The Curious Rise of Alex Lazarus

by Adam Leigh

  ***

  If Sarah was magnanimous, my father was properly angry, fuelled by an uncomfortable concoction of disappointment and disapproval. These negative emotions had seemed to fester over recent months and the more I tried to make him proud of our achievements, the more dismissive he was of their accomplishment. There were several conflicting factors.

  He was intensely critical of me as a father and husband. He adored Sarah, with her vast reserves of tolerance, and really resented the frequency of my absences from everyday family events. ‘Even when you do come, you are late, distracted and probably on the phone’ was a constant reproach. It was true. I was pretty shambolic at time-keeping, and conference calls tended to start in the office, continue in the cab and conclude in the kitchen. Please don’t get the impression that I was not a devoted father. I adored my children and did everything to make them the centre of my existence when I was with them. It was just hard to build a sustained or consistent routine – bath and bedtime were spasmodic events for me.

  Mum and Dad had assiduously engaged in all aspects of my life growing up. They immersed themselves in the foibles of my friends, helped with homework and kept abreast of any other challenges I faced. If I was ‘third Birnam Wood tree from the left’ in the school production of Macbeth, they would sit in the front row and tell me my performance was not wooden at all. My friends loved coming round for an intense political debate with my father or to have teenage anxieties soothed by the wise counsel of my mother.

  My father took exception to the elevation of business above my core family responsibilities. For a radical political thinker, he was quite a traditionalist. As I got busier with PrimaParent, his lectures on the balance between the personal and the professional life became more frequent. They were devoted and hands-on grandparents, but every gesture of kindness would be accompanied by a sarcastic little dig: ‘I’ll be sure to show Emily a picture of you, in case her memory is becoming hazy.’

  This anger created an intellectual disregard for what I was achieving. First, I had to contend with Saint Judith, my younger sister, who sacrificed everything for the good of others. She immersed herself in the enormity of running her charity, trying to lessen the horrific Syrian refugee crisis. As she spent an enormous amount of time on the Turkish/Syrian border, my parents grappled with an uncomfortable mix of pride in her work and fear for her safety. She had become a prominent expert on the crisis, making frequent appearances on television, including one powerful laceration of government inaction on Newsnight. She, too, was away from many family events. Her absence was unchallengeable, and we toasted her work with collective admiration.

  Our loving relationship was undiminished. I would bore anyone with accounts of her achievements, and she was equally excited about my growing success. I would interrupt everything to have late-night satellite phone calls with Judith in her frozen tent in a desolate refugee camp. She would revel in stories of our growth and particularly wanted all the related celeb gossip, most of which emanated from Julian. I made the unilateral decision that our corporate charity would be Better Futures. We incorporated fundraising effectively on the site and began to attract meaningful donations. My father doubted my altruism. ‘Anyone you bring to the site increases its valuation – don’t demean us by pretending there’s another reason’ was a particularly barbed comment I received during one conversation.

  Watching his two children diverge in their values evinced a bilious anger. This in turn produced an extreme perspective on tech, outlined in his weekly article in his beloved Guardian. His ‘High Tech or No Tech’ column had given him licence to vent and he developed a cultish following of digital dilettantes who hung on his every critical word.

  Our minds, he argued, were disintegrating as our umbilical attachment to phones doomed our children to a lifetime of poor concentration. This self-obsessed landscape catalysed mental fragility, and real relationships and intimacy were being destroyed. His writing was parodic, referring to Giggle, Twotter and Instasham, and he challenged the start-up world with a section at the end called ‘The Needed and the Needless’. It would promote a new business with a worthwhile social purpose, and pillory another that had no intrinsic value other than individual wealth creation. His outspoken Marxist take on entrepreneurialism made him constantly sought after by media. He was on TV more often than the weatherman.

  I should have seen it coming. His frustration with me as a son, husband and father was evident in every conversation. Still, I assumed, naively, that if I didn’t have his respect, I at least had his loyalty.

  ***

  About a week after our global get-together, he snapped. Incensed by my absence from the family during the chickenpox period, he resented that my mother had to become a back-up nurse to support Sarah. As I was scrolling through my early morning emails, sipping my first coffee of the day, my phone rang. Moshe did not sound happy.

  “Tell me, Alex. Do you love your father?”

  “Hello, Moshe. I love all my family. And I hope you love yours too.” It was an odd start to the conversation.

  “Do you think he loves you?”

  “I’m sorry, what’s happening here? Why these questions? Are you upset I’ve never invited you round for Friday night dinner?”

  “Have you read the Guardian this morning?” At that moment I felt suddenly cold and had a foreboding that the strained relationship of recent months was somehow going to find a very public outlet.

  “Can I call you back?” I needed some time to take in what was clearly going to be criticism in print. Moshe grumpily asked me to call him without fail as soon as possible. Taking a few deep breaths, I found the article. Dad had really gone for it. The headline was an inversion of our principle selling proposition.

  WHY PRIMAPARENT.COM DOES

  NOT MAKE YOU A BETTER PARENT

  It then only got worse as my father dismantled my achievements very publicly.

  Alex Lazarus struggles to make family events. He has two gorgeous children and a saintly wife, who is a brilliant doctor. He is an absent father and a distant husband. He has abandoned the simple pleasures of family life to build a highly valued digital parenting business that attempts to consign the traditional demands of raising children to a basic search for a last-minute birthday present. He will be very rich one day, no doubt, but rich in what? Why does this latest unicorn pretender brand bother me? Surely I should encourage the enterprise of the diligent digital entrepreneur? It causes me, however, sleepless nights and unrelenting mental anguish, because Alex Lazarus, in case you hadn’t guessed by our identical surnames, is my son.

  I won’t reproduce the rest of the article as it was simply an open letter demanding that I do something else with my life. My father analysed the business and concluded it was yet another way of shirking individual responsibility through the ‘cult of instant delivery over effort’. His recurring theme was the irony of me trying to enhance parent/child relationships while becoming a worse father and husband. When I read it, I ran out of the building and walked, directionless, trying to marshal my scrambled thoughts, and I had no intention of calling Moshe back. This was so personal that I didn’t care about its corporate impact. After a while my phone rang and I saw my father’s number. I felt a strong impulse to throw the phone under the wheels of a passing lorry. Instead, I answered the call, saying nothing.

  “Alex, Alex, are you there?” he asked with mounting concern.

  “Yes,” I replied like a sullen teenager.

  “Talk to me, Alex. I know you’ll have read it by now. Can we please have a sensible discussion?”

  Betrayed and close to tears, I simply said, “Why, Dad? What were you thinking?”

  “I had to get through to you.”

  “You could have just phoned.”

  “That’s all I do. You don’t listen. Alex, you are throwing away a life of value for value that has no worth.”

  “Very clever, Dad,” I said, trying to quell my anger and despair. “I know you resent the rich
es I haven’t yet earned.”

  “I don’t mean that,” he shouted. “I mean you will look back on this time one day and have no recollection of your children growing up. You may not even have a wife to discuss it with. Your ambition is the mortal enemy of your future well-being.”

  “That’s your opinion. How dare you hurt and humiliate me so publicly? What sort of father does that?” My cheeks were wet by now.

  “You’ll understand in the future why I had to. I know you will.”

  “Well, maybe that is when we’ll next speak.” And with that, the call was over.

  18. Success

  Clyde Pilestone sat in a futuristic swivel chair as bizarrely imagined galaxy scenes morphed from one vibrant planet surface to the next behind him. Unlike his verbose alter ego Nigel, he was simple and direct as he stared into the camera.

  “My faithful followers. Thank you for your patience. I am ready to share with you the continuing adventures of Xargon 5, who, you will remember, was left with amnesia and an altered personality on the surface of Neptune. He now has to embark on his journey for redemption even more alone. Needing to be heard across a limitless galaxy, can he be liberated by technology, or will it isolate him further?

  Find out in my new book… The Galaxy Slayer’s Last Stand. Out on September 1st 2015.

  “And I have reached an important decision.

  “Our world is in need of change. Like Xargon 5, we have to confront new ways of living. So, I am announcing today that my latest book won’t be available in bookshops just yet. If you want to read this next instalment, go to PrimaParent.com/galaxy and you will be told what to do. The first chapter of a new exciting chapter. The future, my friends, is ours to shape.”

  The screen dissolved and our web address appeared, ready to conquer the universe. It was that simple. After months of planning with our publishing team and Nigel’s hefty entourage, our partnership was launched with a simple film that within a couple of days had been seen across half the globe.

  The intensity of the press scrutiny accompanying the announcement was enormous. A number of debates were unleashed by the unusual nature of this publishing deal. Was it the end for printed books? Were conventional businesses to be dismantled by aggressive start-ups? As a civilised society, did we respect success or secretly worship the failure of others?

  The primary theme of the book created an interesting narrative of its own. Nigel had, very cleverly, made the isolation of its protagonist, searching for his scattered people across the universe, an analogy for young people scouring social media for meaning but floundering in perpetual isolation. This compelling conversation allowed for wider reflection on the nature of parenting in a disintegrating world of relationships. We hoped the many articles that appeared would communicate that PrimaParent had a laudable purpose to improve family life.

  Our PR strategy reflected the dilettantism of Nigel/Clyde. The plan was to not make him available in person, but for him to pop up ‘virtually’, delighting fans across the globe. Press interviews were beamed on to specially constructed screens in a series of unusual locations. Nigel was filmed in a studio made to look like an arid lunar surface. He kept contextualising the isolation described in the book with the perils of modern existence. The story was basically a galactic social media conversation of a lost individual trying to unravel the whereabouts of his friends. This was further helped by other events we created for his passionate fan base. Every day for a couple of weeks, you could win a chance to have a private conversation with him online. The response was staggering, and Nigel brilliantly played the role of enigmatic and combative philosopher for groups of drooling fans from around the globe.

  We were fortunate that the book was the best in the series to date. It combined an undercurrent of contemporary philosophy with a bloody good adventure story. Martian loses family. Martian loses memory and is sad. Martian roams galaxy chasing clues from his communications device. Martian gets a bit of redemption at the end of the book, but not enough to preclude an imminent sequel. The critics loved it and were positive about its unusual distribution. Reviews for The Galaxy Slayer’s Last Stand were – forgive the pun – out of this world.

  ‘Clyde Pilestone’s emotional piledriver’

  ‘What we can all learn from a lonely Martian’

  ‘Please Mr Pilestone… make sure this is not your last stand’

  Our spectacular launch party officially heralded our arrival as a substantial business. We hired a club and the finest caterers and mixologists, got a well-known DJ and crammed the place with celebrities of varying levels of obscurity and fame. Julian spent the evening with Lucy pressed to his side. His self-satisfied smile suggested we all laud him for his professional and personal achievements, and a posse of fawning acolytes stood by him, laughing sycophantically. Of course, I wasn’t jealous.

  I sat in the corner at a table with Nigel, Kate and Sarah, trying to revel in the mood and not worry about making an impression. Sarah was very happy and kept snuggling close to me, holding my hand, her eyes sparkling with pride. Our author, however, got drunk quickly and something in his expression suggested imminent mischief. He chose to grill Sarah on her disappointing choice in men.

  “Sarah. You are quite lovely. Was Cupid so cruel as to deliver this homunculus as your only soulmate?”

  I instinctively felt the need to fight back. “And Kate, I know he’s very wealthy now, but don’t you feel that you’d be happier with someone who uses shorter words in everyday conversation?”

  “Thus speaketh the dullard.”

  “Honestly, your name is Nigel and you’re a thirty-eight-year-old bloke with long hair and an appalling beard, who looks more like a creepy heavy metal fan than a literary genius.”

  “And Alex, you are thirty-eight and enjoying momentary success because of my genius.”

  “All right, boys,” interceded Kate. “Shall we just leave it for tonight, and you can carry on your playground name-calling when Sarah and I aren’t here?”

  “I’m not that bothered if you want to go around the back of the club and beat Alex up,” Sarah added for good measure. We clinked glasses and toasted our mutual success. I had actually grown to like Nigel, and, beneath the posturing, I think he found me a reliable friend. All he really wanted was for people to be honest with him.

  For a moment we stared at the revelry around us and absorbed the energy of the celebration. Dimitri was slow-dancing with Lena, clasping her in his arms as if thery were superglued together. The pounding music meant everyone boogied frenetically around them, while they smooched like it was the last dance of the night. Alice was introducing Caroline to people as if she were at a friend’s wedding showing off her hot new partner. Moshe and Brooke were at the bar, talking. They were the sole representatives of our investors and were clearly enjoying each other’s company. Their knee-touching proximity to one another suggested they did not want to be interrupted. A member of Moshe’s security detail stood watchfully a few yards from them, looking for would-be assassins or kidnappers. He blended in as unobtrusively as a dark-suited man-mountain with sunglasses and an earpiece was ever going to.

  I had created all this from nothing other than luck, determination and hard work. I resisted a growing desire to make a speech oversharing my emotional excitement. Instead, Julian and Lucy came to join us. I’d chatted to Lucy earlier and got the distinct impression that she thought I was some random colleague of Julian’s. I withheld the urge to tell her my life story, but it had been a frustrating reminder that perhaps he and I had different narratives on the growth of the business. Julian pre-empted further introspection by making another toast. We all joined in wearily, having seemingly clinked our glasses every two minutes for the last hour.

  “Here’s to limitless ambition,” he said as Lucy giggled. I’m not sure why, as it wasn’t particularly funny. Nigel frowned. He did not adhere to all these self-satisfied declarations. He leant forward and looked at us both.

  “So, Julian and Alex. Ar
e you going to thank me? Surely I am the reason you’re here tonight. Not your little kiddie website that was going nowhere.”

  Julian bowed with sarcastic sycophancy. “Nigel, I have a photo of you by my bed. You are the last person I think of before I go to sleep.”

  “And there I was thinking you just had a big mirror,” Kate quipped. I was beginning to enjoy this.

  “I have to say that Julian’s bedroom is rather disappointingly minimalist,” intervened Lucy. She seemed to be missing the point. Julian reflected momentarily and rejoined the fray.

  “You can mock me, Nigel. Lord knows, I work with Alex, who doesn’t know how to give a straight answer to anything, so I’m used to speaking fluent banter. Actually, I’m loving this celebration and quite frankly I’d be a moron if I didn’t acknowledge that we wouldn’t be here today without your genius.” He had everyone’s attention now and his voice was inflamed by both passion and a need to be heard above the throb of the music.

  “Can I tell you a very brief story?” Julian asked.

  “Only if I can publish it,” Nigel retorted. He seemed to be spoiling for confrontation, but Kate gave him a look and he sank further into his chair. Julian waited for a respectful silence before beginning this unexpected soliloquy.

  “When my dad went to prison, my life changed. I cried for an hour when he was sentenced. Not because I was sad, but because I was embarrassed. All those early years of trying unsuccessfully to get his attention and suddenly I realised it wasn’t worth the effort. I didn’t mind that he’d tried to bend the law, but he was clearly not very good at doing so. As an antidote to the shame, I threw myself into tennis. Training five days a week, I would daydream about my winning shots in the final at Wimbledon. Most people who coached me at the time will tell you I didn’t make it in the end because I had a terrible temper and the wrong attitude. But I got angry because I knew I wasn’t good enough. It frustrated me that I wanted to excel but couldn’t.