by Home
‘Yes,’ said Jeff. Though impressed by the analysis, he was having trouble remembering how it had begun. That was the beauty of recording interviews, though. It was like an external memory. Except, he realized now, he had forgotten to turn the Dictaphone back on.
‘Fuck!’ He reached forward, pressedRecord.
‘Naturally you don't expect me to say all that again, do you?’ she said.
‘No, no.’
A motor boat went by, the canal swooshed and churned in its wake, making the shadow-swirls on the wall coil into life again.
‘Was it …? Bringing up Niki on your own. You lived partly in France and partly in London. How was that?’
‘Fine. We had a lovely apartment in Paris. A reasonable flat in London. We weren't short of money. Niki was an easygoing child.’
‘What about you? What were you doing? Apart from bringing her up, I mean.’
‘I didn't have any impulse to do anything much. I wrote a few articles. I had vague ideas about writing a book, but never got round to it.’
‘There was talk of a memoir.’
‘Oh, yes, I did a few little things, but I didn't have the application and there was nothing I wanted to get to the bottom of. So there was nothing to sustain me and nothing to propel me. And although I had a few famous friends, I actually felt too loyal to them, or too affectionate, to say anything interesting about them. You know, that kind of book always works best when there's some kind of betrayal involved. I had no interest in betraying or score-settling. And the idea of writing didn't interest me enough. So I just swanned around. Tell me, do you get bored?’
‘Me? Yes, all the time.’
‘That must be an advantage. You see, I've never had any capacity for boredom. I'm like one of those people you see in India or Africa, sitting by the roadside, staring into space. I can just do nothing all day long and I'm quite happy. And I've never had any ambition. Not even in its most basic, negative form of envying other people's success. I think that's why I've had so many friends, I was really delighted for them to get on when so many of the other people around were measuring themselves against how everyone else was doing. I'm sorry, am I speaking too much?’
‘No, not at all. This is great, actually’ Jeff glanced towards the Dictaphone to make sure it was recording, to make sure that, by turning it on, he had not accidentally turned it off. Such things, he remembered, had a way of happening when you were stoned.
‘All of which applies particularly, presumably, to Niki?’ He was sharp as a pin! As Paxman!
‘Yes. It was obvious she was going to do something. If it hadn't been music, it would have been art or writing. Something like that. She had just enough discontent. Unlike me. I've always sat very comfortably in my own skin.’
It was true. She was just sitting there, comfortably, talking about herself but not in an egotistic way, imparting information about this person who happened to be herself. And it was easy to see why she had so many friends. She was easy to be around. She made you feel at ease – a thought that immediately made Jeff feel ill at ease, anxious about how to broach the subject of the picture Max had requested and which, in its way, was more important than everything that had gone before. The shadow of Julia's building was stretching across the wall opposite like a plimsoll line suggesting, as it moved slowly upwards, that cargo was being loaded onto this neighbouring house, causing it to sink slightly into the water. He turned off the Dictaphone.
‘Great. Thank you. That will work really well.’
‘That was painless.’
‘Good. The only other thing – and again it's something I think Max Grayson, my editor atKulchur , mentioned. The picture of you by Steven. They were hoping you might agree to let them reprint that with the article.’
‘You want to take the picture with you?’
‘Not necessarily. Whatever's easiest for you. If you prefer, they could arrange a courier or it could be scanned and sent electronically. But, well, it would be great if I could at least see it.’
‘And would you mind if I asked what was in it for me?’
‘No. In fact, one of the things I've been asked or authorized to do is to agree a fee with you.’
‘So?’
‘A thousand pounds?’
‘It's strange, this is one of those situations when I could be difficult.’
‘You'd certainly be within your rights.’
‘What if I just asked for more money? Money that, by the way, I don't even particularly want but, well, thatis what you're meant to do, isn't it?’
‘Absolutely, yes. How about fifteen hundred? To be honest, that's the limit. Top dollar, as they say.’
‘Let me go and get the picture.’
She went inside again. He stood up and walked a few paces. He was still very stoned and it was still incredibly hot. The combination made him sit down again, under the diffused glow of the umbrella.
Julia came out with a folder, which she untied, revealing a yellowish, thick piece of paper. She flipped the folder over, opened it again and there was the drawing. She was naked, her legs apart. Between her legs was a scribble and blur of lines. She had lovely breasts – and it was obviously her. The face had the same prominent cheekbones, the same strangely blank expression. Even her hair was pretty much the same. It was easy to imagine that, if she undressed now, he would see roughly the same body as the one in the picture.
‘My,’ he said. He looked at her face in the drawing, but was unable to look at the face of the person who had handed it to him. There was the startling fact of the drawing showing her naked, but there was also an unsettling psychological quality to the picture – the quality she had commented on earlier. She was letting this man, her lover, look at her and draw her. To gaze at their lover, naked: it was what men had always wanted to do. If the man was an artist – or just a teenager with a camcorder – then what he painted or filmed was not simply what he saw but the unchanging strength of that desire, that hunger to see … But in her face there was an absolute indifference. Any love in his gaze was unreciprocated. Instead there was just a blank. Look all you want, her expression said. You can see everything and you will see nothing except what I have in common with every other woman on earth. One only needed to look at the picture for a few moments to know that the relationship was not going to endure. And presumably Morison knew this, either while he was doing it or, failing that, as soon as he had finished. Maybe that didn't matter, to either of them. Maybe the moment contained and recorded in this piece of paper was enough. But if that was true, then why was there such a sense of loneliness about the drawing: not hers – she was calm and perfectly still – but that of the person looking at her, the artist himself?
‘A hypnotic relation between the subject and the spectator is established in all Giorgione's pictures. This derives partly from the motionless, arrested scene, and partly from the unwavering look in the eyes of the portrait subject… The stillness produces the unrest.’
‘It's …’ He cleared his throat. ‘It's a remarkable picture.’
‘Yes.’ He handed it back to her. She returned the picture carefully to the folder, which she tied neatly together. ‘So I think you understand that I wouldn't want to give it to your magazine – any magazine – either for a thousand, fifteen hundred pounds or … Or however much.’
‘I agree,’ said Jeff. ‘It's a very private picture.’
She looked at him. ‘You're not a very dedicated journalist,’ she said. ‘But you are an understanding one. That must be a disadvantage in your line of work.’
He shrugged.
‘Will your editor be as understanding?’
‘I don't think it's a sackable offence. Especially since I'm only freelance and so, strictly speaking, don't have a job from which Ican be sacked.’
‘That's reassuring,’ she laughed.
Their meeting was over. They descended the cool stairs. She opened the door. Jeff thanked her, was about to shake her hand when she leaned forward and kissed
him on the cheek. There was nothing sexual about it, but neither was it the standard continental air-kiss that was as conventionalized as a handshake. There was an intimacy about it that could not be accounted for, either by their getting stoned together, or because of the interview or because of the picture that he had just seen. He said goodbye, stepped out into the fierce heat, and heard the door shut jarringly behind him.
He walked back to the vaporetto stop at Campo d'Oro thinking, for the tenth time that day, that it was even hotter – otter – than it had been earlier. The vaporetto came quickly and was unusually empty. If nothing else, he was getting fantastic value out of his three-day pass. He stepped aboard, found a seat at the back and reached into his assortment of bags for the Dictaphone, wanting to listen back to what he had, to check the quality of recording. Instead of the Dictaphone, he pulled out his digital camera. Fuck! He had forgotten to take her picture. He had failed to come away with the drawing and he had forgotten to take her picture. Of the three things he was supposed to have done, he had failed or forgotten to do two. And the one thing he'd not forgotten to do – the interview – had been sabotaged by forgetting to turn the fucking Dictaphone back on for the best part of it. He looked in his bags again: at least he stillhad the Dictaphone. He was in a panic, torn between getting off at the next stop, going back, ringing the door bell again and asking if she wouldn't mind, if it wasn't too much trouble, if he could … As with the email he hadn't sent the day before coming to Venice – ‘I just can't do this shit any more’ – he knew, even as he contemplated doing so, that he would not get off the boat, would not go back, would return to London empty-handed and would get told byKulchur that they did not want him to do this shit any more because he could not be trusted – he could hear Max's voice rising –to do the simplest fucking thing that he was asked – not asked, commissioned , paid –to do! He knew also that as soon as he was told that they did not want him to do this shit any more he would realize how desperately he wanted to keep doing this shit that he did not want to do any more. He wished he was not stoned, wished he could think clearly. That was something else he remembered about getting stoned, one of the reasons he'd gradually stopped doing it: there always came a time, when you were stoned, when you wished you weren't stoned, when you needed to not be stoned, needed to think clearly. Venice was sliding past, glinting and greeny-gold, watery. Many of the grand palazzos were adorned with large banners publicizing Biennale-related art events and exhibitions. Glancing round, he saw that the vaporetto had filled up as it had stopped at whichever stops it had stopped at since he had got on at his stop, was actually very crowded. Well, what could he do now, about the photo that he had not taken? Nothing. The best thing was not to think about it, not to worry.
A lot of people got off at Accademia, but even more piled on. The boat pulled away and passed under the bridge. As it emerged on the other side he saw Laura on the low arch of the bridge, leaning on the rail. Birds slid and swooped, over the bridge and under. She was wearing a white dress, was shading herself from the sun with a parasol – ah, so that was what it was, not an umbrella, of course it was not an umbrella. If she had been looking down at – or even along – the canal, she would surely have seen him; but she was looking – smiling – at the person she was talking to, a man, a guy Jeff's age or a little younger. It was obvious, even from this glimpse, from the way she was facing him, the way he held himself in relation to her – one hand on the bridge rail – that they were not in the midst of a walk through the city together; no, they had just bumped into each other. All of this passed through Jeff's mind in less than a second. He could have called her name. He was still debating whether this was or was not the best thing to do when it became – gradually and suddenly – too late to do so. Too late! Calling out her name had ceased being an option and had become a source of regret.
‘Sir, I am requesting you.’
‘But your request, sir, has not been granted. So you must go to back of queue.’
‘Sir, I am requesting you.’
‘And your request has been categorically refused.’
In other circumstances I might have found this wearying, but I had been in India long enough, now, to realize that there is no limit to the number of times the same thing can be said. The fact that a point has been made does not mean that the same point does not need to be made again and again. There was scope, however, for enlarging and varying the point.
‘Furthermore, your request will never be granted,’ I said. ‘Never. Do you understand me?’
At some level, he did not. The idea of absolute refusal with no scope for a special dispensation or exemption made no sense. He continued standing where he was. We were neck and neck. Physically, he was not ahead of me in the queue, and I was not ahead of him, but I had, by now, established a crucial psychological advantage. My rival was not interested in the etiquette or principle of queuing. He simply wanted to use the bank machine quickly. That was that. Whereas for me, my place in this queue – indeed the continued existence of the very idea and principle of the queue – was at stake. Nothing in my life mattered more to me than not letting this man in ahead of me. I had found a cause I could die for. Or kill for.
‘Sir,’ I said. ‘Look at my eyes.’ I took off my sunglasses. ‘Look at my eyes and listen to me.’ I had no idea how my eyes looked. I hoped the fact that they were blue lent the person glaring angrily through them an air of implacable purpose and unshakeable will. In a sense it did not matter, because the queue-barger was not looking at them. He was looking at the door to the bank and he was still smiling. My own smile had by now become a death's head grin, a rictus of suppressed English rage, the product of years of rainy summers, ruined picnics, cancelled trains and losing at penalty shoot-outs. ‘You are not going into that bank ahead of me. The only way you will go into the bank ahead of me is by stepping over my lifeless body. Do you understand?’
The moment of crisis had arrived. The fleshy, sari-clad woman who had been ahead of us was emerging from the lobby. Before she was properly out of the door, my rival tried to move past her, but I wedged myself between them and shouldered my way in. When he tried to come in as well, I shut the door in his face. I had made it. Pumped-up and exultant, I pumped my fist like a man who has made his point, achieved his goal, won.
I keyed in my PIN. My hands were trembling. Perhaps that's why the machine rejected my number. I must have keyed in the wrong PIN. I tried again, slowly, carefully, deliberately. The bank rejected my card a second time. And a third.
Everything that happens in India is a parable, even if the meaning of that parable is unclear. In this instance I took it to mean that there is no such thing as a pyrrhic victory, there are only pyrrhic defeats.
The fact of the matter is that I came out empty-handed, cashless. The man who had tried to get in ahead of me came in next, unperturbed, unrepentant and un-grudge-bearing. His wife was standing outside. So was the German, but he was not the next in line. Yet another person had managed to get between him and the door.
‘You are a fucking Kraut pussy,’ I hissed at the German, before striding off.
I took a cycle rickshaw back to the hotel. As we jolted and heaved through the jammed streets, I realized that, weirdly, the episode at the bank had restored my good spirits. I laughed aloud as I recalled the shocked expression on the face of the much-put-upon German as I'd abused him. I admired the way the man who had tried to queue-barge had stuck, smilingly, to his game plan, had refused to allow that anything was at stake other than his desire – to his credit, he had never attempted to make it his right – to get at his cash quickly. Viewed in a different light, everything irritating about India could become a source of pleasure and instruction with implausible speed. Suddenly I understood why there had been something strangely familiar, almost reassuring, about the irritation that had been assailing me for the previous weeks: it was how I felt all the time in London, the default setting for a life in which a constant drizzle of frustration, annoyance
and rush-hour Tube travel was the unremarked-on norm.
All around was honk and blare. The din, the dust, the noise were unbelievable, but wasn't it great that there was a place on earth where dust, din and blare thrived? What a clean and dull planet it would be if everywhere became a suburb of Stockholm, where citizens queued patiently and the cash machines dispatched crisp, high-denomination, fraud-proof notes, where there were no elephant-headed gods who rode around on mice, where there were no beggars waving their bandaged, pus-stained stumps in your face, no janitors claiming they were priests, no cows solemnly manuring the streets, no monkeys running riot and no kids scrounging rupees? And beneath all one's irritation and annoyance, in any case, was the knowledge that the demand for money was a straightforward expression of the inequality of economic relationships. We, the tourists, were immensely rich and they, the beggars and the boatmen, the masseurs and the hustlers, were unfathomably poor. The pestering was a persistent, but still voluntary, tax on luxury. You didn't have to pay. You could say no. This ‘No’ would be ignored, but if you kept saying it, if you said it over and over, then … it would still be ignored. But eventually, after the twentieth time, it would be accepted. Either that or it would have turned into a ‘Yes.’ Given the gulf between what you had and what they did without, it was a miracle, really, that you didn't get robbed every time you left the hotel, the compound, that your feet were not ripped off simply to get at your sandals, that you weren't torn limb from limb and eaten, or your liver sold for dog food.