“That’s no excuse,” Henry had replied blithely. “So was Sylvia Plath.”
I said, “Henry makes some people feel ignorant. But he doesn’t want to do that to you.”
The odd thing was that, despite Henry’s contempt for television, he wasn’t too grand, after the night at the Sootie, to refer to Bushy as his “client” while trying to set up another gig for him. “I should have been a pimp,” Henry had told me. “The perfect job for an artist. Even William Faulkner thought so. Failing that, I’ve become an agent.”
“For Chrissakes, Henry,” I said. “What are you doing?”
He told me that, after the Sootie gig, Bushy had had a few requests for private parties-straight and bent-which Henry was “processing.” Henry said the odd thing was how “being in management” wasn’t any less compelling than anything else he’d done. But he asked me this: “Do you think Bushy’s mental health will hold up?”
“You mean, do I think it could be like the last days of Edith Piaf? Or that you yourself could end up in a locked cage, screaming naked?”
“That’s what I was wondering. But he’s asked me to do this stuff. It’s not me pushing him into it. I blame you entirely. You’ve given him the confidence.”
My guess was that Henry was becoming bored with his “retirement.” He had been with Miriam for more than a year, and had spent a lot of time sitting around in her house, talking, cooking, walking the dogs in the grounds of Syon House or by the river, just being with his new love. One evening he had plunged into the chaos of the garden, digging, pulling weeds and planting. With his new predilection for exposing his body, he wore only gloves, boxer shorts and Wellington boots.
Whatever Henry did, of course, he’d do obsessively. To him it was all work-digging the garden, directing Hamlet in Prague-except that you didn’t get abused in the newspapers for digging the garden. “Nor do you get international recognition,” I pointed out.
Now Miriam came to sit with me on the sofa as I watched the match, taking my arm. I told her that Henry’s fascination with Bushy’s career was because he had always been intrigued by performance. Once the sexual side of “the scene” had become exhausted-which, in my view, hadn’t taken long-Henry had become interested in the images, metaphors and ideas that the Sootie inspired in him.
I said, “I saw Henry watching the proceedings in the Sootie, and he had his director’s face on. He presses his fingertips together and looks over the top of them with huge concentration.” I made the gesture for her. “I bet a good deal of what he’s seen will eventually turn up in the production of Don Giovanni he’s not planning. Bushy will be his Leporello. Fucking artists, that’s what they do.”
There was some sort of trade-off with Bushy too, because in exchange for Henry helping him with his career, Bushy was clearing out and rebuilding the shed at the end of Miriam’s garden. This was where Henry was intending to work. Not only did he want to become a sculptor but, to prove it, he was determined to sell at least one of his works. This new direction had occurred to him after I’d taken Henry and Miriam to lunch with Billie and Mum.
The two women no longer wanted to lunch at the Royal Academy, which they considered too “old women,” so we went to a place they’d read about in The Independent, at the bottom of the Portobello Road, not far from the Travel Bookshop. Billie and Mum liked the nearby market, which was less crowded during the week. The restaurant might have been expensive, but they had no interest in saving money. Spending seemed to have become proof of their existence.
Over lunch Henry had conceived the idea that it would be a good idea for him to work seriously with clay. Billie would give him lessons, once the studio they were having built was ready.
During and after this lunch-Mum, Henry and Billie discussing their favourite sculptors, Miriam texting-Miriam had kept her temper, despite an early setback. On arrival, she had shown off her latest tattoo, a little dove on her foot, which failed to create the interest she’d anticipated. Indeed, Billie said, “Apparently Freddie Ljungberg-the Arsenal football god, for those who know nothing-was poisoned by his tattoos.” “He can’t have been using Mike the artist,” said Miriam. “Where’s he based?” Billie asked. “Hounslow,” Miriam replied.
Mother was gazing at Billie, smiling a little bit, which she did a lot of the time. Billie was smirking. This new, bright side of Mother-something dark had slowly been scraped off, or fallen away of its own accord-was independent, self-absorbed and dismissive of anything that didn’t immediately concern her.
It can’t have been a coincidence that a few days later, when Bushy began work on the sculpture shed, Miriam decided that Henry had to marry her. She had said this before but now she began to insist, saying that, until she had a new rock on her finger, she couldn’t believe he loved her.
I had endured years of this whiney self-righteous side of Miriam and had grown no fonder of it, but Henry took it seriously, as he had to. The two of them spent the night together at least twice a week, either at his place or hers, but she still had children at home, at least some of the time. So it wasn’t possible for them to live together, even if they wanted to. Though it would be an infinite regress of impossible confirmation, she required proof of his commitment, particularly now, when he was spending hours on the phone to Lisa and Valerie.
As far as Henry was concerned, he didn’t want to marry anyone-“Jesus, I don’t want to get back into that, unless it’s for a very good reason, like tax avoidance”-but Miriam interpreted this as rejection. Not only that, but from her point of view he was still married to Valerie: it was she he considered to be his “main” wife.
As I was leaving after the football, Miriam came after me. “Brother, you’ve got to speak to him for me. I can feel myself getting wild. The other night I had a razor blade in my hand, ready to start cutting again. Help me, bro.”
The next day I met Henry for lunch. When he eventually turned up, I said to him, “Your hair’s everywhere, you haven’t shaved, there’s dribble on your tee-shirt. You look a little manic, man, and my sister wants to marry you.”
“You’d be crazy, bro, in my circumstances,” he said. “I think I need a dozen oysters. Will you have some?”
“I will indeed,” I said. “Is there news of the famous Hand?”
He looked up from the wine list and removed his glasses. “Jamal, I know Miriam’s a mouth, but I am continuing to urge everyone to keep it zipped. I don’t want this story carried around town-or in the newspapers.” He went on, “It is amusing. Except the thing’s worth a lot of money.”
“A hand? Is this the Hand of God?”
He said, “A fucking Ingres. It’s a drawing. Brown crayon, a woman in profile. Valerie’s room is so crammed with art I hated to go in there. Her father was a collector. The very rich are insouciant about such things.”
“I guess Lisa can keep it.”
“What the hell for? It’s not insured and she can’t sell it. Only a criminal would buy it, and she likes criminals even less than her own family. The stupid thing is, Valerie lives in such a fog of self-preoccupation that she didn’t notice it was gone. Lisa must have been sitting in her digs waiting for her mother to explode.
“Lisa lost her temper and went round and jabbed at the bare patch. It’s some sort of protest. Now Lisa’s getting a lot of attention, and so is Valerie, who makes me have lunch with her. Then she starts.” Henry enjoyed doing her brittle English accent, like a female radio announcer circa 1960. “‘Christ Almighty Henry, we rip up masterpieces around here? Is that our relation to culture? I am on the board of the Tate Modern! They’ve asked me to help at the Hay Festival! I’m helping save all kinds of fucking art for the nation, fighting to keep culture alive in these dirty times, and our own daughter does this! If it gets in the papers we’re going to look like fools.’ On and on. And you think I get the chance to say anything?”