‘Women are realer than men,’ says Max.
‘You’ve noticed,’ says Seamus as Juliano reappears with two more lagers.
‘Are we hearing or have we heard music?’ says Max’s mind.
‘What music?’ says Max.
‘What they usually have here,’ says Seamus. ‘Right now it’s Georgy Zamfir and his pan pipes.’
‘Sorry,’ says Max. ‘What did you say?’
‘“Be not afeard,”’ says Seamus; ‘“the isle is full of noises,/Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not./Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments/Will hum about mine ears …”’
Juliano brings the scampi. Seamus says, ‘You on for our usual video debauch at Virgin?’
‘Not today,’ says Max. ‘Got to get back to my desk so I’m there in case Page One happens.’
‘Was it yesterday, the music?’ says his mind.
‘I’ll get back to you, OK?’ says Max.
‘About what?’ says Seamus.
‘Sorry,’ says Max. ‘Thinking out loud.’
Nobody has much to say after that. It’s Max’s turn to settle the bill. He does this and heaves the still-sleeping dwarf on to his shoulder. When they part Seamus wishes Max luck with the new novel and Max wishes Seamus luck with his Daniel Deronda for Radio 3. Then Seamus heads for Tottenham Court Road and the Virgin Megastore in Oxford Street while Max walks back to the Russell Square tube station and the Piccadilly Line. In the train Max remembers not to think out loud. People look at him and move away anyhow. ‘What music are we talking about?’ he says to his mind.
‘Hang on,’ says his mind. ‘I’m giving you a picture.’
Max sees the doormat at home with its accumulation of flyers and cards for car services. Also something square and white. No, something round and white in a clear plastic square envelope.
‘Now I’m thinking South Ken,’ says his mind. ‘I’m thinking V & A.’
‘What about the doormat?’ says Max.
‘Later,’ says his mind. ‘First the V & A.’
The dwarf is asleep on Max’s shoulder. Max can’t see his face. He says to his mind, ‘Hallucinations are mental things, right?’
‘OK,’ says his mind, ‘but I didn’t think this guy up. I’m like a post office — things come in and I sort them. What stop is this?’
‘Earls Court,’ says Max.
‘We missed South Ken!’ says his mind. ‘Go back.’
Max crosses to the eastbound Piccadilly platform and after about five minutes there’s a train. It’s crowded but people leave a little space around Max. Can they smell the dwarf? Max tries to look as if he doesn’t care. The dwarf is awake now and singing softly to himself.
‘What stop is this?’ says his mind.
‘Oh shit,’ says Max. ‘Knightsbridge.’ He leaves the train and lugs his burden to the westbound platform again. ‘Don’t talk to me this time,’ he says to his mind as he boards another train.
‘I didn’t talk last time,’ says his mind.
‘No more singing,’ says Max to the dwarf. The dwarf stops singing but hums to himself.
‘Where are we?’ says Max’s mind.
‘Earls Court,’ says Max. ‘Missed South Ken again. I don’t believe this.’ He and his mind and the dwarf go up to the street and after a quarter of an hour Max gets a taxi. ‘Can you take us to the V & A, please,’ he says to the driver.
The driver looks around. ‘How many are you?’ he says.
‘It’s just me,’ says Max. He grunts as he shifts the dwarf and heaves him on to the seat.
‘I know how it is, mate,’ says the driver. ‘I’ve got back trouble too.’
‘Dwarves happen,’ says Max.
‘You what?’ says the driver.
‘Shit happens,’ says Max.
‘Tell me about it,’ says the driver. ‘But at least the Gunners are doing better than they were.’
‘I don’t really follow football,’ says Max.
‘How long you here for?’ says the driver.
‘I live here.’
‘How long?’
‘Fifteen years.’
‘What made you come here?’
‘Oliver Onions.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘A writer. Dead now. Wrote a ghost story called “The Beckoning Fair One”.’
‘You a writer too?’ says the driver.
‘Yes.’
‘You ever seen a ghost?’
‘Not exactly,’ says Max. ‘You?’
‘In a way,’ says the driver, ‘you’re sitting next to one.’
‘What do you mean?’ says Max. The dwarf is on his left. He doesn’t see anyone on his right.
‘Like the echo of a person,’ says the driver. ‘An echo you can see.’
‘Can you see it now?’
‘No, but if there’s nobody in here with me and I look in the mirror I like get the idea of her face.’
‘Someone you knew?’
‘No, she was just a fare I picked up in the Fulham Road. Her and a bloke, they were going to Waterloo. I had the divider closed so I couldn’t hear what they were saying but she was crying and shaking her head. She was a good-looking woman, very fine-featured, nothing common. Kept shaking her head and dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. The man, I didn’t like the way his mouth moved and his hands. Didn’t like his tie. The fare was nine pound twenty and he gave me eleven quid but I still didn’t like him. They had one small bag, I think it was hers.’
‘What do you think was making her cry?’ says Max.
‘I think he was telling her it was all over. I’d say she was better off without him but I can still see her crying and shaking her head. Here we are.’
The fare is five sixty. Max tips the driver eighty-five pence. ‘The stories I could tell you!’ says the driver. ‘But I’m no good at writing them down.’
‘Maybe they don’t need to be written down,’ says Max. ‘Not everything does.’ As the taxi pulls away into the traffic Max shoulders his dwarf and looks up and down the Cromwell Road. The evening sky is a darkening dove-grey still luminous with a Caspar David Friedrich long, long blue that is like memory, like prayer, like regret. There is a little sickle moon, Max is never sure whether it’s waxing or waning. Against the sky the rooftops and chimneys, TV aerials and satellite dishes are like black paper silhouettes. Below the scissored-out black shapes are golden windows, orangey-yellow street lamps, the brilliant reds, green, and ambers of traffic lights, and the white headlights coming and red tail-lights going townward and homeward. The pattering of footsteps on the pavement makes him think of the wheeling of starlings, so many of them and nameless to him.
Up the steps he goes, through the revolving door and into the warmth and brightness of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Long spaces and echoes, years overlapped like fish scales. Bowls and goblets, wine of shadows. Women, men, gods and demons in stone, clay, bronze, ivory, some with open eyes, some with closed. Fabrics and jewels embracing absent friends.
‘Nehru Gallery,’ says Max’s mind.
All of a sudden Max feels a strange lightness and he realises that the dwarf is gone.
‘Don’t let’s celebrate yet,’ says his mind. ‘He’ll probably be back.’
There are people all around with their voices and their footsteps and their cameras popping sudden flashes but Max feels all alone as he approaches the Nehru Gallery. Soon it will be Devali, and women in yellow, orange, red and purple saris trickle grains of coloured powders on to the floor in a likeness of Ganesha. ‘Listen to the music,’ says Max’s mind. On a dais musicians with sitar, tabla, flute and harmonium are playing a classical raga, faraway warm and bright in the dark London November. The music is not loud but it is very wide. Max is standing in front of a display case in which he sees Shiva Nataraja dancing in bronze, his hair streaming symmetrically to right and left. Dancing in a bronze ring of fire, Shiva Nataraja with his four arms, his hands with drum, with flame, with ‘Fear not’, with pointing to his uplifted left foot. Under his right foot is a dwarf all blackish-green with patina. It has a long body, short arms and legs. Under Shiva’s foot it is like an animal, something that goes on all fours. Its baby-face, is it reposeful? Max thinks it is. ‘That’s Apasmara Purusha,’ says his mind. ‘The dwarf demon called Forgetfulness.’