by Nick Hornby
Lucy nodded toward it and smiled.
“Bless him,” she said. “When was that taken?”
“Year Ten,” said Mrs. Campbell. “So, what . . . 2008? What were you doing in 2008?”
“Pretty much the same as I’m doing now. Oh, and having a baby.”
This was, Lucy thought, an attempt to shock her into grasping just how young Joseph was, and how old she was. But actually, 2008 and babies seemed like decades ago.
“So a bit more married than you are now.”
“A lot more,” said Lucy. Was that the right or wrong answer? Probably wrong.
“How married are you?”
“If you are looking for a percentage . . .”
“No.” Not a smile.
“Well. I’m not at all married, but I’m not divorced. My ex-husband has a new partner. We are in the middle of divorcing.”
“And then what?”
It wasn’t teenage boyfriends who had produced nerves with this kind of twang. It was job interviews. This was a job interview, where you had to ignore what you might actually think, and suppress what you might want to say, in order to work out what the right answer might be. The trouble was, she didn’t really understand the question.
“Well. Nothing. Just . . . No marriage anymore.”
“Meaning you’d be free to marry Joseph.”
Fucking hell. Now what was the answer? Was she expected to marry Joseph? Or was Mrs. Campbell suspecting her of some carefully set marital trap? She couldn’t second-guess now. She had to give some kind of approximation of the truth.
“I have no intention of marrying Joseph,” Lucy said. “He’s too young, and he will want children one day. That won’t be with me.”
“So why slow him up?”
“Is that how you see it?”
“I don’t think there’s another way of seeing it.”
“Mrs. Campbell . . .”
Lucy paused, so that Mrs. Campbell could say, call me whatever her first name was. That’s what always happened, at least on television. But after a few seconds, with nothing forthcoming, she realized there would be silence forever unless she said something.
“He needs to find his way first,” said Lucy. “He shouldn’t be thinking about a family until he’s thirty. And if we are still together, I’ll get out of the way a couple of years before that. To give him a . . . a run-in.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Campbell. “That will be a very difficult thing to do. You’ll be what? Nearly fifty?”
Lucy nodded and made the kind of face—HELP—that people always made when they thought about their age. It was a joke, of course.
“So by then you’ll be looking at spending the rest of your life alone,” said Mrs. Campbell. “Hard to give up a warm body in bed when you get to that time of life.”
Lucy set her mouth firmly and nodded, in recognition of the tragic fate that awaited her, but she didn’t believe it for a second. Where did her confidence and optimism come from? She knew her life would not be over at fifty. She would still be ambitious, in her private and professional lives. She might be single, but she would still be working on the assumption that she was attractive to somebody, physically and otherwise. This assumption might prove to be utterly baseless, but it was going to be there.
“I’ll probably be ready by then,” said Lucy.
“Oh, nothing prepares you for the loneliness.”
“Anyway,” said Lucy brightly. “Any ideas for Joseph’s birthday? Would you and your daughter like to come to dinner?”
“Well,” said Mrs. Campbell. She seemed to be examining the offer from every side, looking for holes, spikes, trip wires, light dustings of anthrax. And then, finding none, she accepted. They could move on to the photos.
* * *
—
A couple of Joseph’s friends from the leisure center wanted to take him out on the Saturday night, to a club in Dalston. Lucy knew there were good clubs in Dalston. She’d read something about them in the Guardian.
“Do you want to come?” Joseph said.
Lucy laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“I don’t think I belong in Dalston clubs. And you don’t think that either, otherwise you’d have been able to make eye contact while you were asking me.”
“You don’t mind?”
“I minded about the eye contact.”
“Sorry. I meant to look at you, but . . .”
“But then your enthusiasm failed you.”
He didn’t correct her. He was relieved that she didn’t want to come. He didn’t know what she’d wear, and he was worried about whether she’d want to dance. He shouldn’t judge her on the kitchen-jigging, he knew, but he had nothing else to go on, and if it was representative of the way she might move on a night out, he couldn’t take the risk.
“Will you get slaughtered?”
“Why?”
“I was just interested. I’ve never seen you worse for wear.”
“I don’t like it much. I’ll have two beers and a lot of Coke Zero.”
“What about drugs?”
“Nope. Weed when I was in my teens. But all that roadman stuff gets on my nerves.”
Joseph had been a roadman for about ten days, when he was fifteen, although he could no longer remember whether that’s what they were called back then. It was the same thing, anyway: weed, hoodies, bikes. He was messing around with people he didn’t like very much, people who did stupid things. He had ended up spending three hours in a police station. He hadn’t done anything wrong, but the person on the bike next to him had robbed a kid’s phone, so he didn’t feel that he could complain too much about harassment and profiling and the rest. His mother had to come and get him out, and her distress and anger had ended his criminal associations on the spot. She also went to visit the family of the kid who pinched the phone, so Joseph couldn’t have gone out even if he’d wanted to, for fear of what might happen when he did. Ahmaz was in prison now, as far as Joseph knew. Or if he wasn’t, he’d be going back soon.
“So will you dance at the club?”
“Depends if I like the music. And whether I have more than two beers.”
“So you won’t drink much and you might not dance.”
Joseph shrugged.
“So why don’t you want me there? Is it anything to do with women?”
“No!”
His shock was genuine, she could tell.
“It’s OK if it is.”
Did she mean it? She had said it, certainly, but she wasn’t entirely sure why, and it was hardly consistent with her recent behavior. One day she was visiting Joseph’s mother, trying to demonstrate to her that she was genuine and solid, that Joseph was embedded in her life; the next she seemed to be suggesting some kind of 1970s Scandinavian arrangement.
“Why would you say that?”
“Because you’re a young man, and . . .”
“And what?”
“I don’t know.”
But she did know, now. She just didn’t know how to explain it. She had been worried about the dinner party with Fiona and the others. However much she tried to reassure him, she was afraid that he’d be uncomfortable, silent, alienated; and she was afraid that her friends would think he was dim, surly, inappropriate. None of that had happened, but the unease had been there. A night out in Dalston was his equivalent of the dinner party, and it seemed that his fear of embarrassment was greater than his desire to integrate her into his social life.
“Come,” he said.
“You don’t mean it.”
He meant something, although he wasn’t quite sure what. He meant that he loved her, and didn’t mean to hurt her, and that she was worth more than any amount of funny looks in a dark East London nightclub.
* * *
—
&nb
sp; She looked great, he thought. She was wearing a little bit more makeup than usual, but not enough for it to seem as though she was making too much of an effort. Skinny jeans, which she always looked good in. A top with a tiny bit of glitter. They met in the Six Bells opposite the club: Kevin B., also known as White Kevin, Kevan G., his girlfriend, Rose, Jan the assistant manager, her boyfriend, Azad, Suzie and Becca the swimming teachers who were or were not a couple, depending on who you listened to; Mikey West. Staff shortages meant they had to put a sign on the front door of the leisure center, CLOSED FOR A PRIVATE EVENT, which was sort of true. They didn’t know what kind of trouble they’d get into, or even whether anyone at the council would notice.
Everyone was in there already when they arrived. They were at a big table in the back of the pub, and they all cheered when they saw him.
He had thought carefully about what he was going to say and when he would say it, and he got it out of the way.
“Everyone, this is my girlfriend, Lucy.”
“Your girlfriend?” said White Kevin. It would be him. Joseph and Lucy braced themselves, in their different ways. “You never told us you had a girlfriend.”
“Yes, I did,” said Joseph, but of course he hadn’t, he now realized.
Suzie and Becca made room on the bench for Lucy, and Joseph sat diagonally opposite them in a space between Azad and Rose. Lucy started chatting to Becca straight away, Rose joined in, and that was that. Nobody cared. Azad had gone to the bar to get them drinks, and Joseph watched how Lucy operated: it was a beautiful thing. She smiled encouragement when people talked, she laughed at their jokes, the girls listened intently when she had something to say. Nobody was going to ask what he was doing with her. He could see, however, that they might wonder what she was doing with him.
* * *
—
There was a queue outside the club, and when Joseph looked down the line, he could see that Lucy was not the oldest person in it by any means. On top of that, the people who might have been the same age as her looked years older, some of them—the men, anyway, black men and white men, all of them with younger women. He could see heads that had been shaved to deal with baldness, hats to cover the baldness up, gray beards. He began to see that his panic said much more about him than about Lucy, or London. When he tuned in to Lucy’s voice, he realized that she was talking to Becca about sex.
“What about lube?” said Lucy.
“Maybe,” said Becca.
“The thing with lube,” said Lucy, “is that you should avoid flavors.”
“There are flavors?” said Becca.
“Someone bought me a candyfloss one as a joke, but my partner at the time couldn’t deal with it at all.”
Who was her partner at the time? And how had this started? He had mostly been talking to Azad about what was wrong with rugby, and when he did hear anything of Lucy’s conversation, it seemed to be about work and her boys. But somehow, during the second drink or maybe even as they were crossing the road, they had got on to the subject of feminine something—not hygiene, exactly, but a related field. Feminine mechanics, maybe.
“So what do you do now?” said Becca. “If you’re, you know . . .”
“Well.”
Joseph got out his phone and tried to become absorbed in his Instagram feed. Lucy lowered her voice.
“It turned out to be a partner problem, rather than a physiological problem.”
Joseph wondered whether the people in front of him, who were not part of his group, would mind if he pushed in.
“Oh,” said Becca, and then there was silence.
“Hey,” Lucy said softly. “Hey.”
Joseph still wouldn’t look round, but if he’d had to guess, he would say that Becca was crying. Suzie was ahead of him, laughing with Kevan G. and Rose, but as nobody knew whether Becca was gay or straight, nor whether she and Suzie were in a relationship, he didn’t think it was his place to alert Suzie to Becca’s distress.
“I think that might be my problem too,” Becca said.
“I’m sorry,” Lucy said. “I didn’t mean . . . I didn’t know . . . Would you like to go back to the pub for a bit?”
“Would you mind?”
Lucy tapped Joseph on the shoulder.
“We’re just going to the pub for a bit,” said Lucy.
“Sure,” said Joseph. He didn’t ask why, which he realized proved he’d been listening to every word they’d been saying.
“Won’t be long.”
That seemed hopeful to Joseph, given the emotional and physical difficulties that she was trying to deal with, but he didn’t argue.
* * *
—
The club seemed to be built of solid and impenetrable surfaces: sweating concrete, a wall of thick heat, metallic sheets of noise, flailing bone and muscle. Joseph and his friends pushed their way through to a corner, away from the bar, away from the D.J. and the dance floor, a little rural backwater that was of no use to anybody, but which at least provided sanctuary and air. They made a pile of coats and jackets on the floor, because the queue for the cloakroom was impossible, and suddenly Joseph was the center of attention.
“Fuck me, Joseph,” said Kevan G.
“What?” said Joseph.
“Yeah,” said Jan. “Bloody hell.”
“What?” said Joseph.
“That’s actually your girlfriend?”
“Oh.”
He wouldn’t say any more until he understood the reason for the disbelief and the profanities, but he really didn’t think it could be her age. She was older than them, yes, but not so old that she would provoke shock and outrage, he didn’t think.
“She’s so lovely,” said Jan. “And so pretty.”
“And hot,” said White Kevin.
“That’s what I just said,” said Jan. “But in a less sexist way.”
“I don’t see why hot is sexist and pretty isn’t,” said White Kevin. “Men and women can be hot. Only women can be pretty.”
“That’s sexist as well.”
“Oh, I fucking give up,” said White Kevin.
“Good,” said Jan.
“Where is she, anyway?” said Suzie.
“She went back to the pub with Becca,” said Joseph.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I think Becca got upset about something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
He wouldn’t know how to begin. If Suzie went off to the pub because she was worried, or angry, or to beat Lucy up, then at least they’d know whether Suzie and Becca were a couple. Suzie gave nothing away, though, and she didn’t move.
“Anyway,” said Jan. “I know your track record. If you mess her about, or lose interest, you’ll have all of us to answer to.”
“Not me,” said Azad. “I don’t give a toss. She seems nice, though.”
* * *
—
He’d had two more beers and was dancing when he saw Lucy come down the stairs. She was on her own. He pushed through to meet her, and led her to the coats backwater.
“Where’s Becca?”
“She went home. I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?”
“If I hadn’t started blathering on about lube, she wouldn’t have got upset.”
“You weren’t to know. All your other lube conversations, it’s probably been fine.”
“She asked me. I never talk about lube.”
“I heard the whole conversation. You started it.”
“But she asked me about . . . Anyway. She’s gone off to finish with her girlfriend.”
“Her girlfriend?”
“Yes,” said Lucy firmly, as if she were closing down an argument—which she was, sort of, but it was an argument between the staff that she knew nothing about.
“No. They split up months ago. But she regrets it.”
Lucy had found out more in ten minutes than any of the people who worked with Becca every day.
“She was dying to talk to someone,” said Lucy.
“She could have talked to any of us.”
“Yes. But she didn’t. Will you dance with me?” said Lucy.
“You don’t want a drink?”
“No. I had two more in the pub. I’m already halfway to being pissed.”
“Why not go the rest of the way?”
She just smiled and led Joseph by the hand into the middle of the dance floor. The D.J. was playing a remix of “Body Drop,” which was basically a drum track, a synth note, and a rap, but which sounded great at that volume, spooky and futuristic. People were bouncing, arms up in the air, mostly because there wasn’t much room for anything else. Lucy was making shapes in the sky with her fingers and pulling goofy faces at Joseph. He focused all of his energy on his toes, forbidding them to curl.
Some of their crowd were already dancing; the rest joined them when they saw Lucy. They all started doing her hand movements. They weren’t taking the piss. Lucy just seemed to add to their enjoyment of the evening.
* * *
—
Lucy roasted a chicken for Joseph’s birthday dinner, and while she was cooking, Joseph prepared the boys for his mother’s visit.
“She doesn’t like bad language.”
“What are we talking about here?” said Dylan. “Fs and Cs?”
“Anything to do with sex or the toilet,” said Joseph.
“Toilet paper?” said Al.
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
“Toilet brush?” said Dylan.
“Toilet seat?”
“Ladies?”
“Gents?”
“Shut up a minute,” said Joseph.
When he told the boys to shut up, they did. Lucy found this simultaneously useful and depressing. She was consoled only by the knowledge that it was nothing to do with him being male, because Paul was even more ineffectual than her.