“Certainly bloody do,” James grunted. “Brussels keeps changing the rules. Bastards. You’ve got to stay five steps ahead of them or they’ll scoop up your entire salary. We’ve heard they’re going to increase Social Insurance to eighteen percent of overall income in a couple of years’ time. That’s on top of income tax. And you’ve got to be top rated on that, Jeff.”
“It’s a pretty frightening figure, yeah.”
“Two years,” Alan mused. “That puts it conveniently after the presidential elections.”
“Doesn’t matter, nobody votes for the president anyway. Last time it was barely a forty percent turnout, and most of them were from Luxembourg.”
“None of the candidates would ever mention higher taxes anyway, not even if they go negative,” James said. “That way they all benefit from deniability. Just like Area fifty-one in Independence Day.”
“That was culpable deniability. Randy Quaid told the president about it.”
“Yeah, Quaid was playing Jeff Goldblum’s dad.”
“Second time Goldblum was in an alien invasion film.”
“Remake of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” Alan said promptly. “Midseventies with Donald Sutherland and Leonard Nimoy.”
Three girls walked in. Jeff doubted if the eldest was more than sixteen. All of them wore incredibly low tops and short skirts. They clustered around the bar, chattering away like a flock of sparrows.
“Jesus,” James muttered. “Where the hell were they when I was that age?”
“Their parents didn’t exist when you were that age,” Alan told him.
The girls all ordered vodka mixers. Jeff couldn’t remember what the legal pub age was these days. Was Europe currently being as liberal about booze as it was drugs (except tobacco, of course)? Whatever the age, it didn’t seem to bother the girls. When he looked at their legs that initial pulse of admiration withered slightly. None of them was particularly tall, and two of them were already mildly chubby. It was all attitude and clothes that made men turn and look. So unlike Annabelle, he thought. Now there was a genuine looker.
James stood up and drained the last of his pint. “My round, hurry up, chaps.”
“Same again,” Alan said.
“I’ll just have a half,” Jeff said.
James gave him a disgruntled look, and went off to the bar.
“This’ll be my last,” Alan said. “I can’t knock it back like I used to. It doesn’t matter how many genoproteins are buzzing round inside me, I’m not as young as I was.”
“Whatever you’re comfortable with,” Jeff said.
Alan leaned in across the table. “I still can’t believe that it’s really you, that this whole ridiculous procedure worked. I feel like I want to rip it out of you and use it on myself. If it was just a single pill or gadget, then I would do it. Jesus, Jeff, do you realize what you are?”
“I’m beginning to, I think.”
“Fucking lucky, that’s what. The luckiest man that ever walked across the face of the planet. You’re young again. You’ve got your whole life again. Life is always wasted on young people, they don’t know what it’s about. But not you, you already know. You know what to do to make it count, every bloody minute of it. And you’ve got Sue to go home to each night as well. Tell me that isn’t bloody tremendous.”
“Hey, come on, Alan. You’re good for another thirty years, and that’s just with today’s treatments. By the time you’re a hundred they’ll be giving you that single pill for rejuvenation.”
Alan contemplated the last of his beer. “Bull, Jeff. I’ve got the worst time of my life ahead of me, and our wonderful medical industry will stretch it out and out until I just scream for it to end.”
Jeff wanted to look around to see where the hell James had got to. He needed help here. “That’s crap. Look at me, Alan, I am real. It happened to me, it can happen to you.”
“I’ll be dead or demented by the time they start dishing it out to the masses. Oh fuck, Jeff, how did we ever come to this?”
“You haven’t come to anything, Alan. You’re as active now as you were thirty years ago.”
Alan snorted, his jaw muscles working hard to stop his real anguish from emerging. “Not active where I want to be. Christ, not for years.”
Jeff muttered oh shit under his breath. Where was James?
“Collecting to support our country’s patriots, gentlemen.”
Jeff looked around. There were three men standing beside the table, late twenties with close-cropped hair. Jeff could remember the National Front from the first half of his life, their ranks always made up from skinheads or bulky, physically intimidating lads. Somehow they always managed the trick of looking as if violence could explode at any second without actually saying anything threatening. These three were almost the same, except one of them was Asian—and Jeff really didn’t think the National Front had modified its stance on membership, not even in these politically correct times.
All of them had gold and scarlet dragon tattoos spiraling around their wrists, the red segments glowing faintly. More tattoos were just visible above their collars. Knuckles and hands were scarred, trophies of a dozen street fights. Each wore a Union Jack badge with FREE ENGLAND printed across the middle. Seeing that, Jeff finally understood who they were.
“Hope you can contribute,” the one in front said. It wasn’t a question. He held out a pouch with several cash cards already in the bottom.
From the corner of his eye, Jeff saw the Europol team rising from their seats. He made a tiny be calm gesture with his hand.
“I’d be happy to,” Jeff said. He fished around in his pocket for his cash cards, and found one loaded with fifty euros.
“Jeff!” Alan hissed.
“How’s that?” Jeff dropped it into the collection pouch.
The man holding it gave him a careful look. “Do I know you?”
“Doubt it,” Jeff said. “I haven’t been in this pub for thirty years.”
There was a long moment while the man tried to figure out if Jeff was taking the piss or if he was just drunk.
“Here you go.” Alan dropped another cash card in the pouch.
The man’s concentration wavered, moving away from Jeff. “Thanks, old man. Together we’ll bring your country back to how it used to be, don’t you worry.” The three of them moved on to the next table where the young girls were sitting giggling.
Jeff breathed out silently, his eyes locked on Alan’s. “Bloody hell.”
James returned to the table. “Three pints. Jeff, I decided you’ve got to drink more. What’s the matter with you two? You look like…”
Jeff stood up. “We’re leaving.”
“What? I haven’t touched this yet.”
“Come on.” He was giving none-too-subtle twists of his head to indicate the three collectors. “Now. We’re eating early tonight.”
James finally glanced at the collection team. “Oh right. I’ve already donated.” He raised his hand and waved at the team. “Night, lads.”
“Night, James,” the Asian one said. “You take care of yourself, hear? It’s a bad world out there.”
Alan and Jeff exchanged another look. “Definitely time to leave,” Alan said.
AS THEY WALKED DOWN BROAD STREET, Jeff slowly became aware of what they looked like together: Alan in his dark green conservative suit with its trousers shiny from too many cleanings and pressings. James, wheezing along in an expensive yellow and green cashmere cardigan with leather buttons. And himself, dressed in loose ochre trousers and black Adol shirt, complimented by a smart leather jacket, all of it chosen by Sue, and actually quite stylish, he admitted to himself. Anyone would think he was taking a couple of old uncles out to their 2010 reunion club.
People were looking at them that way, too. Youngsters walking about as their own evenings kicked off. Boys strutting their stuff in smart clothes, girls huddled together, tottering along in ridiculously tall heels. As they saw Jeff and his friends they dismissed the
m instantly. Jeff was surprised how much that brush-off hurt. Especially as the youngsters all seemed to be having a good time. Broad Street was full of laughter and giggles, welcoming shouts between groups, music and sharp, colored light spilling out of pubs and club doorways. It was a scene that exerted a strange degree of attraction on Jeff. Everyone was happy, out for a hot night of fun. And they all believed he was not, nor could be, a part of that. An invisible barrier of exclusion protected the three of them as they walked along in search of the Chinese restaurant where James had booked them a table.
What Jeff wanted to say was: “Come on, lads, let’s go hit some of the clubs instead.” And the three of them would scoot in past the bouncers and party on down until exhaustion and alcohol wiped him out as dawn was rising, maybe a few totes of the wacky bakky as well. It would be living, it would be experiencing, engaging every sense and emotion a body possessed.
But if he said it, they wouldn’t come, he’d be on his own. So he plodded along dutifully with his old friends and felt obliged to point out that as well as featuring in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, Jeff Goldblum had also starred in Earth Girls Are Easy, which was technically an alien invasion film, so that made four altogether.
18. LATE HONEYMOON
JEFF GOT HOME from the Chinese restaurant just before ten o’clock. The meal had gone pretty much as he’d predicted, and to cap it off, the food hadn’t been much good.
He hadn’t expected Sue to be home, not so early, but her Merc was standing in the garage when he parked. She was sitting on the big couch in the living room, wrapped in an emerald bathrobe, drinking a brandy and eating a bumper box of Thornton’s chocolates. Casablanca was playing on the three-meter wall screen, black-and-white images casting a cool spectral hue across the room.
“You’re back early,” he said.
Sue produced an insincere smile. “Yeah. Didn’t much feel like a night out.”
“I know what you mean. I could have done without tonight myself.”
“How are James and Alan?”
Jeff sighed and flopped down onto the couch beside her. “Oh God, Alan was crying into his beer most of the time. And James was just being James; ranting about Brussels, and taxes, and money and then more money. I’ve heard it all a million times before.” He wondered what had happened with her and Patrick. A quarrel? It would have to be something pretty drastic to make Sue binge on chocolate. She was normally inhumanly strict about her diet.
“James has always been just James,” she said. “I thought that’s why you were such good friends with him.”
“Yeah well, maybe my perspective has shifted a little lately.”
“Hardly surprising.”
“Oh?” He leaned over and plucked the hazelnut swirl from the box.
“You don’t have anything in common anymore, do you? They’re pensioners in every respect. You’re a twenty-year-old in every respect but one.”
“Which one?”
“Experience. Apart from that, you’ve got your whole life to look forward to, and that makes you eager and optimistic. That’s the opposite of them. They have nothing to look forward to; they hate the way the world is and the way it treats them. You relish change and challenge.”
“I would have thought that experience makes me cautious, especially about change.”
Sue grinned. “It means you can avoid the mistakes that Tim and his friends are about to spend the next fifteen years making. You’ll enjoy yourself a hell of a lot more this time around.”
“Maybe so.” He munched happily on the chocolate as he looked at her. That small smile, the way one side of her mouth lifted slightly higher than the other, was fascinating. Sue had always been staggeringly beautiful, but it was a notion that had never quite connected for him. It was beauty as abstract; he admired her as he might admire a statue or painting. For nearly nineteen years he’d held that view. Now, though, sitting beside her on the sofa, there were other factors coming into play. How close she was. The thick smell of some perfume or lotion applied to her skin. The way the robe was slightly loose down the front, showing just a hint of her breasts. Legs, long and smooth, curled up comfortably like some jungle cat ready to pounce. And that smile…
Jeff realized with some surprise he was actually quite turned on by his own wife.
“Definitely so,” Sue said. “It couldn’t be any other way.”
Jeff looked away, partially to cover his slight embarrassment. Then he saw what was playing on the screen. “Oh my God, that’s Ronald Reagan.”
“Who?”
“Ronald Reagan, he’s playing Rick.”
Sue frowned at the black-and-white images. “So?”
“Humphrey Bogart is Rick. What kind of version are you accessing, a satire?”
“I don’t know. The datasphere had quite a few editions listed, I think I chose the as-it-should-be version.”
He laughed. “Of course, Reagan supposedly auditioned for the part. That find-and-replace morphing technique is very good. I wonder what program they used….” He caught himself and grimaced. “Sorry, I’ve been talking this kind of complete crap all night with the boys. So what did happen to you this evening?”
Sue lowered her head, allowing her thick hair to fall forward and cover her face. “I went to see Mummy this afternoon.”
“Ah. Right. How is she?”
“Not very good.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper.
“Oh, hey.” His arm went out automatically, reaching for her. He stopped with his fingertips a few centimeters away from her arm. After a moment’s hesitation he gave her a supportive little squeeze.
Sue looked up, waterlogged eyes regarding him with mild surprise.
“She’s a tough old thing,” he said. “She’ll pull through.”
“No, Jeff, she won’t. She’s getting a lot worse.”
“I’m sorry.” He pulled himself along the couch and put his arm around her shoulder. She was shaking.
“I guess I don’t make it any easier for you,” he said. “Not with me like this.”
“No. I’m pleased they chose you, of course I am.” Tears started to fall down her cheeks. She smeared them with her knuckles, then gave her hands an angry look, as if they’d betrayed her.
“Is it going to be…soon?” he asked.
“No. But…”
“What?” he asked gently.
“They can’t look after her at the Hall, not anymore. She needs a proper nursing home: twenty-four-hour staff, specialist doctors, physical therapists.”
“Are there any places like that around here?”
“Some, yes.”
“Then no problem, we’ll put her into one.”
Sue blinked away her tears, giving him a curious gaze. “Do you mean that?”
“Of course I do.”
“Jeff, it’ll cost a lot of money.”
“So? We had a deal, remember?”
“I know. But I thought… Tim’s already eighteen. Not that I ever really lived up to my side of the bargain when it came to being a good mother. He’ll be off to university in a few months anyway. That’s it then, isn’t it? The end.”
Jeff tightened his hold around her shoulders. “I thought you were a pretty good mother, actually. It has never been so hard to bring kids up than in today’s world; there are so many pitfalls waiting for him, so many dark attractions. Yet he’s come out of it a good kid. He’s no Stepford child, thank God, but he isn’t in jail, or rehab, or therapy, he doesn’t hate us too much, and he’s worked hard enough at school to make Cambridge a near certainty. I couldn’t wish for more. I’m damn proud of him. And you have to take a lot of credit for that. You pulled off your side of the arrangement perfectly.”
Sue’s small smile had returned. “I never did deserve you, did I?”
“I always thought of it as being the other way round.”
They kissed.
“That was never part of the arrangement,” Sue murmured huskily. Her nose nuzzled his cheek.
Jeff smiled down at her. “Time to negotiate a new one.”
THEY USED HIS BEDROOM, undressing in a warm mock-twilight thrown out by the wall lights. He couldn’t stop staring at her; it was a revelation, seeing what he’d been denied for nearly twenty years.
“Everything came out in full working order then,” Sue teased archly as she stood in front of him. Her eyes lingered on his erect cock.
“Built to the highest Brussels specifications.”
“To hell with Brussels.” Her hand closed round his balls. “These belong to me now.”
There was an urgency to her lovemaking he hadn’t expected. And she was deliciously talented; time and again after he believed himself spent she proved him wrong. He’d never guessed than even his fresh new body was so physically capable. It was a discovery they both took a savage joy in celebrating, carrying on into the early hours.
Eventually they broke apart.
“The real you.”
“And you.”
“Yes, finally. And I like it.”
“Good.”
19. CROWDED BREAKFAST
TIM MADE IT DOWNSTAIRS by nine o’clock on Sunday morning. It hadn’t been a particularly late night. They’d all been round to Martin’s house last night, drinking and sending out for pizza. Tim and Annabelle had been snuggled up together on the big couch all evening. He had been kind of quietly confident that the two of them would make it to a bedroom at some point during the night. But it hadn’t happened. Annabelle went back to Uppingham on the bus with Sophie and Vanessa. He’d asked her to come back to the manor with him. She said no, and kissed him hard to make up for the disappointment. He even asked if she’d like him to escort her back to her house. She said no thanks, and kissed him again; he was even encouraged to slide his hands up under her T-shirt to maul at her bra. When they were standing outside the front door, in the dark and out of sight from their friends and the Europol team, he made a last appeal for a quick trip back inside and up to Martin’s spare room. Her giggles were loud and playful in his ear, and her hand wormed down into his trousers. Which was fantastic, but still a no.
Misspent Youth (commonwealth saga) Page 12
