Then a riot started. Bottles flew, strangers punched each other and a tooth flew down Eva’s cleavage. I had blood all over me. Girls passed out on the floor; ambulances were called. The Fish efficiently got us out.
I was thoughtful as we walked through Soho that night. Beside me, Eva, in her jeans and tennis shoes, stepped along lightly, trying to hum one of Charlie’s songs and keep up with my fast pace. Eventually she took my arm. We were so easy with each other, we could have been going out together. We said nothing; I presumed she was speculating about Charlie’s future. On my side, I burned with less envy of Charlie than I’d imagined I would. This was because one strong feeling dominated me: ambition. As yet it was unfocused. But I was completely impressed by Charlie’s big con trick, by his having knocked on the door of opportunity and its opening up to him, its goods tumbling out. Now he could take what he wanted. Until this moment I’d felt incapable of operating effectively in the world; I didn’t know how to do it; events tossed me about. Now I was beginning to see that it didn’t necessarily have to be that way. My happiness and progress and education could depend on my own activity – as long as it was the right activity at the right time. My coming appearance in The Jungle Book was meagre in comparison with Charlie’s triumph, but soon eyes would be on me; it was a start, and I felt strong and determined. It would lead upwards.
As we got into the car I looked at Eva and she smiled at me. I felt she hadn’t been thinking about Charlie at all – except as an inspiration – but that, like me, she’d been dwelling on what she might do in the world. Driving us back home, Eva banged the steering wheel and sang, and yelled out of the window.
‘Weren’t they great? Isn’t he a star, Karim!’
‘Yeah, yeah!’
‘They’re going to be big, Karim, really huge. But Charlie will have to jettison that group. He can make it on his own, don’t you think?’
‘Yeah, but what will happen to them?’
‘Those boys?’ She waved them away. ‘But our boy’s going up. Up! Up!’ She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. ‘And you too, OK?’
The dress rehearsal of The Jungle Book went well. We were all surprised by how smooth it was; no one forgot their lines, and technically all was fine. So we went into the first preview, in front of an audience, with plenty of confidence. The costumes were amusing and the audience applauded them. The naughty monkeys screeched their high-pitched calls as the Pack Council met to discuss the man cub’s future. But as Shere Khan growled from the distance in his Hamlet’s ghost voice, ‘The cub is mine. Give him to me. What have the Free People to do with a man’s cub?’ I heard a cracking noise above me. Unprofessionally, I looked up, to see the iron net of the scaffolding bending, swaying and finally tipping towards me as bolts snapped and lights crashed down on to the floor of the stage. Voices in the audience shouted out warnings to us. Most of the front row jumped to their feet and fled up the aisle away from the danger. I deserted the play, as did the other actors on stage, and leapt into the audience. I landed on Shadwell, who was already on his feet screaming at the technicians. The play was abandoned for that night and the audience sent home. The rows were horrific, Shadwell a monster. Two other previews were cut. There was to be only one preview before the first night.
Naturally, I wanted Mum to be at the first night, and Dad too. But as they hadn’t seen each other since the day they both left the house, I didn’t think my début in The Jungle Book was the best time for a reunion. So I invited Mum, with Uncle Ted and Auntie Jean, to the preview. This time nothing went wrong. Afterwards, Uncle Ted, who had his suit and Brylcreem on, announced a treat. He would take us all out to Trader Vies at the Hilton Hotel. Mum had dressed up, and was looking all sweet in a blue dress with a bow at the front. She was cheerful, too; I’d forgotten how happy she could be. In a fit of unshyness she’d left the shoe shop and was working as a receptionist at a doctor’s practice. She began to discuss illness with authority.
Mum wept with pride at my Mowgli. Jean, who hadn’t wept since the death of Humphrey Bogart, laughed a great deal and was good-tempered and drunk.
‘I thought it would be more amateur,’ she kept saying, obviously surprised that I could be involved in anything that wasn’t a total failure. ‘But it was really professional! And fancy meeting all those television actors!’
The key to impressing Mum and Auntie Jean, and the best way to keep their tongues off the risible subject of my loin-cloth, which inevitably had them quaking with laughter, was to introduce them to the actors afterwards, telling them which sit-coms and police programmes they’d seen them in. After dinner we went dancing in a night club in the West End. I’d never seen Mum dance before, but she slipped out of her sandals and danced with Auntie Jean to the Jackson Five. It was a grand evening.
However, I imagined that the praise I received that night was merely to be a preview of the steaming sauna of appreciation that I’d receive after the first night. So after the opening I ran out of the dressing room to where Dad, in his red waistcoat, was waiting with all the others. None of them looked particularly cheerful. We walked up the street to a restaurant nearby, and still no one spoke to me. ‘Well, Dad,’ I asked, ‘how did you enjoy yourself? Aren’t you glad I didn’t become a doctor?’
Like a fool, I’d forgotten that Dad thought honesty a virtue. He was a compassionate man, Dad, but never at the expense of drawing attention to his own opinions.
‘Bloody half-cocked business,’ he said. ‘That bloody fucker Mr Kipling pretending to whity he knew something about India! And an awful performance by my boy looking like a Black and White Minstrel!’
Eva restrained Dad. ‘Karim was assured,’ she said firmly, patting my arm.
Fortunately, Changez had chuckled all through the show. ‘Good entertainment,’ he said. ‘Take me again, eh?’
Before we sat down in the restaurant Jamila took me aside and kissed me on the mouth. I felt Changez’s eyes on me.
‘You looked wonderful,’ she said, as if she were speaking to a ten-year-old after a school play. ‘So innocent and young, showing off your pretty body, so thin and perfectly formed. But no doubt about it, the play is completely neo-fascist – ’
‘Jammie –’
‘And it was disgusting, the accent and the shit you had smeared over you. You were just pandering to prejudices – ’
‘Jammie –’
‘And clichés about Indians. And the accent – my God, how could you do it? I expect you’re ashamed, aren’t you?’
‘I am, actually.’
But she didn’t pity me; she mimicked my accent in the play. ‘Actually, you’ve got no morality, have you? You’ll get it later, I expect, when you can afford it.’
‘You’re going too far, Jamila,’ I said, and turned my back on her. I went and sat with Changez.
The only other significant event of the evening was something that happened between Eva and Shadwell at the far end of the restaurant, beside the toilet. Shadwell was leaning back against the wall and Eva was angry with him, making hard gestures with her fists. Many bitter shades of disgust and pain and dejection passed over his face. At one point Eva turned and gesticulated towards me, as if she were taking him to task for something he’d done to me. Yes, Shadwell had let her down. But I knew that nothing would ever discourage him; he’d never give up wanting to be a director, and he’d never be any good.
So that was it. The Jungle Book was not mentioned again by any of them, as if they weren’t ready to see me as an actor but preferred me in my old role as a useless boy. Yet the play did good business, especially with schools, and I started to relax on stage, and to enjoy acting. I sent up the accent and made the audience laugh by suddenly relapsing into cockney at odd times. ‘Leave it out, Bagheera,’ I’d say. I liked being recognized in the pub afterwards, and made myself conspicuous in case anyone wanted my autograph.