Narcissism for Beginners

by Martine McDonagh

  I sit on a bench across the street from the town hall and eat, staring and thinking about the first time you and Ruth Williams met inside that actual building, and, while I’m sitting there, watching the world of privilege run its errands, that woman with the crazy hair who’s in all the Tim Burton movies walks by. No hat, no glasses, and nobody, except me, gives her a second glance. Look and learn, Hollywood, look and learn.

  Ruth opens the door and, before I can step inside, says, ‘What a wonderful film.’

  I look behind me, confused. It’s not the word film that confuses me, Thomas says that all the time, just I forgot we talked about it. Then I remember. ‘Shaun of the Dead? You already watched it?’

  ‘Yes, I often watch films while I’m resting. Thank you so much for recommending it; I would never have come across it otherwise. I enjoyed it very much. In fact, I’ve had an idea. Rather than sit in this gloomy old house tomorrow, why don’t we visit a couple of the locations together? I can talk as we go. Unless you’d rather go alone, of course.’ She’s all excited and I’m still standing on the doorstep.

  ‘Definitely, sounds good to me. You didn’t mind all the cursing?’

  She stands aside at last, waves me in. ‘Oh, no, I’ve heard much worse than that in my time, believe me, most of it from the mouths of six-year-olds. It may not look like it to you, but I have lived a bit, you know.’

  We chat some more about the movie while Ruth makes tea. Her kitchen’s all black and white and green. She has a huge crush on Bill Nighy, the guy who plays Philip, Shaun’s stepdad in the movie, says what a great actor he is, and how in her younger days she would have also thought Ed in SOTD very handsome. When I point out that they aren’t exactly of a similar type, she says it’s something in their voices; that my dad had the same thing going on, with the opposite effect. I don’t know her well enough yet to tell her how weird that is.

  ‘Please would you carry the tray?’ she says, kind of apologetically. ‘As you’re here. They tell me not to carry and walk because of my condition, but it’s just a Health and Safety thing and I’d like to know how anything would get from A to B in this house if I didn’t.’

  In these first couple days with Ruth I sense a kind of challenge in the small tasks she sets me, as if she needs to see me demonstrate the possession of certain qualities, to assure herself I’ve turned out to be the kind of person she hoped I would. Or, more specifically, that I’m not the person she’s scared I might be – my father.

  We sit down and Ruth closes her eyes – I guess she’s entering the meditation zone where the old memories are easier to find – and picks up where I tell her she left off.

  ‘That first day I met your father he was wearing a bright turquoise suit with a pale blue shirt and red tie. Most young people would have been embarrassed to be seen in the street dressed like that, even in the ’80s, but you could tell he was the type to relish the attention. My first impression of him was not of someone needy, desperate or vulnerable, as so many were, but determined and single-minded, and it was obvious to me that the object of his determination was Suki.

  ‘We all sat cross-legged on the floor in a semi-circle, as usual, and waited for Suki to start the discourse. The room was lit by a single lamp and several candles, and the curtains were drawn to keep out the last of the sunshine.

  ‘Suki smiled at each of us in turn then fixed Agelaste Bim with those blue eyes that I had presumed to be so clear-sighted, and said, “Welcome to LifeForce, on behalf of us all. Tonight’s discourse is on the subject of trust, but first let’s meditate together for a few minutes.” I half-closed my eyes so I could carry on watching him. As a newcomer, he was expected to sit and absorb the beneficial vibrations given off by the group, but he didn’t even bother to pretend to be affected by them. While everyone else straightened their backs and assumed a look of serenity, he kept his eyes wide open, looking at the little hammock Suki’s skirt made of the loose fabric between her thighs, where her hands were resting. He stared at her, challenging her to open her eyes and engage with him. But in those days nothing could break her concentration.

  ‘At the end, there were the usual questions from the group about how to trust in the face of adversity, that sort of thing, and Bim pretended to listen intently, but I could tell he was waiting to jump in with his own question, not that he gave any outward sign of impatience. I hope you don’t mind me calling him Bim, I don’t mean to be disrespectful but the name is a bit of a mouthful. Anyway, his question was, “How long does it take to get enlightened?”, which at a LifeForce discourse was a bit of a showstopper. Suki put her hands together and said, “Let’s talk about it over tea,” and so he scored himself a double success, nipping all the other nonsense questions in the bud and guaranteeing a private chat with Suki in the break.

  ‘Suki knelt down beside him and gestured to me to join them. “How did you find that?” she said, and he smiled at her, nodding slowly like the proverbial cream-filled cat, and said, “Fantastic.” To be fair to Suki, she treated him like any other newcomer, asked if he had ever done yoga and he replied that he’d tried it. Did he want to learn how to meditate? Of course he did. And then she trumped him, clever girl. “Okay, then,” she said. “Why don’t you arrange to meet Ruth here in the next couple of days and she can start you off with a basic breath meditation.”’

  Ruth laughs. A long and wicked laugh.

  ‘He was miffed, to say the least. A date with me had not been on his agenda. As for me, I was flabbergasted! Suki of course chatted on, asked him about the origins of his name, and he lashed back at her with, “When you were born, were your parents expecting a parrot?”’

  I tell Ruth I don’t get it and she sings a little song about someone telling Polly to put the kettle on. I still don’t get it.

  ‘I knew Suki wasn’t her real name, it was the one Ishvana gave her, but she didn’t tell Bim that, just smiled at us both and went off to speak to one of the others, leaving us to make our arrangements. I was less concerned for her welfare after that and I’ve often wondered since if that was the point of the whole performance.

  ‘I met him for his lesson at Suki and Andrew’s house a couple of days later. Suki was upstairs, a few hours into an eight-hour meditation. His shoes were like nothing I’d ever seen, sky blue leather with the big toe separated off from the others, like a thumb in a mitten. When I commented on them he said he’d had them made to his own design by a cobbler in London. They made his feet look like cloven hooves, but I refrained from pointing that out.

  ‘Anyway, to get back to the story – he asked whose house it was and I told him, deliberately implying Suki and Andrew were a couple. But he knew I was trying to put him off and gave me that smile of his, to let me know he knew better.

  ‘To tell the truth, I was a little scared to be alone with him. I was glad Suki was upstairs even if she was as good as on another planet. I was still hoping the LifeForce rules would put him off before we even got round to the meditation, so I reeled them off, right there in the hallway: “We all follow a strict vegan diet: no meat, no dairy, no animal products or processed foods. This is essential to keep the system free of toxins and stress and aid the movement of energy through the chakras during meditation. For the same reason the use of alcohol, drugs or stimulants of any kind, including cigarettes, is prohibited, and we limit our intake of tea and coffee. Natural remedies and homoeopathy are preferable to prescribed medicine.” We didn’t usually release all this information at once in case it put people off, but not him, he just stood there, unfazed, with that arrogant smirk on his face. I had a feeling the restrictions on clothing wouldn’t bother him either, but told him anyway. “Certain colours help to channel different energies,” I said. “Blue is protective and healing. Black blocks our energy and has a negative effect on our aura. White is too powerful for anyone other than second initiates and the enlightened to wear.” He interrupted to say he always instinctively wore his favourite blue shirt when he was feeling unwell. I ignored him;
I was building up to my pièce de résistance. “You may have noticed fewer men than women at the meeting. Our meditation and healthy lifestyle makes the young women in LifeForce extraordinarily attractive, which often entices men along to one or two meetings, but, once they discover what is truly involved here, that we uphold a strict rule of celibacy outside marriage, they soon lose interest.” I paused for him to say something, but he just stared at me, showing not the slightest sign of discouragement. My ace was on the table and I was running out of options. I had one last go at putting him off.

  ‘“Everyone involved in LifeForce is on a spiritual journey towards enlightenment, both together and alone, and the foundation of that journey, the path itself, is the meditation. So, before I teach you the first stage of meditation, I will need a commitment from you that you will sit down to meditate twice a day, first thing in the morning and last thing at night, and that you will endeavour to live by LifeForce rules. It’s a lot to take on, so if you need to go away and think it over that’s fine, or if you have any questions now, please ask.”

  ‘“So,” he said, “are Suki and Andrew married?” He put his face closer to mine and whispered, “Or was that intended to put me off?” He had the upper hand and he knew it, and like all assured champions he didn’t linger on it. “I don’t think any of that will be a problem for me,” he said. “Though I may find it difficult to give up cheese.” I could have smacked him.

  ‘After he’d gone, I picked up a framed picture of Ishvana from the little shrine in the living room and remembered how I’d felt the first time I saw it. With his white suit and long hair and sideburns, he reminded me of a TV detective from the ’70s. One thing LifeForce had taught me was to look beyond the physical, to view the body as nothing more than a vessel for spirit, for grace. I knew it would be difficult to apply that lesson where Agelaste Bim was concerned, but I had to try, for Suki. Anyway, all I could do was come back to London and try to forget about him.

  ‘If you don’t mind, maybe we could stop there for today. It looks as if we’re in for a storm.’

  I’ve been staring at Ruth’s face for so long that it’s shape-shifting, morphing like the faces in one of my night scenes from old lady to fairytale princess to young girl and back to old lady. I look away. The sky over the rooftops has turned a deep shade of purple and the street lamps on the next street are lit orange. Ruth switches on the lamp behind her chair, and I quit recording. I take a slug of cold tea and ask if it would be okay to have another beverage before I leave; I’m feeling quite chill.

  ‘Of course,’ she says. ‘You should stay until the storm’s blown over in any case. You’re welcome to use my spare room, you know, if you need somewhere to stay.’

  I thank her and tell her I already have a hotel room.

  We sit in silence, sipping our tea, deliberately not talking about you and my dad, watching the storm develop into a spectacularly heavy rain shower. We talk about the rain and the song about it never raining in SoCal and by the time we’ve finished our tea the dark clouds have been replaced by blue.

  We say goodbye until tomorrow and she waves me off from the door.

  I detour to a joint selling burgers made of organic meats I never even heard of at Trustafarian-only prices, order myself a wild organic elkburger – all that vegan talk, right? – which I eat standing at the counter. When I get back to my hotel I’m too mentally exhausted, and physically weighed down by delicious elk meat, to do anything more energetic than lie on the bed messing with my tablet. I wonder what Thomas is doing. He didn’t reply to my last message, I guess it didn’t need a reply or else he’s waiting until I’ve opened all his envelopes. I post a photo of the pack of cookies I bought on the way home and tag him in with the message: Hitting the Bourbon.

  I fall asleep watching TV and wake up again at four a.m. with the TV and all the lights still on. I switch it all off, but then I’m lying there in the dark, eyes wide open, thinking about you and how finding out more about you only makes you seem like more of a stranger. I calculate that it’s only eight-twenty p.m. at home and while my body is still stuck in that schedule I may as well indulge it, so I turn on the light, call room service to order a pizza, then man right up and read Thomas’s second letter.

  Things We Can’t Undo #2

  Brazil. As good a place to start as any. Getting off the plane in Recife was like walking into a furnace. I’d slept on the flight but was still exhausted. No sooner had I shut myself in my room to sleep than your father woke me and told me to get up, that he had a job for me. I begged a few minutes’ grace to get my bearings and go and sit and smoke a little skagerette out on the balcony – that’s how I spoke in those days, I was a complete tosser. ‘Balcony?’ he said. He was so pissed off that I had a balcony and he didn’t that he didn’t even register that I’d smuggled a few days’ supply of heroin across the Atlantic. Anyway, he handed me some notes he’d scribbled on a sheet of paper, stapled to a photograph of the entrance to Quilombo Novo and wrapped around a thick wad of reals, then sent me on my way without even giving me time to shower. He was paranoid that someone else would get there before me and foil his plan.

  He had read about Quilombo Novo, when we were in prison, in his favourite book, Great Spiritual Masters of the Twentieth Century. It was established in the sixties by a chap called Guru Mehdi.

  Yeah, so Thomas was in prison with my dad; it’s where they met.

  Your father claimed to have received a message from the Universe that Guru Mehdi had died and that he was to be Mehdi’s successor, charged with the task of restoring the commune to its full spiritual capacity. My job was to travel ahead as a kind of envoy and set things up for your father’s arrival. I didn’t know any of this until we were on our way to Manchester airport. Not that I would have argued; I was more than happy to leave England and it all sounded like a great laugh. I said something like, “So the Universe didn’t tell them you’re coming, then,” and he answered, completely straight, “No, it may not have. You need to make sure that Mehdi didn’t appoint a successor before he died.” Your father wasn’t famous for his sense of humour and I’m ashamed to say that his failure in that department never stopped being a source of entertainment.

  From the hotel in Recife, he sent me to Olinda to find you all a place to stay, which turned out to be surprisingly easy. A woman in the tourist office made a phone call to a family who she thought would gladly vacate their house for a few months, in exchange for more money than they would normally earn in a year. They even agreed to leave their eldest daughter behind to work as a maid as part of the deal – your Maria.

  Maria! The only truly happy memories I have of my childhood feature Maria. It was love at first sight and I guess partly I loved her so much because she loved me. She taught me how to do so many cool things: how to sweep the floor and how to stab a straw into the top of a coconut and drink its sweet juice. Taught me the names of flowers and how to mimic the calls of the noisy colourful birds. How to mash manioc in the kitchen. How to greet the storekeepers at the bottom of the hill – bom dia! – and the stallholders in the market at the top of the hill – bom dia! Day after heavenly day, I watched her firm round buttocks switch from side to side in front of my face as we trudged up the hill in the heat, from the store to our house, or further up the hill from our house to the market, her yakking away to me in a language I didn’t understand, but who cared, right? And in return I must have told her stories about you and Andrew and my friends at school because that would have been all I knew then. And we both made listening noises and neither of us cared that we understood none of it; words didn’t matter, we had so many ways to communicate, Maria and me. She showed me how to tickle the pink and purple medusas washed up on the shore with a straw of broken reed. Taught me to tread carefully to avoid the spines of puffer fish half-buried in the sand and showed me the spot where the turtles buried their eggs. Told me stories of sharks and surfers. Sat me down on the terrace at the public library and showed me pictures of her bel
oved goddess Yemanja.

  I could go on forever, but this is Thomas’s story.

  First mission accomplished, I returned to Recife for one night, strictly against orders, to replenish my dwindling drug supply, in the scariest bar I’ve ever spent time in and come out of unharmed. I bunked up at a decrepit hotel near the bus station and didn’t sleep a wink, expecting to be murdered or at least robbed at any moment, but presuming I was marginally safer there than out on the streets. Next morning I caught the earliest possible bus to Cabrobó, twelve-hours into the Sertão, Pernambuco’s desert hinterland. Quilombo Novo was a few miles on from Cabrobó. I’d been instructed to settle in first then write to your father via the tourist office in Olinda as soon as I’d set things up for him to make his appearance.

  You may be wondering why I was so keen to do your father’s bidding. The truth is I was financially dependent on him, needed him to fund my habit. Contrary to what I’ve told you before, it was never my decision to stop drawing on my trust fund – it was blocked by my family when I went to prison, never to be reinstated under any circumstances, either to me or any future progeny.

  Thomas is, or was, heir to his family’s arms-manufacturing company, and until he got caught running a neat little business on the side exchanging guns for drugs, most of which he consumed himself, he was also their employee. Thomas says that arms companies in the UK like to keep a low profile, so when he got caught and caused a massive media scandal they disowned him immediately. You can imagine the hoo-ha, maybe you even saw it in the news. Anyway, once he was incarcerated he went back to conducting business as usual. Or not as usual, better than usual because there was a) a ready-made clientele, right there on his doorstep, and b) less chance of being caught. Ironic, right? Thomas made new contacts on the inside, his colleagues on the outside supplied weapons to their colleagues on the outside, and in return his new contacts on the inside supplied him with drugs and protection. And that’s what kept him and my dad from getting beat up, which they definitely would have otherwise, for being posh (Thomas), and posh and weird (my dad). Soon as Thomas got out of prison, he folded his business, which is why I guess he needed my dad.