‘On the contrary, Abba, I would very much like to hear it.’
‘Simply, I think it is a mistake. I think you two can do no possible good for each other. I think you should go to opposite corners of the earth. I think I have been cursed with two sons more dysfunctional than Mr Cain and Mr Abel.’
‘I am perfectly willing to meet with him, Abba. If he will meet with me.’
‘Apparently he is willing, this is what I am told. I don’t know. I don’t talk with him any more than I talk with you. I am too busy at the moment trying to make my peace with God.’
‘Er…’ said Archibald, crunching on his toothpick out of hunger and nerves, and because Magid gave him the heebie-jeebies, ‘I’ll go and see if the food is ready, shall I? Yes. I’ll do that. What am I picking up for you, Madge?’
‘A bacon sandwich, please, Archibald.’
‘Bac -? Er… right. Right you are.’
Samad’s face blew up like one of Mickey’s fried tomatoes. ‘So you mean to mock me, is that it? In front of my face you wish to show me the kaffir that you are. Go on, then! Munch on your pig in front of me! You are so bloody clever, aren’t you? Mr Smarty-pants. Mr white-trousered Englishman with his stiff- upper-lip and his big white teeth. You know everything, even enough to escape your own judgement day.’
‘I am not so clever, Abba.’
‘No, no, you are not. You are not half as clever as you think. I don’t know why I bother to warn you, but I do: you are on a direct collision course with your brother, Magid. I keep my ear to the ground, I hear Shiva talking in the restaurant. And there are others: Mo Hussein-Ishmael, Mickey’s brother, Abdul-Colin, and his son, Abdul-Jimmy – these are only a few, there are many more, and they are organizing against you. Millat is with them. Your Marcus Chalfen has stirred a great deal of anger and there are some, these green-ties, who are willing to act. Who are crazy enough to do what they believe is right. Crazy enough to start a war. There aren’t many people like that. Most of us just follow along once war has been announced. But some people wish to bring things to a head. Some people march on to the parade ground and fire the first shot. Your brother is one of them.’
All through this, as Samad’s face contorted from anger, to despair, to near-hysterical grins, Magid had remained blank, his face an unwritten page.
‘You have nothing to say? This news does not surprise you?’
‘Why don’t you reason with them, Abba,’ said Magid after a pause. ‘Many of them respect you. You are respected in the community. Reason with them.’
‘Because I disapprove as strongly as they do, for all their lunacies. Marcus Chalfen has no right. No right to do as he does. It is not his business. It is God’s business. If you meddle with a creature, the very nature of a creature, even if it is a mouse, you walk into the arena that is God’s: creation. You infer that the wonder of God’s creation can be improved upon. It cannot. Marcus Chalfen presumes. He expects to be worshipped when the only thing in the universe that warrants worship is Allah. And you are wrong to help him. Even his own son has disowned him. And so,’ said Samad, unable to suppress the drama queen deep within his soul, ‘I must disown you.’
‘Ah, now, one chips, beans, egg and mushroom for you, Sammy-my-good-man,’ said Archibald, approaching the table and passing the plate. ‘And one omelette and mushrooms for me…’
‘And one bacon sandwich,’ said Mickey, who had insisted on breaking fifteen years of tradition in bringing this one dish over himself, ‘for the young professor.’
‘He will not eat that at my table.’
‘Oh, come on, Sam,’ began Archie gingerly. ‘Give the lad a break.’
‘I say he will not eat that at my table!’
Mickey scratched his forehead. ‘Stone me, we’re getting a bit fundamentalist in our old age, ain’t we?’
‘I said-’
‘As you wish, Abba,’ said Magid, with that same infuriating smile of total forgiveness. He took his plate from Mickey, and sat down at the adjacent table with Clarence and Denzel.
Denzel welcomed him with a grin, ‘Clarence, look see! It de young prince in white. ’Im come to play domino. I jus’ look in his eye and I and I knew ’im play domino. ’Im an hexpert.’
‘Can I ask you a question?’ said Magid.
‘Def-net-lee. Gwan.’
‘Do you think I should meet with my brother?’
‘Hmm. I don’ tink me can say,’ replied Denzel, after a spell of thought in which he laid down a five-domino set.
‘I would say you look like a young fellow oo can make up ’im own mind,’ said Clarence cautiously.
‘Do I?’
Magid turned back to his previous table, where his father was trying studiously to ignore him, and Archie was toying with his omelette.
‘Archibald! Shall I meet with my brother or not?’
Archie looked guiltily at Samad and then back at his plate.
‘Archibald! This is a very significant question for me. Should I or not?’
‘Go on,’ said Samad sourly. ‘Answer him. If he’d rather advice from two old fools and a man he barely knows than from his own father, then let him have it. Well? Should he?’
Archie squirmed. ‘Well… I can’t… I mean, it’s not for me to say… I suppose, if he wants… but then again, if you don’t think…’
Samad thrust his fist into Archie’s mushrooms so hard the omelette slithered off the plate altogether and slipped to the floor.
‘Make a decision, Archibald. For once in your pathetic little life, make a decision.’
‘Um… heads, yes,’ gasped Archie, reaching into his pocket for a twenty pence piece. ‘Tails, no. Ready?’
The coin rose and flipped as a coin would rise and flip every time in a perfect world, flashing its light and then revealing its dark enough times to mesmerize a man. Then, at some point in its triumphant ascension, it began to arc, and the arc went wrong, and Archibald realized that it was not coming back to him at all but going behind him, a fair way behind him, and he turned with the others to watch it complete an elegant swoop towards the pinball machine and somersault straight into the slot. Immediately the huge old beast lit up; the ball shot off and began its chaotic, noisy course around a labyrinth of swinging doors, automatic bats, tubes and ringing bells, until, with no one to assist it, no one to direct it, it gave up the ghost and dropped back into the swallowing hole.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Archibald, visibly chuffed. ‘What are the chances of that, eh?’
A neutral place. The chances of finding one these days are slim, maybe even slimmer than Archie’s pinball trick. The sheer quantity of shit that must be wiped off the slate if we are to start again as new. Race. Land. Ownership. Faith. Theft. Blood. And more blood. And more. And not only must the place be neutral, but the messenger who takes you to the place, and the messenger who sends the messenger. There are no people or places like that left in North London. But Joyce did her best with what she had. First she went to Clara. In Clara’s present seat of learning, a red-brick university, South-West by the Thames, there was a room she used for study on Friday afternoons. A thoughtful teacher had loaned her the key. Always empty between three and six. Contents: one blackboard, several tables, some chairs, two anglepoise lamps, an overhead projector, a filing cabinet, a computer. Nothing older than twelve years, Clara could guarantee that. The university itself was only twelve years old. Built on empty waste land – no Indian burial grounds, no Roman viaducts, no interred alien spacecraft, no foundations of a long-gone church. Just earth. As neutral a place as anywhere. Clara gave Joyce the key and Joyce gave it to Irie.
‘But why me? I’m not involved.’
‘Exactly, dear. And I’m too involved. But you are perfect. Because you know him but you don’t know him,’ said Joyce cryptically. She passed Irie her long winter coat, some gloves and a hat of Marcus’s with a ludicrous bobble on the top. ‘And because you love him, though he doesn’t love you.’
‘Yeah, thanks, Joyce. Thanks for reminding me.’
‘Love is the reason, Irie.’