The Memory Artists Part 30

"I'm not reading over your shoulder. I'm trying to see the cover of that book beside you." Noel craned his neck to read the t.i.tle: In Praise of Older Women In Praise of Older Women. A fuse began to crackle inside his brain, lit by a letter from the word Praise Praise, a writhing scarlet S S. "Norval, surely you're not planning on ... you know ..."

"Spit it out, Noel. On seducing your mother? Not in the least. But I am am fond of older women ..." fond of older women ..."

You can't still still be on be on S, S, thought Noel. What happened to red-haired Simone? thought Noel. What happened to red-haired Simone?

"... and in fact I've adopted Byron as my model. He had s.e.x with the Countess of Benzoni of Verona when she was sixty-one."

"She was from Venice."

"He then upped the ante with Lady Melbourne, who was sixty-two, and a few days later seduced Lady Oxford's daughter, who was eleven."

"He raped her and was caught in the act by her mother. With whom he was having an affair."

"Really? I did something similar with a mother-daughter duo. The age gap, though, wasn't as great, and it was a consensual three-way."

"Is this one of your fabrications for Dr. Vorta?"

"Hardly. It involved his wife and daughter."56 [image]

"High-end port you have here, Burun. How odd odd that you should serve it in a claret gla.s.s." Norval held the crystal up to the light. that you should serve it in a claret gla.s.s." Norval held the crystal up to the light.

"Screw off."

"I noticed a pipe on the mantelpiece. A Comoy's, I believe. You wouldn't have any tobacco for it, would you?"

"Yes, I've got some Latakia."

"Don't know it. What's it like?"

"Middle Eastern, dark and aromatic."

"Perfect."

"But I'm not giving it to you. Or the pipe. Smoking a used pipe is like wearing another man's underwear, my father used to say."

"Quite rightly. Noel, your mother needs a refill. So do I, for that matter. Is there a bell I can pull?"

"My mother's already had a gla.s.s. I think that's enough."

Mrs. Burun was sitting calmly in her favourite blue armchair, silently observing the two men.

"Of course it's not enough," said Norval. "You're not up on the latest research. Alcohol is good for Alzheimer's. It breaks up, or frees up ... well, doesn't matter what. Something that needs breaking and freeing up."

"It breaks up blood platelets. And frees up acetylcholine in the hippocampus."

"Exactly. Which is good for learning and memory, n'est-ce pas n'est-ce pas?"

"Yes. Aromatic alcohols with intact phenolic groups act as neuroprotectants, guarding against oxidative damage and cell death."

"I rest my case."

"But other research suggests that it's not alcohol, but the red grape. And the same research indicates that too much alcohol leads straight to dementia. Which, judging by the amount you've had since breakfast, is where you're headed."

Norval inspected his nails. "Noel, does that sort of thing pa.s.s for wit back in Scotland?"

"And why is my mother chewing gum?"

"JJ gave it to her. He says studies at Northumbria University-"

"Suggest that it improves the memory."

"Well, yes. Thirty-five per cent improvement, in fact. JJ will tell you all about this, and more, if you're not careful."

"And you've got my mother smoking again, I see. She hasn't smoked in twenty-five years. Those cigarettes are for guests."

"She asked for one, said she always liked a good smoke. Didn't you, Stella. And besides, tobacco's good for the memory.57 And especially Alzheimer's." And especially Alzheimer's."

"It more than doubles the risk of getting it."

"Rubbish. My grandfather's ninety-three. Smokes like a bonfire. And clear as a mountain stream. Who's the oldest living North American? A tobaccoholic named John McMorran, who's 113. And besides, I'm putting my foot down. I'm limiting your mum to a pack a day."

"I don't want her smoking."

"Let her have some fun, for G.o.d's sake. Let her eat, drink and remarry."

"No. Alcohol doesn't interact well with the new compounds I'm giving her. Nor does nicotine."

"Let's drink and be jolly and drown melancholy," said Stella, lifting her gla.s.s in a Scottish toast. Tipsily, thought Noel. "Slainte mhath!"

"There you go," said Norval. "You can't disobey your own mother."

"You heard me," said Noel.

"What is it with everybody around here? I'm surrounded by pleasure police. Sam's a prissy-a.s.s vegetarian, JJ's a homeopathic e-quack, and you're a ... factualist. Blinded by science. 'Wisdom, ever on the watch to rob Joy of its alchemy ...'58 What is it with today's society?" What is it with today's society?"

Noel looked at his watch. This, he knew, was the preamble to a long lecture. "Look, Norval, I've got to go down-"

"Today's healthism fanatics, nutrition cheerleaders, lifestyle correctors-they're ruling people's lives the way the Church used to. They want us all in a perennial state of Lent. Instead of conspicuous consumption, they want conspicuous self-denial. If it's pleasurable, let's do some studies and find something wrong with it. Let's get everybody believing that if they eat the food we tell them to, they'll be leading the 'good life', will live forever, be beautiful forever, paragons of morality. And anybody who smokes or drinks, anybody who eats a hamburger or a fried onion ring, will be excommunicated, cast off as undesirables, untouchables."

Norval was speaking slowly, to give the impression this was unscripted, an old trick of his.

"OK, Norval, you've made your point, so now-"

"The world has become afraid. afraid. Worriers and hypochondriacs. Candy-a.s.ses and bores, the bland leading the bland. Parents are the worst. 'Put your helmet on, Bobby, you're opening a can of c.o.ke.' Where'd you say the liquor cabinet was?" Worriers and hypochondriacs. Candy-a.s.ses and bores, the bland leading the bland. Parents are the worst. 'Put your helmet on, Bobby, you're opening a can of c.o.ke.' Where'd you say the liquor cabinet was?"

"I just finished saying that I don't want you-"

"Keep everyone afraid and they'll consume-it's the new corporate motto. The drug companies in particular-they're the real fear factories, the scaremongerers, along with the doctors of course, who can cram more patients into their schedules by prescribing the drug-of-the-month. But do we need all this s.h.i.t? There are fifteen thousand new drugs a year. We don't have enough diseases to go around. So what do the drug companies do? They hire psychiatrists to invent more. What was it Oliver Wendell Holmes said? You with me, Noel?"

"Said about what? He said a lot of things."

"Well, what are we talking about? Drugs."

Noel heaved a tired sigh. "That if the world's entire pharmacopoeia were thrown into the sea, it would be better for mankind, but worse for the fish."

"Exactly."

"But he said that in the nineteenth century."

"And do you know what old people say-really old people-when they're asked about the secret of longevity?" old people-when they're asked about the secret of longevity?"

"Yes, because I'm the one who told you."

"'Stay away from doctors, never take any medicines.' They all say the same thing."

"But in my mom's case-"

"The French Revolution," Mrs. Burun interrupted, but let the words hang in the air.

An awkward patch of silence followed. Noel held his breath. Mrs. Burun took a long drag on her cigarette.

"What about the French Revolution, Stella?" said Norval.

"Norval, please leave her-"

"Changes in health philosophy," Mrs. Burun replied, dropping her cigarette b.u.t.t into her gla.s.s and watching it sizzle.

"Really? What kind of changes?"

A look of doubt began to creep into Stella's face. Is this relevant? Or have we moved on? What was the last topic? Coercive health, or over-medication? "Nothing," she said. "I think I ... I think we've moved on ... we're talking about something different ..."

"We were talking about health philosophy. What happened during the French Revolution?"

"Norval," said Noel under his breath. "I suggest we-"

"Changes," said Stella, "based on the idea that proper diet and lifestyle were the best ways to make people obedient, compliant ... And in Germany, around the same time, the merchant and upper cla.s.ses got more or less the same idea. That the best way to keep things running smoothly, to prevent unrest or change, was to make sure that workers were healthy, fit."

"Like feeding the galley slaves to keep the boat moving," said Norval.

"They even had terms like 'medicine police' and 'health police'. And then of course the eugenics movement came along, suggesting that only the 'superior' variety of people should propagate."

"Not a bad idea, actually ..."

"So then poor health, which was previously seen as unavoidable, as bad luck, was seen to be the result of bad habits, or bad lifestyles. And from there it was a short leap to a new theory-that control of breeding and lifestyles was the legitimate business of governments."

"The philosophy of the Third Reich," said Norval.

"Exactly," said Stella.

Norval reached over, clinked gla.s.ses with Stella. "Noel, we need need bad habits, for Christ's sake. We need risky lifestyles, dangerous lifestyles. You know why? Because with all the boomers going into retirement, the state is not going to be able to pay these people to hang around doing b.u.g.g.e.r-all- apart from pumping iron and prancing around in gyms. Soon we'll need fleets of vans that cruise around all day picking up joggers and taking them home-they'll be in great shape but won't remember where they live. So the healthists have got it all backwards. Smokers and alcoholics should be thanked, saluted, for selflessly chopping years off their life. Binge-hogs who scarf down Big Whoppers and fries sitting on their whopping a.s.ses, knocking back beer in front of the box, should be canonized for cashing in early." bad habits, for Christ's sake. We need risky lifestyles, dangerous lifestyles. You know why? Because with all the boomers going into retirement, the state is not going to be able to pay these people to hang around doing b.u.g.g.e.r-all- apart from pumping iron and prancing around in gyms. Soon we'll need fleets of vans that cruise around all day picking up joggers and taking them home-they'll be in great shape but won't remember where they live. So the healthists have got it all backwards. Smokers and alcoholics should be thanked, saluted, for selflessly chopping years off their life. Binge-hogs who scarf down Big Whoppers and fries sitting on their whopping a.s.ses, knocking back beer in front of the box, should be canonized for cashing in early."

Stella laughed, a deep belly laugh, one Noel hadn't heard in a while. "My mother used to feel the same way," she said. "She had every bad habit in the book-and told her doctors to go to the devil."

Noel was now smiling, delighted at his mother's new coherency-and the latest drug responsible for it. "All right, Mom, I give in. If cigarettes and alcohol are a pleasure, go for it." He could hardly wait to tell JJ-it must be the A-1001. He should make more. "Listen, I've got some things to do in the lab, and a couple ideas I want to work out. You two'll be all right? Got everything you need?"

Norval gave a slight nod, then waited for the bas.e.m.e.nt door to close. "Let me light that, Stella."

As she leaned over the match Norval caught a glimpse of the cleft of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and black lace bra. When she resumed her position, he studied her swept-back salt-and-pepper hair, her patrician face, her upper lip the shape of an archery bow. More like Lauren Hutton, he decided, than Catherine Deneuve. About the same age and with that seductive incisor gap that a tongue might just slide its way through. And that luscious Scottish accent ...

"Stella, in the interests of art, I was wondering if you'd help me out with this project I'm working on ..."

Chapter 21.

Stella's Diary (II) 20 April 2002. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz.

Well, that feels better. My fingers feel better, my mind feels better. I'm not all the way there but I feel like I can finish sentences now. And I can remember what I had for breakfast this morning.

If the sword of Damocles fell, it missed.

21 April. Touch wood. I remembered something else today. When Noel reads to me at bedtime - as I read to him aeons ago - he often mumbles something before starting, almost like a prayer. Which sometimes makes me cry. But no matter how hard I tried, I could never remember what it was, until today: 'To you mother I will read these lines, for love of unforgotten times.'

24 April. Finally met Noel's best friend, a Frenchman named Norval Blaquiere. He's what my students would have called 'hot'. I never thought I'd use that word. He's handsome (almost looks like a Burun!) and his clothes -tailor-made by the look of them - are exquisite: white muslin shirt with metal snaps, leather jacket of the deepest green, black wool trousers with grosgrain trim ... But all on the well-worn, genteel-shabby side, as if picked up at an aristocrat's jumble sale.

And he can be quite charming, despite his air of selfsatisfied superiority in all matters of taste and intellect, and this cold, cutting tone he has (he wears his hatchet on his sleeve). Still, he makes me laugh -- even more than JJ. The strangest part of it all is that, from the way he looks at me so piercingly, I almost think he's attracted to me, that he's 'making love to me' (in the old-fashioned sense). Is that a figment of my imagination? Wishful thinking? A faded beauty's yearning for attention? But I did feel something something unless, like so many other things, my woman's intuition is failing me. unless, like so many other things, my woman's intuition is failing me.

25 April. After my husband died my relationship with men seemed to die as well - apart from two or three unhappy skirmishes. The chemistry was never quite right. Or perhaps it was the past that got in the way. I've often thought about Sh.e.l.ley's wife in this respect, his first wife, whose name escapes me. She drowned herself in the Serpentine, leaving her husband 'a prey to the reproaches of memory'. For years this is what I felt, and it must have affected my interactions with men. I may be wrong. In any case, I had enough trouble making a living, bringing up a son - romantic turmoil was all I needed! Teaching and Noel (in reverse order) - those were my pa.s.sions. But when Noel moved out, and seemed to be doing well, I started thinking about men again, about relationships. I was very fond of a colleague in the history department, who shall remain nameless, and he seemed to be fond of me. He asked me out several times over the years, but I always declined, for one reason or another. And then, just when I had changed my mind, just when I was about to ask him him out, well, that's when I began to lose my memory! out, well, that's when I began to lose my memory!

Harriet Westbrook. (Thank you, Noel.) 26 April. I scarcely know where to begin. I thought this sort of thing was over for me. Norval, this friend of my son's ... modesty forbids me to finish the sentence. Suffice it to say that I was right - Norval was was attracted to me. Will wonders never cease! It was an 'art project' of some sort - I have to admit I can't remember all the details (an alcoholic mist, nothing more) and I couldn't tell whether he was kidding or not -- but who cares? It was incredible. And shocking. Doubts, inhibitions, fears somehow disappeared, and for the first time I didn't go back in time, into heaviness, I just stayed in the present, in lightness. attracted to me. Will wonders never cease! It was an 'art project' of some sort - I have to admit I can't remember all the details (an alcoholic mist, nothing more) and I couldn't tell whether he was kidding or not -- but who cares? It was incredible. And shocking. Doubts, inhibitions, fears somehow disappeared, and for the first time I didn't go back in time, into heaviness, I just stayed in the present, in lightness.

I know this won't happen again, and that's perhaps for the best. Norval's heart belongs to another, although he didn't actually come out and say it - but I could tell by the way he didn't actually come out and say it.

Probably not a good idea to tell Noel, we both agreed. At least for now.

27 April. One last thing about yesterday. In the morning, as my head gradually cleared, I asked Norval why he chose me and not another S, someone younger, more beautiful ... like Samira, for instance. 'It takes two to tango,' he replied, with no shilly-shallying, no false compliments. 'When I was interested she wasn't, and when she was interested I wasn't.' 'And why weren't you ... interested?' I asked. 'None of your business,' he answered, his words riding a stream of smoke. 'With all due respect.' I nodded, watching a wobbly ring dissolve, knowing the answer. Because of Noel.

Sunday, 28 April 2002. I know what day it is today. And the year. All week long I've known. I'm not quite there, but almost. (ALZ well that ends well, as Norval says. Let's hope he's right.) On Monday I see a neuropharmacologist or neuropathologist (I've forgotten her name but I only heard it once!) who's apparently working with AD compounds similar to the ones Noel is using with me or that target similar brain functions, I'm not sure which. I do hope all this leads somewhere, not only for me but for the whole world. Could this get me back to teaching? Could I go back to Scotland one more time! a.s.suming I survive the tests and treatments ...

Norval came over this evening. With a bouquet of flowers, which he handed to me not sheepishly, not secretly, but matter-of-factly - right in front of Noel! 'Here. These are for you, Stella,' he said.

'How lovely!' I exclaimed. 'Yellow roses - that means something, doesn't it, Noel? Friendship?'

Noel gazed at the petals, with a bit of a scowl. 'Yellow symbolises jealousy,' he replied. 'Or it can mean guilt or treason or depraved pa.s.sions ...'