Tales of Persuasion

by Philip Hensher

  ‘No,’ Thyme said. ‘We’re not staying. We’re going to have dinner with Florian’s mother.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ Rose said. ‘Are you here on holiday?’

  ‘In a way,’ Florian said. ‘But now it doesn’t seem so much like it.’

  She let this go. She had had enough of enquiring into other people’s lives. He had a German accent, and she felt at least pleased that not every German had decided they couldn’t risk the collapsed state for a holiday, that they would be targets for hatred because of Frau Merkel. They would still come, after all.

  ‘I want to take Thyme away,’ Florian said.

  ‘Well, he’s a grown man,’ Rose said. ‘Take him off. Show him a good time. It’s nothing to do with me. I’ll see him when you bring him back and hear about the whole thing. What is it – Mykonos?’

  ‘No, Ma,’ Thyme said. ‘You don’t understand. I’m going away. I’m going with Florian to Switzerland, to Solothurn. I want to be with him. I can’t stay here knowing that Florian is in another country.’

  Rose stopped what she was doing. The twins were sitting underneath the table. She wished they would go away. They had a knack of understanding whenever something important was going to happen, and staying very still and listening. The man was looking levelly at her, with a gaze not hostile or even unfriendly, but one that was made of some tensile, resistant, flexible material. She felt the power of his gaze; she looked away, at her son. But there she did feel some hostility.

  ‘I know who you are now,’ she said, but not looking at him. ‘You’re the deputy manager of a branch of Starbucks.’

  ‘That’s nearly correct,’ the man said. ‘But a little out of date.’

  ‘That sounds wonderful,’ Rose said, now jeering openly. ‘It won’t last. Thyme, you don’t know what you’re doing. There’s no way that you could settle down with someone like this. After the way of life you’re used to, watching someone put on a little badge, watching them go over the accounts, watching them—’

  ‘It’s fine, Ma,’ Thyme said. ‘It’s going to be absolutely fine.’

  ‘We’ve brought you up to think and be yourself,’ she said. The door to the kitchen opened. Thorpe came in, standing there with something like shyness. She remembered the awful things she had said to him, an hour or two before. ‘Have you heard this?’ she said to Thorpe. ‘Thyme’s going to run off with a deputy manager of Starbucks. You want to listen to this.’

  ‘We don’t know how to do anything,’ Thyme said, ignoring his father. ‘We don’t know anything about art, even, except that de Kooning is God and Stanley Spencer is the devil. And the only time I ever saw a painting by either of them was that one time we went to England and we had a day in London. And that was only so that Pa could talk loudly in a gallery and impress lots of people. I’m sorry, Pa. We don’t know anything. I can’t remember the last time I read a book. I couldn’t write a letter in Greek without worrying that I was saying something you’d only say to kids on the street. I don’t know anything. And what am I going to do? You know what Charlie is going to make Oak do? He’s going to adopt a baby, get one made by paying a surrogate. A baby – two babies, three expensive little babies in that house, puking over the white sofas. It’s all going to be so expensive. How are they going to manage? I’m going to go over there and do it all, be a nanny, a brother and a nanny, with my stuff in the spare room upstairs. That’s what those friends are here for – they’re not friends, they’re people who are taking Charlie and Oak through the whole process. What is my life going to be?’

  ‘You’re a free spirit, Thyme,’ Rose said. She was as solemn as she knew how to be. It was a sentence she produced on high occasions, when her children complained of bullying, of people who were richer or cleverer or more beautiful than them. She had used it three times this week, to Borage, to Juniper, when she was saying that she wished she lived in a house as nice as Charlie’s only without Charlie in it. She said it now to Thyme, with a solemn intonation: ‘You can’t go to Switzerland, get a job in a Starbucks and expect it to suit you. It just isn’t going to work. How on earth are you going to live?’

  ‘The minimum wage in Switzerland—’ the sunburnt man began, but Rose interrupted.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ she said. ‘We’re not talking about money. Money is just—’

  ‘I think we’re going to go,’ Thyme said. ‘I don’t have so much to take with me. I’m just going to go when Florian goes. You see, Ma, the thing is, I love him. I love him. I don’t know why.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of you before,’ Rose said. ‘Never, never, never. And my sons tell me everything. When was this? When is this supposed to have happened?’

  The man looked at Rose, and it seemed to her that he looked at her with calm interest, as if he wanted to know what her response to an event would be.

  ‘It is the case, what Thyme says,’ he said. ‘I love him. It happened and it is still happening. He has to be with me and now my home is with Thyme. We are here to explain and to say goodbye.’

  ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to say,’ Rose said, but then she went too far. ‘What are people going to say here, when they hear that the son of the painter, the one who brought real art, real values to this place, he’s gone off and he’s living with someone who works in a branch of Starbucks? How are we going to tell anyone that? You can’t be happy, Thyme. Tell him, Thorpe.’

  ‘That’s what you’ve always said,’ Thyme said. ‘You can’t be happy. All of you. We’re going to go now, Ma. I’ll come and say goodbye before we go.’

  Thorpe gave a small, feeble smile, a whipped child hoping to placate his tormentor. They went, watched by the bullied twins, huddled underneath the table that seated fourteen and would stretch to sixteen. Their brother and the Swiss man left, and found themselves negotiating the door with the other brother, Oak, and Charlie, trying to come in. They were with some people they didn’t know. Where the hell were you? Oak was saying, but Thyme said something short, dismissive, and was gone. They saw Charlie, a little man, rich and tiny, a pathetic, ill-fed scrap, looking about him as if he had never seen anything so awful as their kitchen, and turning to his rich friends, who were coming for dinner, with a shrug and a face. Their mother said they were early. Oak said they thought they’d come early and see the paintings, too. And then it all kicked off.

  ‘I didn’t know how it was going to be,’ Thyme said.

  ‘It was fine,’ Florian said. They were walking down the hill.

  ‘Are you sore? Your skin?’

  ‘It’s better. Your mother—’

  ‘Forget about it. She’ll tell Pa. They’ll be a long way away soon.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Thyme laughed, incredulously, drolly. ‘When can we go?’

  ‘We’ve got a flight from Naxos. Come on the same flight.’

  ‘They fill up, those flights,’ Thyme said. ‘If I can’t fly with you, what then?’

  ‘We’ll get a ferry to Athens,’ Florian said. ‘There are flights all day long from Athens to Zürich. There’s a train from Zürich to Solothurn. It’s easy. Do you want to come to Solothurn with me?’

  ‘It must be beautiful,’ Thyme said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Florian said. ‘I’ve stopped seeing it. It’s just where I live now. I suppose it’s nice.’

  ‘All right,’ Thyme said. ‘Let’s go tomorrow to Solothurn.’

  A Lemon Tree

  The terrace here has plants on it. Lavender, jasmine. It smells nice. They are the plants from the terrace at home. At home my mother waters them every night and every morning. She comes out and says something about the heat of the day. Then she waters the plants. The kind people who work here have brought the lavender and the jasmine from the terrace at home in Naples to make me feel at home.

  Nothing is too much trouble for the kind people. It is nice to be at a spa. This spa is not like the spa my father took us to last year and the year before. We always go to Montecatini Terme in T
uscany. This is not Montecatini Terme. There you drink the waters and talk in the streets to the same people you see every year. The waters are good for your digestion. Sometimes in Montecatini Terme you or your parents are talking to a friend in the street and then suddenly the friend is not there any more. He has gone to the lavatory to answer a call of nature. In Montecatini Terme it is not necessary to say ‘goodbye’ or apologize for leaving. Everyone knows you just turn away and absent yourself. And one day you realize that your three weeks’ stay is over and tomorrow you, too, must leave, it is over, and you must go back home to Naples.

  In Naples we have lavender and jasmine on the terrace and my mother waters them every day, twice a day. The kind people who work here have brought the lavender and jasmine from our terrace and put it outside where I can see it. It makes me feel at home. Some time I will have to leave the spa and go back home. It has been a nice holiday. There have not been any waters to drink. But the kind people have made me comfortable. There is risotto to eat sometimes, and sometimes soup, a cold, bright green vegetable soup, very nice. The vegetable soup is my favourite to eat and I look forward to it. Last year I went with my parents, and the year before that we went to Montecatini Terme in Tuscany. This year I came here, and my parents did not come. They went to Montecatini Terme. There is plenty of time left before I have to go back home. My brother is here, I see him sometimes at the other end of the room, where the television set hangs on the yellow wall, but once I went over to say hello, and found myself about to speak to an old man by mistake. I don’t know where my brother went.

  The kind people who work here make us comfortable and talk to us. Sometimes it is the kind ladies, the ones from Africa, who bring us our lunch and our supper. There is a kind lady from Russia who does not talk, who hits us when we are slow to get into bed and she is in a hurry. There are some strict gentlemen and strict ladies too, who come and ask me questions. I have told them these things before, but I don’t mind telling them again. I am between forty and fifty years in age. It is 1974. (Sometimes I make a small joke, and I tell them that the year is 1975. The strict ladies write this down just the same.) The name of the pope in the Vatican is John Paul, and he is Polish. They ask us the names of other people. They are different questions. But they always ask us the name of the prime minister of the country. Silvio Berlusconi, I always say. I look down when I say this. Berlusconi is a very good friend of my husband, Pierluigi, who is away at Montecatini Terme with my parents. In the past, he has come round to our house, and sat and told us about what he wants to do, and sometimes he has sung a song. I do not tell the strict ladies and gentlemen about this; there is no need. In the mornings they ask us what Silvio Berlusconi does for this country and in the afternoon Silvio Berlusconi comes to the spa and he visits us.

  There are mostly old people at this spa. I am the youngest here, thirty or forty years younger than the rest of them. The old man who sits in the chair next to me, he dribbles in his risotto at table and we pretend not to notice. They ask all of us one by one who the pope is and who the prime minister is. The old man in the chair next to me, the risotto-dribbler, he gets the answer right about the pope but then he says that the prime minister is Craxi. The strict lady writes the answer down. She does not correct him. She goes on to the next old person, who knows, like everyone else, that the prime minister’s name is Silvio Berlusconi. I want to ask the old man how he can say something so stupid. But I don’t. In the afternoon the prime minister sometimes comes to visit us. Bettino Craxi has never been to visit us and he never will.

  On the terrace, the lavender and jasmine come from the terrace in Naples. The kind people who work here brought it, to make me feel at home. I like to smell it when the windows are open and it makes me feel homesick and it stops me feeling homesick. The kind people brought the lavender and the jasmine here.

  Silvio Berlusconi does not look as he looks. But now I know that is what he looks like. His hair is black and smoothed down and his skin is tanned the colour of the risotto. He smiles at us but I did not think he recognized me at first. Now he has remembered me and he talks to me sometimes when he comes. Once he sang the line of a song to me, and he held my hand and I knew the tune. Volare … Cantare … Other famous people come to the spa to visit us. Eros Ramazzotti comes. He is the grandson of one of the old ladies. Sophia Loren has come with her pet dogs, one under each arm, and Gina Lollobrigida, very beautiful, as beautiful as ever. I recognized her immediately, but I said nothing. Nino Brunacci comes very often. He was my favourite star when I was young and it is so nice that he comes very often to visit us. He comes so often because he is one of the kind people. He is a big star but he does not mind cleaning up when one of the old people has an accident. He has not grown any older. But the most regular one who comes is the prime minister.

  It is nice that the prime minister comes. He comes because he wants to hear what ordinary people think and what ordinary people like us are saying. He does not clean up after accidents but he sometimes brings us our risotto or our vegetable soup, putting them down in front of us. Vegetable soup is my favourite. Silvio Berlusconi sets it down and he asks me if I’m good to go. Sometimes I am not sure what Silvio Berlusconi means, but I agree, and pick up the spoon to eat it. Sometimes Silvio Berlusconi says that I am his favourite old dear, and if he ever runs out of talent, I’ll be at the top of his list. Silvio Berlusconi is an old friend of my husband, and so he talks to me like this, and neither of us minds it. My husband would not mind it if he was here. My husband is in Montecatini Terme with my parents. He did not want to come here. We will meet again in Naples. I will tell him all about the things that Silvio Berlusconi has said to me and how nice it was that I and Silvio Berlusconi were at the same spa and Silvio Berlusconi was a kind person giving me some soup to eat.

  Sometimes a kind man comes to visit me. He calls me Nonna. He sits with me and sometimes he talks and sometimes we sit and we watch the television together. Today Miss Lollobrigida came on the television and I explained that she had come to visit us all only that morning. He shook his head, the kind man who calls me Nonna. But I explained again about all the people who come to visit – about Sophia Loren, and Gina Lollobrigida, and Marcello Mastroianni, and Nino, but he had not heard of Nino Brunacci. And not just stars but the prime minister too, I explained. Silvio Berlusconi comes to visit. I often talk to him, I said. He gives me risotto to eat if it is a risotto day and vegetable soup if it is a vegetable soup day. Oh, Nonna, the kind man says. Soon it is time for him to leave.

  But quite soon after he leaves, Silvio Berlusconi comes into the room. He has been at the spa all day. Just now he was working in the kitchen. He takes off his washing-up gloves and comes over to me to say goodbye for the day. I want to say something to him, because behind him I can see the kind lady from Russia just taking off her coat and I do not want to be left alone with the kind lady from Russia. I ask him if he knows the plants outside; they come from my father’s terrace in Naples. The lavender and the jasmine. They smell here just as they smell in Naples. I was thinking of leaving them here – it would be kind to all the old people. But Silvio Berlusconi says something. You didn’t bring the lemon tree, then, he says. I am very surprised that he should remember that we had a lemon tree on the terrace at home, but he is right. They have brought the lavender and the jasmine from home but they have not brought the lemon tree. My father will be very disappointed at that. I agree with Silvio Berlusconi. Then Silvio Berlusconi puts on his own coat, and the big blue car that sits outside the spa sometimes takes him away.

  I close my eyes. I pretend to sleep. The Russian kind lady is in the room. I don’t want her to know that I see her. I don’t want her to catch my eye. Some time soon it will be time to return home; some time soon the holiday will be over. I have had a good time. It has been a long time. Soon it will be over and time to go home.

  Also by Philip Hensher

  FICTION

  Other Lulus

  Kitchen Venom

&
nbsp; Pleasured

  The Bedroom of the Mister’s Wife

  The Mulberry Empire

  The Fit

  The Northern Clemency

  King of the Badgers

  Scenes from Early Life

  The Emperor Waltz

  NON-FICTION

  The Missing Ink: The Lost Art of Handwriting

  About the Author

  Philip Hensher’s novels include The Mulberry Empire, the Booker-shortlisted The Northern Clemency, King of the Badgers, Scenes from Early Life and The Emperor Waltz. He is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Bath Spa and lives in south London and Geneva.

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