An exercise in contextualisation

“Can see not? Can see not?”

KS’s raised chin was a poor substitute for the conventional pointing finger – now too deep within his orange Crumpler bag to be of any use.

“No.”

It was mildly exasperating sometimes to be with KS. Every muscle in his body seemed to be dedicated to a different activity. He never walked. He had to run, jump, skip, stride. And talk about three hundred different things at the same time. Now he was talking about the laksa he had for lunch.

“KS! Where is it!”

“Aiyah. You very lousy leh. We’re almost there – now can you see it?”

A temple of red and gold emerged from the thick of Kensington Gardens. Fortified by gates of scarlet rings, guarded by statues of the four main continents, on a dais of white stone steps, there sat the gold likeness of Prince Albert, reclining in a dome that promised to extend to the heavens. That was the measure of a Queen’s royal love.

“Damn cool. You know the story not? Prince Albert was the husband of Queen Victoria. They loved each other a lot. Like, a damned lot: they had eight children –“

“Why is their having eight children a measure of their love –“

KS silenced me with a glance and ruffled back into his theatrics. “Prince Albert died really young. When he died, the Queen very sad, so she built this thing for him. Cool right?”

He lowered himself into a squat and squinted up at the monumental love, dropping his customary social flippancy for a moment. I sat next to him, and in that moment, we held a woman’s immeasurable grief between our two shoulders.

“When my Ah Pa died, my Ma put a chicken out.”

“Oh, KS…”

My sympathy was shorted by the rudely modern sound of a digital shutter closing in my face. KS smiled softly behind the small camera he held up.

“Okay kid. I’m going. Got to work.” He was up on his feet again. The romance of history was truly past. He pulled out a tie from his bag that seemed to hold all the wonders of the world and ran it around his collar.

“Don’t so sad leh. You’ll learn to love your new home. Maybe you’ll be like me – don’t wanna go back.”

“Habitat.” I corrected. Not home. But KS’s newly oiled Clarks were skipping along the pavement. I watched as his receding figure was stopped by an American – no, Frenchman – all Caucasians looked like – who asked for directions to Gloucester Road.

“Gloucester? Right, take the left turn at the second junction from this way. Walk straight ahead and it should be just beyond the Zambian Embassy house. Did you get that?” KS clipped.

The man smiled his thanks, and the boy whom I grew up with in an island far away picked himself up a little taller and walked on into the streets of London.

Interpersonal Relations

“It’s simple. You only need to fall in love once and have your heart broken.”

“Really.”

“Really. You need to be able to understand the depth of that kind of emotion. Good actors can’t rely only on superficial emotions.”

I look at him meaningfully. “What makes you think I’ve never been in love?”

“But you’ve never been in a relationship.”

“No, I guess I haven’t.”

“So go get yourself into a relationship, then get out of it!” He says like a strangulated lawyer. “You need to break up.”

The chef laughs in the kitchen behind us and the waiters put the candles on in a dance. We fall silent to the riot of orchids between us. So that’s why restaurants have centerpieces for their tables, I thought.

“I’ve been in love.” I say not too quietly. In that small moment I see his brain flicker to a vague impression of my Jack, then it snaps back to an intimate portrait of the girl whose name I never found out. But I am not thinking of Jack.

“Yes, you need to break up,” he says. He says, but I am looking at his newly-muscled arms.

“I’m sure I could understand the kind of feeling you’re talking about. Fiction is as much the basis of truth as truth is for fiction.”

We hold each other’s gaze in a battle between doubt and persuasion. His cheeks fold, turning his lips upwards, “I’d like to direct you some day.”

“What?”

“Yes, I’ll find a good script, and we can rent out a theatre.”

I throw him a laugh. “I know the guy who owns our favourite place. Maybe we’ll get a discount.”

He laughs. And we revert to talk about other people and the rest of the world.