‘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.’