‘You don’t seriously believe that.’
Actually Jack doesn’t seriously believe it, but he can’t back down now.
‘Why wouldn’t I believe it? All the scientists say the same thing. Just because it’s scary, or inconvenient, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.’
And only a couple of weeks ago in his college room he’d argued with passion that feeling guilty about something doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. Look at all the Victorians who were racked with guilt over masturbation, and really they needn’t have bothered.
‘Jack,’ says his father. ‘I’m a historian. History tells me that every generation thinks they’re living in the end time. When I was young we all believed we’d be wiped out by a nuclear war. It’s a kind of mass vanity. Every generation convinces itself it’s facing the apocalypse.’
‘So history says don’t bother? History says it’ll all come out fine in the end?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘Then history’s part of the problem. You’re using history as a comfort blanket, Dad.’
Jack is bemused to hear himself. Why is he being so aggressive to his father? Somehow a chain of cause and effect has led him from shame at his passivity with girls to contempt for his father’s use of history. And this even though he knows very well it’s a sensitive area. His father’s job is making television programmes about history. He once said, ‘Watch out for those last two syllables, Jack. History is mostly story. Heavily simplified accounts of the past give people the illusion that everything works out in the end.’
Now over the breakfast table Henry Broad breaks the unintended deadlock with his disarming lopsided grin.
‘Oh, it’s far worse than that,’ he says. ‘I’m using history as a way to make a living. At least until the commissions dry up.’
For two years now he and his partner Aidan Massey have been at work on a major series tracing forms of social organization, from the hunter-gatherer tribes of the Stone Age to the multinational corporations of today. It’s called The Power of Society.
‘You’ve always got work,’ Jack says. ‘More than you want.’
‘ITV’s stopped commissioning. Channel 4’s broke. That leaves the BBC as the only act in town.’ Again that rueful grin. ‘People are scared. I’ve never known it like this.’
‘Is Aidan scared?’
‘He doesn’t show it, but he is. He doesn’t fancy living on his academic salary alone. But at least he’s got that.’
‘So how bad could it get, Dad?’
Both on the same side now, the way it should be.
‘Oh, we won’t starve. We’ve got Laura’s money. Though that’s not what it was, of course. And if I don’t pick up another job when this one ends, I’ll be able to get on with my own work, won’t I?’
The history book he’s always wanted to write, but never had the time. Jack feels a pang of love.
‘The new series will be a huge hit, Dad. They won’t let you go yet.’
His mother comes into the kitchen.
‘Are you in for lunch, Jack?’
‘No, I’m going out. Can I borrow your car?’
He picks a table in the saloon bar at Harvey’s that looks towards the door so that he can see when Chloe comes in. He gets himself a drink but leaves the food until she comes. The fantasy is back and now out of control. It broke out of its cage as he left home, and is become a monster. He has wild notions of Chloe greeting him with a kiss, holding his hand in hers, whispering words of love. Then more: half-glimpsed images of her naked body, half-felt impressions of her embrace. His reason is powerless in the face of this onslaught of longing. He mocks himself, he predicts humiliation, all in vain. It’s not that he seriously expects any of his dreams to come true; but on the other hand this is no longer pure fantasy. Chloe is real and near and about to walk through the door.
Only of course it’s Alice Dickinson who shows up first.
She looks round, finds him, gives an awkward little wave. She’s taller than he remembers, probably taller than him. A long thin face that reminds him of someone. Her eyes wear that tentative look he knows so well, because it’s his own default mode, the expression that says: Do you want my company? If not I’ll go away again.
‘Hi,’ she says.
He jumps up to greet her. A boy with manners.
‘What do you want to drink?’
‘Oh, anything,’ she says. ‘White wine.’
He goes to the bar and gets her a drink, glancing all the time towards the door. When he returns to the table Alice has got her coat off and is sitting there smiling at him.
‘Thanks,’ she says.
‘So how’s things?’
‘Oh, not too bad. How about you?’
‘Good. Yes, good.’
He looks towards the door, and sees Alice catch his look. No point in hiding it.
‘So you still keep up with Chloe,’ he says.
‘Not really,’ says Alice. ‘I met her on the train on Friday, coming home. We got talking. Before that … well, I don’t know that I’ve seen her since Underhill.’
‘Do you see any of the others from Underhill?’
‘No. Not really. Do you?’
‘I meet up with Angus Critchell now and then. He lives in our village.’
‘I remember Angus. His hair always stuck up.’
‘Still does.’
‘The funny thing is when I think of Underhill I go all nostalgic, but actually I was miserable there.’
‘Were you?’ says Jack. ‘Why?’
‘I didn’t fit in, somehow. I think I didn’t have much in the way of social skills as a child.’ She gives a quick shy smile. ‘Still don’t.’
‘I was just an idiot,’ says Jack. ‘It embarrasses me to think about it. Do you remember Toby Clore?’
‘Of course.’
‘I was obsessed with Toby Clore. I wanted to be Toby Clore. I wonder what’s happened to him? He’ll be doing something glamorous but dodgy.’
‘And you wanted to be like him? Glamorous but dodgy?’
‘God, yes. Instead I’m decent but dull. I’m learning to live with it.’
She laughs, not nervously this time.
‘I know that one,’ she says. ‘That’s a pre-emptive defence.’
‘A what?’
‘You name the thing you don’t want to be, to make it not happen. Like when you get asked about some exam and you say, I’ll probably make a mess of it. You’re not planning on making a mess of it, but you think if you say it aloud you’ll earn the pity of the gods or something.’
‘That’s so exactly what I do.’
Another glance at the door. He checks his watch.
‘I don’t know what’s happened to Chloe.’
‘I don’t think she’s coming,’ says Alice.
‘Why not? She’s the one fixed this up.’
‘I know,’ says Alice. She looks away. ‘But she can’t make it.’
‘Did she tell you?’
‘Yes.’
‘She never called me.’
Even as he says it Jack knows he’s being stupid. Of course Chloe was never going to come. Miracles don’t happen. It’s all just been a game.
Suddenly the situation has turned embarrassing. There’s a silence he can’t break.
‘Okay,’ says Alice. ‘This is all a really bad idea. I should never have let Chloe talk me into it.’ She’s pushing a beer mat round the shiny tabletop with one finger. ‘She thought she was doing me a favour.’
Jack can’t speak. He feels angry with himself for letting himself hope so much. And beyond the anger, the sinking feeling, the start of school term feeling. The long empty hallway waiting to take him back, the cheap light of a low-powered bulb, the walls a faded institutional grey: the place where you pass the long days before your real life begins.
Alice says, ‘How about we just cut our losses and go?’
Her game effort at being bright and easy penetrates Jack’s self-pity. What can this b
e costing her? He can’t just get up and walk away. And anyway, where’s he going to go where it’ll be any better?
‘What about lunch?’ he says.
‘I’m not sure I want any lunch.’
‘Aren’t you hungry?’
Of course she isn’t hungry, any more than he is. But you always revert to the conventions in times of stress. Never underestimate the usefulness of the superficial.
‘It’s not that,’ she says. ‘But you came here to be with Chloe, and I’m not Chloe.’
A simple statement of truth. To his own surprise Jack is released by this.
‘What the hell,’ he says. ‘We might as well eat.’
So they order food from the bar. Alice has a cheese toastie, Jack has a hamburger, and everything changes. Their lunch ceases to be a date, whether intended or not, and because Jack has failed to get anywhere with Chloe, and Alice has failed to get anywhere with Jack, they fall into a rueful mode of mutual sympathy.
Alice tells Jack about how she met Chloe on the train.
‘It was like she had too many boys after her and I had too few, so she more or less offered to donate one of hers.’
She’s half-laughing as she speaks but she’s also dying of embarrassment.
‘God, what a loser I am,’ she says.
‘Try being me,’ says Jack. ‘I thought just because she asked me to have lunch with her that she was interested in me.’
‘Why wouldn’t you? I think you’ve been cheated. If I were you I’d ask for my money back.’
‘Still, no harm done.’
‘Really?’
‘How about you?’
‘Harm done,’ she says.
Their eyes meet. A moment of silence. Alice smiles, then shrugs.
‘Oh, God,’ says Jack. ‘Why does it have to be so hard?’
‘My stepfather says the big mistake we make is expecting things to work out. Once you get it that the natural order is for things not to work out, everything makes much more sense.’
‘But it’s not exactly cheering, is it?’
‘It is in a way. I mean, take Chloe. She’s so pretty, I could easily think everything works out for her, but it doesn’t. So I don’t need to envy her. Except I do.’ She pulls a comical face at her own absurdity. ‘That’s how stupid I am.’
‘But you wouldn’t rather be Chloe than you.’
‘Yes, I would. Any day. Like you wanting to be Toby Clore.’
‘I don’t want to be Toby Clore. I just want his confidence. Actually what I want is his selfishness. He just does what he wants. Or he did.’
‘And you’re all sensitive to the needs of others.’
‘Yes,’ says Jack. ‘Unfortunately.’
‘What’s unfortunate about that?’
‘Well, it doesn’t get me what I want, for a start.’
His eyes on her as she listens. He catches a sudden glimpse of how you can see a person in a face. Nothing to do with how good-looking they are.
‘Actually it’s not me being unselfish at all. It’s me being timid. The thing about Toby is he was fearless.’
‘And Chloe.’
‘Or here’s another possibility. Maybe they’re both just thick.’
Alice laughs. ‘Yes, I like that. Chloe the dim bimbo. I have to salvage my dignity somehow. I’m the one in the corner of the library with the spectacles who’s going to discover a cure for cancer.’
‘Are you a scientist?’
‘No, Jack. And I don’t wear spectacles. I’m doing English. Not much scope for saving the world there.’
‘I’m doing English too,’ Jack says.
‘Yes, I know.’ Facebook tells all. Then she blushes and covers her tracks. ‘Alan keeps up with his old class. My stepfather.’
‘So how are you finding it?’
‘I love it. The reading, I mean. Paradise Lost turns out to be amazing.’
‘We’re still on Gawain and the Green Knight.’
‘No Beowulf?’
‘No, thank God.’
‘Lucky you,’ says Alice. ‘And you’re in a proper university town. London’s not a university town. All I have to do is go out into the street to feel irrelevant.’
‘You think being at Cambridge makes everyone feel relevant?’
‘I should think you feel like one of the rulers of the world.’
‘Well, I don’t. I feel like a fraud. I feel like I’m the one who was let in by mistake.’
Suddenly he realizes who she reminds him of.
‘You look a bit like Virginia Woolf.’
‘Thanks. Now do I go and drown myself?’
‘Good writer.’
‘I’ve never read her.’
‘I’ve only read To the Lighthouse.’ He grins. Somehow by starting off with Alice on such a footing of honesty everything they say is made easier. ‘Do you have secret books you love?’ he says. ‘Books you don’t admit you read?’
‘Yes. Do you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll tell if you tell.’
‘Go on, then,’ he says. ‘You first.’
‘Little House on the Prairie. All eight books. I still cry when Mary goes blind.’
‘I’ve never read them.’
‘Works of genius.’
‘Tintin,’ says Jack. ‘I still read my old Tintins.’
‘We never had Tintin.’
‘Works of genius.’
By now they’ve just about finished their lunch.
‘You want another drink?’ says Jack.
‘Sure, why not? My round.’
She gets a glass of wine for herself, another beer for Jack. Her way of making it clear she expects no more than friendship.
‘Do you read Jane Austen?’ she says.
‘Of course.’
‘You realize Chloe’s been doing an Emma on us?’
‘Oh, God! That makes me the ghastly vicar. What was his name?’
‘Mr Elton. And I’m dim little Harriet Smith.’
‘Didn’t Mr Elton convince himself Emma was interested in him when she wasn’t at all?’
‘Yes. She was trying to set him up with Harriet Smith.’
‘This is appalling.’
‘The difference is, Chloe could easily be interested in you.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Why wouldn’t she be?’
‘She just doesn’t think of me that way, that’s all.’
‘She might. People change.’
Jack thinks about that. Maybe he should take a longer view.
‘She’s bound to ask me about you,’ says Alice. ‘She’ll want to know what happened today.’
‘What will you tell her?’
‘What do you want me to tell her?’
‘I don’t see that it really matters,’ says Jack. ‘I can’t think of anything you could tell Chloe about me that would get her interested.’
‘I could tell her you dragged me onto the railway land and ravished me and it was the most thrilling sex I’ve ever had in my life.’
‘Do you think she’d believe you?’
‘No. Not really.’
‘You could tell her I’m dark and brooding and moody.’
‘Are you?’
‘Well, I brood a lot.’
‘I know what,’ says Alice. ‘I’ll tell her you’ve got a girlfriend at Cambridge. I think she’d get off on the idea of stealing you from another girl.’
‘I haven’t got a girlfriend at Cambridge. Or I did, but we broke up. I told Chloe I was available.’
‘I could say you lied. You have girlfriends all over the place. You pretend to be available because you’re so promiscuous.’
‘Serious fantasy time.’ Jack’s impressed. ‘Why not? Make up anything you like.’
‘You drive a Porsche.’
‘I’m renting one tomorrow.’
They grin at each other again. This is how I should be with all girls, Jack thinks. Light and easy. This is how I should be with Chloe. But he knows he
can only be funny with Alice because he doesn’t fancy her. It’s a cruel game played by fate or evolution or something. When you really love someone you turn into a wally.
23
Carrie sits as still as she can in the chair by the window, and talks as the old man paints. She hasn’t decided yet whether he’s a weirdo or a saddo but when you think about it, what does it matter? It’s different. She’s never been painted before.
‘What will you do with the picture when it’s finished?’
‘I don’t really know,’ he says. He never stops painting when he talks. His eyes keep on moving back and forth between her and the canvas. This has a freeing effect on Carrie, as if whatever she says to him will have no consequences. ‘Maybe I’ll put it in my show. I don’t know. When you paint a picture you don’t think about what will happen to it. You think about painting it.’
‘What show?’
‘I’m having a show in the barn here. The Thursday before Christmas.’
‘That’s this Thursday.’
‘Is it? Then I’d better buck up.’
But he keeps on working in the same careful way, mixing little squeezes of paint, stabbing at the canvas, bright eyes behind the gleam of spectacles jumping back and forth.
‘Can I come to your show?’
‘No.’
‘Oh.’
She didn’t expect that. Probably he thinks she’s too young, or too stupid.
‘Come the day before. I’ll give you a private view.’
‘You don’t have to.’
‘No, you must. I’d like you to.’
She feels restless.
‘Do you have a toilet?’
‘Only a thunderbox out in the yard.’
‘A thunderbox?’
‘No flush. No sewer.’
‘What! So where does everything go?’
‘Into a hole in the ground.’
She pulls a face, decides she can wait till she’s home. But she doesn’t want to go home yet.
‘Really when you think about it,’ he says, ‘everything goes into a hole in the ground. Including us.’
This strikes Carrie as both true and important.
‘Right,’ she says. ‘I mean, why do anything?’
‘There’s a question.’
Carrie warms to the theme.
‘I mean, what’s the point? You’re supposed to work hard and do well and stuff, but what difference does it make? So what if you get good A-levels? So what if you go to uni? They try to tell you you’ve got all this choice but really everyone ends up just the same. It’s like at school, they make this big deal over uniform, you get to the sixth form and you’re allowed to wear trousers, and you know what makes me laugh? People really care about it. They do that to you. They make you feel like you’re more important because you can wear trousers.’