Jack Tumor

by Anthony McGowan

  Almost straightaway, Uma looked up. Her eyes sharpened and then went vague, as though she was trying to hide whatever it was she was feeling. Annoyance, perhaps. Or embarrassment. Unlikely to be lust.

  “Hey,” I said, from the back of the queue.

  An old man in a heavy coat that looked like it was made from the dead remains of many other coats turned and huffed at me.

  “Some of us are waiting,” he said gruffly, taking me for a pusher-in. His false teeth clacked like he was simultaneously sending out a message in Morse code. I was going to say something back, but then I noticed the pink hearing aid and the coiling wire, and I instantly saw all the possibilities for looking like an idiot if I tried to talk to the deaf old geezer. “What? Eh? You said my hovercraft is full of eels? I’ll give you hovercraft!” That sort of thing. And looking up I saw that Uma was smiling.

  “Hair,” she said, and my fizzing mind decoded it, working as fast as the people in Bletchley Park who decoded the German Ultra transcripts and won the war for us.

  I-l-i-k-e-y-o-u-r-h-a-i-r.

  Could that be it? I ran it through again.

  I-l-i-k-e-y-o-u-r-h-a-i-r.

  Yes!

  Please let it not just be the dopamine playing havoc with my judgment.

  “I thought you always went to the gyppy chippie,” she said, without breaking her rhythm of two scoops and a shake.

  It was definitely quite a promising start. She could easily have accused me of being an Eater of the Gay Chip. The very fact that she knew what my usual chip shop was suggested that she had some kind of interest in me. Either that or her concern for local chip-eating trends was purely scientific and business-oriented, which seemed unlikely.

  “It’s closer,” I said, “but . . . ”

  “But what?”

  Uma was looking deep into the fryer, as if there was something especially interesting about the fat. Maybe it contained a piece of batter shaped like Mother Teresa.

  “But . . .” But what? I had to think of something good. C’mon, Jack, c’mon, dopamine, this is where I need you.

  But your cod fillets are a bit thicker?

  But you use a better quality of vinegar?

  But . . . help! My brain was spinning and whirring but going nowhere.

  “But . . . YOU DON’T WORK THERE.”

  It was Jack. He’d taken over for a moment, done my talking for me. I should have been annoyed, but this wasn’t the time. And I’m not saying it was necessarily in the top one hundred all-time great chip shop chat-up lines, but it was a hell of a lot better than silence. I think Jack even managed to get a little extra something into my voice, a certain . . . swagger, which meant that the words punched above their weight.

  And then the unthinkable happened.

  Uma Upshaw, the unflappable, imperturbable, iron-clad Uma Upshaw, blushed. I saw it. She really did. It began somewhere beneath the green nylon collar of her coat and carried right up until it hit her hairline, where, for all I knew, it continued till it met at a point right beneath the center of her little paper hat. It was the world turned upside down. I didn’t make people blush. I was the blusher. I think a little natural dopamine got injected into my system with that minor triumph.

  OH BOY, said Jack.

  Without quite understanding how, I found that I was at the front of the queue, and Mrs. Upshaw was looking at me. I don’t think she’d taken in the juddering import of what had just occurred: the chat-up, the blushing, the glory.

  “What can I get you, love?” she asked mechanically. I guess that if I’d have been a slavering werewolf she’d have said the same thing.

  “I’m here for Uma,” I said.

  “Chips with that?”

  No, Eve Upshaw didn’t seem to be quite all there tonight.

  “No, er, I said Uma, I’ve come for Uma.”

  Before Mrs. Upshaw had time to respond, a shadow loomed over the counter. Uma’s dad had appeared from the kitchen. He was wearing a white apron and carrying a bucket of raw chips as big as a beer barrel.

  “Who’s this?” he said, aiming at me, but speaking to God knows who.

  “I’m here for Uma,” I managed to say, and I don’t think it came out as a squeak, but you never know.

  Les dropped his bucket of chips. His face was a solid slab of meat, and it seemed to sort of flow into his bald head, so you couldn’t really say where face stopped and scalp began. I noticed for the first time that he had a very small mouth. It wasn’t a pretty face, but it was an impressive one.

  And now it was making a growling noise.

  “I’ve come to ask her out. On a walk.”

  “You what?”

  He sounded like I’d said, “to the nearest dung heap, on which I plan to ravish her with the aid of a selection of large, misshapen root vegetables, including, but not limited to, turnip, rutabaga, and kohlrabi.”

  “For a walk, Mr. Upshaw. Now.”

  Blustering outrage took over from puzzled anger.

  “She . . . not a chance . . . work to do . . . walking the streets with the likes of . . . ought to come around there and—”

  “Go and get ready, Uma, love.”

  This was, unexpectedly, Eve Upshaw speaking.

  “What you on about? I just said—”

  “Lesley, this is Hector Brunty. He’s a nice lad. His mother works at the charity shop.”

  “But there’s chips to—”

  “Don’t make a bother. We’re quiet. You can see we are.”

  And it was then that I noticed that we were alone in the shop—no one had come in after me. But Les Upshaw wasn’t beaten yet.

  “Aye, but the rush’ll be on soon.”

  “We’ll cope.”

  Without saying anything, Uma dashed past her parents and out the back. Rationally, of course, I had no way of knowing if this just meant that she had cleared off to catch EastEnders— after all, she hadn’t said yes to going on a walk with me, let alone the ravishing on the dung heap with the vegetables. But the dopamine permitted no pessimism and I knew she’d return to me.

  But for now I was on my own with Les and Eve.

  Ugh.

  Les was looking vaguely stunned now, as if he’d just woken up during an operation. An anal probe, perhaps. His inappropriately petite mouth was hanging open. And, now I looked more closely, I could see that his lips were of normal proportions, and it was the side-to-side measurement of the mouth opening that was unusually restricted. It made his lips protrude somewhat, giving him a guppylike appearance. A very big guppy, mind you.

  Eve was smiling at me.

  “And how’s your mother?” she asked.

  “Fine.”

  I thought maybe they had counseling together. Something like that.

  “Want some chips, while you wait?”

  “Er, no thanks, Mrs. Upshaw.”

  “Summat up wi’ my chips?” That was Les, of course, prick-ling for a fight.

  “No! Your chips are great. And your fish. And your, er, pickled eggs.”

  “Battered sausage?”

  “Oh, they’re the best.”

  “Ha, got you! We don’t do a battered sausage. That’s the other place what does them.”

  “Les! It’s not fair to trick the boy. You got him flustered, that’s all, with your battered sausages. Who can think straight when there’s a battered sausage at stake? It’s no wonder he got a bit confused. Battered sausage indeed!”

  Then there was a couple of minutes’ silence as Les faffed about with the fryer settings and Eve smiled and the dopamine drained out of me like air from a punctured bicycle tire, and I began to hope for one of those tears in the fabric of space and time to open up so I could pop into a different dimension for a few minutes. Jack made unpleasant remarks which I tried really hard not to listen to, along the lines of suggesting what Les might want to do with his battered sausage, i.e., stick it up his sole. As in a kind of fish. This being a fish and chip shop, and “sole” being the last syllable of arsehole, the whole
thing therefore being a joke.

  And then Les stopped what he was doing and sniffed the air.

  “What’s that smell?”

  Oh, no. The Old Tramp.

  Les scanned the room nasally, trying to track down the source of the stench. He began to focus on me. I was doomed. Not only was I going to ravish his daughter, but I was going to do it smelling like a gay hobo.

  My panicked eyes met Mrs. Upshaw’s. She returned my stare for a second. I think she understood. Understood everything. And then she galloped to the rescue.

  “It’s my new perfume,” she said. “Do you like it?”

  I loved Eve Upshaw in that moment. If the aforementioned rent in time/space was really available, I’d have gone back to when Eve was a teenager and taken her away from all this—from Les, from the chips, from her nylon overall—found an island somewhere with goats and coconuts, and we’d have been happy together, Eve and I.

  “What?” said Les, his smooth meaty face registering surprise. “Oh, aye. Nice.” And then his tiny little mouth went into a spasm, which I was forced to interpret as a smile. I suppose he thought that this unprecedented use of scent in the chip shop meant that Mrs. U. was in the mood for love. “Very nice.”

  Very nice for him, perhaps, but bloody unpleasant for me to think about, and a nasty intrusion to our island with the goats and coconuts, and the grass skirt, and nothing to do but find new ways to pleasurize each other. It’s her wearing the grass skirt, by the way, not me. Just wanted to clear that up. In case you were wondering.

  And then Uma was there to banish such thoughts (I mean the thoughts of Eve on the island, and Les with Eve), and I’d swear that when she appeared in the doorway the whole chip shop filled with light, as if she was being illuminated by the flashbulbs of a thousand paparazzi.

  An Interlude

  at the Spleen and

  Marrow

  C’mon then,” she said.

  OH, BOY.

  OH, BOY.

  OH, BOY.

  Couldn’t have put it better myself.

  Oh, boy.

  “You’re not going out like that.”

  Les, of course. And he had a point. Except that she was going out like that.

  “You look lovely, dear,” said Mrs. Upshaw, which was also true.

  Uma was wearing a top that rippled with iridescence like a mermaid’s scales, and a black skirt so short you’d think there was some world material crisis and they’d brought in rationing.

  “She’ll catch her death. Or worse.”

  Brave words, but there was little defiance left in Big Les now. He knew he was defeated.

  “It’s warm out,” said Mrs. Upshaw, and Les was out of the ring.

  Uma lifted the counter and floated past. I tried to say goodbye to Mr. and Mrs. Upshaw, but I’d lost my voice and I didn’t find it until we were out in the street.

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “Isn’t that your job? Deciding things and stuff ?”

  The words may have sounded stroppy, but the tone was flirtatious.

  I ran through the possibilities, in table form.

  ADVANTAGES

  DISADVANTAGES

  THE ODEON

  1. Wouldn’t have to think of anything to say to her during the film.

  2. Could snog her in the back row.

  1. Cost more money than I had.

  2. Would have to snog her in the back row, and I didn’t think I knew how to snog people, in the back row or anywhere else.

  MCDONALD’S

  1. Cheap—the whole date might well come in under a fiver.

  2. Limited snogging, and therefore snogging-related embarrassment opportunities.

  1. Disgusting and, like, Uma would really want to go to a smelly fast-food outlet when she’s just escaped from a smelly fast-food outlet?

  2. What I said about snogging, only the other way around.

  THIS IS ALREADY DECIDED—TELL HER WE’RE JUST GOING FOR A WALK. TRY TO SOUND MYSTERIOUS, WITHOUT BEING CREEPY IF YOU CAN MANAGE THAT. I’LL TAKE CARE OF THE REST.

  So I told her, cranking up the mystery quotient, then easing off on the lever before we reached creepy, just like Jack told me, and she seemed okay with it all, although she didn’t appear much mystified in either a good or bad way.

  It was seven o’clock now, and the streets were emptyish, as most people were at home, having their dinner or watching telly. I thought how nice it would be to be sitting at home watching telly, not having to think of things to say to pretty girls who knew much more about life than you did.

  “So what’s with the new image then?”

  “Oh, my hair and that? Just sort of felt like a change,” I said as casually as I could.

  “Suits you. You don’t look like such a sad case anymore.”

  “Thanks.”

  YOU’RE EASILY PLEASED.

  The first thirty seconds were going well. Obviously the dopamine had helped. The last drops were still in there, but it wouldn’t last much longer. I hoped Jack would give me another spurt.

  Uma was looking at me. I was expected to say something.

  TELL HER SHE LOOKS LIKE A RARE ORCHID; LIKE A YOUNG FAUN; LIKE A STILL-UNRAVISHED DANAË, AWAITING THE SHOWER OF GOLD; LIKE LEDA SUPINE BENEATH THE BEATING WINGS.

  “Oh, er, you look . . .” What? I didn’t just want to be Jack’s mouthpiece, I wanted to find my own words. Nice? Scrumptious? Intelligent? Worthy of a place as sexy alien onboard the Enterprise?

  LIKE ARTEMIS, HOT WITH PURSUIT; LIKE PSYCHE, TENDER IN THE DARKNESS.

  “Gorgeous.”

  UGH!

  “Ta.” She looked quite pleased, but she was probably used to being called things like gorgeous. “Why are we going in the direction of the graveyard?”

  “Are we?” I noticed that we were, in fact, heading towards the old graveyard of St. Arsenius, the local posh Anglican church. I detected Jack’s subtle hand at work on my legs. “Er, we are. Yes. For a walk. Nice and quiet. With the graves and everything. Flowers.”

  “Okay, but not yet. Let’s go somewhere else first.”

  Bum. Odeon or McDonald’s? Time to decide.

  “Like the pub.”

  “The pub . . . but I’ve never . . . Okay, yeah, the pub. I was going to say that. Always a good idea to go to the pub. First. Pub . . . drink . . . good.”

  “Liar. You’ve never been, have you?”

  She said it with a laugh in her voice. Couldn’t quite tell if it was laughing-with or laughing-at. Probably at. It was usually at.

  “Yes. A few times.” Pause. “No, not really.”

  I hung my head in shame, but Uma didn’t seem bothered.

  “Have you got any money?”

  I took out my wallet.

  “Nice purse.”

  “It’s a wallet.”

  “Touchy.”

  “No, it’s just that . . . well, it’s a wallet.”

  There was five pounds in my purse, I mean wallet. I felt deep into my pockets, and scraped together another two-fifty.

  I held it all out to show her: “Is that enough?”

  “Yeah, it’ll do,” said Uma, not really trying to hide her disappointment. It was the first proper setback in my hot date with Uma Upshaw. Would it be the last?

  GET ON WITH IT.

  So we diverted from our path to the graveyard and walked the couple of streets to the Spleen and Marrow. I tried to get really close to Uma to show that I liked her, without actually touching, which she might think was me trying to grope her. As we walked we kept bumping together in a random way that wasn’t one thing or the other, and I learned the interesting fact that boys and girls walk to a different rhythm.

  Conversation came in fits and starts, and got stuck for a while on chips, and why you don’t get a free bag of scraps (that’s bits of loose batter from the fryer, in case you’ve never had them) anymore. I was relieved when we arrived.

  And it was my first time in a pub. I’d never been with Mum, of course, because sh
e didn’t go out. I’d seen pubs and bars on the telly, so I roughly knew what to expect, but telly doesn’t prepare you fully for reality. If it did, then there’d be a lot more pretty girls in the world, because nearly all the girls on the telly are pretty.

  There was one of those doors where you don’t know if you should push or pull, but I finally managed to get the better of it and entered with a sort of falling motion.

  First pub impressions: warm and smoky.

  The place was sparsely populated, with just a few yellow-eyed old geezers dotted about at the tables, most of them smoking, all of them looking pretty glum. They could have been the same gang from the hospital ward, but with their coats on. Perhaps their lives consisted only of this constant shuttling between the hospital and the pub.

  Everything inside the Spleen and Marrow was brown, although I don’t know if that was deliberate, meaning someone had painted it all brown, or if it was just stained brown with brown stuff that people brought with them, like smoke and mud and grime and grease.

  “Get us a Campari and lemonade, will you?” said Uma, sounding the cheeriest thing in there by a factor of a million. “And,” she added decisively, “some crisps.”

  She took off her jacket and sat down on a chair. The seat of the chair was made of red plastic which had split, and the foam bulged out like a hairy beer belly bulging through the gaps in a shirt.

  “Yeah, sure, I’ll just, er . . .” and I shuffled off towards the bar. Campari. I’d heard of Campari. I’d get one of those too.

  NO YOU DON’T.

  Why?

  LADY’S DRINK.

  Oh.

  A lady’s drink. No, I couldn’t get one of those. Because I wasn’t a lady. Okay, what did I want?

  Hello, Jack, come in please. Need some help here. What do I want?

  A CUP OF SACK, OR GLASS OF MALMSEY. YES, THAT WOULD DO THE TRICK. BUT I DON’T SUPPOSE WE’VE MUCH HOPE HERE. IT HARDLY MATTERS, SO LONG AS YOU DRINK DEEP, AND DRINK LONG.

  No use at all, which meant it was down to me. Beer would be the manly thing, but I’d tasted beer a few times and it was horrible. About the only alcoholic thing I’d ever tasted that I liked was Martini and lemonade at our next-door neighbor’s New Year’s Eve party, but I had a nasty feeling that if Campari was a lady’s drink, then Martini and lemonade might be a gay one.