"Temple Trample..."

Not only does my father email to invite me to lunch - his treat - but he actually makes the trip to London by train to meet me. He asks me to pick the restaurant, so, through a total lack of imagination, I choose Christopher’s in Covent Garden.

As I wait for my father to show up I try to think of things to say that aren’t bitter, hurtful or childish.

“My name’s Christopher as well,” I tell the pretty waitress as she pours my bottle of beer into a glass.

“Wow,” she says, not bothering to hide her sarcasm. In a place like this the staff is supposed to treat its customers reverentially but they see through me.

“If I was wearing a suit would you take me seriously?” I ask her.

“Possibly,” she says, smiling, and she takes the empty bottle away as my father arrives.

I stand and we shake hands. “You’re married, Christopher,” he says, looking at the departing waitress. We sit.

“There’s something you have to understand about me,” I tell him. “Clearly I’m not the Lothario that you were at my age because women have not the remotest interest in me. It doesn’t matter how flirtatious I am, how witty or interesting, they don’t care. If I was trapped on a desert island for years with an averagely attractive woman and it was just the two of us, not another man around or any possibility of one arriving, we’d be friends at best.”

“Don’t be absurd. What about Cheryl?”

“Proof that miracles can happen. Why do you think I married her? Apart from not being able to afford to live alone of course.”

“I’m sure. What about that other girl, the one with the birthmark that used to hang around you at university?”

“Just friends. And I’d slip her some cash to act loving whenever family came round.”

He watches me with a look of weathered patience.

“Of course, Kenneth,” I say. “You married every woman who showed the least interest in you.”

“What’s this ‘Kenneth’ nonsense?”

“’Dad’ sounds so uncouth. I think I should call you by your name.”

“I don’t like it.”

“All the cool kids are doing it.”

“Is that what you are then? Cool?”

“You better believe it, Daddio.”

He holds his hands out, palms up. “Daddy. That’s better.”

This is the funniest joke I’ve ever heard him make so I decide to give him a break.

“I’d like to order wine,” he says. “But you’ve already got a beer.”

“I can do both. Come on, neither of us are driving.”

We both order steaks and he chooses a wine that I approve with a confident nod of my head even though I don’t even understand what he says. When a dribble is poured into his glass for tasting he swills it round his mouth with sucking motions I can actually hear and considers it for an indecently long period before he gestures for the glasses to be filled.

“This is a step up from the McDonald’s you used to take me to every other Saturday afternoon,” I say.

“Perhaps. That’s where you wanted to go when you were that age.”

“Maybe I would have liked a steakhouse if you had taken me.”

“Perhaps,” he says again.

We drink our wine and look out over Wellington Street and The Strand. It is teeming.

“There are too many people in this city,” my father says. “Too many people in the world. I thought that when I was your age but it’s transformed beyond comprehension in the last thirty years. If it keeps going I’m glad I won’t be alive in another thirty. Look at this latest temple trample in India. Put a million people in one place and there’re bound to be problems.”

I say nothing and look at my wine.

“What did I say?”

“Nothing. I’m just staying away from any conversation potentially involving immigration. Ealing has already all but banned my book because of my comments about the Polish.”

“What have they said?”

“Nothing. If there was a local headline saying ‘Don’t Buy This Book’ or something it would be fantastic. Any negative publicity fuels sales. Instead there’s just a wall of silence. They’re very clever. Meanwhile the residents of Warsaw are desperate to get their hands on it and they won’t be able to.”

“I didn’t realise they had this power. I thought they just built the houses.”

“Badly,” I say. Then, “Damn it.”

“No one’s listening.”

The food arrives and I cut into the medium rare steak, letting the fries soak up the blood deliciously.

“Terrible thing, this economy crisis,” he says.

“I guess.”

“Worrying times. What do you make of it?”

“I’m not worried. I don’t understand it and I don’t care. Whatever happens happens.”

“You should care. We could be entering a severe depression.”

“Maybe I’d care if I owned anything or had any money. As long as people keep buying shite from shopping telly channels I’ll scrape a living. It used to be that no matter how poor people were they’d always find cash for booze and fags. Add anything that spins on a Lazy Susan on TV to that list.”

“You can’t just bury your head in the sand.”

“Why do you care anyway? You’re retired and your house is paid off.”

“I have stocks and shares.”

“Don’t understand that either. Just keep it in a bank and the government will bail it out if necessary. I’m intrigued, what lures you out from your country haven? Bored of pottering around in your garden and watching the cricket?”

He is quiet for a few seconds, then he brings from his brief case a folded newspaper. “It seems perhaps I have done you a disservice.”

“Really? In what way?”

“I should have taken your writing a little more seriously.”

My eyes flick to the paper. “Oh yeah?”

“The Financial Times, no less.” He pats the paper. It is his bible.

“Let me see!”

“Oh, no, I just bought this. It was a few days ago now.”

“Oh. Was it a positive review?”

“It wasn’t a review. Just a mention. A list of upcoming releases.”

“Oh.”

“But when I saw your name and the title of the book…It suddenly seemed real.”

I am flushed with pride at my dad’s acknowledgement. “What did you think before? That I was making it up?”

“No, no. Perhaps I didn’t fully grasp how big a publication it is. You’re going to have to start worrying about your finances soon.”

“It’s not big. It probably won’t change my finances.”

“It’s mentioned in the FT. Do you know how many people read that?”

“No. But even if it’s millions, so what? How many of the other books mentioned alongside mine are you going to buy?”

He looks at the paper thoughtfully. “Oh.”

“Yes. If it gets a good review, then maybe. I’m hoping for the best.”

He nods. “I see.”

“Does that change it all back again now? Or does it still seem real?”

“It still seems real,” he says. But he had to think about it. We finish our steaks, the brief emotional spike in the lunch flat lined once more.