12.

ALLEGRA YU

Ava,

Přem asked me how I can trust you. He wasn’t talking about your behaviour towards him; he was really sad about Chela. He couldn’t get over her. “Ava Kapoor . . . Ava Kapoor . . . that girl stole my fucking mongoose!” Karel and I looked into getting him another mongoose, but he said no one could take Chela’s place, that one day Chela would realise she’d made a mistake and come back to him; he was basically a spoken-word country and western ballad. To Přem Stojaspal, you will always be the girl who stole his mongoose.

Well, not only that. According to Přem, a charismatic performer is, fundamentally, a manipulator. Nothing more, nothing less. You play and it brings Přem rest, you play and I lose my heart to you, you play and Chela realises it’s time for a companion upgrade. Přem informs me you’ll never stop because all you want is to find out what effect you can have. Don’t get bigheaded: He didn’t talk about you much. But when he did, it sounded like he’d given you a lot of thought. You and your ways.

I think Přem had a crush on you. Unclear what kind: he was celibate, as far as I knew. Admirers sent him bouquets, and he’d set the flowers upright in jugs full of pear brandy, saying that flowers need to have a good time too. I still hear from people who thought I was his girlfriend; possibly because he told them so. And I did act quite girlfriend-y. Picking out his signature scent and buying him silk ties and things like that. But I only bought the tie because it looked like it was made for him. And it was on sale . . . and I was interested in Přem’s look because he was like me—operating on this borderline of attractiveness where clothes and accessories make all the difference. It’s not something you could understand, Ms. Stunner in a Shapeless Shift Dress.

You might want to know how Přem behaved around you. In the early days of you ignoring him, he’d follow you around the room with heavy objects, pretending he was about to brain you with them. Glass ashtrays, chunky vases. We didn’t smile at those antics even when we wanted to. There could have been an accident if we encouraged him to keep that nonsense up. But it was several different kinds of funny, Přem waving barbecue tongs over your head at Karel’s garden party as you stood there sipping Pimm’s and lemonade and talking quite seriously with a zoologist about the fact that all living organisms do is let each other down. I think the zoologist had told you that only female mosquitoes bite—that they do it because the protein and iron in our blood helps their eggs develop. And you were all disappointed. “They shouldn’t bite other females . . . we’re meant to stick together . . .” The zoologist said that if you insisted on affiliating with female mosquitoes, then surely sacrificing your health was a way of sticking together. But you said you didn’t want to sacrifice your health! “And so the cycle of letting each other down goes on,” you wailed. “I’m sorry, mosquito mothers. I’m so sorry, I know you’re only biting me for the sake of your babies, but I can’t give up my blood and get sick for them . . .” It was hard to tell whether the zoologist realised you’d just had one cocktail too many, but I think Přem did. He’d already nudged me closer to you by the time you started to hiccup and sway. You put your head on my shoulder, and he gave up the tong pantomime and went off to grill some more meat. Thinking about his subsequent behaviour around you, the keyword is “shy.” I remember maybe four other gatherings all three of us were at. Přem stayed out of your way and didn’t speak to you directly. But he made sure he was able to hear what you were saying. And every now and then he’d turn towards you, with a semi-irritated but mostly hopeful smile, ready for the moment when you accidentally made eye contact with him.

He was one of those extroverted introverts . . . he was at home a lot, reading and taking care of his dad’s publishing house—keeping that going seemed to mean a lot to him. But twice a week, maybe three times if there were a lot of people to see, he’d be out and about. I’d go too, when I could, or I’d hear about some doings of his. He might have had a drinking problem? It was hard to tell. “Never too early for beer” was a motto of his, and he’d drink like a fish all day but still be steady on his feet and as cogent as you please. But, Ava, you remember how we were semi-sure Karel was teetotal? We never saw him touch a drink, but I saw him blind drunk. Přem and I would find him like that in the evening. I’d come back to the house to say hi to Karel after having watched Přem calmly put away tens of pints, and it was Karel who was completely out of it. I mean crawling around on the floor whispering in Czech, then when Přem tried to help him up he’d say things like, “You! Don’t get ahead of yourself, young man! You are my creature!”

Or he’d get all melancholy and ask Přem if he happened to remember dying as a little boy. “We buried you in the forest, your mother and I . . . with a green linden leaf. The brightest we could find, so you wouldn’t need a night-light. Do you remember?”

Přem would look annoyed and say, “Is there any chance you could save these jokes for another time?” And he’d haul his dad over his shoulder, take him upstairs, and put him to bed.

Is being an only child like being the family’s black sheep and pride and joy combined? Personally, I recommend having siblings . . . as many as possible. I could have got lucky with mine, but surely it stands to reason that four brothers and two sisters make a really good buffer between you and a bunch of parental hopes and expectations. You also give and get a lot of love in a fairly relaxed, hands-off style. Since we can’t really keep track of each other, we Yu sibs just make the moves we need to make and try our best to clean up after ourselves, only calling the others in as the forklift truck option when there’s just too much shit to shovel. And Mum and Dad end up feeling like parenting champions who’ve raised seven solvent overachievers.

I know that with you and your dad it was mostly just the two of you, and you were really good mates. I’m saying that it was what I saw of Přem’s home life that made me want to grab his arm and recommend siblings. Then again, if you asked me what his life really was (and that is what you’re asking me, isn’t it?), what his days were made up of, what he latched on to for a sense of purpose or whatever, I couldn’t tell you. With Karel, at least for the last three years of his life or so, it was that novel he wanted to finish writing. The one that got edited—possibly by Přem—and published as an incomplete novella about a year after he died.

I don’t know any more than you do about the wording of Karel’s will. How were you kind to Přem Stojaspal? Ava, you know I say this lovingly, but you treated that man as if he was, literally, nothing.

Moving from what I don’t know to what I would like to know: About that fire in Dulwich. The day Přem destroyed his artworks . . . what was going through his mind? Apart from generating some pyrotechnic drama, I mean. That was years and years of effort; some of it remarkable. I was talking about it with Laura (De Souza) the other day, and she said, “Maybe it was a kind of donation, just like his kidney was?”

I just looked at her, like, OK, continue. But that was it. She looked so happy . . . “There you go, all solved!”

About Karel: I don’t think it’ll bother you that in my opinion it was a one-sided love there, with all the love on your side. You’re your father’s daughter that way. Enjoying people no matter what. But it bothered me that Karel was so two-faced, all affectionate and full of praise when you were around and then organizing behind your back. And now I’m catching myself saying one thing and meaning something else. I’m speaking ill of the man who mentored me because even though he put so much time and energy into helping me find my own way, he thought more highly of you, your opinions, your perceptions or whatever. That hurts. But you should still believe me when I tell you that when it came to testing you, Karel went to greater lengths than you realise. He was pulling stunts he wouldn’t even have bothered thinking about if I or one of his other young satellites had announced his very much existent son was in fact nonexistent.

I’ve mentioned the gatherings the three of us were at, but I’ve heard there were other gatherings where Přem was present but everyone had to act as if he wasn’t, and gatherings without Přem, where the rule was to behave as if he was there. The lunch Karel held for your birthday, for instance: Přem wasn’t there. You’re probably going, How would I know that when I wasn’t there either? (more about that in a sec), but Přem told me so himself. Karel invited him, but Přem saw no point in another awkward couple of hours in which he tried to befriend you and got nowhere. Přem asked that his paintings be given to you as a birthday present and bowed out. But Karel said to him: “Great, I’ll just have everyone act as if you’re there and see what she does.”

I asked Karel if that was really the plan. He said it was, and I said I wasn’t going to join in. He told me it was just a prank, but I said I still wasn’t going to join in and I’d be surprised if any of the others did. Then Karel said I was better off not showing up at all, that if I did, I’d get the sack and he’d employ another assistant immediately. I drafted the job advertisement for his next assistant that same afternoon, and when I gave it to him, he looked surprised—in a good way, which surprised me in turn, so we were both standing there with these “Huh!” expressions. Then he said: “So what now?”

I told him I was going to drive trains. That was the year we worked on the Lucky Day until it started to look like more than a freight train. I was down in Crewe every other weekend, sometimes with you and your dad, sometimes with Přem and a couple of others, lugging tools and paint pots and wheelbarrows stacked with all sorts of sheets and rolls down to the stabling yard. Somewhere in the middle of all that I’d applied for an apprenticeship with Arriva, expecting them to turn me down. But as you know, they didn’t . . . and the interview was on the same day as your birthday lunch . . .

Stop cursing me for not warning you about Karel’s prank. And stop cursing our friends. Two of them had books under contract to Karel’s publishing house and felt like they had to dance to his tune. The others . . . I asked about it, and it looks as if Karel gave different people different reasons for what he wanted them to do. People thought they were helping you, giving you a lighthearted way to admit that you’d been uncharacteristically cruel towards Přem, stuff like that. They thought it could be a conversation starter for the next time the two of you saw each other. But some of our friends didn’t buy any of the reasons Karel was trying to feed them. They only saw malice. Sonia told me Karel said to her: “Either Ava’s crazy, or we are. Don’t you think we’ve got to teach her a lesson?” Feuzi still says Karel decided to drive you mad, plain and simple, and the will is the final test of whether it worked.

Přem asked me how I can trust you, and Karel mistrusted you outright. They both get a special hypocrisy award for going on like that at the same time as they depended on you and what you played for Přem at night.

I trust you, Ava. When I show you what I’ve done, you greet it as whole. No concerning yourself with what’s absent, or parallels you wish to hear. You listen for what is already there. You were the first person I’d met who did that for my songs. This isn’t to say that I feel safe with you. Safety is something else.

That’s all I know about you and me and Přem and Karel.