I am reading over my mother’s shoulder – a magazine, Homes and Gardens or Woman’s Realm or People’s Friend, or perhaps Reader’s Digest, because my parents subscribed without fail. The Most Fascinating Character I Ever Met. Humour in Uniform. I am bored, and have brought no comic of my own, and am tired of looking out of the window at the flat featureless estates of west London. I stare over my mother’s shoulder and read the headline, over a line drawing, a kind of collage, that suggests a combination of laughing children, cosy hearths, eager husbands sitting down to enjoy freshly cooked food, knitting, dancing. The headline reads ‘What is the Most Important Thing in Life?’ in some big, bold, confident typeface, set above a white-out-of-black bullet, in copperplate at an angle, like a signature: The Editor Writes.
And I, bored, turn to my mother and ask the question, the very question that appears in the magazine headline, because there’s nothing else to do. I don’t expect her to say anything, because she never does. Too busy, always too busy. I expect her to bat away the question with a dontbesilly or nevermind or notnow. Instead there was just silence.
Mum, what’s the answer?
I stab my finger at the headline.
She stares at me, surprised through her overlarge spectacles. Her eyes seem suddenly less milky than usual, less absent. To my surprise, she considers the question seriously. She shifts in her seat, she furrows the already deep lines on her brow, touches her lips with a finger leathered at the tip from hard, relentless work as a seamstress.
Some emotion passes across her face, an emotion I do not recognize, and that I find oddly disturbing. The mood that surrounds us, a tiny invisible bubble, switches from soft indifference to something earnest and charged.
Ah. The. Most. Important. Thing. Now that’s not easy, is it, Francis? I shall have to think about that one for a bit.
She seems puzzled, lost.
Well, I suppose. I suppose it’s –
The bus conductor sounds the bell, turns the wheel of his ticket dispenser with a flourish. The bus begins to slow, and as it does, increases in vibration so that it feels like a great, tired cement mixer. A newspaper, left on an empty seat, moves in response, slides to the floor, separating its pages and joining the mush of cigarettes, old tickets, used paper hankies.
My mother’s face suddenly composes itself, as if a series of pins had connected with a series of aligned holes, so that now the system could be at equilibrium, run smoothly once more. This state of equilibrium is confirmed by a series of vacant nods, bobbing one after the other.
It’s your friends, isn’t it?
She says this with a newly discovered certainty, as if she has just found a lost gold ring down the sofa. There it is.
Friends. They’re the most important thing in your life, Frankie. If you’ve got good friends, you’ve got a solid base, you see. Friends help see you through.
She says this firmly, with absolute conviction and a kind of ferocity I don’t think I had ever seen in her before. And I look at her, right into those watery pale eyes, thinking, but not saying, hoping she can’t hear my thoughts like mothers sometimes can, But, Mum. You don’t have any friends.
And this was true. A child, a full-time job, a husband who was shy to the point of blind terror. There was no time, and if there was time, then Dad – Dad wouldn’t actually have objected, but it was out of the question. He blushed when the neighbours said hello, blushed when the postman delivered a parcel. The strength in his face, strength that had seen him work delivering coal around the streets of west London for twenty years, was reduced to a series of apologetic lines and stutters.
No friends. My father, although a well-liked man, gentle enough and well mannered, had no place in his life for them, and he didn’t seem to mind. Happy in his rare moments of leisure reading the Sunday Mirror and the News of the World, listening to his Bush transistor radio, eating noiselessly the plain food Flossie cooked for him. No need for friends. Flossie was different, but she went along. Women did go along in those days, at least in the Goldhawk Road.
The nine-year-old me looks at my mother, sees that she is no longer aware of me, is staring out of the window. The bubble turns blue, ochre, grey. I was never a particularly sensitive child, yet I can quite clearly see her pain, so suddenly surfaced, like an aura or shadow around her head. I see with a shock that feels like a slap with an open hand that she is lonely – dreadfully and utterly lonely. And then and there I decide, and recite an incantation.
I will never be lonely, I will be liked. Never be lonely, I will be liked. Never be lonely, I will be liked.
With each private sounding of the word never I bite the back of my hand, so hard it leaves toothmarks. This thought is formed in my head like a heavy monument that starts to sink into soft ground the moment it is raised, sink from view, sink far underground. But in my memory, suddenly, I can see it, the largeness and realness of it, the determination that underpins and stabilizes it. I will never be lonely, I will be…
The bus slows further, then stops. The rainbow collapses, surface appearances are re-established, leathery, unbreachable.
Ah, here we are then. Our stop.
The mood switches back, the bubble changes colour, is forgotten to conscious mind. Forgotten until now, here, twenty years later, in a house empty apart from me, staring at my board, my board of paper friends, stuck through with dozens of small, sharp, multicoloured rapiers.
Chapter Four: Her Hot Buttons and How to Press Them
Nodge has started again. He speaks between puffs of cigarette. Nodge, despite all his ordinary Joe trappings, smokes like a Hollywood movie star. He does it with real style, holds it just so, inhales long, a deep, slightly bent wrist. A kind of Zen connection between him and it. It’s a talent that very few people have got. Cigarettes and the way he smokes them are his only flourish.
Ghosht Taba. Velvety spheres of finely minced young lamb flavoured with cardamom in a yoghurt gravy cooked on a slow fire. The crowning glory of the Wazwan legendary ceremonial feast of thirty-six courses. What a huge, great, enormous…
A waiter glides up to the table, detached, superior. He is not Indian, rather Mediterranean.
Anything to drink, gentlemen?
Yes, says Nodge. Could I have marbled wheaten cordial topped with a creamy nimbus cloud of white foam as beloved of the German emperors.
The waiter looks blank.
He means a lager, I say, smiling apologetically.
And I’ll kick off with a Margarita, says Tony.
I never thought I’d see the day when a curry house would do Margaritas. The waiter looks delighted. I’m not surprised at six pounds a pop.
We order the food. Tony has the Ghosht Taba, me and Nodge go for the Pacific Shrimp Tandoori with Escarole Salad, me because I like leaf and shrimps, Nodge because he’s trying to lose weight as always. Although it isn’t on the menu, Colin asks for a Chicken Madras, because that’s what he always has when he goes to an Indian restaurant and he hates change. Colin just wants things to stay the same. The waiter, in a way that suggests he is being extremely tolerant and understanding of someone who is probably mentally disadvantaged, agrees to have it cooked specially for him.
We settle. The tension between Nodge and DT has faded now, back into the realm of latency, to be stored with a whole database of other complaints and resentments, carefully filed away over the years, waiting for reactivation by present circumstance. One day, the whole thing’s going to blow. It’s unstable.
Colin and Nodge are still mourning the inadequacies of the Rs, while D T bangs on to me about the opening of his new shop, his third now. I listen politely, but I’m still rehearsing the beginning of speeches in my head.
– I’ve got some great news.
– I’ve got some terrible news.
– I’ve got some news which may come as something of a shock.
Tony senses my lack of interest – one of the many things that really winds him up – and turns away to pitch in his final point of
view about the performance of the current manager. QPR are perhaps the last subject that truly binds us together – or at least that we are prepared to discuss. No, not quite the last subject. Although I don’t know whether our references to sex count as discussions. They can be, I suppose. For instance, now Tony is starting one of his pesting stories. He always says that he can pest a woman into bed, and he can. I’ve co-pested with him sometimes.
His voice is getting louder as he reaches the end of the story.
So we’re just heading up the stairs to the bedroom, so it’s locked and loaded, right? I’m there. Four stairs to go, I’m counting them. One, two, three. I’m already going for my fucking zip. She’s mad for it. Then she stops, and I think, what the fuck is this? And she turns round right there on the stairs. I’m totally binnered, right? Don’t know what’s going on. All I want to do is get my shreddies off. Do the business. And so she turns round, and stops. And I’m thinking, like, what the fuck is this? Then she looks me right in the eyes – right smack in the fucking eyes – and says – get this – she says, ‘What’s my name?’
Colin and Nodge start to crack up. Tony’s face is showing red through the tan, his teeth exposed, white.
What’s my fucking name? she says. Nightmare. And I’m thinking, I have got to get this one right. This has gone too far. My kecks are almost off. And I can’t get it. I just can’t recall it. And you know. These things matter to a doris.
I let his voice drift in and out of focus, barely aware now of the gusts of laughter coming from all three of them. The beer is really working now. Then I become vaguely aware of the laughter dying away. There’s one of those small uncomfortable gaps you get when a story has finished. Tony, always the most uncomfortable with silence, has picked up a copy of Loaded from Colin’s windcheater and started flicking through it, stopping at the pages where there are exposed breasts.
I speak, just to fill the silence.
How’s your mum, Colin?
Colin’s mum has been ill for about thirty-five years. It’s always polite to ask, though probably a more to the point question would be, is she dead yet?
Colin screws up his face.
Actually, she’s really not well at all. I mean, really not well, this time. The hospital sent us this report. I’ve been very worried. I just wish that –
Tony, who hasn’t been listening, suddenly lets out a bellow and begins to wave the copy of Loaded in the air.
This is great. ‘Her Hot Buttons and How to Press Them’. This I have to read.
He gives a little giggle, a small effervescence at the back of his throat. Colin looks crushed, even slightly irritated, but doesn’t say anything. Tony’s looking at me when he talks. I don’t give any kind of encouraging smile, because it’s obvious to me that Colin is genuinely upset and wants to finish what he was saying. But Tony is an unstoppable force. Anyway, the atmosphere that would allow a discussion about anything other than surface stuff has been blown. Tony’s on a roll.
Tony loves talking about sex as much as Colin likes talking about football. He pretends to be a misogynist. He pretends everything. I’m beginning to think that we all do, so much that we don’t notice any more. That’s a strange thought. You’re pretending, and you don’t know you’re pretending. But why would you bother?
Anyway, Tony and sex. We go along with it. You have to talk about something. Once it was all spontaneous, full on, a giggle, like magic, the jokes, the one-liners, the just being together. An improvisation, like some record on Blue Note. Now we just go along with it.
Colin and Nodge let their conversation fade out. Nodge is peering over Tony’s shoulder at a photograph of a close-up of a face of a women whose expression is clearly meant to mimic orgasm. Mouth open, eyes closed, neck stretched.
Our food arrives, occupying a small space in the centre of outsize white china plates. It is not the usual orange and brown mess, but looks elegant and quite edible. Nothing’s the same any more, not even curry. We pick up our cutlery and begin to eat, leaving a gap for what we know is sure to come. Colin begins to speak, quietly.
This really tastes of –
Tony looks up from the magazine and interrupts Colin without a qualm. Addressing us generally, he says, What’s the most times you’ve ever made a woman come?
He leans back and waits for the reaction, grinning. Off to my right, I think I see Colin blush slightly and look down at his drink. Colin always drinks the same thing – Holsten Pils. I gave him a blind tasting once against Kronenbourg, Fosters and Staropramen. He couldn’t tell the difference. It’s not a matter of taste really. As I say, Colin just likes things to stay the same.
Nodge coughs and doesn’t laugh. He considers the question disrespectful, not to himself but to women. Nodge pretends to be a feminist, like Tony pretends to be a misogynist. They’re both just striking poses as far as I’m concerned. At least Colin’s an honest loser and authentic Sad Bloke.
Nodge must be the only taxi driver in London who reads the New Statesman. Many a punter has been bewildered in the rear of his cab to hear him holding forth about the evils of sexism, racism and Third World debt.
Now his cigarette seems to drop several degrees – beautifully, it must be said – as his mouth puckers.
Is this a competition?
He takes his cigarette from his mouth and stubs it out. He grinds it, like the ashtray was Kevin Gallen’s head.
He starts to eat his shrimps. It’s about time, since by now he’s already consumed half of Colin’s Madras, a good mouthful of Tony’s Ghosht Taba, three trendy poppadoms and a whole portion of rice which was meant to be shared between us. I start to hum a football song, half under my breath.
Who ate all the pies? Who ate all the pies? You fat bastard, you fat bastard, you ate all the pies.
Tony shrugs at Nodge’s question, those big shoulders of his tugging at the seams of his four-button linen-mix midnight-blue bespoke suit.
Tony’s face takes on an expression of unconvincing innocence. One thing Tony’s face could never do convincingly is look innocent. Even at rest, his face suggests a leer.
No. I’m just curious.
Nodge remains looking suspicious. Suspicion comes as naturally to his face as innuendo does to Tony’s. He narrows his eyes behind his specs against the smoke still coiling from his smouldering, soggy dog-end. He’s been in the sun; his neck is like a firehose poking out from that grey no-nonsense drill shirt.
Tony and Nodge don’t always get along. But although I don’t much like the question, I like the way Tony throws stones into ponds. It makes him entertaining. And if Tony isn’t entertaining, what’s the point of him?
I’m already deciding what kind of lie I’m going to tell in response, when Colin, to my surprise, speaks in that soft, vague dither of his.
What, in, um, in one, er, session, or in one night?
Like Nodge, he has a tinge of red around the ears now, but not from the sun. Colin is embarrassed. So he has become doubly amiable, tries to affect a knowing amusement. I find it hard to believe that Colin has ever aroused anyone to climax other than, and very frequently, himself. Having looked up at Tony, he returns his stare to the bottle of Holsten Pils. This is his sixth of the night and the drink has made him momentarily bold.
The music is very loud. Not your usual duelling sitars with some bird from Delhi having a fit, but something dark and threatening; Portishead first album, I think. I call over the waiter, who nods indifferently.
Would you mind turning the music down a bit?
He shrugs. A few seconds later, the music is reduced by perhaps one tenth of a degree of a single notch. Afterwards, it will renew its inevitable upward drift as the waiters get more and more bored and anticipate a night of clubbing ahead once they’ve got rid of all the annoying customers.
Of course, Nodge is right. This is a competition. Nearly everything’s a competition between me, Nodge, Tony and even Colin. Colin’s job is to come last, and he does it well. He’s a champ at it. He alw
ays wins at that. It’s one of the reasons why we keep him around.
The competitions are never acknowledged as such, though. That’s one of the rules. There are lots of rules in our relationship. I still haven’t been able to work them all out. Because, the rules are something else you can’t acknowledge. You can’t acknowledge anything, actually. If you’ve got something to say, you have to say it through the Game. Or one of the games that add up to the Game.
I’m taking liberties a bit here, thinking consecutive thoughts, talking nonsense. That’s because I’m the airy-fairy one. I’ve got a degree and everything. So it gives me a bit of leeway to pontificate, as it were. So long as it doesn’t go too far.
Tony says, In one session.
And I say, immediately, since I have been wondering this since Colin spoke, and also because I need some time to think, What counts as a session?
Tony looks bewildered. I continue. I’m fair-minded. It’s important to me that when we compete – at least as nakedly as this – that the playing field is level.
And what about multiple orgasms? Do they count as just one? And if not, how many do they count as?
Tony nods his head, confirming the complexity of the problem. Nodge is still trying to look disgusted, but he makes out that he’s interested in the problem intellectually.
A session would be from when you got an erection to when you lost it, says Tony, with a firmness of voice that his face belies. He swigs backs his Margarita and orders another one.
I shoot a glance back. It isn’t satisfactory. I tap my finger on the table like an impatient teacher.