The Buddha of Suburbia

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

So on Charlie’s money, with a gram of coke as a leaving present and his warning on my mind, I flew back to London. I was glad to be doing it: I missed my parents and Eva. Though I spoke to them on the phone, I wanted to see their faces again. I wanted to argue with Dad. Eva had hinted that significant events were going to take place. ‘What are they?’ I asked her all the time. ‘I can’t tell you unless you’re here,’ she said, teasingly. I had no idea what she was talking about.

On the flight to London I had a painful toothache, and on my first day in England I arranged to go to the dentist. I walked around Chelsea, happy to be back in London, relieved to rest my eyes on something old again. It was beautiful around Cheyne Walk, those little houses smothered in flowers with blue plaques on the front wall. It was terrific as long as you didn’t have to hear the voices of the people who lived there.

As the dentist’s nurse led me to the dentist’s chair and I nodded at him in greeting, he said, in a South African accent, ‘Does he speak English?’

‘A few words,’ I said.

I walked around Central London and saw that the town was being ripped apart; the rotten was being replaced by the new, and the new was ugly. The gift of creating beauty had been lost somewhere. The ugliness was in the people, too. Londoners seemed to hate each other.

I met Terry for a drink while he was rehearsing more episodes of his Sergeant Monty series. He barely had time to see me, what with picketing and demonstrating and supporting various strikes. When we did talk it was about the state of the country.

‘You may have noticed, Karim, that England’s had it. It’s coming apart. Resistance has brought it to a standstill. The Government were defeated in the vote last night. There’ll be an election. The chickens are coming home to die. It’s either us or the rise of the Right.’

Terry had predicted the last forty crises out of twenty, but the bitter, fractured country was in turmoil: there were strikes, marches, wage-claims. ‘We’ve got to seize control,’ he said. ‘The people want strength and a new direction.’ He thought there was going to be a revolution; he cared about nothing else.

The next day I talked to the producers and casting people of the soap opera I was being considered for. I had to see them in an office they’d rented for the week in Soho. But I didn’t want to talk to them, even if I’d flown from America to do so. Pyke had taken care with his art or craft – nothing shoddy got on stage; his whole life was tied up with the quality of what he did. But five minutes told me that these were trashy, jumped-up people in fluffy sweaters. They spoke as if they were working on something by Sophocles. Then they asked me to run around the office in an improvisation set in a fish and chip shop – an argument over a piece of cod which led to boiling fat being tipped over someone’s arm – with a couple of hack actors who’d already been cast. They were boring people; I’d be with them for months if I got the job.

At last I got away. I went back to the Fish’s flat, which I was borrowing, an impersonal but comfortable place a bit like an hotel. I was sitting there, wondering whether I should pack up my things and move permanently to New York to work for Charlie, when the phone rang. My agent said, ‘Good news. They’ve rung to say you’ve got the part.’

‘That’s good,’ I said.

‘It’s the best,’ she replied.

But it took two days for the meaning of the offer to sink in. What was it exactly? I was being given a part in a new soap opera which would tangle with the latest contemporary issues: they meant abortions and racist attacks, the stuff that people lived through but that never got on TV. If I accepted the offer I’d play the rebellious student son of an Indian shopkeeper. Millions watched those things. I would have a lot of money. I would be recognized all over the country. My life would change overnight.

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 heard 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.’

‘Shouldn’t they – I mean, we – talk about it, Allie?’

‘Talk about it? God, no.’ Clearly he was on to a subject he liked. ‘They should shut up and get on with their lives. At least the blacks have a history of slavery. The Indians were kicked out of Uganda. There was reason for bitterness. But no one put people like you and me in camps, and no one will. We can’t be lumped in with them, thank God. We should be just as grateful we haven’t got white skin either. I don’t like the look of white skin, it –’

‘Allie, I visited a dentist the other day who –’

‘Creamy, let’s put your teeth aside for a minute and –’

‘Allie–’

‘Let me say that we come from privilege. We can’t pretend we’re some kind of shitted-on oppressed people. Let’s just make the best of ourselves.’ He looked at me like a Sunday school teacher telling you not to let yourself down. I liked him now; I wanted to know him; but the things he was saying were strange. ‘So congratulations, big brother. A soap opera, that’s something to crow about. Television’s the only medium I like.’

I screwed up my face.

‘Karim, I hate the theatre even more than I hate opera. It’s so –’ He searched for the wrong word. ‘So make-believe. But listen, Creamy, there’s something you should know about Mum.’

I looked at him as if he were going to say she had cancer or something. ‘Since their divorce came through she’s been seeing a man. Jimmy. It’s been going on for four months or so. It’s a big shock, OK, I know that. But we just have to accept it and not take the piss, if that’s possible.’

‘Allie–’

He sat there all cool. ‘Don’t ask me a lot of bloody questions, Karim. I can’t tell you about him because I haven’t met him and I’m not allowed to.’

‘Why not?’

‘And nor are you, OK? He’s seen pictures of us aged ten or something, but no older. Jimmy doesn’t know Mum’s exact age. She thinks he’d be shocked and put off to discover she had sons as old as us. So we have to keep a pretty absent profile.’

‘Christ, Allie.’

‘There you are.’

I sighed. ‘Good for her. She deserves it.’

‘Jimmy’s OK. He’s respectable, he’s employed, he doesn’t put his prick around.’ Then this admiring look came over him again, and he shook his head and whistled. ‘A soap opera, eh? That’s class.’

‘You know,’ I said. ‘After Mum and Dad broke up, everything went crazy. I didn’t know where I was.’

He was looking at me. I felt guilty that I’d never discussed his feelings about this. ‘Don’t talk about it now,’ he said. ‘I can’t take it either. I know too well what you mean.’

He smiled reassuringly.

‘All right,’ I said.

Then he leaned towards me and said venomously, ‘I don’t see Dad. When I miss him I speak to him on the phone. I don’t have much time for people who run away from their wife and kids. I don’t blame you for going with him – you were young. But Dad was selfish. And what about him giving up his job? Don’t you think he’s insane? He’ll have no money. Eva will have to support him. Therefore Eva will have to support Mum. Isn’t that grotesque? And Mum hates her. We’ll all be parasites on her!’

‘Allie–’

‘What will he be doing, St Francis of Assisi, discussing life, death and marriage – on which he’s a world expert – with idiots who’ll think he’s a pompous old bore? God, Karim, what happens to people when they start to get old?’

‘Don’t you understand anything?’

‘Understand what?’

‘Oh, Allie, how stupid can you be? Don’t you see the way things happen?’

He looked hurt and deflated then: it wasn’t difficult to do that to him, he was so unsure of himself. I couldn’t think how to apologize and return to our former understanding.

He murmured, ‘But I’ve not looked at it from another point of view.’

Just then I heard a key in the door. A new sound, yet it was a noise I’d heard every day for years when Mum came home from the shop to get our tea. It was her now. I went out and hugged her. She was pleased to see me, but not that pleased, once she’d ascertained that I hadn’t been killed, and had a job. She was in a hurry. ‘A friend’s coining round later,’ she said without a blush, as Allie and I winked at each other. While she showered and dressed, we dusted and vacuumed the front room. ‘Better do the stairs, too,’ Allie said.

Mum spent ages preparing herself, and Allie told her what jewellery to wear, and the right shoes and everything. This was a woman who never used to have more than one bath a week. When we first moved into the house, in the late-1950s, there wasn’t even a bathroom. Dad used to sit with his knees up in a tin tub in the front room, and Allie and I ran to and fro with jugs of water heated on the stove.

Now Allie and I hung around the house as long as possible to torment Mum with the idea that Jimmy might turn up and see that we were both about forty years old. She was saying, ‘Haven’t you two lads got anywhere to go?’ when the front door bell rang. Poor Mum froze. I never thought she’d go as far as this, but she said, ‘You two go out the back door.’ She almost shoved us out into the garden and locked the door behind us. Allie and I hung around giggling and throwing a tennis ball at each other. Then we went round to the front of the house and peeped through the black outlined squares of the ‘Georgian’ windows she’d had installed, making the front of the house resemble a crossword puzzle.

And there was Jimmy, our father’s replacement, sitting on the sofa with Mum. He was a pale man and an Englishman. This was a surprise: somehow I’d expected an Indian to be sitting with her, and when there wasn’t I felt disappointed in her, as if she’d let us down. She must have had enough of Indians. Jimmy was in his late thirties, earnest, and dressed plainly in a grey suit. He was lower middle class like us, but handsome and clever-looking: the sort who’d know the names of all the actors in Vincent Minnelli films, and would go on television quizzes to prove it. Mum was opening a present he’d brought when she looked up and saw her two sons peering through the net curtains at her. She blushed and panicked, but in seconds she collected her dignity and ignored us. We slunk off.

I didn’t want to go home right away, so Allie took me to a new club in Covent Garden designed by a friend of his. How London had moved on in ten months. No hippies or punks: instead, everyone was smartly dressed, and the men had short hair, white shirts and baggy trousers held up by braces. It was like being in a room full of George Orwell lookalikes, except that Orwell would have eschewed earrings. Allie told me they were fashion designers, photographers, graphic artists, shop designers and so on, young and talented. Allie’s girlfriend was a model, a thin black girl who said nothing except that being in a soap opera could only lead to better things. I looked around for someone to pick up, but was so lonely I knew they’d smell it on me. I wasn’t indifferent enough for seduction.

I said goodbye to Allie and went back to the Fish’s. I sat there in his cavernous flat for a while; I walked around; I listened to a Captain Beefheart track, ‘Dropout Boogie’, until it drove me mad; I sat down again; and then I went out.

I drifted around the late streets for an hour, until I got lost and hailed a cab. I told the driver to take me to South London, but first, hurrying now, I got him to drive me back to the flat. He waited while I went in and searched the Fish’s place for a gift for Changez and Jamila. I would make up with them. I did love them; I would show them how much by giving them a huge tablecloth belonging to the Fish. On the way I stopped off to get an Indian take-away to extra-appease them, in case they were still cross with me about anything. We drove past Princess Jeeta’s shop, which at night was grilled, barred and shuttered. I thought of her lying upstairs asleep. Thank God I have an interesting life, I said to myself.

At the commune I rang the bell, and after five minutes Changez came to the door. Behind him the place was silent, and there was no sign of naked political discussion. Changez held a baby in his arms.

‘It’s one-thirty in the morning, yaar,’ was what he said in greeting, after all this time. He turned back into the house, and I followed him, feeling like a dog about to be kicked. In the shabby living room, with its filing cabinets and old sofa, I saw to my relief that Changez was unchanged, and I wouldn’t have to take any shit from him. He hadn’t become bourgeois and self-respecting. There was jam on his nose, he wore the bulging boiler suit with books poking from numerous pockets, and, I suspected, looking at him closely, he was developing full female breasts. ‘Here’s a present,’ I said, offering the tablecloth. ‘All the way from America.’

‘Shhh …’ he replied, indicating the baby buried in blankets. ‘This is the daughter of the house, Leila Kollontai, and she’s asleep at last. Our baby. Top naughty.’ He sniffed the air. ‘Is take-away in the offing?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Dal and all? Kebabs?’

‘Yeah.’

‘From the top curry house on the corner?’

‘Exactly.’

‘But they become cold dramatically. Open, open!’

‘Wait.’

I flapped the tablecloth and started to remove various papers, dirty plates and a head of Lenin from the table. But Changez was eager to get at the food, and insisted we fling the Fish’s tablecloth on top of everything else. ‘Hungry, eh?’ I said, as he sat down and plucked the slithery leaking cartons from the bag.

‘I’m on bloody dole, Karim. Full-time I am eating potatoes. If I’m not dodgy they’ll find me a job. How can I work and look after Leila Kollontai?’

‘Where is everyone else?’

‘Mr Simon the father is away in America. He’s been long gone, lecturing on the history of the future. He’s a big man, yaar, though you didn’t appreciate.’

‘And Jamila?’ I said hesitantly. ‘I’ve missed her.’

‘She’s here, intact and all, upstairs. But she won’t be happy to talk to you, no, no, no, no. She’ll be happy to barbecue your balls and eat them with peas. Are you remaining long?’

‘Bubble, you fat fucker, what are you talking about? It’s me, Creamy Jeans, your only friend, and I’ve come all the way to the swamp of South London to see you.’

He shook his head, handed me Leila Kollontai, who had a plump face and olive skin, and ripped the lids from the cartons. He started to press lumps of spinach into his mouth with his fingers, after sprinkling red chilli powder over it. Changez didn’t like any food he could taste.

I said, airily, ‘I’ve been in America, putting on political theatre.’ I went into what I’d been doing, and boasted about the parties I’d been to, the people I’d met and the magazines I’d been interviewed for. He ignored me and filled his bulging face. As I went on, he said suddenly, ‘You’re in bloody shit, Karim. And what are you going to do about it? Jammie won’t forgive you for not putting your face in it at the demonstration. That’s the thing you should be worried about, yaar.’

I was stung. We fell silent. Changez seemed uninterested in anything I had to say. I was forced to ask him about himself. ‘You must be pleased, eh, now Simon’s away and you’ve got Jamila to yourself full-time. Any progress?’

‘We are all progressing. There is another woman coining in close here.’

‘Where?’

‘No, no. Jamila’s friend, you fool.’

‘Jamila’s got a woman friend? Am I hearing you right?’ I said.

‘Loud and clear. Jammie loves two people, that’s all. It’s simple to grasp. She loves Simon, but he’s not here. She loves Joanna, and Joanna is here. She has told me.’

I stared at him in wonderment. How could he have had any idea, when he kicked off from Bombay, of the convoluted involvements ahead of him? ‘How d’you feel about this?’

‘Eh?’ He was uncomfortable. It was as if he wanted no more said; the subject was closed. This was how he squared things in his mind, and it was good enough for him. ‘Me? Precisely what questions are you asking?’ And he could have added, ‘If you insist on asking such questions.’

I said, ‘I am asking how you, Changez, you with your background of prejudice against practically the whole world, are coping with being married to a lesbian.’

The question shook him more than I had the sense to see it would. He fought for words. At last he said, from beneath his eyebrows, ‘I’m not, am I?’

Now I was confused. ‘I don’t bloody know,’ I said. ‘I thought you said they loved each other.’

‘Yes, love! I am all for love,’ he declared. ‘All in this house are trying to love each other!’

‘Good.’

‘Aren’t you all for love?’ he asked, as if wishing firmly to establish this common ground.

‘Yes.’

‘So, then?’ he said. ‘Whatever Jamila does is all right by me. I am not a tyrant fascist, as you know. I have no prejudice except against Pakistanis, which is normal. So what is your point, Karim? What are you labouring to –’

Just then the door opened and Jamila came in. She looked thinner and older, her cheeks were slightly hollow and her eyes more lined, but there was something quicker, lighter and less serious in her now; she seemed to laugh more easily. She sang a reggae song and danced a few steps towards Leila and back. Jamila was accompanied by a woman who looked nineteen but I guessed was older, in her late twenties. She had a fresh, open face, with good skin. Her short hair was streaked with blue, and she wore a red and black workman’s shirt and jeans. As Jamila pirouetted the woman laughed and clapped her hands. She was introduced to me as Joanna, and she smiled at me and then stared, making me wonder what I’d done.

‘Hallo, Karim,’ Jamila said, and moved away as I rose to hold her. She took Leila Kollontai and asked if the baby had been all right. She kissed and rocked her. As Jammie and Changez talked I became aware of a new tone between them. I listened carefully. What was it? It was gentle respect; they were speaking to each other without condescension or suspicion, as equals. How things had changed!

Meanwhile, Joanna was saying to me, ‘Haven’t I seen you before?’

‘I don’t think we’ve met.’

‘No, you’re right. But I’m sure we’ve seen each other somewhere.’ Puzzled, she continued to look at me.

‘He’s a big famous actor,’ Jamila put in. ‘Aren’t you, dear?’

Joanna punched the air. ‘That’s it. I saw the play you were in. I loved it, too. You were great in it. Really funny.’ She turned to Changez. ‘You liked it too, didn’t you? I remember you persuaded me to go and see it. You said it was accurate.’

‘No, I don’t think I liked it as much as I said,’ Changez murmured. ‘What I remember of it has left little permanent trace in my memory. It was white people’s thing, wasn’t it, Jammie?’ And Changez looked at Jamila as if for approval, but she was breast-feeding the kid.

Fortunately, Joanna wasn’t put off by that fat bastard, Changez. ‘I admired your performance,’ she said.

‘What do you do?’

‘I’m a film-maker,’ she said. ‘Jamila and I are making a documentary together.’ Then she turned to Changez. ‘We should crash, Jammie and I’, she said. ‘Wouldn’t it be great if there was grapefruit and toast for breakfast again.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Changez, with an ebullient face but darting, worried eyes. ‘Don’t you worry, there will be, for you and Jamila at nine on the dot.’

‘Thank you.’

Joanna kissed Changez then. When she’d turned away, he wiped his cheek. Jamila gave Leila Kollontai to Changez and, offering Joanna her hand, she went off. I watched them go before turning to Changez. He wouldn’t look at me now. He was angry; he was staring and shaking his head.

‘What’s the matter?’ I said.

‘You make me think about too many things.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Go upstairs and sleep in the room at the end of the hall. I must change Leila. She has mucked herself.’

I felt too tired to walk upstairs, so when Changez went out I lay down behind the sofa, pulling a blanket over me. The floor was hard; I couldn’t sleep. The world was swaying about like a hammock with my body on it. I counted my breaths and became aware of the rise and fall of my stomach, the hiss of my breath in my nostrils, my forehead relaxing. But, as in many of my meditation attempts, I was soon thinking of sex and other things. How stolidly contented Changez seemed at last. There was no vacillation in his love; it was true, it was absolute, he knew what he felt. And Jamila seemed content to be loved in this way. She could do what she wanted and Changez would always put her first; he loved her more than he loved himself.

I awoke cold and cramped, not sure where I was. Instead of getting up I stayed on the floor. I could hear voices. It was Changez and Jamila, who’d obviously come back into the room and had been talking for a while as Jamila tried to put Leila to sleep. They had plenty to say to each other, as they discussed Leila’s wind, the house, the date of Simon’s return – and where he’d sleep – and Joanna’s documentary.

I went back to sleep. When I woke up again Jamila was getting ready for bed. ‘I’m going up,’ she said. ‘Get some sleep yourself, sweetie. Oh, and Leila is out of nappies.’

‘Yes, the little naughty has made her clothes all filthy, too. I’ll wash them first thing tomorrow at the laundrette.’

‘And mine? There’s just a few things. And Joanna’s leggings? Could you –’

‘Leave me in complete control. Colonel Changez.’

‘Thank you,’ Jamila said. ‘Colonel Changez.’

‘Main thing is, I’m mighty bloody glad you’re eating well,’ Changez said. His voice was high and strained; he was talking quickly, as if he thought the moment he shut his mouth she’d go away. ‘I’m giving you only healthy food from now on. Jamila, think: there will be top grapefruit and special warm bread for breakfast. Top fresh sardines for lunch with fresh bread, followed by pears and soft cheese –’

He bored her, he knew he bored her, but he couldn’t stop. She tried to interrupt. ‘Changez, I – ’

‘Auntie Jeeta is selling good food now, since I converted her to new lines.’ His voice rose. ‘She is old-fashioned, but I am saying follow the latest trends which I am discovering in magazines. She is becoming enthusiastic with my guidance. She walks naughty Leila in the park while I organize shop!’ He was almost yelling. ‘I am installing mirrors for the detection of criminals!’

‘Excellent, Changez. Please don’t shout. My father would be proud of you. You’re –’

There was movement. I heard Jamila say, ‘What are you doing?’

‘My heart is beating,’ he said. ‘I will kiss you goodnight.’

‘OΚ.’

There was a sucking noise, followed by a complacent, ‘Goodnight, Changez. Thanks for looking after Leila today.’

‘Kiss me, Jamila. Kiss my lips.’

‘Um. Changez –’ There were physical sounds. I could feel his bulk in the room. It was like listening to a radio play. Was he grabbing her? Was she fighting him off? Should I intervene? ‘Thanks, Changez, that’s enough kissing. Haven’t you been serviced by Shinko lately?’

Changez was panting. I could imagine his tongue hanging out; the exertion of assault was too much for him.

‘Karim stirred me up, Jammie. I’ve got to explain this to you. That little devil bugger –’

‘What’s he been saying?’ Jamila asked with a laugh. ‘He’s got problems, we all know that. But he’s a sweet boy, too, isn’t he, his little hands pawing things, his eyebrows fluttering about – ’

‘He’s got tremendous personal problems, as you say quite rightly. I am beginning to think he is totally perverted too, the way he likes to squeeze my body. I explain to him, what am I, an orange? I say – ’

‘Changez, it’s late and –’

‘Yes, yes, but Karim for once was saying something with meaning.’

‘Really?’

Changez was desperate to say this, but he paused for a few seconds and held his breath, unsure whether he was making a mistake or not. Jamila waited for him.

‘He said you’re a female lesbian type and all. Jamila, I couldn’t believe my hearing. Rubbish, you bastard, I told him. I was ready to blow him off the earth. That’s not my wife, is it?’

Jamila sighed. ‘I didn’t want to have this conversation now.’

‘That’s not what you can be doing with Joanna, is it?’

‘It’s true at the moment that Joanna and I are very close – very fond of each other.’

‘Fond?’

‘I can’t think that I’ve liked anyone as much for a long time. I’m sure you know how it is – you meet someone and you want to be with them, you want to know them deeply. It’s passion, I suppose, and it’s wonderful. That’s how I feel, Changez. I’m sorry if it –’

He shouted, ‘What’s wrong with your only husband here and available that you are turning to perversion? Am I the one single normal person left in England now?’

‘Don’t start. Please, I’m so tired. I’m so happy at last. Try and accept it, Bubble.’

‘And all you here in this house, you good types, talk of the prejudice against this Yid and that black burglar bastard, this Paki and that poor woman.’

‘Changez, this is offensive, this is –’

‘But what about ugly bastards? What about us? What about our rights to be kissed?’

‘You are kissed, Changez.’

‘After the exchange of pounds sterling only!’

‘Please, let’s go to bed. There are plenty of people who will kiss you. But not me, I’m afraid. Not me. You were imposed on me by my father.’

‘Yes, I am not wanted.’

‘But you’re not ugly inside, Changez, if you want that patronizing assurance.’

He was only half listening; and he was far from exhausted.

‘Yes, inside I look like Shashi Kapoor, I know that for sure,’ he said, beating his hand on his knee. ‘But some people are really ugly pig-faces, and they have a terrible time and all. I’m beginning a national campaign to stop this prejudice. But it should start stopping with you, here in this damn house of the holy socialists!’

There was more noise, but more sartorial than physical this time. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Look, look, aren’t I a man at least?’

‘Oh, cover it up. I’m not saying it isn’t exquisite. God, Changez, some of your attitudes to women are antique. You’ve got to sort yourself out. The world is moving on.’

‘Touch it. Give yourself a holiday.’

She snorted. ‘If I need a holiday I’ll go to Cuba.’

‘Touch it, touch it, or –’

‘Let me warn you,’ she said. And not once did she raise her voice or show any sign of fear. There was irony, of course, as always with Jamila, but complete control, too. ‘Anyone can be removed from this house by a democratic vote. Where would you go then, Bombay?’

‘Jamila, wife, take me in,’ he moaned.

‘Let’s clear the table and take it into the kitchen,’ she said softly. ‘Come on, Colonel Changez. You need rest.’

‘Jamila, I beg you – ’

‘And I wouldn’t let Joanna catch you waving that mushroom about. As it is, she suspects all men of being rapists, and seeing you doing that she’d know it was true.’

‘I want love. Help me –’

Jamila continued in her detached way. ‘If Joanna saw you doing this – ’

‘Why should she see? For a change it’s just you and me together for a few precious moments. I never see my own wife alone.’

I was shifting about uncomfortably. This voyeur stuff was getting to be too much for me. In the past I’d been happy to look in on others’ love-making. I’d virtually watched it more than I’d done it; I’d found it educational, it showed solidarity with friends, and so on. But now, as I lay there behind the sofa, I knew my mind required more fodder – bigger ideas, new interests. Eva was right; we didn’t demand enough of ourselves and of life. I would demand; I would get up and demand. I was about to declare myself when Jamila suddenly said, ‘What was that noise?’

‘What?’

She lowered her voice. ‘It sounded like a fart coming from behind the sofa.’

‘A fart?’

I sat up and looked over the top of the sofa. ‘It’s only me,’ I said. ‘I was trying to sleep. I didn’t hear a thing.’

‘You bastard,’ said Changez, becoming even more agitated. ‘Jamila, I am calling the police on this damn snooper! Let me dial 999 immediately!’

He was trembling and puffing and spitting even as he secured his trousers. He shouted, ‘You have always mocked my love for Jamila. You have always wanted to stand between us.’

In fact, it was Jamila who stood between Changez and me to stop him attacking me. She escorted me upstairs to a room where I could lock the door, safe from Changez’s anger. In the morning I got up early and tiptoed through the sleeping house to the front door. On my way there I heard Leila Kollontai start to cry, and then I heard Changez talking softly to her in Urdu.

A few days later I went to see Dad again. There he was, sitting in one of Eva’s armchairs in his pyjamas, with a pallid young man on the floor in front of him. The man was intense, weepy, despairing. Dad was saying: ‘Yes, yes, this whole business of living is very difficult.’

Apparently these kids from Dad’s classes were always turning up at the flat, and he had to deal with them. This he considered to be ‘compassionate activity’. He was now saying that, for the sake of ‘harmony’, each day of your life had to contain three elements: scholarship, compassionate activity and meditation. Dad was teaching this several times a week at a nearby Yoga Centre. I’d always imagined that Dad’s guru business would eventually fall off in London, but it was clear now that he would never lack employment while the city was full of lonely, unhappy, unconfident people who required guidance, support and pity.

Eva took me into the kitchen to show me some soup-bowls. She’d also bought a Titian print of a young man with long hair who looked like Charlie when he was at school. Long-stemmed tulips and daffodils sat in jugs on the table. ‘I’m so happy.’ Eva told me as she showed me things. ‘But I’m in a hurry. They’ve got to do something about death. It’s ridiculous to die so young. I want to live to be one hundred and fifty. It’s only now that I’m getting anywhere.’

Later, I sat down with Dad. His flesh was heavy, marked, and fatty now, the upper half of his face composed of flaccid pouches sewn together in a sort of tier under the eyes, unfolding one by one like an Italian terrace down his cheeks.

‘You’ve told me nothing of what’s happening in your life,’ he said. I wanted to stagger him with my soap opera news. But when I want to stagger people I usually can’t; staggered is the last thing they are. ‘I’m in a soap opera,’ I said, in Changez’s voice. ‘Top pay. Top job. Top person.’

‘Don’t always laugh in my face like an idiot,’ Dad said.

‘But I’m not. I wasn’t.’

‘You’re still a liar too, I see.’

‘Dad –’

‘At least you’re doing something visible at last and not bumming,’ he said.

I flushed with anger and humiliation. No, no, no, I wanted to shout. We’re misunderstanding each other again! But it was impossible to clarify. Maybe you never stop feeling like an eight-year-old in front of your parents. You resolve to be your mature self, to react in this considered way rather than that elemental way, to breathe evenly from the bottom of your stomach and to see your parents as equals, but within five minutes your intentions are blown to hell, and you’re babbling and screaming in rage like an angry child.

I could barely speak, until Dad asked me the question which was so difficult for him and yet was the only thing in the world he wanted to know.

‘How’s your mum?’ he said.

I told him she was well, better than I’d seen her for years, good-tempered and active and optimistic and all. ‘Good God,’ he said quickly. ‘How can that possibly be? She was always the world’s sweetest but most miserable woman.’

‘Yes, but she’s seeing someone – a man – now.’

‘A man? What kind of a man? Are you sure?’

He couldn’t stop asking questions. ‘Who is he? What’s he like? How old is he? What does he do?’

I chose my words carefully. I had to, since I’d noticed that Eva was behind Dad, in the doorway. She stood there casually, as if we were discussing our favourite films. She hadn’t the taste to turn away. She wanted to know exactly what was going on. She didn’t want any secrets within her domain.

Mum’s boyfriend was not remarkable, I said to Dad. At least, he was no Beethoven. But he was young and he cared for her. Dad couldn’t believe it was so simple; none of it satisfied him. He said, ‘D’you think – of course, you don’t know this, how could you, it’s none of your business, it’s none of mine, but you might have guessed, or heard it from Allie or from her, especially with your great big nose poking into other people’s businesses non-stop – do you think he’s kissing her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Oh yeah, I’m sure of it. And he’s injected her with new life, he really has. It’s terrific, eh?’

This practically assassinated him there and then. ‘Nothing will ever be the same again,’ he said.

‘How could it be?’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said, and he turned his face away. Then he saw Eva. He was afraid of her, I could see.

‘My love,’ he said.

‘What are you doing, Haroon?’ she said angrily. ‘How can you even think like this?’

‘I’m not thinking like it,’ Dad said.

‘Stupid, it’s stupid to regret anything.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Yes, you do, you see. And you won’t even acknowledge it.’

‘Please, Eva, not now.’

He sat there trying not to mind her, but the resentment was going deep. All the same, I was surprised by him. Was it only now, after all this time, that he realized the decision to leave our mother was irrevocable? Perhaps only now could he believe it wasn’t a joke or game or experiment, that Mum wasn’t waiting at home for him with curry and chapatis in the oven and the electric blanket on.

That evening I said I’d take Dad, Eva, Allie and his girlfriend out to dinner to celebrate my new job and Dad giving up his. ‘What a good idea,’ said Eva. ‘Maybe I’ll make an announcement, too.’

I rang Jammie at the commune and invited her and Changez to join us. Changez took the phone from her and said he’d come out if he could but wasn’t sure about Jamila, because of naughty Leila. And anyway, they’d been out at the polling booths all day, working for the Labour Party at the election.

We got dressed up, and Eva persuaded Dad into his Nehru jacket, collarless and buttoned up to the throat like a Beatle jacket, only longer. The waiters would think he was an ambassador or a prince, or something. She was so proud of him, too, and kept picking stray hairs off his trousers, and the more bad-tempered he looked, because of everything being wrong, the more she kissed him. We took a taxi to the most expensive place I knew, in Soho. I paid for everything with the money I’d got by trading in the ticket to New York.

The restaurant was on three floors, with duck-egg blue walls, a piano and a blond boy in evening dress playing it. The people were dazzling; they were rich; they were loud. Eva, to her pleasure, knew four people there, and a middle-aged queen with a red face and potbelly said, ‘Here’s my address, Eva. Come to dinner on Sunday and see my four Labradors. Have you heard of so-and-so?’ he added, mentioning a famous film director. ‘He’ll be there. And he’s looking for someone to do up his place in France.’

Eva talked to him about her work and the job she was currently doing, designing and decorating a country house. She and Ted would have to stay in a cottage in the grounds for a while. It was the biggest thing they’d been asked to do. She was going to employ several people to help her, but they would only be self-aware types, she said. ‘Self-aware but not self-conscious, I hope,’ said the queen.

Inevitably, little Allie knew some other people there, three models, and they came over to our table. We had a small party, and by the end of it everyone in the place seemed to have been told I was going to be on television, and who was going to be the next Prime Minister. It was the latter that made them especially ecstatic. It was good to see Dad and Allie together again. Dad made a special effort with him and kept kissing him and asking him questions, but Allie kept his distance; he was very confused and he’d never liked Eva.

To my relief, at midnight Changez turned up in his boiler suit, along with Shinko. Changez embraced Dad and me and Allie, and showed us photographs of Leila. She couldn’t have had a more indulgent uncle than Changez. ‘If only you’d brought Jamila,’ I said. Shinko was very attentive to Changez. She spoke of his care for Leila and his work on Princess Jeeta’s shop, while he ignored her and brayed his loud opinions on the arrangement of items in a shop – the exact location of sweets in relation to bread – even as she praised him to others.

He ate massively, ol’ Changez, and I encouraged him to have two helpings of coconut ice-cream, which he ate as if it were about to be taken from him. ‘Have anything you like,’ I said to all of them. ‘D’you want dessert, d’you want coffee?’ I began to enjoy my own generosity; I felt the pleasure of pleasing others, especially as this was accompanied by money-power. I was paying for them; they were grateful, they had to be; and they could no longer see me as a failure. I wanted to do more of this. It was as if I’d suddenly discovered something I was good at, and I wanted to practise it nonstop.

When everyone was there, and nicely drunk and laughing, Eva stood up and knocked on the table. She was smiling and caressing the back of Dad’s head as she strained to be heard. She said, ‘Can I have some quiet. Some quiet, please, for a few minutes. Everyone – please!’

There was quiet. Everyone looked at her. Dad beamed around the table.

‘There’s an announcement I must make,’ she said.

‘For God’s sake make it, then,’ Dad said.

‘I can’t,’ she said. She bent to his ear. ‘Is it still true?’ she whispered.

‘Say it,’ he said, ignoring the question. ‘Eva, everyone’s waiting.’

She stood up, put her hands together and was about to speak when she turned to Dad once more. ‘I can’t, Haroon.’

‘Say it, say it,’ we said.

‘All right. Pull yourself together, Eva. We are getting married. Yes, we’re getting married. We met, fell in love, and now we’re getting married. In two months’ time. OK? You’re all invited.’

She sat down abruptly, and Dad put his arm around her. She was speaking to him, but by now we were roaring our approval and banging the table and pouring more drinks. I raised a toast to them, and everyone cheered and clapped. It was a great, unsullied event. After this there were hours of congratulation and drinking and so many people around our table I didn’t have to talk much. I could think about the past and what I’d been through as I’d struggled to locate myself and learn what the heart is. Perhaps in the future I would live more deeply.

And so I sat in the centre of this old city that I loved, which itself sat at the bottom of a tiny island. I was surrounded by people I loved, and I felt happy and miserable at the same time. I thought of what a mess everything had been, but that it wouldn’t always be that way.