Smile Page 6

  ‘This is the proudest moment of my life,’ he repeated, his words loud in the empty room. Through its french windows there was a view of the garden, a series of low terraces separated by balustrades. Two small figures in orange anoraks stood on the lawn: his daughters.

  Arif, however, was nowhere to be seen. Hamid would have liked him to share this moment but his son had been keeping himself to himself recently, growing more sulky. He had even objected to the move.

  ‘Where will we get the furniture?’ said his wife, standing in the middle of the room.

  ‘We’ll buy it. Look.’ He took out his wallet. It was so fat, it couldn’t close.

  He found Arif sitting in the car, the radio loud. Hamid turned it down.

  ‘Well, old chap,’ he said. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Great,’ Arif muttered.

  ‘Earth has not anything to show more fair: …’

  Hamid stood in the garden. The long, blond grass blew in the wind. It was dusk and he looked up at his home, the fortress where he kept his family safe. A light shone from Arif’s attic bedroom – he had insisted on this tiny room, no more than a cupboard up in the roof. Down below were the bedrooms; then, below them, the curtained french windows, glowing bluish from the TV. How solid his house, solid and secure.

  Today he wore his tweed suit from Austin Reed. He stood like a squire amidst the swaying weeds. Summer was ending now, and grass choked the flowerbeds. Neither he nor his wife were proficient in gardening, but that did not stop the pride.

  It grew darker. To one side of him rose the block of his house. To the other side, beyond the trees, the sky glowed orange. This side lay London. He thought of his shops casting their own glow over the pavement; he thought of the blood-red neon of THE EMPIRE STORES shining in the night. How ashy those faces seemed, looking up at the window to gaze at the comforts within! Ruined, pasty faces; the losers, the lost, the dispossessed. The walking wounded who once ruled the Empire, pressing their noses against his Empire Stores …

  He thought of their squalid comforts: those rows of bottles and those magazines showing bald portions of women’s bodies. Here at home, on the other hand, he had a mahogany bookcase filled with English classics, all of them bound in leather: Dickens, Shakespeare and the poet he had taken to his own heart: William Wordsworth.

  The trees, bulkier now in the night, loomed against the suffused sky. ‘Dull would he be of soul who could pass by/A sight so touching in its majesty: …’

  A chill wind rattled the weeds and blew against his legs. He heard the faint thump of music, if you could call it music, from Arif’s window. The long, dry grass blew to and fro in the darkness. He realized that he was shivering.

  His wife said she was lonely. She sat in the lounge, its new chairs arranged for conversations, and all day she had the TV on. She talked about Lahore; she said she was homesick. She talked about her sisters, and how they had sat all morning laughing and brushing each other’s hair. More and more she talked like this.

  ‘Nobody talks to me here,’ she said. ‘They get into their cars and drive to their tea parties.’

  ‘You must take driving lessons.’

  ‘The car is so big. It frightens me.’

  ‘Then you must have a tea party here.’

  She thought about this for some time. Then she said: ‘Who should I invite?’

  ‘The neighbours, of course. And then there are the parents of Arif’s schoolfriends.’

  ‘But we don’t know the parents of Arif’s schoolfriends.’

  ‘What about that boy, what’s his name, Thompson? His father is an executive with Proctor & Gamble.’

  ‘But what shall I cook for them?’

  ‘And that very pleasant couple next door? We’ve said good morning often enough, and discussed the state of the hedge.’

  So it was arranged. A small party for Sunday tea, so that he himself could be present.

  For the next week she was restless; she moved about the house, frowning at the furniture and standing back from it, her head on one side. During one evening she moved the settee three times. She took Arif down to Marks & Spencers to buy him a new pair of trousers.

  ‘Christ,’ said Arif. ‘It’s only a bloody tea party.’

  ‘Don’t you dare insult your mother!’ Hamid’s voice was shrill. He, too, moved the settee one more time.

  The question of food was vexing. His wife thought sandwiches and cake most suitable. He himself thought she should produce those titbits in which she excelled: pakoras, brinjal fritters and the daintiest of samosas. Nobody cooked samosas like his Sharine.

  In the end they compromised. They would have both.

  ‘East meets West,’ he joked; his nerves made him high-spirited. He joggled the plaits of Aisha, his youngest daughter; one plait and then the other, and she squealed with pleasure. ‘East, West, home’s best,’ he chanted to her, before she scuttled into the kitchen.

  He wanted to tell his family how much he loved them, and how proud he would be to show them off at the tea party. He wanted to tell them how he had stood in the garden, his heart swelling for them. But his daughters would just giggle; his wife would look flustered … And Arif? He no longer knew what Arif would do. He only knew that he himself would feel foolish.

  On the Saturday he went into the stock-room of the Empire Stores and fetched some choice items: chocolate fancies, iced Kunzle cakes. There was little demand from his customers for these high-class items. Only the best would do, however, for those who lived in Potters Bar.

  It was a cool, blustery evening. There must be a storm blowing up. Kentucky boxes bowled along the pavement. Further up the street a man stood in a doorway, bellowing. It was an eerie sound, scarcely human. Hamid buttoned up his jacket as he left the shop, carrying his parcels. Far down the street he heard the smash of glass: he clutched the parcels to his chest.

  Then it happened. He was just getting into the car. As he did so, he chanced to glance back across the street, towards the parade of shops. It was at that moment that the door of the sauna and massage opened and Arif stepped out.

  Within him, Hamid’s heart shifted like a rock. He could not move. The face was in shadow; all he could see was the glow of a cigarette. Arif smoking? For some reason this only faintly surprised Hamid.

  There the boy stood, a slight figure in that familiar blue and white anorak. He turned to look back at the door; then he turned round and made his way across the road, towards Hamid.

  Hamid stood. He opened his mouth to cry out, but nothing happened. Then, as Arif neared him, the street-light fell upon his face.

  It was a thinner face; thin, and knowing, and much older than Arif. An unknown, shifty, Englishman’s face.

  Hamid climbed into his car and fumbled with the key. His hands felt damp and boneless. He told himself to stop being ridiculous; he felt a curious sinking, yet swelling sensation, as if he had aged ten years in the last moments.

  Driving home, he tried to shake off his unease. After all, it had been a stranger. Nothing to do with his own cherished son. Why then could he not concentrate on the road ahead? He was a level-headed fellow; he always had been.

  Sharine was in a state. ‘Where have you been?’ she cried.

  ‘It’s only ten o’clock,’ he said, and asked, alarmed: ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘What’s happened? I’ve spilt the dahl and dropped the sugar and, oh my nerves.’

  She was standing in the kitchen. The air was aromatic with cooking.

  ‘The children have been helping?’

  ‘The girls, yes, until I sent them to bed.’

  ‘Arif?’

  She shrugged. ‘Him, help me?’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Where he always is.’

  Hamid walked up the stairs, up past the first landing, then up the narrow flight of stairs to the attic. For some reason he needed to see his son. He knew he would be there, but he needed to see him.

  His heart thumped; it must be those stairs, h
e was no longer as young as he was. Thud, thud, went Arif’s music. Hamid knocked on the door.

  ‘What is it?’ Arif’s voice was sharp, yet muffled.

  ‘It’s your father.’

  ‘Wait.’

  A few sounds, then Arif opened the door.

  ‘What do you do in there all evening?’ asked Hamid. ‘Why don’t you help your mother? We have a tea party tomorrow.’

  Arif shrugged.

  ‘Why don’t you answer my questions?’ asked Hamid. ‘Why?’

  A pause. Arif stood behind the half-open door. Outside, the wind rattled against the slates. Finally he said: ‘Why are you so interested?’

  Hamid stared. ‘And what sort of answer is that?’

  ‘Ask yourself.’ Arif slowly scratched the spot on his chin. ‘If you have the inclination.’

  And he slowly closed the door.

  That night there was a storm. The window panes clattered and shook; the very house, his fortress, seemed to shudder. In the morning Hamid found that out in the garden some of the balustrade had fallen down. It was made of the most crumbly concrete.

  ‘Charming,’ said Mrs Yates. ‘Love the wallpaper, awfully daring. And what sweet little girls.’

  Tea cups clinked. Sharine, in her silk sari, moved from one guest to another. Her daughters followed her with plates of cakes. Everything was going like clockwork. Looking at the pleasant faces, Hamid felt a flush of satisfaction. It had all been worth it. The years … The work …

  ‘And where’s the lad?’ Mr Thompson asked, jovially.

  ‘He’ll be down,’ said Hamid, looking at the door and then at his watch. ‘Any minute.’ Silently, he urged Arif to hurry up.

  Mr Thompson’s wife, whose name Hamid unfortunately had not caught, finished her cup of tea and said: ‘Would it be frightfully rude if I asked to see the house?’

  Mr Thompson laughed. ‘Rosemary, you’re incorrigible.’

  Other guests stood up, too: Mr and Mrs Yates from next door, old Colonel Tindall from down the road, the teenage girls belonging to the widowed lady opposite.

  ‘A guided tour,’ joked Hamid, gathering his scattered wits. ‘Tickets please.’

  Sharine stood in the middle of the lounge, holding the tea pot. She looked alarmed but he gave her a small, reassuring nod. After all, the house was spick and span.

  He led the way. Upstairs he pointed out the view from the master bedroom; the bathroom en suite.

  ‘Carpets everywhere!’ said Mrs Yates. ‘And what an original colour!’

  ‘Must have cost you,’ said Mr Thompson, man to man. Hamid nodded modestly, his face hot with pleasure.

  ‘What’s up there?’ asked Mrs Yates.

  ‘Just the attic,’ said Hamid.

  But before he could continue, she had mounted the stairs and Mrs Thompson was following her.

  ‘Rosemary!’ called Mr Thompson, and turned to Hamid. ‘Women!’

  Hamid hurried up the stairs. Thud, thud … the narrow treads shook, he could hear above him the thump of Arif’s music, and then he had arrived at the landing and one of the women was pushing open Arif’s door.

  ‘May I?’ she turned and asked Hamid.

  But by then she had opened the door.

  There are some sights that a person never forgets. Sometimes they rise up again in dreams; in his sleep Hamid saw mottled faces, their skin bleeding, pressed up against the glass of his shop. He saw stumps raised, waving in his face, in those long-forgotten alleys in Lahore. All the wreckage of this world, from which he had tried, so very hard, to protect those he loved.

  Through his life, which was a long and prosperous one, he never forgot the sight that met his eyes that Sunday afternoon. Arif, sprawled on the bed, his eyes closed. Arif, his own son, snoring as the men snored who lay on the pavements. On the floor lay empty cans of lager and two scattered magazines, their pages open: Mayfair and Penthouse.

  Explosions, riots and wreckage all around the turning world. The small hiss of indrawn breath from the two women who stood beside him.

  • Lost Boys •

  MY HUSBAND EWAN once shouted: ‘Don’t you realize I had a deprived childhood?’

  It sounded a wonderful childhood to me, compared to my own upbringing in safe and leafy Kent. His mother was a painter called Lily Frears. You might have heard of her; she was a great success in her day and she was a part of so many lives that she’s in the indexes of all those biographies one reads on the train. She’d been a beautiful girl with ruddy skin and bold gypsy eyes. She’d modelled for Augustus John. More than modelled, I suspect. She’d been through two marriages, one to a young sculptor and the other to Ewan’s father, a Swiss businessman and patron of the arts. He’d been bemused by her, besotted with her, and had finally died – I said from unrequited love but Ewan says from pancreatitis. Throughout her husbands and lovers she’d kept stubbornly to her original name, her independence, her subtle, dappled paintings and to hand-rolling her own cigarettes from pipe tobacco.

  I imagined Ewan, a small boy, perched on the corduroy knees of the eminent painters of the past, most of whom, at some point, had been in love with Lily. In fact I was half in love with her myself. Another thing Ewan once said, only partly joking: ‘You married me for my mother.’

  ‘Lots of people loved her.’

  He replied: ‘The only things she loves are her cats.’

  ‘But you’re her son. She must love you.’

  ‘She’s vaguely surprised by me now. That she produced this enormous man.’ He paused. ‘When I was young I just got in the way.’

  He said she forgot he was there. Those evenings I imagined – oh how I imagined them, with coarse red wine and passionate beliefs – he remembered just as boring and smoky. He said he’d crawl under the sofa to sleep and the next day he’d miss school. I thought it sounded marvellous. Sometimes she took him to France, or to Tuscany for the summer. Once they lived in a hotel in Cairo for a year; he never knew why.

  I called her romantic. He called her untrustworthy. She sent him to boarding school in Sussex. Suddenly she’d turn up during chapel, swathed in a Kashmiri shawl; as he filed out she’d whisk him down to the beach to search for shells. But sometimes on real visiting days he would stand at the gates, all smartened up, and wait, and wait … when we were quarrelling he’d tell me this story to make me sorry for him.

  She lost him frequently, he said, quoting Oscar Wilde about losing twice seems like carelessness. We live in Hendon (a suburb she always found vaguely comic – she could never remember the number of our house and would send postcards to the wrong address). Above our lounge fire is one of her paintings. I love it. There’s drenched green bodies, all naked, sitting under the trees. He remembers when it was painted.

  ‘We’d rented a cottage in the New Forest, and a lot of the grown-ups went swimming, naked, in a river. Afterwards she sat down and painted the others and I wandered off. She forgot me. I was only five. I wandered down the stream and fell in and nearly drowned.’ He paused. ‘All for that painting. What would you rather, that painting or me?’

  ‘But I’ve got both.’

  He sighed. ‘That’s just what she would say.’

  When I first met Lily she was still lovely – old and bony, but with those large, vague eyes: a face with a Past. Even if she didn’t wear her fringed dresses and crimson stockings, people would have gazed with admiration in the street. She lived in a cluttered mansion flat opposite the British Museum and ate in the sandwich bar downstairs. She still taught, part-time, at the Central School of Art, where she had become mythologized in her lifetime, the last of an era. When I was first married I used to visit her and sit for hours, eating salami rolls and listening to her as the day darkened outside and neither of us wanted to break the spell and switch on the lights.

  Anyone less like a mother-in-law would be hard to imagine. In fact I felt older than her – the sober, sensible one who voiced objections and wanted her to get the dates right.

  Ewan visited her too;
not as a treat, however, but as a duty. One day I looked at him: he was thirty and already putting on weight. It was harder nowadays to imagine him as a child.

  I said: ‘You didn’t appreciate her. She’s such a free spirit.’

  ‘I didn’t want a free spirit,’ he said. ‘I wanted a mother.’

  It all changed, as everything does, when we had children. Alexis arrived, and then Cassandra (the arty names were my choice). I became closed into our house in Hendon and I couldn’t get up to London to see Lily. When I did it was not the same. The children sucked the paintbrushes and tripped over the cat litter trays. Lily bought them charming presents, like a second-hand railway engine, that were far too old for them and had to be put into the cupboard, amidst shrieks, when we got home.

  She was always Lily, never Granny. She wouldn’t let them call her that because she felt the wings of mortality brushing her face; she said this, touching her rouged cheek.

  My own parents’ house was, as always, more comfortable and appropriate than Lily’s flat. We’d go down for Sunday lunch and the children could toddle across the safe green lawns of my childhood. They loved my mother’s fridge, which was always crammed. I thought of Lily’s, empty but for a tin of Kit-e-Kat and a half-bottle of gin (I said she was too poor to buy a whole bottle but Ewan said she was too stingy).

  At Lily’s the only roast beef came in a cellophane roll, but at my parents’ there was a proper Sunday lunch with gravy. Ewan always got on well with my parents – better than I do myself – and during the talk about What We’re Doing to the House (a perennial topic) I found myself disloyally yearning for Lily, who’d never owned anything in her life.

  When Alex was three he tried to sip the sherry, and when reprimanded he said: ‘Lily lets me.’

  My mother looked at him. ‘Well, Granny doesn’t.’

  By the time Alex was four, a small, grave boy and the image of his father, and Cassie was eighteen months, Lily had become distanced into a golden ideal of freedom. It seemed as hard to reach that as to walk into her green, forest painting above our mantelpiece. Ewan thought I was a wonderful mother but then he didn’t know what domesticity was like, he only came home to it. Arms full of damp Babygros, sometimes I felt like screaming.