Starter for Ten

by David Nicholls

  She takes the cigarette out of her mouth, rests her hand against the edge of the table, and is silent for a moment.

  “Good point, Jackson. Good point.” She downs the last inch of her pint, winces. “Touché, Jackson!” And then we sit in silence.

  “I didn't mean …”

  “… No, that's all right …”

  “… I wasn't referring to …”

  “No, I know you weren't.”

  I decide to leave.

  “So are you coming to the filming?” I say, pulling on my coat.

  “What filming?”

  “The University Cha—”

  “When is it?”

  “Day after tomorrow?”

  “Can't. I've got tutorials, so …”

  “… There's a list on the second-floor notice board if …”

  “… I know …”

  “… Just sign your name if …”

  “… I'll see …”

  “… I'd really, really like you to come …”

  “Why?”

  “… I just would. See you there, maybe?”

  “Aye. Well. Maybe.

  ” I swing by Alice's halls of residence, just in case, and drop my Valentine's card in; hand hovering by her mailbox, then taking a deep breath and letting go. Then I hang around, pretending to read the notice boards, in case she comes back. But I don't want to run into Rebecca again tonight, so I soon head back home and arrive just as Josh is pinning a note to my door.

  “Ah, there you are, lover boy. Message for you. From someone called …” Alice maybe? “… from someone called … Tone. He says you're to call him urgently.”

  “Really?” I say. What on earth does Tone want? Maybe he's coming to stay too. I can't have Tone coming to stay, not with Valentine's Day tomorrow, and The Challenge and everything. I check my watch. Half eleven. I go to the pay phone in the hall.

  “Hiya, Tone!” I say brightly.

  “All right, Bri …”

  “Didn't wake you up, did I? It's just I had a message to call.”

  “Yeah, that's right …”

  “Are you coming up to stay, Tone? Because if you are, it's not the best time at the mo—”

  “I'm not coming to stay, Bri. Actually I was just wondering when you were going to come down here?”

  “Well … not until Easter, I don't think.”

  “No, I mean to see Spencer.”

  “Why, what about Spencer?”

  “You haven't heard, then?”

  I press the receiver tighter against my ear, lean against the wall.

  “Heard what?”

  Tone exhales into the mouthpiece, and says, “There's been a bit of an accident.”

  34

  QUESTION: At whose wedding do “funeral bak'd meats … coldly furnish forth the marriage tables”?

  ANSWER: The marriage of Gertrude and Claudius, in Hamlet.

  I head back to Southend first thing on Valentine's Day, before the post arrives, and get back to the maisonette on Archer Road round about noon. I've been desperate for a pee since the change at Fenchurch Street, but the toilets on the train were spectacularly blocked, so I've waited and now have this throbbing ache in my kidneys. I take the stairs at a run, head into the bathroom, and scream …

  “OH MY GOD!”

  There's a man in the bath, shampooing his hair. He starts to scream too.

  “WHAT THE BLOODY HELL … !”

  And then Mum's coming out of her bedroom, doing up her dressing gown, and over her shoulder I see the unmade bed in disarray, the red and white Y-fronts hanging from the headboard, the men's trousers gaping on the floor, the bottle of sparkling wine …

  “BRIAN, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING BACK!” shouts Mum. I turn away, because she's not quite done up her dressing gown properly, and see that the man in the bath is standing up now, wiping at the shampoo in his eyes with one hand, clasping a face flannel to his groin with the other.

  “What the hell's going on!” I say.

  “I'm trying to have a bloody bath!” blusters Uncle Des.

  “Wait downstairs!” snaps Mum.

  “I need to use the toilet!” I say, which I do, urgently.

  “BRIAN—WAIT DOWNSTAIRS!” She's shouting now, holding her dressing gown closed, pointing at the stairs. I haven't heard her shout like this since I was a kid, and suddenly I feel like a kid, so I go downstairs, unlock the back door, and pee in the corner of the garden.

  I'm in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil when I hear Uncle Des and Mum sneaking down the stairs, then whispering furtively in the hallway, like a pair of teenagers. I think I hear “I'll call you later,” then the sound of a kiss, the sound of my mother kissing Uncle Des, then the front door closes, and I hear the fizz of a match being struck, the sound of Mum inhaling, breathing out slowly, and then she's standing behind me in the doorway, wearing a powder-blue tracksuit, sucking hard on the fag in one hand, holding a greasy glass of sparkling wine in the other.

  The kettle's still not boiling.

  Finally Mum says, “I thought you were going straight to the hospital?”

  “I missed lunchtime visiting. I'm going later.”

  “I wasn't expecting you.”

  “No, well, obviously not. So—something wrong with Uncle Des's bath, is there?”

  “Don't take that tone, Brian …”

  “What tone?”

  “You know what tone,” and she drains the remains of the wine. The kettle finally clicks off. “You making coffee?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Make me one. Then come into the lounge. We need to have a little talk.”

  Oh, God. My heart sinks. We're going to have a little talk, a frank discussion, a heart-to-heart, a one-to-one. We're going to talk to each other like adults. I've managed to avoid this kind of thing so far. Dad died before he could do the “when-a-man-and-a-lady-really-like-each-other” number, and I think Mum must have assumed that either it was never going to be relevant, or that I'd find out about the strange mystery of physical love by myself one way or another, which I did, I suppose, after a fashion, up against a wheely-bin at the back of Littlewoods. But there's no getting away from this one. I pluck two mugs off the tree, spoon in the coffee powder and try to work out what to think. I try to imagine that there's some kind of innocent explanation to Uncle Des being in our bath at one in the afternoon on Valentine's Day, but can't. All that comes to mind is the obvious explanation, and the obvious explanation is … unthinkable. Uncle Des and Mum. Uncle Des from three doors down and my mum in bed together in broad daylight, Uncle Des and Mum having …

  Kettle's boiled.

  Mum's in the lounge, drawing deeply on a Rothman's and peering through the net curtains. I hand her the mug of coffee and sit glumly on the sofa, in silence, and I find myself wondering if this is what it feels like to be told by your wife that she wants a divorce.

  I notice my Valentine's card on the mantelpiece, a Chagall postcard. “I see you got a card, then!”

  “What? Oh, yes. Thank you very much, sweetheart. Very nice.”

  “How d'you know it was from me?” I ask, a feeble attempt at lightheartedness.

  “Well, you wrote ‘To Mum' on it, so …” And she tries a smile, then turns back to the window and blows smoke at the windowpane, exhaling so hard that the net curtains move. Finally, she says, “Brian, your uncle Des and I are having an …” And she's about to say “affair,” but plumps for “having an … relationship.”

  “For how long?”

  “A little while now. Since last October.”

  “Since I went away, you mean?”

  “More or less. He came round for a curry one night, to keep me company, and one thing led to another and, well, I was going to tell you, Brian, at Christmas, but you weren't around much, and I didn't want to do it over the phone …”

  “No. No, I can imagine,” I mumble. “So is it … serious?”

  “I think so. Well …” And she sucks on her fag again, purs
es her lips, exhales and says, “… As a matter of fact we've been talking about getting married.”

  “What?”

  “He's asked me to marry him.”

  “Uncle Des?”

  “Yes.”

  “Marry him?”

  “Brian …”

  “And you've said yes?”

  “… I know you don't get on, I know you don't like him, but I do, I like Des a lot. He's a good man, and he likes me, and he makes me laugh. And I'm forty-one years old, Brian, I know that must seem ancient to you— God knows it feels ancient sometimes—but you'll be forty-one one day, sooner than you think. Anyway, I'm still, I still, well, I still get lonely, Brian, I still like a bit of company every now and then, a bit of …” She draws on her cigarette, looks at the floor. “… Well, I'm sorry, but your dad's been gone a long time now, Brian, and Des and I aren't doing anything wrong. I won't be made to feel like we're doing anything wrong.”

  But I'm still trying to take things in. “So you are going to marry him?”

  “I think so …”

  “You don't know?”

  “Yes! Yes, I am going to marry him!”

  “When?”

  “Later in the year sometime. We're not in any rush.”

  “And then what happens?”

  “He's going to move in here, with me. We're thinking …” And she pauses, nervous again, and I can't imagine what else she could possibly have to tell me. “… We're thinking of turning it into a B and B.” I think I laugh at this, not because I find it funny, or any of this funny, in fact, just because I don't have another appropriate response. “You're joking.”

  “No, I'm not.”

  “A bed and breakfast?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But there's no room!”

  “Not for families—for singles, or young couples, businessmen. Des is going to convert the loft”—she glances at me nervously, then back at the net curtains—“and your room. We thought we'd maybe clear out your room.”

  “And what happens to my stuff ?”

  “We thought you could … take it with you.”

  “You're throwing me out of my room!”

  “Not throwing you out, just … asking you to move your stuff.”

  “To university?”

  “Yes! Either that or throw it away. It's just a lot of books and comics and model planes, Bri, it's not anything you're going to need. You are a grown-up, after all.…”

  “So I am getting thrown out!”

  “Don't be daft, of course you're not. You can still stay in the holidays if you really want to, and over the summer.…”

  “But isn't that your peak season … ?”

  “Brian …”

  “Well, that's very good of you and Uncle Des, Mum, but how much do you charge per night?” I can hear my own voice now, high-pitched and wheedling.

  “Don't be like this please, Brian …” Mum says.

  “Well, what d'you expect me to do? I mean, I'm only getting thrown out of my own house.…”

  And then she spins, and turns to me, and jabs at me with the remains of her fag and shouts, “It's not your house anymore, Brian!”

  “Oh, really!”

  “No, I'm sorry, but it's not! You were here, what, one week at Christmas? One week, and even then you couldn't wait to get back to college. You don't come back at weekends, you don't phone for weeks, you certainly don't write to me, so, no, actually, no, this is not your house. It's mine. It's the house I live in by myself, just me, every bloody day, day after day, since your dad died, this is where I've slept every night on my own, and that, that there, that bloody settee, that's where I've sat nearly every night on my own, watching the telly or just staring at the wall, while you're away at college, or if you do deign to stay here you're out with your mates, or hiding in your room because you're so bloody obviously bored of talking to me, your own mother. D'you have any idea what that's like, Brian, being here all by myself, year after year after bloody, bloody year … ?” but then her voice starts to crack, and she clasps her face with her hands and starts sobbing, great heavy, wet sobs, and once again I realize that I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to do.

  “Hey, come on, Mum …” I say, but she just waves her hand at me, gesturing for me to keep away.

  “Leave me alone, please, Brian,” she says, and I'm tempted to do as she says, because it would be easier after all.

  “… Mum, there's no need to get …”

  “Leave me alone. Just go away.…”

  What if I pretend I haven't heard any of this? The lounge door's still open, after all. I could just go out, come back in an hour or so, let her calm down, just go. After all, that's what she's told me to do, that's what she wants, isn't it?

  “Please, Mum, please, don't cry. I hate it when you …” And I can't finish the sentence because I find that I'm crying myself, and I cross over to her and fold my arms round her and hold on to her as tightly as I can.

  35

  QUESTION: Circles of standing stones at Lindholm Hoje near Ålborg in Denmark indicate that it was a site for which ancient ritual?

  ANSWER: Viking burial.

  I meet Tone at two-fifteen in the Black Prince on the seafront. There's no one in apart from a couple of tubercular old geezers nursing the last warm inch of their pints and reading dog-eared copies of the Sun, but it still takes me a moment to notice him because I'm instinctively looking for light blue denim, not the charcoal single-button suit, white socks and light gray slipons that he's wearing today.

  “Bloody hell, Tone, what's happened to your hair?” The Viking look has gone, and instead he's got a neat short-back-and-sides with a parting slightly too far to the left. Tone, in a suit, with a parting.

  “Had it cut, that's all.” I go to ruffle it, but he karates my hand away, not quite playfully. I want to keep things lighthearted, so I say, “Here, are you wearing gel?”

  “A little bit. So what?” he says, then takes a sip from the half-pint of lager in front of him. I don't think I've ever seen Tone holding a half-pint glass, and it's playing tricks with scale, like he's some sort of giant.

  “D'you want another drink?” I ask.

  “I'm all right …”

  “Another half then? …”

  “I can't …”

  “Go on, you wuss …” I cajole, lightheartedly.

  “Can't. I've got to get back to work,” he says.

  “Surely you've got time for a …”

  “I don't want another half, all right?” he snaps. I go and get myself a pint and sit back down.

  “So—how's work?”

  “'S all right. I'm out front on the shop floor now, so that's why …” And half apologetically, he tugs on the long thin lapel of his suit.

  “Which department?”

  “Hi-fi and audio.”

  “Great!”

  “Yeah, well. It'll do. And there's commission, so …”

  “Spencer told me about you and the Territorials.”

  “Did he? Have a good laugh about it, did you?”

  “No, course not …”

  “I don't suppose you approve.”

  “I didn't say that, did I? I mean, I am a unilateralist, and I think we should definitely reduce defense spending and plow some of that money into social services, but I still understand the need for some form of …” But Tone's looking at his watch, not really interested. “So have you seen Spencer?” I say.

  “Of course I've seen Spencer,” he snaps, and I accept that, for today at least, it's going to be impossible for me to say anything that doesn't piss someone off.

  “And how is he?” I ask.

  “Well, considering he's been through the windscreen of a Ford Escort, he's pretty good, actually.”

  “So what happened, Tone?”

  “Don't know, exactly. We were down the pub Friday as usual, and after closing he wanted to go on into London, to a club or something so we could keep drinking, and I said no, 'cause I was wor
king the next day, and he was pretty pissed, but he went anyway, took his dad's car. The next thing I knew was two days later when his mum called and said he was in hospital.”

  “Was anyone else hurt?”

  “No …”

  “Well, thank God for that …”

  “… just our mate Spencer,” he adds, with a sneer.

  “I didn't mean … I just meant … And is he in trouble? I mean, legally?”

  “Well, he was over the limit, he's only got a provisional license, it wasn't his car and he wasn't insured, so, yeah, from a legal standpoint, things aren't looking too rosy.”

  “And how's he … feeling?”

  “I don't know, Brian, ask him yourself, will you? I've got to get back to work,” and, irritably, he drains the rest of his half, takes a packet of mints out of his pocket and pops one in his mouth, without offering me one.

  We step outside the pub and walk along the street back toward the pier. The wind's blowing rain in off the estuary, and Tone folds the two thin lapels of his jacket over to protect his shirt and tie as we march on up toward the High Street.

  “So you staying over tonight?” he asks, clearly not caring much either way.

  “No, can't, I'm afraid.” I wonder if I should tell him that I'm on University Challenge tomorrow, but decide against it. “Got a tutorial tomorrow, first thing, so I'm going back later. But I'll be back at Easter I think, so … see you then?”

  “Yeah, well, whatever.”

  “Tone—have I done something to, you know, piss you off ?”

  He snorts. “Whatever gave you that impression?”

  “Was it something Spence said?” No reply. “What did he say, Tone?”

  Without looking at me, Tone says, “Spencer told me about coming to see you. It didn't sound as if you were much of a mate to him, Bri. In fact it sounded to me as if you behaved like a bit of a cunt. That's all.”

  “Why, what did he say?”

  “… Doesn't matter …”

  “I couldn't let him stay any longer, Tone, it was against the rules.…”

  “Oh, well, if it was against the rules, Bri.…”

  “He was the one who started the fight, Tone.…”