So the only time Dad could have got to see Eva was at lunchtimes, and maybe she did meet him outside his office for an arm-in-arm lunch in St James’s Park, just like Mum and Dad when they were courting. Whether Dad and Eva were making love or not, I had no idea. But I found a book in his briefcase with illustrations of Chinese sexual positions, which included Mandarin Ducks Entwined, the complicated Dwarfed Pine Tree, Cat and Mouse Share a Hole, and the delightful Dark Cicada Clings to a Branch.
Whether the Dark Cicada was clinging to a branch or not, life was tense. But on the surface, at least, it was straightforward, until one Sunday morning two months after I’d visited Gin and Tonic’s house I opened our front door and Uncle Ted was standing there. I looked at him without a smile or greeting, and he looked at me back, getting uncomfortable until he managed to say, ‘Ah, son, I’ve just popped round to look at the garden and make sure them roses have come out.’
‘The garden’s blooming.’
Ted stepped over the threshold and sang, ‘There’ll be blue birds over, the white cliffs of Dover.’ He asked, ‘How’s yer old dad?’
‘Following up on our little discussion, eh?’
‘Keep that to yerself as previously agreed,’ he said, striding past me.
‘ ’Bout time we went to another football match, Uncle Ted, isn’t it? By train, eh?’
He went into the kitchen, where Mum was putting the Sunday roast in the oven. He took her out into the garden, and I could see him asking her how she was. In other words, what was happening with Dad and Eva and all the Buddha business? What could Mum say? Everything was OK and not OK. There were no clues, but that didn’t mean crimes were not being committed.
Having dealt with Mum, still in his businessman mode, Ted barged into the bedroom, where Dad was. Nosy as ever, I followed him, even as he tried to slam the door in my face.
Dad was sitting on the white counterpane of his bed, cleaning his shoes with one of my tie-dyed vests. Dad polished his shoes, about ten pairs, with patience and care, every Sunday morning. Then he brushed his suits, chose his shirts for the week – one day pink, the next blue, the next lilac and so on – selected his cufflinks, and arranged his ties, of which there were at least a hundred. Sitting there absorbed, and turning in surprise as the door banged open, with huge puffing Ted in black boots and a baggy green turtle-neck filling the room like a horse in a prison cell, Dad looked small and childlike in comparison, his privacy and innocence now violated. They looked at each other, Ted truculent and clumsy, Dad just sitting there in white vest and pyjama bottoms, his bull neck sinking into his tremendous chest and untremendous guts. But Dad didn’t mind at all. He loved it when people came and went, the house full of talk and activity, as it would have been in Bombay.
‘Ah, Ted, please, can you have a look at this for me?’
‘What?’
A look of panic invaded Ted’s face. Every time he came to our place he determined not to be manoeuvred into fixing anything.
‘Just glance at one gone-wrong damn thing,’ Dad said.
He led Ted around the bed to a shaky table on which he kept his record-player, one of those box jobs covered in cheap felt with a small speaker at the front and a brittle cream turntable, with a long spindle through it for stacking long-players. Dad waved at it and addressed Ted as I’m sure he used to speak to his servants.
‘I’m heart-broken, Ted. I can’t play my Nat King Cole and Pink Floyd records. Please help me out.’
Ted peered at it. I noticed his fingers were thick as sausages, the nails smashed, the flesh ingrained with filth. I tried to imagine his hand on a woman’s body. ‘Why can’t Karim do it?’
‘He’s saving his fingers to be a doctor. Plus he’s a useless bastard.’
‘That’s true,’ said Ted, cheered by this insult.
‘Of course, it’s the useless that endure.’
Ted looked suspiciously at Dad after this uncalled-for mysticism. I fetched Ted’s screwdriver from his car and he sat on the bed and started to unscrew the record-player.
‘Jean said I should come and see you, Harry.’ Ted didn’t know what to say next and Dad didn’t help him. ‘She says you’re a Buddhist.’
He said ‘Buddhist’ as he would have said ‘homosexual’ had he cause to say ‘homosexual’ ever, which he didn’t.
‘What is a Buddhist?’
‘What was all that funny business with no shoes on the other week up in Chislehurst?’ Ted countered.
‘Did it disgust you, listening to me?’
‘Me? No, I’ll listen to anyone. But Jean, she definitely had her stomach turned queer.’
‘Why?’
Dad was confusing Ted.
‘Buddhism isn’t the kind of thing she’s used to. It’s got to stop! Everything you’re up to, it’s got to stop right now!’
Dad went into one of his crafty silences, just sitting there with his thumbs together and his head humbly bent like a kid who’s been told off but is convinced, in his heart, that he’s right.
‘So just stop, or what will I tell Jean?’
Ted was getting stormy. Dad continued to sit.
‘Tell her: Harry’s nothing.’
This took the rest of the puff out of Ted, who was, failing everything else, in need of a row, even though he had his hands full of record-player parts.
Then, with a turn of speed, Dad switched the subject. Like a footballer passing a long low ball right through the opposition’s defence he started to ask Ted how work was, work and business. Ted sighed, but he brightened: he seemed better on this subject.
‘Hard work, very hard, from mornin’ till night.’
‘Yes?’
‘Work, work, damn work!’
Dad was uninterested. Or so I thought.
Then he did this extraordinary thing. I don’t think he even knew he was going to do it. He got up and went to Ted and put his hand on the back of Ted’s neck, and pulled Ted’s neck towards him, until Ted had his nose on Dad’s chest. Ted remained in that position, the record-player on his lap, with Dad looking down on to the top of his head, for at least five minutes before Dad spoke. Then he said, ‘There’s too much work in the world.’
Somehow Dad had released Ted from the obligation to behave normally. Ted’s voice was choked. ‘Can’t just stop,’ he moaned.
‘Yes, you can.’
‘How will I live?’
‘How are you living now? Disaster. Follow your feelings. Follow the course of least resistance. Do what pleases you – whatever it is. Let the house fall down. Drift.’
‘Don’t be a cunt. Got to make an effort.’
‘Under no circumstances make an effort,’ said Dad firmly, gripping Ted’s head. ‘If you don’t stop making an effort you’ll die soon.’
‘Die? Will I?’
‘Oh yes. Trying is ruining you. You can’t try to fall in love, can you? And trying to make love leads to impotence. Follow your feelings. All effort is ignorance. There is innate wisdom. Only do what you love.’