At least the sun is shining now. The kids, in the morning with their lunches and bags, walking up Victoria Road. It is non-uniform day, which means you can wear what you want, including your uniform, the girls say. I worked out first and then put on my shirt and jeans before taking them to school because I noticed I was the only dad taking the kids to school in workout clothes. And then today, I notice everyone else is now wearing running shorts. Hug and kiss, I say to Naomi and Mei and Mia before they run off. Hug and kiss. A proper kiss.
When I get off the bus and am walking
towards the station, two men are staggering and drunk and one of them
has a bottle of beer. I keep my head down, as you do, because I am in a suit
and headed the opposite way. One of them says, ‘Mate, do you know where the pub
is?’ And I look up and say, ‘Which pub?’ And he says, ‘The one across the
road.’ I don’t know, I say, there are pubs on Broad Street. And I keep going,
ignoring him saying after me, ‘You American mate?’ like I didn’t hear.
I sleep nervously when I need to get up early. I woke up at
3:04 and checked the time. I’ll lie here
until the alarm, I think. And then at 3:30, I get up at the first sound,
before the alarm can wake Yoko who has finally come to bed sometime in the
night. I make eggs and put on a suit and go out to wait for the bus, although I
can order a taxi, I think, I'm not paying for it anyway.
Because it is almost summer now, the sun comes up so early
and there are touches of the light on the edge of the horizon at the bus stop.
The War Lane Road roundabouts are quiet and everything is closed. I stand there for a moment, in the quietness, and look at the big van across the way that says, 'Man and Van'.
How many of my problems are just built on bad habits, bad habitual actions. This week I realised I had grown up eating constantly; I was always eating. An Italian woman, a parent of one of kids' friends who I am talking to at a birthday party at Boing Zone says this to me, triggers a series of thoughts: The problem with the British is that they are always eating. They will eat on the street. In their cars. In Italy, we eat three times a day, unless you are a child then you will eat a snack maybe in the afternoon because you can't control yourself. As she says this, a mother comes by offering us cake that the children have passed over, Asda cake, a Galaxy chocolate cake, and I take a piece while the Italian woman of course refuses. I think, yes, this is the problem. I am a child.
In a committee meeting the other day, when I am referred to unironically as the 'subject expert', I feel again like a child in an ill-fitting suit because I ate a cookie that morning — I felt unhappy and stressed and ate a cookie, like a child. I know they are all thinking, look at this fat child, what is he doing here, even while they say, this is the expert, let's hear from him.
I know I appear like a bureaucrat now, but I used to be someone who wanted to be a writer. And then I realised that writing is not a vocation, it is an identity. It can be a vocation, sure, but who wants to get paid to write. I want no strings attached. My father asked me when I graduated from university [I say university though I mean college because as an American masquerading as a British bureaucrat, you need to know the lingo], he asked me, What did you learn? and I said, I learned how to write a sentence.
Later, I recounted the story to my father, and he said, 'You said, I learned how to write a good sentence, or I learned how to write a sentence well. You qualified it.' And I had to agree, because I didn't remember saying it anyway, but I thought, actually, that's not a very good sentence if I put a qualifier into it. It should have been, 'I learned how to write a sentence' and I should've trusted the reader to fill in the rest.
I finished my expert committee role and thought that even though I had money to ride the tube, I should walk up from South Bank to Soho. I had, as I said, eaten a cookie, and then later a scone, and then later a cheese sandwich and some crisps. I was a fat man again with my bag, weaving through the traffic. I remember this same feeling in Malaysia, the feeling of being stared at even when people aren't necessarily staring. You get it in your head and you start talking to yourself in the voices of all the young men on motorbikes: Look at that fat white man, who is simultaneously a child and rich bureaucrat with a nice home. Earlier, I saw him eating ice cream at the seven eleven.
I walked up towards Westminster, past all the Asians and Italians with selfie-sticks on the bridge in front of Big Ben. And then up towards Trafalgar Square, past all the war monuments, the men on horses and the Americans taking pictures, and I was feeling hot and fat and angry at the world for loving war so much. Really though, I was angry with myself, the cookies, and tight fitting shirt that ripped at the elbow when I went to pick up something. I know I'm not blending in, I too would take a picture of the men on the horses and the clock and everything else if I wasn't so self-conscious. I may appear on the outside like a good bureaucrat, but wait until I open my mouth.
It's a habit to eat when you are happy or when you are sad or when you are angry or when you stressed or when you are bored or when you are afraid. Here, this cookie will solve your problems, Stevie, you child. Jesus will come back soon enough. At least I realise it now, I say to myself, the fat reflection of me in the mirror. I say, You look fat to me, but I know you are not fat. It's okay: any habit can be broken. You just have to break it.