Jubilee (23 page)

‘You were six!’

‘I know, I know. My hair was wet because of the rain, and Miss Walsh brought a towel down to dry it. Her boyfriend was sitting there, watching me, and he was smoking or something, because he was holding his hand away from his face and it made his T-shirt ride up, and I saw his, you know, his pubic hair, what do they call it? Crab ladder – I saw his crab ladder. Don’t look at me like that, Satish. I’m sharing, here.’

‘I’m waiting for the point.’

‘It’s just … There was something about him, the way he watched me, just waiting to see what would happen next. No judgements, no intervention. A sort of amorality. You know where else I’ve seen that? Dealers.’

He waits for the confession.

‘Dealers,’ she says again, quieter. ‘The ones I knew, anyway. Do you think Miss Walsh’s boyfriend was a drug dealer?’

‘I think he was an accountant. What do you want to tell me?’

‘Well, Mrs Miller found Miss Walsh but she’s living in Scotland so she’s not going to come.’

On Colette’s plate is her last baklava, a little diamond with grey paste oozing from the middle. He considers reaching out for it, but just as he’s decided to, she takes it herself and bites it in half. As the layers of pastry succumb to her teeth, the whole thing squashes down and the paste leaks out of the sides. Sometimes, they get very hungry. Is this appetite normal?

‘You want?’ she asks as she offers him the remains.

He shakes his head. ‘Who else did she find then?’

‘Hang on.’ She chews slowly, pointing at her mouth occasionally as he waits for her to finish. ‘Sorry about that. The thing is, she’s been trying to trace the Chandlers.’

Lukewarm tea slops on the floor of his mouth. He swishes it from side to side with his tongue. If he didn’t have to respond, if he could hold it in for a while longer, his mouth would cool slightly, and the tea would warm a bit more.

‘Satish?’

He swallows finally. ‘The Chandlers?’

‘Yeah. She managed to find someone who knew someone … you know. You remember how she was? She could find bloody Lord Lucan. Weapons of Mass Destruction.’

‘So, I suppose she found them, then?’

‘Well, she found Paul.’

Paul Chandler, his dense body packed into his school uniform, appears briefly before Satish. He can see Paul’s cold eye, Paul’s jaw adorned with bum fluff.

‘I need some more tea, Colette. You?’

‘I’m fine.’

He goes over to the counter and deliberates over his choice of cake. When he sits down again she hasn’t let it go.

‘So, Mrs Miller found Paul. He moved to Australia a few years back. I don’t know what he’s doing out there.’

‘So?’

‘So … he’s not coming, obviously. But she’s looking for Stephen now. He hasn’t emigrated or died or anything. He’s back down south, apparently. You know, Satish, she’ll find him.’

The Chandlers had left a few months after the Jubilee party. The Jubilee was like a centrifuge, he sometimes thinks, its events sending them all spinning away from the centre: Cai and Colette to South Africa, the Chandlers up north. It wasn’t like that at all, of course, they’d have gone anyway. The real centre was Satish, and they spun away from him all right. In that last half term at primary school, he was alone. He’d have nothing to do with Sarah or Cai, and Colette was too young to be a real friend. Mandy he ignored completely.

Being alone was bearable, but being publicly alone was really hard. Satish found new ways to look busy. He chatted to a bemused Sima on the walk to school. Once there, he avoided the playground altogether; he read books, he helped teachers. At weekends, his mum started to notice that he wasn’t playing out, and he told her he had lots of homework to do. Once the holidays started, he got out of Cherry Gardens altogether most days, taking refuge at Ranjeet’s place. When his mum remarked on
that
, he told her he was talking to Dinesh about secondary school, and it seemed to satisfy her. Certainly, she never brought up the subject again.

But for all his meticulous planning, he still bumped into the Chandlers from time to time. They shared the same road, of course, and there were those few weeks after the summer holidays when they were all at Bassetsbury Boys’ together. Satish had to steel himself when he saw them coming. He could cope, though. He had a trick. When he saw them, he’d imagine he was armed. He had guns, at least two or three of them, concealed all over his body, like a spy. When the Chandlers appeared, he could feel the guns: knocking against his hip; strapped to his ankle; snuggling under his sock. There was nothing those bigger boys could do that would be a match for the guns. The slightest sign of trouble and they’d find themselves staring down the barrel of a Smith and Wesson.

I’m armed, Satish would tell himself as he spotted Stephen or Paul coming towards him. He’d square his shoulders and his hand would hover near his waist. He’d stare at them, and they’d stare right back, and they’d pass each other like that. But after Jubilee Day, the Chandlers never touched him.

‘You’re right,’ he tells Colette. ‘Mrs Miller will find Stephen.’

‘And then she’ll invite him to the photo. He might come.’ She paused. ‘Bugger, eh?’

And it’s those words that break him. The cunning of it, the disingenuous sympathy. She isn’t using. She’s clean and nasty, and he doesn’t know why. His anger comes out in a rush.

‘Don’t give me that!’ Colette jumps. ‘This was always going to get out of control, wasn’t it?’

‘What do you mean?’ she says, her voice perilous.

‘I mean, that you were so keen for me to do this, weren’t you? Well, that’s why I didn’t want to. This was utterly predictable.
You
should have known it.’

‘It’s not my fault!’ she says.

‘It’s interesting you should say that. Because it
is
your fault, really, isn’t it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean …’ and he takes a breath, but he needs to lift this rock, see what’s underneath it. ‘I mean that you tell Andrew Ford you’ll make this happen – and I’m still interested in exactly how that came about. Then you track people down. And you call Maya, just to chat about it, all innocence. And you – don’t interrupt me. And yes, before you ask: I’m
cross
– you break into my house in the middle of the night and spin me a line about your poor, poor, fraudulent father.’

‘Don’t!’

The man with the toddler glances across at them. Satish lowers his voice. ‘And when I still don’t comply, you do this.’ He pulls the note out of his jacket pocket and slides it across the table towards her. Colette looks at it for a second or two, then opens it.

‘Do the photograph,’ she reads. ‘Or I’ll tell your secret?’ She gives the last word an upward inflection: a question. She stares at Satish. ‘What is this?’

‘Don’t give me that.’

‘What the
fuck
? Did someone send you this?’

‘Don’t bother, Colette. Don’t pretend.’

‘What the
fuck
?’ she says again. ‘Are you serious?’

Around them, Satish can hear muttered discontent. The man raises his hand for the waiter, but Colette has gone quiet, and she’s looking at the paper that lies between them. Suddenly her expression changes.

‘I don’t believe it!’ she says. ‘You … horrible … bastard!’ She snatches up the note. ‘You think
I
did this. You think I would do this to
you
. You nasty little bastard fucker!’

Her forehead and chin and lips are trembling. Pain, or a very good approximation of it, moves across her face like a cloudscape. But he can’t be sure. He presses on.

‘Well … yes, I do. And I’m not the one at fault here. You were very keen for me to do this. You pressured me.’

‘I was upfront with you!’

‘You pushed and pushed.’

‘Not with a bloody blackmail note, I didn’t!’

She shoves it in his direction and starts collecting her things, her scarf, her purse, her mobile, stuffing them into her bag.

‘You stupid, stupid bastard. Don’t you know? I would never do this to you. I’m your friend, you thick bastard. Your friend! And I don’t
care
about your secret, whatever it is. You could tell me anything, you stupid fucker!’ And she gets up and walks out, pushing back her chair, so that it topples to the floor with a clang.

In the wake of her departure, as heads turn towards him, Satish covers his face and curls forward onto the table. He doesn’t know what to think. The things she said feel true. Real. And if they are, he’s a
nasty little bastard
, wrong and ashamed –
and
he still hasn’t found his blackmailer. If she’s lying, then he hasn’t done anything to derail her; he’s just made her angry.

He can hear it scattering down towards him, the shower of stones disturbed from somewhere higher up: this thing isn’t controllable any more. There’s nobody left to remonstrate with, nobody to appease, and there’s only one thing he can do to stop his world from coming apart. He’ll have to do the photograph. He closes his eyes against the thought, but then he remembers what you say to parents when they resist treatment for their child: the alternative’s worse. Now, he follows his own advice. If he doesn’t do this he’ll be exposed. He’ll lose his job, lose his parents’ respect, maybe even Maya and the kids. So he’ll do the photograph. He’ll do it because the alternative’s far worse.

And the Big Deal that Colette wanted to tell him about, the search for Stephen Chandler? That’s no mystery at all. Stephen will be found. He wants to be found. He has, after all, already sought out Satish; and Stephen found Satish with no trouble whatsoever.

It happened four months ago. He was at work and he’d left his office for just a moment. When he went back, Stephen was in there waiting for him. Satish didn’t recognise him at first. He registered a man just inside the door, and the man was looking around him as if he wasn’t sure whether he should be there.

‘Hello?’ said Satish. ‘Can I help you?’

He was sinewy, tan-varnished, and although he was dressed formally, it looked all wrong: a surfer in a suit.

‘Can I help you?’

‘Satish Patel?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t know whether you remember me. I’m Stephen Chandler.’ He held out his hand.

Satish was ashamed, later, of having recoiled. But it couldn’t be helped, and he found himself out in the corridor.

‘Bit of a surprise, isn’t it? I was in the area.’

‘Were you? Well, I’m afraid … I’m afraid this isn’t a good time. I have patients to see.’

Stephen followed him out into the corridor, stood close. ‘I thought we might catch up,’ he said.

‘I have patients waiting right now. I can’t.’

‘It’ll just take a minute. Can we talk?’

There was a sound from further along, double doors opening as Niamh pushed through them. ‘Tea?’ she said, and he remembered that he’d asked for some.

She handed it over, regarding Stephen with interest – ‘Any for you?’ – but before he could answer, Satish said: ‘No, he’s fine, thanks,’ and pushed past Stephen into his office, leaving him behind.

When he made to shut the door, Stephen bounced it open again. ‘It’s only for a minute,’ he said, shouldering inside and closing it. Satish moved behind his desk.

‘I’m very busy here.’ Satish kept hold of his hot tea. He looked at the sharpened pencils next to the phone.

‘I think I know what this is about – can I sit down?’ Uninvited, Stephen sat in the chair reserved for patients. He was a composite thing, a middle-aged man, and a boy, and – somewhere – the young man Satish had never seen. Lines had been carved into his skin, and it was more than the normal ageing process. There had been sun and wind on him over the last thirty years. Stephen’s hands came to rest on the arms of the chair, and a middle finger rubbed at the finial. Then he shifted in his seat, crossed one leg over the other and plucked at the knee of his trousers. There he was! Stephen, the boy, caught in one of his characteristic quick movements, like a sudden dumping of energy.

‘Look, I think I know why you’re reacting like this,’ he said. ‘I know why you didn’t answer my letters.’

‘I really don’t have the time …’

‘I understand. It was Jubilee Day, wasn’t it?’ He looked cautiously at Satish. ‘All that palaver before the street party? Blimey, that was nearly thirty years ago! What were we like, eh?’ He grinned invitingly, but Satish didn’t respond. Stephen was trying to take more control of his body language now. He slowed his movements down, became carefully expansive. The silence grew, and Satish let it. Stephen’s smile flattened.

‘Just kids, really, weren’t we?’ he continued. ‘When I look back … Well, we all had stuff to be embarrassed about, didn’t we? If it wasn’t your attitude it was your haircut. No point in being young otherwise. What we used to get up to …’ He shook his head and smiled. Still Satish said nothing. Stephen talked on, hauling up more memories, the convenient ones, as he did so. The white noise of the computer filled the pauses.

‘That school. Your mate Cai, footie in the street – do you remember? Different times. Well, we’re all grown up now. And look at you. You’ve done well.’

When he finally stopped, Satish stood. ‘I’m afraid I have to go now,’ he said. ‘Probably best to leave.’

Stephen stood, too, and Satish’s fingertips felt for the edge of the desk.

‘Come on, Satish.’

‘I said, it’s best if you leave.’

Stephen pursed his lips and looked at the floor. ‘You know, you were a lucky bastard, Satish,’ he said. ‘A lucky,
smug
bastard, some might say. I’m sure you felt hard done by and whatever, but the truth is, you lucked out on Jubilee Day.’

Was Satish suffering from some sort of latency? Certainly, he was a beat behind everything Stephen was saying.

‘Do you know what the halo effect is?’ Stephen went on. ‘It’s what you got that day. They’ve proved it: if people know one good thing about someone, they think they’re good at everything.’ He took a step closer. ‘If they know you’re rich, they’ll think you’re clever. If they know you’re popular, they’ll think you’re successful. Get one thing right – you know, really
right
– and you get the best jobs and the best partners and money and whatever. You got that.’ He flicks a finger at Satish. ‘You got it from that photo: that’s all people thought about, you at the centre, the Jubilee boy. It made you
interesting
. It made people notice you. How do you think you got all this?’ His quick gesture took in Satish’s office, the hospital and – presumably – Maya and the kids, miles away and oblivious.