Given Time

by Anthony Burn

  ‘Yes, I’ve seen your books,’ she said, ‘and I can tell you that stringing together prolonged, incomprehensible concatenations of polysyllables is pretentious, not authoritative. I don’t know of anyone who has been able to read them.’

  ‘No doubt because they’re all as ignorant as you.’

  I’d had enough of him. ‘That’s it,’ I said, moving into his personal space and looming above him. ‘I’ve asked you to leave. Now, get out.’

  He looked like he wanted to say something more, but thought better of it with me in his face. He harrumphed, picked up his portfolio and turned away.

  ‘Wait, don’t forget your coffee,’ Lauren called after him.

  He turned back to her, his expression as puzzled as my own, and watched as she picked up one of the mugs, spat in it and held it out to him.

  ‘You stupid little girl,’ he snarled, and turned away again.

  ‘But that’s how I’ve always made it for you,’ she said innocently.

  I watched him struggle out through the door. When he’d gone I turned to see Lauren’s grin duplicating my own. ‘That was very childish, Laura,’ I said.

  She chuckled. ‘I’m sorry, Keith. It won’t happen again.’

  ‘That’s a shame. I quite enjoyed it.’ I took the mug from her hand and swallowed a mouthful from it.

  ‘No, don’t drink that,’ she said, her voice panicky. ‘I spat in it!’

  ‘That’s okay,’ I reassured her. ‘I taste your saliva every time we kiss and I love it.’

  She grimaced. ‘Yeah, but that’s different. Drinking it is horrible.’

  I laughed at her pained expression. ‘I’ve tasted every other part of you too, so it could be worse.’

  ‘Ugh, now you’re just being gross,’ she said.

  Twenty-four

  I hadn’t known a proper family Christmas since my parents separated when I was eight years old, and now those occasions were a very distant memory. Apart from a vague recollection of the thrill of waking up to a day filled with the magic of presents and festivities, the details had merged into one another and I would be hard pressed to say which Christmas was which.

  After the divorce, my mother had taken us to our grandparents’ flat in Mortlake each year, but as we got older, and especially after my grandmother died, any excitement I remembered from my early childhood had completely evaporated. Christmas had become a dull chore to be endured, as Grandad repeated the same stories that had once enthralled us as children until we switched off and nodded absently with our minds elsewhere.

  When our grandfather had gone too, and I moved into his flat, Drew and I still celebrated our Christmases there, but they became an altogether different affair involving a lot of drinking and fast food, often with my neighbours and assorted others we met in the pub at lunchtime.

  It had been enjoyable for a few years, but it had all changed again when Drew met Amy. He had been invited to join in with her family’s festivities in Birmingham, and then they both came to see me each Boxing Day. Amy had invited me to join her family too, but I made excuses and turned her down, partly because I thought she may just have been being polite, and partly because to accept would have made me feel like a loner or charity case. Nevertheless, although it had been nice to have Drew’s company, I’d still enjoyed being with the locals.

  That arrangement had continued until last year, when I’d been on the beach in New Zealand, and this year was going to be different again. Lauren’s parents had invited us to join them for Christmas Day, and then two days later we were going to join Amy and Drew for a short holiday at a villa on Coconut Island, just off Phuket. Of the two celebrations, we were both looking forward to the second more than the first.

  I had no problem with Lauren’s parents. We had got on well enough at the gallery opening, and once Lauren had moved in with me we had planned to have them over to visit with us, but the time had flown and it hadn’t happened. However, the thought of several hours in the company of my girlfriend’s parents, no matter how nice they seemed, was still quite daunting.

  There had also been the thorny issue of presents. Lauren had warned me in no uncertain terms that I was not to buy expensive gifts for her parents or for her.

  ‘Seriously, Kee. Please don’t spend a lot of money,’ she pleaded. ‘You know I love you for you. I’d rather have a small token of your affection than something flashy.’

  ‘Damn. I’ll have to send the Mercedes back then,’ I told her.

  Christmas Day proved eventful for a number of reasons, and not all of them good. We’d been out for a meal and drinks until late the previous evening, but hadn’t bothered to set an alarm as it was only an hour’s drive to Lauren’s family home in Sawbridgeworth and we weren’t expected until midday. Consequently, we’d slept until nearly ten, and while we didn’t need to rush, we couldn’t hang about if we weren’t going to be late.

  I’d hoped to make love to her before we set out, but Lauren got up quickly, saying we didn’t have time.

  ‘Don’t you want a nice early Christmas present?’ I pleaded.

  She perched on the edge of the bed to kiss me. I grabbed her waist and pulled her back on top of me but she fought her way off again. ‘No, Kee. We’ve got to get ready. I promise I’ll give you the best present ever when we get back tonight.’

  ‘If you’re going to make me wait that long, it had better be spectacular,’ I told her.

  ‘Beyond your wildest dreams,’ she promised.

  ‘That’s not fair. I’m going to be horny all day now.’

  ‘Me too,’ she said, and grinned broadly. ‘I’ll make sure it’s worth the wait.’

  ‘Can’t we just have a quick sample?’ I asked, making another grab for her.

  She ducked away from my hands and skipped off towards the bathroom. Halfway across the room, she stopped and turned to face me. ‘If you want this,’ she said running her hands sensuously down her glorious naked body, ‘you’ll have to be a patient boy.’

  ‘You little witch,’ I called after her retreating form. She giggled and disappeared through the bathroom door, while I went off to my shower to cool down.

  I’d suggested to Lauren that we get a taxi to her parents’ house but she had quickly dismissed the idea, saying it would be ridiculously expensive on Christmas Day and that she had a perfectly good car downstairs.

  ‘Maurice has been sitting in the garage for weeks now,’ she told me. ‘If I don’t drive him soon, he’ll think I don’t love him anymore. Besides, my dad says it does them good to have a long run from time to time.’

  As a non-driver, I had never understood why people named their cars or gave them personalities, but I was intrigued so I asked, ‘Why do you call it Maurice?’

  ‘Him,’ she said. ‘Just because it suits him,’ she added while looking at me as though I were the stupid one.

  I really wanted to tell her it was just a collection of metal, plastic and rubber, but I didn’t want an argument about such a trivial matter so I let it go.

  Maurice took several attempts to get started, with Lauren alternately coaxing and swearing at him until just when it seemed the battery was about to give up, the engine miraculously choked into life.

  ‘Good boy,’ Lauren said, patting the steering wheel. ‘If you behave yourself properly, I’ll give you a nice clean next week.’

  I sat in the passenger seat trying not to laugh, but Lauren must have caught my smirk because she turned and glared at me as she put the car into gear. She darted out of the parking bay, working the wheel furiously to avoid hitting the expensive motors in the opposite bays, and then weaved down towards the exit. It was a tight turn to the barriers, and as we went through, the rear wheel hit the kerb and the back end of the car skidded violently sideways.

  ‘Why do they make these entrances so fucking narrow?’ she complained as she brushed the wheels along the length of the kerb.

  Her Fiesta rattled and shook along the cobbles of Wapping High Street, causing me to wonder if Ma
urice might fall to pieces before we reached the end, but mercifully it wasn’t long until we reached smooth tarmac. The car felt a lot more solid, and Lauren floored the accelerator, pushing the speed well above the twenty miles per hour limit before braking hard for the first set of traffic lights. She floored it again when the lights turned green, and even to my inexperienced ears it sounded as though the engine was racing.

  ‘Are we in a hurry?’ I asked as we took off at breakneck speed again from the third set of lights.

  She checked her watch. ‘No, we’ve got plenty of time,’ she said, before she detected the hint of irony in my question. ‘Oh, am I scaring you?’

  ‘No, not at all,’ I lied. ‘It’s just that I’m used to taxi drivers.’

  She rounded on me. ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘It’s just that they tend to be more sedate than this.’

  ‘Only so they can charge you extra.’

  ‘They can only charge at all if they get you there in one piece,’ I said, and regretted it even before she spoke again.

  ‘Do you want to drive?’ She’d snarled the words, and it occurred to me that the subject of her driving might be painful for her.

  ‘No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that,’ I said, making my tone as placatory as possible. ‘Your driving is absolutely fine.’

  She didn’t answer and I could tell she was sulking, but she continued to drive in the same manner. I hoped she didn’t notice me clinging to the edge of my seat, while I thought that my decision not to buy her a new car had turned out to be quite auspicious.

  We continued in silence until her mood lifted when we were travelling along the motorway towards Harlow.

  ‘Kee, I think I should warn you that my dad can be a bit weird sometimes. He probably won’t do it today, but every now and then he puts on stupid high-pitched voices and has whole conversations with himself as though he’s two different people.’

  ‘Sounds a bit random,’ I said.

  ‘It is,’ she agreed. ‘Jack and I used to love it when we were kids, but it got embarrassing as we got older, especially when he did it in front of our friends.’

  ‘Yeah, I can imagine. Okay, I’ll watch out for it.’

  ‘I don’t think he’ll do it in front of you, but if he does, just ignore him, otherwise you’ll only encourage him, okay?’

  ‘Sure, that’s fine. Doesn’t sound too traumatic. Is that it?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. Well, no, I mean, I’m sure he won’t say this, but he used to terrify us when we were kids by telling us we were all being chased by a giant hedgehog who knew our name.’

  I laughed. ‘Called Spiny Norman?’

  She turned to stare at me in amazement. ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘I’m surprised you haven’t Googled it.’

  ‘Why would I Google it?’ she asked. ‘I thought he’d made it up.’

  I didn’t get a chance to answer, because a loud blast from the horn of a car immediately behind us brought our attention back to the road; Lauren had drifted halfway into the next lane.

  ‘Alright. Keep your hair on,’ she muttered as she swerved back into the correct lane.

  The other driver accelerated hard, blasting his horn again and shaking his fist at her as he sped past.

  ‘Oh, fuck off,’ she yelled at him. ‘I hope you have a bad Christmas.’

  We seemed to take a tortuous route through a housing estate before pulling up in front of a semi-detached house that looked identical to every other one we’d passed, and very similar to the one I had lived in when growing up in Stowmarket. Most of the cars were parked on the driveways, but many remained at the kerbside, and Lauren had needed to weave between them along the narrow roads. I’d kept my mouth shut and gripped my seat tightly as she missed several of them by millimetres.

  There was a large gap between two cars outside her parents’ house, and Lauren drove forward into it until her front tyre hit the kerb, which left the back end sticking into the road. She put the car into reverse and raced back until the rear wheel bumped the kerb and she narrowly avoided hitting the car behind. Now the front end stuck out, so she pulled forward again until she was in the middle of the gap, but her car was nearly a metre from the pavement. She let out a deep sigh, switched off the engine, and gave me a look that dared me to make a comment.

  Her father opened the door to greet us when we were halfway along their front path.

  ‘Did you let Lauren drive you here?’ he asked me with a huge grin on his face. ‘You brave man. Have you got any hair left?’

  ‘Thanks a lot, Dad,’ she bristled. ‘Kee’s absolutely fine.’ She turned to me. ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, no worries,’ I said with a nonchalance I wasn’t feeling.

  Brian looked at her car and his grin widened. ‘Did you call a taxi to get to the kerb?’

  She sighed again and shook her head.

  ‘Give me your keys,’ her father commanded.

  Lauren glared at him but dutifully handed them over, and I could see she felt belittled by his humiliation of her. It was little wonder she had been so insecure about her driving earlier.

  While Brian went to park her car properly, I put my arm around her. ‘I didn’t know you had to put up with all this. I’m so sorry for what I said before.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said dully, and led me into the house while calling to her mother. June came out of the kitchen wearing a pinafore apron over her dress and carrying a tea towel. She looked flustered, but greeted us warmly and gave her daughter an affectionate hug before turning to me. I held out my hand to shake hers, and she held out the tea towel before she realised what she was doing. She quickly transferred it to her other hand and shook mine, just as Brian came in through the front door.

  ‘Well, I’ve unblocked the road,’ he said, enjoying his joke at his daughter’s expense. ‘And I’ve alerted the neighbours so they can move their cars out of the way.’

  He threw Lauren’s keys at her, and she caught them just as they hit her chest. She winced, and I shot Brian an angry look, but it didn’t register – he was on a roll.

  ‘They get terrified every time she’s about.’ He laughed.

  ‘Leave her alone, Brian,’ June said to him. ‘Go into the lounge, and I’ll fetch the coffee.’

  Lauren offered to help her, but June said it was ready, and as we sat she appeared with a tray laden with four steaming mugs and a huge plate of mince pies.

  Despite his wife’s warning, Brian hadn’t finished with his theme. ‘I’d have thought you would have brought something stronger for Kee. He looks like he could do with it.’

  I shook my head, wishing I could wipe away his smirk. ‘She’s not that bad.’

  ‘No, she’s worse.’ He laughed. ‘She’s always done her own stunts. Even when she was learning. She was a nightmare to teach.’

  ‘Did you teach her to drive?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, I did,’ he said, his chest puffed out.

  ‘Probably explains everything,’ I said, and Lauren laughed for the first time since leaving the apartment.

  ‘I thought you said he was a nice guy,’ Brian said to her before smiling at me.

  ‘If I’m so bad,’ she asked him, ‘how come I’ve had Maurice ever since I passed my test? How many cars have you written off, Dad?’

  ‘Four,’ he said quietly, ‘but that’s not the point.’

  ‘Sorry, didn’t quite catch that, Dad. How many?’ She laughed.

  I realised that Lauren was quite capable of holding her own against her father, and I started to relax in the knowledge that she didn’t need my help.

  ‘Four,’ he repeated, ‘but that doesn’t mean I’m a bad driver.’

  ‘Four write-offs and you think I’m the bad driver. What’s wrong with this picture?’

  ‘Will you two stop bickering?’ June’s irked tone cut across them. ‘Whatever must Kee think of us?’

  They’d all turned to face me, and I saw the humour in their eyes con
firming that there was no real antagonism between them.

  ‘It’s fine, June,’ I told her. ‘I’m enjoying it. Anyway, it seems a shame to stop them just as Lauren’s started winning.’

  We all laughed, but June still managed to change the subject, asking us about our latest trips and listening in fascination as Lauren took them through the details. Since our excursion to Spain, we’d also been to Florence and Paris, so she had much to tell them and she spoke with animation and at length, particularly about our visit to the Louvre.

  While I listened I saw they were proud of, and pleased for, their daughter, but once or twice I noticed a look pass between them that I didn’t understand and I began to wonder if I ought to say something to temper Lauren’s enthusiasm.

  June soon announced that the dinner should be ready, and we decamped to the dining room where Brian was in charge of drinks and Christmas crackers, while Lauren and her mum brought plate after plate of food from the kitchen.

  As we settled down to eat, I took the opportunity to change the subject by asking about their son. They were glad to tell me all about his achievements, his work and his lovely wife, but as the discussion went on I could tell that they were missing his company. I suggested it to June and she quickly confirmed my assumption, but revealed that they were going to Seattle to visit him in the summer.

  ‘Naturally, we’ll be flying economy,’ Brian said. ‘We can’t afford private jets on a teacher’s pay.’

  He’d laughed as he said it, but I detected a trace of bitterness in his voice. My first thought was to offer to pay for a private flight, and I glanced at Lauren to see if she was on my wavelength. I could see that she knew exactly what I was thinking, but wasn’t happy about it; she gave me an almost imperceptible shake of her head and her warning was clear: this fell into the category of expensive presents. I nodded my understanding and kept my idea to myself.

  ‘Do you play chess, Kee?’ Brain asked later, as the afternoon wore on. We had been sitting back in the lounge for a couple of hours while the conversation ambled amiably through all sorts of topics. I’d discovered that Brian treated most things as a joke, and while I enjoyed his sense of humour I started to think that we would get on better if he didn’t try so hard.