‘I can’t believe you never cried over the loss of our child.’ She had just come down to the kitchen from her studio at the top of the house. Her boots were splattered with multi-coloured drops of paint. Sometimes she wore those boots on the rare times she went out socially. Friends often commented on their hippie trendiness.
‘I did mourn,’ he said. ‘In my own way.’
‘You’re just heartless. Always were.’
‘That’s not fair. Along with Aldous’ death, it was just too much. One of us had to stand firm, or we would have both just drowned in sorrow.’
‘I would have preferred if you had joined me in my grief.’
‘I told you. I wanted to be strong for you.’
‘Like I said. You’re just cold.’
‘Do you think I didn’t hurt too? Do you think you have a monopoly on the mourning of our unborn child? Just because I don’t spend every waking minute under a blanket crying my heart out doesn’t mean I don’t feel anything.’
‘Well, you could at least do something constructive. Rather than just sitting around in your pyjamas all day, reading newspapers. That’s not going to solve anything.’
‘You know I can’t write anything.’
‘Can’t write, can’t write, can’t write. If I can paint, you can write. What’s the problem, Eddie?’
‘Writing is more cerebral. The way you paint is much more emotional. That’s the difference.’
‘Well, maybe you should try being a bit more emotional about your work.’ She collapsed into an armchair, fumbled in her overalls for a packet of cigarettes. He rose from the sofa, went over to the sink, filled the kettle with water. He noticed his hands were shaking.
‘Tea?’
She didn’t reply so he was forced to turn round to look at her. She sat in her chair like a man, sunk down, legs splayed apart. A lit cigarette dangled between her fingers. He thought she looked ugly. Not ugly physically. But ugly as a person.
‘How will we manage now?’ she asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘How will we manage without a child? How will we manage to get through all these fucking years to come just on our own?’
‘I thought our love would see us through.’
‘Sure, Eddie. If that’s what you think.’
But she was right. Where was the glue for their marriage without children? All these milestones that bound other couples together. The name-choosing, the nappies, the sleepless nights, the first word, the first step, the first day at school. He had so wanted a child he could end up blaming Macy for not giving him one. Perhaps that was what Macy was doing now. Pre-empting him. Punishing him before he blamed her.
He took her to Scotland. He thought the trip might cheer them up, might help their marriage if they spent some time out of London, away from their grief, to where there was space to breathe. It would be his first visit since his parents had died. They trained it up to Glasgow, hired a car for a trip to Oban and the Western Highlands. It felt good to be back, his misery humbled into insignificance by the craggy summits, chastened by the wildness of it all. Macy stayed silent for most of the journey until they approached the small town of Inveraray on the shores of Loch Fyne.
‘Hey, look at that,’ she said pointing to a small herd of Highland cattle. ‘Big shaggy dogs with horns.’
The cows were grazing in a field bordering the driveway up to Inveraray castle. He could see the towers and turrets of the Duke of Argyll’s grand residence just above the treeline. And he suddenly realised he had been to this place before. With his parents. There had been a photograph, the one his Aunt Cathy had sent him to Japan. The three of them sitting on a tartan blanket, he in the middle in his school uniform, the hairy head of a Highland cow straying comically into a corner of the picture. He had to pull over into a lay-by, stop the car. He stared out at the placid waters of the loch, holding on to the knot of grief tight in his stomach, Macy quiet and stiff beside him. He needed her, really needed her to say something, to touch him, but she could not or would not respond. And he realised that his grief was just as much about her as it was for the loss of his parents.
‘What has happened to us?’ he said, not sure whether he was asking himself or Macy. ‘What the fuck has happened to us?’
At first, she didn’t say anything, just picked away at the fringes of the travel blanket she had pulled around herself. Then eventually:
‘I don’t want to sleep with you anymore.’
‘Christ, Macy. You certainly choose your moments.’
‘It’s better you know the truth about how I feel.’
‘And what about me? About how I feel.’
‘I no longer consider myself responsible for your emotions.’
It was his turn to remain silent, to soak in these leaked pieces of information, these new boundaries for their relationship. And that was how it was for the rest of the trip. A few sentences meant to inflict wounds on each other and then a period of respite, letting the hurt sink in and be absorbed. Each new utterance marking their progress into the remoteness of the Highlands like verbal postcards of hate. By the time they had reached the tiny island of Iona, walking as strangers among the headstones in the abbey’s sacred burial ground, she had defined their relationship to him thus. She would move into her own bedroom, which by virtue of being next to her studio meant she would occupy her own separate section of their Chelsea house. She did not consider herself obliged to eat with him, sleep with him or go on holiday with him. However, regarding friends in common and other shared social and professional engagements, she would be happy to accompany him if he wanted her to. For the sake of appearances. She did not want a divorce.
‘Why not?’
She shrugged. ‘I saw my parents go through it. Guess I just don’t want to do the same to myself. But it’s up to you. If you want one, I’ll go along with it. I wouldn’t blame you.’
His first reaction was to go for the divorce, just to spite her more than anything else. Yet he found himself backing down from that idea, not because he harboured some secret notion he could somehow make everything right between them again, but because he didn’t know what else to do. He was so bruised and battered inside, so utterly defeated, all he could do was hang on to the little she was prepared to give him.
‘You can take lovers,’ she added. ‘I wouldn’t object.’
‘I suppose you already have one. Is that what this is really about?’
‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, Eddie. But my despair is all about you and nobody else.’
‘I should feel flattered.’
‘Don’t be. We just weren’t good for each other. You should have stayed in Japan. With your little chambermaid. She would have made you happy.’
‘How would you know?’
‘I just have to read The Waterwheel to see that.’
As parents live through their children, Edward felt he had lived – and was living – through his books. How he truly felt, what he truly believed, his shadows and his demons, his fears and his hopes, his pride and his shame, it was all there in his novels, in his characters and the conflicts he created for them. His living, breathing, everyday self was only a pretence. The artist was in the painting, the musician was in the song. If anyone wanted to know who he was, the real Edward Strathairn, all they had to do was line up his novels and read them from start to finish. There he was. On the shelf. For everyone to see. The Waterwheel – a love story between a British translator and a panpan girl as well as a plea for America to do some soul-searching in the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Fall of Dominic Pike – his stance against social injustice that fed into a fear so many people felt when confronted with the homeless: there but for the grace of God go I. And then came If So, Answer Me, the one the critics said was his masterpiece even though The Waterwheel would remain his best-known work. Macy had been right. He had needed to bring more emotion into his work and If So was the novel that did just that. It was his scream of anguish. He wrote it
in the five years after Aldous’ death and Macy’s miscarriage, carried it with him all that time in his heart and in his head. He had thrust his hand into the mire of his life, raked around inside and come up with gold. If The Waterwheel had given him intellectual respect in the eyes of the literary world, if The Fall of Dominic Pike had identified him with worthwhile social values, then If So gave him emotional integrity.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Hakone, Japan • 2003
As if through the revolving door in some West End farce, Sumiko departed his bedroom just before Enid entered it. She was crying when she left. It amazed him to think he still had the capacity to make women weep. A tearless Enid now stood by his bed, copying down his choice of lunch from the hotel menu.
‘I think I should call a doctor. Just to check you over.’
‘It will not be necessary.’
‘Mr Takahashi says there is a fine doctor living in the village.’
‘That must be very pleasant for him.’
Enid sucked in her breath. ‘Is there anything else?’
‘Please draw the curtains. The morning sunshine hurts my eyes.’
‘Do you have a headache?’
‘I have a splitting headache. There are some aspirin in the bathroom cabinet.’
Enid returned with a silver-paper strip of aspirin and a glass of water, which she placed on the bedside table. She then went to close the drapes.
‘Do you need anything else?’
‘Ask Takahashi to send me in a bottle of whisky. He knows the one I like.’
‘I will do no such thing. Please get some rest. I will call you in a few hours.’
As soon as Enid had left, he rang Takahashi at reception. Ten minutes later, a sullen bellboy arrived with the whisky on a tray, positioned it on the already crowded bedside table. The bottle was only one-third full. A note from Takahashi on the hotel’s headed notepaper explained:
“This is all we have left of your favourite whisky. If you would like some more, but of a different brand, please let me know. We have some very fine Japanese malts.”
He propped himself up on two large pillows, pushed out two tablets into his palm, washed them down with a large glass of malt. He breathed out deeply and noisily as the liquid hit his stomach, released its fiery glow. His head throbbed. This fall had shaken him, really rattled him up. His whole left side hurt. He took another sip of whisky. Enid had surprisingly left a crack in the curtains and a shaft of light slanted through. All the way from the sun, all those millions of miles, just to arrive in this place. And to die here. Such a remarkable journey. And for what purpose? To illuminate for a few moments his notebook lying open on the desk, the same mahogany desk on which he had written his famous novel so many years before. So many light years before. Time and space. Space and time. All mixed up.
The ring of the telephone woke him. His hand fumbled over the bedside table, knocking over a glass, finding the receiver, the tangled wire knocking over something else… a bottle, the thudding fall cushioned by the deep pile of the carpet. His head, heavy, thick. His voice throaty, dry.
‘What is it?’
‘Sir Edward?’ A woman’s voice. ‘Is that you?’
‘Yes, this is Sir Edward Strathairn.’
‘I’m sorry but it doesn’t sound like you.’
‘Who is this?’
‘It’s Enid.’
‘Enid? Where the hell are you?’
‘I’m in my room. Upstairs.’
‘Yes, yes, of course. What time is it?’
‘Five o’clock.’
‘Christ. I can’t believe I’ve slept so long.’
‘I thought I’d let you be. But we need to talk.’
‘Fine. Talk to me.’
‘I’d prefer to see you.’
‘Give me ten minutes then.’
He looked around the room. The light through the curtain crack was grey. A lacquer tray clustered with the dishes of an untouched lunch lay on the desk. He pulled back the covers, manoeuvred his legs off the bed. His left side was stiff now rather than painful. He considered that to be an achievement in his body’s test of recovery. Stiffness he could manage. Stiffness he was used to. He hobbled over to the desk, gulped down a bowl of cold miso soup, followed by four pieces of fried tofu, several spoonfuls of sticky rice, a slice of salmon in a delicious soya and ginger sauce, then two small cupfuls of green tea. The blood that had pounded inside his head when he awoke had now diverted to his stomach. He could almost feel whatever proteins, fats, carbohydrates and vitamins he had consumed begin their march through his veins. He burped healthily and began searching for the bottle of whisky. Just as he spotted it poking out from under the hem of the duvet cover, there was a knock on the door. He slipped back into bed before he called for her to come in.
‘Enid. How are you?’
‘I am coping as usual. And you?’
‘I am in fine form. Just a little stiffness in the limbs.’
‘You’ve been drinking.’
‘I have not been drinking.’
‘What am I going to do with you, Sir Edward?’ Her eyes scanned the room for the incriminating evidence. ‘I can smell your breath from here.’
‘All right. I had one glass. Just to help me sleep.’
‘Well, in that case, you will be rested enough to listen.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘I’m afraid there have been some developments.’ Enid brought out her notepad, flicked it to the opening page. ‘Her autobiography has now hit the shelves.’
‘What is this need people have to bore us with made-up tales of their lives? Such egotism. Such crassness. What’s it called?’
‘What is it called? You want to know what it’s called? Oh, let me see. Yes, here it is. It’s called Macy Collingwood – Not So Abstract Expressions.’
‘I suppose that’s OK. What else?’
‘Well, it’s only been released in America so far. There have been some reviews, mainly in the art magazines, culture pull-outs in the papers, that kind of thing.’
‘What does she say about me?’
‘I haven’t received a copy yet.’
‘Enid?’
‘Only what I’ve seen on the Internet. There have been the expected allegations. A few of the American broadsheets have picked up on those.’
‘What do they say?’
‘I would say that the main theme is on the subject of your hypocrisy.’
‘Well, I was never popular in the States anyway. What about back home?’
‘Nothing seems to have reached the press yet.’
‘Well, that’s not too bad then.’
‘There’s something else.’
‘Go on.’
‘It’s not good news.’
‘For God’s sake, Enid. Just spit it out.’
‘The BBC called to say they were re-considering their offer regarding the interview series. The producer was very nice about it. She said she didn’t want to rush into any rash judgements. But Sir David would like to have a chat with you. I’m so sorry.’
‘I see.’
‘What do you think we should do? I could put out a press release. Denying the allegations.’
‘I keep telling you, Enid. There is nothing to deny.’
‘But it was so long ago. And what about your reputation?’
‘What can I do? As Aldous used to tell me: “Life’s beginning moulds you, its ending will judge you. It doesn’t matter what you do in between.”’
‘But you’ve done so much in between.’
‘I appreciate your support, Enid. But I’ve heard enough. I think you should go now.’
‘I still think you should fight back.’
‘We came here to get away from all of this nonsense. Not to fight it. I’m feeling very tired now.’
‘Yes, yes, of course. Let me take away this tray. I’ll leave you till the morning.’
‘Thank you.’
He fixed himself another drink, this time diluted with a
little water from his aspirin glass, just to stir up the flavour. The bottle was almost empty. He moved over to the writing desk, switched on the table lamp. Through the gap in the curtain, he could see the darkening sky over the treetops. He rose again and walked stiffly over to his suitcase on the stool-rack, rummaged around inside until he found Kobayashi’s puzzle-box, brought it back to the desk. There it would sit, a marquetry tribute to the woods of its birth lying beyond the window. How appropriate. Now he was ready.
He would write. Not some pithy haiku but the seeds of something substantial. He had not thought about writing a novel for years. Surely ideas had been backing up, building up, bubbling up. Another wee dram should start to open up the sluice gates. He gulped down his drink and picked up a pen. Sketch down some thoughts. He listed his more important novels chronologically with their subject matter attached. His famous three. His triumvirate: “The Waterwheel (injustice). The Fall of Dominic Pike (the dispossessed). If So, Answer Me (spiritual void).” All so bloody serious. So bloody heavy. What he needed was to write a comedy. A humorous look at life. A conversation with a wise clown. How would you like to do a series on that, Sir David? When was the last time a great writer had written comedy? Apart from Shakespeare. And Cervantes. Nothing in the last four hundred years. That was it. If he were to carry the massive, ever-changing structure of a novel inside his head for the next few years, let it be light, let it be joyful, let it be funny. He finished off the bottle. He felt truly inspired. He wrote down the word “Comedy” on the page. ‘Aha!’ All he had to do now was think of an amusing theme. To begin the process, he would order another bottle of malt, have a shower, let the hot flow massage the ideas inside his head, let his thoughts percolate.
An Exquisite Sense of What Is Beautiful Page 24
