourite city – where Alice had never been. When he and Alice woke up in the morning, in the bunks of the sleeper, it was a hop, skip and jump to the Grand Canal. They were barely off the vaporetto, exploring. Harry was keen to see Alice seeing things, to watch her as the world unfolded. One evening she took his hand. She had taken a pregnancy test. It was positive. They hadn’t exactly planned things, but they had discussed them a little, and she was pleased; was he?

  Yes, yes, and maybe. They were joined for good now. He was shocked, and confused and afraid. Suddenly the future had a shape and an inevitability. There would be duties. He would become a different sort of person, and they would know one another in a new way. ‘Christ,’ he said to his father. ‘I’m done for.’

  ‘About time. Welcome to the world,’ Father said. ‘Do you know how to think about it?’

  ‘No . . . Not yet.’

  ‘Does she?’

  ‘She has her friends. They are gossiping and planning already. I feel alone.’

  ‘It will join you to the world, Harry. You can’t run all your life. I love being a father, and I suspect you will too. You’re a better man than you believe you are.’

  After a few days, Alice went back to work, and Harry, with this new knowledge growing in him, flew to India to look at the places Mamoon had lived as a child.

  For two and a half weeks he met family members and acquaintances of the old man, along with those Mamoon had supposedly snubbed, insulted, exploited, or fucked. He discovered what a good scholarship boy Mamoon had been, as well as the fact he’d been aloof and appeared to consider himself superior to those around him. ‘The cut and strut of him in his blazer with shining buttons!’ Harry was told. ‘The looking down of it!’ He heard from several older people that Mamoon had not been a ‘real’ Indian, and was as alienated on the subcontinent as he would be in Britain. He spoke English at home, except with the servants, read only English and French literature, knew little about Islam or Hinduism, both of which he considered to be the opium of the masses, and had rarely visited the countryside.

  Mamoon’s mother was religious, and stayed in her room praying, leaving only to consult experts on the Qur’an. The father had sponsored the boy’s ambition, Harry believed, but not his pleasure, which he opposed. He had had no intention of producing a womanising, hard-drinking, cosmopolitan playboy, sitting in the cafes of European capital cities in worn shoes, borrowing money, stewing in self-pity and debt while discussing Bernard Shaw and Trotsky.

  But the father hadn’t entirely succeeded. Harry heard, from a decent source, something stranger and more intriguing, and began to see what the father had been up against. Mamoon had been a seductive teenager, apparently pulling both older men and women – the mothers of school friends; the school nurse; a policeman’s wife, and, it was said, the policeman himself – into his sphere.

  Like many Indian patriarchs, Mamoon’s father, in his pride and hope, was determined from the start to send his son to the hated mother country to be educated. The son remained the father’s dream, though, and the father had only a little idea of how wrenching the move would be for Mamoon, and what snobbery, contempt and difficulty he would face. The father couldn’t think of his despairing son wandering the London streets evening after evening, nearly mad with loneliness and anxiety, relieved occasionally by a beer and a whore. Even if it was a bit tough, it wouldn’t be for long, since the boy would return home a better man, and continue to be his lonely father’s prop, his mirror, his chamcha. ‘Remember me,’ reminds the father, endlessly, colonising the son’s mind. And not only that, ‘live with me.’ Mamoon refused. In his suffering, Mamoon wanted to join ‘the larger or complete civilisation’, as he put it later. He dismissed his dad and never lived at home again. The father ensured his own death through grief because of it.

  It might appear now that Mamoon always knew what he was doing, that his progress was almost inevitable. Harry learned what determination and strength Mamoon showed, not only in remaining in inhospitable Britain to earn money by his pen, but to make himself into an original writer, one not seen before, speaking from the position of a colonial subject or subaltern, but one without hatred, and with fascination if not identification with the colonisers’ culture. Eschewing contemporary causes and attitudes, Mamoon fashioned himself into a considerable and successful artist from a background which had enabled few before. For a time he did an essential thing, bringing the new into culture, speaking from where no one had spoken. He was rewarded too, and not only that. Any fool would recognise that a successful ‘bolter’ would always inspire recrimination and the radiation of envy. But, at home in India, Mamoon’s rise and achievement was accompanied by a level of resentment, scrutiny and criticism which could have bewildered if not destroyed a lesser man.

  Some of it was self-engineered: Mamoon’s insolence, arrogance and the insanity of some of his statements were no secret. But much of this envy was born of bitterness towards the white man. His former friends and allies believed that Mamoon had become ‘white’. For them any betterment was betrayal. Those he left behind said he had made a pact with the devil and violated his forebears and family. ‘I hope that turns out to be true,’ Mamoon remarked to a friend, waving goodbye. ‘Particularly the violation.’

  Harry had learned much about all this in India, and had also had time to study the notebooks Julia had given him. With renewed enthusiasm for his subject – how do you write such complication? – he flew with some relief to New York. After three days he went to see Mamoon’s former lover Marion, who lived in a small flat in Portland.

  Characteristically, Rob hadn’t exactly ‘organised things’. For the last few weeks Marion had been making it difficult for Harry, cancelling proposed meetings, phoning to ask him more questions, and generally acting like a coquette. All the while she ensured that he was aware she had something valuable to give him, and that there would be a price, though he hadn’t been told what it was. She also insisted on various agents and publishers vouching for his good intentions and honesty. It wasn’t until Mamoon had spoken to Rob, and Rob to her, that Marion gave him a firm appointment. At last he could go to her flat.

  The door opened.

  With long white hair halfway down her back, and moving slowly and unsteadily on sticks, Marion led Harry into the small, overheated apartment. Relieved to meet her, Harry had tried to take her hand but she insisted on pushing her face towards his, and he kissed her cheeks. She gripped his hand as if she’d touched no one for some time.

  She told Harry that as she had cataracts she was unable to read much, watch TV, or clean. What she wanted was conversation, but her family had long deserted her, and she had few visitors now, apart from some nosy students and a secretary who helped her with her writing by taking dictation. There were few creatures on the earth of less interest than a woman in her mid-seventies, but some people were interested in Mamoon Azam. He was the one card she had left.

  ‘Please, before you interrogate me,’ she said, bringing Harry tea a
nd biscuits before sitting down with a blanket over her knees, ‘would you be good enough to answer my queries?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Do you have anything of his I can touch?’

  ‘What sort of thing?’

  ‘A tie. A book he gave you.’

  He gestured helplessly. ‘No, sorry, I didn’t think.’

  ‘He didn’t send anything?’

  ‘Only me.’

  She said he was never particularly thoughtful. ‘But I have his reading glasses here, which I polish every Sunday, while recalling the smell and touch of his skin, remembering his smoky voice – gravelly, harsh sometimes, but caressing – and his careful timing when he made me laugh.’

  She could imitate Mamoon well, and appeared to enjoy conversations with him, playing both parts. She asked about Liana without agitation, wanting to know how tall and wide she was and whether she was able to deal with Mamoon’s moods and tantrums, how her cooking was, whether she liked to shop, if she had indigestion, how well she slept, and whether she could cope with his nightmares and whether she made him laugh.

  She wanted to hear what Mamoon was working on, whether he dyed his hair now and how his health was, particularly his back, and his stomach and bowels too, as well as his teeth. She needed to know if he still did this or that with his head when you asked him a difficult question. She wanted also to know about the house and its land – the place she’d only seen photographs of, but where she had believed, at one time, she’d spend the rest of her life with the man she loved.

  And then she laughed shrilly, before, inevitably, weeping. He wept too, as it seemed participatory and kind, and they called one another soppy. He looked for tissues, and she went to the bathroom to wash her face.

  When she was ready, he turned on the tape.

  A Colombian with an English Jewish mother, Marion told him how she met Mamoon at a reading, and how they fell in love. Over a period of five years he had visited her often, and they travelled together in India, the United States and Australia. She had left her dull husband soon after meeting Mamoon, and had taken a little place in New York’s West Village, because Mamoon was thinking of setting a novel there. ‘Don’t forget,’ she said. ‘He was a Muslim man, and basically thought of women as servants. I advanced him, but there’s only so far you can go.’

  They had always had plenty to say to one another and, like the most attractive men, Mamoon was amusing and sharp – about literature and politics, about others, and primarily, about himself. He was self-absorbed, but too anxious and insecure to be self-admiring. He worried all the time, she said, and could become absolutely frenzied about his work, which kept him sane, just about. He would show her drafts of what he was doing, and she would help him, sitting across the table with a pencil. He listened to her opinions and replied seriously. He made her feel valued and creative, and she knew how those famous books were made.

  ‘Some of the interviews in Evenings with the Killer were fabricated, of course. That must be well known.’

  ‘No one else has said that. Didn’t he tape them?’

  ‘Yes, and they were transcribed, sometimes by Peggy, sometimes by me or a secretary. When he sat down to write up the material, considerable work was done. He was never at that famous execution. He admitted to me that he was only “almost” there.’

  ‘He’s a creative artist who made—’

  ‘Or made up,’ she said. ‘He omitted material, altered other things, fudged and even rewrote quotes, to suit the piece. He wrote about places he’d never been, and things he’d never seen.’

  Harry shrugged. ‘That’s novelists for you. Bastards.’

  She said, ‘No doubt you’ll find yourself doing the same.’ She was looking at him. ‘It’s occurring to you that that would be a good idea.’

  ‘“Stolen-telling,” Joyce calls it. And Mamoon did say, rather wisely, “I hope you’re not going to be one of those fool writers who thinks the facts are sufficient.” He thinks that originality is the art of stealing the right things. He’s an entertainer . . .’

  ‘How cheap and nasty you are. I suspect you might be something of an argumentative nuisance. Is there really any point in us going on with this? If I could stand up, I’d stand up right now,’ she said, and turned away.

  Today would be difficult. Would he get anywhere? Should he walk out? He waited in silence, as his father would have suggested.

  ‘You gave up a lot for Mamoon,’ he said at last.

  ‘Yes, yes, everything.’

  ‘How could it not be difficult for you to speak about it?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  There was more silence; then he sighed in relief as she went on. Her husband was no loss, but her beloved children had been furious that she’d traded her family for what her ex-husband called ‘personal excitement’. But Mamoon, like Omar Sharif, whom she believed he resembled, was a man a woman could give things up for. Marion loved him, he was her destiny; she thought that love was the only game in town. Although he came to America less often because of Peggy’s incapacity, she had taken it for granted he would look after her for life. He had said he would.

  Marion had had no reason not to believe Mamoon. Their love life had been more fulfilling and stronger than anything she had encountered before, and they had been together properly. Apart from her, there had only been Peggy, and, at the end, she found they were both waiting for poor Peggy to die. She had nothing against Peggy – though she did refer to her as a ‘bed-blocker’ – and she admired Mamoon for sticking by her. He had fulfilled his ‘futile’ duty.

  ‘Futile, you say. Why?’ Harry asked.

  ‘As far as I could see,’ she said, ‘because the two of them had lived in such a closed circle, with very little outside influence, she had hypnotised him into believing that not only was he the cause of her suffering, but that he was the only cure. I freed him from this false belief.’

  Not that she’d been thanked. At the end, Marion hadn’t seen Mamoon for more than a year. The day came when she learned that Peggy had died, and she’d readied herself for Mamoon’s call. At last she would leave New York and move to England to be with him in his house. She had already been thinking of how she’d furnish it. The windows would be opened, Peggy’s things put away immediately, and everything rearranged. She didn’t want to live with a dead woman.

  She rang Mamoon. The woman who picked up the phone – Harry guessed it had been Ruth – said she would take a message. This happened a number of times; Ruth had passed on the message, she said. Days passed and Marion heard nothing. She guessed Mamoon was busy with the funeral arrangements and other mourning matters. More time passed.

  When she didn’t hear from him, she went to Bogotá, and travelled in Colombia, suffering and seeing him everywhere. It wasn’t for some months that she learned from a magazine that he’d married Liana, whom, she also learned, he’d met about eighteen months previously, promoting his work in Italy. Apparently, Mamoon had returned to see Liana several times and they had rented a flat in Paris together. He’d eventually taken her to Venice, where he proposed. Marion examined photographs of them together, and everything she’d tried to forget returned.

  Desperate for an explanation, Marion wrote to Mamoon often; she rang repeatedly. Then, unusually, Mamoon did pick up the phone, as he might do occasionally if he happened to be sitting near it. He said he was surprised to hear from her; he informed her that of course it was too late. Everything between them had died some time ago. Hadn’t it been obvious to her? She had nothing that he wanted. You had to fail people at the right time, he said, memorably. As a good deal of her past and all of her future suddenly dissolved, Marion screamed and raged. Mamoon said she’d cooked up ridiculous fantasies, and shouldn’t contact him again; he was a happily married man and that was that, for him. He put the receiver down.

  Harry watched her weep again, and flail at a cushion on her sofa. He was embarrassed and uncomfortable; he’d wanted to write an informative book celebrating a good
writer, not lead an elderly woman through a psychodrama towards a nervous breakdown.

  This initial conversation with Marion had already taken up most of one day, and he needed to think through what she had said. He returned to his hotel, checked his tape and made notes.

  He called Alice to let her know how exhausted he was. To his surprise, he found that she had been with Liana and Mamoon all weekend.

  ‘You’re there now?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. He knew you were going away, so they invited me down,’ she said.

  ‘Cunning.’

  ‘Kind, in my condition. I need rest, and I needed to bring some ties, shirts and other things for Mamoon.’

  ‘Did he like them?’

  ‘He was delighted. He wants to update his look.’

  ‘Makes sense.’

  ‘Anyhow, they love my company, and I find it restful here. Mamoon wants to regain his strength; we’ve been taking long walks.’

  ‘You have? Talking about what?’

  ‘It’s just chatter. It’s amazing, Harry, I can say anything to him and he doesn’t judge but always has something intelligent to say. His brain is massive. It’s so good for me to relax here, particularly now I’m so anxious.’

  ‘Why don’t you write down what he says when you get back to our room?’

  ‘Whatever for? You know I believe in living in the moment. It’s a private conversation about everything.’

  ‘What is everything?’

  ‘Life, fathers, art, politics, sex.’

  ‘Does he know anything about that?’

  ‘He has thought deeply, Harry, more than the average man, you know that, and everything he says is interesting, which is why you study him. He’s psychoanalysing me and looking into my problems with debt. I’m terrified he’ll find me superficial or narcissistic, as your father did the last time we went to the house.’