A Shadow of Myself. Mike Phillips
had come to see him. ‘Same name.’
George Coker smiled, his lips twisting ironically.
‘I know. My mother saw you on BBC World Service television. Your father’s name is Kofi.’
Joseph grinned. This, he thought, was the closest he’d come to fame.
‘He was a student in Russia,’ George continued. ‘Yes?’
Joseph nodded, remembering. He’d said all that when they interviewed him. At the time he’d wondered whether anyone would be interested.
‘Kofi Coker,’ George said slowly. ‘That is my father’s name also.’
‘You have got to be kidding me,’ Joseph replied. ‘No offence, man, but this is weird.’
George frowned, as if trying to understand. Then he smiled again.
‘Not weird. This is the same Kofi Coker who is my father, too. This is why I have an English name like you. You are my brother.’
George had stopped smiling and was staring at him intently, as if trying to gauge the effect of what he’d said. Joseph looked back at him steadily, noting the colour of his eyes, a light greenish brown, and his relaxed pose, left hand in his trouser pocket, the other resting casually on the armchair. Paradoxically it was his visitor’s assurance which steadied Joseph, because it offered him a clue about what was happening. On the previous evening he’d been met at the airport by a thin, middle-aged woman with a twitchy neurotic manner, who described herself as his festival guide. As they drove towards the town she’d given him a rapid tour of its history and geography. At the end she offered him a few warnings, mostly about pickpockets and tricksters, who were, apparently, ‘foreigners, Ukrainians, gypsies, Hungarians. Prague has many rich tourists, so they come here from the East.’ As she said this her eyes glared anxiously at him from behind her horn-rimmed glasses. ‘Be careful.’
Remembering her intensity, Joseph wondered how she would have reacted to George, but he was also certain that this approach had to be some variation on the kind of scam about which he’d already been warned. George had the assurance of an experienced con man, and it occurred to Joseph that, for this man to survive in this world of whites, where they still treated the dark-skinned gypsies like outcasts, some formidable skills were required. Be careful, he reminded himself. Whatever this guy wanted he’d be tough and smart and probably dangerous.
‘I suppose there’re thousands of Kofi Cokers in Ghana. Like in this country they’re probably all named Václav or something like that. You know what I mean?’ George nodded slowly, as if following his words with care. ‘Your father might be named Kofi. He might even have lived in Russia. Sorry to disappoint you, man, but it doesn’t mean it’s the same Kofi.’
George nodded again.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘This is not easy to believe. For many years my mother believed that my father was in Africa. She wrote to the embassy, and to Ghana. But there was no answer. Then she saw you.’
Joseph felt himself losing patience. This was some kind of smokescreen, he was certain, but he couldn’t begin to guess what the man was after.
‘Bullshit,’ he said tersely. ‘This is bullshit. I appreciate you coming and talking to me. I really do. If you want something, tell me what it is and I’ll say yes or no. But don’t bullshit me, man.’
George frowned, a shade of anger in his expression.
‘No bullshit, mister,’ he said. He took his hand out of his pocket and held it out to Joseph. ‘Look.’
Joseph took the photograph reluctantly. In that moment he already knew what he would see, and he already knew, somehow, that what George had told him was true.
‘What’s this?’
George shrugged.
‘You look.’
The photograph was faded and creased, but still clear. His father was standing on some kind of bridge with his arm round a woman. She was pretty with long fair hair and she was looking up at his dad with a broad and adoring smile on her face. Joseph brought the photo closer and studied the faces carefully. No mistake about it. He was forty years younger, but Joseph had already seen a few pictures of him at around this age. It was his dad.
‘Who is this woman?’ he asked George.
‘My mother. Her name is Katya. This was in Moscow.’
His voice trembled a little, and Joseph avoided looking at him. He turned the photo over. There was a line of writing in Russian letters on the back and a date: 1956.
‘Vajlooblenni navzegda. In English,’ George said, pointing, ‘it says true lovers always.’
Quickly, ignoring George’s hesitation, Joseph thrust the photograph into his hand.
‘Wait a minute,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll be back.’
Without a pause, he turned and walked away. Behind him George said something, but he paid no attention. His head seemed, literally, to be spinning. In his mind the image of his father’s face loomed. Pacing down the corridor to his room, the whirlpool settled for a few seconds and he found himself focusing on the Russian woman who had been nestling next to his dad, and whose features were, oddly, very much like those of the receptionist downstairs. She was prettier, he thought, like his mum had been, and suddenly, it struck him that she also resembled his mother. In his bedroom, in his flat in Kentish Town, there was a framed photograph of his parents in precisely the same pose, arms around each other.
In the room he sat on the bed, picked up the phone and dialled his father’s number in London. As he did this he checked the time by the electronic clock on the TV set. Seven o’clock in Prague. It would be six in London. Whatever the old man had been doing during the day he’d probably have staggered in by that time. No answer. Joseph let it ring, watching the seconds flash past in a blur of green numerals. Then he slammed the phone down.
From where he sat he could see the building site at the back of the hotel. They were rebuilding everywhere, he thought idly, even here in Holesovice, outside the central loop of the town. Typically, though, there were no workers in sight, and no signs of activity. He imagined that they must have packed in and gone home to their families, or whatever it was they did during the evening, and as if in response to his thought a sudden blare of music filled the air, blasting effortlessly through the window. He recognised it immediately. George Michael, his voice quavering under the pressure of relentless amplification.
If George Coker was telling the truth, Joseph thought, there was a great deal he didn’t know about his father – he corrected himself, their father. Would his mother have known, and if she did, why hadn’t she told him before she died?
Thinking about his mother steadied him, imposing a kind of gloomy calm on his thoughts. There could still be some rational explanation. Indeed, everything George had said could be discounted or explained away, if it hadn’t been for the photograph. They could have picked up the name Kofi from the interview, and perhaps none of this would have happened if he hadn’t talked about his father on television. He hadn’t intended to, but when the interviewer asked him where he’d got the idea for the film, a story about his father had simply popped out.
There was something about the interviewer, too. She’d had a kind face which smiled easily and a shock of dark brown curls which had just begun to acquire a sprinkle of grey. She had arrived a few minutes late for the preview, but at the end, she had introduced herself, taking his hand and complimenting him on ‘a wonderful piece of work’. She gestured. ‘Those men. So much larger than life.’ Something about the men in the film, she said, had touched her deeply.
Joseph nodded and smiled, feeling the dizzy pleasure which still flooded through him every time this happened. Of course, he’d been lucky in his subjects. The film was no more than a series of interviews with a group of ageing Africans who had lived in Britain shortly after the war, more than fifty years ago. After he had filmed them he found himself thinking that most