One Thousand Chestnut Trees. Mira Stout

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СКАЧАТЬ pose, and injected into his voice an oily bonhomie for which he later loathed himself, and which instantly secured him an afternoon’s audience.

      After a bloody three-week telephone campaign fought between Cadogan Books and Mrs Yankowitz-Miller’s manicurist, masseuse, hairdresser, chiropodist, colonic irrigator, fitness-trainer, voice-coach, personal shopper, florist, caterers, flamenco teacher, and the Save Tibet Foundation, Mrs Yankowitz-Miller duly bought the priceless book, and instructed Rodrigo, her decorator, to cut out the plates to hang in the baby’s bathroom. She also bought twenty-five yards of tooled leather books of no interest whatever to plump out her husband’s library. Cadogan Books was temporarily reprieved.

      We celebrated by going to the movies at noon the following day to see Aliens II, and Oliver took me out for a late lunch at the Plaza afterwards. His jutting chin, diplomat-grey hair and dapper suit found an approving audience among the waiters and divorcees, who craned their necks with interest as he entered the room. The attention agreed with him, and he even bothered to pull in his stomach self-consciously as he got up to make a telephone call. As he turned, the vents of his suit seemed to flap deliberately, revealing a scarlet silk lining that flashed like mating plumage.

      Oliver ordered an expensive bottle of Mercurey to impress the impudent sommelier, who had sized us up as illicit lovers, and although he was fairly merry at first, by the time coffee had arrived he was in quite a fragile state.

      ‘I’m thinking of packing it in, you know … Do you think I should pack it in? I’ve already had to sell some furniture.’

      I was a bit shocked. ‘I don’t know … Maybe we should both pack it in,’ I said half-joking, emboldened by the wine and false security of multiple waiters.

      ‘Of course I’m grateful you gave me the job, Oliver, but it’s a bit tricky getting my own stuff done working for you full-time.’

      Oliver eyed me critically, annoyed at my candour; he disliked being reminded that I had aspirations beyond Cadogan Books.

      ‘Come on, Ol. Maybe it’s not as bad as it seems. What about going back to England?’

      ‘Clapped-out place. Truth is, I can’t. Too many enemies. Customs & Excise, solicitors, creditors, cheated colleagues, ex-wife nonsense …’

      ‘Where would you go? Would you stay here? You can’t. You’d turn into an old soak who dines off old ladies,’ I slurred. He looked up sharply.

      ‘Well, it’s settled then. I’m going. To Brazil … Why not Brazil?’

      ‘A bit melodramatic isn’t it? That’s where war criminals go. Besides, it’s so far away.’

      Oliver looked far away already, quite alone with his misfortunes. Betrayed by his wife, business crashing, on the run from some past stain that made him jumpy and sour. But it wasn’t any good telling me these things, I was on the brink of telling him, I was just as derailed as he was.

      ‘The climate’s good in Brazil,’ he said, pathetically.

      Sitting there overlooking Central Park amidst thick napery and gilt, it was hard to feel too sorry for Oliver. He looked so sturdy; a mature oak of a man, enjoying the deepest possible roots, but these he had severed long ago. Like most New Yorkers, he was a socio-geographic amputee, a handsome trunk, cut off at the knees.

      I was saddened and mildly alarmed by this display of middle-aged vulnerability. But before I could offer any modest comfort, a wave of jadedness drowned the tender sprout of compassion. This is New York, pal, said the pre-emptive voice, Get a grip. Unnerved by his lost expression, I faltered, then remembered helpfully that people here came and went with every toilet flush. Oliver was a bubble on the effluvient foam of the East River; a wad of chewing gum on the city’s stiletto. You had to get used to people leaving New York. You reeled in the severed ties of friendship quickly. You learned to let go in advance.

      Numbness set in as I realized that I was jobless. We parted in the freezing rain on the wide, optimistic steps of the Plaza. Oliver and his troubles were dwarfed standing there beneath the bright waving flags of Canada, America, France, and Guam. He forced a smile, and hunched his shoulders in farewell.

      I would miss Oliver very much, despite his manifold obnoxiousnesses. In my heart’s psychiatric wing, he was almost like family. As with my uncle’s demise, there would be no Mayoral committee, no special envoy at the airport thanking him for his brave effort, nothing to soften his humiliation. Just a thirty-five dollar cab-ride.

      It was odd thinking of my uncle and Oliver together. They met only once; not surprising given that Hong-do and I met only occasionally, but the two men were so different that they refused to share the same memory.

      The one time Hong-do came to Cadogan Books was a tense occasion. Opening the door to Oliver’s apartment, I kissed my uncle’s cheek awkwardly, truly happy to see him. But a chilling moment followed, when I saw him through Oliver Flood’s eyes. After a perfunctory stab of courtesy, Oliver seemed only to notice my uncle’s awkward business-English, slightly inferior suit and rather dodgy shoes. These preliminary findings appeared to relieve him of further interest. It was also apparent from Hong-do’s sharp-eyed silence that he thought Oliver an arrogant, trivial man.

      Seeing these two worlds standing side by side in the same room, yet failing to meet in any way, was painful. I was torn; insulted by Oliver’s flippant welcome to Hong-do, yet ashamed to be able to understand Oliver and his limitations better than I could follow my own uncle’s thoughts.

      During those years in New York, Hong-do had remained in his own Korean enclave, and I stayed in my Western one. It was as if we had been moored in the same harbour on separate submarines. Although I invited him aboard my vessel, he never stayed long; he seemed to know about the leaks. I should have done better; made the necessary repairs to accommodate him.

      I reflected on these failures walking down Fifth Avenue, past the unappetizing, superfluous luxuries behind shatterproof glass. I searched the faces streaming towards me with detached curiosity, with painter’s eye, but was soon numbed by the insistent drumming of impressions on the retinae. Infinitesimal variations on one eyes-nose-mouth theme, so many individual, snowflake faces in the blizzard of urban rush hour humanity. A face missing one quality was superseded by a face possessing that quality, and missing another. One race complemented another race. Perhaps the incomplete, jigsaw faces all added up to one consummate face, reflecting God’s obscured likeness.

      It was getting dark. I ate a warm pretzel more for recreation than hunger, looked at my watch, and decided to go into St Thomas’ for evensong. Its choir was justly famous. Despite being Catholic, I preferred the intimacy of this church to the cavernous nave of St Patrick’s Cathedral across the street, with its dwarfing gothic stalagmites. I entered the dim church, and slid into a pew at the back, like a stray. A row of fur coats and blonde heads swivelled round in impious curiosity. Through the tracery of the altar screen and the rose window, the night glowed a rich cobalt blue.

      The service had begun, and my eardrums were bathed in silky, sweet, golden music. The boys’ voices were arrows of piercing sound, bright as stars; still, chill, and distant. Aimed at the heavens, the notes were like austere fireworks, going so high and no further, bursting and falling gracefully, no less beautiful for their vain striving. I felt both pain and relief at the sound, as my selfish, jagged yearnings bled into insignificance. The voices sliced through my pretence at being happy, exposed my false footing. The discomfort was oddly strengthening. Often I sat there, coated with a light scum of petty dishonesties and rank thoughts, and by the end of the service would feel quite clean; spirits rinsed by the acid purity of the music, СКАЧАТЬ