The Post-Birthday World

by Lionel Shriver

  “Look, if you want to stay at the Royal Bath, I could afford it! Just say the word!”

  “You mean, we could afford it. But we’re not going to spend hundreds of pounds for wrapped soap.”

  Across the board of expenditures, their frugality was uniform. Taking one last look at the room whose air freshener was so rank that it made you want to smoke to cover it up, Irina wondered what kind of a splurge they didn’t consider wasteful. It was only one night, but after a sequence of nights just like this one they’d be dead.

  Waving at the driver to stay put, Lawrence held open the car door, so Irina had no choice but to slip in next to Ramsey. En route to the restaurant, she pressed her elbows to her waist and squeezed her knees together. Staring rigidly ahead, she might have been mistaken for a prisoner incongruously escorted to death row in a limousine. As the ungainly vehicle negotiated corners, her left arm would brush Ramsey’s stiff leather jacket, administering brief electric shocks like foretastes of the chair.

  Ramsey apologized that, the hour being late, they were “stuck with Oscar’s,” the Royal Bath’s in-house restaurant, which wouldn’t be serving after ten p.m. either, but would make an exception in his case. The hotel was making a mint off of snooker players this week, and had to make nice. Lawrence’s terse rejoinder, “Of course,” contained a hint of Oh brother!; maybe it was Ramsey’s having to be special that rankled. That and the fact that they were not to avoid having their noses rubbed in the spectacle of the grand hotel they were missing. When they drew up to the imposing white edifice—five floors between two fairy-tale turrets, set back on landscaped grounds, and lit up like Disneyland—Irina refrained from remarking on its splendor.

  After a doorman rushed to usher the snooker player from the limo, Ramsey held his hand out for Irina, who had a tricky time not showing so much leg in her short black skirt that it qualified as a different part of the anatomy altogether. The doorman gave her a discreet once-over, and shot Ramsey a nod of approval. Lawrence strode around from the other side and roughly grabbed her hand in a spirit that Irina did not especially like.

  “Hard luck, mate,” a bellboy called to Ramsey on the way in.

  “Got nil to do with luck, son,” said Ramsey. “Rarely does.”

  The dining establishment that they were “stuck with” was pretty flash, and Ramsey was right about the maître d’ being willing to keep the kitchen open for select clientele. When Ramsey excused himself to change his damp shirt, Lawrence anxiously scoped out the few remaining patrons, all on dessert. “In no time we’re going to be the only people here,” he fretted. “We should go to an all-night diner or something.”

  “This isn’t New York. There may not be any all-night diners in Bourne mouth.”

  “At least we should just order an entrée, no extras, and get the check in advance.”

  “You mean the bill.”

  “Check, bill, who gives a shit? Think Brits don’t still know you’re talking about money?”

  “Shh, calm down. You know very well that Ramsey’s not going to ask for a carryout of meatballs and a glass of water. Why not relax and enjoy yourself?”

  “Because it’s rude! These waiters want to go home!”

  “They may get overtime. The maître d’ sure did; Ramsey slipped him something crisp. I didn’t even recognize the denomination.”

  “Which is gross. Buying people like that.”

  “You’re one to talk! The biggest tipper I know.”

  “I don’t tip people to get them to stay up until three in the morning on my account, just in case I might want a second espresso.”

  “If we’re here ’til three a.m., I bet we’re not drinking coffee.”

  “That’s another thing. Whenever we’re out with Ramsey, you’re pretty liberal with the booze. You should watch yourself.”

  “I haven’t had a sip of wine, and I’m already criticized for drinking too much?”

  “Advance resolve never hurts…. By the way, your hair’s kind of a mess.”

  “Thanks for the boost of confidence. I thought you liked the way I looked.”

  “Well, sure. You look fine.”

  “Fine.”

  “Good.”

  “Fine or good? Which is it?”

  “Okay, good!”

  “So why does that make you mad?”

  “I’m not mad, I’m just hungry, and I wish Ramsey would stop powdering his nose and get his precious butt back here before we have to order breakfast instead.”

  “I thought you liked him.”

  “I like him fine.”

  “Fine again. I thought you liked him a lot.”

  “Yeah, a lot, so? What’s with you?”

  “What’s with you?”

  “Are you having a row?” Ramsey inquired pleasantly, taking his seat in a freshly starched white shirt.

  “No,” said Lawrence.

  “Then what would you call it?” said Irina.

  “Why call it anything?” said Lawrence.

  “How about ‘daft’?” said Irina.

  “Since when do you say daft?” Lawrence charged.

  “What’s wrong with daft?” said Irina.

  “It’s pretentious.”

  “What am I pretending to?” she countered. “Having lived in London for seven years? Besides, since when do you not have a taste for every synonym under the sun for stupid?” She’d tried to give the tease an affectionate cast, but it hadn’t come out right.

  “Sorry, but I’m feeling a bit left out,” said Ramsey. “Oi, do carry on, like. But someone might clue me up on what the argy-bargy’s about.”

  “The argy-bargy—if I’m allowed to say that—is about what all the best arguments are about: absolutely nothing,” Irina interpreted for their host. “It’s pure, like abstract expressionism. No vases or dead pheasants. Subject matter just gets in the way.”

  “Don’t be glib,” said Lawrence. “We were talking about something plenty substantive. I’m uncomfortable keeping all these restaurant employees after hours.”

  “I aim to make it worth their while,” Ramsey said smoothly, perusing the wine list, “and yours, mate.”

  The waiter took Irina’s order first, and she opted for the scallop starter, with wild bass and morels for the main course. Lawrence’s face twitched when Ramsey duplicated the same order, down to the side of spinach. Though his self-denial would not let the help go home a minute sooner, true to his vow Lawrence refused an appetizer, and chose the cheapest, plainest dish on the menu, some kind of roast chicken.

  Irina’s chair had been placed in front of a leg of the round table, and to make herself comfortable she’d scooted to one side. Moving the chair toward Ramsey had been a mistake; she’d left her partner geographically odd man out. Yet now to rearrange her chair on the opposite side of the table leg would seem strange.

  “An excellent choice, sir,” the waiter commended when Ramsey selected the wine—ergo, it was exorbitant. Once the bottle arrived, Lawrence put his hand over his glass, and asked for a beer. It seemed churlish. When Irina and Ramsey cooed over the saffron cream on the scallops, Lawrence wouldn’t taste one, but noshed antagonistically at a bread roll whose crust was so thick that he might have been gnawing on Ramsey’s leather jacket.

  Since Anorak Man was not playing his usual part of well-read snooker fan, Irina had no choice but to do the honors. After all, like many people with narrow specialties, Ramsey might have liked to express interest in professions like illustration or defense analysis, which were beyond his ken, but he didn’t want to ask dumb questions. That left it to his guests to ask dumb questions of him. Since the sounds at the table had reduced to those of clanking silver and the click of Ramsey’s cigarette lighter, the lamest of inquiries was better than none.

  “Is snooker a very old game?” asked Irina. “And where does it come from?”

  “Snooker is right recent. But it’s a variation on billiards, which goes back to the sixteenth century. China, Italy, Spain, as well as Britain a
ll claim they invented the game.”

  “Nice to be fought over,” said Irina. This very evening suggested otherwise.

  “Snooker grown out of a version of billiards called ‘black pool.’”

  “Like the coastal town?” asked Irina. “Is that what the place is named for?”

  “Blackpool,” Ramsey ruminated. “Maybe. Never thought of that.”

  “How could you dine out on stories about ‘black pool’ and not have thought of that?” asked Lawrence.

  “’Cos I’m a poor dim bugger,” said Ramsey affably, heading off that this was exactly what Lawrence meant. “As for where snooker came from, people say it were invented by Neville Chamberlain.”

  “At least there was one arena in which the guy had balls,” said Lawrence.

  All that skipping school in Clapham had come at a cost. Ramsey looked blank. “Chamberlain was a colonel in the British Army, stationed in India. Them blokes must have got dead bored. Black pool already used fifteen red balls and a black. Chamberlain added the other colors, and invented new rules. In India, there’s still a snooker hall in the Ooty Club at Ootacamund what’s preserved as the cradle of the game. Always wanted to head there, I have. The table’s meant to be the absolute business. They’re right particular about who gets to play, but I wager they’d let Ramsey Acton hit a few.”

  “This’d be your idea of a pilgrimage?” asked Lawrence. “The Ooty Club?”

  “You could say that,” said Ramsey, unfazed by Lawrence’s tone. “In the old days, balls was made of ivory. Had to be cut from the very center of the tusk. Word is some twelve thousand elephants gave their lives for the glory of snooker. I got a set myself—cost a king’s ransom, they did. Should stop by and take a geek at them someday. Hardly ever play that set. But you get a click from the ivory, a ring, that modern balls can’t match.”

  “Lawrence might find that fascinating,” said Irina.

  “Oi, I reckon the ivories are more the sort of thing an artist might fancy.”

  “I’m not big on pilgrimages,” said Lawrence. “So feel free, Irina. Go see his etchings.”

  “Really, Lawrence is the snooker fan,” she said firmly.

  “Seem pretty interested yourself, love.”

  “Only up to a point,” she said, softening a crust with the saffron sauce intently.

  Ramsey glugged Chateau Neuf du Pape in both their glasses. The hand hovered over her setting—the slim wrist, the tapered fingers. Lawrence took a niggardly sip of lager. Ramsey lit another fag. Lawrence waved the smoke from his face.

  “So what are balls made of now?” she proceeded in despair, like reshouldering a heavy suitcase when it was clear that no one else was going to help.

  “Plastic,” said Ramsey, spewing smoke. “It’s thanks to snooker that plastic were invented. Changed the face of the world, this game did. Though some would say”—he clicked a nail against the Perspex salt cellar—“not for the better.”

  Lawrence squinted. “Neville Chamberlain invented snooker, and snooker invented plastic. Are you making this up?”

  “I ain’t that clever, mate. It’s true. Them ivory balls was so bleeding dear that the sport were desperate for a substitute, and put out a reward, right? It was you lot got it sorted as well, back in the days you Yanks was always inventing shite. Manufacturing outfit called Phelan runs adverts offering ten large in gold for a ball you don’t have to shoot an elephant to make—right inconvenient, you’d agree. Chap named John Wesley Hyatt in Albany, a printer, comes up with the first version by accident. Spills some printer’s what-all that hardens like a treat.”

  “You mean, the way the telephone was invented,” said Lawrence.

  Since Alexander Graham Bell had nothing to do with snooker, Ramsey looked uncomprehending again. “Trouble is, them first plastic balls? Hit them together hard enough and they’d explode.”

  Irina laughed. Lawrence didn’t.

  “What I’d give to have a set of them,” said Ramsey fondly. “Gives a whole new meaning to safety play.”

  “Lawrence! Finally snooker and terrorism intersect.”

  “Modern balls,” said Lawrence with a steely quality, “are made of super chrystalate.”

  “Good on you!” Ramsey raised his glass (not that he appeared to require an excuse), and the arrival of their entrées suggested a change of course in more than one sense. “So, Anorak Man! What’s up with the, you know, the politics and that?”

  Irina wished that Ramsey were skillful enough to make his asking after her partner’s affairs seem better than conversational duty. But then, Irina suspected that Ramsey had no earthly idea what a “think tank” was.

  “This year, a lot of my work concerns Northern Ireland.”

  As if Lawrence had evoked a hypnotist’s trigger to send his subject into a trance, Ramsey’s eyes spontaneously filmed. Irina had seen it before: all over the world, the incantation Northern Ireland had magical powers. With the potential to put commercial soporifics out of business, the topic could drive die-hard insomniacs into a deep, dreamless sleep within sixty seconds.

  “Now that he’s got a ceasefire in his grubby hands,” Lawrence continued obliviously, “Blair has dropped all the other preconditions unionists have demanded for letting Sinn Fein into talks—like an IRA weapons handover and a declaration that the war is over. Blair’s concessions up-front could be harbingers of more outrageous concessions in a settlement down the road.”

  Ramsey looked up from his wild bass with a hint of panic. The pause in Lawrence’s monologue seemed to indicate an apt juncture at which to pass comment. None was forthcoming.

  “Concessions like what?” Irina felt like a young thespian’s mother prompting her dumbstruck ward from the audience when the kid only has one line.

  “Obviously, giving in on a united Ireland,” said Lawrence, shooting Irina a what-are-you-stupid? look that she knew all too well. “Putting together some bullshit federation, or handing Dublin the power and London the bill. But there are other issues—prisoners, the RUC…”

  Lawrence continued in this vein for some minutes, until Ramsey looked about to fall over. Whenever Lawrence talked shop, he used words like dispensation and remit and arcane phrases like it isn’t in Adams’s gift. He was proud of his mastery of fine points, but didn’t seem to understand that for people like Ramsey you had to connect the dots, to tell a story—and to explain why of all people a snooker player should care.

  “Alex Higgins is from Belfast, isn’t he?” said Irina.

  “Yeah,” said Ramsey, with a glance of gratitude. “And just like Higgins, I always get the impression them Taigs and Prods revel in the mayhem—that they don’t want it to be over, that they enjoy it.” Heartened, or a shade more awake, he braved another thought. “Still, the bleeding empire’s over, innit? Might as well let them bastards have their freedom.”

  “Northern Ireland has nothing to do with colonialism!” Lawrence exploded. “It’s about democracy! The Protestants are in the majority, and the majority want to stay in the UK. They don’t want their goddamned freedom!”

  Ramsey looked bewildered. “But—all them bombs and that…” It was for all the world like watching a small boy wander into traffic. “Why not give them IRA wankers what they want and wash our hands of the tip?”

  Lawrence’s eyes lit up like the twin headlights of an oncoming semi. “That’s exactly the reaction they’re COUNTING ON! Why are all you Brits a bunch of SHEEP? This country stood up to HITLER! Your friend Neville Chamberlain may have been a craven suck-up, but Churchill had brass balls! London was half leveled by the Nazis and stood fast, and now with a few car bombs in shopping centers the whole country’s ready to cave!”

  Ramsey messed with the cellophane on a new pack of Gauloises. “Never understood the whole carry-on myself,” he mumbled.

  “It’s actually pretty simple,” said Irina, who wouldn’t cite too many fine points, since she couldn’t remember any. “Terrorists use your own decency as a weapon. You don’t want peo
ple to get hurt, so you do what you’re told. How the troubles play out is a test case for whether being an asshole pays off.”

  “Of course being an arsehole pays off,” said Ramsey, shooting her another grateful glance. “Take Alex Higgins! Hardly wins any tournaments at all, and his two World Championships are ten years apart. Makes a packet mostly for being the most obnoxious, abusive, destructive, insulting, and all-round unbearable berk on the planet. You realize, don’t you, there ain’t a hotel left in Britain will let him stay the night? He’s banned from Cornwall to the Hebrides! I wreck that many hotel rooms, there’d be five competing biographies of me as well.”

  “Actually, that’s not a bad parallel—from what I understand,” she added, with a deferential nod to Lawrence. “Remember all the traffic seizures on motorways last spring?”

  “Got stuck on the M-4 on the way to Plymouth for the British Open for the better part of a bloody day.”

  “IRA hoax threats, but they worked. And remember how another IRA hoax threat delayed the Grand National in April? Well, giving folks like that what they want is like the management handing Alex Higgins two splits of champagne and a complimentary bouquet after he’s trashed his hotel room.”

  Throughout this exchange—whose mysteriously ulterior quality made it seem a misuse, even abuse, of an issue that Lawrence cared about very much—Irina’s shoulders had swiveled thirty degrees toward Ramsey. When she tried to yank them to a more neutral orientation, they seemed cast in this attitude in bronze.

  “Northern Ireland’s not boring,” Lawrence insisted, as if the fierceness of his assertion could make it true. “The details may be hard to follow. But it’s the biggest issue in this country, and other scumbags around the world will be watching closely how a settlement turns out. Sinn Fein walks away with that bouquet, plenty of other cities will go blooie. It just floors me how the British don’t give a shit.”

  Meanwhile a chorus of song arose from the hotel’s bar. Ramsey cocked a wan, private smile. Around the corner his mates were having a high old time, while he was stuck in this poxy restaurant in earnest discourse about Northern Ireland. As the throng at the bar grew more boisterous, Ramsey joined in on the refrain: “Snooker loopy nuts are we / Me and him and them and me—”