by Nick Hornby
“Look for a younger woman.”
“I’m twenty-two. Any younger woman I find now isn’t going to be the younger woman I have kids with.”
“So I’m a placeholder.”
“Fucking hell, Lucy.”
It had to be something to do with being older, he thought, this obsession with spooling forward. He couldn’t do it, anyway, and he didn’t think he knew anyone of his age who could, or did, or wanted to.
“Say I met someone tomorrow,” he said.
“Where are you going tomorrow?”
“Nowhere. This is for example.”
“OK, although I don’t know why it has to be tomorrow.”
“Next week. Next month. Next year.”
“Next year.”
“Say I met someone next year. Do you think I should ask them to take a, like a test? A fertility test? Straight away?”
“What are you talking about?”
“That’s how you’re asking me to think. ‘Oh, I might have kids with her. If she can’t get pregnant, I’d better find out now.’”
“You don’t need to do that. You’ve got time.”
“Time for what? To meet someone else? I like this one. I want to be with her.”
“For example?”
“For example, yes.”
“You can make decisions together.”
“Listen, I don’t know much about much. But young people—we’re shit at thinking about tomorrow. Smoking. Pensions. Junk food. All of it. You want to be with someone younger than you? You have to live with it.”
It seemed like appropriate advice for the times. Lucy would try to remember it.
* * *
—
Another one, right in the middle of something:
“Hold on, hold on.”
He thought it was an instruction, and he tightened his grip.
“No. No. Stop.”
He stopped.
“You’ll tell me when you’re too disgusted to go on, won’t you?”
“What?”
“When everything’s drooping and it’s all too much. Like, where your hands were. I can’t see it. I have no idea what my arse looks like.”
“I can’t see either in this position.”
She had thought about some of this when they were having an affair. She’d been embarrassed to take her clothes off, but when he didn’t seem to mind what he saw, she forgot about it. But this was different: she was no longer worried about what he might think this minute, but what he might think at some unspecified date in the future. Now there was no expiry date, it was on her mind. It was, she supposed, another version of the baby conversation. One minute would leak into the next, one year would follow another, each of them adding wrinkle to sag and sag to wrinkle, invisible to an everyday observer until the horror was such that he could no longer ignore them.
She lay down on the bed beside him.
“I won’t have to tell you, will I?” he said.
“I’m asking you to tell me.”
“I’ll be too disgusted to go on. And you’ll know.”
“I’m not going to go to Pilates seven days a week, just to keep you happy.” She was surprised to hear the anger in her voice. There was a note of “fucking men” in there, as if Joseph had just insisted she went to Pilates seven days a week.
“OK,” he said.
“I mean, I’ll go for my sake. Not yours.”
“OK.”
“But not every day.”
“Fine.”
“Is that all you’re going to say?”
“Well. Have we actually stopped? Because if we have, I’ll try and think of something else. But if we haven’t . . .”
“I don’t know if we’ve stopped or not.”
“When will you know?”
“When you stop saying OK.”
“You mean, if I come up with a good answer to this question, we carry on? ’Cause I don’t think I’m going to come up with anything that makes you happy. Let’s just stop.”
He got out of bed and put his trunks and T-shirt back on.
“Well, you couldn’t have wanted it that much. If you can stop just like that,” she said.
“You’re the one who stopped, not me. You can’t be that into it, if you’re busy worrying about what your arse will look like in ten years’ time. Do you want some tea?”
* * *
—
They sat at the kitchen table, Lucy in a dressing gown, Joseph in his T-shirt and pants. Lucy hated the dressing gown, suddenly. It felt frumpy. She wanted to ask Joseph what he thought of it, but if she were him, she would point out that she seemed just as unhappy and vulnerable covering her body up as she did exposing it.
“How do you manage with people your own age?”
“There haven’t been any people of my own age. Only Paul. And before he came along I was in my twenties. Like you. Didn’t cross my mind for a second.”
“Like me. And what about with Paul?”
“We were growing old at the same time. Still are, I suppose.”
“Yeah. But just because he’s growing old doesn’t mean he’ll be into all the stuff you’re threatening. The wrinkled old bum and the droopy tits.”
“He’d have to put up with it.”
“Why him more than me?”
“Because . . . That’s how it works. That’s the deal. You’d have to put up with it in thirty years, if you were with someone your age. But you might not want to put up with it before you have to.”
“Just do Pilates seven days a week.”
“When you’re fifty, I’ll be seventy.”
“Yep. Whether we’re together or not.”
“If we were together, you’d have to have someone else.”
“Deal. But just to get this straight—you don’t want sex with me now because I might not want sex with you in whatever. 2044.”
“Do you feel like sex now?”
“Not really,” Joseph said. “It’s after midnight, and I’ve got to be up early.”
Even then, Lucy wondered about the dressing gown, and vowed to look for something less functional at the weekend. And then she got angry with him again, just as she had done about the Pilates. If he didn’t like it, he could lump it, or find someone who didn’t have anything else to think about but lingerie. And then she began to wonder whether it was possible to be driven mad by sleeping with a younger man.
* * *
—
It didn’t help that two weeks later, she was another year older. Joseph didn’t know until the day before. He was playing FIFA with Al, with Dylan watching on. Lucy was out.
“By the way,” said Dylan. “Dad usually takes us out shopping. But he’s forgotten this year.”
“He might have stopped,” said Al. “Because it’s not his business.”
“It is his business,” said Dylan. “She’s still our mum. And he’s still our dad.”
“It probably should be our business,” said Al.
“We’re just kids, though,” said Dylan.
“What are you talking about?” said Joseph.
“Mum’s birthday,” said Al.
“When is it?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? Shit. And you’ve got nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“Dad’s fault.”
“Cards?”
“Nope.”
“Right.”
Joseph stopped the game.
“Bedrooms. Paper. Pens. Now.”
“We can get cards from the corner shop.”
“You don’t want a card saying ‘Happy Birthday You Old Fart.’ Or one with a bunch of old-lady roses on it.”
“I’d get the old fart one,” said Al.
“Go and m
ake your own. And what am I supposed to do? I’m working all day tomorrow.”
Why didn’t he know? They’d never talked about it. He had always known the birthdays of his girlfriends. The first time he’d ever talked properly to any of them, they had wanted to know when his was, and he’d told them, and they said, oh, Libra, my sister’s a Libra, or something like that. And this was his prompt to ask them what star sign they were, even though he didn’t give a shit, and then they’d say, Gemini, May the twenty-fifth. And once or twice, no more than that, he was still involved with the girl in question as May the twenty-fifth approached, and she’d provided a countdown, and he’d been expected to mark the occasion with a card, or a card and a gift, or, most recently, with a card and a gift and a meal. Lucy had never asked him his star sign, and he’d never asked her, and now he had nothing, even though Lucy was a bigger deal than any of the others.
He confessed his failure after The Sopranos.
“You didn’t know because I’ve never told you.”
“I know, but . . .”
“We can do something. With the boys.”
“You don’t want to see your friends?”
“That isn’t how it works at our age.”
“Why not?”
“Friends need notice. And I know the boys will be expecting to go out.”
“Where do they like to go?”
“There are only two restaurants in the whole of North London—the Chinese on Kentish Town Road or the upmarket hamburger place in Chalk Farm.”
“So it’s on me.”
“Really?”
“Of course.”
He wanted to ask how upmarket the burger place was, but he suppressed the question.
“What did you do last year?”
“Oh, last year was a mess. Paul wanted a family meal, but . . . Well, it didn’t happen. Takeaway.”
“But they remembered cards and presents.”
“They were reminded by their father, yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re not their father.”
“I know. But.”
“You’re not. No buts.”
“So what am I?”
“You’re not their stepfather, either. You’re somewhere between a stepbrother and a step-uncle. Either way you’re not related.”
Maybe not, but he was growing more related every day.
* * *
—
At the beginning of his lunch hour, he asked Cassie what she’d like for her birthday, if she could have anything on sale within five minutes’ walk of the shop. She was taking a smoke break; she didn’t get lunch until two. She was leaning against the wall of the little community hall a couple of doors down.
“This isn’t for me, right?”
“Unless it’s your birthday today. And you’re expecting something from me.”
“But there’s no price limit?”
“No. Not around here.”
“I don’t get this. I’m presuming this person is someone special.”
“Yes.”
“But you have to buy her a present this lunchtime.”
“It’s her birthday today.”
“Oh, Joseph. That’s so crap.”
“There are whatsit circumstances.”
“Mitigating.”
“Exactly.”
“Like what?”
Joseph huffed.
“You’re not helping me. You’re just saying you wouldn’t start from here.”
“When are you seeing her?”
“Straight after work.”
“Where?”
“Hers. And there’s nowhere between here and there. Apart from these shops.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Tell me where she lives and I’ll tell you where to go.”
“It doesn’t matter where she lives.”
He wished he hadn’t started this. He should simply have asked for an idea, and not got into all the geographical restrictions. He felt he was being drawn further out than he was comfortable to venture.
“How can it not matter? And what are the mitigating circumstances?”
“I didn’t know it was her birthday.”
“Ooh. So this must be quite recent. And I’m guessing she must live near here. Which is why these are the only shops. Where did you meet her?”
“Anyway. Thanks. I’ll have a little poke around.”
“Unless you’re going to buy her a cheap kettle or a bet on the three-thirty at Cheltenham, I don’t know what you’ll find.”
The area around the butcher’s was coming up in the world. There were cafés in which men with beards drank flat whites, and a bar that specialized in craft beers from microbreweries. These cafés, however, had replaced kebab houses and grotty pubs. The old shops—the pound stores, the bookies, the newsagents, the off-licenses, the funeral parlor, and the little supermarkets—had stayed stolidly in place, apparently unperturbed and certainly unthreatened by the arrival of the craft coffee.
“Perfume? From the chemist?”
“Yes. Yes. Great idea. What should I get? What perfume would you get from the chemist’s?”
“Is she like me, this woman?”
She wasn’t, of course, but Joseph was permanently uncertain about white university-educated women. Who knew what they liked? And now he came to think of it, he wasn’t sure Lucy had ever worn perfume, not around him, anyway. She smelled nice, but it was all body lotions and face creams, he thought.
“In some ways,” said Joseph.
“That means white,” said Cassie.
“That would only be one way.”
“She goes to uni,” said Cassie.
“Not . . .” He stopped himself.
“Not now? Not any more? Oh, my God.”
“What?”
“I know who it is,” said Cassie.
“No, you don’t.”
“It’s that pretty, twinkly dark-haired woman who comes in here. I could never work out what all those looks and smiles meant. I’ve seen women flirt with you in here. And sometimes you flirt back for a laugh. But you try not to with her, and she tries not to with you. Oh, that’s fucking hilarious.”
“It’s not her,” he said, but they both knew he was just going through the motions. “Why is it fucking hilarious?”
“I don’t know. Just . . . Who’d have thought?”
“Why wouldn’t you have thought?” he said aggressively.
It was easy to get Cassie off his back.
“Loads of reasons,” she mumbled. “Not just one.” And then, to make up, “What about tickets for something?”
“Tickets? For what?”
“She’s an English teacher, right? A play.”
“A play? What do I know about plays?”
“Give me your phone and your bank card,” said Cassie.
“Fuck off.”
“I’ll have tickets for you by the time you’ve bought a sandwich.”
“I can’t buy a sandwich if I haven’t got a bank card.”
“Is that you saying thank you?”
She fished a fiver out of her pocket and gave it to him.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’ll pay you back.”
“Yeah, I’d sort of presumed that.”
“And thanks for doing this too.”
“You’re welcome.”
He went off to buy a card and his sandwich, and when he came back, she had bought him a pair of tickets to see a Shakespeare play. He tried to remember whether he’d ever spent so much money on something he really didn’t want to do. Maybe he wouldn’t have to do it, but he didn’t think that would be an option.
* * *
—
Before they we
nt out, he asked whether he could use Lucy’s printer, and then he folded up the two sheets of paper and put them in the envelope with the card he’d bought her. He’d spent ages choosing the card, which, in the end, said “Happy Birthday” and nothing else, and he’d spent ages thinking about the message, which, in the end, said “With love, Joseph” and nothing else.
He handed the card over in the restaurant.
“I hope,” he said. And then, “I don’t know.” And then, “Anyway.”
She made the face that people make when they’re opening presents, like, oh, I have no idea what this could be. And then when she unfolded the tickets, he could see he and Cassie had made the right choice. She was thrilled, and excited, and maybe there were even a couple of tears.
“How did you know?”
“Know what?”
“Any of it.”
That was what had moved her.
“Have you seen it?” he asked.
“Do you mean, ever?”
“Yeah.”
“As You Like It? Yes. Of course.”
Joseph’s face fell, and she realized that this was the wrong answer, as far as he was concerned.
“But not this production. People who love Shakespeare see the plays over and over again.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I’ve seen King Lear at least four times. There are hardly any I’ve only seen once. The big ones, anyway.”
“Is this a big one?”
“Have you heard of it?”
“I think so.”
“So there you go.”
“I’ve never seen any.”
“Not even on a school trip?”
“No.”
There had been a school trip to see Shakespeare, but he’d hidden the permission slip from his mother, and told the school she disapproved of non-Christian entertainment. Looking back, he realized they believed any old crap if they were afraid of what they were getting into. He should have told his teachers that she didn’t approve of French or geography, either.
“You don’t have to take me, by the way. Maybe you should take someone who deserves it more.”
“I’m going with you.”
The play was in a month’s time. He was almost sure he’d be going with her. He had never been in a relationship like this, where you presumed that things would stay just as they were for four weeks, and maybe even for the four weeks after that.