The Museum of Modern Love(49)

for treating me so well.

Levin had played that song again just this afternoon and heard other lyrics that had stuck on repeat in his mind.

And the skylight is like skin for a drum I’ll never mend And all the rain falls down amen

On the work of last year’s man.



On the table was fresh ciabatta, a dish of olive oil and another of dukkah. Healayas opened the bottle of wine he had brought. Plucking two glasses from a shelf, she poured for them and sat, looking at Levin across the wooden counter-top.

‘So, tell me, what’s new, Arky?’

‘I’ve been working on a soundtrack. It’s a feature length animation. A company called Izumi that’s partnered with Warner. Japanese director.’

‘An animation? Is that a first for you?’

‘It is,’ said Levin. ‘But I like it.’

‘So how does it work with the Japanese director? You go there? He comes here?’

‘We Skype. But I may go there soon. We may even do the final soundtrack in Tokyo.’

‘You want to play me something?’

‘Later. I’ve got some lyrics I’d love your thoughts on.’

He explained the script Seiji Isoda had adapted about a woman who was a fish by night and how she falls in love with a man who is also a bear and the King of Winter.

‘What is the problem? What makes the tension?’ Healayas asked.

‘They have a child, and the child has to choose whether to be a bear like her father, which means leaving, or stay and be a fish like her mother.’

‘To become your mother or your father, that is the eternal question,’ said Healayas. She stared out over the low rooftops of South Harlem. The heat hung damp in the air. A thunderstorm was brewing.

‘So no happy ending?’ she asked.

Levin shook his head.

‘A truthful story.’ Healayas shrugged. ‘And the music? It has to be evocative, no?

‘Yes, but not biblical like The Mission, or fantasy like The Lord of the Rings. And not like The Last of the Mohicans or Dances with Wolves. I want it to be stranger. And wondrous. Like combining Guillermo Del Toro with Terrence Malick in music. I haven’t got it right yet.’

‘Have you seen Lydia?’ Healayas asked as if this was a casual question.

Levin blinked and shook his head. ‘I really don’t want to talk about it.’

Healayas put English spinach into a colander and rinsed it. Then she wrapped the leaves in a clean tea towel and flicked the water from them before arranging the salad in a red bowl. ‘Then we won’t,’ she said slowly. ‘Best to get the elephant out of the room though.’

Levin said nothing.

‘So, you want to talk about Marina Abramovi??’ Healayas asked.

‘Yes. What was it like to sit with her?’

‘Well, completely unexpected,’ said Healayas, then laughed. ‘I found myself talking to Tom. It was as if he was right there in front of me as real as you are. We were having a meal together. I’m serious. We were just chatting as if it was completely normal.’

‘You mean it was an hallucination?’

‘Well, I guess so, but it sure tasted good.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Same old Tom. But so vivid. It’s stayed with me ever since. I wonder if everyone is having these experiences.’

Levin frowned.

‘Did you see the Colm Tóibín piece?’

‘No,’ Levin said.

‘I’ll get it. Wait.’

She went into the living room and he heard her rustling about, then she reappeared.

Holding a copy of The Times she read aloud. ‘It was like being brought into a room in Enniscorthy when I was a child on the day after a neighbour had died and being allowed to look at the corpse’s face. And then this—listen to this,’ she said. ‘This was serious, too serious maybe, too intimate, too searching. It was either, I felt, what I should do all the time, or what I should never do.’

She looked at Levin. ‘It’s because it feels so on the edge. Like church or a ceremony that you’re not sure you’re really invited to, but you go anyway. It’s remarkable. Haunting. You haven’t sat?’

‘No.’

‘You must, Arky. You must.’

‘Must I?’ he asked.

‘You will love it. Don’t miss out.’

‘I might.’

‘Or you might not.’ Then, changing the subject, she said, ‘Are you going to do the Lime Club with us? I would really love you to. We all want you to do it.’

‘I’m thinking about it.’

‘I know I can get another pianist, but it wouldn’t feel right without you.’

‘Okay,’ he said.

‘And I know Alice is interested in doing some dates. I saw her the other day.’

‘Okay.’

‘Okay, yes, or okay, I’ll think about it?’

‘Yes, I’ll do the season.’

‘Gee, Arky, we try to get an answer out of you for six months, and now you just say yes?’

He shrugged. ‘Sorry.’

There was a pause. Levin sipped his wine and looked about the kitchen at the saucepans hung from hooks on a rack above him, the melted candles on the benchtop, the knife block, the metal sink, the block of soap on a dish on the windowsill, pomegranates in a bowl and tomatoes in another. He felt like he was in a still life. As if sitting here he had caught up to some other part of himself that had been here waiting for him. Last time he’d been here Lydia had been with him. Healayas had cooked them dinner. It was bizarre when he thought that was only a few months back.