Pravda Page 32

  35 The Sir Richard Steele

  Gabriel doubled back on the Northern Line, a trip no Northern Liner truly enjoyed: down to Camden, then across the platforms, and then up again to Chalk Farm. Felt like treachery, somehow, going up the other branch. He broke ground, the swarming city there to greet him, walked left around the sharp corner, and so set off up Haverstock Hill. He was looking forward to drinking, Sunday or not. He bent forward as the incline bit. The morning's frostiness had been replaced by an unusually strong wind; it was one of those dark and low-skied cloud-scudding London nights when the windows rattle in their casements and the tarpaulin that hangs on the scaffolding flaps and slaps as if it might fly away at any second. Sudden gusts snatch at scarves, toss careful hair awry, or chivvy at the cracked chimneypots and threaten to tear the roof tiles loose, and the forgotten trees sway and creak, heavy branches bending hard upon their natural snap.

  He was late. He reached the cheerfully ever-empty Chinese restaurant and the off-license, passed the tall, amber-lighted, stained glass windows, walked beneath the old-fashioned lamps that hung from the side of the building, under the old sign (swinging heavily) on which Sir Richard Steele himself (a little drunk in the wind) continued to watch the footsore folk of London making their way up the endless hill away from the cramp and toil of their city, and so he entered the pub, tousled and ruffled, through one half of the oddly narrow double wooden door.

  The noise rose to greet him like a friendly dog as he stepped into the fug. Just inside, to the left, a two-piece band was playing—or rather had that very second finished a song, which Gabriel recognized as "It's Alright, Ma." He excused his way through their audience (all standing and trying to clap with their drinks in their hands) and made for the bar. He took stock a moment and then eased his way along, checking the huddles and clusters sitting cozily in the deep red seats at the tables on his right.

  He had the impression that he was moving amid an old, old scene. The pub, proudly named after a fourth-rate playwright, had stood in much the same aspect as he saw it now for some three centuries, a wayside host to countless conversations, fights, kisses, partings, declarations, collapses, dances, intrigues, songs, jokes, and tears—everything but work in fact, and therefore everything important in the lives of its denizens. He loved the place—as did his sister. The Steele's great secret being that it never allowed any one deputation of humanity to get the upper hand. Indeed, he sometimes thought that it was as if the very wood of the long crook-shaped bar held it a truth that any section of society quickly becomes unbearable if left to congregate and fester unchallenged among its own.

  There was no sign of Isabella. He had the feeling that she would be in the back room, so he edged around the narrow end of the bar, past the turtle-backed stool-sitters (whose drinks arrived without their seeming to make the slightest movement by way of an order), and then ducked left again, around by the big old table that was really the heart of the place, and so came through the low doorway to the semisecret snug at the rear of the building. In here were four or five homely wooden tables, an aged iron brazier in which a fire glowed, a tall mantelpiece on which several candles burned in empty gin bottles, a high mirror above these, and rows of unread books on either side of the chimney breast. For reasons nobody could quite remember or guess, there was also a life-sized mural of a seminaked and rather camp-looking Christ on the interior wall—he was standing entwined in what appeared to be vines, an expression neither particularly ecstatic nor redolent of recent crucifixion on his face. Isabella was sitting at Christ's feet, poring over a printout of some description.

  "What you reading?"

  She looked up and raised her eyebrows in greeting. "Dylan interview off the Internet."

  "Anything interesting?"

  "Not really—more or less says that he can't understand why anyone would want to bother interviewing him when everything that is important is right there, clear as day, in his songs."

  "I could have told you that." He smiled and came around to her side of the table to put his arm around her for a moment.

  "You have. Many times," she said with mock-weariness. "And you will again."

  "They were playing 'It's—"

  "I know."

  He eyed her glass. "You want another drink?"

  "Six vodka and cranberries—easy on the cranberry and as much vodka as they can spare."

  "You as well?" Gabriel smile became a grin.

  "I blame the parents," she said.

  He set off back to the bar to find himself a Guinness to go with his sister's request. It was always good to see her. He had missed her when she left. And he missed her still. She looked as sharp as ever. Though he was not sure quite what he was expecting—her jet-black hair suddenly gray, her brown eyes red with sleeplessness and grief? It had been nearly seven weeks. Was it just his imagination, though, or was she looking thinner since the funeral? Hard to tell. The minute he saw her, he felt that it was his responsibility to ask, his responsibility to look after her. More so now than ever. A strange feeling, because of course she could look after herself in all the obvious ways ... But still, he had always felt as if it were his duty to keep watch on those deeper parts that she herself did not even acknowledge or recognize.

  "So you're at Susan's?" He dropped into the chair she had been saving for him.

  "Yeah. Just for a while. I was wondering if I could come to you for a few days, actually. Next week."

  "Yeah. Of course." He sipped his Guinness. "You on holiday? What's going on with work?"

  "Actually, I have taken a bit of a sabbatical ... Well, they have let me have a sabbatical."

  Gabriel observed his sister closely. Yet another contradiction that Isabella had inherited was that though she was almost clinically obsessed with knowing the whole truth about everything, she herself was one of the world's foremost tellers of halves.

  "You mean you sacked it? Or they sacked you?"

  "No." Isabella's eyes met his, absorbing his sarcasm. "No, really, I am on a sabbatical. I told them about Mum and that I had stuff to sort out and that I was leaving and that they could either take it as a resignation or whatever but that if they didn't mind, I'd look in on them again when I got back."

  He considered. "Sounds like you just walked out and they've no obligation to you—"

  "Forgot you were an expert on corporate obligations," she said.

  He made a have-it-your-own-way face. But it was principally a way of avoiding taking her on. He considered the wall and Christ's ever-increasing gayness thereupon, then asked, "Are you all right for money?"

  "Yeah, for a while. A month or so. I've got a few thousand in the bank, but obviously I'm going to have to sort something out."

  "So ... what are you planning? Coming back to London?" He looked at her. "Or staying in New York?"

  "I don't know." She met his eyes.

  "Jesus."

  "I left Sasha and moved out."

  "Jesus."

  "Had to."

  "Jesus."

  Not for the first time, Gabriel found himself stunned by his sister's self-assurance.

  "It ... it's over," she continued, mashing the ice in her drink with her straw. "He is a nice guy, but really he's a child. You know—all kind of secretly competitive and point-scorey, silly subterranean ego games. Can't see the good in good people because he's in the way of himself. And you know—it has to end, or it has to become something new."

  "Right." Gabriel understood that these reasons, though quite possibly true, were but the tips of whatever icebergs Isabella had been towing across the Atlantic. But he also knew her well enough to guess the mighty and jagged shape of what moved beneath. And again he could only admire her certainty. "I'm glad for you, Is. If you are sure."

  "I'm sure."

  He sipped his drink. "Must have been difficult," he said. "Especially since you didn't even hate him."

  "It was. It is. And no, I don't hate him." She sipped hers.

  They fell silent for a mo
ment. He wanted to let her say more of her own volition rather than press her. But the silence continued, and he recognized that she did not wish to do so. There was no demand or strain or artifice between them. He knew she understood that there was a bottomless well on which she might draw at any time. So instead he looked around and asked, "Where are you with not smoking at the moment?"

  "I've got this new thing."

  "Go on."

  "I'm not smoking. But I am smoking. It's like ... I don't, but I do."

  "Oh, right. How does it work?"

  "Easy," she said. "I don't smoke. But if I want to, I smoke."

  "Uncanny. That's exactly where I am."

  "Shall I go and get some, then?" she asked.

  "And some more drinks, seeing as you're up."

  "Jesus, Gabs, we've just started these."

  "I know. But what if there's a terrorist attack and everyone panics and we can't get to the bar?"

  She returned seven minutes later carrying glasses in both hands and the cigarettes under her chin.

  "You know," Gabriel said, "I wish someone would give me a sabbatical."

  "Self-Help! still shit?" Isabella offered him her match.

  "Shittier than ever." He inhaled and felt almost immediately sick. "I'd like a sabbatical from myself too, while they're at it. A year off. A year out. Whatever they call it." He noticed that the two men who had sat down at the other table had started looking at Isabella. "Want to come and work for Randy?"

  "No," she said flatly.

  "Great benefits—enough homoeopathic water to drown your sorrows, tankloads of Rescue Remedy if that doesn't work, and herbal teas to revive you at the end of your long hard day of fooling yourself. You'll love it. Hmmm ... these cigarettes taste lovely. Tar, nicotine, ash. Gives me that special inner glow everyone talks about."

  Isabella smiled. "Why do you need another bad writer on the staff?"

  Gabriel took a deep drink of the fresh pint to cleanse his mouth. "I need anyone who is prepared to do any work of any description without crying, walking off, sulking, bitching, pretending to do it and then not doing it, phoning their union representative, or calling me names. I may well be an utter penis. I accept this charge. But we still need to do the bloody work." He paused. "Christ, Is, even to see a member of staff coming back from lunch would make me uncontrollably happy."

  "Maybe you should get a motivational speaker in." Isabella leaned her head to one side. "I hear that they are very ... motivational."

  "Oh, they are. I've heard a few. They re highly effective. They motivate everyone to become motivational speakers as fast as possible. Lots of money for the same old shit over and over again. Easy hours. Everyone loves you. And nobody can hold you to account or remember what you said. Perfect way to earn a living." Gabriel smiled, then suddenly remembered a work conversation from a few days previously. "Hey—actually a friend of mine, Becky, told me about an assistant producer job on this new Culture Show. I'll get in touch with her if you d like to meet up. Might even be good. You never know."

  "Thanks, Gabs. Why not? No sense ruling anything out." Isabella squinted against her shortening cigarette s acridity. "Well, that s our careers dealt with. And I've done my relationship news. Over to you. What s the Lina situation?"

  Gabriel considered his drink. He had three quarters of pint to finish before he could legitimately lobby for the next.

  "I don't know," he said.

  "You don't know? Or you do know? But you don't know how to end it?"

  "Both. Neither. All three."

  "What's the core of it?"

  "I can't live without Lina. I can't live without Connie."

  "You can." Isabella stubbed out her cigarette. "Which?"

  "Both."

  "Easy to say. Not easy to do."

  "For your own good."

  "My own good is entirely lost to me. I know you re clear about everything, Is. And I m pleased for you that you are. Really. But for me—I don't know—everything is complicated and shaded and there s no clarity."

  "Not true."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You know what you hate."

  "Do I? Sometimes I think I just invent that as well."

  Isabella bent to drink from her straw, looking up at him as she did so. "Are you having a breakdown?"

  "No." Gabriel sat up straight. "I am the one still at my job and still with my girlfriend. Still living in the same place. Are you?"

  "Still with two girlfriends. Still hating your job. Still pretending."

  "Don't knock denial. Sometimes it's the healthiest place to be." He tapped his remaining cigarette. "Humanity has achieved all of its greatest successes in denial. I m a big supporter of denial. If you could march under denial s banner without denying it, then I d be at the front of the parade."

  Isabella looked back at him and said, half seriously, "I think you should talk to someone."

  "That s because You've been living in America."

  "No it s not."

  "I don't want to investigate myself, Is. I don't want to hold up any more mirrors to myself. I m sick of myself. I m the most tiresome person I know."

  "I feel insulted."

  "Okay, the most tiresome person I know apart from you." He passed the halfway point of his Guinness. "Christ, Is, I'd love to talk to someone, but I haven't got five years and the thousands of pounds needed to wade through all the idiotic so-called therapists, shrinks, and other secret lovers-of-the-self to get to the someone who actually knows anything useful or pertinent. Take it from me, psychology is just the same as every other subject in the world—there are five people who know what they re talking about. And they re not talking. The rest are just rehearsing various forms of ninth-hand crap. Anyway, you're the one who has left everything—boyfriend, work, continent. You re the one on the run here. I m all sorted. Look at me. Happy. Happy as an organic pig in fair-trade shit."

  "Not the same as a breakdown. I am running toward the issue. I am truly sorting things out. Taking things on. Not hiding." She stopped to drink through the straw again. "It's bad, isn't it?"

  "What?"

  "Going around with your brain in flames all the time."

  "You do that too?" He poked his cigarette violently into the ashtray.

  "More or less every second of the day. I wake up and I can't stand the news—the radio and the TV—not just the crap that's on but the way that it's on, and the way that the people behind it try to make it seem. I hate the whole thing. I hate that the newsreaders stand up because their stupid producers told them that standing up is cool. And I hate it when they sit down because some idiot told them to sit down again."

  Gabriel picked up. "Oh, I am way past that. I have started actually hating individual words. I hate the word 'mayo. I hate ... I hate 'latte. I hate people who say 'win-win or 'going forward. I hate sports writers who cite that fucking Kipling poem."

  "That's nothing. I have even started to hate the font—that fucking font they use on those women-and-shopping books. I mean, how can a typeface become so insidious?"

  "No. Don't." Gabriel shook his head. "Do not start me on typefaces. That stuff gets me really angry."

  She narrowed her eyes. "I hate every billboard I ever see. Like, I am not in conversation with your fucking stupid brand. There is no relationship. I don't know you. I don't like you. I don't want to know you or to learn like you or feel part of your phony cl—"

  "Okay. Okay, okay." Gabriel interrupted, holding up both hands. The two men at the adjacent table were listening in, he could tell, watching his sister s animation with ever more frequent glances. "Feel better?"

  "Yes. Thank you." She finished her drink. "You?"

  "Remember, you are a nut case, Isabella. The rest of the world is just going to work, the supermarket, on holiday. We are the ones with the problems."

  "Speak for yourself."

  "I do. That doesn't help either."

  Chumps, the pub cat, an intelligent-looking ginger with bright eyes and a langu
id manner that spoke of a happy, untroubled life full of food and the loving whispers of some latter-day Aphrodite in both his ears, blocked Gabriel s route to his chair on his return. Man and cat exchanged glances a moment; cat accused man of crimes innumerable, man pled guilty and enduring disgrace; then cat set off at a contemptuously slow pace toward the kitchen, allowing Gabriel to put down the drinks at last.

  "Did you get any letters?" Isabella asked.

  "No. Only one or two ages ago. Like I said, I used to get phone calls. More or less every night..."

  "I don't know if that is more or less weird."

  "It was pretty harrowing ... she wouldn't let me go. She kept me on the phone for hours."

  Last orders had been called. The men at the other table had left and they were alone in the room. One of the candles was guttering on the mantelpiece. Jesus seemed to be slouching a little above them. And the alcohol was deep and warm in their veins. Their conversation had ranged and wandered, but now there seemed to be nothing else worth talking about.

  "What did she say in her letters?" Gabriel asked. "I'd love to read them. I get scared I am forgetting her."

  "You won t. You never will."

  "I wish I'd recorded her voice or something."

  "Don't you hear her all the time in your head?"

  "I used to—a lot," he said. "But now ... now it's changing. Now I talk to her, but she doesn't talk to me so much. You?"

  "I catch myself all the time—thinking with her mind, almost. Thinking her thoughts. But no, you're right—I suppose I don't hear her voice specifically."