It was sunset, the moment when yellow turns to gold. Christmas sat on the viewing bench, hidden by a clump of noni trees at the edge of the lawn, reading Montejo.
“Amore! Amore!” Christmas let out a sigh. He hid the book under his leg. “Where are you?”
“Over here ...” Judith appeared. Christmas bared his teeth in a smile.
“There you are! And how’s my handsome writer this evening?”
“He is ... splendiferous.”
“Splendiferous!” she clapped her hands in delight. “And the writer’s block? Still a bit ... blocky?”
“’Fraid so.”
“Oh, don’t worry, amore. I am sure it’s all going to start flooding out any minute.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
“I’m going to make fish and mango curry tonight with some picante from the garden. Perhaps that will turn the old switch on.”
“Ojala ...”
“Here, amore, I just read this article in Cosmo. And did you know—” she said, marvelling at the front cover, “—that apparently the latest fashion is to have an ugly girlfriend?”
“What is it?”
“It’s the competition. Interview with Ethan Stone – the one that’s invented a new way of writing.”
“Really? Where does he stick the pen?”
“No, silly, a form – it’s called – it says here – ‘the disinterested narrator.’” Judith passed Christmas the opened magazine. A profound contempt for the man and his entire generation swept over him.
C: So how did the idea for the disinterested narrator come to you? Were you consciously looking to break new ground, or was it more organic?
Stone: Well, no, what happened was, I was thinking of writing a novel, and then I couldn’t be bothered, and then I thought, hang on a moment, there’s something in this.
“Ha!” laughed Christmas, “I really should shoot myself.”
“So the man just rang up about the internet.” Christmas stopped laughing. “Should be here in a few days, isn’t that wonderful? I can read all your interviews! Have you done many?”
“Oh, you know ...”
“With some of those dashing author photos, the ones where they’re looking over their shoulders a bit, as if the photographer has just interrupted them while they were saying something terribly important. Have you got some of those on the internet?”
“I don’t know if—”
“Oh, the internet! How vital! And all your reviews! I’m going to ferret away at you, Harry Strong!” she said, pinching her fingers together and raining ferret heads all over him. “I’m going to find out all about you ...” She slowed down her attack, sat on his lap and began to kiss him.
The internet. Christmas had strong opinions on the internet predicated on hating all the people he had ever met who were enthusiastic about it. The internet was an electric Gulag, a network of lonely children indulging in communities of self-surveillance. Particularly loathsome were the people of his generation who made out that it had changed their lives when all they were expressing was the fear of being left out. If you want anonymous sex with strangers, join the navy. Everything else was available at the library. And in some libraries you could get that too. He refused to welcome its terminology into the lexicon. ‘Going online’ was a suicide attempt; a ‘blog’ surely some kind of woodcutter’s privy. On top of it all here it was, the robot supergrass, about to parachute into the jungle and blow his cover.
“Amore?” she said, stroking his hair, and nuzzling his ear.
“Yes, darling?”
“Amore, if I asked you to do something, a little favour, something that required you to do literally nothing, you wouldn’t refuse me, would you, darling?”
22
“Is it really necessary to do this naked?” The following morning Christmas found himself without clothes, sitting on an uncomfortable arrangement of stones and ordered into the pose of Rodin’s ‘The Thinker’. He was in front of Judith’s pottery tent where she was working at reducing his sizeable bulk to a foot-high figurine. She wore special half-moon glasses for this type of detailed work, her flowery dress protected by a clay-splattered apron.
“I said—”
“Sssh, amore, please. I’m trying to concentrate. I told you, I can’t do clothes yet. You’d come out looking like a Mr Man. Juan Carlos in Caracas insists I send him figurines. ‘Figurines!’ he says, ‘Figurines!’”
At first he thought she wanted to model his penis. He was so relieved when she said his whole figure he immediately gave his assent.
“Any chance of letting the blood back into my legs?”
“Patience, amore, patience is a virtue.”
“Patience is a virtue I haven’t got time for. Oh God!”
“What is it amore – oh ...”
“The devil take you, woman! You said it was their day off!” The two gardeners were watching from a distance, swigging from a bottle of rum and laughing. Judith started to giggle.
“Hang on, amore, I’ll go and see what they want.”
“Well, Mona Lisa here wants a bloody drink. A bloody stiff bloody drink!”
Christmas extracted himself from his pedestal and put on a dressing gown. He flicked a V-sign at the gardeners. They waved back. He went over to look at what she’d done. He was horrified. It looked just like him. Am I really that fat? he thought. He was frowning so much his face looked oriental; in fact the whole thing looked like a sumo wrestler with a Wild West moustache failing to touch his own toes.
Christmas let out a deep huff of despair. He looked down to the cove below, down to where he had stood alone before dinner the previous night and witnessed carnage in the evening sky, a battle of swarming souls, the heavens tormented with colour. When it had all turned into night, he had climbed the path back to the house, able only to pick out the shapes of the mountains – a caravan of misshapen beasts – his hands feeling his way along tree bark with Emily somewhere beside him. He had entered the kitchen as if from another world. The sensation was still with him.
“They just wanted to borrow some tools, amore. OK, you have a break. I’ll go and get you a drink. Can you hear—? Oh it’s the phone!” Judith hurried off. When she came back she had nothing in her hand. She was sobbing.
“Oh my God, darling!” said Christmas as he stood up, “Have we run out?” Judith stood before him, her hands covering her mouth.
“It’s so awful ...”
“But there’s a little scotch, isn’t there? I’m sure I saw two bottles of scotch.”
“It’s not the ... it’s the – the—”
“What’s the matter? Judith, what is it?”
“My friend Fiona.”
“Fiona?”
“Fi’s had a stroke!”
A great wave of relief rushed through his system. “Your friend has had a stroke.”
“She’s going to be paralysed for life! Oh God!” Judith threw her hands around his neck.
“Poor thing,” said Christmas, “Makes you wonder where the phrase ‘stroke of luck’ comes from, doesn’t it? Perhaps if you get away with just a wonky face.”
“What?”
“Come on, let’s sit you down.” He walked her along the edge of the lawn and over to the viewing bench.
“And the worst thing is her bloody daughter was only home for a couple of days and has buggered off to some party! The friend that rang is going over there right now. I mean can you imagine it! A party! What an absolute bitch! Oh Harry, it’s too awful, it’s too awful!” Judith began to sob. Christmas wasn’t quite sure what to do. So he patted her head.
“There, there ...”
“That poor woman, such a tough life ... and that bloody daughter ... I can’t believe it ...”
“Well, look, it is understandable, running off to some party to drown your sorrows.” Christmas noticed the increase in noise coming from Judith and decided to leave it there. He adjusted his dressing gown and was about to suggest a restorative when the faint n
oise of the telephone started up from the house again.
“Fi!” cried Judith as she tore off to answer it. When she returned she seemed somewhat recovered.
“False alarm?”
“No, oh, Harry, that was my daughter Bridget. Great news, amore, she’s coming tomorrow!”
For the rest of the day, Judith chattered excitedly about Bridget. Even though it quickly began to annoy him, Christmas tried to keep her on that subject and away from the unfortunate friend or any attempt to get him back on the stones. Bridget was modern. Bridget was vital. Bridget had done that, Bridget had won this – Christmas was full of loathing for the achiever. He had a profound distrust of people who enjoyed honours from institutions as fake and as dedicated to anti-learning as schools. All he had ever won at school was a bet.
“Oh, I do hope Bridget meets a nice man,” she sighed. “All her boyfriends have been a bit ... drippy. They don’t stand up to her and she ends up pushing them around and then she gets bored. That’s the main thing, don’t you think? Looks and everything have their place but the main thing is to find someone that doesn’t bore you.”
“Quite,” said Christmas, thinking about the time Emily got so cross with him she took the handbrake off and let his car roll into a river. “Quite,” he said again, laughing down at his feet.
23
The following afternoon Christmas was drinking on the viewing bench, savouring the smell of jasmine, when voices reached him from the other side of the noni trees.
“What is it, mummy?”
“My surprise, darling, my wonderful surprise!”
“Do you mind if I sit down for half a minute before you show me your latest clay penis?”
“It’s not ceramics, darling.”
“Orchid from the South Pole?”
“It’s not a flower ...”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s ...” The two women rounded the trees. Christmas stood up, gin in hand. “... a lover!” Bridget and Christmas took each other in. Bridget had a piercing little face. She had crystal eyes, slender arms, almost no breasts and a beauty spot above her lips. She was extremely pretty, in a fierce, starved kind of way. Bridget’s conclusions about Christmas were rather less favourable.
“And he’s famous!”
“How do you do,” she said flatly. They shook hands. His were sweaty.
“Harry, Bridget, Bridget, Harry. Oh this is exciting. Who wants a cup of tea?”
“I’ve just been in Brazil visiting a friend so I thought I’d drop up to see mummy.” All three were sat round a table in the shade of the house.
“How is Amy, darling?”
“I don’t know. She’s still in such a mess. It’s her birthday in a couple of weeks. I’ve got to send her a good present to cheer her up. What do you think?”
“Something smelly? All girls like that.”
“I know, I know, but it’s not very original is it? Not very surprising.”
“Surprising ... smelly ...” offered Christmas, “Stink bombs?”
“Thanks, Harry. Very useful. Anyway you can’t buy stink bombs any more. Not in England anyway.”
“What?”
“Most borough councils have banned them.”
“Banned them?”
“Because they stink. Itching powder, stink bombs, the lot.” Christmas sank back in his chair, absorbing yet another jab-cross combination from The Rot.
“Itching powder ...?”
“It’s abusive.” Christmas looked to the sky.
“Anyway,” Bridget continued, “she’s doing far too much yoga. She’s starting to look like a boy.”
“I knew a woman once,” said Christmas, coming back to earth, “who did so much yoga she could put her trousers on with her feet.”
“But darling, is she really not feeling any better?”
“A bit. I mean I think she’s got to the stage where she’s treating the whole thing like some horrible dream.”
“Terrible story. Why don’t you fill Harry in while I get the ginger cake?” Judith went into the house.
“It’s nothing really,” started Bridget, feeling uneasy in Christmas’ company. “Just my friend Amy got married and the whole thing was a disaster. Turned out he was a nasty piece of work so she divorced him after five months and ran away to Brazil. I think she just can’t quite believe she made such a bad judgement of character.”
“And is she pretty?”
“Amy?”
“This friend of yours, yes – is she pretty?”
“Yes, she is as a matter of fact. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Then she’ll be all right, won’t she.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said, you know, she’ll be all right.”
“To find another man, you mean.”
“That kind of thing.”
“So her happiness, her life, depends on whether a man will accept her – is that it?”
Whoops, thought Christmas. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t realise you were a ...”
“A what?”
“You know. A squeezy lemon.”
“What?”
“A high-heeled farmer.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Look, I didn’t know – and neither does your mother, by the way.”
“What—”
“Sundown on the hairy prairie? Two seats by the window at the Oyster café?”
“Are you trying to say you think I am a lesbian?”
“If you want to put it crudely.”
“God!”
Judith appeared with the cake. “Everything all right? Oh bugger, I’ve forgotten the slicer.”
“I’ll get it,” offered Christmas cheerfully, sliding out from the table.
“Thanks, amore. So ...” she whispered, “... what do you think?”
“He’s a total shit.”
“Bridget!”
“What’s he doing here?”
“He is a famous writer and he’s just been through a terrible divorce and a vicious robbery and he’s got writer’s block and I’m helping him through it all. He’s under a lot of pressure. He’s in a very pressurized environment.”
“Like a shit.”
“Bridget, please ...”
“He just told me he thought I was a lesbian.”
“Well, your hair is rather short.”
“Mother!”
“Oh, I know he hasn’t got much in the way of airs and graces but that’s why he’s rather fun.”
“Where did you find him?”
“Fate, darling, fate brought us together.”
“What do you sound like?”
“Oh please do try and make an effort. You know how I’ve been lately and he is making me, well, you know, happy ...”
“Urrgh, mother, please, I do not want to know. And that moustache ...”
“I know he looks eccentric.”
“He looks fat.”
“Bridget, don’t be horrid. Harry may be a pompous old sod but he’s got a good heart and I happen to like him, so if you wouldn’t mind, just this once – I mean here I am, completely on my own, the only news I get is dear friends having strokes, and you—”
“OK, OK, I’m sorry.”
“—I mean, it’s not as if—”
“Mummy, don’t start, I said I’m—”
“OK, there, amore?” Christmas had reappeared on the lawn brandishing the cake slicer. He’d had a couple of vodka shots in the kitchen and was feeling—
“Rambunctious.”
“Now listen you two – I know you are both punchy characters, but I want you to promise to be nice to each other, right?” Christmas clacked his heels together and bowed his head. Bridget sniffed.
24
Dinner was over. They sat in the dining room drinking coffee, surrounded by Harrods green and hunting scenes. There were candles on the table and a blue insect killer in one corner that cast a strange blue shadow on the proceedings. It bu
zzed with short funerals.
“So, Mr Strong—”
“Please, Bridget, Harry.”
“—whereabouts in England are you from?”
“Oh, nowhere special. South-east corner. Back when there were still a few scraps of countryside left. It was what you might call a typical, old-fashioned rural community.”
“Cricket and the church spire, amore?”
“Inbreeding.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Absolutely rife. The spastics’ bus was a double-decker.”
“Oh, Harry!”
“Whole bloody village shared the same nose.” Bridget was shooting him a venomous look.
“You cannot say ‘spastics’ any more.”
“Well, that seems a bit cruel.” “Excuse me?”
“I mean the poor devils have got to eat.”
“I said ‘say’ not ‘pay’.”
“Harr-eee,” said Judith, trying to head off the impending scene with her daughter, “why don’t you tell us about the new book idea you were talking about the other day?”
“Part of it’s set now, part of it four hundred years ago and part of it in a Victorian brothel with space aliens that have removable—”
“Not that one, amore. The other one. The other night. The other space aliens.”
“A UFO armada swoops over the earth and everyone feels put out because they’ve come for the whales.”
“Are you a science fiction writer?”
“No.” Silence fell on the room. Everyone sipped politely. The insect killer sparked.
“You used to work with whales, didn’t you Bridget, darling?”
“Turtles.”
“Oh yes. Turtles.” Several more moments passed.
“Well,” announced Judith, “It’s my birthday in a couple of weeks’ time.”
“Two weeks’ time? Really?” Christmas finished his coffee, then topped up his wine glass, still wincing from the shoulder injury. “And what is the traditional birthday celebration in these parts?”
“Oh, just one of our little evenings. But this time, as we have a special guest, amore, I thought I might spread the net a bit wider, you know, a few more bums on seats. Perhaps you’d give a talk or something.”
A Bright Moon for Fools Page 11
