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.