L text 9

That evening I said I’d take dad, Eva, Allie and his girlfriend out to dinner to celebrate my new job and Dad giving up his. ‘What a good idea,’ said Eva. ‘Maybe I’ll make an announcement, too.’

I rang Jammie at the commune and invited her and Changez to join us. Changez took the phone from her and said he’d come out if he could but wasn’t sure about Jamila because of naughty Leila. And anyway they’d been out at the polling booths all day, working for the Labour Party at the election.

We got dressed up, and Eva persuaded Dad into his Nehru jacket, collarless and buttoned up to the throat like a Beatle jacket, only longer. The waiters would think he was an ambassador or a prince, or something. She was so proud of him, too, and kept picking stray hairs off his trousers, and the more bad-tempered he looked, because of everything being wrong, the more she kissed him. We took a taxi to the most expensive place I knew, in Soho. I paid for everything with the money I’d got by trading in the ticket to New York.

The restaurant was on three floors, with duck-egg blue walls, a piano and a blond boy in evening dress playing it. The people were dazzling; they were rich; they were loud. Eva, to her pleasure, knew four people there, and a middle-aged queen with a red face and pot-belly said, ‘here’s my address, Eva. Come to dinner on Sunday and see my four Labradors. Have you heard of so –and-so?’ he added, mentioning a famous film director. ‘He’ll be there. And he’s looking for someone to do up his place in France.’

Eva talked to him about her work and the job she was currently doing, designing and decorating a country house. She and Ted would have to stay in a cottage in the grounds for a while. It was the biggest thing they’d been asked to do; she was going to employ several people to help her, but they would only be self-aware types, she said. ‘Self-aware but not self-conscious, I hope,’ said the queen.

Inevitably, little Allie knew some other people there, three models, and they came over to our table. We had a small party, and by the end of it everyone in the place seemed to have been told I was going to be on television, and who was going to be the next Prime Minister. It was the latter that made them especially ecstatic. It was good to see Dad and Allie together again. Dad made a special effort with him and kept kissing him and asking him questions, but Allie kept his distance; he was very confused and he’d never liked Eva.

To my relief, at midnight Changez turned up in his boiler suit, along with Shinko. Changez embraced Dad and me and Allie, and showed us photographs of Leila. She couldn’t have had a more indulgent uncle than Changez. ‘If only you’d brought Jamila,’ I said. Shinko was very attentive to Changez. She spoke of his care for Leila and his work on Princess Jeeta’s shop, while he ignored her and brayed his loud opinions on his arrangement of items in a shop—the exact location of sweets in relation to bread—even as she praised him to others.

He ate massively, ol’ Changez, and I encouraged him to have two helpings of coconut ice-cream, which he ate as if it were about to be taken from him. Have anything you like,’ I said to all of them. ‘D’you want dessert, d’you want coffee?’I began to enjoy my own generosity; I felt the pleasure of pleasing others, especially as this was accompanied by money-power; I was paying for them; they were grateful, they had to be; and they could no longer see me as a failure. I wanted to do more of this. It was as if I’d suddenly discovered something I was good at, and I wanted to practice it non-stop.

When everyone was there, and nicely drunk and laughing, Eva stood up and knocked on the table. She was smiling and caressing the back of Dad’s head as she strained to be heard. She said, ‘Can I have some quiet, please, for a few minutes. Everyone—please!’

There was quiet. Everyone looked at her. Dad beamed around the table.

‘There’s an announcement I must make,’ she said.

‘For god’s sake make it, then,’ Dad said.

‘I can’t,’ she said. She bent to his ear. ‘Is it still true?’ she whispered.

‘Say it,’ he said, ignoring the question. ‘Eva, everyone’s waiting.’

She stood up, put her hands together and was about to speak when she turned to Dad once more. ‘I can’t, Haroon.’

‘Say it, say it,’ we said.

‘All right. Pull yourself together, Eva. We are getting married. Yes, we’re getting married. We met, fell in love, and now we’re getting married. In two months’ time. Ok? You’re all invited.’

She sat down abruptly, and dad put his arm around her. She was speaking to him, but by now we were roaring our approval and banging the table and pouring more drinks. I raised a toast to them, and everyone cheered and clapped. It was a great, unsullied event. After this there were hours of congratulation and drinking and so many people around our table I didn’t have to talk much. I could think about the past and what I’d been through as I’d struggled to locate myself and learn what the heart is. Perhaps in the future I would live more deeply.

And so I sat in the centre of this old city that I loved, which itself sat at the bottom of a tiny island. I was surrounded by people I loved, and I felt happy and miserable at the same time. I thought of what a mess everything had been, but that it wouldn’t always be that way.

Hanif Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia, the ending scene.