Saturday. Part 7

know-nothing stay-at-home mouse. But there's nothing linking Iraq to nine eleven, or to Al-Qaeda generally, and no really scary evidence of WIND. Didn't you hear Blix yesterday? And doesn't it ever occur to you that in attacking Iraq we're doing the very thing the New York bombers wanted us to do - lash out, make more enemies in Arab countries and radicalise Islam. Not only that, we're getting rid of (.heir old enemy for them, the G.o.dless Stalinist tyranl.'

'And I suppose they wanted us to destroy their training camps and drive the Taliban out of Afghanistan, and force Hi:-! The aden on the run. and have their financial netunrks disrupter! and hundreds of their key guys locked up - . .'

She cuts in and her voice is loud. 'Stop twisting my words. No one's against going after Al-Qaeda. We're talking about Iraq. Why is it that the few people I've met who aren't against this c.r.a.ppy war are all over forty? What is it about getting old? Can't get close to death soon enough?'

He feels a sudden sadness, and a longing for the dispute to come to an end. He preferred it ten minutes ago, when she told him she loved him. She's yet to show him the proofs of Mi/ Saucy Bark and the artwork for the cover.

But he can't stop himself. 'Death's all around/ he agrees. 'Ask Saddam's torturers at Abu Ghraib prison and the twenty thousand inmates. And let me ask you a question. Why is it among those two million idealists today I didn't see one banner, one fist or voice raised against Saddam?'

'He's loathsome,' she says. 'It's a given.'

'No it's not. It's a forgotten. Why else are you all singing and dancing in the park? The genocide and torture, the ma.s.s graves, the security apparatus, the criminal totalitarian state - the iPod generation doesn't want to know. Let nothing come between them and their ecstasy clubbing and cheap flights and reality TV. But it will, if we do nothing. You think you're all lovely and gentle and blameless, but the religious n.a.z.is loathe you. What do you think the Bali bombing was about? The clubbers clubbed. Radical Islam hates your freedom.'

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She mimes being taken aback. 'Dad, I'm sorry you're so sensitive about your age. But Bali was Al-Qaeda, not Saddam. Nothing you've just said justifies invading Iraq.'

Perowne is well into his third gla.s.s of champagne. A big mistake. He's not a practised drinker. But he's viciously happy. 'It's not just Iraq. I'm talking about Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, a great swathe of repression, corruption and misery. You're about to be a published writer. Why not let it bother you a little, the censors.h.i.+p, and your fellow writers in Arab jails, in the very region where writing was invented? Or is freedom and not being tortured a Western affectation we shouldn't impose on others?'

'Oh for G.o.d's sake, not that relativist stuff again. And you keep drifting off the point. No one wants Arab writers in jail. But invading Iraq isn't going to get them out.'

'It might. Here's a chance to turn one country around. Plant a seed. See if it flourishes and spreads.'

'You don't plant seeds with cruise missiles. They're going to hate the invaders. The religious extremists will get stronger. There'll be less freedom, more writers in prison.'

'My fifty pounds says three months after the invasion there'll be a free press in Iraq, and unmonitored Internet access too. The reformers in Iran will be encouraged, those Syrian and Saudi and Libyan potentates will be getting the jitters.'

Daisy says, 'Fine. And my fifty says it'll be a mess and even you will wish it never happened.'

They had various bets after arguments during her teenage years, generally concluded with a mock-formal handshake. Perowne found a way of paying up, even when he won - a form of concealed subsidy. After an exam seemed to go badly for her, seventeen-year-old Daisy angrily put twenty pounds on never getting into Oxford. To cheer her up he raised his side of the deal to five hundred, and when her acceptance came through she spent the money on a trip to Florence with a friend. Is she in the mood for shaking hands now? She 192.

comes away from the door, retrieves her champagne and moves to the far side of the kitchen and appears interested in Theo's CDs by the hi-fi. Her back is firmly turned on him. He remains on his stool at the centre island, playing with his gla.s.s, no longer drinking. He has a hollow feeling from arguing only a half of what he feels. He's a dove with Jay Strauss, and a hawk with his daughter. What sense is he making? And how luxurious, to work it all out at home in the kitchen, the geopolitical moves and military strategy, and not be held to account, by voters, newspapers, friends, historv. When there are no consequences, being wrong is simply an interesting diversion.

She takes a CD from its box and posts it in the player. He waits, knowing he'll get a clue to her mood, or even a message. At the piano intro he smiles. It's a record Theo brought into the house years ago, Chuck Berry's old pianist, Johnnie Johnson, singing Tanqueray', a slouching blues of reunion and friends.h.i.+p.

It was a long time comiri, But I knew I would see the day When you and I could sit down, And have a drink of Tanqueray.

She turns and comes towards him with a little dance shuffle. When she's at his side he takes her hand.

She says, 'Smells like the old warmonger's made one of his fish stews. Can I be of use?'

The young appeaser can set the table. And make a salad dressing if you like.'

She's on her way to the plate cupboard when they hear the doorbell, two overlong unsteady rings. They look at each other: it's not promising, that kind of persistence.

He says, 'Before you do that, slice a lemon. The gin's over there, tonic's in the fridge.'

He's amused by her theatrical eye-rolling and deep breath.

193.

'Here goes.'

'Stay cool/ he advises, and goes upstairs to greet his father in-law, the eminent poet.

Growing up in the suburbs in cosily shared solitude with his mother, Henry Perowne never felt the lack of a father. In the heavily mortgaged households around him, fathers were distant, work-worn figures of little obvious interest. To a child, a domestic existence in Perivale in the mid-sixties was regulated uniquely by a mother, a housewife; visiting n friend'^ house to pl.iv at weekends or holidavs, it was her domain you entered, her rules you temporarily lived by. She was the one who gave or withheld permission, or handed out the small change. He had no good reason to envy his friends an extra parent - when fathers weren't absent, they loomed irascibly, preventing rather than enabling the better, riskier elements of life. In his teens, when he scrutinised the few existing photographs of his father, it was less out of longing than narcissism - he hoped to discover in those strong, acne-free features some promise for his own future chances with girls. He wanted the face, but he didn't want the advice, the refusals or the judgments. Perhaps he was bound to regard a father-in-law as an imposition, even if he'd acquired one far less imposing than John Grammaticus.

Right from their first meeting in 1982 when he arrived at the chateau hours after consummating his love for Rosalind on a lower bunk on the Bilbao ferry, Senior House Officer Perowne was determined not to be patronised, not to be treated like a prospective son. He was an adult with specialised skills that could stand alongside those of any poet. Through Rosalind, he knew of 'Mount Fuji', the much anthologised Grammaticus poem, but Henry didn't read poetry and said so without shame at dinner that first night. At that time John was deep into his No Exequies - his last extended creative period as it turned out - and what some junior 194.

doctor didn't read in his spare time failed to intrigue him. Nor did he seem to care or even notice, later when the Scotch was on the table, the same doctor disagreeing with him on politics - Grammaticus was an early fan of Mrs Thatcher or music - bebop had betrayed jazz - or the true nature of the French - venal to a man.

Rosalind said the next morning that Henry had tried too hard to get the old man's attention - the opposite of what he intended, and a very irritating remark. But even though he ceased to be argumentative, nothing much changed between them after that first evening, even nfter rnornnKe, children and the pa.s.sing of more than two decades. Perowne keeps his distance, and Grammaticus is happy with the arrangement, and looks straight through his son-in-law to his daughter, to his grandchildren. The two men are superficially friendly and at bottom bored by each other. Perowne can't see how poetry - rather occasional work it appears, like grape picking - can occupy a whole working life, or how such an edifice of reputation and self-regard can rest on so little, or why one should believe a drunk poet is different from any other drunk; while Grammaticus - Perowne's guess - regards him as one more tradesman, an uncultured and tedious medic, a cla.s.s of men and women he distrusts more as his dependency on it grows with age.

There's another matter, naturally never discussed. The house on the square, like the chateau, came to Rosalind's mother Marianne through her parents. When she married Grammaticus, the London house became the family home where Rosalind and her brother grew up. When Marianne died in the road accident, the terms of her will were clear the London house pa.s.sed to the children, and John was to have St Felix. Four years after they were married, Rosalind and Henry, living in a tiny flat in Archway, raised a mortgage to buy out her brother who wanted an apartment in New York. It was a joyful day when the Perownes and their two young children moved into the big house. These various 195.

transactions were made without ill-will. But Grammaticus tends to behave on his occasional visits as if he's returning home, as if he were an absentee landlord greeting his tenants, a.s.serting his rights. Or perhaps Henry is too sensitive, having no place in his const.i.tution for a father figure. Either way, it irks him; he prefers to see his father-in-law, if at all, in France.

As he goes towards the front door, Perowne reminds himself, against the promptings of the champagne, to keep his feelings well disguised; the purpose of the evening is to reconcile Daisy to her grandfather, three years on from what Then has named, in honour of various thrillers, 'The Newdigate Rebuff. She'll want to show7 him the proofs, and the old man should rightfully claim his part in her success. On that good thought he opens the door to see Grammaticus several feet away, standing in the road, with long belted woollen coat, fedora and cane, head tipped back, his features in profile caught in the cool white light from the lamps in the square. Most likely he was posing for Daisy.

'Ah Henry,' he says - the disappointment is in the downward inflection - 'I was looking at the tower . . .'

Grammaticus doesn't s.h.i.+ft position, so Perowne obligingly steps out to join him.

'I was trying to see it', he continues, 'through the eyes of Robert Adam when he was setting out the square, wondering what he would have made of it. What do you think?'

It rises above the plane trees in the central gardens, behind the reconstructed facade on the southern side; set high on the gla.s.s-paned stalk, six stacked circular terraces bearing their giant dishes, and above them, a set of fat wheels or sleeves within which is bound the geometry of fluorescent lights. At night, the dancing Mercury is a playful touch. When he was small, Theo liked to ask whether the tower would hit the house if it fell their way, and was always gratified when his father told him it most certainly would. Since 196.

Perowne and Grammaticus have not yet greeted each other or shaken hands, their conversation is disembodied, like a chat-room exchange.

Perowne, the courteous host, joins in the game. 'Well, he might have taken an engineer's view. All that gla.s.s, and the unsupported height, would have amazed him. So would the electric light. He might have thought of it more as a machine than a building.'

Grammaticus indicates that this is not the answer at all. The truth is, his only a.n.a.logy at the end of the eighteenth century would have been a cathedral spire. He was bound to think of it as a religious building of some kind - why else build so high? He'd have to a.s.sume those dishes were ornamental, or used in rites. A religion of the future.'

'In which case, not far out.'

Grammaticus raises his voice to speak over him. 'For G.o.d's sake, man. Look at the proportions of those pillars, the carving on those capitals!' Now he's jabbing his cane towards the facade on the square's east side. There's beauty for you. There's self-knowledge. A different world, a different consciousness. Adam would have been stunned by the ugliness of that gla.s.s thing. No human scale. Top heavy. No grace, no warmth. It would have put fear in his heart. If that's going to be our religion, he'd've said to himself, then we're truly f.u.c.ked.'

Their view of the Georgian pillars of the east facade includes in the foreground two figures on a bench about a hundred feet away wearing leather jackets and woollen watch caps. Their backs are turned and they're sitting close together, hunched forward, so that Perowne a.s.sumes that a deal is in progress. Why else sit out here so intently on a cold February night? Sudden impatience comes over him; before Grammaticus can continue to d.a.m.n the civilisation they share, or exult in another well out of their reach, he says, 'Daisy's waiting for you. She's making you a powerful drink.' He takes his father-in-law's elbow and shoves 197.

him gently in the direction of the wide, brightly lit open door. John is well into his expansive, relatively benign stage and Daisy shouldn't miss it. Reconciliation won't be a theme of the later phases.

He takes his father-in-law's coat, stick and hat, shows him into the sitting room and goes to call down to Daisy. She's already on her way up with a trav - a new bottle of cham j j r j pagrie as well as the old, the gin, ice, lemon, extra gla.s.ses for Rosalind and Theo, and macadamia nuts in the painted bowl she brought back from a student trip to Chile. When she givs him a quorvmg look he makes a cheerful face: it's going to be fine. Thinking she and her grandfather are bound to embrace, he takes the tray and follows her in. But Grammaticus, who's standing in the centre of the room, draws himself up rather formally, and Daisy holds back. It could be he's surprised by her beauty, just as Henry himself was; or struck by her familiarity. They go towards each other murmuring respectively, 'Daisy . . . Grandad', shake hands, and then, by a compact enforced by the movement of their bodies which they can't reverse once it's begun, they awkwardly kiss cheeks.

Henry sets down the tray and mixes a gin and tonic. 'Here you are,' he says. 'Let's raise a gla.s.s. To poetry/ The old man's hand, he notices, is shaking as he takes his gin. Lifting their gla.s.ses, humming or grunting without quite repeating the words a mere bonesetter has no right to utter, Daisy and her grandfather drink.

Grammaticus says to him, 'She's the image of Marianne when I first met her.'

His eyes, Perowne notes, are not moist like his own were; despite the pa.s.sion and the mood reversals, there's something controlled and untouchable, even steely about Grammaticus. He has a way of sailing through encounters, of being lofty, even in close company. Long ago, according to Rosalind, in his thirties, he developed the manner of the old and grand, of not caring what anybody thinks.

198.

Daisy says to him, 'You look awfully well.' He puts his hand on her arm. "I re-read them all in the hotel this afternoon. b.l.o.o.d.y marvellous, Daisy. There's no one like you.' He drinks again, and quotes in a curious singsong.

My saucy bark, inferior far to his On your broad main doth bravely appear.

He's twinkly, and teasing her the way he used to. 'Now. Be honest. Who is the other poet with talent the size of a galleon?'

Grammaticus is fis.h.i.+ng for the tribute he believes must be his by right. A little too soon in the evening. He's going too fast. It's quite possible that Daisy has dedicated her book to her grandfather, although Perowne has worries about that. Another reason why he wanted to see the proofs.

Daisy is confused. She goes to speak, changes her mind, and then says through a forced smile, 'You'll just have to wait and see.'

'Of course, Shakespeare didn't really think he was a little sailing boat among the ocean-going compet.i.tion. He was trying it on, being sardonic. So perhaps you are too, my dear girl.'

She's hesitant, embarra.s.sed, struggling with a decision. She hides behind her raised gla.s.s. Then she puts it down on the table and seems to make up her mind.

'Granddad, it's not "doth bravely appear".'

'Of course it is. I taught you that sonnet.'

The know you did. But how can the line scan with "bravely"? It's "On your broad main doth wilfully appear".'

The twinkle in Grammaticus simply vanishes. His rigid gaze rests on his granddaughter, and she glares back, just the way she did at her father in the kitchen. She's spoken up in a spirit of disloyalty, and she's standing her ground. For Henry, the word 'scan' triggers an unwanted memory, a p.r.i.c.k of work anxiety about a hundred-andninetythousand-pound 199.

shortfall in the funds the Trust has set aside for the purchase of a more powerful MR! scanner. He's written the memo, he's been to all the meetings. Was there something else he should have done? An e-mail to be forwarded perhaps. Of scanning in poetry, he's in no position to say that 'wilfully' is an improvement on 'bravely'.

Grammaticus says, 'Well, there you go. It doesn't scan. How about that? Henry, how are things at the hospital?'

In more than twenty years he's never asked about the hospital, and Henry can't permit his daughter to be brushed aside. At the same tune, it's wondrous: three years apart, and these two are falling out within the minute.

He gives a plausible impression of being amused in saying lightly to Grammaticus, 'My own memory plays far worse tricks than that.' Then he turns to Daisy. She's backed off a pace and looks like she might be searching for an excuse to leave the room. He's determined to keep her there.

'Clear this up for me. How is it "wilfully" scans and "bravely" doesn't?'

She's perfectly good-natured, explaining the facts of life to her father, and rubbing it in for Grammaticus.

"'On your broad main doth wilfully appear" is five feet, five iambs. You know, ti-tum, weak strong. There are always five in this kind of line. "Bravely" would leave it a beat short and it wouldn't sound right.'

While she's speaking Grammaticus is lowering himself onto one of the leather sofas with a conspicuous groan that partly obliterates her final words.

He says, 'Don't be too hard on an old man. "It was no dream; I lay broad waking". Plenty of short lines in Shakespeare, dozens of them in the sonnets. If he'd written "bravely", we'd make the b.u.g.g.e.r scan.'

'That's b.l.o.o.d.y Wyatt,' Daisy murmurs below the old man's hearing.

Perowne glances at her and raises a covert finger. She's won her point and surely knows she should let her grand200 Sntunlai/ father have the last word. Unless she wants to fight on until dinner, and beyond.

'I suppose you're right. We would. More gin, Granddad?' There's no audible edge in her voice.

Grammaticus pa.s.ses her his gla.s.s. Till do the tonic myself.'

When that's done, Daisy lets a few seconds pa.s.s for the silence to neutralise, then murmurs to her father, Till go and finish the table.'

Perhaps Henry's too preoccupied, or too impatient, to make a decent job of this reunion. Does it matter? If Daisy has outgrown one more tutor in her !i!e, hat's lie supposed to do about that? There's a change in her he doesn't understand, a certain agitation that keeps fading into a smoothness of manner, a degree of combativeness that rises and retreats. And he doesn't wish to be left alone drinking with his father in-law. He longs for Rosalind to arrive home with all her homely skills - the mother's, daughter's, wife's, lawyer's.

He says to Daisy, Td love to see this proof copy.'

'All right.'

Perowne sits on the other sofa, facing Grammaticus across the scarred, polished thakat table and pushes the nuts towards him. They listen to her softly cursing as she rummages in her backpack in the hall. Neither man can be troubled with small talk. Even if they could agree on what's worthwhile talking about, neither would have any interest in the other's opinion. So they remain in contented silence. Sitting down comfortably for the first time since he entered the house, his feet delightfully relieved of his weight, his mood enhanced by wine and three gla.s.ses of champagne on an empty stomach, his hearing still faintly impaired by Theo's band, his thighs aching again from the squash, Perowne abandons himself to a gentle swell of dissociation. Nothing matters much. Whatever's been troubling him is benignly resolved. The pilots are harmless Russians, Lily is well cared for, Daisy is home with her book, those two million marchers are goodhearted souls, Theo and Chas have written a fine song, 201.

Rosalind will win her case on Monday and is on her way, it's statistically improbable that terrorists will murder his family tonight, his stew, he suspects, might be one of his best, all the patients on next week's list will come through, Grammaticus means well really, and tomorrow - Sunday will deliver Henry and Rosalind into a morning of sleep and sensuality. Now is the moment to pour another gla.s.s.

He's reaching for the bottle and checking his father-in law's drink when they hear a loud metallic jiggling from the hall, a scream from Daisy, a baritone shout of To!' followed by the thunderous slam of the front door which sends concentric ripples through the poet's gin; then a soft thud and grunt of bodies colliding. Theo is home and embracing his sister. Seconds later, entering the sitting room hand in hand, the children present a tableau of their respective obsessions and careers, precious gifts, Henry unjealously concedes, from their grandfather: Daisy holds a copy of her bound proof, her brother grips his guitar in its case by the neck. Of all the family, Theo is by far the most relaxed with Grammaticus. They have their music in common, and there's no compet.i.tion: Theo plays, his grandfather listens and tends his blues archive - now being transferred to hard disk with the boy's help.

'Granddad, don't get up,' he calls as he leans his guitar against the wall.

But the old man is getting to his feet as Theo comes over, and the two hug without inhibition. Daisy comes and sits beside her father and slides her book into his lap.

Grammaticus has hold of his grandson's arm and is enlivened, rejuvenated by his presence. 'So. You've a new song for me.'

The proof is aquamarine with black lettering. As he stares at the t.i.tle and its author's name, Perowne slips his arm around his daughter's shoulders and squeezes, and she moves closer to him to see her book through his eyes. He sees it through hers, and tries to imagine the thrill. At her 202.

age he was a swotting fifth-year medical student in a universe of Latin names and corporeal facts, far removed from such possibilities. With his free hand he turns to the t.i.tle page and together they read the three words again, and this time they're bound within a double-edged rectangle, Mi/ Sauci/ Bark, Daisy Perowne, and at the foot of the page, the publisher's name followed by London, Boston. Her boat, of whatever size, is launched upon the transatlantic currents. Thco is saying something, and he looks up.

'Dad. Dad! The song. What did you think?'

When the children were tiny, one took care with the even distribution of praise. These high-achieving kids. He should have been discussing the song earlier when he was alone with Grammaticus. But Henry needed his drifting half-minute of positive thinking.

He says, 'I was swept away.' And to everyone's surprise, he tips his chin towards the ceiling and sings with tolerable accuracy, 'Let me take you there, My city square, city square.'

Theo takes from his coat pocket a CD and gives it to his grandfather. 'We made a recording this afternoon. It's not perfect, but you'll get the idea.'

Henry returns his attention to his daughter. 'I like this London, Boston. Very cla.s.sy.' He traces the tiny block capitals with his finger. Over the page he reads with relief the dedication. To John Grammaticus.

In sudden anguish, Daisy is whispering in his ear, 'I don't know if it's right. It should have been to you and Mum. I just didn't know what to do.'

He squeezes her again and murmurs, 'It's exactly right.'

The don't know if it is. I can still change it.'

'He put you on the path, it makes perfect sense. He's going to be very happy. We all are. You did the right thing.' And then, in case there's any trace of regret in his voice, he adds, There'll be other books too. You can work your way round the whole family.'

Only then is he aware, from tremors in her form huddled 203.

[an McEwan up against his own and a flush of body warmth, that she's crying. She pushes her face into his upper arm. Theo and his grandfather are in the other part of the room, by the CU shelves, discussing a boogie pianist.

'Hey, little one/ he says into her ear. 'What is it, my darling?'

She cries harder, soundlessly, and shakes her head, unable to talk.