Sing Like You Know the Words (3 page)

Their landlord, Peter, may have
lived in the house as a student, many years ago. Now he claimed to
be a lecturer in something or other, though not at the university.
He was one of those prematurely aged, but never quite grown up
characters that you saw hanging around the student areas, still
going to the same bars and wearing the same clothes, as if they had
never graduated (which perhaps they had not). In his own mind at
least, Peter had opted to join the counter culture. He wouldn’t
have been able to explain precisely what that meant, but he was
fond of saying that money was not important. He couldn’t understand
why his tenants should become so infuriated when they discovered
the various ways he’d found to make a little more of it by skimping
on maintenance or making little extra charges on top of the
rent.

After the party, Peter never
said much about the damage to the wall, but then he didn’t take any
steps to arrange a repair either, so in the end the missing plaster
became just another scar left behind to mark their occupation.
There were plenty of other ones.

A few months on, at least the
house was warmer. And it was the final term of the year. In the
late morning. David and Matthew were in the front room, arguing,
when Tim came in from the shops.

-Shift up; let me get near the
fire.

-Shouldn´t need a fire at this
time of year.

-You wouldn´t if you were
outside. It´s warmer out there than in here.

-What have you got in that bag
Tim?

Tim only smiled and held the bag
up. It appeared there was something heavy and bottle shaped
inside.

-What are you two arguing
about?

They were going on about
university clubs and societies, more specifically the drama group,
which was David’s latest enthusiasm and which he was trying to
persuade Matthew to join.

-I told him, no way, don´t even
think about it.

-But it´s all about literature.
That´s your thing.

Matthew had already heard this
line of argument and he was clearly not impressed.

-Literature doesn’t come into
it. What it´s really about are some over-confident arseholes who
like dressing up and making a noise, failing to remember speeches
that they haven’t understood in the first place. That´s not my
thing at all thank you.

Tim thought it might help if he
intervened.

-You know David is only
interested in plays because he wants to spend more time with
Patricia. You could just go along to be a mate.

-If that’s his only reason then
I don’t see why he needs me there at all It´s not like he´s the shy
and retiring type. You know how he is. Turns up any place and a few
weeks later they’re all David this and David that. You’ve joined
just about every society going already. I think drama is the only
one you’ve missed.

-At this time in our life we’re
supposed to be trying different things, David answered him. It´s a
good way to meet people.

-I don’t want to meet people. I
don’t approve of people. And you never stick at any of these clubs
for more than a few weeks. How is that any good for meeting
anyone?

-Better than you think. The ones
I need to know remember me and I never forget anyone. Anyway with
this club it’s different.

Matthew snorted

-Like when you persuaded me to
join the climbing club, even though I´m afraid of heights. That was
going to be different too. You told me it would be an opportunity
for me to conquer my phobias, only it wasn’t. I discovered that I
didn’t have a phobia, just a rational fear of falling and breaking
my neck.

-You wouldn´t have to do
anything frightening in the theatre group. You wouldn’t even need
to be on stage. They fight one another for the acting roles. You’d
just have to, you know, help out.

-Sounds fascinating, but I still
don´t do clubs and societies. I´m not the type.

Tim was enjoying Matthew´s
discomfort. He broke in again.

-That´s not true you know David.
I can tell you Matthew’s been through every political society on
they have; but never for more than a week or two. He’s no better
than you in that way. He couldn´t decide whether he´s a socialist
worker or a revolutionary worker. Then he realized that he wasn´t a
worker at all and neither were any of the others, so I think he
decided to be a Fabian.

-You have no idea what a Fabian
is.

-No but it sounds a bit queer
doesn´t it? I suppose they´re poofters who dress to the left.

Matthew threw up his hands in
disgust, but David was not finished. Matthew argued that it was not
as if Patricia was actually any good at acting. She said herself
that she was struggling to be competent. She only attempted the
minor roles. In other words she had no talent; and she didn´t seem
to enjoy it, so what was the point?

By now David was thinking that
perhaps he should have had this conversation with Matt before
dragging him to attend one of the drama group’s productions. He
replied that Patricia was set on being a barrister, making speeches
in courtrooms and the like. That was just the same as acting. She’d
decided she needed to develop the skill and she was determined
enough to persevere even if it didn’t come naturally to her. That
took a lot of courage and they should admire her for it. He was
beginning to sound pompous again.

Matthew nodded.

-What about you David, don´t you
need to be able to act?

-Barristers act. I’m not going
to be that kind of lawyer. You need family connections to get on at
the bar, and even then there’s no money in it for years.

-Besides which, you don´t
actually like law, added Tim.

-And there’s that, David
confessed. He grinned at Tim. But I´ve been thinking about your
telling me that I have no vocation.

Tim looked puzzled.

-You mean like a holiday? I
don’t remember saying anything about it.

-You idiot. Stop pretending to
be stupid or you’ll end up not needing to. You remember very well
telling me I was generally good at everything, and not specifically
good for anything. You said with that kind of brain, I ought to do
well in business.

-I was taking the piss.

-I know, but still I’ve been
thinking it might be true. In any case, law or business, that’s
just the start. I’m going to do something that people will notice
before I’m finished. I’ve been thinking about music possibly.

Tim laughed.

-We’ve heard your guitar
playing, I should think again.

-Not playing. I mean developing
talent, promotions. The management side.

Matthew spoke, returning to
what, for him, was a familiar theme.

-You need connections to do
anything in this world apart from teaching or working in an office.
That´s one thing you soon learn. All those years I spent at school
feeling isolated because I was too clever. I didn´t fit in with the
boys who went off to work in factories or learn trades. They´ve got
cars and houses now, families some of them. I thought, at least at
uni I´ll meet people like myself. I mean, it´s not like we were at
Oxford or Cambridge, is it? I never even put in for those places; I
knew I shouldn’t fit in. But it turns out that even at the vulgar
redbrick University of Leeds it´s still all what school were you at
and what do your people do. I hate it.

-Give it a rest Matthew; Tim
sank onto the battered sofa, as if exhausted. Don’t you get sick of
playing that record?

But David looked serious for a
moment.

-You might try to make
connections with some of those people you complain about, as long
as you are here anyway, he said. They aren´t all bad you know.

-I don´t want to know them,
Can´t you understand? As it is I can feel myself changing; becoming
more like them. I even pretend to understand references they make
to things that they all know about and ordinary people like me
don’t. I spent years at home pretending to be more stupid than I
was, thinking there’d be a world here where I might belong. And now
I’m here, I’m still spending my time playing at being someone I’m
not and hoping to fit in.

-Don´t worry about it, Tim said.
David and I are low born scum, just like you. And if what you say
is right you should be great at acting. You´re doing it
already.

-Eventually it won´t even be
acting, Matthew replied. We´ll be absorbed into their world,
allotted some little corner of it to sit quietly in, provided we
play the game; which we will of course. We´ll play the game even
more than those who really do belong in that world, with all their
smug sense of entitlement. They don’t have any doubts, but we´ll be
trying to make ourselves invisible like the Jews and the gays in
Europe in the thirties, more conformist than anyone else; living in
terror in case our abnormality should be discovered.

-You can stay in your corner if
you like, said David firmly. I´m going to do something with my
life.

Tim had heard enough. It was
more of the same old crap the two of them were always talking
about.

-Stop it, both of you, he said.
Let´s examine the contents of my magic bag. Look, a pint of milk,
bread, some margarine. I know it´s horrible but it´s cheap. And
behold, new and unopened, a bottle of port. Could be vintage, look
at the dust.

-Who drinks port?

-We do now. If we sip it we can
make it last until the Uni bar gets going and then we start the
evening with a buzz at next to no cost.

David fetched the cleanest
looking of the glasses and Tim poured a measure for each of
them.

-It´s sweet.

-Tastes shit, Tim agreed.

-But still.

Tim eased back in his chair,
smiling.

-Tell us David, what´s so
special about Patricia that you follow her around. Tall,
charismatic, handsome lad like you. It´s not as if you were lacking
female attention. If it was Matt, I could understand it. I mean
with him it would be desperation.

-You´re no oil painting
yourself, Tim.

-Fair point, but still. Tell us
David.

Patricia is the girl I am going
to marry

-What? Tim and Matthew exploded
in unison.

-You haven´t even started to
play the field yet, said Tim. Think of all the sex you’ll miss. And
you hardly know the girl.

-How can you make a commitment
now, said Matthew, when there´s so much of your life ahead? You
make a promise that the two of you will change in the same way, and
that you’ll always have a meaningful relationship – that’s
nonsense. You don’t know who you’ll be a few years from now.

David was unperturbed.

-It only seems strange to you
two, because you haven´t got your lives organized. But I’ve told
you before, I expect to do something with my life, even if I don´t
know exactly what just yet, and Patricia fits, she´s perfect. We´re
perfect together.

-It’s you who doesn’t get it
Matthew, he continued; when can you make a commitment in life if
not now when all the changes are ahead of you? Do you plan to stop
changing at some point? Say you wait till you’re thirty five, then
how would you find someone who feels the same way as you do about
life, when you’ve lived half of it without even knowing them?

David seemed so sure of himself
that it was accepted that the subject was beyond discussion. He
explained that he really needed Matthew´s help with the club,
because he had no idea what all the talk about plays and authors
and techniques meant, and even if he was fairly sure that most of
the rest of them knew no more than him, he could not risk showing
himself up in front of Patricia.

-And I may have given her the
impression that I’m a bit of an expert, he admitted.

Matthew resisted only a little
longer before agreeing to help. He was disarmed by David’s candour,
but anyway, he´d known from the start that he would eventually give
in to his friend. Didn’t he always? Tim declared that they should
toast the new adventure. The taking of port before serious drinking
commenced was a fine tradition that he intended to establish
starting now. Matthew sipped his drink and eyed Tim
suspiciously.

-You haven´t paid for this booze
have you?

-I cannot tell a lie.

-I wish that were true. Where
did you get it?

-From the off licence

-You´ve been shoplifting, from
Mr Singh.

-Don´t get angry. I know you
would rather I stole from the supermarkets, who can afford it, but
the fact is it´s not so easy to get past their checkout system.

-I´d rather you didn´t steal at
all.

Tim shrugged his shoulders.

-It´s a bad habit. From my
misspent youth. I am trying to give it up. No one is without sin
though eh? I mean we all did a bit of it when we were kids, didn´t
we?

-No, we most certainly didn´t.
Did you David?

David looked slightly
sheepish.

-Only once or twice, just small
stuff, just for the dare, he admitted.

-You of all people Tim, Matthew
persisted. You´re supposed to be a junior officer. The army is
supporting your degree. What would they think if you were caught?
What would happen to you?

-I don´t give a monkey´s about
the army, but I´m not going to get caught. You have to have risk in
your life to live it, Matthew. When are you going to realize? What
is it that you object to, that it´s wrong, or that I might get
caught?

-That it´s wrong, of course.

-So, don´t you want yours? Give
that glass here then.

***

In the final term of his second
year at university, Ali Abbas Patel was not sleeping well. He
hadn’t any reason to be concerned about his grades; the reason was
nothing so obvious as that. He felt as if there must be some energy
within him that was not being used, but there seemed no logical
reason why that should be the case. He studied hard. He went out
for long walks alone, to relax from study and ponder his future.
Nevertheless, even after the longest walks, he’d find that if he
was lucky enough to drift off shortly after his ten o’clock
bedtime, he’d be awake a few hours later, knowing that there was no
chance of any more sleep before morning.