Work in Progress

by Paul Thomas

  ‘You should take it as a compliment that he sees you as the only obstacle to having his wicked way with me.’

  ‘I didn’t think we’d ever get around to having this conversation.’

  ‘Oh, I did,’ she says. ‘It just took me a while to realise that I’d have to initiate it. You’re taking this obligation very seriously, aren’t you?’

  ‘As far as Felicity’s concerned, if it wasn’t for Stanley, she and the children would be sleeping rough under Grafton Bridge. If I piss him off and he reneges on the deal and she has to sell the house, she’ll blame me for the consequences — for instance, the kids deciding they’d rather live with Murray. So if you turn Stanley down, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bring my name into it.’

  ‘You sound as if you don’t care one way or the other.’

  ‘I guess Stanley doesn’t see it that way,’ I say, ‘otherwise he wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble.’

  ‘You must’ve given him a reason.’

  I shrug. ‘Perhaps he sensed a certain protectiveness.’

  Her mouth twitches. ‘Protectiveness or possessiveness?’

  ‘It’s a fine line. Sometimes it’s hard to know which side you’re on.’

  ‘So what’s your honest opinion?’

  ‘On whether you should give him what he wants?’

  ‘That is the question,’ she says.

  ‘Well, it depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On whether or not you’re in love with him.’

  ‘We seem to have a crossed wire,’ she says with a mock frown. ‘I thought we were talking about me and Stanley.’

  ‘I’m trying to see it from your point of view. If love doesn’t enter into it then we’re talking about a casual sexual liaison, right? I wouldn’t have thought you were in the market.’

  ‘Really? I would’ve thought most people in my position — forty-something, monogamous for the best part of two decades — are either in the market or thinking about it.’

  ‘You’re not most people,’ I say.

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment but I don’t see myself as being all that different.’

  ‘If Sally’s the benchmark …’

  ‘Sally’s a textbook case, I’m not. Alan’s work set-up hasn’t changed for ten years, he works reasonable hours, he’s hardly ever away …’

  ‘And you still love him.’

  ‘And Sally still loves Rick. That’s not the issue, Max. We’re talking about married-with-kids love. No matter how hard you work at it, you end up taking it for granted — to the point where it can be a bit boring and inhibiting, like family holidays when you’re sixteen. The big difference between me and Sally is that she actually went out and did it. It might cross my mind but I’m too stitched up — or responsible — to take it any further.’

  Oh, the relief. ‘So Stanley’s wasting his time?’

  ‘Even if I was in the market, which I’m not, he’d be wasting his time,’ she says. ‘He’s not my type. I like Stanley, he can be a lot of fun; I like the way he’s so hopelessly non-PC. I disagree with ninety per cent of what he believes, or says he believes, but I get so bored listening to people congratulating

  each other for having the full set of correct opinions. You don’t mind going against the tide either but you’re not so loud.’

  ‘I can think of a couple of hundred million reasons why Stanley doesn’t give a shit what he says or who it offends.’

  ‘So can I, believe it or not. His saving grace is that he’s funny with it. Not the most subtle humour, perhaps, but a little raucous vulgarity never hurt anyone. The other endearing thing about Stanley is that for someone who thinks he’s so clever and has everyone dancing to his tune without them knowing it, he’s actually quite transparent. But anyway, the fact is he doesn’t do it for me. I like the creative touch, among other things. I know you think Alan’s a bit of an impostor, getting so hyped up over his mobile phone ads and whatnot, but there is an element of creativity in it and he’s fulfilled by it. You can say well, so what, it’s just another crappy ninety-second ad that the world could easily do without and you’d have a point. But you’d also be missing a point: not everyone can be a Spielberg or a Jane Campion — or direct Shortland Street, for that matter.’

  ‘Or be a novelist who promised more than he delivered?’

  ‘You’ve been a writer as long as Al’s been making ads, and in his detached, unstoned moments I’m sure he’d acknowledge that your books amount to more of an achievement. But he enjoys it as much as he ever did; could you honestly say that?’

  ‘Don’t believe everything you read in the newspaper,’ I say, ‘especially when it comes from an ex-lover with a tenuous grip on reality.’

  ‘Is that a yes?’

  ‘When it’s going well, it’s as satisfying as ever; when it’s not, it’s as frustrating as ever. You become more self-conscious and self-critical as you get older, so what was a good day’s work when you were thirty now has you lunging for the delete button. Tania can’t wait to get to her computer because she’s convinced she’s a genius whose next masterpiece is awaited with bated breath. By the time she’s my age she’ll know better.’

  ‘Well, she certainly made it sound like you’d hit the wall,’ says Brigit.

  ‘I have hit a wall. It’s not the first and it won’t be the last. It goes with the territory. But I’m not about to drink myself to death — or go out and get a job writing advertising jingles.’

  ‘The money’s great if you’re any good at it.’

  ‘I believe the same applies to drug-dealing. Getting back to the matter at hand: so Stanley can pull every lever and press every button and throw money around like confetti but it won’t get him anywhere?’

  ‘As I said, I’m not in the market.’ She shrugs again. ‘If and when the kids leave home and Alan replaces his old battleaxe of a secretary with a twenty-year-old exhibitionist who can’t spell sincerely, that may change.’

  ‘You obviously haven’t told Stanley that.’

  ‘He hasn’t asked.’

  ‘And if he did?’

  ‘I’d tell him, in words of two syllables or less if that’s what it took.’

  ‘Has it occurred to you that he might feel you’ve led him on? After all, by your own admission you’ve known what he was up to from the word go.’

  ‘He doesn’t know that,’ she says. ‘Besides, all I’ve done is accept a few invitations — does that qualify as leading him on? I mean, why shouldn’t I meet him for a coffee? I enjoy his company; I like having him as a friend. After it’s come to a head and I’ve knocked him back, I hope we can still be friends, although I won’t be holding my breath.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘We’re back to where we started: whatever Stanley does, he does for a reason. I’d like to think he quite enjoys my company but the main reason he’s paid me all this attention is that he wants to sleep with me. It beats me why he’s so keen on the idea — there must be plenty of gorgeous young things out there who wouldn’t take much persuading to hop into Stanley Muir’s bed.’

  ‘Maybe he sees you as a challenge.’

  Her eyebrows arch. ‘It sounds like you have inside information.’

  She obviously thinks I do, so I might as well tell her. ‘Stanley’s convinced every woman has her price; I put you forward as exhibit A for the defence. He wanted to put you to the test. I told him he couldn’t do that, not because I was worried I’d be proved wrong but because I don’t think you should make your friends pawns in a private game.’

  ‘Hence the bail-out. I’m not sure whether to feel flattered or insulted, Max. You made me sound like Snow White. Is that how you see me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How, then?’

  ‘I think Alan’s a very lucky man.’

  That earns me a gorgeous smile and a quick squeeze of the hand. ‘Keep writing those novels, Max. One of these days he might forget it.’

  ‘If I was a really good friend
, I’d say I hope not.’

  ‘You are a really good friend and you don’t have to say anything. As for Stanley, I suggest we enjoy him while he lasts because he won’t last long.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Stanley’s got a low boredom threshold. I get the distinct impression he’s struggling to fill his days and it’s only a matter of time before he starts wondering why the hell he’s here instead of New York or London or the Riviera. I’ll make a prediction: one day in the not-too-distant future you’ll go around to his place and there’ll be a For Sale sign outside. You’ll knock on the door but there’ll be no one home; you’ll look in the window and won’t see a stick of furniture. He will have packed up and gone without a word to anyone. And everything will return to normal.’

  Brigit organises a cab for me. As I buckle up the driver says, ‘Well, well, Mr Napier, we meet again.’

  The accent takes me down terraced streets in dying northern towns. The expression in the rear-vision mirror is as bleak as an abandoned quarry. The hair colour isn’t in my vocabulary. It’s the Limousine communist.

  ‘How’s the revolution progressing?’ I ask. ‘Should I be making plans to flee the country?’

  ‘I wouldn’t leave it to the last minute if I were you. New information has come to light since I last had the dubious pleasure of having you in my car. I had you taped as a decadent bourgeois pseudo-intellectual dilettante but after what was in the paper, I had to re-categorise you. Now you’re lumped in with the most parasitic, anti-social elements. Frankly, come the revolution, there’ll be no place for your sort.’

  ‘I never thought there would be. Just as a matter of interest, what qualifies you to call me a pseudo-intellectual?’

  ‘I may be an auto-didact, Mr Napier, but I’m a very well-read one. Some of these names mightn’t mean much to you: Saint-Simon, Hegel, Nietzsche, Engels …’

  ‘Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot …’

  ‘Not them,’ he says. ‘They were unsound.’

  ‘You don’t say? I take it you don’t read for enjoyment or aesthetic pleasure?’

  ‘Correct. See, everything you lot do, whether it’s poetry or pornography, just serves the ruling class’s purpose by distracting the masses from the real issues. I’ll say one thing for your generation, though: at least you went through a phase of resisting the power structure and aligning with progressive forces before you sold out, which is more than can be said for what’s come along since. Pure, unadulterated scum. Mark my words, the excesses of the Vodafone generation, as I call them, will bring about the downfall of capitalism.’

  ‘I also take it you don’t have children.’

  He glares into the mirror. ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘It might have something to do with you describing everyone under forty as pure, unadulterated scum.’

  ‘It’s not about individuals,’ he snaps. ‘People like you always make that error. It’s about classes, societies, economic and historical forces. My kids don’t come into it.’

  ‘Don’t be so touchy,’ I say. ‘All those commie bigwigs indulged their kids like crazy. Brezhnev’s kids were the biggest party animals east of the Danube, by all accounts. So what do yours do?’

  ‘One’s a teacher, the other’s an engineer.’

  ‘Christ, what’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Did I say there was anything wrong with it? They’ve done all right, have my two.’

  ‘You’re proud of them?’

  ‘Of course I bloody am.’

  ‘Even though they don’t share your political views?’

  He says something under his breath and shifts in his seat.

  ‘Sorry, I missed that.’

  I get another glare via the mirror. ‘What would you know about kids?’

  ‘I’ve got a daughter.’

  He looks over his shoulder to make sure I’m not having him on.

  ‘You’d better add that to my file.’

  ‘What does she think of her father writing pornography, then?’

  A good question. If Emily Googled Max Napier, that would be the first item up.

  ‘She thinks I’m a parasite.’

  We pull up outside my mother’s place. Without turning his head he tells me the fare’s been taken care of. As I get out of the car he says, ‘She’ll get over it.’

  twenty-two

  My mother wants to cook me dinner before I fly out. I decline her offer of rump steak with baked potato and tomato and avocado salad, pleading my three-course lunch, the near-certainty of overeating on the plane and the havoc air travel can play with one’s excretory routine.

  This doesn’t go down well. I don’t recall this force-feeding urge but perhaps I took it for granted. Or perhaps it’s part of her gentle regression since my father’s death.

  By the time her children left home, she’d jettisoned much of the conditioning that caused women of her generation to measure their self-worth by the family’s reaction to the evening meal: if they wolfed it down and asked for seconds, washing up afterwards was almost a pleasure and the housewife–mother could enter her bedroom justified. But when even her husband began to treat home like a hotel, she understandably adopted the attitude that if we didn’t like it, we could lump it.

  These days, though, she’s eager to cook for us, as if the ritual re-connects her to the full-time mother she used to be and the home life she used to have. She has revived the extended family Sunday lunch, attendance at which is non-negotiable for our dwindling clan. These are dire occasions, since Josh and Bella make no attempt to hide the fact that they’re there on sufferance. Last Sunday, when they were granted early release after repeatedly checking their text messages while picking at their meals like explorers hosted by a tribe suspected of cannibalism, I asked what the point of it was. My mother looked stricken and later I copped a verbal swatting from Felicity, who accused me, not for the first time, of rank insensitivity. I offered a trade-off: I’d be sensitive if she’d do something about her children’s behaviour. She still hasn’t got back to me.

  The other manifestations of Mum’s regression are equally harmless. She repeats herself; she listens to talkback radio and recycles gobbets of craziness as if she heard them on the BBC news; she natters about people I can’t remember as if I go ballroom dancing with them once a week; she’s violently pro or con television personalities and therefore a compulsive channel-hopper; she wishes she was fifty years younger.

  And she has regained the sweetness that middle age threatened to squeeze out of her.

  Ignoring my protestations, she prepares a sandwich platter — egg and cress, red salmon and Spanish onion, cucumber and tomato — that I couldn’t do justice to even if lunch had been a packet of two-minute noodles.

  ‘Have what you can, dear,’ she says. ‘You can’t rely on what you’ll get on the plane. There mightn’t be anything you like.’

  ‘I’m in first class, Mum. I’ll be spoilt for choice.’

  ‘You never know,’ she says with the air of someone so well travelled she sleeps through clear-air turbulence and engine-out landings. ‘My friend Joyce just got back from visiting her daughter in Brisbane. She said the food on the plane was an absolute disgrace.’

  These last two words are broken down into their constituent syllables and spat out like fish bones.

  ‘I bet she was on one of those budget flights where they give you a cup of water and a couple of stale Gingernuts.’

  ‘She didn’t go into details. She just said that by the time she got home she was practically fainting from hunger. Next time she’s going to take her own food.’

  ‘Can you actually do that?’

  ‘I’m just telling you what she said.’ She nudges the platter a couple of centimetres closer. ‘Better to be safe than sorry.’

  To divert her attention I ask if she’d like a glass of wine. The remnants of my father’s stash are in the cupboard under the stairs, in among the swill brought but not consumed by cheapskate guests.

  When I
’ve opened and poured the wine and embarked on my second sandwich — I’m working on the assumption that I won’t be allowed to leave until I’ve put away at least four and to hell with the check-in time — she returns to the subject that has exercised her since the birthday party.

  ‘Now this girl you’re going to see …’

  ‘Samantha.’

  ‘Yes. Give me the background again.’

  I do as I’m told, the short-attention-span version.

  ‘And you’ve been pining for her all these years?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that, Mum. I was married for a fair few of them, remember?’

  ‘I do remember. I also remember what happened to that marriage.’

  ‘What about the one before that?’

  ‘That one too,’ she says, maintaining an entirely straight face. ‘It’s nothing to be proud of, you know. So I’m not likely to be laying an extra place at Sunday lunch?’ I shake my head as if I’m limbering up for a fight. ‘Just as long as there won’t be one less. You are coming back, aren’t you?’

  ‘That’s the plan.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It’s a while since I was in Europe so I might as well make the most of it.’

  I finish my second sandwich. At least half a minute goes by before she instructs me to help myself.

  ‘So what, a fortnight, a month …?’

  ‘Work on a month.’

  ‘I realise I’m an old fuddy-duddy,’ she says, ‘but I can’t for the life of me see the point of the exercise.’

  ‘It’s a free trip to Paris. What’s so mysterious about that?’

  ‘To see this Samantha …’

  ‘I’ll look Samantha up for old times’ sake. Chances are we’ll have a drink or a meal and fill in the missing years, then go our separate ways vowing to stay in touch but not really meaning it.’

  ‘That’s one day; not even that, an evening. It’s an awfully long way to go for an evening of Auld Lang Syne. And then what?’

  ‘Well, I might check out some of the places I never got around to seeing, like Lisbon and Prague; I might pop over to London; I might stop off in New York on the way home. Think of it as a holiday.’