‘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.
He continues, ‘Haven’t been down the Tube since seven-seven.’
In the voice he uses to talk past Claude, my father says, ‘I saw it calculated once. If sex between the races goes on as now, in five thousand years everyone on earth will be the same pale coffee colour.’
‘I’ll drink to that,’ my mother says.
‘I’m not against it really,’ Claude says. ‘So cheers.’
‘To the end of race,’ my father agreeably proposes. But I don’t think he’s raised his cup. Instead, he turns to the matters in hand. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll pop round with Elodie on Friday. She wants to measure up for curtains.’
I picture a hayloft, off which a hundred-kilo sack of grain is tossed to the granary floor. Then another, and a third. Such are the thuds of my mother’s heart.
‘That’s fine, of course,’ she says in a reasonable voice. ‘We could give you lunch.’
‘Thanks, but we’ve a crowded day. And now I should be going. The traffic’s heavy.’
The scrape of a chair – and how loud, despite the greasy tiles, they sound down here, like the bark of a dog. John Cairncross rises to his feet. He assumes again a friendly tone. ‘Trudy, it’s been—’
But she’s standing too and thinking fast. I feel it in her sinews, in the stiffening drapes of her omentum. She has one last throw and everything rests on an easiness of manner. She cuts him off in a rush of sincerity. ‘John, before you go I want to tell you this. I know I can be difficult, sometimes even a bitch. More than half the blame for all this is mine. I know that. And I’m sorry the house is a tip. But what you said last night. About Dubrovnik.’
‘Ah,’ my father affirms. ‘Dubrovnik.’ But he’s already several feet away.
‘What you said was right. You brought it all back to me and it pierced my heart. It was a masterpiece, John, what we created. What’s happened since doesn’t lessen it. You were so wise to say that. It was beautiful. Nothing that happens in the future can wash it away. And even though it’s only water in my glass, I want to raise it to you, to us, and thank you for reminding me. It doesn’t matter whether love endures. What matters is that it exists. So. To love. Our love. As it was. And to Elodie.’
Trudy lifts the glass to her lips. The rise and fall of her epiglottis, and her snaky peristalsis briefly deafen me. In all the time I’ve known her, I’ve never heard my mother make a speech. Not her way. But curiously evocative. Of what? A nervous schoolgirl, the new head girl making an impression with defiant tremor, emphatic platitudes, before headmaster, staff and the whole school.
A toast to love and therefore death, to Eros and Thanatos. It appears to be a given of intellectual life, that when two notions are sufficiently far apart or opposed, they are said to be profoundly linked. Since death is opposed to everything in life, various couplings are proposed. Art and death. Nature and death. Worryingly, birth and death. And joyously iterated, love and death. On this last and from where I am, no two notions could be more mutually irrelevant. The dead love no one, nothing. As soon as I’m out and about I might try my hand at a monograph. The world cries out for fresh-faced empiricists.
When my father speaks, he sounds closer. He’s coming back to the table.
‘Well,’ he says, most genially, ‘that’s the spirit.’
I swear the deathly, loving cup is in his hand.
Again, with both heels I kick and kick against his fate.
‘Oh, oh, little mole,’ my mother calls out in a sweet, maternal voice. ‘He’s waking up.’
‘You failed to mention my brother,’ John Cairncross says. It’s in his manly poet’s nature to amplify another’s toast. ‘To our future loves, Claude and Elodie.’
‘To us all then,’ says Claude.
A silence. My mother’s glass is already empty.
Then comes my father’s drawn-out sigh of satisfaction. Exaggerated to a degree, merely out of politeness. ‘More sugary than usual. But not bad at all.’
The styrofoam cup he sets upon the table makes a hollow sound.
It comes back to me, as bright as a cartoon light bulb. A programme on pet care laid out the dangers while Trudy was brushing her teeth one rainy morning after breakfast: unlucky the dog that licks the sweet green liquid off a garage floor. Dead within hours. Just as Claude told it. Chemistry without mercy, purpose or regrets. My mother’s electric toothbrush drowned out the rest. We’re bound by the same rules that dog our pets. The great chain of non-being is round our necks too.
‘Well,’ my father says, meaning more than he can know, ‘I’ll be going.’
Claude and Trudy stand. This is the reckless thrill of the poisoner’s art. The substance ingested, the act not yet complete. Within two miles of here are many hospitals, many stomach pumps. But the line of criminality has been crossed. No calling in the deed. They can only stand back and wait for the antithesis, for the antifreeze to leave him cold.
Claude says, ‘Is this your hat?’
‘Oh yes! I’ll take that.’
Is this the last time I hear my father’s voice?
We’re moving towards the stairs, then up them, the poet leading the way. I have lungs but no air to shout a warning or weep with shame at my impotence. I’m still a creature of the sea, not a human like the others. Now we’re passing through the shambles of the hall. The front door is opening. My father turns to give my mother a peck upon the cheek and throw an affectionate punch at his brother’s shoulder. Perhaps for the first time in his life.
As he goes out he calls over his shoulder, ‘Let’s hope that bloody car starts.’
ELEVEN