Nutshell(21)

‘Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part …’

Unnecessary, I think, for him to be speaking certain phrases with such relish. ‘You get no more of me’, ‘so cleanly I myself can free’, not ‘one jot of former love retain’. And at the end, when Passion is on his deathbed, and there’s a chance against the odds he might recover if only Trudy wished it, my father denies it all with a clever, sarcastic lilt.

But she doesn’t wish it either and talks over the last few words. ‘I don’t want to hear another poem for the rest of my life.’

‘You won’t,’ my father says affably. ‘Not with Claude.’

In this sensible exchange between the parties, no provision is made for me. Another man’s suspicions would be stirred by his ex-wife’s failure to negotiate the monthly payments that must be due to the mother of his child. Another woman, if she didn’t have schemes in hand, would surely demand it. But I’m old enough to take responsibility for myself and try to be the master of my fate. Like the miser’s cat, I retain a secret scrap of sustenance, my one morsel of agency. I’ve used it in the small hours to inflict insomnia and summon a radio talk. Two sharp, well-spaced blows against the wall, using my heel rather than my near-boneless toes. I feel it as a lonely pulse of longing, just to hear myself referred to.

‘Ah,’ my mother sighs. ‘He’s kicking.’

‘Then I should be going,’ my father murmurs. ‘Shall we say two weeks for you to clear out?’

I wave to him, as it were, and what do I get? Then, therefore, in which case, and so – he’s going.

‘Two months. But hang on a minute till Claude gets back.’

‘Only if he’s quick.’

An airplane a few thousand feet above our heads makes an airy downward glissando towards Heathrow, a threatening sound, I always think. John Cairncross may be considering one last poem. He could wheel out, as he used to before journeys, ‘A Valediction Forbidding Mourning’. Those soothing tetrameters, that mature, comforting tone, would make me nostalgic for the sad old days of his visits. But instead he drums his fingers on the table, clears his throat, and simply waits.

Trudy says, ‘We had smoothies this morning from Judd Street. But I don’t think we left you any.’

With these words the affair begins at last.

A toneless voice, that comes as though from the wings of a theatre, in a doomed production of a terrible play, says from the head of the stairs, ‘No, I put aside a cup for him. He was the one who told us about that place. Remember?’

He descends as he speaks. Hard to believe that this too-well-timed entrance, these clumsy, improbable lines were rehearsed in the small hours by drunks.

The styrofoam container with its plastic lid and straw is in the fridge, which opens and closes now. Claude sets it down before my father with a breathy, maternal, ‘There.’

‘Thanks. But I’m not sure I can face it.’

An early mistake. Why let the contemptible brother rather than the sensuous wife bring the man his drink? They’ll need to keep him talking and then let’s hope he’ll change his mind. Let’s? This is how it is, how stories work, when we know of murders from their inception. We can’t help siding with the perpetrators and their schemes, we wave from the quayside as their little ship of bad intent departs. Bon voyage! It’s not easy, it’s an achievement, to kill someone and go free. The datum of success is ‘the perfect murder’. And perfection is hardly human. On board, things will go wrong, someone will trip on an uncoiled rope, the vessel will drift too far west of south. Hard work, and all at sea.

Claude takes a seat at the table, draws a busy breath, plays his best card. Small talk. Or what he considers small talk to be.

‘These migrants, eh? What a business. And don’t they envy us from Calais! The Jungle! Thank God for the English Channel.’

My father can’t resist. ‘Ah, England, bound in with the triumphant sea, whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege.’

These words raise his mood. I think I hear him draw the cup towards him. Then he says, ‘But I say, invite ’em all in. Come on! An Afghan restaurant in St John’s Wood.’

‘And a mosque,’ says Claude. ‘Or three. And wife-beaters and girl-abusers by the thousand.’

‘Did I ever tell you about the Goharshad mosque in Iran? I saw it once at dawn. Stood there amazed. In tears. You can’t imagine the colours, Claude. Cobalt, turquoise, aubergine, saffron, the palest green, crystal white and everything in between.’

I’ve never heard him call his brother by his name. A strange elation has seized my father. Showing off to my mother, letting her know by comparison what she’ll be missing.

Or freeing himself from the clammy musings of his brother, who now says in a tone of cautious compromise, ‘Never considered Iran. But Sharm el-Sheikh, the Plaza hotel. Lovely. All the trimmings. Almost too hot for the beach.’

‘I’m with John,’ my mother says. ‘Syrians, Eritreans, Iraqis. Even Macedonians. We need their youth. And darling, will you bring me a glass of water.’

Claude is instantly at the kitchen sink. From there he says, ‘Need? I don’t need to be hacked to pieces in the street. Like Woolwich.’ He comes back to the table with two glasses. One is for himself. I think I see where this is heading.