by Jonathan Coe
There was a chorus of chuckles from around the room.
‘I think the point my colleague is trying to make,’ said Naheed, ‘is that it’s a nice quote, but perhaps you were just trying to impress us. More likely that you were in a bit of a hurry to catch your train, or something like that.’
Sophie was still enjoying the last few moments of amused, appraising eye contact with Ian, and only really caught the end of this comment. She did notice, however, that there was a quiet authority in Naheed’s voice as she said it, as there was in everything that she said throughout the session. Her knowledge and experience commanded respect, even though the resentment felt by some of the men at being lectured on this subject by a woman – by an Asian woman – was palpable. Sitting next to Sophie was a ruddy-faced, middle-aged man in a business suit with tousled white hair and a permanent air of barely suppressed contempt. His name was Derek, he had been clocked doing fifty-three miles an hour in a forty limit because ‘I know that bit of road like the back of my hand’, and the hostility he felt towards Naheed already seemed to extend to Sophie as well, after she had rebuffed some of his early, heavy-handed attempts at conspiratorial humour.
Halfway through the afternoon the class broke for refreshments – Ian and Naheed did not join them, but withdrew to some private space of their own – after which they were divided into two groups in order to watch videos illustrating a number of different driving scenarios and the dangers inherent in them. Sophie and Derek were in the same group, with Naheed as their leader.
‘Now, take a good look at this stretch of suburban street,’ she said, freeze-framing the screen and emphasizing details with her pointer. ‘Look at the signage, look at the possible obstructions and hazards. Tell me what the speed limit is, and tell me what speed you would consider it safe to drive at in these circumstances.’
After some discussion Sophie’s group correctly identified the speed limit as thirty miles an hour (although many of them guessed wildly, and wrongly), but when she went on to suggest that it would be prudent to drive at twenty on this occasion, Derek was adamant that thirty miles an hour was perfectly appropriate.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ Naheed answered. ‘Your friend is right, in this case.’
‘That’s your opinion,’ said Derek.
‘Yes, it is, and everybody is entitled to their opinion, which is not the same as saying that everybody’s opinion is as valuable as everybody else’s. What did you say you did for a living, sir?’
‘I’m a retail manager. Sports equipment, mainly.’
‘Good. Then, when it comes to sports equipment, your opinion is more valuable than mine. But perhaps, when it comes to road safety –’
‘I’ve been driving for forty years,’ he interrupted. ‘And I’ve never had an accident. Why should I take lessons from someone like you?’
There was a beat, a flicker, while Naheed registered the impact of those last three words, but it was so fast you could hardly notice it, and she answered, with perfect composure:
‘You see that sign? Of course you do, and you know that it means there is a school in this street. Can you see the entrance to the school? No, because this van, parked on the right-hand side, will be obstructing your view until you are right alongside it. So there is a good chance a little girl might come out from behind this van without you seeing her. At twenty miles an hour you will hurt her badly. At thirty miles an hour you will probably kill her. But if you drive along this part of the street at thirty miles an hour, it’s true that you will probably shorten your journey by five seconds or so. So that’s the equation. Those are the two things you have to weigh up against each other. Five seconds of your life, versus the whole of somebody else’s. Five seconds, versus a whole lifetime.’ She paused, her eyes still gleaming, the rumour of a smile still spreading from the edges of her mouth. ‘Is it a difficult decision? I don’t think so. Perhaps you do.’
Her smile was a challenge, now, a weapon, aimed directly at Derek. He glared back at her, but said nothing.
When the class was over, Sophie found herself sharing a lift with him. He nodded in curt recognition, then looked away, and for a moment she thought they were going to ride down to street level in silence. But then he said:
‘Well, there’s four hours of my bloody life I’m never going to get back.’
Sophie weighed her response carefully: ‘Better than getting those points on your licence, though, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Derek. ‘I think that’s what I’d go for, next time, instead of having to sit there being lectured by that sanctimonious b—’
Sophie didn’t answer at first. She was simply relieved that he had tailed off without actually saying the word. It wasn’t until they stepped out into the wintry air of Colmore Row, the huddles of office workers making for the stations and the bus stops, the endless ebb and flow of traffic, the late-afternoon sky as black as midnight, that she said: ‘I’m sure the other guy would have said exactly the same things.’ Then she added his name, ‘Ian,’ without knowing why. It was unnecessary, really.
Derek’s route home, whatever it was, lay in the opposite direction to hers. But he had a parting shot for her.
‘Do you know what that was?’ he said. ‘What we saw, this afternoon?’ And before she had time to speak, he answered his own question: ‘The new fascism.’ He raised his arm in a gesture of farewell and said: ‘Welcome to Britain, 2010. Cheerio!’
‘Drive safely,’ Sophie answered, and they turned away from each other, taking their different paths.
*
Sophie had only walked a few yards before she ducked into the nearest Starbucks, deciding that a bucket of milky coffee was what she needed before facing the quiet rigours of another evening in her father’s company.
Mocha in hand, she looked around for a seat, and saw that Naheed was sitting, alone, at a table by the window. She gravitated towards her but then, not wanting to appear presumptuous, took a seat at an empty table nearby. But Naheed had seen her, and gave her a little wave and a nod of the head, which Sophie chose to interpret as an invitation.
‘Hello,’ Naheed said, as Sophie sat down opposite her. ‘I thought you’d be on the motorway by now, doing ninety-five miles an hour in the outside lane for kicks.’
Sophie laughed and said: ‘And I’d have thought you needed something stronger than a coffee after an afternoon like that.’
‘Hardly,’ said Naheed. ‘I’ll be driving home, and we all have to stay squeaky clean.’
‘Of course,’ said Sophie, feeling silly for having suggested it.
‘Besides, that session wasn’t bad, not bad at all. You were a polite and well-behaved lot, on the whole.’
‘I’m full of admiration,’ said Sophie. ‘I mean, I do a bit of teaching myself, but it’s different … My students have chosen to be there, and they’re keen to learn, most of them.’
‘I like my job,’ said Naheed. ‘It’s worthwhile, and I’m not bad at it these days, even if I say so myself.’
‘Absolutely,’ Sophie agreed. ‘I learned a lot today, although it wasn’t what I was expecting. For some reason I thought you’d all be policemen.’
Naheed smiled. ‘No. These courses aren’t run by the police. Most of us used to be driving instructors. And you,’ she said, ‘where do you teach?’
‘At the university. Art history. Not so worthwhile, maybe. At least, I don’t suppose what I teach saves many lives.’
‘No need to apologize for what you do,’ said Naheed.
Her phone buzzed on the table and she glanced down at it, wondering whether to take the message. The great dilemma of modern social etiquette.
‘Go ahead,’ said Sophie. ‘We all would.’
Naheed glanced at the screen. ‘Well, it’s only Ian.’ She peered at the message. ‘Saying that I did a good job today.’
‘That’s nice of him.’
‘He’s a nice guy.’ Impulsively, she picked up the phone and tapped a reply, then look
ed across at Sophie, that now familiar gleam in her eye. ‘Want to know what I said?’
‘Not if it’s private.’
‘I told him I was having coffee with the speed junkie.’
Now Sophie laughed. ‘That’s my nickname, already?’
‘During the tea break, we always sit around thinking up names for you all. We’re supposed to be planning the second half of the session, but … well, we’ve got that down pat now, more or less.’
‘Tell me some of the others,’ said Sophie.
‘I don’t think I should.’
‘What about Derek? The sports equipment guy.’
‘Mr Angry. Not very original, I know, but it fitted the bill. We always get one or two like that, by the way. One thing you learn in this job – there’s a lot of anger out there.’
‘It’s brave of you to put yourself in the firing line.’
‘Not really. And it’s not always to do with race anyway. People like to get angry about anything. A lot of the time they’re just looking for an excuse. I feel sorry for them. I think for a lot of people … there’s nothing much going on in their lives. Emotionally. I mean, maybe their marriages have dried up, or everything they do has become a kind of habit, I don’t know. But they don’t feel much. No emotional stimulation. We all need to feel things, don’t we? So, when something makes you angry, at least you’re feeling something. You get that emotional kick.’
Sophie nodded. This seemed to make perfect sense. ‘And you? You don’t need to get angry to feel that you’re alive?’
‘I’m lucky,’ said Naheed. ‘I have a nice husband, and two beautiful children. They do the job. What about you?’
‘Oh, I’m kind of … between relationships at the moment …’ Sophie faltered, but while she was saying it, Naheed’s phone buzzed again.
She glanced at the screen and said, coolly: ‘Well, then, this is a very timely message.’ She looked up. ‘It’s Ian again. He’s asking me to get your phone number.’
In all her life, Sophie had never met anyone with such a piercing gaze, or such an eloquent, ambushing smile. She felt as though she might wither beneath it.
‘Shall I give it to him?’
5.
Benjamin was driving from Shrewsbury to Rednal again, following the course of the River Severn, through the towns of Cressage, Much Wenlock, Bridgnorth, Enville, Stourbridge and Hagley. He had been driving this way, there and back, at least twice a week for the last year now. Two hundred journeys or more. No wonder that he now felt he knew every bend in the road, every landmark, every traffic roundabout, every pub, every petrol station, every Tesco Express, every garden centre, every old church that had now been converted into flats. He knew where the worst queues were likely to be, and where you could find a rat-run to bypass a particularly troublesome set of traffic lights. Not that he needed to do that today. The roads were quiet. The cold snap which had brought snow to these parts at the beginning of the month had receded, giving way to cloudy skies and mild temperatures: dull, nondescript weather, which suited the journey and suited the occasion. It was a Saturday morning like any other. It was Christmas Day, a day that Benjamin had come to loathe with a passion.
He pulled up outside his father’s house just after eleven o’clock. The house where he had grown up. The house his parents had bought in 1955. A redbrick detached house, with an extension added over the garage in the early 1970s. He knew the house so well now that he no longer saw it, no longer noticed it, and as such he no longer knew it at all, and would probably have found it difficult to describe in any detail to a stranger. The only thing he noticed this morning was that the plants in the window box outside the living room were all dead, and looked as though they had been that way for months.
Inside he could see that all was reasonably clean and ship-shape as usual. He was paying for a cleaner to come in once a week, on Thursdays, as he didn’t trust his father to look after the place. On the draining board in the kitchen were a single plate, a single knife and fork, a beer glass and a frying pan. Since the death of his wife, Colin had not cooked himself a meal that required anything more complicated than a frying pan. He would fry some tomatoes and have them on toast with a fried egg; perhaps some mushrooms if he was feeling adventurous. The only time this diet would vary was when Benjamin cooked for him, or took him out for dinner somewhere. Today at least he would be getting a decent roast lunch.
Colin was wearing a patterned jumper of the sort favoured by golfing celebrities and daytime TV presenters of the 1980s. When he came downstairs from his latest visit to the bathroom he was carrying a plastic bag containing a number of inexpertly wrapped presents, the only concession to Christmas anywhere in the house as far as Benjamin could see.
‘I thought you were going to buy a Christmas tree,’ he said.
‘I did. It’s out the back.’
Benjamin looked out of the kitchen window and saw the tree leaning up against a wall of the garden shed, still enclosed in its plastic netting.
‘Well, that was a waste of money, wasn’t it?’
‘I’ll put it up tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow will be too late. What about decorations? Mum always put up some decorations.’
‘Oh, I couldn’t be bothered to get them down from the attic. Maybe next year, when I’m feeling a bit more chipper. Are you just going to stand around criticizing, or can we go now?’
Benjamin looked at his watch. It was only ten past eleven. They had masses of time to get to Lois’s.
‘Where’s your overnight bag?’
‘I’ve changed my mind. You can bring me back here after dinner. I don’t want to stay with your sister, it’s too much trouble all round.’
Benjamin sighed. The change of plans annoyed him for selfish reasons.
‘Now I’ll have to stay here with you.’
‘Why?’
‘You can’t be alone on Christmas night.’
‘Why not? I’m alone every other night. You do what you like, don’t worry about me. The last thing I want to be is a burden.’
Having to calm his father’s repeatedly expressed fear of becoming a ‘burden’ was one of the few truly burdensome things about being in his company. But Benjamin had learned that there was nothing to be gained by arguing. He picked up the bag of presents and escorted Colin to the car.
*
Lois and Christopher, Sophie, Benjamin and Colin sat around the lunch table, teetering, gravy-soaked towers of turkey and vegetables rising up on the plates in front of them, paper crowns on their heads. The atmosphere was bordering on funereal.
‘We’re doing this for Dad,’ Lois had insisted to her brother in the kitchen.
‘He doesn’t want us to. The whole thing’s a complete waste of time.’
‘Well, thanks a lot. That’s really helpful. I could have stayed at home, then.’
‘Isn’t this your home? Nobody seems to know nowadays.’
They ate in near-silence. Benjamin tried reading out some of the jokes from the crackers, but they felt lumpen, with all the sparkle of random quotations from one of the gloomier Ingmar Bergman films. The only person to smile was Sophie, and that turned out to be not in response to the joke, but a text message.
‘Who was that from?’ Lois asked, as only a mother could.
‘Ian,’ Sophie answered. ‘Just wishing me a Happy Christmas.’
‘Where’s he spending it, then?’
‘With his mother.’
‘New boyfriend,’ Christopher explained to his father-in-law, pronouncing the phrase loudly and slowly in the mistaken belief that Colin was going deaf.
‘Good-oh,’ said Colin. ‘Not before time. You could do with some grandkids, you two.’
Sophie took a sip of wine and said: ‘Jumping the gun a bit, aren’t you, Grandad? He’s not even my boyfriend. We’ve only been on two dates.’
‘Well, somebody’s got to continue the family line,’ Colin blundered on. ‘The rest of you haven’t exactly excelled in that depart
ment.’
‘Give it a rest, Dad …’ said Benjamin.
‘There are five of us around this table. Is that it? Is that the best you lot can manage? Your mother and I had three kids. I thought there’d be a few more little Trotters in the world by now.’
The silence that followed this outburst was more awkward and profound than ever. Everyone else around the table knew something that Colin didn’t: Benjamin already had a daughter, who lived in California, from whom he was estranged.
‘I’m sure Paul will soon find someone in Tokyo,’ said Lois. ‘He’ll probably come and visit you in a few years with a whole army of pretty little half-Japanese children.’
Colin scowled and attacked his sprouts.
After lunch, they went for a walk – all except Colin, who crashed out on the sofa with the Radio Times and complained that there was nothing on television.
‘What do you think I bought you this for?’ Benjamin asked, waving Colin’s present at him. It was a DVD of Morecambe and Wise Christmas specials.
‘I don’t want to watch old stuff.’
‘Yeah, but you don’t like any of the new stuff.’ Benjamin crouched down by the television and inserted the DVD. As he did so, a vivid memory recurred: Christmas Day 1977, thirty-three years earlier, when he and his family had sat down to watch these two comedians’ final show for the BBC. His grandparents had been there too, and in laughing along with them Benjamin could remember feeling this incredible sense of oneness, a sense that the entire nation was being briefly, fugitively drawn together in the divine act of laughter. ‘Twenty-seven million people used to watch this, you know,’ he reminded his father.
‘Because we only had three channels.’ Lois had entered the room, and was standing behind him. ‘And there was nothing else to do. Are you ready? It’ll be dark before we set out at this rate.’
The four of them set off together, strolling through the quiescent back streets which only the occasional muted display of Christmas decorations or fairy lights made less ordinary today. Soon Benjamin was lagging behind, lost in his private thoughts as usual. Sophie noticed and lingered, waiting for him to catch up.
