Munday and Jimmy were sitting head to head. Jimmy was telling him a ‘scenario’ for a film about a famous ageing film director and a drifting young couple who visit him, to pay homage. After they’ve eaten with him, praised his percipience and vision, admired his awards and heard his Brando stories, they enquire if there is anything they can do for him. The director says he wants to witness the passion of their love-making, hear their conversation, see their bodies, hear their cries and look at them sleeping. The girl and her earnest young man co-operate until … They become his secretaries; they take him prisoner; maybe they murder him. Jimmy couldn’t remember the rest. It was written down somewhere.
‘It’s a decent premise,’ said Munday.
‘Yes,’ agreed Jimmy.
*
Munday turned to Roy, who had rejoined them. ‘Where’s this guy been hiding?’
He was durable and unsubtle, Munday; and, in spite of his efforts, kindness and concern for others were obvious.
‘In the pub,’ said Roy.
‘Artist on the edge,’ said Jimmy.
‘Right,’ said Munday. ‘Too much comfort takes away the hunger. I’ll do this …’ he said.
He would advance Jimmy the money to prepare a draft.
‘How much?’ asked Jimmy.
‘Sufficient.’
Jimmy raised his glass. ‘Sufficient. Brilliant – don’t you think, Roy?’
Roy said he had to talk to Munday in the kitchen.
‘OK,’ said Munday. Roy closed the door behind them. Munday said, ‘Terrific guy.’
‘He used to be remarkable,’ said Roy in a low voice, realising he’d left the champagne in the pub. ‘Shame he’s so fucked now.’
‘He has some nice ideas.’
‘How can he get them down? He’s been dried out three times but always goes back on.’
‘Anyhow, I’ll see what I can do for him.’
‘Good.’
‘I meet so few interesting people these days. But I’m sorry to hear about your condition.’
‘Pardon?’
‘It happens to so many.’
‘What happens?’
‘I see. You don’t want it to get around. But we’ve worked together for years. You’re safe with me.’
‘Is that right? Please tell me,’ Roy said, ‘what you’re talking about.’
Munday explained that Jimmy had told him of Roy’s addiction to cocaine as well as alcohol.
‘You don’t believe that, do you?’ Roy said.
Munday put his arm around him. ‘Don’t fuck about, pal, you’re one of my best video directors. It’s tough enough as it is out there.’
‘But you don’t, do you?’
‘He predicted you’d be in denial.’
‘I’m not in fucking denial!’
Munday’s eyes widened. ‘Maybe not.’
‘But I’m not – really!’
Nevertheless, Munday wouldn’t stop regarding him as if he were contriving how to fit these startling new pieces into the puzzle that Roy had become.
He said, ‘What’s that white smear under your nose? and the blade on the table? You will always work, but not if you lie to my face. Roy, you’re degrading yourself! I can’t have you falling apart on a shoot. You haven’t been giving one hundred per cent and you look like shit.’
‘Do I?’
‘Sure you feel okay now? Your face seems to be twitching. Better take some of these.’
‘What are they?’
‘Vitamins.’
‘Munday –’
‘Go on, swallow.’
‘Please –’
‘Here’s some water. Get them down, Christ, you’re choking. Lean forward so I can smack you on the back. Jesus, you won’t work for me again until you’ve come out of the clinic. I’ll get the office to make a booking tonight. Just think, you might meet some exciting people there.’
‘Who?’
‘Guitarists. Have you discussed it with Clara?’
‘Not yet.’
‘If you don’t, I will.’
‘Thank you. But I need to know what’s happening with the film.’
‘Listen up then. Just sip the water and concentrate – if you can.’
Later, at the front door Munday shook Jimmy’s hand and said he’d be in touch. He said, ‘You guys. Sitting around here, music, conversation, bit of dope. I’m going back to the airport now. Another plane, another hotel room. I’m not complaining. But you know.’
The moment Munday got in his Jag and started up the street, Roy screamed at Jimmy. Jimmy covered his face and swore, through his sobs, that he couldn’t recall what he’d told Munday. Roy turned away. There was nothing to grasp or punish in Jimmy.
*
They stopped at an off-licence and drank on a bench in Kensington High Street. A young kid calling himself a traveller sat beside them and gave them a hit on some dope. Roy considered how enjoyably instructive it could be to take up such a position in the High Street, and how much one noticed about people, whereas to passers-by one was invisible, pitied or feared. After a while they went morosely into a pub where the barman served everyone else first and then was rude.
Roy’s film would be delayed for at least eighteen months, until Munday was in a stronger position to argue for ‘unconventional’ projects. Roy doubted it would happen now.
For most of his adult years he’d wanted success, and thought he knew what it was. But now he didn’t. He would have to live with himself as he was and without the old hope. Clara would be ashamed of him. As his financial burdens increased his resources had, in a few minutes, shrunk.
As the dark drew in and the street lights came on and people rushed through the tube stations, he and Jimmy walked about, stopping here and there. There seemed, in London, to be a pub on every corner, with many men on red plush seats drinking concentratedly, having nothing better to do. Occasionally they passed restaurants where, in the old days, Roy was greeted warmly and had passed much time, too much – sometimes four or five hours – with business acquaintances, now forgotten. Soon Roy was lost, fleeing with the energy of the frustrated and distressed, while Jimmy moved beside him with his customary cough, stumble and giggle, fuelled by the elation of unaccustomed success, and a beer glass under his coat.
At one point Jimmy suddenly pulled Roy towards a phone box. Jimmy ran in, waited crouching down, and shot out again, pulling Roy by his jacket across the road, where they shrank down beside a hedge.
‘What are you doing?’
‘We were going to get beaten up.’ Though shuddering and looking about wildly, Jimmy didn’t stop his drink. ‘Didn’t you hear them swearing at us? Poofs, poofs, they said.’
‘Who, who?’
‘Don’t worry. But keep your head down!’ After a while he said, ‘Now come on. This way!’
Roy couldn’t believe that anyone would, attempt such a thing on the street, but how would he know? He and Jimmy hastened through crowds of young people queuing for a concert; and along streets lined with posters advertising groups and comedians whose names he didn’t recognise.
There was a burst of laughter behind them. Roy wheeled round, but saw no one. The noise was coming from a parked car – no, from across the road. Then it seemed to disappear down the street like the tail of a typhoon. Now his name was being called. Assuming it was a spook, he pressed on, only to see a young actor he’d given work to, and to whom he’d promised a part in the film. Roy was aware of his swampy loafers and stained jacket that stank of pubs. Jimmy stood beside him, leaning on his shoulder, and they regarded the boy insolently.
‘I’ll wait to hear, shall I?’ said the actor, after a time, having muttered some other things that neither of them understood.
*
They settled in a pub from which Roy refused to move. At last he was able to tell Jimmy what Munday had said, and explain what it meant. Jimmy listened. There was a silence.
‘Tell me something, man,’ Jimmy said. ‘When you prepared your shooting
scripts and stuff –’
‘I suppose you’re a big film writer now.’
‘Give me a chance. That guy Munday seemed okay.’
‘Did he?’
‘He saw something good in me, didn’t he?’
‘Yes, yes. Perhaps he did.’
‘Right. It’s started, brother. I’m on the up. I need to get a room – a bedsitter with a table – to get things moving in the literary department. Lend me some money until Munday pays me.’
‘There you go.’
Roy laid a £20 note on the table. It was all the cash he had now. Jimmy slid it away.
‘What’s that? It’s got to be a grand.’
‘A grand?’
Jimmy said, ‘That’s how expensive it is – a month’s rent in advance, a deposit, phone. You’ve avoided the real world for ten years. You don’t know how harsh it is. You’ll get the money back – at least from him.’
Roy shook his head. ‘I’ve got a family now, and I haven’t got an income.’
‘You’re a jealous bastard – an’ I just saved your life. It’s a mistake to begrudge me my optimism. Lend me your pen.’ Jimmy made a note on the back of a bus ticket, crossed it out and rejigged it. ‘Wait and see. Soon you’ll be coming to my office an’ asking me for work. I’m gonna have to examine your CV to ensure it ain’t too low-class. Now, do you do it every day?’
‘Do what?’
‘Work.’
‘Of course.’
‘Every single day?’
‘Yes. I’ve worked every day since I left university. Many nights too.’
‘Really?’ Jimmy read back what he’d scrawled on the ticket, folded it up, and stuck it in his top pocket. ‘That’s what I must do.’ But he sounded unconvinced by what he’d heard, as if, out of spite, Roy had made it sound gratuitously laborious.
Roy said, ‘I feel a failure. It’s hard to live with. Most people do it. I s’pose they have to find other sources of pride. But what – gardening? Christ. Everything’s suddenly gone down. How am I going to cheer myself up?’
‘Pride?’ Jimmy sneered. ‘It’s a privilege of the complacent. What a stupid illusion.’
‘You would think that.’
‘Why would I?’
‘You’ve always been a failure. You’ve never had any expectations to feel let down about.’
‘Me?’ Jimmy was incredulous, ‘But I have.’
‘They’re alcoholic fantasies.’
Jimmy was staring at him. ‘You cunt! You’ve never had a kind word for me or my talents!’
‘Lifting a glass isn’t a talent.’
‘You could encourage me! You don’t know how indifferent people can be when you’re down.’
‘Didn’t I pick you up and invite you to stay in my house?’
‘You been trying to shove me out. Everything about me is wrong or despised. You threw my clothes away. I tell you, you’re shutting the door on everyone. It’s bourgeois snobbery, and it is ugly.’
‘You’re difficult, Jimmy.’
‘At least I’m a friend who loves you.’
‘You don’t give me anything but a load of trouble.’
‘I’ve got nothing, you know that! Now you’ve stolen my hope! Thanks for robbing me!’ Jimmy finished his drink and jumped up. ‘You’re safe. Whatever happens, you ain’t really going down, but I am!’
Jimmy walked out. Roy had never before seen Jimmy leave a pub so decisively. Roy sat there another hour, until he knew Clara would be home.
*
He opened the front door and heard voices. Clara was showing the house to two couples, old friends, and was describing the conservatory she wanted built, Roy greeted them and made for the stairs.
‘Roy.’
He joined them at the table. They drank wine and discussed the villa near Perugia they would take in the summer. He could see them wearing old linen and ancient straw hats, fanning themselves haughtily.
He tilted his head to get different perspectives, rubbed his forehead and studied his hands, which were trembling, but couldn’t think of anything to say. Clara’s friends were well off, and of unimaginative and unchallenged intelligence. About most things, by now, they had some picked-up opinion, sufficient to aid party conversation. They were set and protected; Roy couldn’t imagine them overdosing on their knees, howling.
The problem was that at the back of Roy’s world-view lay the Rolling Stones, and the delinquent dream of his adolescence – the idea that vigour and spirit existed in excess, authenticity and the romantic unleashed self: a bourgeois idea that was strictly anti-bourgeois. It had never, finally, been Roy’s way, though he’d played at it. But Jimmy had lived it to the end, for both of them.
The complacent talk made Roy weary. He went upstairs. As he undressed, a cat tripped the security lamps and he could see the sodden garden. He’d barely stepped into it, but there were trees and grass and bushes out there. Soon he would get a table and chair for the lawn. With the kid in its pram, he’d sit under the tree, brightened by the sun, eating Vignotte and sliced pear. What did one do when there was nothing to do?
He’d fallen asleep; Clara was standing over him, hissing. She ordered him to come down. He was being rude; he didn’t know how to behave. He had ‘let her down’. But he needed five minutes to think. The next thing he heard was her saying goodnight at the door.
*
He awoke abruptly. The front door bell was ringing. It was six in the morning. Roy tiptoed downstairs with a hammer in his hand, Jimmy’s stringy body was soaked through and he was coughing uncontrollably. He had gone to Kara’s house but she’d been out, so he’d decided to lie down in her doorway until she returned. At about five there had been a storm, and he’d realised she wasn’t coming back.
Jimmy was delirious and Roy persuaded him to lie him on the sofa, where he covered him with a blanket. When he brought up blood Clara called the doctor. The ambulance took him away not long after, fearing a clot on the lung.
Roy got back into bed beside Clara and rested his drink on her hard stomach. Clara went to work but Roy couldn’t get up. He stayed in bed all morning and thought he couldn’t ever sleep enough to recover. At lunchtime he walked around town, lacking even the desire to buy anything. In the afternoon he visited Jimmy in the hospital.
‘How you feeling, pal?’
A man in his pyjamas can only seem disabled. No amount of puffing-up can exchange the blue and white stripes for the daily dignity which has been put to bed with him. Jimmy hardly said hallo. He was wailing for a drink and a cigarette.
‘It’ll do you good, being here,’ Roy patted Jimmy’s hand. ‘Time to sort yourself out.’
Jimmy almost leapt out of bed. ‘Change places!’
‘No thanks.’
‘You smug bastard – if you’d looked after me I wouldn’t be in this shit!’
A fine-suited consultant, pursued by white-coated disciples, entered the ward. A nurse drew the curtain across Jimmy’s wounded face.
‘Make no mistake, I’ll be back!’ Jimmy cried.
Roy walked past the withered, ashen patients, and towards the lift. Two men in lightweight uniforms were pushing a high bed to the doors on their way to the operating theatre. Roy slotted in behind them as they talked across a dumb patient who blinked up at the roof of the lift. They were discussing where they’d go drinking later. Roy hoped Jimmy wouldn’t want him to return the next day.
Downstairs the wide revolving door swept people into the hospital and pushed him out into the town. From the corner of the building, where dressing-gowned patients had gathered to smoke, Roy turned to make a farewell gesture at the building where his friend lay. Then he saw the girl in the leopard-skin hat, Kara’s friend.
He called out. Smiling, she came over, holding a bunch of flowers. He asked her if she was working and when she shook her head, said, ‘Give me your number. I’ll call you tomorrow, I’ve got a couple of things on the go.’
Before, he hadn’t seen her in daylight. What, no
w, might there be time for?
She said, ‘When’s the baby due?’
‘Any day now.’
‘You’re going to have your hands full.’
He asked her if she wanted a drink.
‘Jimmy’s expecting me,’ she said. ‘But ring me.’
He joined the robust street Jimmy couldn’t walk here, but he, Roy, could trip along light-headed and singing to himself – as if it were he who’d been taken to hospital, and at the last moment, as the anaesthetic was inserted, a voice had shouted, ‘No, not him!’, and he’d been reprieved.
Nearby was a coffee shop where he used to go. The manager waved at him, brought over hot chocolate and a cake, and, as usual, complained about the boredom and said he wished for a job like Roy’s. When he’d gone, Roy opened his bag and extracted his newspaper, book, notebook and pens. But he just watched the passers-by. He couldn’t stay long because he remembered that he and Clara had an antenatal class. He wanted to get back, to see what was between them and learn what it might give him. Some people you couldn’t erase from your life.
We’re Not Jews
Azhar’s mother led him to the front of the lower deck, sat him down with his satchel, hurried back to retrieve her shopping, and took her place beside him. As the bus pulled away Azhar spotted Big Billy and his son Little Billy racing alongside, yelling and waving at the driver. Azhar closed his eyes and hoped it was moving too rapidly for them to get on. But they not only flung themselves onto the platform, they charged up the almost empty vehicle hooting and panting as if they were on a fairground ride. They settled directly across the aisle from where they could stare at Azhar and his mother.
At this his mother made to rise. So did Big Billy. Little Billy sprang up. They would follow her and Azhar. With a sigh she sank back down. The conductor came, holding the arm of his ticket machine. He knew the Billys, and had a laugh with them. He let them ride for nothing.
Mother’s grey perfumed glove took some pennies from her purse. She handed them to Azhar who held them up as she had shown him.
‘One and a half to the Three Kings,’ he said.