name that wasn’t Mamma, and his dad had another name that wasn’t Dad. The only person he trusted after that for days was his Dada Zaki, who had always had the same name. So my own father managed to turn my infant son against me; you’d think he was his kid rather than mine. And don’t think I don’t know that he used to pretend that Luhith was his son when he picked him up from nursery – it was easy enough to do, what with Luhith calling him “Dada”, the Bengali word for Granddad. My dad exploited the natural misunderstanding that occurred just so that he could flirt with all the young single mums. Appalling behaviour.
Zaki Khalil says: What on earth is Ji-Ji wittering about? It’s not like I called him anything awful. And I didn’t do it on purpose, it just happened. I’m the one who had to do all the baby-sitting while Delphine went to the dentist or the shops, not Ji-Ji, he was working until 2am for his law firm, from what I remember, doing his articles or whatever they called them; I’m the one who had to read all the Winnie-the-Pooh books and the nursery rhymes to the baby, and come up with the silly songs. And Luhith is a rubbish name for rhyming – what rhymes with Luhith? You’d need to be a rhyming genius to come up with something for Luhith; AA Milne came up with something for Christopher, which is almost as hard, but he was a genius. “What has she got in that firm little fist of hers? Somebody’s thumb, and it feels like Christopher’s.” And you have to admit that even with that, the context has to be a bit specific. Whereas Lucky rhymes with everything – Lucky, Clucky, Ducky, Plucky, Mucky and Yucky. It’s not my fault the name caught on; it’s the name he was meant to have, anyway; it matches his Star Wars obsession and his game too well to be mere chance: Lucky Skywalker with the Lucky Left Foot. It was originally from his initials, anyway, LK, Lucky. It’s obvious.
Dada Khalil says: What sort of a bullshit-goddamnit to hell-stupid question is that? His name isn’t Lucky. It’s Luhith, a fine name, a name to carry with pride. In fact it’s my name, my grandson named him for me; it’s the name of the owner of the Khalil Emporium in Dhaka, and frankly you can’t get much better than that.