Middle England

by Jonathan Coe

  ‘Then you’d flash back, you see, to the story of how I met Yasmin and Aneeqa and how Duncan and me started hating each other.’

  ‘I see, yes. Starting with your meeting in the toyshop.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Benjamin began to write something down in his notebook, then paused, pen between his lips.

  ‘What was it about Aneeqa that gave you such a connection with her, do you think? Could you put it into words?’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Charlie, searching through his folder once again. ‘I wrote something about this in my diary. This is from –’ he took a pair of glasses from his shirt pocket and peered through them at the roughly scrawled manuscript ‘– 2015. Do you mind if I read it out to you?’

  ‘Go ahead,’ said Benjamin, settling down in his seat.

  ‘OK.’ Charlie cleared his throat, and read:

  ‘She turns eighteen tomorrow. Maybe it’s because I don’t have any children of my own that I’ve started to think of her as my own daughter. Maybe it’s because I’ve started to think of her as my own daughter that Yasmin feels such jealousy when she sees us together, and can’t find any way of hiding it. It’s not something we can have a conversation about. If there’s one thing I’ve discovered, over the last few years, it’s that, however fine your intentions, there can be no tactful way of telling a woman that she undervalues her own daughter.

  ‘It’s three o’clock on a bright September Sunday afternoon and she is sitting out in the garden. The sun is falling on her, filtered through the branches of the sumac tree, creating shifting and dancing patterns on her hair, taking its blackness and circling it in a halo of light, adding shades of dark and pale brown, dark like the mahogany dressing table in Mum’s old bedroom, pale like the sand of a beach at low tide on one of my long-forgotten summer holidays.’

  ‘Nice,’ Benjamin felt moved to say, as Charlie paused for breath.

  ‘She’s reading a volume of Lorca poems, in Spanish. Because I love to hear her speaking Spanish, I ask her to read a few lines to me. She reads: “Por las ramas indecisas, iba una doncella que era la vida. Por las ramas indecisas. Con un espejito reflejaba el día que era un resplandor de su frente limpia.” Her voice makes a strange kind of music: strange because her normal accent has gone, the accent that ties her to Birmingham, her home, and the accent that replaces it is different, unfamiliar: to me, it sounds exotic and beautiful. I ask her to translate the lines and she frowns for a moment and then, thinking about it carefully, she says: “Through the indecisive branches went a girl who was life. Through the indecisive branches. She reflected daylight with a tiny mirror which was the splendour of her unclouded forehead.”

  ‘Afterwards, I can’t get these lines out of my head. “A girl who was life” is exactly how I think of Aneeqa. I think of the woman she will become, when she leaves home, leaves her mother, leaves this city and achieves her dream: her dream of freedom. Freedom to live where she wants, to be where she wants, to speak the languages that she loves. I think of this beautiful Muslim girl, the daughter of Pakistani parents, living in Seville or Granada or Cordoba and speaking her perfect Spanish and I think what a bright future we have in front of us, if this is what we choose to become: people no longer tethered by the narrow, imprisoning bonds of blood or religion or nationhood. To me, she is a symbol of that future. But at the same time, I don’t want to diminish her, reduce her to a symbol, because she is something much more important than that: a human being, a thinking and feeling and loving person, free to make her own choices and to follow her own path, answerable to nobody. Just like the girl in the poem. A woman “who reflects daylight with a tiny mirror, which is the splendour of her unclouded forehead”.’

  Charlie laid the notebook down and took off his glasses. His voice had begun to slow down and falter with emotion as he read the closing words.

  ‘Bloody hell, Charlie,’ Benjamin said, after a pause. ‘That’s beautiful. I didn’t think you could … I mean, I never expected … Where did you learn to write like that?’

  Charlie shrugged. ‘I’ve always read a lot of books, I suppose. Ever since I was a kid. Why – do you think it’s all right?’

  ‘I think it’s terrific. So moving. I wonder what she’d say if she read it?’

  ‘I doubt if she ever will.’

  ‘Well, would you mind … would you mind if I put it in the book, just like you’ve written it?’

  Charlie smiled. ‘No, of course not, mate. All this stuff is yours. Do what you like with it.’

  It was getting on for one o’clock, so they went into the kitchen for some lunch. Lois had been visiting over the weekend: in the wake of her separation from Christopher she had become slightly obsessed with cooking, and since Benjamin’s kitchen was so much larger than the one in her Oxford bedsit she had begun visiting whenever she could. His fridge-freezer was currently full of her soups and casseroles. He filled two bowls with spicy lentil and tomato soup and, while sawing off some chunks of granary bread (also baked by his sister) he asked Charlie:

  ‘So how’s she getting on at university?’

  ‘Very well, I think. Getting good marks for everything. And she’ll be spending next year in Spain.’

  ‘Fantastic. What about her art?’

  ‘Yeah, she still does a bit of that. Helped design a mural, or something, for the student union. I think that’s what kept her sane, you know, all the time she was living with her mom. If you’ve got a talent like that, it helps with other issues, doesn’t it? Anger and frustration and so on. Gives you somewhere to channel it. That’s what I need. Better than thumping people. Not that the bastard didn’t deserve it.’

  ‘Are you ready to tell me what happened?’

  ‘Let’s eat first,’ said Charlie.

  They listened to the news headlines on Radio Four. The leading story was President Trump’s tour of Asia, which had now reached South Korea and had so far managed to pass without any major diplomatic incidents, even though, as usual, the president seemed to delight in keeping his global audience on a knife-edge, waiting with bated breath for that calculated provocation or accidental faux pas that would tip the whole world into chaos. After a few seconds Benjamin was about to switch channels to Radio Three, but stopped himself: no, he thought – that was the sort of thing the old Benjamin would do, before the referendum, before the election of Donald Trump. The world was changing now, things were spinning out of control in unpredictable ways, and it was important to stay informed, to have an opinion. He and Charlie listened in attentive silence for a minute or two.

  Finally Benjamin said: ‘I don’t like Trump, do you?’

  ‘Nope,’ Charlie said. ‘Can’t stand the bloke.’

  Benjamin nodded. With the political discussion out of the way, he followed his original instinct and retuned the radio, to be greeted by the opening bars of Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet. It was a calming accompaniment to the rest of their meal.

  Back in the sitting room, he and Charlie took their seats opposite each other again and Benjamin said, ‘So we can’t put this question off any longer, really. I have to ask – what got into you that day? Why the violence? What was the final straw?’

  ‘A lot of people inside asked me that,’ said Charlie, hunting around in his folder again. ‘They all had the impression that deep down I was quite a gentle, amiable sort of person, so to try and explain it – to them and myself …’

  ‘… you wrote about it, maybe?’

  ‘Funnily enough, yes, I wrote about it.’

  He had extracted two or three sheets of paper and was taking his glasses out of his pocket again.

  ‘You really seem to have got the writing bug lately.’

  ‘To be honest, Ben, it was your book that inspired me,’ he said. ‘You should be taking all of the credit.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Benjamin. ‘Come on, then. Let’s hear what you’ve got.’

  Charlie sat forward, cleared his throat again, and began to read.

  ‘Seventee
nth of September,’ he began, ‘2016.’

  ‘I was ten minutes early arriving at the house.

  ‘Call it my natural pessimism, call it professional intuition, but I had a weird feeling that Daredevil would have got there before me that day. On two or three occasions already, he’d hacked into my email, got one of my bookings cancelled and taken it himself. I’d confronted him about it, of course, but had always met with barefaced denial. But I wasn’t going to let him get away with it today. As soon as I saw that poxy little grey Vauxhall parked in the driveway along with all the parents’ cars, I knew that this was going to be the day for our long-delayed showdown. I could feel the anger rising inside me but I was determined to be calm and dignified about it – although, as it happened, I’d already put my costume on: and you’d be surprised how many people don’t take you seriously when you’re wearing an undersized tweed suit, a multicoloured mortar board and a red ping-pong ball on your nose.

  ‘I rang the front-door bell and must admit that I didn’t linger over the niceties when the birthday boy’s mother opened the door. “Where is he?” I said, pushing past her. I strode into the living room and there was Daredevil, surrounded by a circle of bored-looking children, up to his old tricks – literally, since he hasn’t changed his act for about fifteen years. I grabbed him by the lapels of his stupid white coat and said – trying to keep in character for the time being – “Bally heck, old bean, what the deuce do you think you’re doing?”

  ‘Some of the children started to laugh, since this was undoubtedly the most entertaining thing they would have seen in the last ten minutes and they must have thought they were witnessing the birth of a new double act. But Daredevil wasn’t in the mood to play ball. “Fuck off, Brainbox,” he said, which even those dopey kids must have realized wasn’t part of the script for a children’s show, although it did make them laugh again. “Oy!” I said, pulling him closer towards me. “Mind your language. There are children present, you evil little twat.”

  ‘ “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  ‘ “This was my gig, and you know it.”

  ‘ “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Get out. You’re making a fool of yourself.”

  ‘ “I should be making a fool of myself, you mean. I should be getting paid for making a fool of myself. It’s what I do for a living. But every time somebody books me, you seem to keep turning up and getting in the way.”

  ‘ “Would you mind leaving now? These young ladies and gentlemen are waiting to be entertained.”

  ‘ “They’ll be waiting a fuck of a long time if you’re all they’ve got.”

  ‘That seemed to seriously rile him. “Right!” he said. “Let’s settle this outside.”

  ‘We marched out of the living room but got no further than the kitchen when he turned on me. He took off his World War Two pilot’s helmet and I took off the mortar board. He grabbed the ping-pong ball off my nose and threw it to the other side of the room. By some fluke it went straight into an empty jam jar and rattled to a standstill. We both stared at it.

  ‘ “Bloody hell,” I said. “That was clever. I bet you couldn’t do that if you tried.”

  ‘Somehow this little incident seemed to defuse the tension. On his side, at least.

  ‘ “Look, Charlie,” he said, spreading his arms and trying to sound conciliatory, “why do we have to fight all the time?”

  ‘ “I don’t know – because we hate each other?”

  ‘ “I don’t hate you, Charlie. I don’t have a malicious bone in my body. In fact it’s just the opposite. I feel sorry for you.”

  ‘My voice sank low. “Oh yes?”

  ‘ “You’re a nice guy, underneath. Anyone can see that. You just happen to be one of those people. You know – one of life’s losers.”

  ‘I waited for him to continue, breathing heavily.

  ‘ “Someone who’s always going to be on the losing side, am I right? You want to be as popular with the kids as I am, but you just aren’t. I don’t know why – they don’t like you as much. It’s just one of those things. Perhaps they know you’re a loser too. Perhaps they can smell it. I mean, think about it. You don’t really have a family. You don’t really have a home. You sleep in your car half the time. Your daughter was never as popular as my daughter at school.”

  ‘ “She’s not my daughter,” I said.

  ‘ “Oh, that’s right, I forgot. I keep thinking she must be your daughter, because you’re so close. But I suppose there must be something else going on to explain that. Who knows what, eh, Charlie? Perhaps best not to go there …”

  ‘My right hand was beginning to twitch by my side. The temptation to bring it into sharp, sudden contact with his face was growing. But something stopped me, even now: the knowledge that if I did that, Duncan would have won.

  ‘ “Krystal and Neeqs never got on, really, did they? The thing is, winners and losers don’t often get on with each other. Different species, you see. One’s strong, the other’s weak. Do you know what Krystal’s never done, since she was a baby? Cried. Never cries, that one.”

  ‘I was waiting to see where this was going.

  ‘ “Did Neeqs get into university, by the way?”

  ‘I nodded.

  ‘ “Spanish was her thing, wasn’t it?”

  ‘I nodded again.

  ‘ “Bit upset by the referendum result, I gather.”

  ‘I didn’t answer.

  ‘ “Krystal told me she was crying about it the morning after. Crying about it at school! Didn’t you know that?”

  ‘I said, “Doesn’t surprise me. Always been very European in her outlook. Always had this idea she might end up working somewhere like Spain. That’s all going to be much harder for her now.”

  ‘ “Like I said,” Duncan repeated, annoyingly, “winners and losers.”

  ‘ “Except in this case,” I said, “Krystal lost as well.”

  ‘He frowned. “How do you mean?”

  ‘ “I mean that everything Aneeqa lost because of that vote, Krystal lost too. Same for every young person.”

  ‘At which point Duncan smiled one of the most evil smiles I’ve ever seen in my life, and said: “Ah, no – that’s my point. Krystal’s going to be fine. My dad was Irish, you see.” He smiled some more, goading me. “Didn’t you know that? Oh, yes. We all applied for Irish citizenship right away. Came through last week. Got the passports and everything. We’re all sorted. Nothing changes for Krystal. EU citizen till she dies.” He watched me standing there, gaping. “I wouldn’t have voted to take that away from my own daughter, now would I?”

  ‘He put his hands into the pockets of his white doctor’s coat and stood back, challenging me to respond. In retrospect, I have to give him credit. Of all the things he could have said to infuriate me, that was pretty much the most deadly. Going straight for my weakest, most vulnerable points. He had managed to display the most perfect, most seamless, most noxious combination of mean-spiritedness, arrogance and hypocrisy; and as I looked at him now, years of hatred began to well up inside me, coming to the boil.

  ‘ “Anyway,” he said, “why the hell have we started talking about Brexit? Of all the stupid things to fall out over. Anyone’d think the whole country had gone mad. Come on, they told me there’s some cider in the fridge here. Let’s have a drink and forget our diff—”

  ‘I assume he was going to say “differences”. But Duncan never got the chance to finish the sentence. My first punch went in and caught him on the left cheek, mid-word. I think it must have been the fourth or fifth one that fractured his jaw. And we had already made quite a mess of the kitchen by then. The first thing I really remember, after that, was the sound of the police sirens.’

  Charlie laid down his manuscript and took off his glasses.

  Benjamin said: ‘And that’s exactly what happened – word for word?’

  ‘Word for word. I suppose the short version is … I lost control. I inflicted ABH and I took the rap for it. Maybe I�
�d do it again, who knows?’

  He put the sheets of paper back into his folder and tried to pass it over to Benjamin.

  ‘Here you go, anyway. This lot’s all yours. If you think there’s a book in this, do what you like with it.’

  Benjamin shook his head and gently pushed the folder back in Charlie’s direction.

  ‘Sounds to me like you’ve already written it.’

  ‘What, this? But these are just … ramblings. There’s no rhyme or reason to them. No shape or anything.’

  ‘That’s what an editor’s for.’

  ‘I don’t have an editor.’

  ‘I’ll do it for you.’

  It took a while for the meaning of these words to sink in. When it did, Charlie’s face coloured with gratitude. Too moved to look Benjamin directly in the eye, he said: ‘You’d do that for me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Charlie stood up, and beckoned Benjamin to stand as well. They faced each other, in a moment charged with emotion. What followed was a little crisis of masculinity in microcosm. Charlie held out his hand, and Benjamin went to grasp it, but Charlie was already moving forward, so Benjamin missed the hand and ended up clasping him by the wrist, and then Charlie put his other arm around Benjamin and they attempted a hug, with Charlie murmuring something all the while about how Benjamin was not just his first and oldest friend but also his best friend, the best friend a man could wish for. They stood like that, hugging and patting each other on the back, and then it occurred to them that they didn’t really know how to stop and disentangle themselves, so they did it very slowly and stiffly, and then to escape the situation Benjamin made for the kitchen and said that he would make some coffee. As he was leaving the room, Charlie called after him, ‘But what about your next book? What are you going to write next?’, and Benjamin reflected that these were good questions, still unresolved, and it was probably at that moment, that precise moment (he realized afterwards), that it became blindingly clear to him that his well of creativity was dry, that in telling the story of his love for Cicely he had told the only story that he’d ever wanted to tell, and he would never write again. But all he said to Charlie was: