He is a man of routine, rising at 9.30 and watching morning television in a dressing gown with a bowl of cereal. Then, at 12.00, he has more cereal, again carefully put together according to nutritional guidelines. He is diabetic; above all, he wants to avoid injecting insulin. By careful control of his diet, this may be possible. But now he is slim, even thin, his legs are brown sticks. Thin, but with an iron will, eating his museli, which he puts together from ingredients he keeps in separate packets in a tub in the kitchen. Dried figs and pumpkin seeds; flakes of brain and powdered wheatgerm. That’s 12.00. Then, television until the 1.00 news – the end of This Morning or Vanessa or whatever else is on, and the BBC news, which runs until 1.30, until the weather and then local news reports.
Then he leaves the television on for me while he goes upstairs to get ready. Neighbours, he knows I want to watch Neighbours, and perhaps he thinks I should watch it, just as, earlier, he used to leave The Word on on Friday nights and, still earlier, the radio programme with Arnold the dog in the mornings. Never mind what I say, he thinks I should watch and listen to such things. In the morning, he pushes the tabloid section of the Guardian to me. I should read it, the tabloid section. It is for me to read. On Fridays, I read the review section. I look forward to that, reading as I drink coffee. But at 1.30, I watch Neighbours, and he goes upstairs to get ready for the world. Then at 2.00, we can go to town.
Do you want to go to town? Do you want to go to the university? Ok, he’ll give me a lift. My bike is in the shed, rusting. My bike’s in the shed, the wheel buckled. He’ll give me a lift, and we’ll go to town or he’ll drop me at the university. 2.00: the day is half gone, but nothing begins until 2.00. 2.00: what is there of the day, what is left? Never mind, this is where it begins; it’s when things start. From 2.00 to 5.30, when my mum gets home, that is the time of day for action. For a time, he does volunteer work, my dad. For a time, having taught himself about computers, having learnt about databases, helps out at the volunteer centre. He helps out there and as the treasurer of a charity, maintaining databases and records. That’s the afternoon; that’s when things happen in the day.
For my part, I go to the library or to the unemployment office. I go to the library, where they sometimes give me old copies of the TLS for free, or I go to the unemployment office and the temping agencies. Any work? No work. It’s the recession; there’s no work here. So I borrow books, and borrow books about books. I read the Writers at Work series. I read biographies and critical studies. Sometimes, for a pound, I borrow a CD. I talk to dad on the way home, telling him of my plans. I’m to do a TEFL course in October, but first I’ll have to get a Career Development Loan. Then, when I’ve done the course and am working a few hours here and there, I tell him I want to get funding for further study. Then, meeting him near the university library, where I can get in unnoticed though I am not a student, I will tell him as we drive home of my plans. There is funding about, I tell him.
For his part, he does not understand a world in which a degree is not enough to get you a job. He watches me fill out application forms for graduate training schemes and then sees me open rejection letters. And when I find work – a week here, a few days there – he is amazed that his son is opening and closing umbrellas to check the printing of a company logo, or entering data into on-screen boxes, rather than embarking on a career. What has happened? What happened? It’s the recession, I tell him. And the expansion of higher education. The recession and the great expansion, which means there are many more of us looking for work. What use is a non-vocational degree? He thought any degree would do, but he was wrong; things had changed. But he sees I have plans and is confident in my plans. He knows I have plans, and even when they go wrong, like my attempt to find work in Greece, he is reassured by the force of those plans and my planning.
What else I am doing? Copying out things I had written longhand onto the computer. Using the computer when he is not using it to copy out what I had written in notebooks and journals. I copy out my notes in the mornings, in the early evenings, when he is not using the computer. And I make new notes; I copy phrases and paragraphs from the books I am reading. He, dad, watches the television and reads the paper and reads about computers and I copy out notes and make more notes.
He, unemployed, lives alongside me, who am also unemployed. The air is stale and fetid, and we are unemployed. The windows cannot be opened – he feels the cold – and we are unemployed. But the house is nearly paid for, he is reassured by that. The house is nearly paid for and the credit cards paid off, he knows that. There is no problem surviving, he knows that, he who comes from a family who were poor and had difficulty surviving. There’s no problem; the house is standing, and although he is in ill-health, his diabetes is under control and his operation was a partial success; there is no immediate danger.
Poverty is far away; the family in India are doing well just as we are doing well. The next generation – his nephews and nieces, are doing well, and are scattered all across the globe. The next generation, all of whom are graduates, are doing well, he knows that. His unemployment does not bother him. My unemployment – it will be temporary, he knows that. I am an organised person, he can see that. I have plans, he can see that. I work hard, even though I am unemployed, he sees that. And so in communication with his family, he says, Lars is looking for work. We have a recession here, and he is looking for work.
We are both unemployed, but perhaps unemployment saved him, he who was in poor health, from an early death. Perhaps by unemployment would he enjoy a few more years. But he does not speak of this, he who would never complain. He does not share his anxieties with us. He does not speak of himself, for he is from a family who do not speak in that way. He is retired, not unemployed. Retired early, and this is the hand dealt to him. Early retired, and in poor health, and instead of playing golf, he is at home. At home in the mornings and later, when he stops working at the Volunteer Centre, in the afternoons, too. Listening to Indian classical music on his computer and, later, when he had gone out to India to sort out their microphones and webcams, chatting to his brothers through the internet. Now India is close to him again. Now Madras, which is called Chennai, is close to him.
I leave for the North and for further study, but he is there, and the house, in the day, is his kingdom. I leave for study and for work, but the house is around him. In the early evening, he clears up the kitchen and hoovers. In the later evening, he cooks South Indian food for himself, making samba from samba powder. Then, television again, documentaries, and the computer. Then he will sit down and listen to mum tell him about her day, and the television will be there, and the computer in the other room.
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