And yet all this felt like window dressing . . . the outer costume rather than the man himself. If I was going to write three books about him (and possibly more if he came to me with further investigations), I needed to know more. I was already quite sure that something must have happened to him, that he was in some way damaged, and I wanted to discover what it was if only to justify some of the extremes of his behaviour. You cannot have a central character who is simply, by his very nature, unpleasant, and although I wouldn’t have used that word to describe Hawthorne there were moments – that ‘limp-wristed’ remark, for example – when he came close. In a way, I was trying to help him. He had chosen me as his biographer and I saw it as my job to picture him in the most sympathetic light. The trouble was, he was almost fanatical about keeping any personal or private details away from me. By inveigling myself into his flat for a second time, I hoped I might stumble on some clue that would explain what had turned him into the man he was and why, despite everything and against my better instincts, I was beginning to like him.
River Court is a low-rise block built in the seventies, a symphony of not terribly attractive beige-coloured balconies and rectangular windows that has somehow managed to find itself in the most wonderful position, right on the edge of the Thames. I’d walked past it dozens of times on the way to the National Theatre and the South Bank without even noticing it was there. That’s one of the pleasures of living in London. It’s so huge, so jammed with interesting buildings, that it’s always taking you by surprise. Even now I can stroll down an alleyway and realise I’m seeing it for the first time even though it’s only a few minutes from where I live.
I had turned up twenty minutes early. I knew that if I rang the bell, Hawthorne wouldn’t let me in; he would call down on the intercom system and keep me waiting in the street. But I was smarter than that. I waited until another resident emerged. At that moment, I reached out with a set of keys that wouldn’t actually have fitted the lock and, with a smile, stopped the door from fully closing and went in.
I was feeling quite pleased with myself as I took the lift up to the twelfth floor but it was only as I stood there, on my own, that I began to feel uneasy. Hawthorne would know perfectly well what I was up to and although he had often been sarcastic or irritable, I had never yet been a target of his anger. That might be about to change. Well, it was too bad. I just had to remember that he needed me. Despite his occasional threats, I didn’t think he would find it easy to get anyone else to write about him.
The lift door opened and at once I heard voices, one of which was Hawthorne’s. He was saying goodbye to someone who had visited him in his flat, even though it was still early – nine forty-five in the morning. I peeked round the corner, doing my best to stay out of sight, and saw a young man, about eighteen or nineteen years old. It was hard to be sure of his age, partly because he was some distance away but also because he was in a motorised wheelchair. If that in itself wasn’t surprising enough, he was also of Indian, perhaps Bengali, descent and, I could tell at a glance, he had some form of muscular dystrophy. One of his hands was holding an electric control, the other was resting on his lap. He was not on a ventilator but there was a plastic bottle attached to his chest with a drinking pipe reaching up to his lips. He had dark hair cut short and a wispy beard and moustache that spoiled what might otherwise have been film-star good looks: chiselled cheekbones, intense eyes, Valentino lips.
‘All right then, I’ll see you.’ That was Hawthorne speaking.
‘Thank you, Mr Hawthorne.’
‘Thank you, Kevin, mate. I couldn’t do it without you.’
Couldn’t do what? Was this something to do with model-making? No. That was impossible. But what could Hawthorne possibly need a young man in a wheelchair to help him with? I’d come for clues but all I’d got for my pains was another mystery.
‘I’ll see you, then.’
‘Yeah. Give my best to your mum.’
Hawthorne didn’t go back into the flat. He stood there, watching Kevin as he made his way towards the lift.
I was lucky that this part of the corridor was in shadow or he would have spotted me for sure but even so I was still there, hiding inside the lift, and I realised that I’d put myself in a difficult position. If I stepped out and revealed myself, Hawthorne would see me and know I had been spying on him. At the same time, Kevin was rolling steadily towards me and would surely wonder what I was doing, lurking there, refusing to come out. I decided to stay where I was. As he manoeuvred himself into the lift, I studied the buttons as if I had just got in ahead of him and had forgotten where I wanted to go. I pressed Ground.
‘Third floor, please.’ Kevin was next to me, facing out. The doors slid shut and suddenly we were alone together in the confined space, he in a sitting position and so some distance below me. There were two leather pads holding his head in place. I pressed the button for him. Painfully slowly, the lift began to descend.
‘I could have done it myself,’ he said. ‘It’s only getting up to the twelfth that I find difficult.’
‘Why is that?’ I asked.
‘The button’s too high.’
It took me a moment to work out that this was a variation on an old joke. ‘Do you live here?’ I asked.
‘I live on the third.’
‘Nice place.’
‘It’s got nice views,’ he agreed.
‘The river,’ I said.
He frowned. ‘What river?’
Briefly, I froze. How could he not have noticed it? Was it something to do with his disability? Then I saw him grinning at me and realised he was joking again. We lapsed into silence until, with a slight jerk, we arrived and the doors opened. Kevin pushed the lever forward and rolled out.
‘Have a nice day,’ I said. It’s an Americanism but one I find myself using more and more these days.
‘You too.’
The lift continued on its journey, taking me down to the ground floor. There were two people, perhaps a husband and wife, waiting to go up, and they too were puzzled when I refused to get out. ‘Wrong floor!’ I muttered, weakly. They stepped in and took the lift up to the ninth floor, which must have been where they lived. The doors closed again and finally, after what seemed like a very long time, I arrived back where I wanted to be.
I went straight to Hawthorne’s flat and rang the bell. The door opened almost at once and there he was, with his raincoat over his arm, ready to go out. He didn’t seem surprised to see me. I had intended to arrive early but with all the fuss going up and down in the lift, I was more or less on time.
‘You should have rung the bell outside,’ he said, cheerfully. ‘It would have saved you coming up.’ He led me back down the corridor and called the lift. ‘How was the Old Vic?’
‘Interesting,’ I said. ‘There’s a board meeting next week.’
‘So long as you’ve got time to write our book . . .’
‘My first thought exactly.’ Sarcasm was wasted on Hawthorne. For someone who used it so often, it was remarkable that he never recognised it.
The lift arrived. I was beginning to get sick of the sight of it. We went back down and my heart sank when we stopped at the ninth floor and the husband and wife that I had just met got in again. They looked at me curiously but said nothing. They didn’t seem to know Hawthorne.
I was glad, finally, to leave the building. ‘Are they expecting us?’ I asked.
‘Masefield Pryce Turnbull? Yes. I spoke to Oliver Masefield. They’re just across the river . . . off Chancery Lane.’
‘Then we can walk.’
Kevin couldn’t walk. A teenager, disabled, from a different culture; what on earth had he been doing in Hawthorne’s flat? The two of them sounded like old friends. I was desperate to ask him but of course I couldn’t.