Damascus

by Richard Beard

  At the reception, several of the guests remark that Spencer acts his age. He doesn’t talk to anybody, but instead concentrates moodily on his developing awareness of different types of disappointment. He is, for example, a great sporting disappointment to his father. Alison’s adult bridesmaids are also deeply disappointing, in the sense that neither of them show any obvious enthusiasm for instant sex with a fourteen-year-old boy. Perhaps they’ve already heard that he didn’t get a part in the school play. A disappointing audition, said the disappointed teacher, and no bridesmaid on earth is going to have sex with a schoolboy lighting technician.

  Spencer wonders whether girls in general are sufficiently aware of how deeply damaged he is by what happened to Rachel. He would graciously allow any one of them to rescue him, but in the meantime he sits alone at the bar, guarding his most recent glass of champagne, watching the television news. There is a pay-phone on the bar-counter, and after another glass of champagne he takes Mr Burns’s Christmas card from the inside pocket of his jacket. He sees on the news, even though the sound is down, that Europe is united and River Phoenix is dead. He decides that if there’s no news he hasn’t already read in the paper, or if in the next ten minutes he isn’t rescued by one of the bridesmaids, he’ll phone the number on Mr Burns’s Christmas card and ask to speak to Hazel. Please.

  The barman changes channels. It is snooker, and the player at the table lining up a red looks like Ebdon or Parrott or Davis or Hendry, one of those. They earn sixty thousand pounds a tournament, his Dad says, but snooker is something else that Spencer’s no good at, and unless there’s some kind of miracle he’s going to end up a warehouseman just like his Dad, on a hundred and seventy pounds a week. If Ebdon pots this red, Spencer will phone the number on the Christmas card and ask to speak to Hazel. I’m her boyfriend, an old friend of hers. If it isn’t any trouble.

  The barman switches back to the news, which finishes. It seems unlikely that Spencer is about to be rescued by a bridesmaid, which is when a hand arrives on his shoulder, too old, too fat, the flesh pushing over the wedding ring which looks painfully tight.

  ‘What’s up, cowboy?’ his mother asks. She was always cheerful, like a religion, but now she also has religion. When she’s being particularly upbeat she likes to quote from films. Spencer gulps some champagne. His mother has a bottle and she refills his glass.

  ‘Aren’t you happy for your brother?’

  ‘Wild with joy. Can I have some money?’

  ‘This is his big day.’

  ‘Some change. Some ten pence pieces.’ The champagne is light in Spencer’s head. ‘Some Bank of England ten pence pieces please, Mother.’

  She squeezes his shoulder. 'I know why you’re upset,’ she says, ‘but you mustn’t think she’s gone. She’s here with us and her spirit is all around us.’

  ‘Her spirit begs you to lend me some ten pence pieces.’

  His mother fumbles in her purse and puts some coins on the counter. ‘We are never alone,’ she says. ‘And everything turns out just fine.’

  She bustles away and Spencer doesn’t bother to call her back to tell her that actually he might have other plans. He drinks more champagne, pushes several coins into the phone (long distance) and dials the number on the Christmas card in the same time it takes him to say I am dialling the number on the Christmas card I am doing it right now. What the hell am I doing? I am dialling the number.

  As he waits for someone to answer his heart performs some amateur acrobatics, an imperfect somersault or two in the tender vault of his chest. Her father, her mother, her sister will answer. Or shell be out at the seaside, wearing a swimming costume and a tennis skirt, lying on a sand dune staring up at the sky, listing favourite airlines.

  11/1/93 MONDAY 10:12

  The phone call was a sign. William was sure of it. He’d been about to change his mind about going outside when the modem portable thing had gone off and a complete stranger had told him he ought to go out now. One last try then. It had to be worth a try because miracles were always possible.

  He stood boldly in front of the door. He went to check his braces, flies, thought I’ve already done that, and instead straightened his jaw. He blinked hard, put his hand to the latch, pulled the door open and stepped outside into a light unexpected drizzle. He felt the rain only vaguely because unused to the random generosity of outside life he stood transfixed by JEPSON’S PIANO SALE NOT ON!!, With Prices Cheaper Than Others’ Sale Prices Who Needs A Sale? By Jereiny Yates and Tony Fellner listening to Nigel Coren’s opinion that Maradona was no spring chicken on the top deck of a big red bus marked Clapham driven by Clive Webb, volunteer RSPB Birdline recorded message operator and planning to get engaged at Christmas. By Mr and Mrs Peter Pinkerton, conservation officers at the Garden History Society in their new Vauxhall Cavalier with low-solvent content Bayer paint, and the flying bicycle of Stuart Dangerfield, two-times Newlands Pass British Hill-Climb Champion, and the non-stop left-right, right-left tennis of traffic and the noise of cars, Toyotas, Vauxhalls, Peugeots, Fords alongside distant shouting from the library which is National Library Week and The-Most-Noise-Ever-Made-In-A-Library. Outside the newsagents Ulster Talks and Children Find Body and Film Star River Phoenix (23) Dead.

  And this was only the beginning.

  William knew there was more than this, much more of it out of sight and branching away from here through the countless towns of the nation. All of it was peopled, named, full of explicit purposes achieved or frustrated, with reasons before and consequences after, all converging on now so that it was hardly surprising if William found it difficult to breathe with the sheer quantity of significant things crammed into this and any one tiny moment, the collision of everything that had ever happened with everything that was still waiting to happen, second after second after second. His eyes left right left, past the parked cars and a stalled Ford Transit, and on the far pavement he tries to contain in his mind and fully understand the simultaneous possibility of REVISED INTEREST RATES 7.00 (6.50) % gross, and flying south this winter with Forte Grand, 2 nights Jet-Setting in Monte Carlo from £269 per person based on 2 adults sharing a standard twin/double room with private bathroom single room rates available on request and 7 nights of majesty Cairo and the Nile from £699 per person, Historic Malta, Fabulous Algarve, £229 and £279 respectively per person per person, like per second per second as a maximum velocity per person per person of things to be and places to go.

  There is no end to it.

  Here come Raymond Pangalos and Giles Nuttall in vampire outfits teeth crooked stumbling home in morning tail-suits from a wedding or an epic Hallowe’en party, past the window of DJM Games, black and white with chessboards harsh on the rambling eye. A shrieking yellow poster for a three-way rock concert featuring Mal Pelo and Southern Dogs and Ignominious Defenestration, doors open 20:30 - LATECOMERS WILL NOT BE ADMITTED TO AUDITORIUM. In the sky above an Iberian Airlines jet plane deporting a pair of Kurdish asylum seekers, and then what?

  And then Spencer is slamming the door behind him and William is back on the inside, leaning heavily against the wall, nudging aside the improvised coat-stand, panting fiercely and having to hold his heart in his hands.

  This had all happened before, so Spencer didn’t immediately panic. He loosened another button on William’s open-necked shirt. He positioned his shoulder under William’s arm, noting objectively that William was breathing erratically and his face had gone very red. Spencer then manoeuvred him past the telephone table and through the entrance hall towards the dining room.

  Although Spencer was managing very well on his own, and this had happened to him at least twice or even three times before, William wasn’t getting any lighter. Spencer could have managed on his own, and he wasn’t panicking, but Hazel was only a few rooms away and all she was doing was reading an old potboiler of a crime novel. William was a big man and really quite heavy, and he certainly wasn’t improving as far as breathing was concerned. Spencer tottered forward a little
, called out to Hazel, then stumbled backwards, almost losing his balance.

  ‘Hazel,’ he called out, although he could have dealt with William’s panic attack entirely on his own. ‘Hazel!’ he shouted, louder now, hoping she’d come very soon. Not because he needed her, it was important to understand, but only because he wanted to make her feel involved.

  5

  Two in five teenagers believe sex at 15 is acceptable, with little difference between boys and girls.

  THE TIMES 11/1/93

  11/1/93 MONDAY 10:24

  Britain was awful, horrible, dangerous, exciting, frightening. It was so busy, and you never knew what was coming next. It was dirty and disorganised and not at all what he’d been expecting. It was a vicious mixture of red double-deckers and disguised IRA scouts and loud shops and vampires in disarray. He’d seen the last day of Britain and the first day of Europe and it wasn’t pretty out there. All the same, lying on the sofa in the dining room, wrapped in a thick green blanket, William was faking it.

  ‘What day is it?’ he murmured weakly, trying to squint a good look at the girl.

  ‘It’s Monday all day,’ she said.

  ‘And who are you?’

  ‘Spencer’s friend. My name is Hazel.’

  ‘Where’s Spencer?’

  ‘He’s making tea.’

  William pushed away the blanket, lifted up his head, and meant to swing his legs to the floor. He then pretended to feel a fainting fit coming on, and lay back down again.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m not always like this.’

  This was a shamefaced lie. Here in the house, safe in the dining room, William was once more undeniably himself. No change had taken place, and this was a day no different from any other, unfit for miracles. He was still unable to go outside, and nothing would ever change for the better. He took another sly look at the girl. It was some time since he’d last experienced a woman in real life, but he recognised that even by the standards of television she was a decent roundly shape and she was very blonde. She was also wearing a curvely woollen dress, but this only briefly distracted William from contriving the quickest way to get rid of her.

  ‘A standard phobic anxiety attack,’ she said. ‘A surge of panic followed by heart trouble and possible loss of consciousness. Often, these physical reactions combine with a sense of doom.’

  ‘You’re very knowledgeable,’ William said, meaning oh yes, a very smart young woman.

  ‘My sister’s training to be a doctor,’ Hazel said modestly, which was all very fascinating coming from a stranger, William thought, but let’s stick to the essentials. I’m more than twice your age and this house belongs to my brother so you can’t come waltzing in here upsetting the excellent arrangement I have with Spencer. How old was she? No older than Spencer, with the same short memory of a life so short she wouldn’t know what it meant to forget. She probably still believed that all the information she needed to decipher herself was available to her, if only she put enough effort into remembering it. Just the kind of foolish idea which made young people so optimistic, and so idiotic.

  Spencer came in carrying a mug of tea, Celebrating 100 Years of the Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society.

  ‘Don’t say it,’ William said, taking the mug.

  ‘Say what?’

  'I told you so.’

  ‘You think we’ve been invaded,’ Spencer said. ‘The aliens have landed and they’re all European, and the first thing they did was ruin absolutely everything, instantly.’

  But William thought no, that’s not it. I wanted to go out because I still have a secret dream of selling the tomento. And because safety and familiarity, it’s just about possible, can drain the life from things. And yes, it was also true, because he didn’t want to miss the last days of Britain.

  ‘It was very busy,’ William said.

  ‘You shouldn’t get so involved,’ Spencer told him. ‘When you see people you don’t know, why think they all have to have names?’

  ‘They all do have names.’

  ‘Yes, I know they do. But you don’t have to name them all.’

  Spencer and Hazel had chosen neighbouring chairs, though they kept a certain distance. William sensed there would never be a better time to break them up than now, the first morning after the first night before. Spencer was saying never mind, all’s well that ends well. ‘You just shouldn’t go outside, that’s all.’

  And it was about time that William, too, accepted the truth of this. In anyone else, he would have thought it a good definition of madness, this not getting on well with the world and everything in it. For himself, he’d make it a minor inconvenience to be endured more gracefully. There was no point trying to go outside any more. The time had come to accept that no sudden and brilliant event was going to turn his life around. The tomento would never make his fortune in the supermarkets of the world and miracles were reserved for others. He should therefore resign himself to a life in retreat, with one day indistinguishable from the next. As for the world outside, he would live as if it didn’t exist, an ambition which was unthinkable without Spencer to help him through the days. The girl would just have to go.

  'I disagree,’ Hazel said. She then shared her considered medical opinion, via her sister, that William’s condition wasn’t so very difficult to cure. There was no reason he shouldn’t go outside. He just had to be better prepared in what to expect. Fear was ignorance, nothing more.

  ‘And how would you suggest he prepares himself?’ Spencer asked her.

  ‘We tell him what it’s like.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Outside.’

  ‘And what about our problems?’

  ‘What problems?’

  ‘The you know what. We ought to get that sorted out before Grace gets here.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ Hazel said. ‘I don’t have a problem with that.’

  Spencer stood up, was about to say something, walked to the door, was about to say something, opened the door and left the room. William spread his fingers over the blanket, and then covered one hand with the other.

  ‘So then, Hazel,’ he said. ‘How did you meet Spencer? Are you a friend of Jessica’s?’

  It is the first of November 1993 and somewhere in Britain, in Glossop or Peebles or Stroud or Diss, in Spalding or Greysteel or Liverpool or Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant, Spencer is fifteen years old and tonight’s the night.

  The school is hosting its Hallowe’en party a day late to accommodate the handful of European students who are the school’s temporary guests as part of an EU exchange scheme. They could be Greek or French or Danish or German, but there are also some Russians involved because it’s important to be kind, or to look ahead, or to play it safe. The Hallowe’en party is the second of several activities planned for their entertainment, and it’s being staged in the gym, a building Spencer hasn’t entered since he opted for metalwork. He is new to the area and new to the school, where Shakespeare Studies have been replaced by Business in the Community. Along with its class sizes, therefore, the school is doing all it can to ensure that Spencer remains an integral part of the emerging educational underclass.

  In the meantime, in his ongoing quest for a modern girl who’ll let him, Spencer is dressed as an astronaut. There is also a Batman and an IRA terrorist, and a convincing attempt at the corpse in Stand By Me, but unlike Spencer most of the boys are dressed as vampires, although without the plastic teeth which look stupid. The girls, with the exception of a shocking seventeenth-century witch, dress exclusively in black, with black eye-shadow and black lipstick, not as an attempt at fancy dress but in collective mourning for River Phoenix. One person has misunderstood completely and come as a seagull, but at least everyone has made some kind of effort, except the Russians. Spencer finds it in his heart to forgive them. It makes them seem more exotic somehow, pooled in a defensive cluster in white shirts and wide black trousers. One of the girls surprises Spencer by looking straight back at him. She wears the regulation blouse a
nd trousers, but from this distance Spencer can’t tell if it’s visible bras. She has dyed blonde hair, a very wide mouth and lots of gold jewellery. Being foreign, she holds his eye, but it’s not for someone like her that he’s spent hours rehearsing his original chat-up lines in the mirror at home.

  He surveys the room, coughs into his hand. The teachers have chosen a live Country and Western band and Spencer pretends to hum along with a tune he doesn’t recognise, maybe an instrumental version of Let the Sun Shine In or Oklahoma or Bim Barn Bom or something by Buddy Holly. He locates the target. To save time, Spencer has made the strategic decision only to try it on with Louise or Marianne or Lynne, the three girls from his year who are known (hundred and one percent certain) already to have let someone.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he says bravely to Marianne or Lynne or Louise, who peels away from the other two and says well hello there if it isn’t the new boy with a skin problem.

  ‘My sister’s been chosen for the Olympic swimming team,’ Spencer hazards, provoking a languid full-body examination.

  ‘And my brother’s the Pope.’

  She giggles away with the others and Spencer curses himself, thinking he should have picked someone from the year below. He blames his Dad, who wouldn’t give him any money to buy milk or orange or prune juice or whatever it is they’re allowed to drink in here. If he doesn’t first offer them a drink like they do on the telly (Cracker, House of Cards, Clarissa Explains It All), then obviously it looks bad. His Dad though, drunk as usual, just reminds Spencer of all the money he’ll never earn as a snooker player (£60,000 a tournament) or a show-jumper (£15,000 and a car) or even a boxer (Frank Bruno or Oliver Macall or Lennox Lewis -seven million dollars a fight. One fight! Each fight! Seven million dollars!).

  Spencer glances across at the Russian who confounds him by looking back again, not exactly smiling but not not smiling. He grins, thinking her eyes are nice, before choosing Lynne this time, or Louise or Marianne, and asking her with cool abandon whether she was aware of his tragic separation at birth from his twin sister? The honest truth. Stolen, abducted, cruelly kidnapped from the cradle.