Free Restless by William Boyd Page B

laughed, with nervous relief, realising I'd said 'no' six times. No denial could have been more underscored.
    Hamid tried to disguise how happy he was at this news, but failed. His grin was almost stupid.
    'Oh. All right. No, I thought he…' he paused, held up both his hands in apology. 'Forgive me, I should not induct like this.'
    'Deduce.'
    'Deduce. So: he is Jochen's uncle.'
    This was true, but I had to admit I had never thought of Ludger Kleist in this way (he didn't seem remotely avuncular – the words 'Uncle Ludger' conjoined appeared creepily antithetical) and, indeed, I had also introduced Ludger to Jochen as 'a friend from Germany' – and they had had no time to become better acquainted as I had to take Jochen to a birthday party. Ludger said he would go 'to a pub' and by the time he returned that evening Jochen was in bed. The uncle-revelation would have to wait.
    Ludger was dossing down on a mattress on the floor of a room in the flat we called the Dining Room – in honour of the one dinner party I had given there since we had moved in. It was, in fact, and in theory, the room where I wrote my thesis. Its oval table was stacked with books and notes and drafts of my various chapters. I allowed myself to believe, contrary to the dusty evidence, that this was the room where I worked on my thesis – its very existence, its designation and compartmentalisation seemed to make my wishes somehow real, or more real: this was where my calm, scholarly, intellectual life took place – my messy disorganised real life occupied the rest of the flat. The Dining Room was my discrete little cell of mental endeavour. I dispelled the illusion quickly: we pushed the table to the wall; we laid down Ludger's inflatable mattress on the carpet – it had become a spare room again – one Ludger professed himself to be very comfortable in.
    'If you could see where I have been sleeping,' he said, pulling down the bottom eyelid of his right eye with a finger, as if to exemplify a basilisk stare. 'Jesus Christ, Ruth, this is the Ritz.' And then he gave his crazy shrill laugh that I remembered better than I wished.
    Hamid and I settled down with the Ambersons. Keith Amberson couldn't get his car started and the family were about to go on holiday to Dorset. Lots of conditional-perfect verbs. I could hear Ludger moving from the kitchen through the flat.
    'Is Ludger staying long?' Hamid asked. Clearly Ludger was on both our minds.
    'I don't think so,' I said, realising that in fact I had still to ask.
    'You said you thought he was dead. Was it in an accident?'
    I decided to tell Hamid the truth. 'I was told that he had been shot by the West German police. But obviously not.'
    'Shot by police? Is he a gangster, a criminal?'
    'Let's say he's a radical. A kind of anarchist.'
    'So why is he staying here?'
    'He'll be going in a couple of days,' I lied.
    'Is it because of Jochen's father?'
    'So many questions, Hamid.'
    'I apologise.'
    'Yes – I suppose I am letting him stay here for a couple of days because he is the brother of Jochen's father… Look, shall we continue? Will Keith get his car fixed? What should Keith have done?'
    'Are you still in love with Jochen's father?'
    I looked stupidly at Hamid. His brown-eyed gaze was intense, candid. He had never asked me questions like this before.
    'No,' I said. 'Of course not. I left him nearly two years ago. That's why I brought Jochen back to Oxford.'
    'Good,' he said, smiling, relaxing. 'I just had to know.'
    'Why?'
    'Because I would like to invite you to have dinner with me. In a restaurant.'
     
    Veronica agreed to take Jochen home for supper and I drove out to Middle Ashton to talk with my mother. When I arrived she was in the garden on her knees, cutting the lawn with shears. She repudiated lawn mowers, she said; she abominated lawn mowers; lawn mowers had signalled the death of the English garden as it had existed for centuries. Capability Brown and Gilbert White had no need of lawn mowers: