When I was certain I’d got the job, and had accepted the part, I decided to visit Dad and Eva with the news. I thought for an hour about what to wear, and inspected myself from several angles in four mirrors before, during and after dressing casually but not roughly. I didn’t want to look like a bank teller, but neither did I want to expose the remains of my unhappiness and depression. I wore a black cashmere sweater, grey cords – this was lush, thick corduroy, which hung properly and didn’t crease – and black American loafers.
Outside Dad and Eva’s house a couple were getting out of a taxi. A young man with spiky hair was carrying several black cases of photographic equipment and a large lamp. He was accompanied by a smart, middle-aged woman in an expensive beige mac. To the woman’s irritation the photographer gesticulated at me as I walked up the steps and rang Eva’s bell. The man called out a question. ‘Are you Charlie Hero’s manager?’
‘His brother,’ I replied.
Eva came to the door. She was confused for a moment by the three of us arriving at once. And she didn’t recognize me at first: I must have changed, but I didn’t know how. I felt older, I knew that. Eva told me to wait in the hall a minute. So there I stood, leafing through the mail and thinking it had been a mistake to leave America. I’d turn down the soap opera job and go back. When she’d shaken hands with the other two visitors and sat them in the flat, she came to me, arms outstretched, and kissed and hugged me.
‘It’s good to see you again, Eva. You’ve no idea how much I missed you,’ I said.
‘Why are you talking like this?’ she said. ‘Have you forgotten how to talk to your own family?’
‘I’m feeling a little strange, Eva.’
‘All right, love, I understand.’
‘I know you do. That’s why I came back.’
‘Your dad will be pleased to see you,’ she said. ‘He misses you more than any of us miss each other. Do you see? It breaks his heart for you to be away. I tell him Charlie is taking care of you.’
‘Does that reassure him?’
‘No. Is Charlie a heroin addict?’
‘How can you ask these questions, Eva?’
‘Tell me on the nose.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Eva, what’s going on? Who are these ridiculous people?’
She lowered her voice. ‘Not now. I’m being interviewed about the flat for Furnishings magazine. I want to sell this place and move on. They’re taking photographs and talking to me. Why did you have to come today of all days?’
‘Which day would you have preferred?’
‘Stop it,’ she warned me. ‘You’re our prodigal son. Don’t spoil it.’
She led me into the room where I used to sleep on the floor. The photographer was unpacking his cases. I was shocked by Dad’s appearance as he got up to embrace me. ‘Hallo, boy,’ he said. He wore a thick white collar around his neck, which pressed his chins up around his jaw. ‘My neck is paining me no bloody end,’ he explained, grimacing. ‘This sanitary towel takes the weight off my brains. They push down on my spine.’
I thought of how, when I was a kid, Dad always out-ran me as we charged across the park towards the swimming pool. When we wrestled on the floor he always pinned me down, sitting on my chest and making me say I’d obey him always. Now he couldn’t move without flinching. I’d become the powerful one; I couldn’t fight him – and I wanted to fight him – without destroying him in one blow. It was a saddening disappointment.
In contrast, Eva looked fresh and businesslike, in a short skirt, black stockings and flat shoes. Her hair was expensively cut and dyed, her scent was lovely. There was nothing suburban about her; she’d risen above herself to become a glorious middle-aged woman, clever and graceful. Yes, I’d always loved her, and not always as a stepmother, either. I’d been passionate about her, and still was.
She took the journalist on a tour of the flat, and, holding my hand, led me around with them. ‘You come and look at what we’ve done,’ she said to me. ‘Try and admire it, Mr Cynical.’
I did admire it. The place was larger than before. Various storerooms and much of the broad hallway had been incorporated, and the rooms opened out. She and Ted had worked hard.
‘As you can see, it’s very feminine in the English manner,’ she said to the journalist as we looked over the cream carpets, gardenia paintwork, wooden shutters, English country-house armchairs and cane tables. There were baskets of dried flowers in the kitchen and coconut matting on the floor. ‘It’s soft but not cluttered,’ she went on. ‘Not that this is my favourite look.’
‘I see,’ said the journalist.
‘Personally, I’d like something more Japanese.’
‘Japanese, eh?’
‘But I want to be able to work in a number of styles.’
‘Like a good hairdresser,’ said the journalist. Eva couldn’t help herself: she gave the woman a fierce look before recomposing her face. I laughed aloud.
The photographer rearranged the furniture and photographed objects only in the places where they had not been initially positioned. He photographed Eva only in poses which she found uncomfortable and in which she looked unnatural. She pushed her fingers back through her hair a hundred times, and pouted and opened her eyes wide as if her lids had been pinned back. And all the while she talked to the journalist about the transformation of the flat from its original dereliction into this example of the creative use of space. She made it sound like the construction of Notre Dame. She didn’t say she was intending to put the flat on the market as soon as the article came out, using the piece as a lever to get a higher price. When the journalist asked her, ‘And what is your philosophy of life?’ Eva behaved as if this enquiry were precisely the sort of thing she expected to be asked in the course of discussing interior decoration.
‘My philosophy of life.’
Eva glanced at Dad. Normally such a question would be an excuse for him to speak for an hour on Taoism and its relation to Zen. But he said nothing. He just turned his face away. Eva went and sat beside him on the arm of the sofa, and, with a gesture both affectionate and impersonal, she stroked his cheek. The caress was tender. She looked at him with affection. She always wanted to please him. She still loves him, I thought. And I was glad he was being cared for. But something occurred to me: did he love her? I wasn’t sure. I would observe them.
Eva was confident and proud and calm. She had plenty to say; she’d thought things over for many years; at last ideas were beginning to cohere in her mind. She had a world-view, though ‘paradigm’ would be a word she’d favour.
‘Before I met this man,’ she said. ‘I had no courage and little faith. I’d had cancer. One breast was removed. I rarely talk about it,’ The journalist nodded, respecting this confidence. ‘But I wanted to live. And now I have contracts in that drawer for several jobs. I am beginning to feel I can do anything – with the aid of techniques like meditation, self-awareness and yoga. Perhaps a little chanting to slow the mind down. You see, I have come to believe in self-help, individual initiative, the love of what you do, and the full development of all individuals. I am constantly disappointed by how little we expect of ourselves and of the world.’
She looked hard at the photographer. He shifted in his seat; his mouth opened and closed twice. He almost spoke. Was she addressing him? Did he expect too little of himself? But she was off again.
‘We have to empower ourselves. Look at those people who live on sordid housing estates. They expect others – the Government – to do everything for them. They are only half human, because only half active. We have to find a way to enable them to grow. Individual human flourishing isn’t something that either socialism or conservatism caters for.’
The journalist nodded at Eva. Eva smiled at her. But Eva hadn’t finished; more thoughts were occurring to her. She hadn’t talked like this before, not with this clarity. The tape was running. The photographer leaned forward and whispered in the journalist’s ear. ‘Don’t forget to ask about Hero,’ I hea
rd him say.
‘No comment about that,’ Eva said. She wanted to go on. The fatuity of the question didn’t irritate her: she just wanted to continue developing her theme. Her thoughts seemed to surprise her. ‘I think I –’ she began.
As Eva opened her mouth, the journalist lifted herself up and twisted her body around to Dad, cutting Eva out. ‘You have been complimented, sir. Any comment? Does this philosophy mean much to you?’
I liked seeing Eva dominate. After all, Dad was often pompous, a little household tyrant, and he’d humiliated me so frequently as a kid that I felt it did him good to be in this position. However, it didn’t yield me the pleasure it could have. Dad was not chirpy today; he wasn’t even showing off. He spoke slowly, looking straight ahead at the journalist.
‘I have lived in the West for most of my life, and I will die here, yet I remain to all intents and purposes an Indian man. I will never be anything but an Indian. When I was young we saw the Englishman as a superior being.’
‘Really?’ said the journalist, with a little pleasure.
‘Oh, yes,’ Dad said. ‘And we laughed in his white face for it. But we could see that his was a great achievement. And this society you have created in the West is the richest there has been in the history of the world. There is money, yes, there are washing-up bowls. There is domination of nature and the Third World. There is domination all round. And the science is most advanced. You have the bombs you need to make yourself feel safe. Yet there is something missing.’
‘yes?’ enquired the journalist, with less pleasure than before. ‘Please tell us what we are missing.’
‘You see, miss, there has been no deepening in culture, no accumulation of wisdom, no increase in the way of the spirit. There is a body and mind, you see. Definite. We know that. But there is a soul, too.’
The photographer snorted. The journalist hushed him, but he said, ‘Whatever you mean by that.’
‘Whatever I mean by that,’ said Dad, his eyes sparkling with mischief.
The journalist looked at the photographer. She didn’t reproach him; she just wanted to get out. None of this would go into the article, and they were wasting their time.
‘What’s the point of even discussing the soul?’ the photographer said.
Dad continued. This failure, this great hole in your way of life, defeats me. But ultimately, it will defeat you.’
After this, he said no more. Eva and I looked at him and waited, but he’d done. The journalist switched the cassette-player off and put the tapes in her bag. She said, ‘Eva, that marvellous chair, tell me – where did you get it?’
‘Has Charlie sat on it?’ said the photographer. He was now confused, and angry with Dad.
The pair of them got up to leave. ‘I’m afraid it’s time,’ said the journalist, and headed rapidly for the door. Before she got there it was thrown open, and Uncle Ted, all out of breath and wide-eyed in anticipation, charged into the room. ‘Where are you going?’ he said to the journalist, who looked blankly at this hairless madman in a demob suit with a pack of beers in his hand.
‘To Hampstead.’
‘Hampstead?’ said Ted. He jabbed at his underwater watch. ‘I’m not late, maybe a little. My wife fell down the stairs and hurt herself.’
‘Is she all right?’ Eva said with concern.
‘She’s in a right bad state, she really is.’ Ted sat down, looked around at all of us, nodding at me, and addressed the journalist. His distress possessed him; he wasn’t ashamed of it. He said, ‘I pity my wife, Jean.’
‘Ted –’ Eva tried to interrupt him.
‘She deserves all our pity,’ he said.
‘Really?’ said the journalist, dismissively.
‘Yes, yes! How do we become that way? How does it happen? One day we’re children, our faces are bright and open. We want to know how machines work. We are in love with polar bears. The next day we’re throwing ourselves down the stairs, drunk and weeping. Our lives are over. We hate life and we hate death.’ He turned to the photographer. ‘Eva said you’d want to photograph us together. I’m her partner. We do everything together. Don’t you want to ask me any questions about our working methods? They’re quite unique. They could be an example to others.’
‘Sadly, we must be off,’ said the tight-arsed scribbler.
‘Never mind,’ said Eva, touching Ted lightly on the arm.
‘You’re a bloody fool, Ted,’ said Dad, laughing at him.
‘No, I’m not,’ Ted said firmly. He knew he was not a fool; no one could convince him he was.
Uncle Ted was glad to see me, and I him. We had plenty to say. His depression had cleared; he was like he was before, when I was a kid, salty and enthusiastic. But the violence was gone, the way he used to look at everyone the first time he met them, as if they meant to harm him and he’d have to harm them first.
‘My work, I love it, son,’ he said. ‘I could have talked about that to the newspapers. I was going half mad, you remember? Eva saved me.’
‘Dad saved you.’
‘I want to save other people from leading untrue lives. D’you live an untrue life, Creamy?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Whatever you do, don’t bloody lie to yourself. Don’t –’
Eva came back in and said to him, ‘We must go.’
Ted gestured at Dad. ‘I need to talk, Haroon. I need you to listen to me! Yes?’
‘No,’ said Eva. ‘We’ve got to work. Come on.’
So Ted and Eva went off to discuss a job with a client in Chelsea. ‘Have a pint with me later this week,’ Ted said.
When they’d gone Dad asked me to cook him cheese on toast. ‘But make it not too floppy,’ he said.
‘Haven’t you eaten, then?’
That’s all it took to get him started. He said, ‘Eva doesn’t look after me now. She’s too busy. I’ll never get used to this new woman business. Sometimes I hate her. I know I shouldn’t say it. I can’t bear her near me but hate it when she’s not here. I’ve never felt like this before. What’s happening to me?’
‘Don’t ask me, Dad.’
I didn’t want to leave him but I’d agreed to visit Mum. ‘I have to go,’ I said.
‘Listen to just one thing more,’ he said.
‘What is it?’
‘I’m leaving my job. I’ve given my notice. The years I’ve wasted in that job.’ He threw up his hands. ‘Now I’m going to teach and think and listen. I want to discuss how we live our lives, what our values are, what kind of people we’ve become and what we can be if we want. I aim to encourage people to think, to contemplate, to just let go their obsessions. In which school is this valuable meditation taught? I want to help others contemplate the deeper wisdom of themselves which is often concealed in the rush of everyday life. I want to live intensely my own life! Good, eh?’
‘It’s the best thing I’ve heard you say,’ I said gently.
‘Don’t you think so?’ My father’s enthusiasm was high. ‘What reveries I’ve been having recently. Moments when the universe of opposites is reconciled. What intuitions of a deeper life! Don’t you think there should be a place for free spirits like me, wise old fools like the sophists and Zen teachers, wandering drunkenly around discussing philosophy, psychology and how to live? We foreclose on reality prematurely, Karim. Our minds are richer and wider than we ever imagine! I will point these obvious things out to young people who have lost themselves.’
‘Excellent.’
‘Karim, this is the meaning of my life.’
I put my jacket on and left him. He watched me walk down the street; I was sure he was still talking to me as I went. I got the bus down through South London. I was in a nervous state emotionally. At the house I found Allie getting dressed to Cole Porter songs. ‘Mum’s not here yet,’ he said. She hadn’t come home from the health centre where she was now working as a receptionist for three doctors.
I could see he’d become pretty zooty, little Allie. His clothes were Italian
and immaculate, daring and colourful without being vulgar, and all expensive and just right: the zips fitted, the seams were straight, and the socks were perfect – you can always tell a quality dresser by the socks. He didn’t even look out of place sitting there on Mum’s fake leather sofa, the flowery pouf in front of him, his shoes resting on Mum’s Oxfam rug like jewels on toilet paper. Some people know how to do things, and I was glad to see that my brother was one of them. Allie had money, too; he was working for a clothes designer. He and I talked like grown-ups; we had to. But we were shy and slightly embarrassed all the same. Allie’s ironic attitude changed when I told him about the soap opera job. I didn’t make much of it: I talked like I was doing them a favour by being in it. Allie jumped up and clapped his hands. ‘That’s great! What brilliant news. Well done, Karim!’ I couldn’t understand it: Allie went on and on about it as if it meant something.
‘It’s not like you to be so keen,’ I said suspiciously when he came back from ringing his friends and telling them about my job. ‘What’s gone wrong with your head, Allie? Are you putting me on?’
‘No, no, honest. That last play you did, with Pyke directing, it was good, even entertaining once or twice.’
‘Yeah?’
He paused, perhaps fearing that his praise had been too warm. ‘It was good – but hippie.’
‘Hippie? What was hippie about it?’
‘It was idealistic. The politics got on my nerves. We all hate whingeing lefties, don’t we?’
‘Do we? What for?’
‘Oh yeah. Their clothes look like rags. And I hate people who go on all the time about being black, and how persecuted they were at school, and how someone spat at them once. You know: self-pity.’
The Buddha of Suburbia Page 31