Come Again

by Robert Webb

  Good old Malcolm, the impassive and almost entirely silent barman, was modelling his usual costume – a darts shirt and powder-blue slacks. A publican’s taste for his own supply and a Lambert and Butler permanently smouldering in the ashtray behind him had prematurely aged Malcolm’s hangdog kisser but he couldn’t be older than thirty-five. Oh boy – even Malcolm was younger than her. Be cool. Just get a drink. Kate had found a tenner in the pocket of these jeans so at least the money problem was fixed for now. Everything else looked normal. The corner was empty, as it should be. Malcolm was ponderously shining a pint glass, as he should be.

  And Toby Harker was standing right next to her. As he absolutely should not be.

  Kate froze, staring down at the picture of Florence Nightingale on the back of her clownishly large banknote. No, no, no. Not Toby. Not yet.

  Toby had buggered up his entrance. He shouldn’t appear for at least an hour. He should be in his dressing room doing vocal exercises and working on his lines. He wanders over to the corner banquette and bums a light from Kes and they end up arguing about Jacques Derrida. Then they bond over how Kate and Luke – these two ‘love-birds’ in the corner – are rudely ignoring everyone else and are obviously about to bang each other. And then Kes asks Toby, ‘Where exactly is all the cock-fun in York?’ and Toby says he’s not sure that he can help. No, Toby shouldn’t be standing here in his green jeans and white t-shirt and navy waistcoat and his straight arm on the bar featuring his ancient Swatch and his … oh God, his ponytail! His braid!

  Kate stole another glance to her left at the teenage Toby. The single braid of his dirty blond hair limply dissected a strong left cheekbone, ending somewhere around his jaw, where it clearly irritated his spots. The braid agreed with the unwashed hair but was in violent dispute with the velvet waistcoat, which itself had a problem with the perfectly fitting jeans. He was like a newly-regenerated time lord who hadn’t yet found his look. At some future point, money would negotiate the peace. The crusty would disappear, and the dandy would meet the beefcake in an expensive tailor’s on New Bond Street. Not long from now, Toby would re-embrace the traditional signifiers of masculinity as well as the traditional value of shampoo. In the meantime, this was glorious. Kate looked away with a smirk just a fraction too late.

  ‘Hello! How d’you do?’

  ‘Oh. Yes.’

  ‘I’m Toby.’

  ‘Yes. Er, Kate.’

  He kept his place at the bar with his Swatch arm and used his other to shake hands in an awkward backward motion that made her smile. Like all the old/young friends she had met today, he sounded like he’d just had half a toke on a helium balloon. And his accent was a little closer to his Edinburgh home than she remembered. Otherwise, this young man was doing a tremendously good impression of Toby. Kate felt encouraged. ‘I was just admiring your braid.’

  ‘Och, this stupid thing.’ He instantly vanished it into the confusion of his ponytail. ‘I keep meaning to get rid of it but … Some girls made it for me while I was lying in a field.’

  ‘Were you drugged and tied up?’

  He smiled briefly, revealing the gap between his front teeth. ‘Drugged but not tied up. Glastonbury.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Were you there?’

  ‘Nope. No, I was …’ Kate turned over the banknote in her hands for a second. She was what? She was in Grenada winning a silver medal in the World Karate Championships? Let’s not do that. ‘I was … washing my hair.’

  The swiftest cloud of uncertainty crossed Toby’s brow as he appeared to wonder if this girl was taking the piss and whether or not he minded. ‘It doesn’t smell, you know.’

  ‘What doesn’t?’

  ‘The hair. After a while it doesn’t smell of anything.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure. I wasn’t taking the—’

  ‘You can smell it if you like.’

  ‘I’m not going to smell you, Toby.’

  He blinked in amused surprise. Okay, that might have been just a touch too familiar.

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  Oh great.

  ‘No thanks, I’m …’ What? Driving? Grieving?

  ‘I’m … trying to cut down. I just want a glass of water really,’ she said. ‘Actually, I’m not feeling too …’

  ‘Can we get a glass of water, please, the lady’s feeling unwell.’ Toby made the request with an authority that had Malcolm reaching for a glass with something close to haste. Kate leaned on the bar. The unutterable madness of her situation came at her in waves and this was a big one. ‘Sorry, I’m all right really.’

  ‘Of course you are. But you’re also shaking. And I don’t usually have that effect on women so I thought it might be something else.’

  ‘Here you go, love,’ said Malcolm, roughly doubling the number of words Kate had ever heard him say. He pushed a glass of water her way and she picked it up and gulped. She listened to her heart, calming it with her breathing, noticing the blood in her veins, the pressure of the floor through her soles, the cold of the metal bar rail in her palm. Toby seemed to figure there wasn’t much he could do for now and she heard him quietly order himself a pint of bitter. Dearest Toby …

  But this was no good. Calmer now, she risked a glance at her watch. 7.38. The time was six minutes to Luke. First time around she had gawped as he walked through the door – that door, the one at the far end near the pool table. And she had looked down at her watch – this watch on this young wrist. It had seemed the obvious thing to do. Just as a doctor records the time of death, Kate had recorded love at first sight. 7.44 p.m.

  She had to get to the corner table. ‘Thank you,’ she said to Toby, ‘you’ve been really kind but I need to go and sit down.’

  Toby wiped some beer froth away from his top lip. ‘Sure. There’s an empty table in that corner. Shall we—’

  ‘I mean on my own.’

  ‘Right. Yes, of course.’

  ‘Sorry. Is that horrible? It’s just, I’m waiting for someone.’

  ‘Right.’ He took a forbearing sip of beer. She saw him wondering what to say next and had to stop herself from hugging him. Toby didn’t invest much of his pride in his looks but the poor kid was now visibly contemplating a haircut.

  Kate heard herself talking. ‘He’s just some bloke really. I mean, someone I used to know. No big deal. But it turns out he’s a fresher here. What were the chances? I’d introduce you but … well, I’m sure I will but …’

  Toby was nodding through this but had regained his usual self-sufficiency. He pocketed his change and said, ‘Cool. See you later.’

  ‘I mean, he’s probably forgotten me.’

  He met her eyes kindly and said, ‘I doubt that.’

  Kate was silent for a moment. A thought was trying very hard to get her attention. It was an exciting and deeply troubling thought. In fact, it was deeply troubling because it was exciting. But it didn’t get a chance to explain itself because it was interrupted by a bellowing Welshman.

  ‘KATE MARSDEN, YOU INSATIABLE WHORE!’ The bar had begun to fill and half of it now turned to see Kes striding towards Kate with a face of gleeful teeth. He had the look of a man who’d been drinking since lunch and had no intention of stopping till roughly the same time tomorrow.

  ‘Christ,’ Kate muttered as he arrived at the bar. She snatched another look at her watch. Five minutes.

  ‘So this is your secret boyfriend!’ Kes announced, clapping Toby on the back.

  ‘Er, no,’ said Toby, putting what was left of his pint down and wiping a soaking hand on his jeans.

  ‘Very much not,’ she said, ‘I mean, not very much not but also … not. In fact, I don’t have a secret boyfriend. Or any other boyfriend.’

  ‘“My WOOLWA is promised to another.” You said that not three hours since! I assumed it was this handsome bastard. Oh Christ! I spilled your pint!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Toby. ‘It’s nae bother.’

  ‘It’s an unforgivable bother! I can’t apologise enou
gh. Barman! A large whisky for my Scottish friend here! A single malt, if such a thing exists in this godforsaken shithole!’

  ‘Erm. I’m sure that’s not necessary,’ Kate interjected.

  A sanguine Toby turned to her: ‘I’m actually fine with that.’

  ‘Okay, well, I’ll see you both later.’

  Kes flapped his exhausted chequebook on the bar and started looking for a pen. ‘You’re not going?’

  ‘She needs to sit down,’ Toby said.

  ‘What have you done to her, you gorgeous brute? Oh, thank you!’ Kes received Toby’s silver fountain pen and inspected it with admiration as he talked. ‘Let me tell you: Marsden and I go way back. It was in the innocent days of just after lunch that she revealed to me—’

  It was clear that the only way to shut Kes up and get away was to dumbfound him. Kate glanced at her watch as she began to speak.

  Four minutes.

  ‘Keven, this is Toby. Toby, Keven. You both have quite strong views about Jacques Derrida. Kes is a big fan but, Toby, you think he’s a fraud and that Deconstruction is just an excuse for English professors to do philosophy badly. Is that right?’

  The movement of Toby’s pint had frozen halfway to his mouth. ‘That does sound like the kind of thing I might say,’ he managed.

  ‘Great,’ said Kate, picking up her water. ‘Apart from that, you don’t have much in common except you’re both Aquarians and neither of you likes prawns. Excuse me.’ She turned and started for the corner, leaving the bar aghast. Luckily Kes was already too pissed to take much of this in. Over her shoulder she heard him say, ‘So then, Toby is it? What the fuck is your problem with Derrida?’

  She dodged and weaved to get to the table, which had now taken on a religious importance. Double-seat, double-seat, gotta getta double-seat. The mantra of an old Ben Elton stand-up routine about how the British turn into Nazis when finding seats on trains – beat through her head and at this point she would have gladly chopped someone in the throat to get to the hallowed table next to the loo. She wriggled round the trembling table and set down her glass.

  Three minutes. Made it.

  Surely something would now go wrong. Surely Lauren the Aussie Christian would come and ask her why she was such a weirdo. Surely Amy would block her view of the pool-table door, standing there with her hands on her hips and making another speech about how Kate was a self-harmer in denial. ‘A self-harmer in denial.’ Maybe that was exactly right. Maybe that’s what she had been, back in her 10,000-day kitchen. She focused on the pool-table: a game of doubles – three boys and a girl. A third-year lawyer was trying to show a female fresher where to aim the cue ball. If she minded she didn’t let it show, laughing and flipping her perm to one side as she got down to the table. Sandra Milhouse, Kate recalled. Sandra Milhouse, the silly fucker with goldfish in her room.

  One minute.

  She had lost sight of Toby and Kes. And was Luke actually going to turn up? Why would he? Because other things had been different today and there was no reason to believe that—

  There. Standing in the doorway, politely letting someone out, running a careless hand through his dark hair.

  Luke Fairbright, nineteen years old, come again.

  Chapter 10

  He wandered through the doorway and she stared at him as if re-introduced to her own heart. She thought of the times she had watched him from the bedroom window as he left the house. Observed but unaware, vulnerable in his innocence. Luke in his body, ambling down the street – the shape of love.

  ‘You,’ she whispered.

  He was making his way through the room with no more than his usual saunter, but to Kate it was shockingly fast. In dreams, dead people move slowly, if at all. They wade through sepia. They shimmer like a hologram and say wise things at half-speed.

  He moved round the pool table and she half wanted to scream, half wanted to vanish into thin air. She’d never known him to miss a date and here he was, right on time. Dressed as before: black jeans, black boots, black imitation leather jacket from the secondhand shop in Salisbury. A cheap steel earring in each lobe. All in black except under the jacket – his shirt. The blue and grey grandad shirt that she’d found in the back of the wardrobe along with other student treasures that Luke couldn’t let go. It was the shirt that she found clutched in her fists every morning. The one that suddenly belonged to him again. What she had understood in her head now finally began to wrap itself tightly around her guts: he didn’t know she slept with that shirt because he didn’t know he was dead; he wasn’t on time for a date because there was no date; he wasn’t looking for her because he didn’t know who she was. And yet …

  Alive! Luke’s alive! She gripped the table with one hand and wiped her tears away with another. She risked a glance up – he approached the end of the bar, the other end from Toby and Kes. On his way he passed a couple of women, one of whom just openly gasped at him and nudged her friend as he walked by. Ah, yes, Kate recalled, trying to steady herself, that’s the other thing. That’s going to be a problem. She remembered a brief period when Luke was in his mid-thirties and he would angle himself topless in their bedroom mirror, dismayed by the beginnings of a beer gut. Instead of telling him to stop whining and go to the gym, she’d claimed to prefer him with a bit more beef. If she was really going to quibble, this Luke was too thin. But no one here was quibbling. Kate remembered what a pain in the arse this used to be – he was obviously fucking gorgeous. There were straight men in this room who were looking at Luke like they didn’t know whether to hit him or buy him a bunch of flowers.

  Kate dithered. Why the hell was she just sitting here?

  Don’t freak him out. Maybe just go over and buy him a drink. Too much? Yes, clearly way too much. Just stay here. He gets his lager, turns around and sees an empty table with a girl reading Orlando.

  Fuck! Where’s Orlando? Left it in the fucking room!

  He won’t see a girl reading a book. He’s about to turn around and see a girl staring at him like she’s seen a ghost. Or the man in her dreams. And both.

  Okay, screw the table. The table will keep. Kate summoned all the courage she had ever needed, slowly rose and walked unsteadily towards her young dead husband. He had popped an elbow on the bar and was apparently whistling to himself. A near-silent rendition of ‘Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep’, unless Kate missed her guess. That was his ‘keep cheerful when the lights go out’ tune of choice, inherited from his mother. He was in profile as she approached, fiddling with his right earring – another nervous tell. She thought of the first time around – no wonder he’d headed straight for the girl reading the familiar book. Orlando was his only friend in the room.

  Kate sensed him glancing at her as she reached the bar but she kept her eyes firmly on Malcolm. She fished in her back pocket for the tenner, trying to ignore Luke’s absurd glamour. She wondered at it. This is why it’s weird when you meet someone famous, because as far as you’re concerned you’ve already met them. They haven’t met you but they’re imagining how you feel – because every famous person started out as a fan. So there’s a strange intimacy that leaves both parties feeling tongue-tied and mutually protective. It’s almost like love.

  She was standing right next to him now and dared to take a slow, deep inhalation. He never wore after shave but there was a trace of Lynx Oriental. She felt like saving him a couple of unnecessary years of underarm eczema and telling him he needed to switch to an alcohol-free substitute right now. Also, that he had a brain tumour. But again, that just might be a tad forward.

  Keep it together, keep it together, keep it together.

  Kate glanced round at the corner table and saw that a bunch of third-year medics had already settled themselves and were opening bags of crisps on the table to share. Christ, it was all going wrong.

  She caught Malcolm’s eye as he shuffled over and jerked his chin to her imperceptibly. At least she could get the same drink as last time.

  ‘Pint of Scrumpy Jack, please.
’

  ‘Scrumpy’s off.’

  Kate blinked at him as if he’d just told her the Earth was made of Lego. ‘No. That’s not right,’ she announced.

  Malcolm looked slightly hurt. ‘Well … it is what it is.’

  ‘The Scrumpy can’t be off. Not tonight.’

  Malcolm shrugged and looked along the bar. ‘We’ve got Strongbow.’

  Kate panicked as yet another slice of the Luke and Kate Creation Cake appeared to eat itself before her very eyes. ‘Strongbow!? How can I possibly drink Strongbow?’ Ooh. That didn’t sound good. She realised she sounded like a middle-aged, middle-class woman making an entitled dick of herself. Malcolm reached behind for his lit cigarette and regrouped. He had clearly seen this kind of thing before with cider drinkers.

  ‘I know what you mean. Strongbow really is piss.’ He took a drag and exhaled thoughtfully. ‘We’ve got some bottled stuff in the chillers.’

  Kate sensed Luke sipping his beer and listening to every word. She said, ‘Sorry, yes. Fine, no, I’m being a total bellend. Strongbow’s fine.’ Malcolm replaced his fag complacently and reached for a glass.

  Kate stole a glance at Luke, who was looking right at her with a half-smile. He averted his eyes and watched Malcolm pour the pint. Kate did the same, biting her lower lip so hard she nearly drew blood. She turned back to Luke.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘You must think I’m crazy.’

  ‘No, no. You’ve just got some very strong views about Scrumpy Jack.’

  This was hardly the impression Kate had been hoping to make but at least it was an impression. She went with it. She went with it a lot.