On Beauty (5 page)

Howard straightened up, and they both stood still where they were, watching the photos twitch. Although perfectly content with silence, Howard suddenly heard himself saying ‘Soooo . . .' for a long time, with no clear idea of what was to follow ‘so'. Michael turned to him, his face sourly expectant.

‘So,' said Howard again, ‘what is it you do, Mike, Michael?'

‘I'm a risk analyst for an equities firm.'

Like many academics, Howard was innocent of the world. He could identify thirty different ideological trends in the social sciences, but did not really know what a software engineer was.

‘Oh, I see . . . that's very . . . Is that in the City, or –?'

‘In the City, yeah. Round St Paul's way.'

‘But you're still living at home.'

‘Just come back weekends. Go to church, Sunday lunch. Family stuff.'

‘Live near by or –?'

‘Camden – just by the –'

‘Oh, I know
Camden
– once upon a century I used to knock about there a bit – well, do you know where the –'

‘Your photos are finished, I think,' said Michael, picking them out of their cubbyhole. He shook them and blew on them.

‘You couldn't use the first three; they're not square on your face,' said Michael brusquely. ‘They're strict about that now. Use the last one, maybe.'

He handed them to Howard, who pushed them into his pocket without looking. So he hates the idea of this marriage even more than I do, thought Howard. He can barely even be polite to me.

Together they walked down the street from which Michael had just come. There was something fatally humourless even in the way the young man walked, a status-preserving precision to each step, as if proving to a policeman that he could walk along a straight white line. A minute and then two passed without either man speaking. They walked by houses and more houses, uninterrupted by any conveniences, neither shop nor cinema nor launderette. Everywhere cramped rows of Victorian terraces, the maiden aunts of English architecture, the culture museums of bourgeois Victoriana . . . This was an old rant of Howard's. He grew up in one of these houses. Once free of his own family he had experimented with radical living spaces – communes and squats. And then the children came, the second family, and all of those spaces became impossible. He did not like to remember now exactly how much and for long he had coveted his mother-in-law's house – we forget what we choose to forget. He saw himself instead as a man hustled by circumstance into spaces that he rejected politically, personally, aesthetically, as a concession to his family. One among many concessions.

They turned into a new street, clearly bombed in the last war. Here were mid-century monstrosities with mock-Tudor fronts and crazy-paved driveways. Pampas grass, like the tails of huge suburban cats, drooped over the front walls.

‘It's nice round here,' said Howard, and wondered about this instinct of his to offer unsolicited exactly the opposite opinion to the one he held.

‘Yeah. You live in Boston.'

‘Just outside of Boston. Near a liberal arts place I teach at – Wellington. You probably haven't heard of it over here,' said Howard with false humility, for Wellington was by far the most respected institution he had ever worked in, as close to an Ivy League as he was ever going to get.

‘Jerome's there, isn't he?'

‘No, no – actually, his
sister's
there – Zora. Jerome's at Brown. Much healthier idea, probably,' said Howard, although the truth was he had been hurt by the choice. ‘Breaking free, apron strings, etcetera.'

‘Not necessarily.'

‘You don't think?'

‘I was at the same uni as my dad at one point – I think that's a good thing, when families are close-knit.'

The pomposity of the young man seemed to Howard to be concentrated in his jaw, which he worked round and round as they walked, as if ruminating on the failures of others.

‘Oh, absolutely,' said Howard, generously, he felt. ‘Jerome and I, we're just not . . . well, we have different ideas about things and . . . you and your father must be closer than us – more able to . . . well, I don't know.'

‘We're very close.'

‘Well,' said Howard, restraining himself, ‘you're very lucky.'

‘It's about
trying
,' said Michael keenly – the topic seemed to animate him. ‘It's like, if you put the effort in. And I spose my mum's always been at home, which makes a lot of difference, I think. Having the mother figure and all that. Nurturing. It's like a Caribbean ideal – a lot of people lose sight of it.'

‘Right,' said Howard, and walked another two streets – past an ice-cream scoop of a Hindu temple and down an avenue of awful bungalows – imagining knocking this young man's head against a tree.

The lamps were lit on every street now. Howard began to be able to make out the Queen's Park to which Michael had referred. It was nothing like the groomed royal parks in the centre of town. Just a small village green with a colourful spot-lit Victorian bandstand at its centre.

‘Michael – can I say something?'

Michael said nothing.

‘Look, I don't mean in any way to offend anyone in your family, and I can see we agree basically anyway – I can't see the point in arguing over it. Really we need to put our heads together and just think of . . . well, I suppose, some
way
, some
means
of convincing both of them, you know – that this is a bloody
insane
idea – I mean, that's the
key
thing, no?'

‘Look, man,' said Michael tersely, quickening his step, ‘I'm not an intellectual, right? I'm not involved in whatever the argument is regarding my father. I'm a forgiving Christian, and as far as I'm concerned whatever is between you and him doesn't change the way we feel about Jerome – he's a good kid, man, and that's the main thing – so there's no argument.'

‘Yes – of course, of course, of
course
, no one's
saying
there's an argument – I'm just saying, and I'm hoping your father will
appreciate
this, that Jerome's really too young – and he's younger than he
actually
is – emotionally he's much younger, completely inexperienced – much more so than you probably realize –'

‘Sorry – am I being stupid – what are you trying to say?'

Howard took a deep, artificial breath. ‘I think they're both much,
much
too young to get married, Michael, I really do. That's it, in a nutshell. I'm not old-fashioned, but I do think, by any measure – '

‘Marriage?' said Michael, stopping where he was, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose an inch. ‘Who's getting married? What're you chatting about?'

‘Jerome. And Victoria – sorry . . . I thought that surely –'

Michael arranged his jaw in a new way. ‘Are we talking about my sister?'

‘Yes – sorry – Jerome and Victoria – who are you talking about? Wait – what?'

Michael let out a loud single-burst laugh, and then came closer to Howard's face with his own, seeking some sign of jest. When none came, he took off his glasses and slowly rubbed them against his scarf.

‘I don't know where you got that idea, yeah, but just seriously, like, remove it, because it just isn't even . . . Phew!' he said, breathing out heavily, shaking his head and replacing his glasses. ‘I mean, I like Jerome, he's fine, yeah? But I think my family wouldn't really . . .
feel safe
thinking of Victoria getting involved with somebody who was so far outside of . . .' Howard watched Michael openly search for a euphemism. ‘Well, things we think are important, right? That's just not the plan right now, sorry. You've got the wrong end of something there, mate, but whatever it is, I suggest you get the right end of it before you walk into my father's house, you understand? Jerome is just not the thing at all,
at all
.'

Michael began to walk off at speed, still shaking his head, with Howard angled to his right, trying to keep up. This was interspersed with frequent side glances at Howard and more of this head-shaking, until Howard was considerably wound up.

‘Look,
excuse
me – I'm not exactly overjoyed here, right? Jerome's whack bam in the middle of his studies – and anyway, if and when the time comes I imagine he's expecting a woman of similar – how do you want me to say this –
intellectual
– and not the first woman he happens to have got his end away with. Look, I don't want to fall out with you as well – we
agree
, that's fine – you and I both know that Jerome's a
baby
–'

Howard, who had matched Michael's pace at last, halted him once more by laying a firm hand on his shoulder. Michael turned his head quite slowly to look at the hand, until Howard felt compelled to retract it.

‘What was that?' said Michael, and Howard noticed a slip in his accent, to something a little rougher, a little more familiar with the street than with the office. ‘Excuse me? Get your hands off me, all right? My sister is a
virgin
, yeah? You get me? That's how she was brought up, yeah? Mate, I don't even
know
what your son has been telling you –'

This medieval turn to the conversation was too much for Howard. ‘Michael – I don't want to . . . we're on the same
side
here – no one's saying a marriage isn't completely ridiculous – look at my lips, I'm saying completely ridiculous,
completely
– no one's
disputing your sister's honour
, really . . . no need for swords at dawn . . . duel to the . . . or any of that – look, of course I know you and your family have “beliefs”,' began Howard uneasily, as if ‘beliefs' were a kind of condition, like oral herpes. ‘You know . . . and I completely and utterly respect and tolerate that – I didn't realize this was a surprise to you –'

‘Well, it is, yeah? It's a
fucking
surprise!' cried Michael, turning about him and whispering the swear word, as if in fear of being overheard.

‘So, OK . . . it's a surprise, I appreciate that . . . Michael, please . . . I didn't come here to have a row – let's take it down a notch –'

‘If he's
touched
–' began Michael, and Howard, over and above the madness of the conversation itself, began to feel genuinely afraid of him. The flight from the rational, which was everywhere in evidence in the new century, none of it had surprised Howard as it had surprised others, but each new example he came across – on the television, in the street and now in this young man – weakened him somehow. His desire to be involved in the argument, in the culture, fell off. The energy to fight the philistines, this is what fades. Now Howard's eyes turned to the ground, in some expectation of being thumped or otherwise verbally abused. He listened to a sudden curve of wind swoop around the corner they were standing on and rustle the trees.

‘Michael –'

‘I don't
believe
this.'

The nobility Howard had first thought he detected in Michael's face was rapidly being replaced by a hardening, the nonchalant manner supplanted by its exact opposite, as if some fluid poisonous to his system had been swapped for the blood in his veins. His head whipped back round; now Howard seemed no longer to exist for him. He began to walk with speed, almost to jog, down the street. Howard called out to him. Michael increased his pace, took a sudden, jerky right and kicked open an iron gate. He shouted ‘Jerome!' and disappeared under and through a leafless bower that thrust twigs in all directions, like a nest. Howard followed him through the gate and under the bower. He stopped before an imposing double-fronted black door with a silver knocker. It was ajar. He paused again in the Victorian hallway, underfoot those black-and-white diamonds that no one had welcomed him on to. A minute later, upon hearing raised voices, he followed them to the furthest room, a high-ceilinged dining room with dramatic French doors, before which was a long table laid with five dinner settings. He had the sense of being in one of those horrid claustrophobic Edwardian plays, in which the whole world is reduced to one room. To the right of this scene was his son, presently pressed up against a wall by Michael Kipps. Of other matters, Howard had time to note someone who must be Mrs Kipps with her right hand raised in the direction of Jerome, and someone beside her with their face in their hands and only their intricately plaited scalp on view. Then the tableau came to life.

‘Michael,' Mrs Kipps was saying firmly. She pronounced the name so that it rhymed with ‘Y-Cal', a brand of sugar substitute that Howard used in his coffee. ‘Let Jerome go, please – the engagement is already off. No need for this.'

Howard noticed the surprise on his own son's face as Mrs Kipps said the word ‘engagement'. Jerome tried to stretch his head away from Michael's body to catch the eye of the silent, curled-up figure at the table, but this figure did not move.

‘Engagement! Since when was there an engagement!' Michael yelled and drew back his fist, but Howard was already there and surprised himself by instinctively reaching out to grab the boy's
wrist. Mrs Kipps was trying to stand but seemed to be having difficulty, and, when she called her son's name again, Howard was thankful to feel all the will in Michael's arm dissolve. Jerome, shaking, stepped aside.

‘Anyone could see it happening,' said Mrs Kipps quietly. ‘But it's over now. All done.'

Michael looked confused for a minute, and then a second thought seemed to come to him and he started to rattle the handle of the French doors. ‘Dad!' he shouted, but the doors wouldn't give. Howard stepped forward to help him with the top lock. Michael violently shrugged him off, spotted the fastened lock at last and released it. The French doors flew open. Michael stepped out into the garden, still calling for his father, as the wind chased the curtains up and down. Howard could make out a long stretch of grass and somewhere at the end of it the orange glow of a small bonfire. Beyond that, the ivy-covered base of a monumental tree, the invisible top of which belonged to the night.