Читать книгу A Beggar’s Kingdom - Paullina Simons - Страница 21

IN MAY, A MORE OR LESS HEALED JULIAN RETURNED TO Nextel. Reuters’ interest in buying the news agency intensified, and Ashton and Julian worked long hours trying to make the business efficient and profitable so that they could sell it. At night they went out drinking, sometimes even with Roger and Nigel.

Working was good.

Drinking, too.

It made time pass.

Something had to.

When he felt well enough in his body to no longer ignore the remorse in his soul, Julian went to Quatrang one morning before work to make peace with Devi. Not wanting to go by himself, he dragged Ashton along. “Why do we have to go see that man? You said yourself you were done with him.”

“I am,” Julian said. “But I want to apologize for the way I acted. I was rude. Plus I want to show you some things.”

“Unless it’s naked girls dancing, I don’t want to see anything.”

Devi was happy to see Julian. He said nothing when Julian walked in, he didn’t react, not smiling or even joking, but there was something in the way he had glanced up when the door opened that made Julian think the cook had been hoping Julian would return.

Ashton and Devi were even less impressed with each other on the second day of their acquaintance. They shook hands, but they may as well have been drawing swords. Barely able to fit inside the tiny Quatrang, Ashton stood in the corner by the window, tense and uncharacteristically awkward.

“You’re just in time,” Devi said. “I trust you two haven’t had your first meal of the day yet? I’ve been simmering a mohinga in a cauldron in the back. Would you like some?”

“What’s a mohinga?”

“Catfish soup with banana tree stem,” Devi said cheerfully. “A squeeze of lime, dried chilis, crispy onions. Very delicious. Can I bring you two a bowl?”

“For breakfast?”

“Of course. When else would you eat a mohinga?”

Julian shook his head. “No, thank you.”

“It’s the most popular breakfast dish in Burma,” Devi said, sounding offended for Burma.

“Devi, how about some eggs? French toast?”

“What am I, the Waffle House?”

“I’ll try this mohinga,” Ashton said.

“Look at you trying to impress him,” Julian said after Devi disappeared behind the curtain.

“What I’m trying to do is get out of here,” Ashton said. “I’m giving this thing a half-hour. Like lunch with my old man.”

“Speaking of your father,” Devi said, carrying out two bowls of strong-smelling fish soup, “how is he?”

“Um, he’s … fine?” Ashton squinted at Julian with a sideways glare that Julian did not return.

“He must be happy having you in London with him, working with him?”

“He’s semi-retired, but … I guess.”

“You and your father have had some difficulties in the past, yes? Is it better now?”

Ashton shook his head. “Whatever. Not really. Maybe a little. It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I don’t want what I haven’t got.”

For a moment, the three men sat in silence, absorbing this. Julian wished he could say the same.

“Your father, does he have other children besides you?”

“What, Julian forgot to mention that part? No,” Ashton said. “I was his only child, and I still wasn’t his favorite.”

“Oh, I am certain that’s not true,” Devi said. “He is your father. You’re his only son.”

“Well, that he knows of,” interjected Julian.

“No, no,” Ashton said. “I’m pretty sure I’m it.”

Devi wouldn’t let it go. “Do you spend time together? Do father and son things?”

“Father and son things? We don’t fly kites if that’s what you’re asking. We have lunch once a week.”

“Well, that counts!” Devi said. He seemed happy it was so. “He must enjoy that very much.”

Ashton glanced at Julian by his side, as in what the hell.

In the uncomfortable hush that followed, Julian took the opportunity to apologize to Devi. He hoped there were no hard feelings.

“Apology not necessary,” Devi said. “I’m used to it.”

“I bet you are,” muttered Ashton.

“I was so angry,” Julian said.

“You still are,” Ashton said.

Devi nodded. “Stage two of grief: anger. It’s to be expected. No one should take it personally.” That sounded directed at Ashton. Certainly, that’s how Ashton took it because he scowled. They finished the mohinga, had kimchi and a banana cake with brandy. Gratefully Julian drank two glasses of the proffered murky tiger water. Ashton was given sake.

“So what’s wrong with him?” Ashton blurted to Devi after a second helping of the banana cake. “What really happened to his body? I’ve never seen anything like his injuries. Smoke inhalation? Electrocution? Multiple foot fractures?”

“Possibly by traveling into another dimension,” Devi said, “he had accumulated and stored a tremendous amount of energy, and on his improbable return, all of it was released as he was hurled through the physical universe at incredible speed.”

“Can you just stop it,” Ashton said. “Can’t one of you give me a straight answer for once?”

“That wasn’t straight enough for you?” Devi said. “He’s lucky to be back in one piece. He’s doing quite well, all things considered.”

“You think this is doing well?”

Devi shrugged. “Your friend’s predicament is not going to end here, Ashton. To truly help him, you must find a way to believe him, so he doesn’t have to keep dealing with the burden of your skepticism among all the other things he has to deal with. Ease his burden, don’t add to it. And, Julian, your accomplishment is not diminished just because you perceive yourself as having failed.”

“I don’t perceive myself as having failed,” Julian said, jumping off the stool. “I actually have failed.” It was time to go. “Ashton, ready? Thanks for the grub, Devi.”

As they were leaving, Ashton said to Devi, “We’re not trying to solve a crime here. I am helping him. He’s not looking for a solution to his predicament. He’s looking for compassion.”

“He’s looking for a little bit of a solution, too,” Devi said.

On the train to work, Ashton couldn’t stop talking about Devi. “The balls on that guy! Telling me what to do with you. Did I ask for his advice?”

“He’s the master of offering deeply unwanted advice,” Julian said. “It’s called being a shaman.”

“Being a fraud more like,” Ashton said. “There’s something he wants from you. It’s so obvious. How can you not see it? I don’t know why you bought into his lies. Has he hypnotized you? What’s in that gross water he keeps plying you with?”

“Tiger.”

“Right, okay. What I’m saying is he totally wants you to do again whatever it is you do for him.”

“I don’t do it for him.”

Ashton harrumphed.

“And you’re wrong,” Julian said. “Last time he tried to talk me out of it.” Tried to talk me out of it by fearmongering, Julian thought, not meeting Ashton’s eye.

“Not this time.”

“He doesn’t care, honest. He doesn’t have a dog in this fight.”

“Oh, not a dog, that swindler,” Ashton said. “Maybe a tiger.”

“How can he be a swindler, Ash? I fall into a starry profusion, through a sharp-fanged warp, and crawl out somewhere else in time and space, and find Josephine again. I told you about the Great Fire, about the Globe Theatre, the leper colony in the marshes near Drury Lane.”

“He’s drugged you. You’re having visions.”

“If I was going to have visions, why would I have them of her working in a brothel and murdering one of her customers? And did Devi break my feet and scorch my lungs, too?”

“He’s a dangerous and powerful man,” Ashton said. “He’s like an assassin bug—tiny but lethal.”

“Assassin bug?”

“One of the scariest insects known to mankind.”

Julian groaned. “Tell you what,” he said, “next time we go to Quatrang, I’ll tell him in front of you that I’m not going back, so you can see he wants nothing from me. Will that make you feel better?”

“Why would there be a next time?” said Ashton.

“There isn’t going to be.”

“I mean, next time for Quatrang, fool.”

“Oh.”

As they got off at Bank, Ashton asked Julian if Devi was right. Was his skepticism a burden?

Julian admitted it was. “But it’s fine, Ash, it’s no longer an issue. It’s in the past. And the past is done.”

They strode quickly down the long length of the Bank of England’s windowless marble wall, and as they turned the corner on Lothbury, Ashton said, “Then why do I keep feeling as Faulkner did, that if the past was truly done, there would be less grief and sorrow? Seems to me that not only is the past not done, it’s not even the fucking past.”

Faulkner was right. There was no was. There was only is.

But Julian was done. To prove to his friend there was nothing to worry about, the next time they had lunch at Devi’s, Julian announced he wasn’t going back.

“That’s fine,” Devi said.

“I mean it.”

“I hope so. As you know, I think that’s best—for many reasons.”

Julian gave Devi a shut-the-hell-up glare and Ashton an I-told-you-so one. Both men rolled their eyes.

“Sometimes, Ashton, I argue with your friend,” Devi said, “because in arguing back, Julian defines for himself what he is. When I agree with him too much, it unsettles him, makes him cantankerous. Like now.”

“That’s not true!” That was Julian.

Ashton said nothing.

“All things being equal, Julian will always choose a fight,” Devi said. “He prefers it to almost anything—inside and outside the ring. He needs combat to survive. The easy life suffocates him. The easy answer is the last thing he wants. Contact and combat is your friend’s motto.”

Ashton said nothing, looking upset that Devi figured out in five minutes what had taken him much longer.

“How is your father, Ashton?” Devi said. “Have you seen him this week? What did you two talk about?”

“I can’t stand that man,” Ashton said to Julian after they left.

Julian smirked. “What’s with you two? He’s not crazy about you either. The other week he called you a born wanderer.”

“That’s what I’m talking about, his insufferability,” Ashton said, full of pique. “I’m not the born wanderer. That’s how you know the guy’s a fraud. He can’t even see what’s in front of him. You’re the born wanderer.”

Julian continued to see Devi but on his own. Devi cooked for Julian. Often they had cha ca, sizzling chunks of fried fish with garlic, ginger, turmeric and dill. Julian could’ve eaten it every day for a year, it was that good. When he told the cook what Ashton had said, Devi smiled condescendingly. “Ask your friend if he knows the meaning of the word wander. You’re only a wanderer if you travel alone. When there are two of you, it’s not called wandering. It’s called an adventure. And you and your girl are on an extraordinary adventure.”

“Were on an adventure.”

“That’s what I meant.”

“And Ashton is not alone. He’s with Riley.”

“Tell me more about this Riley,” Devi said. “Is she living here in London with him?”

Damn that Devi! “Even so, he’s still not alone. I’m here with him.”

“Are you, Julian?”

It was really time to go.

“When is he moving back to L.A.?” Devi asked. “I don’t see the harp or the lamb with him. I see the smoke of torment. I see woe in the street.”

“Can you stop it? I don’t know what you’re talking about. What do you see?”

“Not much. I told you, I feel things. Things that aren’t good.”

“How many more things that aren’t good can happen to me, Devi?”

“Not to you,” Devi said. “To him.”

Grimly Julian stared at the shaman. Julian hated to be reminded of their conversation the previous year. What are you prepared to give up, Julian, to live as you want? Julian hated to have been proven wrong, hated to have failed. His blood was boiling. “Well, I’m never going back again,” he said, grabbing his coat. “So we’re good.”

After that day, he stopped visiting Devi.

Almost all Julian did until the end of the year was work and box and swim.

Except for the weekends when Ashton was away either back in L.A. or somewhere unspecified, or when Julian was at the pool or the gym, the two men hardly left each other’s side. They shopped together, went to work together, drank together, sparred together, played video games together. On rainy Notting Hill weekend afternoons, they scoped the streets, checking out garage sales, open markets, art galleries, pretty girls. They rode bikes through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, they hiked through Holland Park, they had long liquid brunches at quaint London pubs—like the Silver Cross—and got dressed up in fitted bespoke suits to go out on Saturday nights, when the class of women they chatted up increased geometrically with the price of their silk ties from Jermyn Street. Ashton tried, you had to give him that. No matter what Devi said, Ashton did his best.

Julian, too.

“Let me ask you a question, Jules,” Ashton said one night, late on the Central Line, as they were heading home thoroughly inebriated after last rounds at the Counting House.

“You’re in no state to question me, especially in that tone of voice,” Julian said, “and I’m certainly in no state to answer you.”

“In other words, the perfect time to have a serious conversation—when we’re both three sheets to the wind. Let me ask you: when you meet this girl, does she know who you are?”

“Why would she? How could she?”

“Uh-huh. But at the very least her name is Josephine, right?”

“No—because it wasn’t her name,” Julian said. “Her name was Mia.”

“Wait, so, a derivative of the most common name in the English language?”

“She falls in love with me!”

“Don’t shout, we’re on the tube,” Ashton said. “People will think we’re drunk.”

“We are drunk.”

After they got off at Notting Hill Gate and were staggering home, Ashton resumed. “Jules, have you considered the possibility that it’s just a random girl?”

“You think I’m on the receiving end of some cosmic prank? Go to hell.”

“Oh, sure, I mean, what are the chances of finding a nipply, lusty, brown-haired, brown-eyed chick named Mary who falls for you?”

“I’m done listening to you.”

But Ashton was on a roll. “You think you’re falling in love with Josephine, but it’s just some murdering broad named Mallory.”

“Am I listening?”

“You hook up with her in a brothel of all places—where naturally all true love begins—and she goes all doe-eyed on you, tells you you’re her one and only john, starts killing and stealing, and your first thought is—Josephine!”

“I’m not only not listening, I’m no longer your friend.” Julian tried to speed up, but drunk Ashton was a faster and more coherent man than drunk Julian.

“Are you pissed off because you know I’m right?”

“Why are you still speaking?” Julian said. “You think I travel through time so I can hook up with a stranger? What about her feelings for me?”

Ashton’s smile was from one side of the street to the other. “Jules, that’s my other point. Can we get real for a sec?”

“No.”

“We roomed together and lived together, lest you forgot.”

“I wish I forgot.”

“In our sophomore year, your bed was separated from mine by a thin sheet we hung up for fake privacy. Do you remember? Did you think this sheet was soundproof?”

“Go to hell.”

“I know all about you. Plus Gwen used to brag to Riley, who would then scold me—oh, and thanks for that, too, by the way. Julian does this, and Julian does that. Fuck you, buddy.” A grinning Ashton hooked his long arm around Julian’s neck as they zigzagged down the sidewalk. Julian tried to get away, but Ashton wouldn’t let him.

“Your point?”

“My point is,” Ashton said, “that any girl would be happy to biblically acquaint herself with you.”

“Get off me.”

“During foreplay you could ask her if she’s the one, and I promise you, promise you, by the time you get to the afterglow, she’ll be chirping yes! Yes, I’m the one, Jules! Wait, no, it’s me, I’m the one!”

Julian pushed Ashton off him. “You’re ridiculous.”

“But am I wrong?”

“Both ridiculous and wrong.”

“Here’s my final point,” Ashton said, grabbing Julian again. “Why do you have to spelunk, box, swim, bust up your body? Why can’t you find them and seduce them right here in London, in the comfort of your own home, in your tiny, woefully inadequate bed?”

“I’m moving out.”

“I promise to set you up only with brown-eyed girls named Maria. I know about a dozen off the top of my head.”

“I’m packing my shit as soon as we get home.”

“I’m not saying love again. I’m saying …”

“Shut up.”

Ashton was laughing, his arm around Julian’s neck. “You’ve tried it your way, Jules. You’ve tried it your way twice. Come on, buddy. Now let’s try it Ashton’s way.”

And Julian said okay. “I’ll try it Ashton’s way, said the barmaid to the bishop.”

Julian didn’t know how his friend accomplished these things, but Ashton did set him up with an attractive brown-haired woman named Mary. They went out for a bite and a drink at her local pub and ended up at her place near the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth. When they were still at the pub, he told her he wasn’t looking for anything serious, and the woman said thank God because she wasn’t either.

Julian left in the middle of the night. There was no tube and he couldn’t find a cab, so he had to hoof home five miles across Lambeth Bridge and around Hyde Park. The next morning when Ashton asked him how it went, Julian said, “What can I tell you, everything is worse south of the river.” They both chuckled. “But on the bright side, the Imperial War Museum is near her. Let’s go grab a bite and check it out.”

“No, thank you. I don’t do anything south of the river, especially having to do with the war.”

And so it went.

Julian sparred with four different partners on four different days. He hit the speedbag five times a week with a thousand blurs of his gloved fists. He pummeled the heavy bag three times a week with five hundred blows of thunder. The bag would fall before Julian fell, and the blows reverberated through the gym, the glass in the grubby windows rattling with Julian’s immense anger. He pounded the bag to cleanse his body of rage, he swam miles in the local gym pool to exhaust himself, and when that still didn’t work, he slept with the women he chatted up in pubs and clubs and Franz Ferdinand concerts. They weren’t all named Mary. And Ashton’s theory proved not entirely correct. Not one of them, no matter how brown-haired and brown-eyed and Mary-monikered, no matter how long-limbed and white skinned, felt remotely like the Mary of Clerkenwell or the Mallory of the Silver Cross. Or the Josephine of L.A. Not one quantum particle of them felt like the girl he was eternally entangled with.

But Ashton was right: Julian had to move on. He had to try to find a way to live again. At the very least he had to have sex again.

And at the very least, that’s what he did.

On Sunday mornings, Ashton would crawl out of his room to find Julian making coffee or eating leftovers, and there would be another irate woman yelling, Callie from Portobello, Candy from King’s Road, a girl from the Botanist and from the Colbert. “Howling in the night, yelling in the mornings, destroying speedbags,” Ashton said. “All you do is fuck and fight. Both with the same temper.”

“I’m doing what you told me to, remember? You’re never happy.”

“When will it end? I’m going crazy from the racket, both in the middle of the night and in the mornings. I’m going to charge the noise-cancelling headphones you forced me to buy against my share of the rent. Can’t you stay at their place? Are you doing this deliberately? Are you making our apartment uninhabitable so I start praying you’ll go do the time warp again?” Ashton grinned at his own cleverness.

“Ash, I know it’s difficult for you to believe,” said Julian, “but when I’m with a girl, I hardly think of you at all. One might say never.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Women left Julian nasty messages or waited by his front door to shout obscenities to his face. You never called me, you piece of shit. You said you would and you never did, and then I saw you in the pub with someone else. I know you said we weren’t serious, but you could’ve called me. Julian was left neutral by it. Other women couldn’t move the needle, they broke their mouths on his bitter stone, shattering as they came, while he kept waiting for the end-bell to ring. It never did. Rage was blacker than blindness, blacker than grief.

Julian, go and come back for me. Clutching the Bill of Mortality in one hand, the gold coin in the other, he kept hearing Mallory’s dying voice in his head—when he wasn’t dreaming of Josephine, walking toward his café table.

Julian, come back for me.

Why, when the new moon was invisible in the sky, did he dream of her smiling? Earth, moon, and sun all in a line, a meridian line, a wishing moon, Josephine smiling, Mallory pleading …

Come back for me.

And in Notting Hill, the cast-off girls had fun, then wanted more, got insulted, bellowed at him, all hawks in motion. He told them he wasn’t looking for anything. And they assured him neither were they. Yet there was so much yelling. I’m serious, he would say. Please listen to me. But they had three pints, two cocktails, half a bottle of wine, and they couldn’t listen. And when he told one sober woman right at the outset, even before they had ordered the wine, that he wasn’t looking for anything long-term, she slapped him across the face and said, don’t get ahead of yourself, buddy, who even says you’ll get anywhere with me. He got somewhere with her, and now she, too, was shouting at him.

“Jules, what a mess you’re making of things,” Ashton said. “I think you’ve forgotten how to date women.”

“You call what I’m doing dating?”

“That’s true, this isn’t quite what I had in mind when I advised you to plug back into your life. You’ve gone from a monk to a player overnight. But sooner or later, all this whatever you want to call it is going to turn into a bloodbath. You’ll be sorry when one of them bashes your brains in with a cricket bat.”

“How do you know that’s not what I’m hoping for?” said Julian.