On Beauty (47 page)

Carl shifted the knapsack on his back. ‘Aw . . . I'm doing a little but . . . I don't know, man, the rap game . . . it's all gangstas and playas now . . . that's not my scene. Rap should be all about
proportion
, for me, as I see it. And it's like, you go to the Bus Stop these days, it's all these really angry brothers kinda . . .
ranting
 . . . and I'm not really feeling that, so, well . . . you know how it is . . .'

Levi unwrapped a gum and put it in his mouth without offering Carl one. ‘Maybe they got shit they angry about,' said Levi frostily.

‘Yeah . . . well – look, man – I actually got to run, I got this . . . thing – hey, you should come by the library sometime – we're gonna start this open-listening afternoon, where you can pick any record and play it through – we got some really rare shit, so, you should come by. Come by tomorrow afternoon. Why don't you do that?'

‘It's the second march tomorrow. We marching all week.'

‘March?'

Just then the front doors opened and they were joined, for a moment, by one of the most incredible-looking women either boy had ever seen. She was walking at high speed, past them and on towards the Humanities departments. She was dressed in tight jeans and pink polo neck and high tan boots. A long silky weave fell down her back. Levi did not connect her with the weeping,
short-haired girl dressed in black that he had seen a month ago, walking, in more sedate and pious mode, behind a coffin.

‘Sister –
damn!
' murmured Carl, loud enough to be heard, but Victoria, practised in ignoring such comments, simply continued along her way. Levi stared after the incendiary rear view.

‘Oh, my
God
 . . .' said Carl, and held his hand to his breast. ‘Did you see that booty? Oh,
man
, I'm in pain.'

Levi had indeed seen that booty, but suddenly Carl was not the person with whom he wanted to discuss it. He had never known Carl well, but, in the way of a teenage crush, he had thought a great deal of him. Just shows what happens when you mature. Levi had obviously matured a hell of a lot since last summer – he'd sensed that about himself and now saw it was true. Feckless brothers like Carl just didn't impress him any more. Levi Belsey had moved on to the next level. It was strange to think of his previous self. And it was
so
strange to stand next to this ex-Carl, this played-out fool, this
shell
of a brother in whom all that was beautiful and thrilling and true had utterly evaporated.

Howard was preparing to nip out for a bagel from the cafeteria. He rose from his desk – but he had a visitor. She smashed the door open and smashed it closed. She didn't come far into the room. She stood with her back pressed against the door.

‘Could you sit down, please?' she said, looking not at him but to the ceiling, as if addressing a prayer upwards. ‘Can you sit down and listen and not say anything? I want to say something and then I want to go and that's it.'

Howard folded his coat in half and sat down with it on his lap.

‘You don't
treat
people like that, right?' she said, still talking to the ceiling. ‘You don't do that to me
twice
. First you make me look like a
fool
at that dinner and then – you don't leave someone in a hotel by themselves – you don't act like a fucking
child
– and make someone feel that they're not worth anything. You don't
do
that.'

She brought her gaze down at last. Her head was wobbling wildly on her neck. Howard looked to his feet.

‘I know you think,' she said, each word tear-inflected, making her hard to understand, ‘that you . . .
know
me. You
don't
know me. This,' she said and touched her face, her breasts, her hips, ‘that's what you know. But you don't know
me
. And you were the one who wanted
this
– that's all anybody ever . . .' She touched the same three places. ‘And so that's what I . . .'

She wiped her eyes with the hem of her polo neck. Howard looked up.

‘Anyway,' she said, ‘I want the e-mails I sent you destroyed. And I'm dropping out of your class, so you don't have to worry about
that
.'

‘You don't need –'

‘You don't have any idea what I need. You don't even know what
you
need. Anyway. Pointless.'

She put her hand to the door handle. It was selfish, he knew, but before she left Howard was desperate to secure from her the promise that this disaster should stay between them only. He stood up and put his hands on the desk but said nothing.

‘Oh, and I know,' she said, scrunching her eyes closed, ‘that you're not interested in anything I have to say, because I'm just a fucking idiot girl or whatever . . . but as someone who's relatively objective . . . basically, you just need to deal with the fact that you're not the only person in this world. In my opinion. I have my own shit to deal with. But you need to deal with that.'

She opened her eyes, turned and left, another noisy exit. Howard stayed where he was, gripping his coat by its collar. At no point during the past month's debacle had he harboured any genuinely romantic feelings for Victoria, nor did he feel any now, but he did realize, at this late stage, that he actually liked her. There was something courageous there, flinty and proud. It seemed to Howard to be the first time she had spoken to him truthfully, or at least in a manner that he experienced as true. Now Howard put his coat on, shaking as he did so. He came to the door, but then waited a minute, not wanting to risk bumping into her outside. He felt
peculiar: panicked, ashamed, relieved.
Relieved!
Was it so awful to feel that he had escaped? Must she not feel it too? Alongside the physical tremors and psychological shock of having been party to such a scene (and how strange it is to be spoken to that way by someone who, in truth, you barely know), was there not, on the other side of the explosion, the satisfaction of survival? Like a street confrontation, where you are physically threatened and dare to stand up to the threat and are then left alone. You walk away quivering with fear and joy at the reprieve, relief that things did not become worse. In such a mood of equivocal elation, Howard walked out of the department. He strolled past Liddy at the front desk, through the hall, past the drinks machines and the internet station, past the double doors of Keller Libr –

Howard took a step back and pressed his cheek against the glass of one of the doors. Two significant details – no, actually three. One: Monty Kipps at a podium, speaking. Two: the Keller Library packed with people, more people than any Wellington audience Howard had ever managed to amass. Three – and this was the detail that had initially arrested Howard's attention: a few feet from the door, sitting up tall in her chair, holding a notepad, apparently alert and interested, one Kiki Belsey.

Howard forgot about his appointment with Smith. He went straight home and awaited his wife. In his rage, he sat on the couch holding Murdoch tightly on his lap, scheming upon the many ways he might open the coming conversation. He lined up a pleasing selection of cool, emotionally detached possibilities – but when he heard the front door open, sarcasm vanished. It was all he could do not to leap from his seat and confront her in the most vulgar way. He listened to her footsteps. She passed the doorway of the living room (‘Hey. You OK?') and kept walking. Howard internally combusted.

‘Been at work?'

Kiki retraced her steps and stopped in the doorway. She was – like all long-married people – immediately alerted to trouble by a tone of voice.

‘No . . . Afternoon off.'

‘Have a nice time?'

Kiki stepped into the room. ‘Howard, what's the problem here?'

‘I think,' said Howard, releasing Murdoch, who had grown tired of being partially strangled, ‘I would have been marginally –
marginally
– less surprised to see you at a meeting of . . .'

They began to speak at the same time.

‘Howard, what is this? Oh,
God
–'

‘. . . of the Klu Klux
fucking
Klan – no, actually, that would have made a bit more –'

‘Kipps's lecture . . . Oh, Jesus Christ, that place is like Chinese whispers . . . Look, I don't need –'

‘I don't know what other neo-con events you've got planned – no, darling,
not
Chinese whispers, actually; I
saw
you, taking notes – I had no
idea
you were so taken with the great man's work, I wish I'd realized, I could have got you his collected speeches, or –'

‘Oh,
fuck
you – leave me alone.'

Kiki turned to leave. Howard flung himself to the other end of the couch, knelt up and caught her by the arm. ‘Where are you going?'

‘Away from here.'

‘We're talking – you wanted to talk – we're talking.'

‘This isn't talking – this is you ranting.
Stop
it – let go of me.
Jesus!
'

Howard had successfully twisted her arm, and therefore her body, moving her round the couch. Reluctantly she sat down.

‘Look, I don't need to explain myself to you,' said Kiki, but then immediately went on to do so. ‘You know what it is? Sometimes I feel it's always the same viewpoint in this house. And I'm just trying to get all points of view. I don't see how that's a crime, just trying to
expand
your – '

‘In the interest of balance,' said Howard in the nasal voice of an American TV commentator.

‘You know, Howard, all you
ever
do is rip into everybody else. You don't have any
beliefs
– that's why you're scared of people with beliefs, people who have dedicated themselves to something, to an
idea
.'

‘You're right – I
am
scared of fascistic
loons
– I'm – my mind is
boggling
– Kiki, this man wants to
destroy
Roe v. Wade. That's just for starters. This man –'

Kiki stood up and started shouting. ‘That is
not
what this is about – I don't give a rat's ass about Monty Kipps. I'm talking about
you
– you're terrified of anyone who believes anything – look how you treat
Jerome
– you can't even
look
at him, because you know he's a Christian now – we
both
know it – we never talk about it.
Why?
You just make jokes about it, but it's not funny – it's not funny to
him
– and it just seems like you used to have some idea of what you . . . I don't know . . . what you
believed
and what you
loved
and now you're just this –'

‘Stop shouting.'

‘I'm not shouting.'

‘You're shouting. Stop shouting.' A pause. ‘And I don't know
what on earth
Jerome has to do with
any
of this –'

With two bunched fists Kiki thumped the sides of her legs in frustration. ‘It's
all
the same thing, I've been thinking about
all
of this – it's part of the same . . . just, veil of
doom
that's descended on this house – we can't talk about anything seriously, everything's ironic, nothing's serious – everyone's scared to
speak
in case
you
think it's clichéd or dull – you're like the thought police. And you don't care about anything, you don't care about
us
– you know, I was sitting there listening to Kipps – OK, so he's a nutcase half the time, but he's standing up there talking about something he
believes
in –'

‘So you keep saying. Apparently it doesn't matter
what
he believes in, as long as it's
something
. Will you listen to yourself? He believes in
hate
– what are you
talking
about? He's a miserable, lying –'

Kiki stuck a finger right in Howard's face. ‘I
don't
think you want to talk about lies, OK? I do
not
think you want to sit there and
dare
talk to me about lies. If he's nothing else, that man is a more honourable man than you will
ever
be –'

‘You've lost your mind,' muttered Howard.

‘
Don't do that!
' screamed Kiki. ‘Don't undermine me like that.
God
– it's like . . . you can't even . . . I don't feel I even
know
you
any more . . . it's like after 9/11 when you sent that ridiculous e-mail round to everybody about Baudry, Bodra –'

‘Baudrillard. He's a philosopher. His name is Baudrillard.'

‘About simulated wars or whatever the fuck that was . . . And I was thinking:
What is wrong with this man?
I was
ashamed
of you. I didn't say anything, but I was. Howard,' she said, reaching out to him but not far enough to touch, ‘this is
real
. This life. We're really here – this is really happening. Suffering is
real
. When you hurt people, it's
real
. When you fuck one of our best friends, that's a
real
thing and it
hurts
me.'