‘Get lost, Auntie Jean,’ I said.
‘Buddhist bastard,’ she replied. ‘Buddhists, the lot of you.’
I went in to Mum. I could hear Auntie Jean shouting at me but I couldn’t make out anything she was saying.
Auntie Jean’s spare room, in which Mum lay curled up in her pink nightie, her hair unbrushed, had one entire wall made of mirrored cupboards which were stuffed with old but glittering evening dresses from the perfumed days. Beside the bed were Ted’s golf clubs and several pairs of dusty golfing shoes. They’d cleared nothing away for her. Allie told me on the phone that Ted fed her, coming in and saying,’ ‘Ere, Marge, have a nice bit of fish with some bread and butter.’ But he ended up eating it himself.
I was reluctant to kiss my mother, afraid that somehow her weakness and unhappiness would infect me. Naturally I didn’t think for a minute that my life and spirit could stimulate her.
We sat for a while, saying little, until I started into a description of Changez’s ‘specials’, his camp-bed and the bizarre spectacle of a man falling in love with his wife. But Mum soon lost interest. If other people’s unhappiness couldn’t cheer her up, nothing would. Her mind had turned to glass, and all life slid from its sheer aspect. I asked her to draw me.
‘No, Karim, not today,’ she sighed.
I went on and on at her: draw me, draw me, draw me, Mummy! I railed against her. I was pretty angry and everything. I didn’t want her to give herself over to the view of life that underlay all this, the philosophy that pinned her to the shadow-corners of the world. For Mum, life was fundamentally hell. You went blind, you got raped, people forgot your birthday, Nixon got elected, your husband fled with a blonde from Beckenham, and then you got old, you couldn’t walk and you died. Nothing good could come of things here below. While this view could equally have generated stoicism, in Mum’s case it led to self-pity. So I was surprised when at last she started to draw me, her hand moving lightly over the page once more, her eyes flickering with some interest at last. I sat there as still as I could. When she pulled herself out of bed and went to the bathroom, instructing me not to look at the sketch, I got the chance to examine it.
‘Sit still,’ she moaned, when she’d returned and started again. ‘I can’t get your eyes right.’
How could I make her understand? Maybe I should say nothing. But I was a rationalist.
‘Mum,’ I said. ‘You’ve been looking at me, your eldest son, Karim. But that picture – and if s a great picture, not too hairy – is of Dad, isn’t it? That’s his big nose and double chin. Those bags under his eyes are his suitcases – not mine. Mum, that’s just not anything like my face.’
‘Well, dear, fathers and sons come to resemble each other, don’t they?’ And she gave me a significant look. ‘You both left me, didn’t you?’
‘I haven’t left you,’ I said. ‘I’m here whenever you need me. I’m studying, that’s all.’
‘Yes, I know what you’re studying.’ It’s funny how often my family were sarcastic about me and the things I was doing. She said, ‘I’m all on my own. No one loves me.’
‘Yes they do.’
‘No, no one helps me. No one does anything to help me.’
‘Mum, I love you,’ I said. ‘Even if I don’t act like it all the time.’
‘No,’ she said.
I kissed her and held her and tried to get out of the house without saying goodbye to anyone. I crept downstairs and was outside and successfully making for the front gate when Ted sprinted around the side of the house and grabbed me. He must have been lurking, waiting.
‘Tell yer dad we all appreciate what ’e’s done. He’s done a big bucketful for me!’
‘All right, I’ll do that,’ I said, pulling away.
‘Don’t forget.’
‘No, no.’
I almost ran back to South London, to Jamila’s place. I made myself a pot of mint tea and sat silently at the living-room table. My mind was in turmoil. I tried to distract myself by concentrating on Jamila. She sat at her desk as usual, her face illuminated by the cheap reading light beside her. A big jar of purple wild flowers and eucalyptus stood on the top of a pile of library books. When you think of the people you adore there are usually moments you can choose – afternoons, whole weeks, perhaps – when they are at their best, when youth and wisdom, beauty and poise combine perfectly. And as Jamila sat there humming and reading, absorbed, with Changez’s eyes also poring over her as he lay on his bed surrounded by ‘specials’ covered in fluff, with cricket magazines and half-eaten packets of biscuits around him, I felt this was Jamila’s ultimate moment of herselfness. I, too, could have sat there like a fan watching an actress, like a lover watching his beloved, content not to be thinking about Mum and what we could do about her. Is there anything you can do about anyone?
Changez let me finish my tea; my anxiety dissipated a little. Then he looked at me.
‘OK?’ he said.
‘OK what?’
Changez dragged his body from his camp-bed like someone trying to walk with five footballs under their arms. ‘Come on.’ He pulled me into the tiny kitchen.
‘Listen, Karim,’ he whispered. ‘I must go out this afternoon.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yes.’
He tried to move his pompous features significantly. Whatever he did gave me pleasure. Irritating him was one of the guaranteed delights of my life. ‘Go out, then,’ I said. ‘There’s no guard stopping you, is there?’
‘Shhh. Out with my friend Shinko,’ he said confidentially. ‘She’s taking me to the Tower of London. Then there’s new positions I’ve been reading about, yaar. Pretty wild and all, with the woman on her knees. The man behind. So you stay here and keep Jamila distracted.’
‘Distract Jamila?’ I laughed. ‘Bubble, she doesn’t care if you’re here or not. She doesn’t care where you are.’
‘What?’
‘Why should she, Changez?’
‘OK, OK,’ he said defensively, backing away. ‘I see.’
I went on needling him. ‘Speaking of positions, Changez, Anwar has been in the asking-after-your-health-position recently.’ Fear and dismay came instantly into Changez’s face. It was heaven to see. This wasn’t his favourite subject. ‘You look shit-scared, Changez.’
‘That fucker, my father-in-law, will ruin my erection for the whole day,’ he said. ‘I better scoot.’
But I secured him by his stump and went on. ‘I’m sick of him whining to me about you. You’ve got to do something about it.’
‘That bastard, what does he think I am, his servant? I’m not a shopkeeper. Business isn’t my best side, yaar, not my best. I’m the intellectual type, not one of those uneducated immigrant types who come here to slave all day and night and look dirty. Tell him to remember that.’
‘OK, I’ll tell him. But I warn you, he’s going to write to your father and brother and tell them what a completely fat lazy arse you are, Changez. I’m telling you this with authority because he’s made me typing monitor in the matter.’
He grasped my arm. Alarm tightened his features. ‘For Christ’s sake, no! Steal the letter if you can. Please.’
‘I’ll do what I can, Changez, because I love you as a brother.’
‘Me too, eh?’ he said affectionately.
It was hot, and I lay naked on my back with Jamila beside me on the bed. I’d opened all the windows in the flat, drenching the atmosphere in car fumes and the uproar of the unemployed arguing in the street. Jamila asked me to touch her and I rubbed her between the legs with Vaseline according to her instructions, like ‘Harder’ and ‘More effort, please’ and ‘Yes, but you’re making love not cleaning your teeth.’ With my nose tickling her ear I asked, ‘Don’t you care for Changez at all?’
I think she was surprised that such a question could occur to me. ‘He’s sweet, Changez, it’s true, the way he grunts with satisfaction as he reads, and bumbles around the place asking me if I want some keema. But I was compelled to marry him. I don’t want him here. I don’t see why I should care for him as well.’