All About Us

by Tom Ellen

  This was my first visit to a strip club – the second came during a stag weekend for an old school mate a few years later – and I have to be honest, I still cannot see the attraction. I mean, obviously, objectively, it’s nice to look at naked women. But doing it in a place like this requires a level of self-detachment – maybe even self-deception – that I just don’t seem capable of.

  In a weird way, I find it more interesting to watch the customers than the dancers. These hunched, baggy-faced men in bad suits, who still manage to look desperately unhappy while smiling. The horrible, hungry glint in their eyes that makes you feel vaguely ashamed to be the same gender.

  We all walk past the bar, where five women in silky underwear are smiling coyly at us and attempting to make eye contact. I remember arguing the case once to Daphne that this is what men actually come to these places for: the feeling of being wanted. It’s not really about the boobs and bums and simulated sex, I told her: it’s about experiencing the simple, mind-blowing novelty of a beautiful girl trying to catch your eye. Because for the average bloke, that just does not happen in the real world.

  I don’t think Daff was convinced, to be honest. She just laughed and said that whatever the reason was, it was pathetic. Even so, she wasn’t particularly angry about me coming here today. I think she just felt sorry for me because she realised how much I didn’t want to go.

  I think again about her David Attenborough text, and suddenly feel a very strong urge – a physical need – to see her. I desperately want to turn around, walk straight back out of the door and go and find her. But Jonno thwacks me on the back and keeps me moving forwards.

  The team flops down collectively onto one of the big oily couches next to the main stage. Jonno remains standing in front of us, chewing his bottom lip and gyrating his hips to ‘Hot in Herre’ by Nelly. The strip club is so clearly Jonno’s natural environment that it’s hard to believe he wasn’t raised in one.

  ‘Here we go, boys!’ he shouts over the music. ‘Here. We. Fucking. Go!’

  ‘Shots?’ someone else yells, but Jonno’s already up at the bar ordering them, his arm snaked around a scantily clad redhead.

  A very tall, Viking-esque woman wearing only a see-through nightie approaches me and squats down by the edge of the sofa.

  ‘Would you like a dance?’ she asks. Her accent is eastern European, and weirdly, even though I haven’t thought about this moment in ten years, I remember her straight away.

  ‘No, honestly, I’m fine, thanks,’ I tell her, adding, ‘I don’t think I can afford it,’ because it seems a simpler excuse than ‘I’m ideologically opposed to it.’

  She shrugs. ‘You can just buy me a glass of champagne, and the dance will be free.’

  ‘How much is a glass of champagne?’

  ‘Forty-five pounds.’

  ‘Right. No, thanks, honestly, I’m fine.’

  First time round, I tried – unsuccessfully – to engage this woman in a highly patronising conversation about her hopes and dreams, and how she’d ended up in a place like this. It was partly to assuage my guilt about being here, but also – if I’m totally honest – probably to indulge some lame knight-in-shining-armour daydream, in which I could imagine my words compelling her to quit this awful job immediately and start flirting outrageously with me – but because she actually wanted to, not because I’d just bought her a glass of horrifically overpriced champagne. And let’s face it, that makes me just as pathetic as every other bloke in here.

  I don’t bother with my patronising interrogation this time, so the Viking girl just wanders off to find another punter. I’m left sizing up my disgusting tequila shot and watching as Jonno and another Thump staff member get wriggled on by two near-naked blondes in front of me. Strangely, they seem to be looking at each other more than at the actual girls; swapping child-like grins and thumbs-ups every time a nipple comes within a few centimetres of their faces.

  I feel a buzz in my pocket, and find myself hoping that it’s Daphne. But it’s not. It’s an email from Clare Rodway, at Rodway Cohen Associates.

  ‘Just got to check something,’ I announce, standing up and waggling my phone about. But no one’s paying the slightest bit of attention to me. I smile at the murderous-looking bouncers as I walk past them and step back out into the dying afternoon light on Shoreditch High Street.

  The email is just as I remember it. I don’t bother to read the whole thing, just scan it to make sure the general gist is the same. Thank you so much for sending … Shows great promise, but unfortunately … And then the killer blow at the end: I think you’re Patrick’s son, is that right? Pat and I go WAY back, so I’ll mention you next time I see him!

  I put the phone back in my pocket and think about how I reacted to this email first time round. Not well, is the answer. I felt utterly broken and desperate: like a total failure. Daphne called me as I stood outside this very club, and when I told her what had happened, she came straight back from work to meet me at my place. We then spent a dreary evening together dissecting what might have been wrong with my manuscript.

  Now, looking back, I honestly find it hard to believe that I was such a jumped-up, overly melodramatic dick.

  Like Harv said, I was only twenty-four years old. Did I honestly expect that the first thing I wrote would get published? Who the hell did I think I was?

  The answer to that seems staggeringly obvious now. I thought I was my dad.

  The first play he wrote was staged at the Young Vic theatre when he was twenty-four – though obviously I found that out from Wikipedia rather than him. And I suppose I thought … Well, what did I think? That if I performed the same trick, he might reach out to me? That he might get back in touch once he realised how similar we really were? I don’t know. It sounds stupid, obviously. But despite him leaving, despite what he did to Mum, he’s still my dad. I guess I always imagined that at some point we’d be close again. If I’m honest, I still do.

  I watch the furry white sun disappearing gradually behind Liverpool Street station, and wonder for the zillionth time why all this is happening. I look down at my watch and find myself wishing that the watch-seller was here. He told me he’d see me again: ‘I guarantee it.’ Well, where is he now? There’s so much more I need to know …

  I unfasten the watch strap absent-mindedly, half expecting to be whizzed straight back to the present as soon as it’s off my wrist. But nothing happens. On the back of the face, though, I spot something I didn’t notice before. A block of worn-off lettering. An address: 15 Foster Road, Bloomsbury, WC1A. That’s central London …

  An idea flashes into my head, but before I can properly weigh it up, my phone starts buzzing. I take it out to see Daphne’s name flashing on the screen. Despite everything, I feel a burst of happiness as I slide my finger across to answer it.

  ‘Hey,’ I say.

  ‘Hey! Just calling to see how your lads-lads-lads thing is going? Have you done a shot in your eyeball yet? Are you wearing fake breasts? Have you gaffer-taped someone to a lamp post?’

  ‘Doing all three as we speak.’

  ‘Excellent, glad to hear it.’

  ‘I actually … Daff, I actually just got an email from that Clare Rodway woman.’

  There’s a pause, and then she says, ‘Oh …?’ And the hope that she fills that one syllable with is genuinely heartbreaking.

  ‘Yeah, no, she said it wasn’t for her in the end.’

  There’s a blustery crackle on the other end of the phone as Daff sighs heavily. ‘Oh, Ben. I’m so sorry. Well, look … Do you want me to come round in a bit, and we can talk about it?’

  The thought of ruining her evening all over again with my boring, self-pitying bullshit makes me actually wince with embarrassment. ‘No, seriously, don’t worry,’ I tell her. ‘I feel all right about it, you know. She was probably right to knock it back; I don’t think it’s very good after all. But it’d be great to see you tonight, if you still want to meet?’

  ‘Yeah … OK,’
she says, brightly. ‘I’ve kind of got this work thing. But it’ll be done by seven, I reckon.’

  ‘What’s the work thing?’ About six months prior to this day, in summer 2010, Daff started in a junior role at the agency she still works for today, in 2020.

  ‘It’s nothing. Just, they do these Rising Star awards every year in the office, and this year they’ve kind of … chosen me.’

  ‘Shit, what? Why didn’t you tell me?’ I’m racking my brains, but I have no memory of this. Yet it must have happened that same night; the night Daff spent listening to me bore on about my rejection email.

  ‘Well, you’ve just been so caught up with all your book stuff,’ she says. ‘It’s only a stupid in-house thing anyway. It doesn’t mean anything.’

  I feel myself flush with shame. She gave up this whole night – this awards ceremony – for me. Instead of being publicly honoured for being brilliant at her job, she chose to come home and comfort and support me when I was down. Words start clogging up my throat, rushing to get out.

  ‘Daff … Fuck … OK, I’m sorry. I’ve been a selfish fucking idiot. This is so great! It’s so exciting. Well done!’

  ‘Ben, calm down,’ she laughs. ‘Like I say, it’s not a big deal.’

  ‘It’s a massive deal! So, shall I come and meet you once it’s all finished? I could be outside your office at seven?’

  ‘Yeah, that sounds great. But can you leave your work thing? Won’t it look bad?’

  ‘I really, honestly don’t care.’

  She laughs again. ‘OK. Cool. See you here at seven.’

  I hang up the phone, suddenly feeling alive with purpose. Seven o’clock gives me just under three hours. Plenty of time to try and get some unanswered questions answered …

  I’m about to head off in search of the nearest Tube when Jonno steps outside, bringing with him a powerful stench of cocoa butter. The perspiration is glistening on his forehead as he grins at me and lights a cigarette.

  ‘You had the right idea ducking out here, fella,’ he says. ‘I shit you not: there is a bird on that stage right now whose tits are literally down to her waist. Told you there were some munters in this place.’

  ‘Jonno,’ I say, before I lose my nerve. ‘Obviously I can’t change your weird, angry, backwards world view. But I would appreciate it if in future you saved your more mindlessly twattish comments until I was at least out of earshot.’

  He stands totally still, staring at me, his cigarette dangling limply in his mouth. He looks like I’ve just punched him in the face, and for a second I wonder if that’s now what he’s about to do to me. But then he bursts out laughing, leaving a cloud of thick grey smoke floating between us. ‘Chill out, mate!’ he says. ‘It was only a bit of banter.’

  I walk off, feeling giddy at having scratched a ten-year-old itch, and head straight for 15 Foster Road, Bloomsbury.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Harv takes a large bite out of his 12-inch Subway Meat Feast and stares at the block of terraced houses in front of us.

  ‘Pretty weird place,’ he says, finally.

  As an architectural summary, it’s bang on. While the other buildings on Foster Road are all identikit immaculate white rectangles, number 15 appears to have been dropped onto the street by mistake. It’s a squat red-brick affair with an uneven roof and a precariously wonky chimney. It looks like one snaggled tooth in an otherwise perfect mouth.

  ‘So …’ Harv takes another chunk out of his sandwich. ‘Why are we here again?’

  I hold my wrist up. ‘I told you: I bought this watch a couple of days ago, and it’s not working. So I’m going to try and have a word with the guy who sold it to me.’

  He nods. ‘Right. And you need me here because …’

  To be honest, I’m still not totally sure why I called him. I think I just wanted someone else with me. This is my first ever visit to what could potentially be a time-travelling watch outlet, and I figured it might be nice to have a bit of backup. Or at least a witness.

  I point at the posh-looking tinsel-strewn pub across the street. ‘I thought we could get a pint after I’ve sorted my watch,’ I say. ‘Two birds with one stone.’

  Harv shrugs and takes another bite. ‘Fair enough.’

  We walk up the little staircase and pause in front of the bright purple front door, its gold number 15 glinting in the dying sunlight. On the Tube over here, this seemed like a brilliant idea. But now the doubts are starting to creep in. I mean: what if this is just somebody’s house? How will I even begin to explain what I’m doing here without sounding like a total lunatic?

  It’s only the building’s strong Harry Potter vibe that’s keeping my scepticism at bay. If I was a time-travelling watch salesman, this is exactly the kind of place I would live.

  Harv looks over at me as I stand dithering on the doorstep. ‘The normal procedure is to knock, man.’

  He pounds the door three times with his non-sandwich hand.

  For a few seconds, nothing happens. I almost feel relieved. I’m on the verge of suggesting we leave when suddenly I hear muffled footsteps, and the clunk of a heavy lock. And then a familiar scraggly-bearded face emerges.

  ‘Ah!’ The watch-seller beams. ‘You found me, then!’

  A minute later, Harv and I are sitting at the old man’s kitchen table while he makes tea at the stove. And if I thought this place had a strong Potter vibe from the outside, then the inside makes it look positively conventional.

  Wooden beams jut out at bizarre angles across the ceiling, and there are clocks covering almost every inch of the walls. They’re all different shapes, styles, colours and sizes, and their combined ticking sounds like the hooves of a hundred tiny stampeding horses. Cogs and watch faces and straps and springs are scattered across the kitchen counters, nestled among dozens of notebooks and pieces of paper, all of them teeming with strange diagrams and illegible scrawls. Next to the old-fashioned stove, there’s a sink big enough to bathe a St Bernard in, which sends out a howling clanking sound as the old man spins its rusty faucets. He is still wearing the same ill-fitting blue suit and reindeer tie, and his unruly copper-grey hair flaps wildly as he flits about taking mugs out of the cupboards. There’s something so familiar about him.

  Harv is gazing around the room, looking understandably bemused. ‘So you … sell watches, do you?’ he asks.

  ‘Among other things.’ The old man chuckles. ‘In fact, I was selling chestnuts fairly recently.’

  He shoots me a wink and I nod back, dumbly. Even though I was expecting to see him, that now-familiar sense of confusion and nervous excitement is thrumming once again in my chest. There’s so much I need to ask him.

  The old man plonks three mugs of tea down next to Harv’s half-eaten sandwich, and settles in the chair opposite me. ‘So, I told you we’d meet again, didn’t I? What’s on your mind this time?’

  I look back at Harv, who’s blowing the steam off his mug of tea as he stares around him. The idea of bringing him along now seems utterly, obviously insane. I mean, how am I supposed to have this conversation in front of him?

  The watch-seller reads my mind. ‘Don’t worry about your friend here,’ he says. ‘Back in the present, he won’t have any memory at all of this encounter taking place. It will be like it never happened.’

  ‘Er … what was that, mate?’ Harv says.

  The watch-seller grins and glances down at Harv’s belly. ‘You’ve filled out a little since I last saw you.’

  Harv’s mouth forms the ‘W’ of ‘what’, but no sound comes out. Despite everything, I find I’m quite enjoying the novel sensation of not being the most bewildered person in the room.

  ‘What is going on, Ben?’ Harv demands. ‘Seriously, who is this dude?’

  The watch-seller answers for me. ‘In the year 2020, I gave your friend here a wristwatch that allows him to revisit various moments in his past. He’s reliving one of these moments right now, and I assume he’s here because he wants my advice.’

&
nbsp; Harv continues to stare at him blankly, his mouth a perfect straight line.

  ‘It’s true, Harv,’ I find myself saying. ‘It sounds mad, obviously …’

  Harv sniffs and takes a gulp of his tea. ‘Look, if you’re both gonna be twats, I’ll just go to the pub.’

  I turn back to the old man. ‘Will he really not remember this?’

  The old man shakes his head.

  ‘So, nothing I do in these moments will have any effect in 2020?’

  ‘Not directly, no.’

  ‘What. Is. Going. On?’ Harv thumps the table with every word, making the mugs rattle. ‘Is this some kind of prank? Are we being filmed or something?’

  ‘Do you really not remember?’ I ask him. ‘When we talked about time travel, the night of Marek’s play at uni? Before we played Sardines in the maze? You came with me to the Drama Barn because I was so late. And before that, we talked about Groundhog Day in the kitchen.’

  Harv narrows his eyes. ‘No … that’s not what happened, Ben. I only saw you later, after the play. And we definitely didn’t talk about Groundhog Day. I would remember if we did, because I bloody love that film.’

  The watch-seller nods. ‘Great film.’

  I try to process this new information. So, nothing I do in these revisited moments will be remembered by anyone but me? All this new stuff – Daphne getting to accept her award, us falling asleep together in my room the night of the play – it will be like none of it ever happened when – if – I finally get back to the present?

  That means I can’t change anything. I can’t affect the future in any way. The Monopoly game with Mum flashes suddenly into my head. I had the idea that night that I might be able to stop what happens – that I might be able to stop her dying. And now I find out that I can’t. A throb of anger surges through me.

  ‘What’s the point of all this if I can’t actually change anything?’ I mutter. ‘Nothing I do here even matters!’

  ‘On the contrary,’ the old man says. ‘It matters very much. Other people won’t change as a result of all this, but you might.’ He leans towards me, pressing the tips of his fingers together to form a triangle. ‘Maybe you’ll end up with a clearer understanding of what you really want.’