The Making of Henry (37 page)

Light-headed. And not a little amazed.

And then because he knows Moira would expect no less of him – would want no less of him, put it that way, would hope that he could find such resolution in himself – he bends to scoop up Angus, that thing of piss and shit and undiscriminating love, and carries him half the length of the High Street back to Lachlan's apartment. Henry's first corpse. Done it. Done it at last. Not heavy as he'd expected. Not the cold dead weight he'd always feared. So warm and soft, in fact, that for a moment he believes the dog is not dead at all, that he can feel the bruised heart trying to beat again. But it is only Henry's own pulse, quickening the dog's pelt.

He is dignified in death, Angus. No lolling tongue. No foul exudations or protruding
kishkes
of the sort Henry knows will signal his own demise. Quiet he lies, rather youthful-looking, his scarf tied raffishly at his broken neck – for no one has thought to loosen it – his ears flat like sealed envelopes, his open eyes signalling neither anger nor regret. Not even resignation. Just the uncritical cessation of sight.

Back in Lachlan's apartment, Henry rather reluctant to put him down, they lie him on his tartan rug, tuck it around him, then drink to his memory.

‘To Angus,' Henry says.

‘The best friend a man ever had,' Lachlan says, closing the curtains. ‘The best I ever did, anyway. I can't imagine my life without him.'

Henry muses, looking at the space on Lachlan's wall where the signed photograph of Robert Louis Stevenson's Samoan sepulchre once hung. How much did Lachlan get for it, he wonders.

‘I know what you mean,' he says.

He has to sit down to rest his back. It hurts, carrying a dead dog a quarter of a mile, however light the creature makes itself, evacuated of blood and breath and memory and hope.

Lachlan's phone rings. It is Moira for Henry, but wanting first to speak to Lachlan. So sorry, so terribly, terribly sorry. Poor Angus. Poor you, Lachlan. Not such a good medicine man, Henry, for Lachlan still, it seems, has grief he must expel. Henry puts his head between his knees and tries not to listen. Let the poor bastard weep and weep and weep if he must. But whether he wishes to or not he hears Lachlan commend his consideration – his, Henry's, Henry the hitherto uncommendable. ‘Yes, carried him all the way. And all the way up the stairs. No, he remembered Angus never liked the lift. But then I always suspected he was fonder of Angus than he made out.'

Was I, Henry wonders. Could they in honesty write that on my stone? – FONDER THAN HE MADE OUT.

When it's his turn on the phone he finds that he too has upset to express. Tears creak behind his cheeks. Must be something in Moira's voice. ‘Ah, dear!' he says, gaining control. ‘I've been going through hell worrying about you.'

Has he? Well, he has if he says he has.

‘Shush,' she tells him.

‘Ah, dear!' he says again.

‘Look,' she says, ‘I'm going to be a little while longer exchanging addresses with these idiots. The police are here as well. It's ridiculous, it's not as though anyone's hurt, or anyone's to blame. Except, I suppose, poor Angus. And they won't be charging him. So I'll be home when I'm home. It shouldn't be too long.'

Home? She has never called it home before.

‘I'll come out and help you.'

‘No, don't. You stay with Lachlan. Be nice to him.'

‘I have.'

‘I know.'

‘I really have.'

‘I know, I know. Don't stop.'

‘I miss you,' he says. Not his usual locution. Not a notion he is accustomed to trusting himself with – missing. Start telling people you'll miss them and it's like inviting the earth to crack open its foundations around you. Of course you'll miss them, that's what they're for, for you to miss through eternity.

‘Me too,' she says. ‘It's all so sad. But listen, when you think you can safely leave Lachlan you could pop across the hall and start to run me a slow hot bath. And you could see if you can dig out some massage oils. I'm half dead. I'll be needing you to revive me.'

‘Righto,' he says. He doesn't want to get off the phone. He wants her to go on talking. Put the phone down and she'll be gone. ‘And yes, you're right – it has been sad.'

She will die on him, that's what he knows. If he doesn't die on her, she will die on him. Her voice will stop. Impossible to imagine, but he must imagine it. In the meantime . . . well, he will massage her. Keep the blood in circulation. Keep her in circulation.

Lachlan pours him another Scotch. He is beginning to look at Henry the way Angus used to. What you get when you go around kissing people on the head, Henry acknowledges. Or accepting them into your nostrils. God and Adam must have looked at each other this way, too, for a day or more. Until Eve.

‘I suppose you'd think I was being morbid,' Lachlan says, ‘if I sat here with him on my lap.'

No, Henry doesn't think that's morbid. No. And anyway, what if it were. To be truthful he would like it himself, to linger here a little longer on this elderly St John's Wood afternoon, a Scotch in his hand and the curtains closed, thwarting the encroachment of the cruel light, seeing Lachlan with Angus warm for the last time on his knees, trying to remember what the dog was like, which is becoming difficult already, thinking about running a bath for Moira, waiting for her to come home –
home
, her word – waiting for her to die, oiling her shoulders, reviving her.

It's like a vision of his future. An old fart, a dead dog, and a woman he can't trust not to leave him, one way or another.

Could be hell, Henry thinks.

Then again, could be the making of me.

HOWARD JACOBSON

The Making of Henry

Howard Jacobson is the author of four works of nonfiction and eight novels, including
The Mighty Walzer
, which won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Award for comic writing, and
Who's Sorry Now?
, which was long-listed for the Booker Prize. He has a weekly column for
The Independent
and regularly reviews and writes for
The Guardian
,
The Times,
and the
Evening
Standard
. Jacobson has also done several specials for British television. He lives in London.

ALSO BY HOWARD JACOBSON

Fiction
Coming From Behind
Peeping Tom
Redback
The Very Model of a Man
No More Mister Nice Guy
The Mighty Walzer
Who's Sorry Now?

Nonfiction
Shakespeare's Magnanimity
(with Wilbur Sanders)
In the Land of Oz
Roots Schmoots: Journeys Among Jews
Seriously Funny: From the Ridiculous to the Sublime

 

FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, SEPTEMBER 2004

Copyright © 2004 by Howard Jacobson

Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jacobson, Howard.
The making of Henry / Howard Jacobson.
p. cm.

1. Inheritance and succession—Fiction. 2. Manchester (England)—Fiction.
3. Apartment buildings—Fiction. 4. Life change events—Fiction.
5. London (England)—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6060.A32 M34 2004
823'.914—dc22
2004046375

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eISBN: 978-0-307-42896-7

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