Meeting the English (11 page)

It was better than that. The letter was
personally
from the Rector, signed
personally
in pen. It said: Jake was expelled. (It said ‘rusticated', but it meant expelled, you could tell from the rest of it.) Jake had failed his Collections (exams). He hadn't resat them when he ought to have. His conduct to his tutor was unacceptable. His arrest for possession of drugs was in the hands of the police. He couldn't go back to college for a year. He couldn't go within a mile of Carfax, whatever that was.

Juliet stood with the stiff crackling paper in her hands in the narrow shiny kitchen of the Finchley Road flat and felt the meaning of the letter pulse up her body in waves, surging like the bubbling sounds of the still-boiling kettle. The long, trumpeting parade of Jake's successes, the bells and whistles and trombones of it: Jake's stage parts, Jake's essays, Jake's common entrances, Jake's O-Levels and A-Levels and what the tutors had said at his Oxford interview, all danced before in her in their shiny triumph and fell straight off a cliff into a boiling sea of ‘rustication'. She thought of the glory of telling Celia about this, of rubbing it into her mother till she squealed. So what if she failed Maths now! What was a resit at the comp compared to rustication! Juliet looked at the light smashed on the window and held the letter up to it, so it got a halo. It was undoubtedly the finest document she had ever read. On the stairs, unmistakeably, she heard Myfanwy's tread.

*   *   *

Struan had learned to swim in the chlorinated waters of Cuik Municipal Baths, but he took to the silky mud of Hampstead Mixed Bathing Pond like one of its own ducks. He thrashed in the shallows like a released Labrador. In the depths, he grasped his knees in his arms and sank like Houdini down, down in the murky, muddy centre of the pool; then came shooting to the surface and breached it like the grey whale. He leaped off the diving platform, feet down, in a pencil jump, hauled himself out, and executed a swallow dive. He pulled himself up on the central platform and fell off it, sideways. Then he sped up and down for a quarter of an hour, his huge arms seeming to span the pond, in a very creditable version of the butterfly. By the time he had showered and changed back into the shorts – white pleated knee-length Aquascutum shorts from the sixties, the cotton worn soft as silk – and the plain singlet, he felt more natural and comfortable than he had since he got to London. He loped up to the wheelchair grinning, and took Phillip's hand.

‘Did ya see my butterfly?' he said, scrutinizing the beery brown eyes, both of which Phillip promptly shut and did not reopen. Struan carefully replaced Phillip's hand on his chest, and wheeled the chair back on the decking platform.

‘I think he's having a wee sleep,' he said, and came and sat on the deck by Shirin's chair, leaning back on his hands. He liked the warm scratchy wood under his fingernails. He'd liked the walk to this place, too, the green and gold of the park. There were trees round the pond, even a hay-bale in the fields outside. It really was like the country, like the country in Perthshire, that is, or in books, not like the unearthly heaths round Cuik.

‘How did you learn this?' Shirin asked him abruptly.

‘The butterfly?' said Struan. ‘It was mostly my dad, actually. He used to take me to the baths on Saturdays.'

‘No, I mean, how did you learn to take care of Phillip so well?'

‘Oh,' said Struan. ‘Well, that was mostly my dad, too, I guess.'

‘Was he a doctor?' asked Shirin.

Struan laughed. ‘No,' he said, ‘was your dad a doctor, then?' Somehow, he thought Shirin's dad was something like that, and that he would be dead too. She wouldn't be living with Phillip, else.

‘Yes,' said Shirin, ‘he was, he was a surgeon. A hand surgeon. He was the best in all Iran. The best in the region.'

‘That's grand,' said Struan. ‘Well done him.'

‘What did your dad do?' asked Shirin.

‘He worked for the Council,' said Struan, ‘then he got MS. He was ill a long time.'

‘And so then you learned where is the brake on a wheelchair,' said Shirin, ‘and how to keep the sun out of the eyes.'

‘It was just me and my gran at home,' said Struan, ‘and I was a big lad already, so I did the pushing round.' He looked up at Shirin. You couldn't see her eyes behind her Ray-Bans, and her mouth was like a mouth in a perfume advert, glossy and half-open.

‘When did he die?' she asked.

‘Two years ago,' said Struan. ‘Nearly three.'

He was going to add, don't worry, and he was over it, but for once this did not seem necessary. Shirin didn't say sorry, or change the subject. She asked:

‘Where was your mother?' which was the clever question, the one no one ever asked. And Struan, his elbows on his knees, his chin on his hands, his eyes on the pond, said:

‘I don't know. You see, she left. She left a long time ago. Before I was three. I don't remember her.'

‘And you didn't tell her your father was ill?'

‘He'd have had to do that,' said Struan. ‘It had to be down to him.'

‘But you thought of it?'

‘Oh, aye. You mean, like going to Register House and tracking her down, like you read in the papers? Aye, I thought of that, but I couldnae.'

‘It was too hard?' said Shirin.

‘I was underage,' said Struan, and, after a pause. ‘And it would have hurt my gran's feelings, besides. My gran was very down on my mum, you see. My dad wasnae. He said, he loved taking care of me anyway, and so did my gran, and it was all for the best, and I was never to think ill of my mum, it was just that there were things she had to do. But that wasnae my gran's attitude, and I had to take care of her. I couldnae start a big detective hunt.'

‘And when your dad died?'

Struan thought about that time, after the death: the state of his gran, and the funeral in the sleet and him greeting everyone, suddenly six foot in his suit, and the months following, and he said:

‘I was too tired. After he died, I was just really tired. Every morning I'd get up, and I'd think, he's dead, and he'll be dead all day, and he'll still be dead this evening, and it was work, you know, it was like a job, like someone said, you've got to carry a sack of coal all day and never drop it. I couldnae start a hunt for my mum. I didn't have the fuel in me. Besides…' Struan tailed off.

‘She must have known, really,' said Shirin.

‘Aye,' said Struan, ‘that's right. That's what I think. Exactly. There must be someone up in Cuik she talks to. We didnae move house, we lived with my gran, so she must've known. She'd have come, if she wanted to.'

‘If she's still alive,' said Shirin.

‘Why would she be dead?' said Struan.

‘Anyone can be dead,' said Shirin. ‘I am always surprised, who is dead.'

‘Is your mother dead?'

‘No,' said Shirin, and almost laughed. ‘My mother is in Harrow.'

‘Who else is dead, then?' asked Struan.

‘Two of my cousins,' said Shirin, ‘and my older sister, I am always surprised by this when I think it, that she is not there. And you are correct, it is very tiring, to grieve. When my father died, I was tired for two years, I think. I did not study. I had no ideas for paintings. I could not be bothered with any people.'

Phillip's eyes were open again, watching them. As if by mutual agreement, Shirin and Struan picked up the swimming things and started the slow process of getting the wheelchair back off the decking and onto the made path.

‘How old were you?' asked Struan, once they were walking across the Heath. ‘When your father died, I mean. And your sister. If you don't mind me asking.'

‘Nineteen,' said Shirin, ‘when my father died. I had been in this country two years. Him, one year. We had some trouble arriving in the same country at the same time.'

‘Is that how you lost your sister?' said Struan. ‘Running away?'

‘No,' said Shirin, smiling again. ‘My sister died in a car accident. In Iran. Not politics – just very stupid.'

‘What did your father die of?' asked Struan.

‘His heart,' said Shirin, ‘his heart failed. But really, you see, he died of what they did to him in the prisons in Tehran. They broke his hands, he could not work. Also, he smoked too much.'

Struan looked at Shirin's golden hand, so elegant and clever, lightly clasping the handle of her straw basket, and imagined smashing it. He churned through his impressions of Iran, which consisted entirely of black-clad women round a coffin and an Ayatollah with a beard. He knew he was going to ask the wrong question, and ruin a good impression, but he plunged ahead and asked it anyway. ‘Was that the mullahs?' he said.

‘No,' said Shirin, sharply.

‘Sorry,' said Struan, ‘sorry to be ignorant.'

‘People always think that,' said Shirin. ‘Mullahs. Probably, the mullahs would be OK for us. My cousins have gone back, they went last year, and so far, they are in fact OK. Before the mullahs, Struan, there was the Shah, and he was not a good man. He thought up the prisons of Tehran.'

‘Excuse me,' said Struan, ‘excuse me, are you Muslim?'

‘No,' said Shirin, ‘we are Zoroastrians in my family.'

‘Parsee,' said Struan, thinking he was making rather a fine stab.

‘No,' said Shirin, ‘Parsees are the Zoroastrians in India. Persian, you see? Iranian. Zoroastrianism started in Iran, in Persia. I am a Zoroastrian from Iran. Or at least, my family are.'

But Struan could not help asking: ‘You put the bodies on the towers, do you no, for the vultures?'

‘Well,' said Shirin, for the popularity of Paul Scott was a trial to her; ‘in India, Parsees still do. But there aren't enough birds, now. In Iran we usually use—'

But Struan was blundering on, his face full of joy. ‘I love that idea,' he said, ‘you see, I love it. That's what I wanted for my dad, sky burial, him and the wheelchair, both.'

‘Did you want to set him free?' said Shirin, an edge to her chamois voice.

‘No,' said Struan, ‘he was dead. He couldn't be free. All he could be was dead.'

‘Then bury him,' said Shirin. ‘Why not?'

‘Because then it's like you think he'll come back,' said Struan. ‘The way they tell it. You bury folk so they can get up again on the day of resurrection. Like they get their batteries put back in them. Their souls. At the funeral the minister said the body was a container, and that Dad was leaving it behind on earth. That's what I don't like. Dad didn't have a soul, he was Dad. I mean he was Martin, too, he was a person, but all of him was in his body and his brain. He didn't have another bit. Och. Am I just havering? Am I making any sense at all?'

‘Oh yes,' said Shirin. ‘You are making very good sense.'

‘Dad's body died,' said Struan. ‘It died bit by bit, and when all the bits were gone, he was gone. And then he was in my memory and Gran's, but nowhere else. Not in Heaven. He was really gone. And I wanted to put him up in a tower and leave him for vultures so it would be like us all saying that. Do you see what I'm saying? That we all knew he was dead. That bodies die. People die. I just hate the pretending people do about dying, that's all. But there aren't any vultures in Scotland.'

‘Don't you have golden eagles?' asked Shirin.

‘Not in Cuik,' said Struan. ‘It's no the Highlands, you see. It's Central Belt.' And then Struan told Shirin all about Cuik, and together they pushed Phillip back to the house in Yewtree Row, and as they crossed the road at Jack Straw's Castle, Struan remembered he hadn't mentioned money, or the window in the attic, or even the Pot Noodle supply, let alone Jake and why he might have known that Shirin was out for the evening.

On the steps was Juliet, kicking her heels, curiously cheerful.

‘Hello,' she said, rather fast, ‘hello, can you let me in? I've lost my key.'

‘I thought,' said Shirin, ‘you have gone to stay with your mother?'

‘I've sorted her,' said Juliet, ‘I totally have. You'd be surprised. I'm going to stay here all summer.'

‘Well done,' said Struan, nodding appreciatively.

‘Yup,' said Juliet, ‘I left her there in the flat like a tweedy whale with harpoons in it. I even got food money off her. And I took the Jane Fonda video and the Slimfast. I am on the biggest diet ever.'

‘Don't go like Celia on us,' said Shirin.

‘Oh, Celia,' said Juliet, ‘don't get me started on Celia. I went round to see her last night. Celia's got this boyfriend…'

‘I thought she was dying of anorexia?' said Struan.

‘She's not,' said Juliet. ‘She's got lots fatter actually. She only cancelled my holiday because she wants to carry on shagging this bloke, that's what I think. And she can't tell me about it because it's “too profound” and I wouldn't understand. You know. So superior, just cos she's having skinny sex.'

‘This is very annoying,' said Shirin, ‘don't you have another friend you can ring up?'

‘No,' said Juliet, ‘honestly not. I'm really not very popular. I don't know when to shut up. You must've noticed. So you'll just have to put up with me, OK?'

‘Grand with me,' said Struan, grinning. He was wearing better shorts, noticed Juliet, and even a singlet, but now he was sunburned, bright red right across his back.

10

On the wild wet night of the eighth of August, at midnight, in the flat in the Finchley Road that she had never really liked, Myfanwy Prys came across her son in the kitchen, frying eggs.

He was in his boxer shorts. His trousers were draped on the fan oven, which was on. Myfanwy hadn't seen him for three months. ‘Darling,' she said, but he did not embrace her. She was fat as an eiderdown in her silk kimono.