Grandpa Byron is meditating when I let myself into his house with my own key. The curtains in his sitting room are drawn, and a stick of incense is smouldering, a smell of sweet leather permeating the house.
He sits on the sofa, cross-legged, hands resting on his knees and his back dead straight. He raises a forefinger to acknowledge my presence, which I am relieved about, because sometimes he doesn’t do that and it’s like he can’t hear me or anything. I once stayed until he opened his eyes and it was ages. I had finished my homework, run down the battery on my MP3 player and read most of his Daily Telegraph and all he said was, “Oh, hi – how long have you been here?”
This time I don’t have to wait long. He slowly opens his eyes and unfurls his long brown legs from underneath him.
“You are just in time for chai. Why not put on the telly? Maybe today you will be faster than those clots.” There’s a crinkling around his eyes when he says this because he doesn’t think the contestants on TV quiz shows are really stupid, just not as smart as he is. Not many people are.
We sit in front of the TV drinking the super-sweet Indian tea and eating badam barfi, which is an Indian fudge that Grandpa Byron has made because it’s my birthday.
There is always a TV quiz on at around this time of day. Usually we’ll watch one of the main channels, but if it’s a show Grandpa Byron doesn’t like, he’ll find an old show on Challenge or one of the other channels instead.
For him to like it, it has to involve questions that require you to know stuff, what he calls ‘General Knowledge’. Stuff like capital cities, or obscure foreign presidents, or dates of wars, or chemical compounds, or great works of art, or … well, you get the idea.
Today’s programme is a new one on BBC2 called MindGames in which six contestants try to kick one another out of the contest by forming alliances with each other and betting points on how certain they are of the answer. The thing about it – and the thing that Grandpa Byron likes – is that the questions are really hard, to me at any rate.
The presenter is a bloke who usually reads the news, except here he’s dressed in a black polo neck and jeans, which look a bit weird on him. He’s talking really fast.
“All right, Darren, you’ve teamed up with Celia, let’s see how you get on – together can you eliminate Adnan from the competition and get yourselves closer to the big prize? Three questions on popular music coming up, you have thirty seconds starting from … now. What was the last UK number one hit for The Beatles before they—”
“‘Ballad Of John And Yoko’, number one for three weeks in 1969,” says Grandpa Byron before the guy on telly has even finished.
“Which record album, released in 1982, became the biggest-selling album of all t—”
“Thriller,” barks Grandpa Byron, “by Michael Jackson!”
“And finally, which artist paired up with Alicia Keys to record hit single ‘Empire State of Mind’ in 2010?”
I know this one. “Eminem!” I shout. Grandpa Byron shakes his head and smiles. “Jay-Z. And it was 2009 not 2010.”
Of course, he gets them all right.
He always gets them all right – or nearly always, anyway.
“How do you do it?” I ask for what must be the hundredth time. “How do you know so much?”
And he gives the answer he always gives. “Don’t confuse knowledge with memory, Al. I have got a good memory because I have trained it, but that is not the same as knowledge, and neither memory nor knowledge is the equal of wisdom.”
He gives me a grin and takes a large swig of chai.
There’s this thing with Grandpa Byron: when he’s done watching a TV programme, he turns the television off. At my house we normally just leave the room, or flick around to see what else is on – either way, the telly stays on. But not Grandpa Byron. It’s like when he’s reading the paper: he folds it up carefully when he’s finished an article.
So when MindGames finishes, off goes the telly and we sit in silence for a bit. Grandpa Byron’s got this half-smile. Perhaps he’s pleased that he got all the questions right, or that for the first time I got one or two of them within the thirty seconds.
“One of these fine days you will be memorising better than me,” he says. He’s looking at me through half-closed eyes. “You see, with the power of your mind you can do almost anything, Al. That, plus, of course, The Memory Palaces of the Sri Kalpana.”
This is the book that Grandpa Byron wrote ages ago that’s now so rare that he owns the only copy, which I have never seen. He has mentioned it to me before, but only in passing, whereas now he’s looking right into my eyes and smiling.
He kind of bounces to his feet effortlessly (without that oof sound that most old people make when they get up from a sofa). He takes a book down from the shelf and hands it to me. It’s a thinnish paperback with a plain yellow cover, the same colour as his robes. The only writing on the cover is the title, The Memory Palaces of the Sri Kalpana and underneath it says ‘by Byron R. Chaudhury-Roy’.
“I was going to wait before giving you this,” he says, “but, well … now seems like the right time. Now you are twelve.”
“Really? I mean, thanks a lot …”
He holds up his index finger to quieten me. His eyes go a bit blank until he blinks hard. “We’ll study it together. Meanwhile, feel free to take it with you.”
I grin and shrug. “Cool!”
There is something going on here, though, and I can’t put my finger on it. It was the way Grandpa Byron said “now you are twelve” that made me think that giving me this book was somehow connected with him going all weird when he saw that letter from my dad. I don’t have to wonder long.
“That letter from your father …” he begins, without looking at me. He is being altogether too casual, like he’s practised this. I just nod, and wait while he sits down opposite me and looks at me intently.
“Your father and I, we had some disagreements. Over the work he was doing.”
“Over his work?”
“Not his job. But some research he was undertaking in his spare time. He told me about it and … well, I didn’t really approve.”
“What was it?” (Remember, at this stage I have no idea about my dad and time travel.)
Instead of answering directly, Grandpa Byron reaches over and takes the book from my hands.
“Life, Al, is such a wonderful gift that we should open our minds to every possible moment and cherish the memory of those moments. Because people change. Places change. Everything changes, but our memories do not. Accept life the way it is, Al. That’s the way to be happy.”
I think I narrow my eyes sceptically, because Grandpa Byron takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and continues. “In my head, Al, in my mind, are some most wonderful places. Some are like palaces, huge and ornate; others are much more humble. And all of them, room after room, are crammed to brimming with memories. Some of these imaginary rooms are like offices, with drawers and filing cabinets – that’s where I keep all the facts, like football scores, and dates, and horse-racing winners, and presidents. But the most precious rooms, in the the grandest palace of all, they contain the memories I love the most: the day your father was being born, for example, the day me and your grandmother married, or just five years ago when you and I had that picnic in the rain in Druridge Bay and you were losing your Crocs. There’s a memory for every day of my life, back to when I was about your age. I can revisit these rooms whenever I like, take out the memories, re-live them, spit-and-polish them up, then put them back for another time. I am going there any time I like.”
“Is that what you do when you meditate?”
“Aye. Usually, anyhow. Keeping my Memory Palaces clean and tidy. They can get a bit cluttered, you know, just like real rooms. Memories can go astray, or get a bit faded, and I am liking to keep everything ship-shape and Bristol fashion!”
“And what’s that got to do with Dad’s letter?”
Grandpa Byron opens his eyes and looks at me as if he’d forgotten about it. Eventually he says, “I’m not sure. It might not have anything to do with it. But read my book anyway. Well, if you want to, that is.”
Well, of course I want to. But what I want more is to understand why he is telling me all this now.