Us

  ‘So what have you done, where have you been, what are you going to do? Tell me everything!’

  ‘The flower market, cycling around the canals. We’re going to the Van Gogh Museum tomorrow, and a canal cruise if we have time.’

  ‘That’s all the pretty-pretty tourist stuff – you need to see the other Amsterdam. We should all hang out! What are you doing right now?’

  I felt, instinctively, that my itinerary was under threat. ‘Actually, we’re going to the Anne Frank House, then the Rembrandt House Museum.’

  ‘Well, we don’t have to,’ said Connie. ‘We can go tomorrow.’

  ‘Why don’t you guys go without us?’ said Albie, hopefully. Clearly the idea of the four of us ‘hanging out’ was as unlikely and awkward to Albie as it was to me. ‘Me and Cat want to go and explore.’

  ‘I really want to take you to the Anne Frank House, Albie. I think you should see it.’

  ‘I’m too tired to do much more, Douglas,’ said Connie treacherously. ‘Perhaps we should go tomorrow morning?’

  ‘No! No, it’s the Van Gogh Museum tomorrow. We’re leaving in the afternoon.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you rather see the real Amsterdam?’

  No, Cat, dammit, no! I had no desire to see the real Amsterdam. We had reality back in Berkshire, that’s not why we were here; we had no interest in the way things really were. A perfectly co-ordinated schedule of sightseeing was unravelling before my eyes. ‘If we don’t go to the Anne Frank House today, the whole plan falls apart.’ I felt myself getting shrill.

  ‘Let us at least grab some lunch and chill out though, yeah? I’ve got a bike, and I know this amazing vegetarian buffet in De Pijp …’

  75. eat as much as you can bear

  Chickpeas like little balls of limestone. Some kind of bland, spongy curd cheese. Spinach like the algae on a Chinese beach, cold okra like a bucket of slugs. Necrotic avocado, sandy couscous, flaccid courgettes in a green-grey water sauce made from water. Kidney beans! Just plain cold kidney beans, exquisitely emptied from the can.

  ‘Isn’t it incredible? Who needs meat!’ said Cat who, the last time I saw her, had been stuffing her rucksack with bacon like some crazed taxidermist.

  ‘We ate a lot of meat in Paris. A lot,’ said Connie, shifting allegiance in the most audacious way.

  ‘I hope you didn’t eat foie gras,’ warned Cat, one finger pointed in my face.

  ‘No, just duck, steak, duck, pâté, duck, steak …’

  ‘And it was all delicious, I thought.’

  ‘Dad won’t eat anything unless it’s got a face.’

  ‘I don’t think I heard anyone complain at the time.’

  ‘It’s very hard to get top-notch veggies in Paris. Kind of bungs you up after a while, though, doesn’t it?’ said Cat, puffing out her cheeks. ‘Especially with all those baguettes. At least this bread has got some goodness in it.’ The bread was rubbery and dense like window putty, and sprinkled with the contents of the baker’s dustpan. ‘I’m going in again! Who’s coming for more delicious veggies?’ and off Cat and Albie hopped to the buffet bar, where the tea-lights beneath silver hoppers kept the food pleasingly tepid.

  I returned to my plate with a sigh. ‘There is nothing here that, if you threw it against a wall, wouldn’t stick and slide down very slowly.’

  ‘Except the bread,’ laughed Connie.

  ‘The bread would ricochet off and take out an eye.’

  ‘Well, you did say you wanted to try new things.’

  ‘I only want to try new things that I know I’m going to like,’ I said, and Connie laughed. ‘Does she only ever eat from buffets, I wonder?’

  ‘Leave her alone. I like her.’

  ‘Really? You’ve changed your tune.’

  ‘She’s fine when she calms down. And look at them. It’s sweet.’ Over at the buffet, they stood shoulder to shoulder, trying to choose between norovirus and listeria. ‘Young love. Were we once like that, Douglas, I wonder?’

  ‘It’s three fifteen. If we’re going to get to the Anne Frank House we need to go now.’

  ‘Douglas, can we leave it be? Even the Gestapo didn’t want to get there this much.’

  ‘Connie!’

  ‘We’re spending time with Albie, doing what he wants to do. Isn’t that what you wanted?’

  And so we polished off our watery curd, paid and mounted our bikes and spent the afternoon touring the outer rings of Amsterdam, Cat pointing out the amazing little bars, the squats where she’d stayed, the skateboard parks and huge estates and street markets. In truth much of it was perfectly nice and it was interesting, I suppose, to see where the Moroccan population lived, the Surinamese and the Turks. But as we looped back towards the centre, another destination became clear.

  ‘And this,’ said Cat, ‘is my favourite coffee shop!’

  It was inevitable, I suppose. Ever since we’d arrived in Amsterdam, Albie had been glancing sideways at these places in the same way that he once regarded toy shops. Now, standing outside the Nice Café, he was looking at the ground, grinning.

  ‘It’s a really blissful, vibey little place, dead friendly,’ reassured Cat. ‘I know the bud-tender, he’ll look after us.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so, Cat.’

  ‘Come on, Mr P. When in Rome …’

  ‘No, thank you. It’s really not for me.’

  ‘How do you know if you’ve never tried it?’ said Albie, the exact rationale I once used to get him to eat cabbage.

  ‘I have tried it; of course I’ve tried it, Albie. I was young once!’

  ‘I think I missed that bit,’ said Connie.

  ‘When I was with you, Connie, as a matter of fact, and Genevieve and Tyler. I pulled a massive whitey, if you recall.’

  ‘“Massive whitey”,’ sniggered Albie.

  ‘Mr P., you dark horse. Why not give it another go?’

  ‘No, thank you, Cat.’

  ‘Okay, Dad’s out,’ said Albie, barely bothering to hide his relief.

  ‘How about you, Mrs P.?’ said Cat, and all eyes turned to Connie.

  ‘Mum?’ said Albie.

  Connie weighed up her options.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘sounds good,’ and off she went to park her bicycle.

  76. water in the wine

  At various points during Albie’s teenage years I had found myself in these situations, confronting the kind of ‘life dilemma’ that pads out the weekend newspapers. What is the correct parental response to shoplifting, the unsuitable friend picked up at the playground, the smell of alcohol or tobacco on teenage breath, the money disappearing from the dresser, the esoteric search history on the family computer? How much water in the wine? Should a girlfriend be allowed to stay the night, what is the policy on locked doors, on bad language, bad behaviour, bad diet? In recent years these dilemmas had come thick and fast and I had found them quite bewildering. Why had we not been issued with a clear set of guidelines? Had I caused my own parents all this ethical writhing? I was sure I had not. The most illicit act of my teenage years was to sometimes watch ITV. Yet here we were again, the latest instalment of this perpetual radio phone-in. I stood alongside Connie as she chained her bike. ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’

  ‘Quite sure, thank you, Douglas.’

  ‘And you really think you should be encouraging him?’

  ‘I’m not encouraging him, I’m just not being a hypocrite about it. Look at him! He’s with a girl in Amsterdam, he’s a teenager. Frankly, I’d be more worried if he didn’t want to do it.’

  ‘You don’t have to sanction it, though.’

  ‘How am I sanctioning it, Douglas?’

  ‘By joining in!’

  ‘I’m keeping a gentle eye on him. Also, as a matter of fact, I quite fancy a smoke.’

  ‘You do? Really?’

  ‘Is that really so strange? Really, Douglas?’

  Cat and Albie were watching us now. ‘Fine. Fine. But if he drops out to become a bud-tender, then it’s your
responsibility.’

  ‘He won’t become a bud-tender.’

  ‘I’m going to leave you to it.’

  ‘You don’t have to.’

  ‘I think you’ll have more fun without me.’

  ‘Okay,’ she shrugged, ‘we’ll see you later,’ and I thought, once more, you know, just one time, you might at least try to persuade me.

  We walked back to the expectant party. ‘I’m leaving, your mother is staying.’

  Albie pulled his fist down and hissed, ‘Yessssss!’ at this best of all possible outcomes.

  ‘Just don’t eat the space cookies,’ I said. ‘There’s no way to control the dosage.’

  ‘Truth. Sound counsel, Mr P.,’ said Cat, patting my arm. ‘Words to live by.’

  ‘I’ll see you back at the hotel, for supper maybe,’ said Connie, pressing a cheek against mine, and off they went to the Nice Café.

  77. a great ocean of care

  I was certainly in no mood for the Anne Frank House now. Without Albie there seemed little point, and while the Rembrandt House Museum was atmospheric and informative, particularly on the extraordinary technical demands and innovations of seventeenth-century engraving, I found myself distracted and ill at ease.

  Because it was all very jolly, wasn’t it, all very cool, sitting around and getting stoned all afternoon with your mum? What a lark, what memories to share! But I wanted my son to have ambition, I wanted him to have drive and energy and a fine, fierce mind. I wanted him to look out into the world with curiosity and intelligence, not with the awful solipsism and silliness of the stoned. Irrespective of the medical risks, the memory loss and apathy and psychosis, the possibility of addiction or exposure to hard drugs, what was this idiotic obsession with chilling out? I wasn’t aware of having been relaxed at any time in my entire life; that was just the way things were, and was it really so bad? To be taut as a wire, on the ball, conscious of the dangers around you – wasn’t that to be admired?

  Such were my thoughts as I bicycled back and forth along the city’s eastern canals, which were more utilitarian, less picturesque than those in the Grachtengordel. Oh, no doubt they were all having a fine time, self-lobotomising in the Nice Café. No doubt they were flopping about on beanbags in that idiotic fug, eating banana bread and giggling at the colour blue or mocking that funny old square and his fear of new experiences. But why couldn’t they recognise my reservation for what it was; not narrow-mindedness, not conservatism or caution but care, a huge amount of care, an ocean of it. I disapproved because I cared. Why wasn’t that apparent?

  I found myself falling out of love with Amsterdam. For a start, there were far too many bicycles. The whole thing had got completely out of hand, the bridges and streets and lampposts choked with them like they were some alien weed. Many of them were decrepit anyway and I began to fantasise how, if I were mayor of Amsterdam, I would instigate a cull of the bloody things; a strict one person, one bike policy. Anything abandoned, anything not roadworthy to be removed with bolt-cutters if necessary and melted down. In fact, in my sour frame of mind I began to get quite carried away with the idea. I’d take them all on, the cyclists of Amsterdam, with their inadequate lighting and one-handed riding, their high saddles and sanctimonious air. I’d be like Caligula, ruthless, fearless. I’d build a bonfire. Yes, melt down the bikes, the bloody, bloody bikes!

  78. de wallen

  I found myself in the red light district.

  I don’t wish to sound defensive about the fact, but there was a Chinese restaurant that I was eager to return to. Connie and I had been there many years ago and I had it in mind to eat a whole Peking duck as revenge for all that okra. It was early evening, still warm and bright, and there was a sort of happy hour vibe as stags and hens, self-conscious couples and a gang of bikers overflowed from bars onto the bridge that crossed the canal. The ladies in the red-curtained booths waved and smiled at me like old friends as I tried to find a place to park my bicycle in the absurdly congested tangle of scrap iron and rubber, and found myself surrounded by the wretched things, untangling pedals from chains and handlebars from brake cables, kicking down my bike stand, contorting between the frames to lock the thing. Then, as I stood and extricated myself, I tapped the bicycle to my left with my hip, just a little nudge and, in a kind of strange, almost hallucinatory slow-motion, watched as the tiny movement sent the bicycle crashing into the next, then the next, then the next, then the next, a chain reaction passing from bike to bike like an ingenious and ambitious domino run, kinetic energy building through four, five, six bikes before it reached the huddle of vintage motorcycles. There were four of them, immaculate, polished things, parked just outside the bar where their owners were drinking, so that they’d be safe. So that they would come to no harm.

  There was a loud scraping noise as the brake handle of the last bicycle slashed its mark deep into the shiny red petrol tank of the first motorbike, then the crash as they too tumbled to the ground, one, two, three, four, then silence. Very strange, to hear silence in a crowded city street. Eerie, almost, though it didn’t last for long. Someone laughed. ‘Oh, shit,’ said someone else. From the bikers’ bar – I noted here that it was called ‘Valhalla’ – there came a roar as a group of immense red-faced men pushed through the crowd towards the beloved bikes that now lay, wheels spinning, in a pile of polished chrome.

  All of this took a matter of perhaps ten seconds, and absurdly I wondered if I might still be able to walk away. After all, it wasn’t exactly my fault. It was gravity, it was the bike, it was a chain reaction, nothing to do with me. Perhaps if I just walked away, perhaps if I whistled as I walked, as in a cartoon, no one would notice.

  But I was standing alone at the precise centre of a great circle of destruction, and soon the men were barrelling towards me, the four of them like the fingers in a fist, hatred in their eyes. The Dutch accent didn’t seem so affable now, it seemed harsh and guttural as they quickly formed a circle around me, hands gripping my shoulder as if steadying me for a punch that I knew would surely come. The man with his nose touching mine was blond as a Viking, with a face like a cheap cut of meat, missing teeth – never a good sign – and beer on his breath. ‘No speak Dutch,’ I repeated idiotically, ‘no speak Dutch,’ on the basis that bad English is more easily understood than the good kind. But it’s possible to spot swearing in almost any language and now four other hands were grabbing my arms, walking me – carrying me – through the crowd that had now gathered to watch the sport. Three motorcycles were hauled upright and inspected, but the nearest bike lay on its side in a way that seemed suggestive of a dying horse, the owner crouching beside the beloved creature, keening quietly, rubbing his thumb over the horrible scar on the highly polished fuel tank. Unusually for a Dutchman, he seemed to speak fairly limited English, because the only words I could pick up were ‘You pay, you pay,’ then, as he grew in linguistic confidence, ‘you pay big’.

  ‘I didn’t do it!’

  ‘Your bike did it.’

  ‘Not my bike. My bike over there,’ and I gestured across the devastation to where my bike stood, immaculately vertical. There was, I suppose, an interesting debate to be had here about causality and the notion of ‘fault’, intention and chance, but it might save time if I simply reached for my wallet. I had never re-sprayed a motorcycle. How much might that cost?

  I began negotiations. ‘I can give you … eighty euros.’ This made them laugh in an unpleasant way, and an immense paw took my wallet and started searching through the folds and pouches. ‘Excuse me – could you give that back?’

  ‘No, my friend,’ said the blond man. ‘We are going to the bank!’

  ‘Give him back his money!’ said a voice to one side, and looking over my shoulder I saw that a woman was pushing her way through the crowd, a large black woman with improbably blonde hair, tying her dressing gown over what appeared to be some sort of white fishnet body-stocking. ‘Here,’ she said, snatching my wallet and returning it to me, ‘this is yours. You
hold this until I say.’

  There was, at this point, a certain amount of shouting in Dutch, the woman jabbing her finger into the lead biker’s chest – her nails were extravagantly long, curved and painted – then throwing her shoulders back and pushing her chest towards him, using it as one might a riot shield, while pointing at me and gesturing up and down. She shouted something, causing the crowd to laugh and the biker to shrug defensively, then suddenly she changed her tone and tack, flirting with the man instead, her arms draped over his shoulders. He laughed and pinched his nose in thought. Looked me up and down. I seemed to be the subject of some sort of negotiation.

  ‘How much in your wallet?’ said the lady who, I surmised from the body-stocking, was either a prostitute or very outgoing. Would she be coming to the bank too? Perhaps she wasn’t my ally after all. Perhaps they were all going to rob me and toss me in the canal. ‘About two hundred and fifty euros,’ I said, defensively.

  ‘Give me one hundred fifty.’ She beckoned with two fingers of her hand. I hesitated, and she spoke fast and low. ‘Give it to me and you might live.’

  I handed over the money, which she packed into a tight ball and stuffed into the biker’s fist. Then, before he’d had a chance to count it, she took my arm and pushed her way through the crowd towards a flight of stairs. Behind us, the bikers were protesting loudly: ‘You pay more! More!’ But the lady gestured dismissively, hissed something about the police, and I was bustled up the steps of the townhouse, through a red-lit doorway.

  79. paul newman

  My saviour’s name was Regina – though that may have been a pseudonym – and she was terrifically nice.

  ‘What is your name, my new friend?’

  ‘Paul,’ I said, then with an awful inevitability, ‘Newman. I’m Paul Newman.’ I’m not sure where my pseudonym came from. It lacked the ring of plausibility, and probably wasn’t even necessary. After all, I hadn’t done anything wrong. But too late; for the time being I was Paul Newman.