Royals

by Emma Forrest

  They played records for each other as I fell asleep. I remember seeing Tom Petty going onto the turntable, the visual of them carefully handling the vinyl, despite the fact they were both wasted, and that out-of-nowhere verse with the lines about memory and desperate longing. That it’s never mentioned again, swept under the New Wave rug to be crushed by the powerful dancing feet of the broken-hearted… it always gets me. I was listening and watching and teary, and then into sleep as one sinks into a hot bath after a crying jag.

  When I woke up, both father and daughter were passed out, he on the sofa opposite mine, and she in the four-poster bed he’d been sleeping in. He had one foot touching the floor and a hand on his heart, like a painting of a Romantic poet cradled by a painless death.

  They liked all the same music. She liked the music she thought would make him like her more, that if they shared the same interests he would be interested. Those same things he’d interested himself in because his parents weren’t interested in him.

  After checking they were both well and truly out, I bent and brushed her lips with mine, so soft she might have dreamed a butterfly had landed on her. Then I wondered if I dare do the same to her dad. His breath was so heavy and it stank of nicotine, like the priciest, most highly concentrated cologne. But his skin, like hers, was lit from within, votive, not ashy. As I moved closer to him, I saw that the trousers he had fallen asleep in were raised rigid at the groin, as aggressively hard as the smell of his breath.

  I stood there, transfixed, not daring to take another step. Then I thought of him alone in his childhood library, reading Melville and listening to classical Arabic music. And I took a step forwards.

  I very gently bent and kissed him, as delicately as I had his daughter.

  His hand moved upwards from his chest, circled my wrist and squeezed. Then, just as quickly, he let go, his hand falling to his side. I couldn’t breathe, and because I wasn’t breathing, I was able to hear that he really, truly, was still asleep.

  Astonished by her father’s subconscious touch, I went to his bathroom to feel closer to him, leaning against the wall, trying to calm my breathing. I was almost too terrified to urinate. I had to talk myself down. ‘They’re just people. Ordinary humans, just like you.’

  ‘His’ bathroom had a painted de Gournay silk wallpaper showing cranes pecking the water beside a lake and I was standing in front of it, tapping away the last drops, when she approached. ‘There you are. I was worried you’d gone.’

  I tucked my penis back into my trousers.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.

  ‘These trousers were handed down from my grandfather.’

  ‘The trousers are all right. I meant your penis. Though I imagine that was handed down from him, too.’

  ‘I’ll have to be getting along.’ Could she see, could she sense what I’d done?

  ‘I understand. I’ll walk you out.’

  I put my backpack on.

  Of course, with that many flights it takes a long time to get walked out, especially with her pausing to explain the provenance of things. The house was a mish-mash of places he’d been without her. There, on the second-floor patio, was a painted porcelain tortoise he’d had sent back from the Florida Keys.

  ‘Which Key was he in?’

  ‘Oh, all of them!’ She said it proudly, when I imagined he’d have just taken longer to get home to her.

  ‘After your mum passed away, he didn’t come back?’

  ‘Oh heavens, no! That’s when he really got going! He was quite devastated inside, I think.’

  ‘But you were, too, I bet.’

  It was a stupid thing to suggest ‘betting’ over, even as a figure of speech. It felt a difficult conversation to be having while wearing a backpack. There are certain conversations ill-suited to ergonomic travel accessories.

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t have any guilt attached to it, that’s what really powered him. He had screwed her over massively, of course, and that was all a bit much for him. I understood.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘You do understand, you’re just being judgmental. That’s a dreadful quality.’

  ‘One of my many. People should be judged on their behaviour, don’t you think? You must have been heartbroken. I’m so so sorry. You were just a kid. All kids need their mum.’

  Her lip trembled for a second, but then it stopped, like a gymnast sticking a landing.

  ‘Hand-painted fans?’ she said.

  ‘Excuse me?’ We’d made it to the kitchen. The front door was in sight.

  ‘I think it’s something we could make and market.’

  ‘Okay. I don’t know what made you think of that…’

  With time, I discovered that her schemes emerged when there was a topic she preferred not to discuss. I think it’s why she had so many schemes. Because there was so much to hold inside.

  She pressed close to me. ‘Do you paint them when they’re open or closed?’

  She didn’t want to talk about her mum and for that, honestly, I was relieved. I waved and walked to the bus stop, my backpack weighing on me like a conscience.

  CHAPTER 7

  ‘So?’ said my mother. ‘Did you have a nice time?’

  I concentrated on painting her nails, getting the moon shape sharper than ever before, as an act of penance for having been gone so long.

  ‘We thought you’d run away with the circus!’

  I looked up. Had she actually had a conversation with my dad? About me? Had he initiated a conversation about my safety and happiness or simply put up with one? Or, most probably, was she lying?

  ‘It was a bit like the circus. Incredible. And then it’s time to go home.’

  She smiled. I’d never noticed before the thin white strips on her two front teeth, like cirrus clouds against the yellowing enamel. Imagine how much of her I’d notice if I went away every weekend.

  ‘I missed you,’ I said. ‘I wished you’d been there.’

  I was starting to miss Jasmine, as I’d known I would. Wondered if her father was awake and if they were talking about me.

  ‘Where? Where did you two go?’

  ‘Just around where she lives in Notting Hill.’

  ‘It’s very dangerous there.’

  ‘It isn’t, Mum. You’re being racist. Because that’s what you actually mean. You’re channelling Dad.’

  She looked around to make sure he couldn’t hear.

  ‘Come on, he doesn’t care. He knows he’s racist.’

  ‘How can we possibly be racists? We’re a minority.’

  ‘But we stick to ourselves, don’t we?’

  ‘That doesn’t make me racist! I just don’t know anybody else to hang about with except us!’

  ‘Well, wouldn’t you like to?’

  ‘I’ve never really thought about it.’

  But she had. I know she had. I know she’d thought up a lot of inner lives, from the meticulousness with which she maintained her black hair and half-moon nails. No one ever creates a solid look – no matter the look – if they don’t harbour fantasies of escape. That’s the whole point of signature style. To take you away from it all when you have to spend a lot of your time standing still. You can look at your fingers as they stir the pot. Or look down at your cowboy boots at the bus stop in Finchley.

  I’d been home a night, waking up to the same pigeons outside my window – if not the same ones, then they deliberately dressed all alike and moved in the same manner, like early forerunners of the Blue Man Group who, like pigeons, are also rubbish. A designer should be able to find beauty in the mundane and very often I do. But there are limits. Sometimes depressing is just depressing.

  ‘We’re going to take a trip to Paris for a weekend.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘We’re just figuring it out.’

  ‘You’ll give me the hotel number and your room number, too?’

  ‘Yes, Mum, we’re just figuring it out.’

  I was itching to call her. It was star
ting to make me feel off balance, like people who have that disease that gives them the sensation that parasites are moving under their skin. How long could I wait before I excused myself and picked up the phone?

  I dialled her number with trembling hands, placing my finger in the holes of the rotary phone, as anxiously and as awkwardly as I would a vagina. I had started to feel relieved that she wasn’t answering. And then, as I was hanging up, the phone was lifted from its receiver at the other end, the sound of a cigarette being inhaled before the smoker deigned to say:

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Yes?’ said her father.

  Hearing his voice, I felt ill, as if he had definitely felt my kiss and had pretended to be asleep to spare my humiliation. ‘It’s Steven.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Steven your daughter’s friend who just stayed at your house? Is she there?’

  I tried to avoid my mum’s glances, mortified.

  ‘My God,’ he answered, ‘I have a thumping headache… I’ve drunk a gallon of coffee and I still feel like something the cat dragged in and then took a piss on.’

  Was this hangover from our night or was this a new one? Or was this just him in his natural, waking state?

  ‘Um,’ I stammered, ‘maybe you’re dehydrated?’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘perhaps that’s it.’ And then he hung up. Imagining, I suppose, that the call had been a check in from the universe to see how it might serve him.

  I sat down in front of the TV, concerned that my mother must now assume I’d fantasised an entire friend. I shame-watched Match of the Day because I was too embarrassed to move.

  Mum had just placed a bowl of bananas and custard in front of me when the phone rang.

  ‘Oh. Yes. Hello, dear. I’ve heard so much about you. How nice to “meet” you.’ She made air quotations around ‘meet’ even though she was on the phone and could not be seen. She was bending and performing as if Jasmine were in the room, her accent becoming less Jewish and working class, or at least what she thought was less Jewish and working class. I thought she sounded like Sybil Fawlty.

  ‘I’ll just get him.’

  I sat up straight, like only a bent boy can. I was about to leap out of my chair but Mum stretched the cord, delivering the receiver to me like a final course. It was thoughtful. But it was also a way to make me have the conversation in front of her.

  Jasmine failed to say hello, launching straight in with: ‘Hand-painted leather. What do you think? We could paint handbags with scenes from history.’

  ‘Dead animals. Already an affront to be dead. I don’t want to paint on them.’

  Mum was doing the dishes, but in the terrified manner of one who’s bathing someone else’s newborn baby, her interpretive ‘upper-class’ posture restricting her movements.

  ‘We could have a whole staff, like Andy Warhol’s Factory.’

  ‘I like being alone. My dream is to make a lot of money so I can be alone and have enough there that I don’t have to leave. And an intercom where I can communicate with the other people in the house. My mum would be there.’

  I said that part loud, so she could hear. I wanted her to relax. She dried the dishes, giving away nothing. I cleared my throat. ‘I called but you weren’t there. Your dad answered.’

  ‘I was at work, darling.’

  I heard my father’s key in the door. I always knew it was him because it took him three or four goes to fit the key in the lock and he pressed his whole body against the door as he turned. My mum’s ears pricked up on that second try, that third try, she stayed rooted to the spot, looking into the soapy dishes.

  I wanted to stay and help Mum. I looked at my dad. If he was surprised to see me back, he didn’t show it. I nodded slightly at him, phone at my ear.

  ‘I always dreamed I’d have children who’d come running into my arms as I arrived home from work,’ said Dad.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ replied Mum, and kissed him, and he clutched at her waist and kissed her back, hard.

  I wanted to stay and help her. But what could I do?

  ‘Steven? Are you there?’

  ‘I’m here.’ The walls of the room breathed heavy, like drunks, all four of them leaning against each other to stay upright.

  ‘Who’s he talking to?’

  ‘I can hear him,’ said Jasmine. ‘You should come over.’ She added. ‘My dad’s gone.’

  And maybe a part of her did want to protect me from my shitty home life. But mainly she did not want to be alone. The woman who did not want to be left by herself was easier to try and save than the woman who had trapped herself for ever with people she did not want to be around.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘he was having a really bad headache.’ And I could hear from my tone that I was trying to give her inside information on her own dad. That I was trying to inveigle my way in with both of them.

  If I were older, or if Jasmine been younger when she’d met me, I could have helped more. If I was younger when I’d got sent to the hospital, I wonder if the damage would have been so easily overcome, both physically and emotionally. If we’d met in some other way, in a night club, would we have been drawn together? It doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t have been at a night club. I spent all my nights in my bedroom, sketching. If Dad hadn’t fucked me up the way he did, I wouldn’t have Jasmine. And she’s the best. I’m not saying I’m thankful for what he did. But I am saying things happen for a reason. I know people don’t like to accept that. Once you open the door to coincidence, you start seeing it everywhere. It can be overwhelming.

  ‘Come over,’ she said again.

  My parents had drawn apart from their kiss and were watching me, or rather my mother was watching my father watch me. She was trying to pick up from his gaze and weight against her, and the weight with which he was standing, and his angle, whether or not tonight would be a bad night or pass without incident.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’ll be there soon.’

  CHAPTER 8

  Jasmine was in emerald silk pyjamas with a mandarin collar and embroidered hot-air balloons. When she opened the door she greeted me by asking, ‘How are you going to mark out your label from everyone else?’

  She stared at me and I took a shuffle forwards, hoping the entire conversation would not happen on the doorstep, as I was quite cold and tired. Thankfully, she ushered me to the fainting couch in the parlour. I lay back and she removed my shoes and began massaging my feet.

  ‘It will be ongoing, always evolving, but the core is the woman who takes no bullshit.’ I waited a beat before adding, ‘I’m sorry your dad has gone.’

  She pushed my feet aside and I immediately missed the touch. When would somebody touch me? Actually run their hands across my quivering limbs as I sighed with pleasure and they’d whisper, ‘My darling,’ and not vomit, laugh or wet themselves at the sight of my naked body?

  ‘No, I mean, the actual label, inside the clothes. How will that be different?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

  I hunched up into a ball and stroked my own feet. ‘When did he leave? Do you know when he’ll be back?’

  She fluttered at the air with her hand, a butterfly flapping its wings against a rainstorm, acting like everything was fine because how can you be in distress when you’re so beautiful?

  ‘Well, it’s the first thing I would think of. Don’t all of us spend our days at school not listening to the teacher because we’re practising our autographs?’

  That’s exactly how I spent my school time. I’d gravitated, with age, from a neat, right-sloping italic to a left-leaning scrawl intended to conjure a poet trying to write after an absinthe bender. Not that I’d ever tasted absinthe. I don’t really approve of alcohol, for obvious reasons, but if I did drink, I’d like to think it would be a green spirit from the seventeenth century.

  ‘Here’s what I’ve been thinking and it’s really why I telephoned you: you could skip your name altogether and just have the label identi
fiable by fabric.’

  ‘But I like my name.’

  In the lifelong battle between overconfidence and self-loathing, it was one of the things about myself I really did like.

  ‘Do you? That’s bold. Okay, so your name, but maybe in relief, like your name is cut out from the label.’

  ‘You’re suggesting things that would be of great interest if I’m catering exclusively to the blind community, which is a niche avenue I hadn’t planned on.’

  ‘You think you’re better than them?’

  She looked like she might have been crying, but then I looked again and saw she just had a row of fake lashes that were bothering her eyes.

  ‘No. Stop twisting my words.’

  She sat and kissed my cheek. ‘But it’s really fun.’

  ‘Not for me. I don’t like being made fun of.’

  ‘Why not? Come on! It’s just joshing.’

  ‘Because I get enough of that at school. And at home.’

  The parlour fire was burning through logs like an old lady at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

  ‘Oh. I’m sorry. Darling. That was insensitive. I suppose they call you yid and kike and Fiddles.’

  ‘They don’t call me Fiddles.’

  ‘“Faggy Yid”, I thought it might have emerged from there. But I am sorry. I like being teased because it means someone’s paying attention.’

  She handed me a silver-backed hairbrush and instructed me, with a wave of her hand, to brush her hair. I took great pleasure in it.

  ‘What would they tease you about?’

  ‘Oh my dad teases me about the suicide and the cutting.’

  ‘Jesus. What else does he think is funny? That’s mad.’

  ‘He looks at me and says, “That’s insane! Will I have to send you to the loony bin?”’

  She smiled, but none of her teeth showed.

  ‘Have you been to the mental hospital?’

  ‘Yes, I mean, a few times. It’s nice to get the rest. Better than rehab.’

  She opened the lid of a Georgian writing desk and pulled out a small plastic vial of cocaine, which she tipped into her palm and sniffed.