The Last Samurai

He stood up and walked up and down. He went to the window and said

What a glorious day!

He said

Do you think sales will go up?

I said the signed copies would be worth more anyway. He said he was a fool not to have thought of it but anyway he’d given all his author’s copies to prominent supporters of the campaign.

I was still feeling bad for having said my mother thought it would be irresponsible, and I was about to say that the cases were different because I didn’t really have a father when I remembered that I’d said he was. Then I thought maybe it would not be too bad to say: Well, I grew up without a father and I’m all right, I mean I don’t think I’d have been better off if somebody had gone through ten years of hell to be there. Then I suddenly thought, that is I suddenly thought that at that very moment Sibylla was at home teaching the Little Prince. What if at that very moment she had taken out a bottle of pills and said if she could not be a person without a past she would be a person with no future and the Little Prince had said That’s all right you go right ahead?

He was still standing by the window. There were four African violets on the sill; he was running his thumb over the fuzz on a leaf. He was whistling under his breath.

I haven’t described him well or at all. He was right in a way that it began to get boring after a while, but in another way it didn’t really matter what he said. You could see that he was someone who could make someone who had seen his male relatives lined up and shot at the age of four and his female relatives raped and then shot want to play chess. When you were with him you wanted to go on being with him whatever he said. When you made a joke and he laughed you wanted to do ten handsprings. I wished I had had him around for ten years or even five even though he was probably the kind of parent who set limits and even though it was hard to imagine him fitting into the kind of lifestyle where you could learn Greek at a reasonable age and even though the one boy and one girl had probably watched Sesame Street and he probably thought it was about the right level. And I started thinking: What if he changed his mind?

Then I thought: What if Sibylla told the Little Prince what she wants to forget? When I asked her she always said Never you mind or Well anyway I don’t know why I complain it’s not as if I was tortured. At least I hadn’t said that. I thought: I want him to try to go on getting over it so I can go on seeing him. I thought it was weak and cowardly to want this and it was weak and cowardly to want the Little Prince to say give it more time and if I were weak and cowardly I really would be my father’s son. But I couldn’t say you go right ahead.

I said

Do you want to give Oscar Wilde a chance?

He said

What?

I said

We could watch The Importance of Being Earnest. I could go to Blockbuster Video and get it out.

He said

That’s OK.

Then he said

Well, OK.

I went out the front door. We kept the video card in my pocket because Sibylla tended to lose things, and I had £1.50. I ran all the way to Blockbuster Video just in case he decided to take the pills before I got back.

The set-up in Blockbuster was different from the one we went to, so it took a while to find the video. They had Seven Samurai, but so many people in it say it’s better to die than face certain misery that I thought it would be better not to risk it. They had Ace Ventura Pet Detective which I had always wanted to see but Sibylla refused to get out; I suspected, however, that this might not be as efficacious as the Wilde. At last I found it. I had to argue for a long time with the girl at the register because our card was for a different branch.

I said

Please. I have to have it. It’s a matter of life and death.

She said

Don’t overdo it

I said

No really it’s for a man who’s thinking of committing suicide he was held hostage and tortured and it haunts him and I thought maybe just maybe The Importance of Being Earnest would do the trick because when my mother feels depressed it cheers her up to walk on the Wilde side.

She said

Really.

I said

Well no not really it’s for my sister she’s doing A-levels and they always ask a question about comparing the play with the film only she never had a chance to see the film. Our dad’s unemployed so she has to work part-time so she never had the time and now the exam is tomorrow, and if she doesn’t do well on the exam she won’t get her grade for university because English is her best subject and it’s too late to do anything about French and Sociology. According to a recent survey in the Independent more and more employers expect employees to have a university degree.

She said

Third time lucky

I said