The Light of Amsterdam (24 page)

‘It's smoked, Jack.'

‘Do you want it?'

‘
OK
, give it here.'

With a light kiss of their two forks there was a delicate transfer of the ham that had deviated from his son's expectations by not being exactly the same as the one with which he was familiar. They both looked at it, Jack with a kind of accusation in his eyes, and then he ate it and when he did so he wanted to point his fork and tell his son that he should taste everything the world was good enough to offer him. But already he knew that he had to stop this, constantly constructing unspoken homilies and inflating every one of his son's idiosyncrasies into some symbolic significance. He had to try harder, make the best of things as they were, not always seeking in his head to construct something new.

‘So, Jack, what would you like to do today?'

‘I don't know. What do you want to do?'

‘Well at some point I need to go to the Van Gogh Museum and pick up a few things. It won't take long. But apart from that we can do anything you want. Would you like to go to the Anne Frank house?'

‘I'm not really interested in history.'

Immediately he cued the record on the turntable about the Holocaust and knowing history so that it could be stopped from happening again and was about to press play when he looked at Jack and stopped. Even though part of him wanted to reach across the table and grab him by the throat, shake into him the reality of six million dead, when he did stretch out his hand it was only to remove a morsel of toast that somehow clung to the side of his son's mouth. The act startled both of them, Jack pulling his head back as if about to be struck and him by the fact that his son should have thought that. In that moment he was intensely grateful that he had never hit him as a child, given him that memory to nurse into an adult resentment. They both stared at their now empty plates.

‘I know a good market we could go to. We can walk there in about fifteen minutes.'

‘A market? With food and stuff?'

‘No, although there is some food it's just about everything under the sun. Clothes, records, junk – everything really. Lots of interesting stuff.'

‘
OK
.'

The response stopped short of enthusiasm but at least it wasn't a rejection and so the day was starting with a glimmer of possibilities. However, as they set off it was clear that Jack thought walking in Indian file was best and as they were mostly making their way along narrow pavements and negotiating other people and various obstacles it didn't rankle quite so much as it might have done. As they walked he pointed out things – the houses that were narrow because tax was based on frontage size, the pulleys that were used to get furniture inside. He knew in part he was talking to himself but he also wanted to convey to Jack something of the exhilarating sense of adventure that he had felt on those first visits. In response Jack stared at him blankly and then after a discourse about reclaiming land from the sea said flatly, ‘Dad, stop telling me things.'

‘Sorry.'

He tried to assuage his hurt feelings with an acknowledgement that he had harped on too much, tried too hard to help his son see things the way he had seen them. Let the boy breathe. Let the boy see things through his own eyes, take his own footsteps.

They reached the market, a warren of stalls selling new and second-hand clothes; old furniture and knick-knacks; the dismantled innards of radios, televisions and parts of computers; endless jewellery;
CD
s and
DVD
s, in some cases of doubtful legality; T-shirts with slogans and images of rock icons. Dreadlocked vendors sold all things African and Rastafarian flags with images of Bob Marley and over everything hovered the waft of fast food, the fibrous hessian smell of alternative clothing and the sweet scent of incense sticks. At first they wandered slowly through the thoroughfares and then at his heel he heard Jack say something. He paused and looked back at him to check that he had caught it correctly.

‘Cool,' Jack said again.

It was the first unsolicited response his son had uttered since they arrived and he didn't know how to respond but he was sure that the one thing he wasn't going to do was tell him anything, or suffocate the moment with words, so he simply nodded his head and tried not to skip as he walked. Jack seemed particularly interested in jewellery, browsing over the displays and touching things lightly with his finger, and he realised that he was looking for something to give to Jasmine. Eventually he bought her a bracelet shaped like a snake and the girl who sold it treated him nicely and took lots of care in wrapping it, handing over a pretty little package with an equally pretty smile. He seemed pleased with himself. Then there were more stalls to explore and they spent a lot of time at a hat seller's which offered all sorts including what looked like ex-Russian military fur hats. They tried everything on, studying themselves in the mirror until one or the other indicated with a shake of the head that the look wasn't right. There were other clothes stalls where Jack ran his hand along a line of leather jackets and he could tell that he was interested but unwilling to ask about the price.

‘Do you want to try one on?' he asked, pointing to the rack. ‘I'll sub you if you want but we need to haggle over whatever price he quotes us at the start.'

Jack wasn't sure but then the stall's owner lifted his head from his paper and offered a seemingly disinterested open-handed invitation to try on whatever he wanted before resuming his reading. Starting at the end of the rail he angled each one for inspection before quickly moving to the next. Then he reached one he liked and tried it on, giving him his coat and package to hold before looking at himself in the full-length mirror, uncertainty etched on his face. He was about to suggest that the sleeves were too long and the lining was ripped a little but stopped himself.

‘What do you think?' Jack asked, looking at him as if his opinion was suddenly important.

‘I think the sleeves are a bit long but leave it out and keep looking.'

Jack nodded and worked on through the rail until he came to a studded jacket. He lifted it out and leaned it back over the rail. ‘Cool,' he said.

‘Very cool,' he said as he watched his son trace the pattern of the studs. ‘Try it for size.'

It was slightly big in the shoulders, bulking up his thinness, but apart from that it fitted well. They both knew it was the one.

‘Don't appear too enthusiastic. Keep looking along the rail. I'll ask how much he's after.'

The answer came back, thirty euros, and he turned to Jack and told him to offer less. He hesitated and then asked if he would do it for him. Something made him shake his head.

‘Offer him twenty and see what he says. Go on, he expects you to do it.'

Jack considered it, torn between his desire for the jacket and nervousness. As he approached the stallholder he felt as if he was watching again his son's Christmas-morning first bike ride, or first swim in the sea. When he looked back over his shoulder for reassurance he nodded him on and then there he was, offering twenty, and when greeted with a reply of twenty-five he handed over his money immediately and almost desperately as if the deal was in danger of falling through. As he put the jacket in the bag the vendor smiled over at him and he felt proud of his child as if in buying this jacket they had shared something good. The jacket was a badge. In his imagination it was timeless and could once have been worn by a young teddy boy or a punk and now it was the chosen gear of an Emo or Nemo or whatever mysterious sub-group Jack belonged to, like a baton passed in relay in the eternal race to be cool.

After the market they went to one of the hot-food stalls and had hot dogs and cans of Coke, standing like seasoned punters at the chest-high metal tables. When they had finished and were leaving Jack stopped at a sprawling bric-a-brac stall and started to inspect everything with delicate, precise care.

‘I'm looking for a present for Mum,' he said as he finally settled on a small wooden box that was probably meant to store jewellery. When he was told the price he told the seller that it was too dear and then waited for a lower one with the air of a professional dealmaker.

A present for his mother. He tried to suppress a tiny pang of jealousy and as they walked back the way they'd come he told himself that the time they'd spent in the market was his. His and his alone. Stored away.

 

 

They had no real plan when they set out, despite Richard scrutinising his map as if organising an expedition, and were both surprised at how mild it was, the briskness of their walk keeping them pleasantly warm. They went first to one of her favourite places – the floating flower market on the Singel Canal – where she was always amazed by how many beautiful varieties were on display. Even now at this time of year it still offered a variety of choice and prices that were so reasonable in contrast to the shops at home which she always characterised by their predictable and narrow range, their workaday carnations and chrysanthemums, not to speak of the ugliness of most garage flowers. She enjoyed looking at the bonsai plants, the garden ornaments and the bulbs with their photographs that seemed to guarantee future bloom. They had an argument over whether they were allowed to bring bulbs back home but she believed they could and bought some dark purple, almost black tulips, intending to plant them in pots at the front of the house. It was getting late for planting but there was still time and the mild weather would help.

They went into the all-year-round Christmas shop and looked at the contents with both a personal and a professional eye, wondering whether there were any lines that might be good business for them. There was every conceivable item, ranging in price from a few euros to the incredibly expensive. She was drawn to the nativity scenes, some of them garish but others simply carved out of wood and delicately painted. She bought one of these – it was something she had always wanted and she thought her grandchildren would like it when they came to the house. After she paid for it she arranged to collect it later on in the morning when they were returning to the hotel.

She wanted this morning to follow a familiar pattern and although her mind often fast-forwarded she tried to stay calm. It was best to be occupied like this and Richard seemed relaxed, happy to follow her round shops and the places they had visited before. In the Chinese shop a few doors further on she bought small items as stocking fillers for the grandchildren – embroidered notebooks, silk purses, green alabaster horses – and a lacquered jewellery box for Judith. When she asked Richard if he would like anything, probably just to please her he picked a light-green cup with a lid and decorated with blue fish. She liked it and bought one to match so they would have a pair. Sometimes as they walked she looked at him and wanted to speak to him but couldn't find the words and mostly she believed that this thing was best kept out of words, that it would happen and then it would be over and never be spoken of. She felt comfortable in his company but as they passed the last flower boat she thought of Anka and his idea of setting her up in the local florist shop, then imagined it transformed from the dullness of its present self with beautiful flowers – delphiniums, anemones, peonies – and Anka with her blonde hair and blue eyes standing amidst them and smiling.

A clock tower chimed and she was cross for letting herself think in this way. And then Richard was pointing something out to her and for a second she was confused about the direction she should look, and then she saw it. There on a kind of open barge was a wedding party, the bride in a long white dress and with flowers in her hair, her bridesmaids sitting round her on chairs. She managed only a glimpse before the barge disappeared under the next bridge and out of sight and it made her think of her daughter and wonder when she too would find someone to love.

‘Beats a horse and cart,' Richard said and she smiled, sorry that she hadn't been able to get a longer look.

They walked back and down Kalverstraat towards Dam Square but most of the more familiar chain stores held less interest for them and they looked at the other shoppers as much as the window displays.

‘Do you remember the first time we came here with the children,' he asked, ‘and the afternoon we thought we'd lost Judith?'

‘Hard to forget. I'd started to panic and then there she was following pigeons off into the distance,' she said, flinching inside at the memory.

‘Shows how easy it is to lose a child. Just a few seconds and they can be gone.'

‘You'd never forgive yourself if it happened. It was because Adam had spilt his ice cream down his front and we were both looking after him.'

‘And the time we went to Disney after hearing all those stupid stories about children being taken and sold in South America to childless couples,' he said, leaning into her arm slightly. ‘And you insisted on them wearing those wristbands attached to us.'

‘Better safe than sorry and I think the stories were true.'

‘It's an urban myth, Marion. If kids went missing you'd be hearing about it because it'd be all over the news and television. The thing I remember most is the way the leads kept getting tangled as they tried to run all over the place, hyper. Like having a pack of hounds pulling you.'