Love in a Blue Time (14 page)

‘That is the problem,’ he replied.

For the first time in years Parvez couldn’t see straight. He knocked the side of the car against a lorry, ripping off the wing mirror. They were lucky not to have been stopped by the police: Parvez would have lost his licence and therefore his job.

Getting out of the car back at the house, Parvez stumbled and fell in the road, scraping his hands and ripping his trousers. He managed to haul himself up. The boy didn’t even offer him his hand.

Parvez told Bettina he was now willing to pray, if that was what the boy wanted, if that would dislodge the pitiless look from his eyes.

‘But what I object to,’ he said, ‘is being told by my own son that I am going to hell!’

What finished Parvez off was that the boy had said he was giving up accountancy. When Parvez had asked why, Ali had said sarcastically that it was obvious.

‘Western education cultivates an anti-religious attitude.’

And, according to Ali, in the world of accountants it was usual to meet women, drink alcohol and practise usury.

‘But it’s well-paid work,’ Parvez argued. ‘For years you’ve been preparing!’

Ali said he was going to begin to work in prisons, with poor Muslims who were struggling to maintain their purity in the face of corruption. Finally, at the end of the evening, as Ali was going to bed, he had asked his father why he didn’t have a beard, or at least a moustache.

‘I feel as if I’ve lost my son,’ Parvez told Bettina. ‘I can’t bear to be looked at as if I’m a criminal. I’ve decided what to do.’

‘What is it?’

‘I’m going to tell him to pick up his prayer mat and get out of my house. It will be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but tonight I’m going to do it.’

‘But you mustn’t give up on him,’ said Bettina. ‘Many young people fall into cults and superstitious groups. It
doesn’t mean they’ll always feel the same way.’

She said Parvez had to stick by his boy, giving him support, until he came through.

Parvez was persuaded that she was right, even though he didn’t feel like giving his son more love when he had hardly been thanked for all he had already given.

Nevertheless, Parvez tried to endure his son’s looks and reproaches. He attempted to make conversation about his beliefs. But if Parvez ventured any criticism, Ali always had a brusque reply. On one occasion Ali accused Parvez of ‘grovelling’ to the whites; in contrast, he explained, he was not ‘inferior’; there was more to the world than the West, though the West always thought it was best.

‘How is it you know that?’ Parvez said, ‘seeing as you’ve never left England?’

Ali replied with a look of contempt.

One night, having ensured there was no alcohol on his breath, Parvez sat down at the kitchen table with Ali. He hoped Ali would compliment him on the beard he was growing but Ali didn’t appear to notice.

The previous day Parvez had been telling Bettina that he thought people in the West sometimes felt inwardly empty and that people needed a philosophy to live by.

‘Yes,’ said Bettina, ‘That’s the answer. You must tell him what your philosophy of life is. Then he will understand that there are other beliefs.’

After some fatiguing consideration, Parvez was ready to begin. The boy watched him as if he expected nothing.

Haltingly Parvez said that people had to treat one another with respect, particularly children their parents. This did seem, for a moment, to affect the boy. Heartened, Parvez continued. In his view this life was all there was and when you died you rotted in the earth. ‘Grass and flowers will grow out of me, but something of me will live on –’

‘How?’

‘In other people. I will continue – in you.’ At this the boy
appeared a little distressed. ‘And your grandchildren,’ Parvez added for good measure. ‘But while I am here on earth I want to make the best of it. And I want you to, as well!’

‘What d’you mean by “make the best of it”?’ asked the boy.

‘Well,’ said Parvez. ‘For a start … you should enjoy yourself. Yes. Enjoy yourself without hurting others.’

Ali said that enjoyment was a ‘bottomless pit’.

‘But I don’t mean enjoyment like that!’ said Parvez. ‘I mean the beauty of living!’

‘All over the world our people are oppressed,’ was the boy’s reply.

‘I know,’ Parvez replied, not entirely sure who ‘our people’ were, ‘but still – life is for living!’

Ali said, ‘Real morality has existed for hundreds of years. Around the world millions and millions of people share my beliefs. Are you saying you are right and they are all wrong?’

Ali looked at his father with such aggressive confidence that Parvez could say no more.

One evening Bettina was sitting in Parvez’s car, after visiting a client, when they passed a boy on the street.

‘That’s my son,’ Parvez said suddenly. They were on the other side of town, in a poor district, where there were two mosques.

Parvez set his face hard.

Bettina turned to watch him. ‘Slow down then, slow down!’ She said, ‘He’s good-looking. Reminds me of you. But with a more determined face. Please, can’t we stop?’

‘What for?’

‘I’d like to talk to him.’

Parvez turned the cab round and stopped beside the boy.

‘Coming home?’ Parvez asked. ‘It’s quite a way.’

The sullen boy shrugged and got into the back seat. Bettina sat in the front. Parvez became aware of Bettina’s
short skirt, gaudy rings and ice-blue eyeshadow. He became conscious that the smell of her perfume, which he loved, filled the cab. He opened the window.

While Parvez drove as fast as he could, Bettina said gently to Ali, ‘Where have you been?’

‘The mosque,’ he said.

‘And how are you getting on at college? Are you working hard?’

‘Who are you to ask me these questions?’ he said, looking out of the window. Then they hit bad traffic and the car came to a standstill.

By now Bettina had inadvertently laid her hand on Parvez’s shoulder. She said, ‘Your father, who is a good man, is very worried about you. You know he loves you more than his own life.’

‘You say he loves me,’ the boy said.

‘Yes!’ said Bettina.

‘Then why is he letting a woman like you touch him like that?’

If Bettina looked at the boy in anger, he looked back at her with twice as much cold fury.

She said, ‘What kind of woman am I that deserves to be spoken to like that?’

‘You know,’ he said. ‘Now let me out.’

‘Never,’ Parvez replied.

‘Don’t worry, I’m getting out,’ Bettina said.

‘No, don’t!’ said Parvez. But even as the car moved she opened the door, threw herself out and ran away across the road. Parvez shouted after her several times, but she had gone.

Parvez took Ali back to the house, saying nothing more to him. Ali went straight to his room. Parvez was unable to read the paper, watch television or even sit down. He kept pouring himself drinks.

At last he went upstairs and paced up and down outside Ali’s room. When, finally, he opened the door, Ali was
praying. The boy didn’t even glance his way.

Parvez kicked him over. Then he dragged the boy up by his shirt and hit him. The boy fell back. Parvez hit him again. The boy’s face was bloody. Parvez was panting. He knew that the boy was unreachable, but he struck him nonetheless. The boy neither covered himself nor retaliated; there was no fear in his eyes. He only said, through his split lip: ‘So who’s the fanatic now?’

I’m at this dinner. She’s eighteen. After knowing her six months I’ve been invited to meet her parents. I am, to my surprise, forty-four, same age as her dad, a professor – a man of some achievement, but not that much. He is looking at me or, as I imagine, looking me over. The girl-woman will always be his daughter, but for now she is my lover.

Her two younger sisters are at the table, also beautiful, but with a tendency to giggle, particularly when facing in my direction. The mother, a teacher, is putting a soft pink trout on the table. I think, for once, yes, this is the life, what they call a happy family, they’ve asked to meet me, why not settle down and enjoy it?

But what happens, the moment I’m comfortable I’ve got to have a crap. In all things I’m irregular. It’s been two days now and not a dry pellet. And the moment I sit down in my better clothes with the family I’ve got to go.

These are good people but they’re a little severe. I am accompanied by disadvantages – my age, no job, never had one, and my … tendencies. I like to say, though I won’t tonight – unless things get out of hand – that my profession is failure. After years of practice, I’m quite a success at it.

On the way here I stopped off for a couple of drinks, otherwise I’d never have come through the door, and now I’m sipping wine and discussing the latest films not too facetiously and my hands aren’t shaking and my little girl is down the table smiling at me warm and encouraging. Everything is normal, you see, except for this gut ache, which is getting worse, you know how it is when you’ve got to go. But I won’t get upset, I’ll have a crap, feel better and then eat.

I ask one of the sisters where the bathroom is and kindly she points at a door It must be the nearest, thank Christ, and I get across the room stooping a little but no way the family’s gonna see me as a hunchback.

I sit down concerned they’re gonna hear every splash but it’s too late: the knotty little head is already pushing out, a flower coming through the earth, but thick and long and I’m not even straining, I can feel its soft motion through my gut, in one piece. It’s been awaiting its moment the way things do, like love. I close my eyes and appreciate the relief as the corpse of days past slides into its watery grave.

When I’m finished I can’t resist glancing down – even the Queen does this – and the turd is complete, wide as an aubergine and purplish too. It’s flecked with carrot, I notice, taking a closer look, but, ah, probably that’s tomato, I remember now, practically the only thing I’ve eaten in twenty-four hours.

I flush the toilet and check my look. Tired and greying I am now, with a cut above my eye and a bruise on my cheek, but I’ve shaved and feel as okay as I ever will, still with the boyish smile that says I can’t harm you. And waiting is the girl who loves me, the last of many, I hope, who sends me vibrations of confidence.

My hand is on the door when I glance down and see the prow of the turd turning the bend. Oh no, it’s floating in the pan again and I’m bending over for a better look. It’s one of the biggest turds I’ve ever seen. The flushing downpour has rinsed it and there is no doubt that as turds go it is exquisite, flecked and inlaid like a mosaic depicting, perhaps, a historical scene. I can make out large figures going at one another in argument. The faces I’m sure I’ve seen before, I can see some words but I haven’t got my glasses to hand.

I could have photographed the turd, had I brought a camera, had I ever owned one. But now I can’t hang around, the trout must be cooling and they’re too polite to start eating without me. The problem is, the turd is bobbing.

I’m waiting for the cistern to refill and every drip is an eternity, I can feel the moments stretching out, and outside I can hear the murmuring voices of my love’s family but I can’t leave that submarine there for the mother to go in and see it wobbling about. She knows I’ve been in the clinic and can see I’m drinking again; I’ve been watching my consumption, as they say, but I can’t stop and she’s gonna take her daughter to one side and …

I’ve been injecting my little girl. ‘What a lovely way to take drugs,’ she says sweetly. She wants to try everything. I don’t argue with that and I won’t patronise her. Anyhow, she’s a determined little blonde thing, and for her friends it’s fashionably exciting. I can tell she’s made up her mind to become an addict.

It took me days to hunt out the best stuff for her, pharmaceutical. It’s been five years for me, but I took it with her to ensure she didn’t make a mistake. Except an ex-boyfriend caught up with us, took me into a doorway and split my face for corrupting her. Yet she skips school to be with me and we take in Kensington Market and Chelsea. I explain their history of fashion and music. The records I tell her to listen to, the books I hold out, the bands I’ve played with, the creative people I tell her of, the deep talks we have, are worth as much as anything she hears at school, I know that.

At last I flush it again.

Girls like her … it is easy to speak of exploitation, and people do. But it is time and encouragement I give them. I know from experience, oh yes, how critical and diminishing parents can be, and I say try, I say yes, attempt anything. And I, in my turn, am someone for them to care for. It breaks my heart but I’ve got, maybe, two years with her before she sees I can’t be helped and she will pass beyond me into attractive worlds I cannot enter.

I pray only that she isn’t pulling up her sleeve and stroking her tracks, imagining her friends being impressed
by those mascots, the self-inflicted scars of experience; those girls are dedicated to the truth, and like to show their parents how defiant they can be.

I’m reaching for the door, the water is clear and I imagine the turd swimming towards Ramsgate. But no, no, no, don’t look down, what’s that, the brown bomber must have an aversion to the open sea. The monstrous turd is going nowhere and nor am I while it remains an eternal recurrence. I flush it again and wait but it won’t leave its port and what am I going to do, this must be an existential moment and all my days have converged here. I’m trembling and running with sweat but not yet lost.

I’m rolling up the sleeve of my Italian suit, it’s an old suit, but it’s my best jacket. I don’t have a lot of clothes, I wear what people give me, what I find in the places I end up in, and what I steal.

I’m crying inside too, you know, but what can I do but stick my hand down the pan, into the pissy water, that’s right, oh dark, dark, dark, and fish around until my fingers sink into the turd, get a muddy grip and yank it from the water. For a moment it seems to come alive, wriggling like a fish.

My instinct is to calm it down, and I look around the bathroom for a place to bash it, but not if it’s going to splatter everywhere, I wouldn’t want them imagining I’m on some sort of dirty protest.

By now they must have started eating. And what am I doing but standing here with a giant turd in my fist? Not only that, my fingers seem to adhere to the turd; bits of my flesh are pulled away and my hand is turning brown. I must have eaten something unusual, because my nails and the palms are turning the colour of gravy.

My love’s radiant eyes, her loving softness. But in all ways she is a demanding girl. She insists on trying other drugs, and in the afternoons we play like children, dressing up and inventing characters, until my compass no longer points to
reality. I am her assistant as she tests the limits of the world. How far out can she go and still be home in time for tea? I have to try and keep up, for she is my comfort. With her I am living my life again, but too quickly and all at once.

And in the end, to get clear, to live her life, she will leave me; or, to give her a chance, I must leave her. I dream, though, of marriage and of putting the children to bed. But I am told it is already too late for all that. How soon things become too late, and before one has acclimatised!

I glance at the turd and notice little teeth in its velvet head, and a little mouth opening. It’s smiling at me, oh no, it’s smiling and what’s that, it’s winking, yes, the piece of shit is winking up at me, and what’s that at the other end, a sort of tail, it’s moving, yes, it’s moving, and oh Jesus, it’s trying to say something, to speak, no, no, I think it wants to sing. Even though it is somewhere stated that truth may be found anywhere, and the universe of dirt may send strange messengers to speak to us, the last thing I want, right now in my life, is a singing turd.

I want to smash the turd back down into the water and hold it under and run out of there, but the mother – when the mother comes in and I’m scoffing the trout and she’s taking down her drawers I’m gonna worry that the turd lurking around the bend’s gonna flip up like a piranha and attach itself to her cunt, maybe after singing a sarcastic ditty, and she’s going to have an impression of me that I don’t want.

But I won’t dwell on that, I’m going to think constructively where possible even though its bright little eyes are glinting and the mouth is moving and it has developed scales under which ooze – don’t think about it. And what’s that, little wings …

I grab the toilet roll and rip off about a mile of paper and start wrapping it around the turd, around and around, so those eyes are never gonna look at me again, and smile in that way. But even in its paper shroud it’s warm and getting
warmer, warm as life, and practically throbbing and giving off odours. I look desperately around the room for somewhere to stuff it, a pipe or behind a book, but it’s gonna reek, I know that, and if it’s gonna start moving, it could end up anywhere in the house.

There’s a knocking on the door. A voice too – my love. I’m about to reply ‘Oh love, love’ when I hear other, less affectionate raised voices. An argument is taking place. Someone is turning the handle; another person is kicking at the door. Almost on me, they’re trying to smash it in!

I will chuck it out of the window! I rest the turd on the sill and drag up the casement with both hands. But suddenly I am halted by the sky. As a boy I’d lie on my back watching clouds; as a teenager I swore that in a less hectic future I would contemplate the sky until its beauty passed into my soul, like the soothing pictures I’ve wanted to study, bathing in the colours and textures of paint, the cities I’ve wanted to walk, loafing, the aimless conversations I’ve wanted to have – one day, a constructive aimlessness.

Now the wind is in my face, lifting me, and I am about to fall. But I hang on and instead throw the turd, like a warm pigeon, out out into the air, turd-bird awayaway.

I wash my hands in the sink, flush the toilet once more, and turn back to life. On, on, one goes, despite everything, not knowing why or how.