‘You really are drunk, aren’t you?’
‘So what about this Emma?’
‘Emma’s just a friend.’
‘Is she now? Well I’m not so sure. In fact I think she likes you.’
‘Everyone likes me. It’s my curse.’
In his head it had sounded fine: raffish and self-mocking, but now they sat in silence and he felt foolish once again, like at those parties where his mother would allow him to sit with the grown-ups and he would show-off and let her down. She smiled at him indulgently, and squeezed his hand as it rested on the table.
‘Be nice, won’t you?’
‘I am nice, I’m always nice.’
‘But not too nice. I mean don’t make a religion out of it, niceness.’
‘I won’t.’ Uncomfortable now, he began to glance around the Piazza.
She nudged his arm. ‘So do you want another bottle of wine, or shall we go back to the hotel and see about your father’s bunions?’
They began to walk north through the back streets that run parallel to the Via del Corso towards the Piazza del Popolo, Dexter adjusting the route as he went to make it as scenic as possible, and he began to feel better, enjoying the satisfaction of knowing a city well. She hung woozily on his arm.
‘So how long are you planning to stay here then?’
‘I don’t know. ’Til October maybe.’
‘But then you will come home and settle down to something, won’t you?’
‘Of course.’
‘I don’t mean live with us. I wouldn’t do that to you. But you know we’d help you out with a deposit on a flat.’
‘There isn’t any rush, is there?’
‘Well it’s been a whole year, Dexter. How much holiday do you need? It’s not as if you worked yourself ragged at University—’
‘I’m not on holiday, I’m working!’
‘What about journalism? Didn’t you talk about journalism?’
He had mentioned it in passing, but only as a distraction and alibi. It seemed that as he ambled through his late teens his possibilities had slowly begun to narrow. Certain cool-sounding jobs – heart surgeon, architect – were permanently closed to him now and journalism seemed about to go the same way. He wasn’t much of a writer, knew little about politics, spoke bad restaurant-French, lacked all training and qualifications, possessed only a passport and a vivid image of himself smoking beneath a ceiling fan in tropical countries, a battered Nikon and a bottle of whisky by his bedside.
Of course what he really wanted was to be a photographer. At sixteen he had completed a photo-project called ‘Texture’, full of black and white close-ups of tree bark and sea-shells which had apparently ‘blown’ his art teacher’s mind. Nothing that he had done since had given him as much satisfaction as ‘Texture’ and those high-contrast prints of frost on windows and the gravel in the driveway. Journalism would mean grappling with difficult stuff like words and ideas, but he thought he might have the makings of a decent photographer, if only because he felt he had a strong sense of when things looked right. At this stage in his life, his main criterion for choosing a career was that it should sound good in a bar, shouted into a girl’s ear, and there was no denying that ‘I’m a professional photographer’ was a fine sentence, almost up there with ‘I report from war zones’ or ‘actually, I make documentaries.’
‘Journalism’s a possibility.’
‘Or business. Weren’t you and Callum going to start up some business?’
‘We’re giving it some thought.’
‘All sounds a bit vague, just “business”.’
‘Like I said, we’re giving it some thought.’ In truth Callum, his old flatmate, had already started the business without him, something about computer refurbishment that Dexter didn’t have the energy to understand. They’d be millionaires by the time they were twenty-five, Callum insisted, but what would it sound like in a bar? ‘Actually, I refurbish computers.’ No, professional photography was his best bet. He decided to try saying it out loud.
‘Actually, I’m thinking about photography.’
‘Photography?’ His mother gave a maddening laugh.
‘Hey, I’m a good photographer!’
‘—when you remember to take your thumb off the lens.’
‘Aren’t you meant to be encouraging me?’
‘What kind of photographer? Glamour?’ She gave a throaty laugh. ‘Or are you going to continue your work on Texture!’ and they had to stop while she stood in the street laughing for some time, doubled over, holding onto his arm for support – ‘All those pictures of gravel!’ – until finally it was over, and she stood and straightened her face. ‘Dexter, I am so, so sorry . . .’
‘I’m actually much better now.’
‘I know you are, I’m sorry. I apologise.’ They began to walk again. ‘You must do it, Dexter, if that’s what you want.’ She squeezed his arm with her elbow, but Dexter felt sulky. ‘We’ve always told you that you can be anything you want to be, if you work hard enough.’
‘It was just a thought,’ he said, petulantly. ‘I’m weighing up my options, that’s all.’
‘Well I hope so, because teaching’s a fine profession, but this isn’t really your vocation, is it? Teaching Beatles songs to moony Nordic girls.’
‘It’s hard work, Mum. Besides it gives me something to fall back on.’
‘Yes, well, sometimes I wonder if you have a little too much to fall back on.’ She was looking down as she spoke and the remark seemed to rebound off the flagstones. They walked a little further before he spoke.
‘And what does that mean?’
‘Oh, I just mean—’ She sighed, and rested her head against his shoulder. ‘I just mean that at some point you’ll have to get serious about life, that’s all. You’re young and healthy and you look nice enough, I suppose, in a low light. People seem to like you, you’re smart, or smart enough, not academically maybe, but you know what’s what. And you’ve had luck, so much luck, Dexter, and you’ve been protected from things, responsibility, money. But you’re an adult now, and one day things might not be this . . .’ She looked around her, indicating the scenic little back street down which he had brought her. ‘ . . . this serene. It would be good if you were prepared for that. It would do you good to be better equipped.’
Dexter frowned. ‘What, a career you mean?’
‘Partly.’
‘You sound like Dad.’
‘Good God, in what way?’
‘A proper job, something to fall back on, something to get up for.’
‘Not just that, not just a job. A direction. A purpose. Some drive, some ambition. When I was your age I wanted to change the world.’
He sniffed ‘Hence the antiques shop,’ and she jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow.
‘That’s now, this was then. And don’t get smart with me.’ She took hold of his arm and they began walking slowly again. ‘I just want you to make me proud, that’s all. I mean I’m already proud of you, and your sister, but, well, you know what I mean. I’m a little drunk. Let’s change the subject. I wanted to talk to you about something else.’
‘What else?’
‘Oh – too late.’ They were in sight of the hotel now, three stars, smart but not ostentatious. Through the smoked plate glass window he could glimpse his father hunched in a lobby armchair, one long thin leg bent up to his knee, sock bunched up in his hand as he scrutinised the sole of his foot.
‘Good God, he’s picking his corns in the hotel lobby. A little bit of Swansea on the Via del Corso. Charming, just charming.’ Alison unlooped her arm and took her son’s hand in hers. ‘Take me for lunch tomorrow, will you? While your father sits in a darkened room and picks his corns. Let’s go out, just you and me, somewhere outside on a nice square. White tablecloths. Somewhere expensive, my treat. You can bring me some of your photographs of interesting pebbles.’
‘Okay,’ he said, sulkily. His mother was smiling but frowning too, squeezing his hand
a little too hard, and he felt a sudden pang of anxiety. ‘Why?’
‘Because I want to talk to my handsome son and I’m a little too drunk right now, I think.’
‘What is it? Tell me now!’
‘It’s nothing, nothing.’
‘You’re not getting divorced, are you?’
She gave a low laugh. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, of course not.’ In the hotel lobby his father had seen them, and was standing and tugging on the ‘push to open’ door. ‘How could I ever leave a man who tucks his shirts into his underpants?’
‘So tell me, what is it?’
‘Nothing bad, sweetheart, nothing bad.’ Standing on the street she gave him a consoling smile and put her hand in the short hair at the back of his neck, pulling him down to her height so that their foreheads were touching. ‘Don’t you worry about a thing. Tomorrow. We’ll talk properly tomorrow.’
CHAPTER THREE
The Taj Mahal
SUNDAY 15 JULY 1990
Bombay and Camden Town
‘ATTENTION PLEASE! Can I have your attention? Some attention if you don’t mind? If you could listen? Don’t throw things, listen please? Please? ATTENTION, PLEASE? Thank you.’
Scott McKenzie settled on his bar stool and looked out at his team of eight staff: all under twenty-five, all dressed in white denim jeans and corporate baseball caps, all of them desperate to be anywhere but here, the Sunday lunch-time shift at Loco Caliente, a Tex-Mex restaurant on the Kentish Town Road where both food and atmosphere were hot hot hot.
‘Now before we open the doors for brunch I’d just like to run through today’s so-called “specials”, if I may. Our soup is that repeat offender, the sweetcorn chowder, and the main course is a very delicious and succulent fish burrito!’
Scott blew air out through his mouth and waited for the groaning and fake retching to subside. A small, pale pink-eyed man with a degree in Business Management from Loughborough, he had once hoped to be a captain of industry. He had pictured himself playing golf at conference centres or striding up the steps of a private jet, and yet just this morning he had scooped a plug of yellow pork fat the size of a human head from the kitchen drains. With his bare hands. He could still feel the grease between his fingers. He was thirty-nine years old, and it wasn’t meant to be this way.
‘Basically, it’s your standard beef-stroke-chicken-stroke-pork burrito but with, and I quote, “delicious moist chunks of cod and salmon”. Who knows, they may even get a prawn or two.’
‘That’s just . . . awful,’ laughed Paddy from behind the bar, where he sat cutting limes into wedges for the necks of beer bottles.
‘Bringing a little touch of the North Atlantic to the cuisine of Latin America,’ said Emma Morley, tying on her waitress’s apron and noticing a new arrival appearing behind Scott, a large, sturdy man, fair curly hair on a large cylindrical head. The new boy. The staff watched him warily, weighing him up as if he were a new arrival on G-wing.
‘On a brighter note,’ said Scott, ‘I’d like to introduce you to Ian Whitehead, who will be joining our happy team of highly trained staff.’ Ian slapped his regulation baseball cap far back on his head and, raising an arm in salute, high-fived the air. ‘Yo, my people!’ he said, in what might have been an American accent.
‘Yo my people? Where does Scott find them?’ sniggered Paddy from behind the bar, his voice calibrated just loud enough for the new arrival to hear.
Scott slapped a palm on Ian’s shoulder, startling him: ‘So I’m going to hand you over to Emma, our longest serving member of staff!—’
Emma winced at the accolade, then smiled apologetically at the new boy, and he smiled back with his mouth closed tight; a Stan Laurel smile.
‘—She’ll show you the basics, and that’s it, everyone. Remember! Fish burritos! Now, music please!’
Paddy pressed play on the greasy tape deck behind the bar and the music began, a maddening forty-five minutes loop of synthetic mariachi music, beginning aptly enough with ‘La Cucaracha’, the cockroach, to be heard twelve times in an eight-hour shift. Twelve times a shift, twenty-four shifts a month, for seven months now. Emma looked down at the baseball cap in her hand. The restaurant logo, a cartoon donkey, peered up at her goggle-eyed from beneath his sombrero, drunk it would seem, or insane perhaps. She settled the cap on her head and slid off the bar stool as if lowering herself into icy water. The new guy was waiting for her, beaming, his fingertips jammed awkwardly into the pockets of his gleaming white jeans, and Emma wondered once again what exactly she was doing with her life.
Emma, Emma, Emma. How are you, Emma? And what are you doing right this second? We’re six hours ahead here in Bombay, so hopefully you’re still in bed with a Sunday morning hangover in which case WAKE UP! IT’S DEXTER!
This letter comes to you from a downtown Bombay hostel with scary mattresses and hot and cold running Australians. My guide book tells me that it has character i.e. rodents but my room also has a little plastic picnic table by the window and it’s raining like crazy outside, harder even than in Edinburgh. It’s CHUCKING IT DOWN, Em, so loud that I can barely hear the compilation tape you made me which I like a lot incidentally except for that jangly indie stuff because after all I’m not some GIRL. I’ve been trying to read the books you gave me at Easter too, though I have to admit I’m finding Howards End quite heavy-going. It’s like they’ve been drinking the same cup of tea for two hundred pages, and I keep waiting for someone to pull a knife or an alien invasion or something, but that’s not going to happen is it? When will you stop trying to educate me, I wonder? Never I hope.
By the way, in case you hadn’t guessed from the Exquisite Prose and all the SHOUTING I’m writing this drunk, beers at lunch time! As you can tell I’m not a great letter writer not like you (your last letter was so funny) but all I will say is that India is incredible. It turns out that being banned from Teaching English as a Foreign Language was the best thing that ever happened to me (though I still think they overreacted. Morally Unfit? Me? Tove was twenty-one). I won’t bore you with all that sunrise over the Hindu-kesh prose except to say that all the clichés are true (poverty, tummy upsets blah blah blah). Not only is it a rich and ancient civilization but you wouldn’t BELIEVE what you can get in the chemists without a prescription.
So I’ve seen some amazing things and while it’s not always fun it is an Experience and I’ve taken thousands of photographs which I will show you very very slooooooowly when I get back. Pretend to be interested, won’t you? After all I pretended to be interested when you banged on about the Poll Tax Riots. Anyway, I showed some of my photos to this TV producer who I met on a train the other day, a woman (not what you think, old, mid-thirties) and she said I could be a professional. She was here producing a sort of young people’s TV travel show thing and she gave me her card and told me to call her in August when they’re back again, so who knows maybe I’ll do some researching or filming even.
What’s happening with you work-wise? Are you doing another play? I really, really enjoyed your Virginia-Woolf-Emily-whatsername play when I was in London, and like I said I think it showed loads of promise which sounds like bullshit but isn’t. I think you’re right to give up acting though, not because you’re not good but because you so obviously hate it. Candy was nice too, much nicer than you made out. Send her my love. Are you doing another play? Are you still in that box room? Does the flat still smell of fried onions? Is Tilly Killick still soaking her big grey bras in the washing-up bowl? Are you still at Mucho Loco or whatever it’s called? Your last letter made me laugh so much, Em, but you should still get out of there because while it’s good for gags it’s definitely bad for your soul. You can’t throw years of your life away because it makes a funny anecdote.
Which brings me to my reason for writing to you. Are you ready? You might want to sit down . . .
∗ ∗ ∗
‘So, Ian – welcome to the graveyard of ambition!’
Emma pushed open the staffroom door, immed
iately knocking over a pint glass on the floor, last night’s fags suspended in lager. The official tour had brought them to the small, dank staffroom which overlooked the Kentish Town Road, packed already with students and tourists on their way to Camden Market to buy large furry top hats and smiley face t-shirts.
‘Loco Caliente means Crazy Hot; “Hot” because the air-conditioning doesn’t work, “crazy” because that’s what you’d have to be to eat here. Or work here, come to that. Mucho mucho loco. I’ll show you where to put your stuff.’ Together they kicked through the mulch of last week’s newspapers to the battered old office cabinet. ‘This is your locker. It doesn’t lock. Don’t be tempted to leave your uniform here overnight either because someone’ll nick it, God knows why. Management flip if you lose your baseball cap. They drown you face down in a vat of tangy barbecue relish—’
Ian laughed, a hearty, slightly forced chortle, and Emma sighed and turned to the staff dining table, still covered with last night’s dirty plates. ‘Lunch hours are twenty minutes and you can have anything from the menu except the jumbo prawns, which I believe is what’s known as a blessing in disguise. If you value life, don’t touch the jumbo prawns. It’s like Russian Roulette, one in six’ll kill you.’ She began to clear the table.
‘Here, let me—’ said Ian, gingerly picking up a meatily smeared plate with the tips of his fingers. New boy – still squeamish, thought Emma, watching him. He had a pleasant, large open face beneath the loose straw-coloured curls, smooth ruddy cheeks and a mouth that hung open in repose. Not exactly handsome, but, well – sturdy. For some reason, not entirely kind, it was a face that made her think of tractors.
Suddenly he met her gaze and she blurted out: ‘So tell me, Ian, what brings you down Mexico Way.’
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