Just Like You

by Nick Hornby

  And anyway, it didn’t matter whether that was where it started. By Friday afternoon, Ben Davies, the Deputy Head, was asking her whether she knew she was the talk of the town. They were in a corridor, and kids were streaming past them, and she felt it was not an appropriate moment to talk about it, and said so.

  “Do you want to have a chat about it at the end of the day, then?”

  “Not really, no. Why should I?”

  “It’s not great, when a teacher’s private life is being openly discussed by the whole school.”

  “I’m not doing anything wrong.”

  “I didn’t say you were.”

  Some of the students were stopping to listen. “Speak up!” one of them at the back of the small crowd shouted. There was laughter.

  “I’ll see you after school,” she said, just to stop the hell of the public conversation.

  * * *

  —

  She found him in his office. He was dealing with a Year Eight who had forged a toilet pass that enabled him to escape class whenever he felt like it, for medical reasons. Lucy leaned against the wall, listening.

  “You don’t mind people knowing that you’re constantly on the verge of pooing yourself?” Ben was saying. He was an old-school teacher, in the sense that his main tools were sarcasm and ridicule. The kids seemed to find it funny, much to Lucy’s annoyance.

  “Not really, sir,” said the boy.

  “Why not?”

  “Well, because I’m not, am I? It’s a fake pass.”

  “But your peers think there’s something wrong with you.”

  “No, they don’t. They all know.”

  “Your teachers, then.”

  “I don’t really mind about them.”

  “Anyway. I’ve told them all that you’re never to go to the toilet at all during lessons, so . . .”

  “That’s not fair, sir. What if I really need to go?”

  “You’ve cried wolf. You’ll have to suffer the consequences.”

  “Everyone will have to suffer them,” said the boy.

  “Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” said Ben. “You’ll be clearing it up, that’s for sure. Off you go.”

  The boy left, and Lucy sat down in his place.

  “And the next bollocking, please,” she said.

  “No, no. Not at all. I just wondered how you were doing.”

  “I’m OK,” she said, but her guard was up.

  “Before we go any further—is it true?”

  “What?”

  “Do you have a seventeen-year-old boyfriend?”

  “God. No. No. Is that what they’re saying?”

  “The age has dropped during the week. He started off in his twenties.”

  “He’s twenty-two. Ben, I’d never . . . Christ. Seventeen? He could be in Year Twelve? No. Never.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “I’ll have to leave,” she said. “I’m mortified.”

  “By the time you’ve worked out your notice, he’ll be fourteen.”

  “So what do I do?”

  “I don’t think there’s much you can do. Apart from start going out with a fifty-year-old and bring him to the next school fair.”

  “The next school fair isn’t until next summer.”

  “I wasn’t being completely serious,” said Ben.

  “Oh. Yes. I see.”

  “And I don’t think I can announce it in assembly, either.”

  “Please don’t do that.”

  “‘Contrary to what you’ve heard, he’s twenty-two, not seventeen.’”

  Ben seemed to be making the point that it didn’t sound a whole lot better, but maybe that was her paranoia.

  “If anyone says anything to me, I’ll put them straight,” said Ben.

  “What will you say?”

  “I’ll say, I don’t know . . . ‘You idiots would believe literally anything, wouldn’t you? If I told you Mrs. Marks was going out with Justin Bieber, you’d probably pass that round too.’”

  Mrs. Marks had worked part time in the art department for decades, and the joke was therefore not a kind one, although Justin Bieber was unlikely to get involved with anyone on the school staff. But Lucy liked the scorn and the incredulity.

  “Thank you.”

  “And I’ll tell your colleagues the same thing.”

  “They all know, do they?”

  “Oh, yes. They’re as starved of excitement as the kids. Even more so, really.”

  Lucy liked to think that she had provided excitement occasionally, but only to a very select group of people, exclusively made up of lovers and children (her own, rather than anyone she had ever taught). But this was something entirely new: a procession of steps, most of them taken in an orderly and thoughtful fashion, that had resulted in very minor celebrity. She didn’t like it much. She felt like someone who’d gone viral after she had been filmed walking into a manhole while looking at her phone.

  On the way out, she saw Ahmad, one of Shenika’s classmates.

  “Hello, Ms. Fairfax.”

  “Hello, Ahmad. Detention?”

  “Just a little one. Anyway. Just so you know . . . I’m not interested.”

  By the time she was home, she’d come up with three or four different responses, all of which would have killed him.

  * * *

  —

  “Seventeen?” said Joseph. “How?”

  He found the remote and turned the T.V. off again. They were about to watch another episode.

  “Because kids make crap up.”

  “Are you embarrassed?”

  “Yes.”

  “I could have been seventeen.”

  “Well, you were, once,” Lucy said.

  “I mean, when we met.”

  “And I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near you.”

  “You’d have come to the shop. And maybe asked me to babysit.”

  “Well, yes. That.”

  “But you wouldn’t have jumped on me.”

  “‘Jumped on you.’ Come on. That wasn’t what happened. And of course I wouldn’t have.”

  “What’s the difference between twenty-one years younger and twenty-six years younger? I’d have been legal.”

  “Can we stop talking about this? It makes me feel uncomfortable.”

  “Well. I’m sorry for my age.”

  “It’s the age they think you are that worries me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Have I given you any troubles?”

  “No,” said Joseph. “Not really.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Jaz asked me if I was on gray tings.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Gray is white. Not gray.”

  “We’re not pink?”

  “Nope.”

  “So I’m a white thing.”

  “Not to me you’re not. You’re a person.”

  He said it cheekily, like, I know how to talk to modern women. She laughed.

  “Thanks. And you’re sure it’s nothing to do with age.”

  “Nothing. Just color.”

  “Because I’m not going gray anywhere.”

  “I know.”

  “And how did you feel when she said it?”

  “You know, ‘Wow. She’s right. I’d better stop.’ What do you think I felt?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”

  “I think all that stuff is stupid.”

  “I’ve ordered a book from America called Why Black Men Shouldn’t Date White Women.”

  “Sounds like you only need to read the title.”

  “I want to know why I shouldn’t.”

  “You can do that in your own time. After you’ve
finished with me,” said Joseph.

  “Why am I finishing with you?”

  “Because you shouldn’t be dating me.”

  “You shouldn’t be dating me, the book says.”

  “Look,” said Joseph. “I don’t have a thing about white women. That’s what they’re all talking about. And you don’t have a thing about black guys, as far as I know.”

  “No.”

  “Racist.”

  “I just meant . . .”

  “Joke. Bloody hell. But that’s what these people get unhappy about. When people have a thing. Because then you’re not looking at the person, are you? I probably won’t have another forty-year-old white girlfriend. Not for a while, anyway. Not until I’m sixty.”

  “Ha ha.”

  She would be eighty when he was sixty, and all agonies of embarrassment, doubt, and desire would presumably be over by then. She would try to enjoy them while they lasted.

  15

  She invited Pete and Fiona first of all, because she owed them. And then, after careful consideration, she decided to call Nina and ask her and her boyfriend, Rav. Lucy used to work with Nina, before she got out of teaching, and she loved her, but didn’t see enough of her.

  “That would be lovely,” said Nina.

  “Just Pete and Fiona, you and Rav, and . . . Well, I’m seeing someone. Joseph.”

  “Before we get into Joseph . . . Rav and I are no more.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “Yes. Sad. But there we are.”

  “What happened?”

  “Ach.”

  “OK.”

  “But can I bring Andy?”

  “Of course.”

  “Great.”

  She wanted to ask whether Andy was white, but she stopped herself. She could hardly disinvite him if he was.

  “So,” said Nina. “Joseph.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did you meet him?”

  “He works locally.”

  “Local to where you live?”

  “Yes.”

  “Right.” And then, “How does that work?”

  “What?”

  “Meeting someone who works locally? You’re at work, he’s at work . . .”

  “Oh, I see what you mean,” said Lucy, and hoped that this might clear up Nina’s confusion, but Nina was waiting for more.

  “He works Saturdays.”

  “Oh. Right. Is he a florist or something?”

  Was a florist a better match for her than a butcher? Was that the implication? Was floristry artier than butchery? She had answered her own question. Butchery didn’t sound good.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Great. Look forward to hearing it and meeting him next Saturday.”

  * * *

  —

  Joseph had never been to a dinner party. He had eaten with family, sometimes extended family, and everyone had made an effort and made conversation and so on. But he had never sat inside a house with a group of friends and eaten food that one of them had cooked without a parent present. Was that the definition of a dinner party? He didn’t object to them on principle, like some would. Jaz, for example, would have had a lot of fun with the idea of him going to a dinner party with his white girlfriend. “You’re going to drink white wine and talk about Brexit? Fuck off.” And he wasn’t even going to the dinner party. He was throwing it, if you threw dinner parties. He was hosting it.

  He sort of lived with Lucy and the boys now. To begin with, he’d stayed four or five nights a week, but he hadn’t spent the night at home for a while now, and his mother had accepted that he’d gone, and she was alone at home. She still hadn’t met Lucy, though, and the more she moaned about it, the less he felt like going back to see her. He didn’t own very much, he had discovered over the months. What he had thought of as possessions turned out to be clothes he didn’t wear, games he didn’t play, kids’ books that he’d never read again. Most of his wardrobe had ended up at Lucy’s, piece by piece. And now that he lived with Lucy, he was going to spend time doing what she did, which included eating with people he didn’t know.

  He wasn’t scared of eating, obviously, but he was scared of the occasion. He already knew he didn’t like wine very much, and though he might have a couple of beers, he wouldn’t drink much more than that, just so he could stay sharp. But even that wouldn’t help with the conversation.

  “What will you talk about?” he asked Lucy as he was laying the table. The boys were with Paul and Daisy, and he missed them. He wouldn’t have minded keeping an eye on them while everyone else chatted. He could have got up from the table, played a quick game of FIFA, chased them upstairs, stayed half in and half out, half partner and half babysitter. But Lucy didn’t want halves of anything tonight. This was it, all or nothing, although nothing would be embarrassing.

  “We don’t decide in advance,” said Lucy.

  “But last time you saw them. What did you talk about then? Books?”

  “Is that what you’re afraid of?”

  “A bit. Films. I mean, the sorts of film you watch.”

  “We haven’t seen a film together yet. I’ve got nothing to talk about.”

  “You read a lot.”

  “I may recommend a book.”

  “So what do I do, when you’re doing that?”

  “I’d say you can recommend a book of your own, talk to someone else, or shut up and listen. It won’t take long.”

  “What about politics? I’ve got nothing.”

  “You made me think about the referendum more than anyone else I know. They’d be interested.”

  “I can’t speak for anyone.”

  “Nobody will ask you to.”

  “Shit.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Just . . . general panic.”

  “What do you talk about with your friends?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve forgotten. Things come up. On Instagram. And then you show someone.”

  “Well, things will come up tonight.”

  “Shit,” he said again.

  “You’re a clever and interesting chap,” said Lucy. “I’ve never been bored talking to you. And they won’t be either.”

  It was easier when you were having sex with someone, thought Joseph. You had to find something to say, before and after, otherwise nothing would ever work. Sex forced a conversational flow. The whole point of the dinner party, however, was conversation, and when the conversation was finished, everyone would go home. No sex, no phones—nothing, apart from the contents of one’s head.

  “They all know you’re called Joseph,” said Lucy. “So when they come, will you answer the door and introduce yourself? Then they can get over it straight away.”

  * * *

  —

  He forgot, though. Or rather, he opened the door and said, “Hi, come in.” He was going to say, “I’m Joseph, by the way,” after they had stepped into the house, but he was too late. Fiona said, straight away, I’m guessing you’re not Joseph, and laughed, and Joseph said that he was indeed Joseph, and Fiona panicked and said, of course you are, and stared at him while shaking his hand. Pete pretended to shoot himself in the head with his fingers, and rolled his eyes and said, hello, mate. He remembered the next time, when Nina and Andy arrived. Nina worked in magazines, and was quite glamorous, and when he said, “I’m Joseph,” she said, “Oh, WOW,” and sort of squealed with excitement, and said, good for Lucy, and then, good for you too, of course. Her boyfriend looked embarrassed. Joseph was half hoping he was going to shoot himself in the head with his fingers too, so there’d be two down even before the evening had started.

  * * *

  —

  There was a bottle of Prosecco open and waiting for them in the sitting room, and they sat in a circle, on the sofa and the armchairs and a couple of
kitchen chairs that had been dragged in for the occasion. There was a beer on the table too, for Joseph, but Pete picked it up and started swigging from it. Joseph was relieved. He thought that they would all go for the wine, and he would be forced to mark himself out as different straight away. He went to the fridge to get himself another one.

  “Are you getting yourself a beer?” said Andy.

  “Want one?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “You’re just afraid of not being one of the lads,” said Nina.

  “It’s as good a way of choosing a drink as any,” said Andy.

  When they were resettled they toasted each other, and there was an awkward silence. Joseph wondered whether they’d be chatting away if he hadn’t been there. His phone was burning a hole in his pocket. He’d never thought of himself as addicted to it before, but he remembered how his father once described his addiction to cigarettes: “I look down and there’s a fag in my hand and I don’t even know how it got there.” It was just something Joseph did, everybody did, when they weren’t feeling comfortable. Maybe he should start smoking. If he smoked he could just stand up and go into the back garden. Or maybe find one of those jobs where you got a call from your boss on a Saturday evening because there was a problem in the Istanbul branch. That had happened in the shop once. A customer’s phone started ringing, and he said, “Hi, Steve. You’ll have to forgive me, I’m just being served at the butcher’s.” And then he said, “Istanbul? When did that happen?” He’d seen the guy since, and he’d always wanted to ask him what had happened in Istanbul.

  “So how did you two meet?” Lucy said to Nina. It was not a reasonable or thoughtful question, because Lucy would definitely be getting that one back, and then she’d have to talk about the butcher’s, and all these people probably did something well paid and interesting.

  “Andy’s a photographer. He came to take a picture of a kitchen I had to write about.”

  That didn’t sound interesting, but Joseph presumed it was well paid.

  “I know, I know,” said Nina. “There’s almost no freelance work at the moment. And the money I’m getting is what I got at the end of the nineties, when I first gave up teaching. I may have to go back.”