by Neil Cross
He woke to find Mel rooting round in her handbag, searching out her keys. She was showered and dressed. The water had blasted the hangover away like soot from an old building. She smelt of shampoo and perfume and the cigarette she was smoking. She found her keys, replaced them immediately in the handbag, then went and fiddled with her hair in the hallway mirror.
She said, ‘Are you coming or what?’
He stood and followed her out of the house. His mouth was gummy with sleep and he wished he could clean his teeth. Four houses down, they knocked on Janet’s door. Nothing had blasted away Janet’s hangover. Her pie-face was doughy and mottled. She wore a long, shapeless cardigan and a pair of purple leggings that were baggy at the knees and taut across the vast half-globe of her arse.
Sam was possessed of a transitory but childish and cruel anxiety. He didn’t want people to link him romantically to Janet.
‘Oh Jan,’ said Mel. ‘You look rough, love.’
Janet tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and smiled, bravely.
‘Fucking hell,’ she said. She looked at Sam. ‘You should have seen your sister last night. What a piece of baggage.’
‘All right, Jan,’ said Mel. ‘That’s enough.’
Janet winked at him, and smiled and waggled her head. Then she went inside to get her keys and handbag.
Mel crossed her arms.
‘She’s exaggerating.’
‘I’m sure she is.’
‘Yes,’ said Mel. ‘Well. Whatever.’
The Cat and Fiddle wasn’t far away, just the other side of the Dolphin Centre, but Janet wasn’t a fast walker, so they ambled at a leisurely, Sunday pace that belonged to better weather. Mel and Janet were discussing something very, very funny in a language that only superficially resembled English; it was composed of hurried, low murmurs, punctuated by horsey snorts and sudden bursts of laughter. He envied the easy way they linked arms and bent double with laughter, without even breaking pace. He felt excluded and prissy, too cumbersomely male, and he hung back slightly, smoking and making no attempt to join in the conversation.
They stopped off in the NSS to stock up on cigarettes. Round the corner, at the junction of Lacey Road and Robinwood Road, he saw the Cat and Fiddle. He thought it might be the ugliest pub in Britain: low-rise and brick-built like an open prison, it sat centrally in a concrete car park and backed on to a pitiful strip of green upon which had been erected a rusty yellow climbing frame, which Sam would have feared to go near, let alone permit a child to play on. A few kids sat on the low wall, kicking their heels and gobbing on the pavement. They might have been there for twenty-five years.
The sight of them made Sam want to go home. He longed for the shifting, alienating kaleidoscope of London; ever-changing and never-changing: all those millions of people glimpsed briefly and never seen again. The Cat and Fiddle was the acme of changelessness. All that he had once sought to escape.
He looked at his admired sister, who’d been coming here for a drink every Sunday afternoon since they were children, and who was happy, and he didn’t know what to think. In unlit shop windows he saw his flitting shape: a grotesque version of the boy he had been, half-glimpsed and ugly, like a gargoyle hanging behind these happy women.
His heart began to flutter too rapidly.
He stopped in the street.
He said, ‘I can’t do this.’
They didn’t hear him—he had spoken so quietly—so he said it again.
Unconcerned, Mel looked over her shoulder.
‘Course you can.’
‘Mel,’ he said.
She drew to a halt, her arm still linked with Janet.
‘Sam,’ she said, ‘he won’t hurt you. Not in broad daylight, not in front of witnesses, not when you haven’t really done anything. It would make him look bad. Just do what we agreed, OK? You go in, you say sorry, you tell him you were out of order and you buy him a pint. Bob’s your uncle.’
He swallowed. The world was bending in and out of focus, like a mask being inhaled and exhaled.
‘Christ,’ he said, and put a hand to his sternum.
He sat down on a low garden wall. Behind him, he sensed movement: the house’s occupant moving to the window to see what was going on. Janet waved over his shoulder and mouthed the word sorry. He sensed the occupant retreat, satisfied. Somehow, that made the gathering rush of panic worse. It was about to erupt in his chest, massive as an orgasm.
He squeezed his knees and tried to breathe.
He was homesick. He yearned to be in bed next to his wife (his Justine), whom he loved and who loved and understood him. Sunday mornings had been wonderful. He pale pink, she butterscotch, his knees tucked behind hers, her arse nuzzling warmly into his belly, the sleep-musk like perfume on her skin, while their tiny son hummed and purred and cooed and clattered and played with oversized Lego bricks on the carpet next to the bed. The gentle murmur of the radio and the summer outside.
He wanted Justine so much he feared his heart might actually break, crushed like a cider apple. He looked again at the kids kicking their heels on the pub wall. It seemed that he had yearned for the past so powerfully that, by some terrible cosmic over-compensation, he’d gone back too far. He’d gone back twenty-five years, or thirty. He’d seen himself, a child, kicking his bored heels on the low wall outside the Cat and Fiddle, waiting for something to happen that never did.
Mel and Janet waited there, worried. Eventually he looked up and smiled, feebly.
‘Sorry, girls.’
Janet said, ‘Are you all right?’
He nodded. It made him dizzy and he corrected his balance.
‘It’s just …’ he accepted and lit a cigarette. The blue smoke blossomed and rolled and faded, deep down inside him. ‘It just happens,’ he said. ‘You know. Sometimes.’
Janet’s compassion was tender and undisguised, edged with habitual curiosity.
‘Poor love,’ she said.
She extended her hand and rubbed the crown of his head, like he was a sick old dog.
He thought himself contemptible: the worst kind of snob, a secret snob, and he could see that Mel knew it too. He avoided her narrow gaze.
Mel said, ‘Jan, why don’t you go ahead and get us a table? Get a round in, while you’re at it. I’ll have an Archers and he’ll have—’
‘A Guinness.’
‘A Guinness. Pint. Go on ahead. We’ll be five minutes.’
Janet lingered.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yeah,’ said Sam. He waved his hand decliningly. ‘Thanks, Jan. But I’m all right. Honestly.’
‘Go on,’ said Mel. ‘Get us a drink in.’
Janet didn’t want to go. She was anxious for his well-being. And she wanted to see what happened next, too.
With an air of reluctance, stoicism and deep concern, she sighed, ‘OK,’ and waddled slowly down the road.
Mel squatted, hands on knees.
She said, ‘Christ. Should I call a doctor or something?’
He laughed, then saw her face and wished he hadn’t.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Honestly. I’ll be all right in a minute. It’s just an anxiety attack.’
‘That Caroline down the road used to have them,’ said Mel. ‘The one who had her house repossessed. The one with the husband. She had pills.’
He said, ‘I’m fine. Honestly. Honest to God. It happens every now and again. Since Justine.’
Mel unclasped her handbag and removed her cigarettes.
She said, ‘You don’t have to go through with this.’
‘Through with what?’
‘Seeing Dave Hooper. It’s not worth it, if it’s just going to make you ill.’
He counted down from ten, gave up at four.
‘It’s got nothing to do with Dave Hooper,’ he said. ‘I’m not worried about
Dave Hooper. If Dave Hooper touches me, I’ll break his fucking neck. All right? It’s about Justine. It’s been happening ever since Justine died.’
‘I know,’ said Mel,
‘That’s right,’ he said, with emphasis.
‘You don’t have to prove anything,’ said Mel. ‘I’m your sister. I don’t want you to put yourself through a situation you can’t handle, on my behalf.’
‘What do you mean, can’t handle? Do you think I can’t handle Dave Hooper?’
She paused; not for long, but long enough.
He shook his head in disgust.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘Fuck you, then.’
He stood, puffing out his chest.
He said, ‘Come on.’
‘Come on where?’
‘The pub.’
She tugged at his sleeve.
‘Sam,’ she said. ‘Why bother?’
‘Why not? You told me there’d be no trouble.’
‘You nearly passed out. You might be having a heart attack or something.’
‘I’m fine.’
He promenaded off.
At the car-park entrance, he already regretted his petulance. But it was too late. Mel took his elbow and escorted him through the car park (his legs weak beneath him), her heels clicking purposefully on the concrete, and then she was ushering him through heavy, double doors and into the Cat and Fiddle.
The doors were varnished black and soundproof. As they entered, he was taken aback. The bar was almost full. All the tables and chairs seemed to be taken, and everybody was shouting. At one end of the long bar, a widescreen television had been erected, showing a European soccer match. A group of young men had gathered before it and were half-watching the game, half-engaged in mutual, possibly friendly ridicule. The air rolled at him in buffeting waves that crashed and split over his head. There was a micro-climate of cigarette smoke and human effluvium.
He was relieved not to recognize the bar staff—a middle-aged husband and wife and a young barmaid, pretty, chubby, probably their daughter—which was enough to relieve him of the notion that nothing had changed. Little else had. The fruit machines, close to the toilets, were modern, computerized and louder; there was no longer a ball-tipped arm to yank down. The cigarette machine was newer and sleeker. It was positioned at the far side of the bar, next to a bright yellow payphone, surely itself redundant: a large number of people were jabbering into mobile telephones, or composing or reading text messages, or showing text messages to laughing friends.
The bar itself had been replaced; it was longer, extending into what had once been a separate poolroom, and had a brushed aluminium surface. At least once in the last ten years, the interior had been cosmetically redecorated; in places the carpet was sticky underfoot and fag-burnt, but it wasn’t the same carpet. One Oasis song on the jukebox segued into another. Sam didn’t know the name of either. Even that, even Oasis, seemed trapped in time, something that happened a million years ago.
He paused in the doorway, aware of the evaluating eyes. Possibly some of them recognized him. He set this possibility aside and scanned the room, as neutrally as he might scan the horizon from a high and lonely cliff. Eventually, he saw Janet in the corner by the blue-baized pool table. She sat behind her handbag, a black pint and two long glasses on a round table close to the window. She half-waved and patted the stool next to her. Sam was relieved to see her. He waved back, and weaved through the crowd at the bar, casting his eyes as low and unspecific as he was able. He sat and said hello. Janet asked if he was all right. He gave her his saddest eyes and said, ‘I’m fine,’ and smiled sadly, bravely. Mel was a few seconds behind him. She told them to budge up and put a stool down next to his. He sat with his thigh pressed into Janet’s.
‘There he is,’ said Mel.
‘Where?’
She nodded towards the far end of the bar, where Dave Hooper stood, in the company of five or six other men. Hooper rested an elbow on the bar and kept his head low, listening to a younger man’s anecdote. He wasn’t looking in their direction. Either he hadn’t noticed Sam’s entrance, or he was ignoring it.
Mel said, ‘Do you want me to come over with you?’
Sam glared at her as if offended. The answer to her question was yes.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Don’t be stupid. I’ll be fine.’
‘He’s a nice bloke,’ said Janet. ‘I like Dave.’
‘So I hear,’ said Sam. He sipped his Guinness. He could feel Mel and Janet, expectant, to either side of him. So he slapped his thigh and said, ‘Well. No time like the present.’
But he didn’t move.
Mel nudged his shoulder.
‘Go on.’
He lit a cigarette and smoked half of it in three long puffs. Then he stood. The cigarette felt awkward in his hands and he crushed it in the ashtray. His body felt unfamiliar, as if he had returned to adolescence. With his fingertips, he rapped out a paradiddle on the edge of the table.
He said, ‘Right.’
It was a long way across the busy pub, and it would be disastrous to nudge a shoulder and spill someone’s drink because the necessary apology would devalue whatever he then went on to say to Dave Hooper. So he took the expedition slowly and carefully, measuring the weight, timing and direction of each step.
Eventually, he reached the corner of the bar. Its curve reminded him of an aeroplane’s wing. Dave Hooper wore a checked, shortsleeve shirt untucked over his jeans. His back was turned, with the same ambiguous intent. Perhaps by ignoring Sam he was simply trying to prevent any further embarrassment. Sam hoped so. The span of Hooper’s shoulders seemed immense, like a shire-horse. Sam imagined him as an anti-stud; a bull employed to kill cattle.
Hooper was now in muted discussion with four other men, all younger. Three were dressed like Dave, the fourth wore an estate agent’s suit and a bright tie in a fat Windsor knot.
Sam spread a hand on the bar.
Hooper continued to act oblivious, cackling at whatever joke he’d just been told.
Sam cleared his throat and said Hooper’s name.
There fell no heavy, awkward silence. Dave Hooper glanced simply and naturally over his shoulder. He registered Sam’s presence and smiled. He turned, pint in his hand, and leant an elbow on the bar. He reached into his breast pocket for a golden pack of Benson & Hedges. He lit a cigarette and offered the pack to Sam, who shook his head.
Dave Hooper said, ‘All right?’
‘Yeah,’ said Sam. ‘I’m good. Thanks.’ He looked around and said, ‘It’s a few years since I’ve been in here.’
Hooper joined him, looking round the pub.
He shrugged, minutely.
‘It’s still a shit-hole.’
Sam held back a forced laugh that he feared would be honking and patronizing.
Instead, he said, ‘Look. I’m sorry about the other day. I handled it all wrong.’
Hooper shrugged again.
‘Don’t worry about it. It’s forgotten.’
‘It’s just …’ said Sam.
‘It’s forgotten.’
It was an assertion, more than an observation.
Sam said, ‘Can I get you a drink?’
Hooper looked at his glass, then drained it and set it heavily on the surface of the bar.
‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Cheers. Pint.’
Sensitive to the minutest signals of tension, the barmaid had been loitering close by, washing glasses, so at least the service was prompt. It seemed necessary to Sam that he order himself a pint, although his Guinness stood undrunk, back at the table. The drinks took a while to pour and they waited in silence. Then Sam raised his glass to Hooper and said, ‘Cheers.’ Hooper said ‘Cheers’ in return. That was the end of the conversation. Hooper turned his back again and Sam wandered back to his seat.
‘See?’ said Mel, m
aking space for him. ‘He’s a nice bloke.’
Sam hated him.
‘Yeah,’ he said, and supped the head from the pint that had been waiting for him, slowly warming.
Janet went off to put some money in the fruit machines. Mel spotted some friends at the bar and waved them over. They were called Anna and Alison. Alison was thin and wan, Sam’s notion of a junkie, but he learnt that she was Deputy Manager of a small Gap outlet in town. Anna was black North African, elegant, with close-cropped hair and bootleg jeans.
Within five minutes, Mel had made it clear to Sam that Anna was single. Within ten minutes, she’d made it clear to Anna that Sam was single, too.
Sam could feel the unfamiliar lunchtime drinks hissing at the base of his skull like an untuned radio and he avoided Anna’s inquisitive gaze. She laid a hand on the back of his and told him not to be shy. Then she looked at Mel and Alison and all three of them laughed.
Sam wanted to go home. But solitary egress was not possible. It would look conspicuous, as if he’d come to the Cat and
Fiddle simply to grovel to Dave Hooper. It was some comfort that he made for only passing sport to the women. Surreptitiously, Alison pointed to somebody across the bar (another woman, he presumed). The three women joined in a huddle and began to exchange intelligence about her.
Sam examined his mobile phone. Earlier in the week, he’d spent a bus ride to work clearing its memory. Now only four numbers were listed in his personal directory: two were work-related. One was Mel’s mobile. The fourth was Jamie’s.
Jamie answered on the third ring.
‘Dad?’
‘All right, mate?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What’re you up to?’
‘Nothing. Stuart’s round. We’re watching a DVD.’
‘Nothing saucy, I hope.’
(Briefly, the women broke off their conversation and looked at him. He didn’t notice.)
‘Course not. We’re watching—what is it, Stu?’
‘Scream Three,’ said Stuart, as if from a considerable distance.
‘Scream Three’ said Jamie.
‘Fair enough,’ said Sam. ‘Wouldn’t you rather watch Attack of the Clones or something?’