Pisgah Road Page 7

The same night my mother baked a large cake and told me that I had to take it up to the neighbors, as a way of apologizing. They were nice about the earlier incident and Mr. Verity-Osborne told me that teenagers are clumsy by design. His wife did not confirm his assessment. We were all staring at the dark stain on the otherwise pristine couch as he talked. A day later, my mother had the couch professionally cleaned. It was no good. The traces of the tea stain stayed very visible. There was no lesson in this, despite my mother’s insistence. I could see the stain even though the Verity-Osbornes couldn’t or pretended not to notice. They were simply old. My mother had insisted that old people could give one’s life — my life — a certain perspective. Yet, to me, they only demonstrated the vulnerability of life at the time when I urgently wanted to be invincible. It was not a good feeling. My mother had promised and I secretly had hoped that the old couple on the third floor would bestow some wisdom that I would use for the rest of my life. They didn’t.

  They were just two very nice old people who had decent but uninspiring lives. Since leaving the States, my mother had started baking. She would bake one and sometimes two cakes a day. Neither my father nor I thought of her new baking zeal as anything but normal. The house started to smell like a bakery and we had more cakes and pastries than any one of us could eat. My mother was an excellent cook, but had never shown any interest in baking but after the summer of ‘83, the only thing she liked doing was baking.

  “What cake do we have for dinner?” my father would ask every night. He meant it as a tease. He didn’t want to complain about my mother’s obsession with baking. He was happy that my mother had stopped crying. He didn’t know that she was using nothing but Jane’s recipes. He knew nothing about Jane and therefore he knew nothing about my mother. How strange to have a life divided between two people.

  Once in a while my mother would force me to take some cake up to the Verity-Osbornes. They would insist that I sit with them and share a cup of tea. Mrs. Verity-Osborne would stay in the kitchen for a long time, preparing the tea and all that goes with it. I never offered to serve again and Mrs. Verity-Osborne never asked for help. I had noticed that she would put a large throw rug on the couch every time I went to their place. While she fussed in the kitchen, Mr. Verity-Osborne showed me his scrapbook of old newspaper cuttings. I couldn’t figure out the theme of the scrapbook but he was so passionate about each article and he knew so much about each topic that I couldn’t help but be interested in his esoteric cuttings. None were really exciting or in retrospect valuable but because of it I know all about such topics as Shergar, the prized stallion — the 1981 Derby Winner — that was kidnapped in Ireland. But those little articles were not life changing; they were momentary distractions for a boy who was trying to grow up fast. Perhaps I’m wrong and there was something to those disparate articles. Mr. Verity-Osborne never said it but in some ways there was some humanitarian aspect, some degree of altruism, in each of them. Perhaps those little articles did make me a better person. At least I want to believe that I didn’t waste hours looking at newspaper clippings for nothing.

  II

  In our London flat, the windows in the dining room opened to the street. I used to sit on the windowsill when it was raining and stare at pedestrians going back and forth. There’s a sense of urgency when it rains. At times, I would sit there and dream about the future. It was always a bright future, with me in the center of some humanitarian activity, doing something to help the needy. I wanted to do good and I wanted my parents there to see it. It didn’t work out. I’m not doing good and I certainly never imagined losing both of my parents in my thirties.

  My school was four stops away on the number six bus, an old brewery turned into a school that housed students from kindergarten to sixth form (final two years of high school in England). No one called it by its proper and rather long name: Brayton Manor Bridge College. It was simply called the Brewery. It was an odd mix of little children with young adults. The school had two buildings, one gloomier than the other. It was a typical nineteenth-century building with red brick exterior and damp cold interior. It was fine as a brewery but perhaps not the best design as a school. The younger students were housed on the bottom floors and the older ones on the floors above. We had to take an exterior metal staircase to go up and down. It became slick and slippery when it rained. We were fine with the setup. I was at the Brewery for almost two years. That’s where I met Daniel Wright.

  Daniel was a year ahead of me, but he chose to become my friend on our first encounter at the Brewery. I had nothing to offer him then but he decided, for his own reasons, to take me on as his protégé. I was sixteen when we met, and he was seventeen. Daniel was tall, several inches taller than me, and strong with massive hands and feet. He had piercing deep blue eyes and sandy brown hair. He was a serious boy and spoke with a certain fortitude, and yet on rare occasions, when he smiled, his whole face would shine with a contagious exuberance. He was not a person to be ignored. He lived with his father, David, in a large house that was only ten blocks away from my flat. His mother had left them when he was only five. He never spoke of his mother. His father is only eighteen years older than him so they were more like brothers than father and son. They looked alike and they acted alike. They were two carefree, generous men who loved automobiles and speed. Daniel was the only person I knew who actually owned a car. He drove everywhere and parked anywhere he wished. He told me he was connected with the cops and didn’t care about parking tickets. I believed him. I believed everything he told me — almost everything.

  On my first day in school, I was lost in the basement of the Brewery but afraid to ask anyone for help. It was my first week in London. I was still tired from the flight and scared of the new life. I could hardly understand the exaggerated accents of the students. They all seemed to take pride speaking in what seemed to me like a code. I was wearing jeans that were two sizes too big and a large backpack with all the books my mother could find. Daniel stopped me in the hallway.

  “A’you los’, man?”

  He wasn’t smiling, and looked rather menacing. He was staring straight at me. My mother had warned me about London hooligans.

  “Yes?”

  “Wha’? Y’don’ know you los’ or naw?”

  “What? No. What? No. No. I know. I’m lost. I’m looking for…”

  He grabbed the paper out of my hand and looked at my schedule. He looked at the paper and then at me. And then for no apparent reason, he smiled and with it his face turned soft and friendly. He took a step towards me and I flinched slightly. “Calm down, man,” he said, articulating each word. And then, “Y’re on thir’, ‘oom six.”

  “What?”

  “Third…floor.” He pointed up with his finger as if talking to a slow person and then showed six fingers. “Room…six.”

  “Room six,” I repeated slowly, confirming his suspicion that I was somewhat retarded. Then to prove him wrong, I insisted, “I know. That’s for the first period but what about the other periods?”

  “Wha’ the fuck?”

  “I mean what room do I go after the first period?”

  “Wha’ room? No room, man. You stay put.” He indicated with his hands as if telling the dog to stay. “That’s your place for the year. Y’understand?” I nodded, thinking it was like the elementary school. “Good boy,” he said and then he added, “’tis ain’t America, boy. Teachers move around, not the kiddies.” He then extended his right hand and said: “My name is Daniel Wright, but you can call me Daniel.” I shook his hand but I was still confused. He asked, “What’s your name?” I was going to respond when he noticed my backpack and grabbed it. He went through it with great distaste as if it was a bag of garbage. “Wha’ the fuck are these?”

  “Books?”

  “Books? What the fuck fo’?”

  “I was going to put them in my locker?”

  “Your wha’? Locker? This ain’t a health spa.” He took out a few of my books that my mother had insisted that I
should bring and threw them in the garbage. “You don’ need half of this shite.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Trust me.”

  I had no choice. He chose to become my friend and then he was. There were several Daniels in our grades but none of them was called by their full first name. There was Danny Worthington, Dan Carpenter, and for some reason Davies for Daniel Davies. Daniel Wright was simply Daniel and when someone would say Daniel, we all knew that we were talking about him. Daniel showed me around the campus and introduced me to his group. I told him I played soccer and he thought that was good as long as I didn’t call it that. I was like a little puppy following the big dog on campus. He introduced me to his friends, but more importantly he introduced me to Gabrielle Desidéria.

  III

  I fell in love with Gabrielle immediately.

  That’s not really true. I met Gabrielle almost as soon as I started at the Brewery in 1983. Gabrielle had been in there since Year 3. I met her and we became friends, but I didn’t recognize that I was in love with her until we were all done with high school and we were in our third year at Imperial College, almost five years later. But by then it was too late. It became impossible to love her so it abruptly ended. I should have recognized the love years earlier, but I didn’t. How does one recognize something one has never experienced before? Even when others hinted, I was too obtuse and didn’t really acknowledge it. One thing I learned though: We can’t change the sequence of events no matter how much we wish we could. I know that now. We all know it but most of us don’t think about it and behave as if events can be reconstructed. The lucky few recognize it quickly and take action, but the rest of us defer and defer until the time runs out. I fell in love with Gabrielle too late and when there was some ray of hope — when I thought there might be a chance — destiny intervened and our paths diverged. I didn’t know it then but from the time I recognized my feelings for her, I had only had a short time to nurture it and I wasted weeks and months on frivolity of youth. I was with her and then as if a moment later I was on the plane leaving London for good. It’s possible that I made a mistake and could have stayed longer to try to shepherd our lives through its natural course. I didn’t, and at the time, I didn’t think I had that option.

  Ironically, in our first year at Imperial College, Gabrielle had fallen in love. She thought she had fallen in love. It wasn’t real. If it had been real then she would have known love and surely she would have seen us differently. It was just an infatuation. She was irrationally enamored with an Italian boy named Adriano. He was no saint despite his name — just a summer visitor. She spent a whole summer with him, ignoring the rest of her friends. I was there for her when Adriano went back home to Rome at the end of the summer of ‘86 and never contacted her. He gave her a false address. Her romantic letters came back unopened. I was there for her, but didn’t recognize it as love until much later, when I got in a fight with Daniel over an Arsenal player named David O’Leary, at a picnic in Green Park. I remember the date. Who wouldn’t?

  It was April 9, 1988. We were at the end of our third year at Imperial College and on that day it all clicked. In retrospect, it’s unbelievable, though unfortunately very true, that it took me almost five years to recognize my feelings for her. I think it’s my obtuseness that makes me different.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I

  Five years sounds like a lot of time to fall in love with someone, but it’s not. You meet someone and you think nothing of it, as you are distracted by other events, and then five years pass. In between the first meeting and the dawning of awareness, there are hundreds if not thousands of other events compressed into what we humorously call a blink of an eye. I say humorously to avoid calling it what it really is, pathetic. Because how else would you be able to account for your inaction in those years? In that time, there were many new friendships, parties, drinking, first kisses, last kisses, loss of virginities, fights, suspensions, cries, different parties, new drinks, dates, and occasional jobs but nothing that happened was about love. How is that possible? My mother would say, too young to love anyway.

  Not true. You’re never too young to love. You may be too young to act, but never too young to recognize it and accept it. And when it finally did materialize, should it have taken five years? And did it have to be in the Green Park? And did it have to be associated with an argument over who was a better Arsenal player? It shouldn’t have, but it did.

  It all happened when we were having a picnic in Green Park, enjoying some rare balmy early April weather. It was one of those lazy weekends when everyone in London decides to go to the park. It was crowded with families and couples who seemed content to simply sit around and talk. We were caught off guard not expecting a nice day and now we didn’t know how to behave except to sit and not move as if any sudden movement might push the sun away. I had been doing the same, simply lying on the fresh cut dry grass with my eyes closed and my face warm.

  We were talking at random, but the conversation turned to the best football players and an inevitable disagreement. I was telling Daniel that David O’Leary was the greatest Arsenal player ever. Daniel’s dad had grown up in Islington, and therefore a lifetime Arsenal fan, which made Daniel an Arsenal fan and consequently the rest of us. O’Leary in 1988 was already set to break the record with the most appearances. Daniel wasn’t impressed with my statistics and as usual didn’t hold back in conveying his deep sense of dismay in my lack of understanding of the game. Daniel was a horrible footballer but he knew the game like no one else. He had a keen sense of the players and the tactics, but I had no doubt that he was wrong about O’Leary.

  Daniel was leaning back to back against Alice Blunt, his girlfriend of two months. He was telling me in no uncertain terms that I was an idiot for even talking about O’Leary. I shouldn’t have cared. I really didn’t, but I didn’t want him to be right either. Alice was pretending to read a book, not sure about the degree of the argument. She was new to our group and naturally cautious. She didn’t want to get in the middle of it, if it was serious. There was no cause for concern but she kept her eyes on her book, as she leaned back against Daniel.

  Alice was tall like Daniel. She had lush black hair and an oval shaped face. She was athletic and had strong round shoulders. She was wearing a grey tank top, showing off a rotary-combine-shaped dark tattoo on her muscular right arm. She had let her long hair fall over her shoulder like a dark curtain, hiding her big earrings. Alice had small eyes, which took a bit away from her otherwise beautiful face. She had spent four years in a boarding school in Europe. She dressed European and spoke Italian fluently. Despite her pedigree, she was not a fan of soccer and had even confessed, though not directly to Daniel, to some degree of distaste for the game. Yet, she was reading a thick book on the history of British football. She liked Daniel and was trying very hard to find some enjoyment in the game. She believed in immersing herself in whatever subject caught her interest.

  Daniel and Alice had met at Imperial’s main library, where Alice was working part-time, though she was a first year student at the City College of London. Daniel and I were at the library eating when he noticed her across the hallway and in his brash way walked over and asked her out.

  “She jus’ fuckin’ stared,” Daniel reported later.

  Apparently Alice had simply looked at him for a long time, deciding whether he was worth responding to or not. She hadn’t smiled, nor said yes or no. She merely waited patiently weighing his worth. She then had asked if he was going to Imperial and where he was born. “Do ya’ wan’ my fuckin’ resume? D’Ya’?” he had asked nonplused by her reaction and was about to leave. All the time they were talking, she had both her hands on top of the counter and was staring straight in his eyes, as if telling him that she had no hidden weapons. I could see them from afar and their body language was obnoxiously loud.

  She was enjoying the game, as Daniel surmised later. Alice had replied, as soon as he started to back out, “You st
arted it, mister. But can you handle it?”

  He’d stopped in his tracks and turned around to say something but she raised her hand, like a judge would, and he stopped. She had the control and she wasn’t ready to relinquish it so quickly. She continued, “I don’t need your résumé, but before I can consider your generous offer, I need more information. Are you game?”

  This was the first time anybody had ever grilled Daniel. Women’s reactions to Daniel were immediate. They would either tell him to fuck off or would fall in love with him instantly. He was intrigued so he’d consented to answer her long list of questions. Alice finally decided and said, “I’d go out with you if you start speaking properly and stop cursing for fuck’s sake.”

  He was sold. He started sounding like a proper English boy whenever Alice was around.

  II

  Daniel pressed his head against Alice and said: “Even Alice wouldn’t pick a wanker like O’Leary.” He then turned his head back and kissed Alice on the cheek, “No offense.”

  “None taken since I don’t know who O’Leary is.”

  “I rest my case,” said Daniel and then put his head on Alice’s lap to indicate he was done.

  “What case? This just proves what we all already know: Alice doesn’t know shit about football.”

  “Hey, I know some shit about football. Isn’t it the game where lots of big sweaty boys jump on top of each other…or is that rugby?”

  Daniel sat up and looked at Alice funny but only added, “She seems to know more than you, which is not saying much.” Daniel didn’t compromise on two things: driving and football. “Gabrielle, please help me out with this… with this...”

  “Don’t hurt yourself, darling, just blurt it out if you need to,” Alice offered graciously.

  “…This…This person.”

  Gabrielle had been sitting quietly, trying to stay neutral, though I was hoping she would take my side. It didn’t last long because she looked at me and said, “Only a fool argues football with Daniel.”