Jog On Fat Barry (10 page)

The wind rattled the window in Granddad’s room and the curtains billowed out like some spinnaker on a yacht. A moment later the wind sucked the curtains back against the glass. I drew them aside. Snowflakes were falling out of the sky, but they were far and few between, and no sooner had they landed on the ground then they were off again, caught up in the furious gusts that were blowing across our estate. I took a box from the stack of three and opened it. A 1970-1971 Chelsea Football Club scarf sat neatly folded on the top. I could remember Frank stealing that scarf off a boy in the North Stand at the first game I ever went to. Pauline’s older brother Pat, and Frank had made the boy put his hands on his head, before setting fire to his shirt. They told the boy they’d give him a kicking if he moved his arms, and I remember how we’d pissed ourselves laughing as the boy tried to blow out the flames moving up the shirt toward his face. Chelsea had beaten the Arsenal 2-1 that day. Mulligan and Hollins scored. 53,722 had attended the game. It was a brilliant season that year: Keith Weller was top scorer; Chelsea finished sixth in the division, and won the Cup Winners Cup by beating Real Madrid 2-1 at the replay in Athens.

“You can’t throw this out,” I mumbled, “This is history.”

Frank had worn that scarf to every Chelsea game he went to until Ray Wilkins got player of the year in 1976. I took it out; pressed the faded white and blue stripes against my face; breathed in through my nose; filled my lungs, but there wasn’t a trace of Frank on it now: not one tiny trace.

Most of the things that Mum put aside for the Sally Army were worthless, and why anyone would want them was beyond me. There was a set of dentures Granddad never wore; his cracked reading glasses; a dog-eared army-issue road map of the north of France; old magazines; five billiard balls (all red); a mug with the Royal Marines insignia pressed into it; Granddad’s hearing aid; love letters from someone named Dora; a pair of Dr. Martins (steels) that Frank had painted white; sixteen Robertson Jam labels; three water-damaged
Tintin
books that’d been left out in the rain, and an assortment of black & white photos of people I didn’t know. Every box was exactly the same: chock-full of items that might mean something or nothing at all.

As I picked up the very last one, the bottom dropped out and a mouldy old oil lamp fell to the floor. I remembered Granddad showing the lamp to Frank and me when he was going through the spoils of his war. He had so many different things: a Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds; a Hitler Youth Knife with enamelled swastika on the grip and “
Blut und Ehre!
” inscribed on the blade. Granddad told us he’d taken the oil lamp off a German colonel at an archaeological site on the banks of the Euphrates River in 1944, and he always handled it with care, cautiously peeling back the rag that enveloped it. He said that of all the things he had got during the war, that old oil lamp was the
pièce de résistance
. Unearthed as it was near the ancient city of Babylon, Granddad said it was worth a king’s ransom because of its mystifying powers. But no one else ever saw it that way. In fact, whenever Granddad sold one thing or another from his war chest for beer money, the lamp always got passed over. Every collector that examined it said it was worthless, and Granddad, fed up with trying to convince them otherwise, finally banished it to a drawer with his socks and underpants.

“I’m popping out,” Mum shouted from the hall, putting on her hat and coat.

The front door opened and then slammed shut. I ran the oil lamp over the carpet to remove the mould but it wouldn’t shift. I carried the lamp into the kitchen, sprinkled it with Ajax, and went at it with a scouring pad. After a minute or two I stopped and held it under the tap. I could see these odd-looking symbols engraved in the metal. What meaning they had was a mystery. Still, I wanted to see more and started scrubbing again. But no sooner had I started again, than this almighty thunderclap rocked the room, and hurled me across the kitchen. Both of my ears were ringing; my head was spinning, and when I looked up, a bloke was standing over me who looked like he’d just stepped off the set of
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
.

“Who the fucking hell are you,” I asked. “And what the fuck you doing in my kitchen?”

“You freed me from the lamp, master,” the bloke replied. “Your wish is my command.”

I was about to ask him if I looked like the sort of herbert who believed in magic bloody lamps, but before I could, he upped and vanished back into the lamp in a great puff of smoke. Now Scheherazade told tales of mischievous genies in her
One Thousand and One Nights
, and many were the times that I delighted myself with stories of them outfoxing evil sorcerers, or riding their magic carpets. Like most boys I was spellbound by stories of
Aladdin
, and had longed to hear the words, “Your wish is my command.” I’d spent hours thinking of all the things I’d ask for. But genies didn’t exist; they didn’t appear out of old oil lamps. At least, not in council flats on housing estates in North London, they didn’t. Mum must’ve left the kitchen window open; a bolt of lightning shot through and struck me. I’d been hurled across the room; banged my head, and was seeing things: things that weren’t there. But then, only moments later, the bloke was back; repeating what it was he’d said before.

“What… anything?” I asked.

“Whatever your heart desires,” he replied.

“Bring Frank back,” I commanded.

“Anything but that,” he countered.

“But you said—”

“Not that,” he repeated, cutting me off.

Now genies were crafty buggers who would take advantage of any poorly worded wishes. I remembered reading that time and again. And Mum always warned me to be careful of what I wished for because I might just get it. Of course, I knew what the others would’ve wished for. Frank would have wished for a million pounds, and lived like a king in Palma de Majorca; Granddad would have wished for steak and chips every Thursday night; Mum and Dad would have wished Frank back, like I had, but they’d have settled for a new Dolomite Sprint with overdrive and tinted windows. But I was stumped and couldn’t decide what to ask for until I saw the book I’d been reading to Mum upended on the floor.

“I want to see Beethoven conduct the 9th,” I said. “The very first performance… at the
Kärntnertortheater
in Vienna.”

“But Beethoven didn’t conduct that, Master,” the genie replied.

“He stood on the podium beating time,” I shot back. “That’s what I want to see.”

“Alright… as you wish, Master,” the genie replied.

“But wait,” I yelled, throwing open one of the cardboard boxes. “There’s something I have to get first.”

According to the librarian, the world of 1824 was quite unlike the world today. You couldn’t just switch on a light, or make a phone call, or watch the telly, or catch a bus, and things like syphilis could kill you. It was a leap year that started on a Thursday. It was also the year Lord Byron died; Alexandre Dumas was born; Charles X succeeded Louis XVIII as King of France; the British captured Rangoon; the Egyptians captured Crete, and Ludwig Van Beethoven’s glorious symphony No. 9 had its world premiere.

But travelling back to 1824 wasn’t as exciting as I had thought it might be. All I experienced was this tingling sensation and the faint scent of oranges. And even that lasted but a moment. No sooner had it begun, then it was over again, and I was standing in a small room lit by a single candelabrum burning four candles. For a moment I thought I was alone in the room, but then I heard a scratching noise followed by grunts and grumblings. I turned toward the sound to see a man hunched over some manuscript paper in a corner. He dipped a pen into an inkwell and then his hand flew across the paper. And the hand seemed to have a mind of its own, furiously drawing squiggles and lines. The man himself appeared quite content. He mumbled and laughed. But moments later a door opened and the man writing stilled his hand. Another man stood in the doorway. He tapped a cane against the floor. The vibrations travelled across the room and the man huddled in the corner looked up. It was Beethoven. I could tell by the rash on his face. The man caught Beethoven’s eye and bowed. Beethoven stood up and the man in the doorway left. Beethoven glanced at himself in a mirror. I could see he didn’t like what he saw.

“Excuse me,” I said, moving toward him.

Beethoven saw my reflection in the mirror and turned to look at me. I stepped forward, pushing a hand into my pocket.

“Here,” I said, “This is for you.”

Beethoven glanced down at my hand. Granddad’s pink hearing aid was sitting in my palm.

“It was Granddad’s,” I told him. “Look. This is how it works.”

Beethoven watched as I switched it on, slipped it behind my ear like Granddad had done a thousand times, and removed it. I handed it to him. He looked from it to me for a few moments. I nodded; motioning at him to try it on. He was hesitant.

“Go on, mate,” I said. “There’s nothing to it.”

Beethoven slowly took the aid from my hand. Then he copied the instructions I’d shown him and put it on. When I asked if it was working, he leapt back.

“
Was ist dieses?
” he cried out.

He began asking me questions, quickly and in German. I had no idea what he was trying to say. Then the First Movement of the 9th began to play somewhere above us. Beethoven cocked his ear toward the music and then hurried out the door. I followed him: running up one spiral staircase that led to another, and along a narrow landing that brought us to a door, that opened onto the backstage of the
Kärntnertortheater
proper. And from there, Beethoven sidled up to Kapellmeister Umlauf and began to conduct the 9th himself.

He gesticulated like a lunatic. His arms shot up and down. He weaved, twirled and looped. It was as if Beethoven was playing each and every instrument himself: as if his was the only voice singing. Every musician followed his tempo and his tempo alone. And at the very end of it all, one of the soloists, Karoline Unger, turned Beethoven around so that he could see the wild cheers and applause of the audience.

Of course, Unger and the others thought Beethoven was unaware of the thunderous applause because he was mutton and couldn’t hear. But they didn’t know that Beethoven had Granddad’s hearing aid, and that he himself had heard every single note: all the open fifths, fourths, and what have you. They honoured Beethoven and his magnificent symphony, but never knew that the tears running down the Master’s flushed red face were tears of joy, because he’d been able to hear his magnificent No. 9 for the very first time.

I must have blinked or sneezed or something. I shut my eyes for the briefest of moments, but it was time enough for that genie to transport me back to Somers Town. I was back in the kitchen, sitting on the floor with the Ludwig Van Beethoven book upended beside me, and Granddad’s oil lamp in my hands.

“Oh shit,” I groaned, reaching into my trouser pocket and pulling out Granddad’s spare battery. “If I’d only given him these he might have finished the 10th.”

I heard the front door open and then shut. Moments later my dad was standing in the doorway shaking snowflakes off his coat.

“Hello, son,” he said. “What you doing on the floor… and who you talking to?”

He walked over to the sink and shut the window.

“Fancy a cuppa?” he asked, switching on the kettle.

I watched him spoon some tea into the pot as the kettle began to boil. He took two mugs from the cupboard; spooned some sugar into them. Then he began to whistle.

“Blimey,” he said when he saw the oil lamp. “I haven’t seen that for a long time.”

“Granddad pinched that,” I told him, getting up. “Took it off a German officer at an archaeological site on the banks of the Euphrates in 1944.”

“Don’t be bloody daft,” he said, getting milk out of the fridge and pouring a little into each mug. “The silly old sod won that on the rifle range at Battersea Fun Fair when I was a few years younger than you are.”

The kettle came to the boil and Dad filled the pot. We sat at the table waiting for the tea to brew. Wind rattled the window. He glanced at the Chelsea scarf tied around my neck and his eyes began to well. He picked up the teapot and filled the two mugs. Little swirls of steam hovered above them. I asked him if he’d ever believed that magic genies lived in oil lamps. He told me he’d believed in all sorts of things when he was a boy: said believing in magic was how some people coped with their fears, and anxieties, and boredom.

“It’s what you do when things go pear-shaped,” he said.

“Our world went pear when Frank died,” I said back.

Dad looked at me for a moment and then looked away. He picked up the oil lamp.

“I remember when my old man won this,” he said. “He was just back from the war. Took Mum and me to the fun fair, and he hit that bull’s eye every time.”

Dad held onto the oil lamp for a moment longer. Then he dropped it into the dustbin. The wind outside was making a whistling sound and the window rattled again.

“I bought a little electrical supply business in Southend,” he said. “Just down the road from the new house.”