Something to Tell You (40 page)

“You said once, life is a series of losses,” said Karen. “Let’s say it again, there is the speed of death and how it flies at you like a missile, and before you’ve hardly glimpsed it—bang, you’re gone.”

This time I was driving; Bromley revisited. After I’d passed on the details of Mustaq’s architect to Mum and Billie, the garden studio was now finished. Today was the “official opening,” as Billie put it, with Mustaq as the special guest.

Rafi sat in the back of the car with his head down, listening to his iPod and playing with his PSP. The only way to reach him was to poke him, though it was dangerous to do so.

Still in chemo, and her girls with her husband’s new love, Ruby, and their twins, Karen wanted to talk, her voice merely a whisper, as if she were speaking through a wall. She was cold and wore a big Farhi coat with a fur collar. Her wig was long and shiny, electric with static, rendering her eccentric, like someone deliberately failing to resemble a 40s movie star, or even mocking womanhood.

“I never saw the point of walking before, but now I like to do it, joining the stream of other slow people. They’re on chemo too, exhausted from radiation, or off balance because of Vicodin. Then I drink coffee and I eat custard tarts and croissants until I can’t cram in another one.

“You were right, I was being evasive with myself. It was not denial but self-destructiveness. You told me to talk to the oncologist, but I hated to be inside the system, the machine. You insisted it worked, that it was the only way. Now he and I sit in the hospital café like two adults and I love him passionately while he shows me photographs of his wife and family. You said I should speak to these medics directly, as an equal. They wouldn’t be afraid of my distress if they knew I’d seen my death.

“But facing reality, that’s an art form. When I thought I was about to die, I wanted to ring everyone up and tell them—hey, didn’t you know it, you’re only playing at life!”

When we got to the house, Mum opened the door, greeting us and smiling enthusiastically, offering her cheek to be kissed. Although she admitted to being nervous of Rafi and what she called his “obnoxiousness”—though with her he was always polite—I was glad to see her. These days, though, when we met, it was like running into someone you knew well a long time ago but now had little in common with—indeed, felt awkward with—a feeling which had been reproduced with Josephine.

I said, “You never much liked children, did you, Mum?”

“You give them everything,” she said. “And when they’re grown up they can’t wait to tell their psychiatrist how much they hate you. Either way, they don’t want you.”

“No.”

Mum said, “But I thought you might have brought Josephine for me to talk to.”

“You did? I was just thinking of her. Why do you say that?”

“I like her.”

“Do you?” I said, as Mum led me into the house.

“She was the best of the lot. I’d like her to see the studio. Will you bring her?”

“She’s with someone else.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. Tell him to go away.”

Miriam was there already, and I was glad to see her, and she me. She was staring rather wildly around the place, as if she couldn’t understand why her childhood had suddenly disappeared. She was still agitated and disturbed by Mum, as if Mum wanted to attack her for her crimes and mistakes. But, nicely drunk, Mum only beamed at everyone with a sort of Zen perspicuity and benevolence, while Miriam clung to Henry’s arm.

Recently Miriam had been spending more time at Henry’s place; they were also talking of renting a country cottage. Henry was working again, with renewed persistence and concentration, trying to link
Don Giovanni
to consumer and celebrity culture, which he thought paralleled its vicious, cynical murderousness. He’d decided the only thing to be done was to remake the world, even as the politicians he’d supported were unmaking it.

As we drifted out into the garden with glasses of champagne, I could see the fine new studio, made of pine and glass, set amongst trees and bushes. Alan was out there already, and Karen bent down to embrace him, to weep too.

In a wheelchair, Alan was frailer than even her, and wrapped in several blankets. He was exhausted, staying awake for days. Having been a druggie, he was convinced that his prescribed pills did not affect his corrupted body. He resembled someone staring into a universe of fog. “London’s full of ticking bombs,” he murmured, taking my hand. “I’m one of them. Only a gay death for me.”

I wasn’t surprised to see how gaunt Alan was, but Mustaq, usually sleek and manicured, seemed overweight, fretful and bedraggled, as if determined to walk all the way to death’s door with his lover. If Alan didn’t die first, they would marry in a few months’ time, when the law changed to allow civil partnerships.

Mustaq touched, stroked and kissed Alan continuously. At other times, standing beside Alan, he seemed to stare at me, successfully locating my paranoia while resembling someone in a dream. He only perked up when Rafi came out, asking the kid what music he was playing on the iPod.

As there were friends of Mum and Billie yet to arrive, I kissed Ajita and took her by the arm. “Let’s get out of here for a bit. I need to look at something with you.”

It was a short drive. We were standing outside the house Miriam and I had grown up in. Ajita had visited that house only twice, as far as I could recall, leaving Mum some of her aunt’s “special” dhal and aloo in plastic containers. The place was almost unrecognisable now, with many new rooms built on, and in the porch there were kids’ bikes and toys. Then we drove the short distance to Ajita’s old house, which she hadn’t seen since the day she’d packed up a few things and left for India.

We arrived at the same time as the owner, who looked at us but said nothing. The layout of the place was the same. We got back into our car as the garage door opened like a mouth.

The space was tidy; just a few boxes. We watched as the man drove in. He got out of his car, glanced at us and went into the house.

She was looking at me, I noticed, as I stared at the spot where her father fell. I wanted to make some kind of gesture—if I’d been a Catholic I’d have crossed myself—but didn’t know what to do.

“Was it all true?” Ajita asked as we drove away. “Did it really happen?”

“Who knows?”

I told Mustaq we had gone to the house and asked him if he wanted to see it again. He said irritably, “Why do you ask me that? I dislike my father more and more. A man who didn’t understand homosexuals, who would never have grasped this passionate love, who was incapable of such feeling.”

To our delight, when we all gathered round for the ceremony, Mustaq had decided to adopt the queen’s voice to open the studio, saying what a great thing it was and how fabulous the two old girls were. He smashed a bottle of champagne against the door and sang, along with everyone else, “Vincent.”

Then, while we drank more champagne and ate from the tables laden with good food, a pissed opera singer, accompanied by someone on accordion, sang tunes from Puccini and Verdi. Some people danced; even Alan was persuaded from his wheelchair and tottered about in Mustaq’s arms as the singer gave us “The Man I Love” from
Porgy and Bess
.

As Mustaq and Alan kissed on the lips, Mother said, “We’re all shuffling towards the exit, one by one.”

“Yes,” said Billie. “And some of us are singing!”

It was later, when we were having cake and sandwiches, that I saw the knife again, horrified as much by the way it had moved unnoticed through the years as by its history. Mustaq looked at me. “What’s up, Jamal? You look as though you’ve just seen a ghost.”

I could only walk away. I found Henry inside the studio, looking at Billie’s and my mother’s work and using Miriam’s camera-phone to photograph their tools. Through the window we could see Miriam with Rafi.

“Doesn’t she look good?” Henry said.

“She’s a little thin for me.”

“I like her like that. She seems more serious. We’re not going on ‘the scene’ for a while. But that’s not the end of anything,” he added. “I don’t want to be Don Giovanni. Nor am I one of those who believes relationships become less libidinous as they continue, that intimacy is countererotic. In fact, sexual relationships between near-marrieds like us can become dangerously satisfying and deep. I guess they can feel incestuous, which is why people prefer strangers. What do you think?”

“When Josephine and I had sex, it was better than anything else.”

“You want to go back to her?” He was looking at me with concern. Then he started to laugh. “You’re joking. You’re crazy.”

Karen slept in the car on the way back; she was saving her energy for later on, when she’d be watching Karim in
I’m a Celebrity…Get Me out of Here!

During the brief window while Rafi was searching through his pockets for his earphones, I was able to speak to him.

“Has Eliot been around?” I asked.

“Course.”

“What does he do?”

“What does he do when?”

“When he’s in the house.”

“He sits around with Mum. Jealous?”

“Yes. But the torments of jealousy will not, I am glad to say, give you in particular a miss. Why should they?” I asked. “But apart from that?”

Rafi said, “He watches TV, eats pot noodles, reads the paper and sits in the garden and smokes.”

“Like everyone else, then.”

“What?” he said, as the music crashed in. “What?” Then, for a moment, he took out his earplugs and said, “Mustaq—that singer guy. He showed me some chords and told me about what he wants to do, stuff about Pakis and suiciders and paranoia, like Springsteen’s doing in the US. He wants to invite me to his studio when he’s recording, to show me how everything works. You’ll take me there, won’t you?”

The day had exhausted me. I dropped off Karen and then Rafi. But when Rafi rang the bell and Josephine opened the door, she smiled at me and waved. I started to drive away.

But instead of going home, I parked the car and rang Ajita to get her thoughts on the day.

She was giggling. “It was funny,” she said. “I walked in the garden with Rafi. I have to tell you, he kept looking at me and he said, ‘You’ve got beautiful eyes. You’re really nice-looking.’ He’s got that twinkle, you know. He’s going to be a dog like you.”

I was amused and proud, but irritated too and even envious. I left the car and went back to the house, where Rafi let me in before returning to the TV.

Josephine was coming out of the bathroom, pulling a towel around her lower half. She let me look at her—she’d kept her shape, there was nothing loose on her—before covering herself.

“You’re back,” she said cheerfully.

I followed her downstairs. She fetched me a beer and cut me a slice of her homemade chocolate cake. Rafi scrutinised us before going into his room to play a game.

We were discussing her insomnia, aching neck, bad knees and bumpy skin, among other interesting things, when the doorbell rang.

“Hasn’t he got a key?” I said.

“Not yet.”

I pulled her onto my knee. “I’m never going to let you go,” I said, putting my hand between her legs.

“But you did.”

“I was a fool.” I kissed her mouth, and felt her respond. Her fingers were on my back. Once Josephine touched you, you stayed touched. “Can we have lunch tomorrow?”

Eliot rang the bell again. Rafi, of course, wouldn’t move a centimetre unless it was in his immediate interest. Josephine was beginning to panic. She said quickly, “But it’ll be rushed.”

“What can we do?”

“Will you take me to dinner?”

“Yes,” I said. “I was going to ask you if you’d come with me to see Hussein Nassar.”

In my local Indian restaurant, as we ate our dhal and rice, an Indian Elvis impersonator, Hussein Nassar—known as the King’s Jukebox—would be re-acting the whole of the 1968 NBC comeback special.

“We can’t miss that,” I said. “Don’t think Muslims aren’t making a significant contribution to cultural life here. And there is a lot I want to tell you.”

“Have you been surviving?

“Only just.”

She said, “Thanks for emailing me those pieces you’ve written.”

“I’m thinking of putting them together as a book.”

“It’s about time you published another one.”

I said, “Can we go through them?”

“I’d like that,” she said. “I’ll try to look smart for you.”

I said, “Tomorrow, then.” I agreed to pick her up at seven-thirty. I kissed her again, I couldn’t stop myself, and murmured, as the bell rang again and she pushed me away, “It takes three to tango.”

Upstairs, Rafi’s door was open and he was peering through, evidently amazed that not only were his parents speaking to one another but that they were intending, clandestinely, to go out together. When I went past, he gave me a shy thumbs-up.

Eliot was waiting at the door, looking in the other direction. “Hi,” he said.

“Hello, Eliot, how are you?”

“Fine, fine.”

“Good holiday?”

“Lovely.”

“Decent weather?”

“Warm but not hot.”

When he passed me and I turned back, I saw Rafi’s face was at the window, and we winked at each other and rolled our eyes.

Before going to see Miriam later, I walked up to the Cross Keys for the last time.

In a few weeks the Harridan would be gone—to the sea, no doubt. Though the lucifugous strip venue was usually full, it would be closed down and reopened as a gastro-pub. The girls were in a panic, not knowing if they’d find other work; they considered themselves to be dancers—performers, even—and not whores. But they were too rough for the new lap-dancing clubs, which were using only young Czech, Polish and Russian girls.

I sat at the bar with a newspaper, watching the intense delirium of the men who stared at Lucy. In her break, we went upstairs to Wolf’s old room, all his possessions having been removed by Bushy. To help Lucy with her English, I read to her, as I’d got into the habit of doing recently—but would do no more—passages from my favourite stuff: Elizabethan poetry, bits of
Civilisation and Its Discontents,
Dr. Seuss.