Starter for Ten

by David Nicholls

  The photo depresses me so much that I have to turn the telly off, and go out to the kitchen to boil the kettle and make more tea. While it boils, I look out at the backyard, a shadowy patch the size of a double bed that Mum had paved over when Dad died, to save bother. I make the tea, and take my bag upstairs to my bedroom. Mum's turned the radiator off, to save on heating, and it's icy cold, so I get into bed fully clothed and stare at the ceiling. The bed feels smaller, for some reason, like a child's bed, in fact the whole room does. God knows why, it's not as if I've got any bigger, but already, after only three months, it's started to feel like someone else's room. All that's left here is the kids' stuff—the piles of comics, the fossils on the windowsill, the model airplanes hanging from the ceiling covered in a fur of dust, the old school shirts hanging in the wardrobe. I start to feel a bit sad for some reason, so I think about Alice for a while, and then I fall asleep.

  I haven't spoken to her properly for ages. The Challenge team meetings broke up two weeks ago, and since then she seems to have been swallowed into her own little clique, a tight, noisy gang of cool and beautiful boys and girls that I've seen in the student bar, or driving round town, seven or eight of them stuffed giggling into her smoke-filled bright yellow 2CV, passing a bottle of red wine between them and listening to Jimi Hendrix, then all going back to someone's Georgian flat to share interesting drugs and have sex with each other. In fact the nearest I've got to Alice was in the student bar a couple of nights ago. I approached and said “Hiya,” and they'd all said “Hiya” back, bright and smiley, but unfortunately there weren't enough chairs at the table for me to actually sit down with them. Also, Alice was having to crick her neck uncomfortably to turn and talk to me, and there's only so long you can stand at the edge of a group like that before you start to feel as if you should be clearing the empties off the table. Of course I have nothing but contempt for cool, self-satisfied, privileged cliques like that, but unfortunately not quite enough contempt to not want to be part of it.

  But we did manage to talk long enough for Alice to confirm the cottage trip was definitely on. I don't have to bring anything except lots of books and a sweater. In fact she laughed at me when I asked if I had to bring a towel. “We've lots of towels,” she said, and I thought, yes, of course you have. “Can't wait,” she said. “Can't wait either,” I said, but I really meant it, because I know that at college I'm never really going to be able to take up much of her time, there are too many distractions, too many lanky boys with bone structure and money and their own flats. But when we're finally away, just me and her, then that'll be my chance, my big opportunity to prove to her the absolute inevitability of us being together.

  It's Christmas morning, and the first thing I do when I get up is eat a big bowl of Frosties and turn the telly on. It's about ten o'clock, and The Wizard of Oz has already started, so I put it on in the background while Mum and I open each other's presents. Dad's there too, in a way, like Jacob Mar-ley's ghost, dressed like he was in an old Polaroid I have of him, looking weary and sardonic in a burgundy dressing gown, black hair slicked back, wearing new slippers and smoking the packet of fags that I bought and wrapped up for him as a present.

  This year Mum's bought me some new vests and the Collected Works of e. e. cummingsthat I specifically asked for, and which she had to order specially. I check the price on the flyleaf and feel a twinge of guilt at how expensive it was, a day's wages at least, but I thank her and kiss her on the cheek, and give her my presents in return—a little wicker basket of smellies from the Body Shop, and a secondhand Everyman edition of Bleak House.

  “What's this, then?”

  “It's my favorite Dickens. It's brilliant.”

  “Bleak House? Sounds like this house.”

  And that just about sets the tone for the day, really. Dickensian.

  We're joined for Christmas dinner by Uncle Des. Uncle Des's wife left him for a bloke from her work a couple of years ago now, so Mum invites him round for Christmas dinner every year because he doesn't have much family of his own. Even though he's not my real uncle, just the bloke from three doors down, he thinks he's somehow got the right to ruffle my hair and talk to me as if I were twelve years old.

  “How ya doing then, brainbox?” he says, in his children's entertainer voice.

  “Fine, thank you, Uncle Des.”

  “Bloody hell, don't they teach you how to use a comb at university!” he says, ruffling away. “Look at the state of you!”—ruffle, ruffle, ruffle—and it occurs to me that this is all pretty rich coming from a forty-five-year-old man with a tight blond perm and a mustache that looks as if it's been cut out from a carpet sample, but I keep quiet because Mum doesn't like me backchatting to Uncle Des. So I squirm bashfully and count myself lucky that at least this year he isn't pulling fifty-pence pieces out from behind my ear.

  Mum pops her head round the door and says, “Sprouts are on!” A waft of warm chlorophyllic air confirms her warning, and I feel a little wave of nausea, because I can still taste the Frosties caught between my back teeth. Then she heads back to the kitchen and Uncle Des and I sit and watch The Wizard of Oz with the sound turned down low.

  “Bloody hell, not this rubbish again!” says Uncle Des. “Every Christmas, the bloody-Wizard-of-bloody-Oz.”

  “You'd think they'd find something else to put on, wouldn't you?!” I say. Then Uncle Des asks about college.

  “So what do you actually do all day, then?” It's a fair question, I suppose, and one I've asked myself a couple of times.

  “Lots of things—go to lectures, read, write essays, that kind of thing.”

  “And that's all? Bloody hell—all right for some … !”

  Change the subject. “How about you, Uncle Des, how's your work?”

  “Oh, bit quiet, Bri, bit quiet at the moment.…” Uncle Des is in the building trade—conservatories, porches and patios—or at least he was until the divorce and the recession. Now the van sits idly in front of his house, and Des spends most of the time dismantling the engine, and then reassembling it again, not quite correctly, then dismantling it again. “People don't seem to want extensions, not in a recession. It's a luxury really, porches and conservatories.…” And he smooths his mustache down with his finger and thumb, and stares mournfully at The Wizard of Oz, those vaguely disturbing monkeys with the wings growing out of their backs, and I feel bad for asking him about work when I know it isn't going well. After a moment or two of staring blankly at the flying monkeys, he pulls himself out of it, with a visible physical effort, sitting up as straight as the settee will allow, and clapping his hands together. “Right, how about a drink, then? It's Christmas, after all. What's your poison, Bri?” Then, conspiratorially, “Apart from Brussels sprouts!”

  I glance at the clock on the mantelpiece—it's 11:55. “I'll have a lager please, Des,” and he bustles off into the kitchen, almost as if he lives here.

  Over dinner, which we eat in the kitchen with Radio 2 playing, I decide to break the big news.

  “By the way—I've got an announcement to make …”

  Mum stops chewing. “What?”

  “Something that happened at university last term …”

  “Oh, God, Brian …” says Mum, hand in front of her mouth.

  “Don't worry, it's nothing bad.…”

  She glances at Uncle Des, then says nervously, “Go on …”

  “Well, I'm going to be on University Challenge!”

  “What, that thing on telly?” says Uncle Des.

  “Yep! I'm on the team!”

  And Mum starts to laugh and laugh, and looks at Des, who's laughing too. “Congratulations, Bri,” he says, and he puts his fork down to free up his hair-ruffling hand. “That's brilliant news, really brilliant …”

  “God, and what a relief,” says Mum, and takes a big swig of wine, and puts her hand on her chest to calm her heart.

  “Why, what did you think I was going to say?”

  “Well, to be honest, sweetheart, I t
hought you were about to tell me that you were a homosexual!” she says, and starts to laugh again, and looks at Uncle Des, who starts to laugh again too, laughing so hard that I'm afraid that he's going to choke on his sprouts.

  In the afternoon, after our attempt on the turkey, Uncle Des pours himself a large Scotch and lights up a slim-line panatella, and Mum lights up a Rothman's, and we peer through the caramel fug at Top of the Pops. Uncle Des makes a growling noise every time the camera finds a scantily clad backing singer, and Mum laughs indulgently and slaps him on the wrist. She's methodically working her way through a large box of traditional chocolate liqueurs, biting the caps off the little chocolate bottles and trickling the various different spirits into her mouth, like a particularly dainty wino. This is a bizarre new development in Mum's boozing, and I'm not sure what to make of it, but keen not to be left behind, I continue work on my four-pack of lager. Because I'm a young hepcat, and up with the current popular music scene, I help out in identifying the more obscure faces in the “Do They Know It's Christmas?” video, then we watch the Queen's Speech, then Uncle Des goes off to see his old mum up the road, but promises to be back at six o'clock for some leftovers and our traditional, infinitely long game of Monopoly, which Uncle Des will inevitably win, but only by nominating himself as banker and embezzling.

  Then before it gets too dark Mum and I put our coats on and head out. Mum takes my arm as we walk the mile or so to the cemetery to lay flowers on Dad's grave. The cold damp air makes her a little bit more pissed, and I have to lean down to hear what she's saying. She smells of sage and onion and Tia Maria.

  As usual I stand with Mum for a while and say how the gravestone's still looking nice, then I go and stand a little way off and wait while Mum talks to Dad. I'm always a little uncomfortable waiting around without a book to read, so instead I try to identify the birds, but it's just rooks and magpies (of the family Corvidae), starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) and sparrows (Passer domesticus), and I wonder why cemeteries always attract such miserable, morbid bloody birds, and after about ten minutes Mum finishes what she's got to say, touches the gravestone lightly, and walks away, head down, and takes my arm, not saying anything until she can control her breathing a little bit, and can speak normally again. It's dark now, but a couple of the local kids from the estate are riding the new BMXs that they got for Christmas in between the graves, slamming on their brakes and performing long, low sliding skids that send up waves of gravel. Mum, still with wet eyes and a little bit drunk from all the chocolate liqueurs, gets upset about this, and starts shouting at them—“You shouldn't do that, not in a cemetery, show some respect”—and one of them sticks his middle finger up and cycles past laughing and shouting back, “Fuck off, mind your own business, you silly cow.” I can feel Mum starting to cry again and I suddenly have this overwhelming desire to run after him, and grab hold of the hood of his parka and yank him off the back of his new bike, put my knee in his back and rub his stupid, leering face hard into the gravel, and see how long it takes for him to stop laughing. And then just as suddenly I wish that I was a long, long way away from here, lying still with someone, in a warm bed, falling asleep.

  18

  QUESTION: What is the name of the class of organic compounds with the general formula R-OH, where R represents an alkyl group made up of carbon and hydrogen, and OH represents one or more hydroxyl groups?

  ANSWER: Alcohol.

  The Black Prince is a pub that caters specifically for the underage drinker. At school we used to call it the Crèche, the rationale of the landlord being that anyone crafty enough to hide their school tie in their pocket was old enough to drink. On a Friday afternoon you could barely move for satchels.

  Outside of termtime, it's harder to imagine a more desolate place to meet for a drink. Brown, scabrous and dank, it's a little like sitting in some-one's kidney, but at some point in the last five years it became traditional to meet here every Boxing Day night, and traditions are sacred. So here we are, me and Tone and Spencer, sitting in a vinyl booth the color of a blood clot, the first time we've met up since September. I'd been a little anxious about meeting up again, but Spencer seems genuinely pleased to see me. Tone does too, in his own special way, which basically involves rubbing his knuckles hard on the top of my head.

  “What the fuck is going on with your hair?”

  “What d'you mean?”

  “Bit bouffant, isn't it?” Tone grabs my head by the ears, sniffs it like a melon. “Are you wearing mousse?” “No, I'm not wearing any mousse.” I am, in fact, wearing a little mousse.

  “What's it called then, a haircut like that?”

  “It's called a Brideshead,” says Spencer. “It's called a short-back-and-sides. What do they call yours then, Tone?”

  “It doesn't have a name, it just is. So what you drinking these days— port and lemon? Medium sherry? Sweet white wine? …” It's started, and I haven't even taken my donkey jacket off yet.

  “A pint of lager please, Tone.”

  “Special lager?”

  “Go on then. Special lager.”

  “Special lager” is lager-with-a-gin-top. Part of the landlord's educational remit here is to nurture experimentation and innovation, and he won't bat an eyelid, no matter what repulsive combination you order. Besides, lager-with-a-gin-top is actually pretty grown-up by Black Prince standards. Anything that doesn't taste of coconut or mint or aniseed counts as refined here.

  This is the longest I've gone without seeing Spencer since we were both twelve years old, and I'm very anxious that there shouldn't be any awkward silences. But here it is. Silence. Spencer tries to fill it by flicking his beer mat up in the air and catching it, while I reach for the matchbox, in case there's something to read on the back of it.

  “So. I thought you said you'd be down at weekends?” he says finally.

  “Well, I was going to, but it got a bit busy.”

  “Busy. Right.”

  “Good Christmas?” I ask.

  “The usual. Same as last year's, same as next year's. You?”

  “Oh, you know. The same.” Tone is back with the three special lagers. “So … what's new?” I ask.

  “What's ‘new’ ?” says Spencer.

  “At work, I mean …”

  “What work?” he asks, with a wink. As far as I know, Spencer's still signing on and doing cash-in-hand night shifts.

  “At the petrol station … ?”

  “Well, we've got a very interesting free-set-of-wineglasses promotion on at the moment, that's causing quite a stir, and the price of four-star went up the other day, that was pretty thrilling, too. So all in all, I haven't been this excited since I had that all-chocolate Kit Kat. Oh, and last week a bunch of students drove off without paying.…”

  “I hope you chased after them,” slurs Tone.

  “Well, no, Tony, I didn't, on account of them being in a car and me being on foot. Besides, I only get one pound eighty an hour. They'd have to pay me a lot more than that before I break into a run.”

  “How do you know they were students?” I ask, taking the bait.

  “Well, they were very badly dressed for one thing. Long scarves, little round glasses, bad haircuts …” He smiles conspiratorially at Tone, then back at me. “How's your eyesight, Bri?” This is a running gag between Tone and Spencer, who believe that I lied to my optician just to get spectacles.

  “Fine, thank you, Spence,” and I decide to go and get some crisps.

  On the way to the bar, I think for a moment about heading for the door and walking out. I love Spence and Tone, Spencer especially, and I think it's mutual, though God knows we'd never actually use the L-word, not sober, anyway. But for my eighteenth birthday Spencer and Tone tied me naked to the end of Southend pier and force-fed me laxatives, so it's a love that expresses itself in unconventional ways.

  When I come back they've started talking about Tone's sex life, so I know I'm going to be in the clear for the next hour or so. Barmaids, hairdressers, teachers,
school friends' sisters, or mothers even, no one seems immune to Tone's Nordic charms. The list is endless, and the detail is explicit, and after a while I start to feel I need a bath, but he's obviously got something going for him, Tone, something other than sensitivity or tenderness or consideration. It's far easier to imagine that, after making love, he rubs his knuckles very hard on his lover's head. I wonder, but don't ask, if Tone's practicing safe sex, but suspect that he thinks safe sex is for wimps, in the same way that safety belts and crash helmets are for wimps. If Tone was thrown from a plane, he'd still think parachutes were for wimps.

  “How about you then, Brian, any action?”

  “Not really.”This sounds a bit feeble, so I add, nonchalantly, “There is this girl, Alice, and she's invited me to stay with her tomorrow, at her cottage, so …”

  “Her cottage?” says Spencer. “What is she? A milkmaid?”

  “You know, a house, in the country, her parents' …”

  “So you're shagging her then?” asks Tone.

  “It's platonic.”

  “What's platonic mean then?” asks Spencer, even though he knows.

  “It means she won't let him shag her,” says Tone.

  “I'm not ‘shagging’ her because I don't want to ‘shag’ her, not yet anyway. If I wanted to, then I would.”

  “Though recent evidence would suggest that not to be the case,” says Spencer.

  Tone seems to find this incredibly funny, so I decide to retreat again, and go and get some more gin-and-lagers; I stumble slightly as I leave the booth, so I know they're beginning to do their work. Keenly aware of how pocket money doesn't stretch very far these days. The Black Prince is also incredibly cheap, and it's possible for three young men to get incoherent, aggressive, sentimental and violent, and still have change from a tenner.

  When I sit back down, Spencer asks me, “So what do you actually do all day then?”

  “Talk. Read. Go to lectures. Argue.”

  “It's not proper work though, is it?”