The Museum of Modern Love(41)

He spent the day determining the exact position of the iMacs and the speakers, reconnecting cables and plugs. By mid-afternoon he had settled on the best location for the Kurzweil keyboard in relation to his main Mac keyboard and the angle of his chair to the door. He had even placed a few photographs. His music collection remained in boxes but he thought he could unpack that over the coming weeks. The packers had asked his advice on arranging books and he had explained Lydia’s system. Every book in the house was marked on the spine—A for architecture, H for history, M for music, N for novel, P for poetry. Then they were arranged alphabetically within subject or type. Lydia would do that bit. If they could just put them in groupings according to letter . . .

By the time the unpackers left at 5.45 pm there were only three boxes left in the living area. They were all marked Treasures—Fragile—Lydia Only—DO NOT UNPACK—written in Lydia’s sharp square letters. He had always liked her handwriting. It had buildings within it.

Out on the deck, snow had begun falling in the darkness. The city disappeared. The neighbouring apartments were gone along with the trees fringing the square. The swell and push of traffic was muted and distant. He had Veuve in the fridge, glasses waiting on the counter with a bowl of fresh strawberries. He had been ridiculously happy it was snowing, as if it indicated some kind of good omen for their future. He’d been trying to get the television programmed when she had called.

‘Hi, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘I’ve had a tough twenty-four hours. I’m going to go straight to the hospital. See if they can sort me out.’

She had never seen it, everything he had done to make this their home.





THE PHONE RANG AT 9.15 the following Sunday morning. He’d turned it back on the day before and decided to see what happened. Hal happened.

‘Just checking you’re still alive, Arky,’ he said. ‘Have you remembered?’

Levin thought quickly. Was there a meeting he’d missed? Had Isoda or his people wanted something he’d forgotten?

‘Tennis?’ prompted Hal with his normal irony.

Tennis! Levin laughed, relieved. ‘Oh, yes. Of course. I’ll be ready in twenty minutes.’

‘So you did forget,’ said Hal. ‘Okay. See you on the corner.’

They took the Williamsburg Bridge accompanied by Ella Fitzgerald singing the Gershwin songbook. The roof was off the convertible and the day was fine.

‘So, what gives?’ Hal said.

‘I’m making progress,’ Levin said. ‘It’s coming along.’

‘I’ve got another job you might like to look at. It’s a new TV series. Some kind of medieval sci-fi thing, like Henry the Eighth meets Twilight.’

‘When would it have to be done?’

‘I could push for end of June.’

‘Hal . . .’

‘I know. You want to focus on Kawa. Sometimes a little multitasking helps. I keep telling you, it saves those expensive gaps between jobs. If I only had you as my client, I’d have been back in Kansas long ago. Hey, by the way, several people have asked about you of late. Did you get on Facebook or something?’

‘No,’ Levin said.

‘Well, stranger things have happened. Did you see Obama gave us the right to make medical decisions for our loved ones? We can now be by the bedside of our partners when they’re dying.’

‘Oh, good.’

‘Good!’ Hal said. ‘It’s appalling. We vote him in and that’s the best he can do? He’s got the Senate. I’m still waiting for something meaningful. Get out of Iraq.’

Hal had a square face and a body that was steadily getting squarer. He wore large yellow-framed glasses and his face was very lined now, much more since 2001. He had been right in the thick of it, covered in ash, one block away, on his way to a meeting on the forty-third floor. He had once said to Levin: ‘Only missed being a jumper, or dying in the collapse, by five minutes. That ash on me, later I thought about it. That was people. Probably people I knew.’

Hal continued on, talking about a new judge for the Supreme Court, fiscal reform. From time to time his hands did star-jumps off the steering wheel to emphasise a point. Lydia always said how good Hal would have been in office, a good politician, and how frustrated she was that being gay was a hindrance. Hal was never going to pretend. He was never going to hide Craig or find a rent-a-blonde wife to see him into office. Hal and Craig had been together for twenty-seven years, longer than almost any couple Levin knew. But America wasn’t ready for gay politicians, let alone a gay president. Or an atheist. Hal and Lydia loved talking politics. Levin just poured the wine and turned on the football.

Breakfast on hope, dine on fear. It had been a line on a poster for one of Tom’s early movies. And since the crash that sentiment had got a whole lot worse.

‘So, you want to tell me how it’s really going?’ Hal said.

‘Well, Seiji says the production time’s getting blown out of the water. They’re using his illustrators on other projects that have priority. I think he’s just hoping if he sits tight, it will get done without anyone really noticing, and he’ll get a release. Some days I get three scenes and then a week goes by and I get nothing. And then I get revisions.’

‘Anything I can listen to? You using some of those Japanese wooden flutes?’ Hal said.