Jubilee

by Shelley Harris

  Come fly with me, we’ll float down in the blue

  Satish thought about what would happen next. It wasn’t enough just to keep clear of her this afternoon, he realised, not for a week or even a month. It would never be OK for her, to be seen with him. Mandy looked up and emitted a disgruntled ‘huh!’, and there was Sarah, seated just across from them.

  Mandy made to pull away, but he held on for a bit longer. He concentrated on her hand, on filing its details away in his memory: the soft swell at the base of her thumb, the crenellations of her knuckles, the sticky heat of her palm and the cool of her fingertips. Then he felt a movement behind him, and suddenly Cai was there. The edge of Mandy’s nail slid across the backs of his fingers, and they parted.

  ‘Mind if I sit here?’

  Satish did, hugely, but he couldn’t summon up the energy to say no, and in any case the request was a formality; Cai had already parked himself between Satish and Mandy. Satish went to scratch his head and touched a hat instead, and remembered he was wearing it – he alone of all the kids – but he couldn’t be bothered to feel embarrassed.

  The man with the camera had finished circling the table. He crouched down at their end, and held up a black gadget which he clicked repeatedly, moving it around in front of him.

  ‘We’re OK, Satish?’ said Cai in his ear. He’d swivelled round so that he was side-on to his chair, and faced his friend.

  ‘Go away.’

  ‘I know things went wrong, but that’s over. We’re OK.’

  ‘I don’t care. Go away.’

  Andrew Ford raised the camera to his eye.

  They’re having some trouble placing Colette in the photograph. Satish watches from his post on the wall; he’s the last to sit down. He’d like to stay here for a while, see how everyone else settles in before he goes over. At six, Colette perched happily on her dad’s lap. At thirty-six, it looks a little odd. Andrew Ford thinks so too, he can tell. There’s lots of good-natured oohing from her and her dad, some mock-solicitous enquiries about the strain on his legs, but Satish knows what Ford is thinking: it’s awkward and ungainly at best.

  Ford gestures Colette further towards the edge of Peter’s lap, and the pose takes on an unwelcome burlesque quality. When she replaces herself more centrally, she overwhelms her father, blocking him from the camera. They start again. Peter runs a finger inside his suit collar. Next to him, Sarah is making determined conversation with the woman seated to her right. Occasionally she sneaks a glance at Mandy, chatting animatedly with Neil Wilson. Sarah’s not the only one, thinks Satish. Peter’s taken up with Mandy too, his gaze resting on her for the moments when his attention is not claimed by Colette or Andrew Ford.

  Everyone’s different now, Colette had told Satish, and he had disagreed. All they’d done is grown up, he’d replied. They hadn’t changed at all. Maybe he’d been right about that; here was Cai, resolutely offering his father the cold shoulder. Here were Sarah and Mandy, the wall between them still in place. Here were the unspoken secrets Peter still kept close.

  Something has changed, though: Satish has. He has treated with the past, has negotiated terms with it. He won’t be hearing from Stephen again. And Cai? In June 1977 Cai was just a kid, and we’re all better than the worst thing we’ve done. As for Satish, he can see himself more clearly now: Satish isn’t a victim after all, but tenacious, a survivor. That’s the joy of history: its clear, backward glance. Satish has endured. He’s stuck it out and made a place for himself, a good place: a home.

  ‘Hey! Satish!’

  Cai has turned in his seat and is gesturing him over. Satish realises that everything else is ready: they are only waiting for him. Colette is standing behind her father, her arms around his shoulders, their logistical struggles resolved. Mandy and Sarah are still finding other things to pay attention to, before Ford requires them to pay attention to each other for a short while. When Satish takes his seat at the end of the table, Cai, uninhibited, throws his arms around him.

  ‘Fantastic!’ says Andrew Ford, raising the camera to his eye. ‘That’s just …’

  He presses the shutter release. The aperture opens for one two-hundred-and-fiftieth of a second.

  One two-hundred-and-fiftieth of a second

  It was less than the time it takes to form a conscious thought. But there were shadows of thoughts: precursors, or echoes of those just past. When the shutter opened, the back of the camera was flooded with light. For that fractional time, the silver bromide crystals underwent extraordinary changes, and tiny silver deposits formed an invisible image which would later resolve itself into a table set with party food, a father holding his daughter, two girls oblivious, and – right at the front of the photograph – two lads tussling, entwined. Less than the time it takes to form a conscious thought. But there were shadows of thoughts.

  Mandy and Sarah were armoured; each was outraged, each convinced of the rightness of her own position. Now they had caught each other’s gaze, neither would break it. Sarah was hell-bent on this and this alone, but Mandy had only half a mind on it. She could still feel the place where Satish had held her hand, and as the shutter-release opened she was engaged in mapping the area he had so recently touched and wondering when the opportunity would come for him to touch her again.

  Colette, ensconced on her father’s lap, could feel him surround her, and that made her secure and warm. Next to her was Sarah, and she didn’t want to look at Sarah, just in case Sarah had already gone home and seen the mess Colette had made of her bedroom, just in case Sarah guessed and told on her. Sarah with her high shoes and her new necklace: she’d made them hurt Satish. The posters were all torn down, all the popstars and film stars, and it didn’t matter to Colette because she knew she’d never, ever want to go into Sarah’s room again. Now the man wanted to take a picture of her, and she knew how smart she looked in her new outfit. She wanted to give her best smile. She wanted not to wriggle, to stay still for the picture, so she pulled and pulled at the flag Dad had given her, transferring all her energy to that. She beamed: her brightest smile.

  Peter was staggered by grief. It came on him unawares in the seconds before the picture was taken. There was Colette fiddling, fiddling, claiming his attention, and then, just as she stilled herself he looked across at Mandy and was hit by it: his girl! She was lovely and young and foolish and he would soon be gone, unable to help her with anything. Three hundred pounds was derisory: he saw that clearly. It was nothing next to the dreadful, untenable reality of his departure, of their separation. How could money possibly stack up against that? Was it too late to change his plans now? What had he been thinking?

  Cai was aware of his father opposite him, of the thrilling fact of his own rebellion. It was the best rebellion he could imagine: I am not you. He was ready for the fall-out. He welcomed it. His dad was looking, so Cai held Satish close to him. As he leaned into his friend, he felt the cold bar of a safety pin pressing against his bare skin. With his navy shirt buttoned up no one would ever see the T-shirt, his secret protest, but his other protest was less secret: two fingers up to them all. The moment the aperture opened, Frank Sinatra was cut off, mid-line: It’s perfect for a flying honey – and the first note of God Save The Queen broke in, discordant. It would be several seconds before everyone realised what was happening but Cai, with his burgeoning dissent and his access to his father’s recording equipment, knew it was coming. He couldn’t wait.

  Satish had his own protest to make. Against the insistence of the pain and between the two clicks of the camera, two clicks so close they sounded like one unless you were listening very carefully, he subliminally registered the first howls from the centre of the table. They came from near his parents, from the place where the Chandlers were sitting, and they carried with them the sound of fury and disbelief. Those chillis of his mother’s had been chosen in Bassetsbury from her favourite greengrocer: she was fussy. She’d brought them all the way back here on the bus and hung them in the airing cupboard. She’d p
ounded them tenderly that morning, wanting them to be as fresh as possible for the party dishes. Crushed to a powder, they’d mingled with the flaked almonds on top of the Coronation Chicken. In one two-hundred-and-fiftieth of a second he’d heard the sound of revenge. Not his best revenge – not yet – but a temporary one, at least.

  The shutter closed.

  Acknowledgements

  I am hugely grateful to the following people for the help and support they have given me in the writing of Jubilee:

  My agent Jo Unwin: an absolute corker, both personally and professionally. Respect is due.

  My editor at W&N, Kirsty Dunseath, for being exacting, insightful – and brilliant.

  The team at Orion, for their enthusiasm and expertise, and for making me feel so welcome.

  The Literary Consultancy for their unwavering belief in the novel, and Harry Bingham for making it all happen.

  Dal Dhariwal and Sonia Holloway for telling their childhood stories with such candour.

  Kishor Joshi for the astonishing generosity with which he shared his stories of family and food. And for the best cup of masala chai it will ever be my privilege to taste.

  Chandrika Little Dragon, Mumta Sharma and Seema Mehta for wading through early drafts with patience and an eye for detail.

  Thanks to J for helping me understand the world of Narcotics Anonymous, and for trusting me with the knowledge of her own addiction: ‘it will stay here’.

  My friend and ace paediatrician Dr Maeve O’Sullivan, who dealt womanfully with the constant stream of medical queries I sent her. Thanks also to Alder Hey cardiac nurse Gill McBurney, and to Dr Louise Dubras, for medical consultancy above and beyond the call of duty. Any mistakes which remain are mine alone.

  Professor Martin Elliot and Dr Rob Yates at Great Ormond Street Hospital, for helping me find the best part of Satish; I will never stop thanking you.

  To Rob Sheffield for teaching me My House, Your House and for telling me, with such vividness, what it felt like to listen to the Sex Pistols in Cwmbwrla.

  Thanks to Jenny and Dick Harris for everything – from the first word you read me, to the last one in this book.

  To Seth and Caleb: I love you so much I could pop.

  And finally to Alex, who has given me a room of my own and so much more than I could ever say here: thank you.

  Come Fly With Me

  Words by Sammy Cahn

  Music by James Van Heusen

  Copyright © 1958 Cahn Music Co., WB Music Corp. and Maraville Music Corp.

  Copyright Renewed

  All Rights for Cahn Music Co. Administered by WB Music Corp.

  International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved.

  Reprinted by permission of Cherry Lane Music Company and Chelsea Music Publishing Limited.

  Copyright

  A Weidenfeld & Nicolson ebook

  First published in Great Britain in 2011

  by Weidenfeld & Nicolson

  This ebook first published in 2011

  by Weidenfeld & Nicolson

  Copyright © 2011 Shelley Harris

  The right of Shelley Harris to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978 0 297 86460 8

  The Orion Publishing Group Ltd

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  London, WC2H 9EA

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