The Last Word by Hanif Kureishi Page B

at last, come gingerly down the ladder, made himself comfortable in a chair and said almost mournfully, ‘I must give you more, dear man. You seem upset, and even angry, now.’
    Mamoon talked about his father with respect and affection; his mother he hardly mentioned, but when pushed was kind. As for his siblings, again Mamoon talked of how much he liked them, having supported one through college in America. The sister he hadn’t spoken to for thirty years he said nothing about. ‘It’s not an interesting dispute.’ About Peggy he didn’t add much, claiming he’d repressed the details but that it was ‘all in the diaries’.
    ‘What’s your view of it now?’ Harry asked. ‘Of her. Your lover.’
    ‘You know, Harry, I loved her for a long time,’ Mamoon said. ‘But, once intelligent and attractive, the poor woman became increasingly distressed. She made herself so very ill with the drinking. She was even unwashed at times. Born for disappointment, she only wanted what I couldn’t give. The drink made her aggressive – mostly with herself.’
    Harry said, ‘Would a more ruthless man have removed her?’
    ‘How could even a more ruthless man have removed her from her own house? I could have moved somewhere else. But there is a lot I love here – the quiet to write. The long story, the novel, is an old-fashioned and, people say, defunct form. Perhaps it resembles oil painting, in that its creation is labour-intensive and enjoins an iron discipline, patience and forbearance. It is all I can do. As for Peggy, you can’t just let people down, dammit. That’s the hell of compassion. But I did think, next time I must marry a real woman.’
    ‘As opposed to?’
    ‘A case history.’
    ‘You are compassionate, sir. That is well known,’ said Harry. ‘But did you go with other women?’
    ‘Much less than you might like to imagine.’
    ‘Didn’t you say that no one has been truly married until they’ve committed adultery?’
    ‘I hope so.’ Mamoon went on, ‘She and I always worked together on my manuscripts. That was our intimacy and the purpose of our conversations.’
    ‘It was your love for one another?’
    ‘Many artists have had a muse. The idea confuses idiotic people as to art’s origins. They want to believe it springs from a single pure source. It has been said that my work hasn’t been up to much since Peggy died.’
    ‘Do you agree with that?’
    Mamoon shrugged and began to head for the door. ‘I work on, when I can. What the hell else could I do all day – talk to you? An artist, you must remember, is at his best in his art.’
    This was duller than the much gossiped idea of a diabolic intransigent Indian driving devoted women mad. Rob’s late-night calls – he hollered into the phone, saying everything at least twice and with exclamation marks: ‘What have you got on him? What have you got? You got it yet? Make sure you tell me!’ – were making Harry so anguished he was beginning to wonder whether he could write a first book at all about a man about whom there would be many books, eventually. And if he didn’t have the book, he explained to Julia now, he wouldn’t have a career. His brothers were doing nicely, but could be very damning, while he, Harry, would be nothing.
    Harry awoke when the light came up and peered about the dark blue-walled room he had landed in.
    Stroking and smelling the lovely, plain woman beside him, he then recalled a lashing rant he’d received from Liana the previous afternoon, just after he’d spoken to Mamoon. She had dashed from the kitchen and into a field where he believed he was safe, reclining for a breather with a notebook in the shade of an old apple tree.
    ‘Why did you insult Mamoon so?’
    ‘Oh God, I’m sorry.’ He sat up. ‘What was it?’
    ‘Wasn’t it something about your father being a real man – and an example to you – because he had had three sons and brought them up alone?’
    ‘Dad educated us. He called it his only