Learning to Die

by Thomas Maloney

  While her nearest colleagues are out for lunch, Natalie opens a browser and types her ex-boyfriend’s name. Thousands of hits. She skims down a few pages of images of smiling men, young and old: suited Californian surgeons, bloggers in arty monochrome, a police mugshot. Strange to think of all these insignificant men casually flaunting the same name — his name. She adds ‘UK’ to narrow the search. Tries his middle name, the name of his university, a couple of likely professions, remembered hobbies, the city where he lived. Nothing. She’ll need more to go on.

  Or she would need more to go on, if she actually cared. Making himself untraceable is somehow characteristic of his arrogance. She remembers the gathering whispers of suspicion that he might not be the generous, dependable soulmate she wanted. His endless intellectualisation of their relationship was, she acknowledged to herself at last, his way of preparing the ground for future selfishness. She was certain, back then — had no regrets. But now a mischievous little hand of doubt tugs at her. All she wants is a glimpse of who he has become. To make sure. She hears the approaching chatter of colleagues and closes the browser.

  Mike Vickers graciously admits to himself that his job sometimes makes him happy. The Box has recovered last week’s losses, and his firm’s colossal main fund is doing well enough to soothe touchy egos. He thumbs the key in his pocket and is mildly surprised to see the lights flash not on a battered Volvo estate that looks very much like the car his father passed down to him when he was eighteen (the old man had bought a Jag during a brief spell of prosperity), but on the sleek, black Audi S5 behind it. Maybe he’ll gift it to his dad when he trades up.

  As he drives, he dictates to his hands-free phone. ‘Email. Compose. To. James Fuck Fakes Saunders. Subject. Execution. Dear James comma new line. Thank you for your frank reply, but I think we can do better. We both have doubts about our place in the cosmos.’ He slows, waves a group of students across the road, beneficent behind the embossed leather wheel. ‘I am succeeding at an enterprise of questionable value to mankind, while you have a calling you think noble, but have failed to execute. The problem is, your calling is only noble if you do execute — otherwise it’s merely self-indulgence of the most contemptible kind.’ A set of traffic lights turns green as he approaches, as though by arrangement. ‘Have you at least tried to diversify? Journalism, perhaps, or tutoring? I make these suggestions for your own good, and that of the welfare state. New line. Sincerely comma new line. Mike Vickers. New line. P.S. Brenda can look after herself, as you may soon discover. Send.’

  That evening, while taking a satisfied stroll along the canal, hands in pockets, quite by accident but with deific precision, he steps on a snail.

  James F. Saunders is taking his mind off Brenda’s physicality with some composition exercises. He’s a stylist. Not in the hairdressing sense, although he did try that once, briefly, with the idea that a secular confessor might gather a rich crop of material from his customers. No, James is a prose stylist — his novel is never going to be described as rollicking.

  King Edward’s was rare among state schools in offering Latin through to A-Level. James relishes the dead language spoken, for its precise, merciless exertion of tongue, teeth and lips, but even more he delights in its glinting density on the page. A conventional English paragraph, by comparison, is spattered with ugly little words that say nothing much — pronouns, conjunctions, articles. If English could be rendered down to a comparable density, might it not answer Latin’s mineral glint with something glistening, urgent, wet with life?

  It’s not only the little words that have to go. Punctuation is like a disease on the skin of the language, a nasty, nannying obsession of amateurs and minnow-minded school-teachers. On this point James agrees with his great Irish namesake, the writer he calls the Exile and whose faded bespectacled photograph, cut from the TLS a decade ago, is still tacked to his wardrobe door: perverted commas can have no place in his dialogue.

  Then there is the question of voice, of seamlessly reconciling authorial omniscience and the immediacy of character; his whole armoury of means and devices must be smoothly confluent with the course of the narrative, the whole sliding inexorably towards its crisis as a river to the sea.

  Flawed world, James types, flawless apple. Glossy anomaly, turn you over yes unblemished skin a Monet sky, spotless bruiseless, flesh like crisp snow: temptation to believe in fated love. Minutes later, acid taste lingering, exposed core browning. True love: false love.

  The cursor blinks. He nods. Adds a mark to a long tally he’s made on a library ticket. Deletes. Tries again.

  ‘I have a story for you. Just to remind a married man what he’s missing.’

  Dan Mock rolls his eyes. ‘Go on, then.’ He looks forward to these meetings, which alternate between London and Reading. This cosy pub in Little Venice, a short walk from Mike’s flat, is a favourite rendezvous.

  ‘So it’s like this,’ begins Mike, in a low, conspiratorial voice. ‘I have a date, name of Victoria, who’s a friend of a friend of Pete’s. I’ve got tickets for Betrayal, and we’re supposed to meet in the foyer, and then have dinner afterwards. Problem is, she doesn’t show. Doesn’t answer her phone. These are great tickets, and I don’t want to waste them. What do I do?’

  ‘Phone a friend?’ suggests Dan.

  ‘No time for that — it starts in five minutes. So I go outside and call out, “One free ticket for the performance starting now! Best seat in the house! Only catch is that you have to sit next to me!” It takes a few goes, but eventually there’s a taker. She’s an older woman, forty, maybe, but —’

  ‘— strangely attractive,’ contributes Dan, setting down his pint.

  ‘Not only that, but she’s the kind of woman I’m drawn to. Spirited. Says her name is Carmen. Intense, spirited women are, as you know, my passion. So we’re watching the play, and just before the interval I get a text from Victoria: Mike, so sorry, bath overflowed, disaster, missed your calls on the tube. At the theatre now. Hope we can still hook up. Call me.’

  ‘For a minute I’m flummoxed, thinking of Victoria in the bath and not much else, but then the way ahead emerges with perfect clarity. At the interval, Carmen and I battle our way to the foyer and find her — Victoria — looking contrite and stunning. I explain the whole situation to both of them, and insist they watch the second half together while I wait in the bar.’ Dan frowns.

  ‘It’s the only way you could fulfil your obligations as a gentleman.’

  ‘Precisely. Anyway, it turns out the two girls get on like a theatre on fire. Afterwards, Carmen thanks us graciously and wishes us a good evening, but Vic’s having none of that, and invites her along to dinner. Of course, I’ve already changed the booking to three.’

  ‘I must be a mind-reader, because I can see where this is going.’

  ‘It is going there, but wait for the punch-line. Carmen turns out to be a sculptor, and I mention that I own a few pieces myself, and somehow we all agree to go back to my flat for a drink. We’ve already worked through a couple of bottles by now.’

  ‘I’ve definitely seen this one,’ says Dan. ‘While you’re making the drinks, the girls start getting friendly on the sofa. There’s a close-up shot of the glasses filling, and then the camera focus shifts to nascent frolics in the background.’

  ‘I kid you not,’ protests Mike. ‘That’s how it is. I guess they’re fired up by the play and the wine, impressed by my pad, whatever. Things are progressing pretty rapidly and I’m just rolling with it. We’re more than halfway around the bases, and I’m like this —’ he gestures with both his hands ‘— and they’re like this and like this, when the doorbell rings.’

  ‘You ignore it.’

  ‘Of course I do. But then I hear a key in the door.’

  ‘Who’s got a key?’

  ‘My fucking mother, that’s who! I’d left a set at her house months ago, when I was on holiday and she wanted a s
topover in town. “Michael,” she calls softly. “Are you still up?” I’m up, alright. We all start to tidy ourselves sharpish, but within seconds there she is. I make introductions. The girls think it’s hilarious, of course. “I’m afraid I’ve been out on a jolly,” Mum says. “I would have called ahead but my phone died.” Her phone is always dying. She might guess the lie of the land but doesn’t let on, and before I know it the three of them are hooting with laughter.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘I went to bed. The sight of my dolled-up mother meant I wasn’t even capable of having a wank to let off steam.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘We’re all Facebook friends. I don’t think I could see either of them without thinking of Mum. I’ve moved on to new pastures.’ He wags a finger at Dan’s tolerant smile. ‘Don’t even think of disapproving.’

  He rises, clothes-pegging the empty glasses with finger and thumb, then leans and adds in a murmur, ‘Here’s a paradox of sorts. I savour each new girl, each conquest if you want to call them that, the act itself, its — its unique aesthetic details, for weeks or months afterwards. Years, in some cases. I’m a savourer, an appreciator, a connoisseur. And yet at the same time, I struggle to muster enthusiasm for a repeat performance with a girl I’ve been seeing for a month. God knows how you play the game to your rules. When I get back, you can tell me.’

  Dan, watching his friend saunter to the bar, feels a blend of pity and envy characteristic of their alliance. Town mouse and country mouse. Fox and hedgehog. Tortoise and hare. Perhaps it’s just as well Mike keeps his liaisons short and shallow. As far as Dan can tell, he’s always respected his philandering and hapless father more than the formidable mother who funded his education. An appreciator? Of X, yes — of half of what life has to offer — but not of Y, not of the whole equation.

  Dan feels comfortable defending his own position. His marriage is not a whirlwind of passion, and he has the potential Achilles heel that Natalie was his first and only. But he’s considered this many times: his reward is something finer, a complex, maturing bond of which Mike, for all his japes, knows nothing. Not X, not Mike’s territory, but Y. Right?

  ‘Well?’ prompts the japer, returning from the bar. ‘Playing the lurrve game?’

  ‘I suppose the main difference is that I’m not playing a game.’

  Mike mouths the last five words in time with him — he considers his answer trite. Dan shrugs.

  Later: he has cut it fine, and jogs along the foot tunnel towards the mainline station. As he takes the stairs two at a time, he misses his footing, plunges forward, and is one inch from knocking out his front teeth on the top step.

  He stands up carefully, tests his jarred back and climbs into the vast chill of the station as though from an airlock into outer space, fingertips on his surprisingly intact teeth. Can he blame the beers this time and the slippers last time? Or does he need to slow down? Is he getting old already?

  On the platform, two people he took to be strangers suddenly kiss. The world is full of possibility.

  9. Honour codes

  ‘Every day I hear fools saying things that are not foolish.’

  Montaigne

  Nobody could call Brenda the black sheep of her family: her father, Vincent Vickers, builder, property developer, solar panel supplier and serial bankrupt, is hardly fleecy white. Her mother has proved a devoted wife — Vince’s third, the one retainer of his unlikely loyalty — as well as a big-hearted mother to two children, but the formative years of Brenda and her younger brother Austin were not a well-considered project. Mike’s mother, on the other hand — Elizabeth, never shortened — was organised, exacting and, until recently, unforgiving. While Mike may have grown up wondering why his parents couldn’t have stayed together, for Brenda the mystery was what could possibly have attracted her dad and Elizabeth to each other and sustained their five-year marriage.

  Brenda is driving as far as Dalwhinnie, the nearest village on the Edinburgh railway line (road miles are precious because her van’s cam belt is ready to snap). Yes, she’s feeling sick at the prospect of her non-date with James, but no sicker than she would before meeting a new doctor or work associate: her social phobia is not sexual. Men are implicated in the world’s hostility, in its sneering rejection of her, but they are not the ringleaders. During her darker episodes men seem merely a different species, stupid and dangerous but without malice. In happier moods she is positively drawn to their simple honour codes and their exaltation of the physical. But there is something particular about James. She has a feeling they’re on the same side.

  He’s there before her, standing beside the station Christmas tree as arranged, reading a free paper folded over in one hand. He’s ditched the shabby coat and woolly hat, and is sporting a sort of bomber jacket over a roll-neck jumper. He’s made an effort. Her nerves are, for once, the better sort of nerves. She takes a deep breath.

  ‘Hey.’

  He starts. ‘Brenda! Hi.’ His jaw is smooth, a hint of tobacco. He looks happy to see her, and suggests they climb the Seat before it gets dark. Another breath. No trace of the usual horrors. This might just work out.

  Natalie Mock has her bare feet on Dan’s lap. He can’t keep his hands off them, and the tickling is a distraction.

  ‘Can’t you just —’ She pulls them away, reads for a while, and then adds, reflectively, ‘Perverts always have a thing about feet, don’t they? I’ve never understood that. Feet are just feet.’

  ‘Mmm,’ answers Dan distantly, still reading the tablet balanced on the arm of the sofa, taking hold of her feet again, pushing his thumb along her instep as though scooping ice cream and ignoring her evasive twitches. ‘I hereby confess that I have a thing about your feet. I can’t get enough of them. Being trampled to death by your feet would be my ideal way to go.’

  ‘Careful,’ she says, kicking him. ‘What. You. Wish. For.’ The tablet falls on the rug with a thump, and Dan looks up.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he says, in his serious voice. ‘Is it time?’

  ‘For?’

  ‘Is it time we had a baby?’ Christ. Here we go.

  ‘I don’t want a baby, Dan. You know I don’t. I’m not a having-a-baby kind of girl. Woman. Whatever.’

  ‘I know. But think about what that means. It means this is it. The story ends here with us sitting on the sofa.’

  ‘What story? The human race isn’t about to die out. Four babies are born every second.’

  ‘But not our babies.’

  ‘And every ten seconds, a child dies of hunger.’

  Dan frowns, suddenly discomposed. When he hears a statistic like that, he actually thinks about what it means. Doesn’t jump up and down or become a vegan, but thinks about it and — in an instant — understands its moral enormity. Nat does love him for that.

  ‘Just think about it,’ he says, quietly. ‘That’s all I’m asking.’ He’s trying to look philosophical, but was clearly hoping for a more encouraging reaction. Too bad. Natalie has already thought about it. The idea of pushing a buggy is absurd; insulting, even. She thinks of women with ravaged bodies, stunted careers, dulled brains, cheerfully blaming it all on those ravenous little bundles of selfishness, the children. A fate not for her.

  ‘I’m not having a baby, Dan. You knew that when you married me.’

  He nods slowly, and then adds, ‘You weren’t a big fan of getting married either, I seem to remember. At first.’ He loves bringing that up — that she didn’t say yes on the spot and faint away into his arms. Tells it to all and sundry as a self-deprecating anecdote. That she said she had to think about it.

  ‘No, Dan. The answer is no.’

  ‘I hope this is okay,’ says James, as they take their seats in a modest little bistro, after descending Arthur’s Seat in drizzle and dying light. ‘If you want to be taken to posh restaurants, I’m the wrong guy.’

 
‘I loathe posh restaurants,’ says Brenda. ‘You can’t imagine how much I loathe them.’ James could shout for joy: Project Q at a bargain price. Once settled, their eyes meet across the table. They smile, and nobody speaks. Two introverts on a first date, and there’s no awkwardness. Just energy. Charge.

  ‘You were going to tell me your story,’ suggests James at last. Brenda shrugs.

  ‘I’m not brainy. I’m not a people person. I like the outdoors — cold, rain, snow, whatever. I enjoy what I do. That’s it, really.’

  ‘Tell me something you like about being outdoors,’ says James, as the young waiter, sensing romance, pours house red with a flourish.

  ‘Something I like. Hmm. Well, yesterday I was thinking about the wind.’ She laughs. ‘Yes, that’s my world. How it doesn’t just slide smoothly over you. It has invisible fingers. It strokes you and tickles you and bumps against you. If you could see it, it would be all swirls and feathers, but you have to feel it instead.’ As she speaks, her eyes shine. Maybe she should be the writer.

  ‘Did you always want to work outdoors?’

  ‘I was never a girly girl, if that’s what you mean. My brother — not Mike, I mean my younger brother, Austin — we like all the same things. He lives in Australia now. Works on a farm.’

  ‘And Mike?’

  ‘He’s my half-brother. He’s a fund manager, or something. Earns megabucks. Prances about. Plays the field. We went to different schools, had different friends — we have nothing in common but he’s always been there for me.’

  James feels a waft of possessiveness: Mike be damned — he wants to be the one who’s there for her now. At the same time he detects an echo of past emotion, of Becks’ ghost. Fascinating.

  Natalie and Dan are still on the sofa. Natalie is writing an email to an old school friend, Lisa, whom she hasn’t seen for, what, five years? Could it really be ten? She has heard that Lisa is now both a teacher at a snazzy boarding school and a mother. Hard to imagine. At any of a dozen parties, Lisa was the one who drank too much or smoked too much and had to be carried home. Not in a wild-child way, but in an annoying, embarrassing way.