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“What does she want you to do?”

He leaned towards me. “Valerie does have an idea. Don’t scream-it involves you.”

Henry, I knew, rather sensibly liked to pass his problems on to others in order that he didn’t have to think about unpleasant subjects. This was a good compromise with regard to Valerie, as there were many occasions when he needed her.

He said, “You know she respects you, man.”

“She considers me an arse and a pretender. My social credit’s flat. It’s been too long since I’ve had a nice review, or any kind of review.”

“You are rather floundering about. Why don’t you just publish something?”

“Why don’t you?”

He went on, “But Valerie is respecting you right at this moment, because Lisa will listen to you. My daughter has a thing about your books, she underlines stuff in them for some reason, and knows what abreaction and cathexis mean. I’m not asking you for a favour, I’m just saying the bitch has got a loft in New York where you can stay. Consider the West Village before you say no. You know you like nosing around the little bookshops and cafés there.”

“I attempt to take care of your daughter’s mental health and in exchange I get free accommodation in New York?”

“As if I were the only one with woman problems. You know I was watching you in the Sootie.”

“You saw me watching my ex. What did you think?”

He said, “I was wondering what such a sight would do to someone’s head. I only hope you’ve been seeing Ajita.”

I told Henry that the last time I’d been to the house, to see Rafi, I’d stroked Josephine’s hair in the kitchen. Not only because I wanted to, or because she had a headache, but because I’d been in search of the mole I’d seen in the Sootie. Of course I wasn’t able to find it. Then I realised I’d been looking on the wrong side. But had it really been her there? Had it really been me?

Henry touched my hand. “Old chap, I know she’s an agony, but do what you can for my daughter. If I don’t get that picture back, or if it gets damaged, I’m going to be hurting in the nuts.”

Not long after I’d said goodbye to Henry-he would stay in the bar, read the paper and finish the bottle-Valerie rang.

She was keen to invite me to dinner but, of course, wanted to talk about Lisa and the Hand. I could take some of her talk but turned down the party-for which she had gathered a stellar cast of American film agents-as I suspected she’d use it as an opportunity to get me into one of her “little rooms,” where she’d go on more about Lisa.

Now she was saying to me, “Of course, with Lisa, there’s no reason for all that combing through the past you usually do. There just isn’t time for that nonsense. This is an emergency situation, as she slips away from us into insanity.”

I told Valerie I would consider her request to help Lisa-help her what?-but added that I didn’t believe there was much I could do personally. Not that I believed that saying no meant anything to this family.

Nevertheless, I didn’t expect to hear from any of them quite so soon.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

The doorbell rang.

That evening, when my last patient had gone, I was preparing to have dinner with Ajita. She had rung earlier and said she had a free evening; would I join her at the Red Fort in Dean Street? When I turned my phone on, I saw she had texted me to say she was tired and was going to bed. I was disappointed: Hadn’t she dreamed and yearned for me tirelessly for years, as I had about her? Now, probably in response to my diffidence, she could hardly get out of bed for me.

Restless and horny, I was considering a visit to the Goddess; later, maybe I could go and find Henry and Bushy. I wanted, at least, to see whether Bushy had been able to perform without me.

So I thought it might be Wolf at the door. But it was Lisa standing there, holding her bicycle and-unusually for her-smiling.

“Ready?”

“Was I expecting you?”

She shrugged and continued to smile under her damp woolly hat. I wasn’t ready for anything except for a walk, despite the rain. I didn’t want to invite her in as, no doubt, she’d have stayed until Tuesday. I grabbed my coat and went out.

“You ride it,” she said, pushing the bicycle towards me. “We’re going on a journey.” Some of the way I rode the bike, which was big and heavy, particularly when she sat on the rack, this ungainly, two-bodied burden heaving itself up the Fulham Palace Road. The rest of the way she trotted behind me.

“Where to?”

“Somewhere calming,” she said. “You’ll like it.”

Beside Bishops Park we came to a locked gate-and, after opening it, to what appeared to be a field. There were lights in a couple of sheds, but otherwise it was dark in a way it rarely is in London.

“Come on,” said my tour guide.

What could I do but follow her across, trying to avoid puddles? It was hopeless; my feet sank into the mud, and my beloved green Paul Smith loafers, which I’d got in a sale, were waterlogged. I was furious, but what was the point of stopping or complaining now?

At the end of the allotment, not far from the river, we came to a shed and she led me in, using a torch. She lit candles. We sat on wooden crates, and she rolled a cigarette. I noticed an old picture of her father pinned to the wall, ripped from a newspaper. Water dripped on our heads.

“I love to sit here,” she said. “It’s meditative. But it gets damp.” She was quiet for a bit. “What do you think of me taking the Ingres?”

“It’s your inheritance. What difference does it make whether it’s today or another day?” Picking up a candle, I peered at the shelves. “This is more interesting. What are these things?”

“Objects I picked out of the river mud and cleaned.”

Half-crushed Coke cans; shards of crockery; rusted keys; glass; a plastic bottle stuffed with mud; a showerhead; a length of metal pipe. Some had been cleaned; other pieces were enshrouded in a skin of grey mud. Here these broken pieces had some uncanny, compelling force, making you want to look more closely at them and wonder about their provenance.

“I’m impressed.”

“Anyone can do it. All you need is a bucket and a toothbrush. Oh, and a river.”

There was a pile of books: Plath, Sexton, Olds, Rich. “You’ve been reading.”

For some reason I was thinking of the library my father had made in Pakistan, and wondering whether anyone used it now.

She said, “My parents don’t know I do it. They’d get too excited.”

“You’re writing too.” I was looking at a pad with slanted writing on it.

“Don’t tell. You understand why I don’t want them to know?”

“Your secret is how much you resemble your parents,” I said. “But you’re entitled to your privacy. As they are to theirs. Did you see your father’s piece in the paper?” She almost nodded. “What did you think?”

Last weekend Henry had written an open letter to Blair, saying he was resigning from the Party he’d joined in the mid-60s because Labour had become dictatorial, corrupt and unrepresentative. Apart from the egregious lying, there had been insufficient debate over Iraq. Dissent was not encouraged in the Party, which was now run for television rather than with the aim of redistributing wealth and power. What had Blair achieved, apart from the minimum wage and the proposed extension of pub opening hours? For Henry, the Labour Party, along with other organisations, including corporations, had moved towards the condition of being cults, a project which not only claimed your loyalty but your inner freedom.

Henry had brought the piece round to me for discussion. It was strong polemical writing, penned in a fury, and was given half a page in a liberal Sunday paper by the editor, a friend of Valerie’s. What surprised Henry was the number of friends and colleagues who rang to say how much they admired his stand and what he’d said.