Going Home

ONE

Téo

The North Circular Road was a threshold. As soon as Téodor Erskine crossed those four lanes of traffic and drove into the London suburbs on the other side, he felt he’d left the city behind. It was misty tonight in Enfield, winter’s dregs turning his childhood neighbourhood a colour that was grey-­green and miry as seawater. When he reached Ben’s road, Téo, obedient to rules, squinted to read a sign that laid out the local restrictions. Thirty minutes to wait . . . then he could park for free. He hesitated.

Park anyway.

That’s what Ben Mossam would’ve said. Meaning, I’ve got the cash in my pocket. I’ll cover any fines you get.

Park anywhere.

That’s what Lia Woods would have said. Meaning, who cares about a sign? What sign?

Lia was their group’s one girl. He hoped she would join them later in the pub; she still lived on these roads. Decision made, he carried on driving, ready to use up half an hour in the nearest shop. He asked himself, will I buy the expensive beers to remind them that I’m doing well in my job? Will I buy those thicker, better crisps?



“Don’t—­I’m thinking. You’re someone’s son.”

“That’s right,” he said.

“Don’t tell me.”

Téo understood. He was almost memorable. Middle-­sized and not athletic, he was shorter in the world than he was in his head. If he were ever shown a menu of genie wishes, he meant to add five inches to his height and leave matters there. He looked all right in photos. Especially his chin: it had a rare central dimple. At the age of thirty, Téo kept his hair short against the threat of it spooling out coiled and unruly, which he had been famed for and lightly teased about at school. For clothes he favoured zips, pockets, your lasting materials. He was loyal to his colours. He wore the same pale blues or charcoal greys or over-­washed whites, whether for work or a weekend in Enfield or only to hang about doing nothing in his rented flat by the river.

Téo was sure that London had taken the measure of him. London had reached its decision. He was average as a citizen. And in among his responses to this (some frustration, some self-­pity) there was peace. Where he lived now, in Aldgate, near London’s financial district, nobody expected much of him. Neighbours on his floor called him Tee-­oh instead of Tay-­oh, leaving out the Polish stress. He could escape the building with nods in reply to greetings, silences not chats. He hadn’t made many friends since he moved in from the suburbs, a deliberate fending-­off of additions to the guilt they could still exact from him at home. He had been careful to arrange a life in which he could leave obligations at the door of his flat, next to the coins he saved for Ben’s poker nights and his shoes that were comfiest for driving.

Téo went home once a month.

He heard complaints if his visits became any less frequent than that. Instead of taking the train, north out of Liverpool Street, he liked to drive—­slowcoaching up the A10 on a Friday after work, light to light, passing bars and pubs and cemeteries, later the hospital where he was born. This far north, the suburbs touching countryside, one location was always quite far from another. He felt better bringing the car.

“I’m Vic Erskine’s son,” he told the shopkeeper, “Téodor. People call me Téo.”

“Ah,” said the man. “Been ill, hasn’t he?”

“Who, my dad? Yeah.”

“He’s got Parkinson’s, hasn’t he?”

This place!

“It’s something like Parkinson’s,” Téo explained. “One of the surname diseases. Your slow declines. I come back to see him as often as I can.”

They had verbal contractions, specific to this suburb, that were rarely heard anywhere else. Along laddered roads of terraced houses, on estates or mansion roads, they spoke a muddled Londonese that was everything: part Irish, Asian, African, Mediterranean, Jewish, Eastern European. It sounded good tonight. Téo was excited, suddenly, about seeing old friends.

He was asked by the shopkeeper, “How far away do you live these days?”

“D’you know Aldgate?”

He had ferried some beers to the counter. He chose crisps.

“Only Aldgate,” whistled the shopkeeper.

“Bit east as well. You might call it as far as Whitechapel, yeah.”

“Not that far though.”

“I hear you. I should visit back more often. There’s no excuse.”

Except this, thought Téo, the grief, the guilt.



“Boys,” he told them in greeting.

Cards were being shuffled. Stacks of one-­ and two-­pound coins were being put in order on the table. Téo sat in an empty chair. There was that armpit stench of raw weed and their same sixth-­form favourites played from a speaker on the kitchen counter. It was about to be a Friday session, the format of which hadn’t changed in a decade. Poker at Ben’s then pub. Before anything else the crafted spliffs, held for the next man around the table with the stub pinched carefully, like something of interest found on the floor. Téo (big on the diplomatic smiles, not about to judge them so soon) passed around the offered spliff without comment. There was some teasing tonight about his major career decisions. He joined in where he could.

“Where did you leave us for, T? Car college?”

Snorts, as cards were sent skimming around the table.

Gathered in by player after player, these cards were examined for their value. People had a habit they copied from Ben. They put their cards on the table and they pressed their fingers down on top, as if each card had a mind of its own, as if each card might choose to flip over and reveal itself if not properly held in check. Ben’s voice broke first out of everyone. He was tallest. He seemed to snooze through the arrival of his muscles. Thanks to Ben they all learned the unbestable social move that was the no-­show, its consequences for others, that chilly redundant feeling that ran through you as soon as you realised you were the dickhead left to wait. Téo was irritated to feel it tonight. He asked, “Where’s Ben, if we’re starting already?”

They were in the Mossam house, seated around a Mossam-­owned table, but this was no guarantee of Ben Mossam’s company. A roamer, Ben stashed house keys in the gardens front and back, free for anybody to use. Properly described, the house belonged to his parents. It was left to him one miracle day in the new millennium when they had graduated from school. Ben’s mum and dad were about as eager to sack off Enfield as Téo. They flew out to their second home in the Mediterranean and rarely came back, leaving the house in their son’s care for a term without limit. It was lofty and many-­bedroomed. It had a lift. Ben figured out his economic advantage soon enough. While the others in the group went to college or took jobs, settling for the agreed patterns of a swap whereby hours of your freedom went out one door and what came in the other was meant to be the stuff of life, a broader mind, your opportunities . . . while the others knuckled down and worked, Ben never did. He never had to.

“Will he be at the pub?” Téo asked. “Will anyone be there?”

He was winning at cards for once. A sullen quiet had settled over the table.

“Pub?” they asked. There were pouts. People shrugged.

“It’ll be the same lot as always in the pub.”

“The usual lot.”

“You lot, yeah,” Téo said. “Anyone else though?”

Finally a few of his friends smirked. As a group they had a note they could hit, an elastic, elated “Oh-­h-­h-­h-­h!” that meant some suspicion of theirs had been confirmed, some trap fallen into. “Téo’s like: he comes back to see us.”

“When in fact.”

“He wants to know about Lia Woods.”

“He wants his second chance with Lia.”

“Second chance!”

“More like ninth chance.”

“Ninetieth.”

They roared, well pleased. Whenever Téo was away from here, commuting to his job, eating takeaways and watching episodes, these friends at home receded to become a distant choral voice in his emails and his message threads. They weren’t important. They weren’t always distinguishable as individuals, with their teases and repetitions, their limited repertoire of jokes. Some of them weren’t even in the group the last time Téo lived in Enfield. They’d only been absorbed by default, for reasons of having hung around long enough he supposed. They adored Ben and relied on Ben’s energy and ideas, his money. This Friday night would feel undercooked till Ben showed up.

“Oh-­h-­h-­h-­h!” the group was singing.

“I’m here to see my dad,” Téo corrected them.

So they took pity, and Téo felt guilty about using his dad to deflect a cuss.

He said, “I haven’t seen her in a few months. How’s she doing?”

“Lia?”

Téo waited.

“She’s the same. She isn’t any better.”

“You know Lia.”

“She might be out tonight,” someone said.

“If she’s up to it, she reckons. If she can find someone to mind the boy.”

Téo had met Lia’s son Joel a few times. He had done a bit of babysitting. There was a teenager Lia relied on. She had an elderly neighbour waiting on the sidelines. If either of those options fell through, and if Téo happened to be back for the weekend, Lia asked. He had made her promise she would ask. Summoned over, three or four times so far, he got a hug by the door and maybe a compliment, about how he was the only one in their group who was mature enough to be trusted like this. But his babysitting hadn’t amounted to much. Whenever Lia left him alone, Téo sat on her sofa for a few hours, alert and suspicious, expecting some test of his ingenuity or his reflexes. He was apprehensive about the business with the nappies and the milk, the telling them they couldn’t eat any more sweets and such. Was it water you did give small children or never gave them? In fact, every time Téo had gone over there to babysit, the boy just slept. Occasionally Téo ventured into the dark and pungent bedroom to make shushing noises. That was it. He wondered whether parents didn’t hype up the difficulty, their innocent joke at other people’s expense.

He hoped she would be at the pub, if only so that he could try some of the kinder, wiser enquiries this crowd would never stretch to. He looked at his cards and he bet big by his standards. The track that played was kind to his moment, cresting into a breathless explanation of a rapper’s big win. “Phew,” Téo said, when the remaining players showed inferior cards. He claimed his money, dragging a mess of coins towards his lap.



From the front of the house there was the jangle of an opening door and a slack, shouted: “Yo.” Everyone sat straighter. Téo criss-­crossed his hands to clear them of the feel of touched money.

Ben Mossam was pharaoh in this crowd. Be your good fortune (you understood) to get an audience right away. Téo watched his old friend as he entered the kitchen, moving slowly and deliberately around the table and placing his hands on everyone’s shoulders as though to press them back into their chairs, no need to stand for me, no need . . . How long-­limbed he was, thought Téo, how restless, with the insect energy. Ben had had terrible skin at school, thank God. For years there was lots of conspicuous defusing work going on between his chin and his skullcap. Those problems had long since cleared. Ben was handsome.

The last around the table to be reached in greeting, Téo rose out of his chair. He timed it awkwardly, right as more cards were sent skimming in his direction. One of the cards slipped over the side of the table and fluttered to the floor: a valuable king.

Téo knelt to retrieve it.