Divorcing Jack

by Colin Bateman

  'Have you met many Germans?'

  'Enough.'

  'Where was that?'

  'Oh, I've been around Europe a few times. You can't help it. They own everything.'

  'You have a point there.' He set his sticks down. He was half finished and food hadn't yet crossed the border of my lips. 'You're not very comfortable, are you?' He asked sympathetically. Sweat was dripping down my brow like irrigation on a hillside paddy field. 'I should have checked this was okay for you. Not everyone can use them.'

  I put my chopsticks down. 'I'm fine' I said. 'My hands are slightly arthritic. You might have noticed.' Jesus.

  2

  When I was thirteen I woke up in the middle of the night and found my brother pissing in my typewriter case. I decided there and then that there must be something wonderful about alcohol. As my artistic interest grew I discovered that many of my heroes had had impassioned affairs with what my old da referred to as the devil's vomit: Brendan Behan. Dylan Thomas, George Best, Pete Townshend. It had not adversely affected any of them, with the exception of the first two, whom it killed.

  It was the most natural thing in the world for me to hit the pub as soon as I finished lunch. My embarrassment with the chopsticks needed diluting.

  I headed back into the centre of town, then up the Dublin Road to Shaftesbury Square. I turned left into a dusty alleyway and entered a brown doorway at the top, Lavery's back bar. It was the kind of spit-and-sawdust pub that was becoming increasingly rare on the ground in the city; most of the rest had adopted themes. Maybe Lavery's had too but never let on: not so much mock Georgian as take-the-piss hard-man. There were a few ageing punks at the bar, a couple of students in a corner and an old drunk studying the jukebox. Willie Nutt was behind the bar. He winked over as I came in. He poured me a pint of Harp without asking.

  'Howdy, Dan, how's it going? What's the headline tonight?'

  I shrugged. 'God knows. I only work there.'

  He leant on the bar as I put my money down. 'Did you hear the forecast, Dan?'

  I'd heard the forecast, but I'd hear it again. 'Cloudy,' he said, 'with widespread terrorism.'

  He gave a big belly laugh, scooped up the money and wandered down the bar.

  I sat with my pint. Had another. Two or three others. A couple of shorts. There was a nice atmosphere. Relaxed. Towards teatime it began to crowd up. Still not many suits. Tax Inspector Patricia would be at work for an hour yet. I bought some cans at the bar and headed up the few hundred yards to the Botanic Gardens. The wind had dropped and there was a pleasant warmth in the air; the change in temperature had brought crowds of youngsters out of the bushes and they sat on the green in groups, half-shielding bottles of cider. Ah, my youth before me.

  I found a bench and began drinking. Save for ordering drinks I hadn't spoken to anyone since Maxwell, and I wasn't worrying about him. It was out of my hands now. The money would be handy, but moving house was a pain I could do without. I thought about chopsticks and how ridiculous they were. I thought about the waiters and how ignorant they had been. It was a trait that would in time make the Dragon Palace one of the most popular establishments in the city.

  I took a gulp, closed my eyes. I felt the tension oozing away. It was shaping up into a beautiful evening.

  I opened my eyes. I was on the ground. I looked at my watch. A quarter to ten. It was getting dark.

  A voice at my side said: 'Are you all right?'

  I looked up. A girl. Maybe twenty. Her hair was long, crimped at the front, dyed black. She'd a long angular face, pretty in a starved kind of way. Her eyes were close together, but not so close as to suggest Catholicism, and they were as electric blue as eyes can be at dusk. I said: 'I'm fine. I'm a gravel inspector for the Department of Stones. Undercover.' Snappy, precise, slurred.

  She smiled. A nice thin smile. 'Do gravel inspectors always sleep on park benches for two hours, allow wee lads to steal their drink and then make sudden dives onto the ground?'

  I sat up, wiped loose stones from my knees. 'Always.' She giggled and turned to leave. 'You been watching me?'

  She stopped. 'I was across the way having a drink.'

  'It's not safe here by yourself.'

  'I was with friends. They're away on.' The top of a bottle of cider peeked out of a deep leather handbag that hung from her shoulder.

  'You wouldn't care to join me?'

  'What, down there?'

  'Nah, for a drink. Down the road. No strings attached.' My tongue felt fuzzy, my brain fuzzier.

  'Do you not think you've had enough?'

  'No such thing. Sure I've had a wee sleep. I've drunk myself sober.'

  'I shouldn't really ...'

  But it was a shouldn't with a hint of should. If I'd been a girl I'd have said no, but she looked me up and down and must have seen something vaguely appealing. God knows, it wasn't my physique - she later described me as the Adonis of Auschwitz. But she nodded and stretched out her hand to help me up. 'Just for one, and that only 'cause I'm interested in stones.'

  I said: 'Do you always pick up strange men in parks?'

  'Nah, I usually do it in public toilets. You get a better class in there.'

  She was nice. Chirpy with youth. Only a wee slip of a thing. I said: 'Are you a student?'

  'Aye, but not up there.' She nodded back towards Queen's University, which bordered the gardens. The little smile jumped back onto her pale lips. 'I'm up at Jordanstown. I study geology.'

  'A fortunate choice of words then. It must be fate.'

  We went back down to Lavery's. She chatted animatedly on the way, nothing of any real substance, or perhaps there was and I was far too gone to notice it. There was a slight slur in her voice; it didn't make much difference to my drunken ears.

  The back bar was packed and the drinkers had spilled out into the alleyway which was brightly lit now by a large, bare bulb high up on the side of the wall. It took me fifteen minutes to negotiate my way to the bar and get served. By the time I got back she was chatting to a couple of spiky-haired youths. I stood behind her with two pints in my hands, feeling old. She turned to me, took her pint and then recommenced her conversation with the punks. I took it as a hint and started to move on. She came skipping after me.

  'Hey, hold on. I'm sorry, I hadn't seen them for ages.'

  'No problem,' I said.

  'Don't be like that.'

  I shrugged. And I thought to myself, Christ, I've known her five minutes and I'm jealous. 'How can I fall out with you if I don't even know your name?'

  'Well, there's a point.' She seemed about to hold her hand out, but suddenly did a basketball pivot, reaching up to kiss me on the cheek, spilling part of her beer on my coat as she did so. 'I'm sorry,' she said, and I wasn't sure whether she was apologizing for turning her back on me, spilling her drink or having immediate second thoughts about the kiss. 'I'm Margaret. Margaret McBride.'

  I leant down and kissed her back. No, not her back, her cheek. It was cool and white and smelt of mandarin oranges. And I'm Dan Starkey.'

  'Oh, I know who you are. I've seen you in the paper.'

  'Ah.'

  'And I've seen you with your wife.'

  'Ah.'

  'It was at a party. You were drunk under a table. You had to be carried to a taxi.'

  'I've never been carried to a taxi in my life.'

  'Well, you certainly had help.'

  'Maybe help. I've never been carried.'

  'You don't look much like your picture in the paper.'

  'Disappointed?'

  'You don't look as hungry in real life.'

  'It was taken on a particularly bad day. You like the column? Be honest. I'm not fishing for compliments, but if you don't answer in the affirmative I'll break your nose.'

  ‘I like it. Sometimes. Better than the other crap.'

  ‘I like that. Better than the other crap. Put that on my gravestone.'

  A lank, dank guy ambled up to her and offered her a pull on a joint. She shook her head.
After a moment's hesitation he begrudgingly offered it to me. I shook my head as well. He moved off into the shadows.

  'Friend?'

  She shrugged. 'I know him to see. It's nice of him to offer. I don't mind a smoke actually, but not here, the half of them are probably undercover anyway. You should know that.'

  'Aye, I know.'

  'And when I say I don't mind a smoke I'm not talking to you as Daniel Starkey, journalist, but Dan Starkey, drunk. All strictly off the record.'

  'Of course, of course. I will have no memory of this in the morning.' Or I would remember it all, or remember it all wrong. It varied.

  It didn't start out as anything more than a few quiet drinks with a stranger, but the drink and the time flew in. Patricia would already be out on the town. It was a Friday night tradition. Eight or ten of our friends would call round to our house after tea, have a carry-out and a smoke and then head out to a bar. Patricia was accustomed to my occasional non-appearances. If I didn't meet them in one or other of the bars we favoured with our custom I'd see them back at the house later where the drinking would continue. It was teenage partying on adult paycheques.

  By 1 a.m. the bar was closed and Margaret started to make vague noises about going home, but I took her by the arm and gently insisted that she come back to the house for a drink. She should meet my friends. She'd maybe meet a nice man. You never know who might be there. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

  ‘I know your wife would be there. What would she think you turning up with me?'

  'Nothing. She's used to it.'

  'Thanks a lot, like, you make me sound so special.'

  'Don't be silly, I mean she doesn't mind me bringing people home for drink, man or girl. She likes meeting people and she trusts me. She's no reason to mistrust me. And I don't mess around.'

  She looked unconvinced. 'Unless you get the chance.'^

  'Come for one. What harm's it going to do? It's only up the road.'

  'And you promise you won't write about me in the paper?'

  'Don't be so paranoid.'

  She hemmed and hawed for a while, but I won her over, using charm and drunken logic. We went up Botanic Avenue and turned into the Holy Land, a tangle of terraced streets off the university that had mostly fallen under student occupation. It was late, but there was still plenty of life about, most of it drunk. We were home in five minutes.

  There was music booming out of the house, barely muffled by wood and brick. It was a big house, three floors and an attic. We'd had it for three years and it still smelt like the student flats it had been, kind of musty and unshaven, an air of potential about it stifled by laziness. I opened the front door. Directly ahead of us in the kitchen Mouse was piling food into the microwave. He was thirty-two, powerfully built, an old mate. He turned as the door opened.

  'BOUT YA, DAN!'

  'Hi, Mouse. Pat here?'

  He pointed towards the lounge. I could feel the throb of a bass through the door and people jumping up and down. I opened it and led Margaret in. The Rezillos' 'Flying Saucer Attack' was blasting out of the speakers. Half a dozen of my friends were bouncing around to it, wearing album covers on their heads. They looked like druids. It was a tradition. There was a stack of cans in the corner. I grabbed two and gave one to Margaret. She sat down on the arm of a ripped leather armchair. Immediately Gerry and Dawn pounced on her and had her up dancing. I wandered into the adjoining room.

  Patricia was sitting on the Magic Settee. We called it that because most every time we sat on it in daylight we ended up making love. We hadn't sat on it for a while.

  'All right?' I ventured.

  She had her knees folded under her and a glass in her hand, vodka and orange.

  She smiled. She looked brilliant. Save a line or two round her eyes she looked as beautiful as on the day she had asked me out.

  I kissed her.

  'Sleepy,' she said.

  'You want me to throw them out?'

  'Nah. We're not here that long. I'm waiting for my second wind. Who's that you came in with?'

  'Another victim for satanic sacrifice. Margaret. Young and maybe virginal. She'll do fine.'

  'Just the one? You usually manage a couple.'

  'You know how it is. I didn't have much time, what with the interview 'n' all.'

  She put a hand on my arm. 'I take it things didn't go all that well. Moscow let you down?'

  'Brazil let me down, but that's another story. Apart from that it went okay. I'll tell you in the morning. Party time.'

  I went back into the lounge as Patricia nodded off where she was. Someone had found an old glam compilation in the depths of our record collection and we formed ourselves into a circle for 'Tiger Feet'.

  The needle jumped a couple of times and Mouse ripped off the album, throwing it on top of a burgeoning pile of sleeveless plastic. I took advantage of the momentary silence to quit the circle and follow Margaret into the kitchen. She opened the fridge and pulled a bottle of cider out, hugging it to her chest as she turned to me.

  'Strongbow - brilliant.' She held the yellow label up to me. 'Two big bottles of this and you wake up in the morning with a pile of vomit in your slippers and six hours pregnant.'

  'That's a profound thing for a youngster like yourself to come off with.'

  'Youngster? Ha! I'm not as young as I look. How old would you say?'

  'I'll start off at thirty-seven, then everything below that is a bonus.'

  'I'm twenty-two.'

  'Dead old. I'm old enough to be your big brother.'

  'You're old enough to have a lot of old records. It's like going into a time machine in there.'

  'You can't beat quality. That old punk stuff... timeless.'

  'Witless. I can't picture you as a punk. Did you have spiky hair? Bondage trousers? The whole heap?'

  'Nah. Not really. Punk was more an attitude than a look. That's what so many failed to understand about it.'

  'You mean your mum wouldn't let you dye your hair blue.'

  'Yeah, a bit of that as well.'

  'I was eight when the Sex Pistols released their first single.'

  'Jesus.'

  She took a long swig from the bottle and offered it to me. I declined. Beer and cider do not for a good hangover make. Mouse had obviously discovered my Ramones live album. I grabbed Margaret's free hand and led her back into the heart of the dancing. You're never too old to rock 'n' roll.

  The dancing was chaotic and by the end of the song I felt the spins coming on and headed for the door. I stumbled up two flights of stairs and found the bathroom mercifully empty. I locked myself in and was sick twice in the washbasin. White, my legs shaking, my head resting on the rim, I reached up to turn on the cold water tap. It was warm and sticky where someone had already been sick on it. I was sick again. I leant over the bath and turned the cold tap on, flicking off the shower control at the same time. As icy water rushed out I put my wrists under it and let it burn cold against my pulse, then splashed it up onto the back of my neck and onto my face. I sat for a while on the edge of the stained cream enamel bath, my head bowed, until I began to settle down. There is no greater feeling than regaining control of your body after it has been usurped by a friend you have willingly invited in. I stood up, steadied myself against the wall and then, without breathing in, washed the sink and taps. I am nothing if not a responsible drunk. The draining water caught the rear end of a slater as it endeavoured to escape the smoothness of the sink, flushing it down the plughole. After a moment the little round shell of the woodlouse reappeared and began to ascend the curved sides of the basin again. I turned both taps on it and it disappeared again. Ten seconds later it reappeared and began its journey anew. I laughed and let it go. I hoped I could come up after going under for the second time.

  I was just starting down the stairs when I noticed a light on in my study at the end of the hall. Margaret was standing just inside the door, looking at the books that lined the wall. I get fidgety when people are in my
study. I don't like them looking for works in progress because mostly there are no works in progress. I'd been working on a conversation-based novel, like The Graduate or The Commitments, but my characters kept turning out shy and tongue-tied.

  She looked round as I approached.

  'You've good taste in books,' she said.

  'That makes me sound like I eat them.'

  'Devour them maybe. Do you? Devour them?'

  ‘I haven't read them all. A lot are review copies, from the paper. Take any you want. There's a laugh-a-minute guide to macro economics up there or there's a biography of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. Take your pick.'

  'I heard you being sick.' I nodded.

  ‘I beat you to it. Feeling better?'

  I nodded again. 'My mouth tastes like a horse's arse.'

  'You want a mint?' She asked. I nodded. A wide grin split her face. When I looked closer there was a mint jutting from between her teeth. 'My last one,' she said, clamping down on it, her voice strangled like a ventriloquist's. She angled her face up towards mine, proffering the sweet. I bent to take it. My lips wrapped round the public half. She smelt good, I could feel her heat. My teeth tightened on it. But she wouldn't let go. We were both grinning inanely as we pulled at the mint. As I went for a better grip my lips touched hers and her mouth widened. The mint became a flapping border gatepost, there but unguarded, as our tongues met around it. In a moment it fell from our mouths and we remained clamped together, lost.

  I did not think of Patricia. It was as if she did not exist for those few seconds, that my love for her was of a different time and place, that there and then there was only Margaret in the world and she was all that mattered.

  When her voice came it was quiet, collected, like an exchange with a dying, unfamiliar relative. She could be a violent, argumentative, tantrummed woman; that was why the calmness of her discovery was all the more frightening.

  'You have twenty-four hours to move out.'

  And then she was gone. I tried to pull away, but Margaret held me for precious seconds as Patricia walked sadly down the stairs.