‘Your friend Dexter, on that stupid programme.’
‘Sometimes. You know, if it’s on.’
‘And how is he?’
‘Oh fine, the usual. Well, a bit nutty to be honest, a bit off the rails. His mother’s sick and, well, he’s not taking it very well.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Ian frowned with concern and tried to work out a way of changing the subject. Not callously; he just didn’t want a stranger’s illness to get in the way of his evening. ‘Do you speak a lot?’
‘Me and Dex? Most days. I don’t see him much though, with his TV commitments, and his
girlfriends.’
‘Who’s he seeing now then?’
‘No idea. They’re like funfair goldfish; no point giving them names, they never last that long.’ She had used the line before
and hoped that Ian might like it, but he was still frowning. ‘What’s that face?’
‘Just never liked him, I suppose.’
‘No, I remember.’
‘I tried.’
‘Well you mustn’t take it personally. He’s not that good with other men, he doesn’t see the point of them.’
‘As a matter of fact, I always thought—’
‘What?’
‘That he took you a bit for granted. That’s all.’
Me again! Just checking in. Bit drunk now actually. Bit sentimental. You’re a great thing, Emma Morley. Be nice to see you. Call when you get in. What else did I want to say? Nothing, except that you are a great, great thing. So. When you get in. Call me. Give me a call
.
By the time the second brandies arrived there was no doubting that they were drunk. The whole restaurant seemed drunk, even the silver-haired pianist, clattering sloppily through ‘I Get a Kick Out of You’, his foot pumping the sustain pedal as if someone had cut his brake cable. Forced to raise her voice, Emma could hear it echoing in her head as she spoke with great passion and force about her new career.
‘It’s a big comprehensive in north London, teaching English and a bit of Drama. Nice school, really mixed, not one of those cushy suburban numbers where it’s all yes-miss no-miss. So the kids are a bit of a challenge, but that’s alright isn’t it? That’s what kids are meant to be. I say that now. They’ll probably eat me alive, little sods.’ She rolled the brandy round the glass in a way that she’d seen in films. ‘I’ve got this vision of me sitting on the edge of the desk, talking about how Shakespeare was the first rapper or something, and all these kids are just gazing at me with their mouths open just – hypnotised. I sort of imagine being carried aloft on inspired young shoulders. That’s how I’m
going to get around the school, the car park, the canteen, everywhere I go I’m going to be on the shoulders of adoring kids. One of those carpe diem teachers.’
‘Sorry, what-teachers?’
‘Carpe diem.’
‘Carpe—?’
‘You know, seize the day!’
‘Is that what it means? I thought it meant seize the carpet!’
Emma gave a polite hiccough of mirth, which for Ian was like a starting pistol. ‘That’s where I went wrong! Wow, my school days would have been so different if I’d known! All those years, scrambling around on the floor …’
Enough of this. ‘Ian, don’t do that,’ she said sharply.
‘What?’
‘Slip into your act. You don’t have to, you know.’ He looked hurt, and she regretted her tone, leaning across the table to take his hand. ‘I just don’t think you have to be
observing
all the time, or riffing or quipping or punning. It’s not improv, Ian, it’s just, you know, talking and listening.’
‘Sorry, I—’
‘Oh, it’s not just you, it’s men in general, all of you doing your number all the time. God, what I’d give for someone who just talked and listened!’ She was aware of saying too much, but momentum carried her on. ‘I just can’t work out why it’s necessary. It’s not an audition.’
‘Except it sort of is, isn’t it?’
‘Not with me. It doesn’t have to be.’
‘Sorry.’
‘And don’t keep apologising either.’
‘Oh. Okay.’
Ian was silent for a moment, and now it was Emma who felt like apologising. She shouldn’t speak her thoughts; nothing good ever came of speaking your thoughts. She was about to apologise, when Ian sighed and rested his cheek against his fist.
‘I think what it is is, if you’re at school and you’re not that
bright or good-looking or popular or whatever, and one day you say something and someone laughs, well, you sort of grab onto it, don’t you? You think, well I run funny and I’ve got this stupid big face and big thighs and no-one fancies me, but at least I can make people laugh. And it’s such a nice feeling, making someone laugh, that maybe you get a bit reliant on it. Like, if you’re not funny then you’re not … anything.’ He was looking at the tablecloth now, pinching the crumbs into a little pyramid with his fingertips as he said, ‘Actually I thought you might know what that’s like yourself.’
Emma’s hand went to her chest. ‘Me?’
‘Putting on an act.’
‘I don’t put on an act.’
‘That bit about the funfair goldfish, you’ve said that before.’
‘No, I … so?’
‘So I just think we’re quite similar, you and me. Sometimes.’
Her first thought was to be offended. No I’m not, she wanted to say, what an absurd idea, but he was smiling at her so – what was the word – fondly, and perhaps she had been a little harsh on him. Instead, she shrugged. ‘I don’t believe it anyway.’
‘What?’
‘That no-one fancied you.’
He spoke in a jokey, nasal voice. ‘Well, documentary evidence would seem to suggest otherwise.’
‘I’m here, aren’t I?’ There was a silence; she really had drunk too much, and now it was her turn to play with the crumbs on the table. ‘S’matter of fact, I was thinking how much better looking you were these days.’
He grasped his belly with both hands. ‘Well, I’ve been working out.’
She laughed, quite naturally, looked at him and decided that it really wasn’t such a bad face after all; not some silly pretty boy’s face, just a decent, proper man’s face. She knew that after the bill was paid that he would try and kiss her, and this time she would let him.
‘We should go,’ she said.
‘I’ll get the bill.’ He made the little bill-writing sign at the waiter. ‘It’s weird, isn’t it, that little mime that everyone does? Whose idea was that, I wonder?’
‘Ian?’
‘What? Sorry. Sorry.’
They split the bill two ways as promised and on the way out Ian pulled the door open, sharply kicking the bottom so that it gave the illusion of having hit him in the face. ‘Little bit of physical comedy there …’
Outside a heavy curtain of black and purple clouds had formed across the sky. The warm wind had that ferric tang that precedes a storm, and Emma felt pleasantly woozy and brandy-flavoured as they walked north across the piazza. She had always hated Covent Garden, with its Peruvian pipe bands, jugglers and forced fun, but tonight it seemed fine, just as it seemed fine and natural to hang on the arm of this man who was always so nice and interested in her, even if he did carry his jacket slung over his shoulder by that little loop in the collar. Looking up, she saw that he was frowning.
‘What’s up?’ she asked, squeezing his arm with hers.
‘Just, you know, feel like I’ve blown it a bit, that’s all. Getting nervous, trying too hard, making daft remarks. Do you know the worst thing about being a stand-up comedian?’
‘Is it the clothes?’
‘It’s that people always expect you to be “on”. You’re always chasing the laugh—’
And partly to change the subject, she put her hands on his shoulders, using his body to brace herself as she stepped up on tip-toe to kiss him. His mouth was damp but warm. ‘Blackberries and vanilla,’ she murmured with their lips pressed together, though in truth he tasted of parmesan and booze. She didn’t mind. He laughed into the kiss and she stepped down, held his face and looked up at him. He seemed as if he might cry with gratitude and she felt pleased that she’d done it.
‘Emma Morley, can I just say—’ He gazed down at her with great solemnity. ‘I think you are absolutely The Bollocks.’
‘You, with your honeyed words,’ she said. ‘Let’s get back to your place, shall we? Before it starts to rain.’
Guess who? Half-eleven now. Where are you, dirty stop-out? Oh well. Call me anytime, I’m here, I’m not going anywhere. Bye. Bye
.
At street level on the Cally Road, Ian’s studio flat was lit only by the sodium of the street lamps and the occasional searchlight of the passing double-decker buses. Several times a minute the whole room vibrated, shaken by one or more of the Piccadilly, Victoria or Northern lines and buses 30, 10, 46, 214 and 390. In terms of public transport it was possibly the greatest flat in London, but only in those terms. Emma could feel the tremors in her back as she lay on the bed that folded into a sofa, her tights some way down her thighs.
‘What was that one?’
Ian listened to the tremor. ‘Eastbound Piccadilly.’
‘How do you stand it, Ian?’
‘You get used to it. Also I’ve got these—’ and he pointed towards two fat maggots of grey wax on the window ledge. ‘Mouldable wax ear-plugs.’
‘Oh that’s nice.’
‘’Cept I forgot to take them out the other day. Thought I had a brain tumour. All got a bit Children-of-a-Lesser-God, if you know what I mean.’
Emma laughed, then groaned as another bubble of nausea was released. He took her hand.
‘Feeling any better?’
‘I’m fine as long as I keep my eyes open.’ She turned to look at him, pushing down the folds of the duvet to see his face and noting a little queasily that the duvet had no cover and was the colour of mushroom soup. The room smelt like a charity shop,
the odour of men who live alone. ‘I think it was the second brandy that did it.’ He smiled, but the white light from a passing bus swept the room, and she could see that he looked troubled. ‘Are you angry with me?’
‘Course not. It’s just, you know, you’re kissing a girl and she breaks off because she’s nauseous …’
‘I told you, only because of the booze. I’m having a lovely time, really I am. I just need to catch my breath. Come here—’ She sat to kiss him, but her best bra had rucked up so that the underwiring was digging into her armpit. ‘Ow, ow, ow!’ She hauled it back into place, then slumped forwards with her head between her knees. His hand was rubbing her back now, like a nurse and she felt embarrassed for spoiling everything. ‘I’d better head off, I think.’
‘Oh. Okay. If that’s what you want.’
They listened to the sound of tyres on the wet street, white light scanning the room.
‘That one?’
‘Number 30.’
She hauled at her tights, then stood unsteadily and twisted her skirt round. ‘I’ve had a lovely time!’
‘Me too—’
‘Just too much booze—’
‘Me too—’
‘I’ll go home and sober up—’
‘I understand. Still. It’s a shame.’
She looked at her watch. 11.52 p.m. Beneath her feet a tube train rumbled by, reminding her that she stood in the dead centre of a remarkable transport hub. Five minutes walk to King’s Cross, Piccadilly Westbound, home by 12.30 easy. There was rain on the windowpane, but not much.
But she imagined the walk at the other end, the silence of the empty flat as she fumbled with the keys, her wet clothes sticking to her back. She imagined herself alone in bed, the ceiling spinning, the Tahiti bucking beneath her, nauseous, regretful. Would
it really be the worst thing to stay here, to have some warmth, affection, intimacy for a change? Or did she really want to be one of those girls she saw sometimes on the tube: hungover, pale and fretful in last night’s party dress? Rain blew against the windows, a little harder this time.
‘Want me to walk you to the station?’ said Ian, tucking in his t-shirt. ‘Or maybe—’
‘What?’
‘You could stay over, sleep it off here? Just, you know, cuddles.’
‘“Cuddles”.’
‘Cuddles, hugs. Or not even that. We could just lie rigid with embarrassment all night if you like.’
She smiled, and he smiled back, hopefully.
‘Contact lens solution,’ she said. ‘I don’t have any.’
‘I do.’
‘I didn’t know you wore contact lenses.’
‘There you go then – something else we’ve got in common.’ He smiled and she smiled back. ‘Might even have a spare pair of wax ear-plugs if you’re lucky.’
‘Ian Whitehead. You old smoothie, you.’
‘… pick up, pick up, pick up. Nearly midnight now. At the stroke of midnight I will turn into a, what, I don’t know, an idiot probably. So anyway, if you get this …’
‘Hello? Hello?’
‘You’re there!’
‘Hello, Dexter.’
‘I didn’t wake you, did I?’
‘Just got in. Are you alright, Dexter?’
‘Oh, I’m fine.’
‘Because you sound pretty wasted.’
‘Oh I’m just having a party. Just me. A little private party.’
‘Turn the music down, will you?’
‘Actually I just wondered … hold on, I’ll turn the music down …if you wanted to come round. There’s champagne
,
there’s music, there might even be some drugs. Hello? Hello, are you there?’
‘I thought we decided this wasn’t a good idea.’
‘Did we? Because I think it’s a great idea.’
‘You can’t just phone up out of the blue and expect me to—
’
‘Oh come on, Naomi, please? I need you.’
‘No!’
‘You could be here in half an hour.’
‘No! It’s pouring with rain.’
‘I didn’t mean walk. Get a cab, I’ll pay.’
‘I said no!’
‘I really need to see someone, Naomi.’
‘So call Emma!’
‘Emma’s out. And not that kind of company. You know what I mean. The fact is, if I don’t touch another human being tonight I think I actually might die.’
‘—’
‘I know you’re there. I can hear you breathing.’
‘Okay.’
‘Okay?’
‘I’ll be there in half an hour. Stop drinking. Wait for me.’
‘Naomi? Naomi, do you realise?’
‘What?’
‘Do you realise that you are saving my life?’