Starter for Ten

by David Nicholls

  Radio 4 is broadcasting loudly from hidden speakers, and Alice is lying on the sofa, under a bourgeois blanket, reading.

  “Morning!” I say.

  “Hiya,” she mutters, engrossed in her book.

  I squeeze in next to a dog.

  “What ya readin'?” I say in an amusing voice. She shows me the cover. “One Hundred Years of Solitude—sounds like my sex life!”

  “Sleep well?” she says, when she finally realizes that I'm not going to go away.

  “Amazingly, thank you.”

  “Cold?”

  “Oh, only a little.”

  “That's because you're used to central heating. It's very bad for you, central heating, numbs the senses …”

  And as if to underline her point, Mr. Harbinson strolls nonchalantly across the living room. He is naked.

  “Morning!” he says nakedly. “Morning!” Even with my eyes staring fixedly at the top of the fire place, it's clear that he's either a very hairy man, or is wearing a black, mohair jumpsuit.

  “Tea in the pot, Alice?” he says nudely.

  “Help yourself.”

  And he bends down beside her, bends down from the waist, and pours himself a cup, then strides upstairs, taking the steps three at a time. When it's finally safe to look, I ask, “So. Is that. Fairly. Normal. Then?”

  “What?”

  “The naked-dad thing.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Oh.”

  “Not shocked are you?” she says, eyes narrowed.

  “Well, you know …”

  “You must have seen your dad naked.”

  “Well, not since he died, no.”

  “No, of course, I'm sorry, I forgot, but before he died, you must have seen him naked.”

  “Well, maybe. But it's not how I choose to remember him.”

  “And what about your mum?”

  “God, no! So do you go naked in front of your dad then?”

  “Only when we're having sex,” says Alice, then clicks her tongue and rolls her eyes. “Of course I do, we all do. We are family after all. God, you're really freaked out, aren't you? Honestly, Brian, for someone who's meant to be right-on, you're really incredibly square.” For a moment I catch a glimpse of her as head girl, malicious and superior. And did she really just call me square? “Well, don't worry, Brian, I keep my clothes on when there are guests around.”

  “Oh, please, don't compromise, not for my sake …” Alice knows I'm pushing my luck, and smiles wryly. “What I mean is, I think I could handle it.”

  “Hmm. Now I wonder if that's strictly true?” Alice licks the tip of her finger, and turns the page of her book.

  Breakfast is toast made from home-baked bread that has the color, weight, texture and taste of a heavy-loam soil. Radio 4 is broadcasting in the kitchen too. In fact as far as I can tell it's on in every room and is apparently impossible to turn off, like the telescreens in 1984. We chew and listen to the radio, and chew, Alice reading her book throughout. I feel miserable already. Partly it's because I'm the first person to be called “square” since 1971, but mainly I'm depressed by the mention of Dad. How could she “forget”? And I despise the way I find myself talking about him in front of other people. I'm sure Dad would have been over the moon to know that this was his fate all along: to be used by his son as raw material for a bunch of shitty, glib one-liners, or self-pitying drunken monologues. The hunt for the Real Me is going badly, and I've not even brushed my teeth yet.

  And then we go for a long walk in the snow. You couldn't call the East Anglian countryside spectacular; it's striking, I suppose, in a postnuclear sort of way, and the view tends to stay pretty much the same no matter how far you walk, which sort of defeats the object, really, but at least it's consistent. It's also refreshing to be somewhere that you can't hear Radio 4. Alice takes me by the arm, and I almost forget about the snow ruining my new suede desert boots.

  Since I've been at university, I've noticed that people want to talk about the same five major topics: (1) “My A-level Results,” (2) “My Nervous Breakdown/Eating Disorder,” (3) “My Full Grant,” (4) “Why I'm Actually Relieved I Didn't Get into Oxbridge,” (5) “My Favorite Books,” and this last option is the one we alight on.

  “Top of the pops for me used to be The Diary of Anne Frank. When I was a teenager, I used to really want to be Anne Frank. Not the ending, obviously, just the idea of living very simply in an attic, reading books, keeping my diary, falling in love with the pale, sensitive Jewish boy in the attic next door. That probably sounds a little bit perverse, doesn't it?”

  “A little bit.”

  “I think it's just a phase all us girls go through at a certain age, like cutting yourself, and throwing up, and lesbianism.”

  “You tried lesbianism?” I ask casually, in near falsetto.

  “Well, you more or less had to at boarding school. It was compulsory: lesbianism, French and netball.”

  “So what did you … do?”

  “Wouldn't you like to know.” Well, clearly, yes. “Nothing much really. I just dipped my toe in.”

  “Well, maybe that was where you were going wrong!” She gives a tired smile. “Sorry. So—what happened?”

  “It just didn't really do it for me, I suppose. I've always liked sex with men too much. I'd miss the penetration.” We walk on a little farther. “How about you?”

  “Me? Oh, I miss the penetration too.”

  “I'm trying to be serious, Brian,” she says, punching me on the arm with her mitten. “So have you?”

  “Have I what?”

  “Well, I'm assuming you've had sex with men.”

  “No!”

  “Really?”

  “Absolutely not. What makes you say that?”

  “I just assumed you would have.”

  “You think I'm effeminate?” I ask. The falsetto's back.

  “No, not effeminate. And, besides, effeminacy is not a signifier of homosexuality …”

  “Well, no, of course not.”

  “… and it's not a bad thing anyway.”

  “No, of course it isn't. It's just you sound like one of my mates from school, that's all.”

  “Well, methinks the lady doth protest too much.”

  Change the subject. I'm keen to bring the conversation back to lesbianism, but then dimly remember that she'd said something earlier about cutting herself. I probably should have picked up on that.

  “What about the … self-harm?”

  “What self-harm?”

  “You said you used to cut yourself ?”

  “Oh, only now and again. A cry-for-help, I think they call it. Or more accurately a cry-for-attention. I got a bit depressed at school, a bit lonely, that's all.”

  “I'm amazed,” I say.

  “Really? Why should that surprise you?”

  “It's just I suppose I can't imagine you having anything to be depressed about.”

  “You really have to get over this notion that I'm silver-plated, Brian, some sort of Perfect Being. It's really not the case at all.”

  But that afternoon she's pretty perfect.

  When we're nearly home from the walk we have a frisky little snowball fight on the front lawn, which differs from all the previous snowball fights I've ever had in that no one is packing dog shit or broken glass into the center of their snowballs. It's not even a snowball fight as such, just a mildly aphrodisiacal tussle, the kind of self-conscious fooling around that feels as if it's being filmed, ideally with a black-and-white cine camera. Then we go in and sit on the sofa by the fire to dry out, and she plays her favorite records, lots of Rickie Lee Jones and Led Zeppelin and Donovan and Bob Dylan—even though she was sixteen in 1982, there's definitely something very 1971 about Alice. I watch as she jumps around the room to “Crosstown Traffic” by Jimi Hendrix, then when she's out of breath and tired of changing records every three minutes she puts a crackly old Ella Fitzgerald LP on, and we lie on the sofa and read our books, and steal glances at each othe
r every now and then, like that bit between Michael York and Liza Minnelli in Cabaret, and talk only when we feel like it. And, miraculously, for nearly a whole afternoon I manage not to say anything fatuous or pretentious or priggish or unfunny or self-pitying, I don't break or spill anything, I don't slag anyone off, I don't whine or moan or flick my hair back or pick at my face while I'm talking. In fact, I'm just about the best person I'm capable of being, and if that person's not quite lovable, at least he's fairly likable. And then at about four o'clock Alice lolls over and lies with her head in my lap and falls asleep, and for the time being at least, it does seem true, she is absolutely and entirely perfect. We're listening to Blue, side 2, track 5 now, and Joni's singing, “The last time I saw Richard was Detroit in '68 / and he told me all romantics meet the same fate someday / Cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark café …” and when the record finishes, and the room is silent except for the sound of the log fire, I just sit very, very still and watch her sleeping. Her lips are slightly parted and I can feel her warm breath on my thigh, and I find myself staring at the tiny raised scar on her lower lip, white against the red, and have this overwhelming desire to run my thumb across it, but don't want to wake her, so instead I just look at her, look and look and look. In the end I have to wake her up, though, because I'm worried that the weight and warmth of her head on my lap will get me overstimulated, if you know what I mean, and let's face facts, no one likes to be woken up that way. Not with that in their ear.

  And then, would you believe, it gets even better. Her parents are out for the evening, eating more vegetables at someone's converted mill in South-wold, so it's just me and Alice alone in the house. As we stand drinking large beakers of gin and tonics in the kitchen, I'm ashamed to say that I entertain myself by fantasizing that we live here together. We turn out all the lights in the house and play Scrabble by candlelight, peering hard at the letters, and I win, by quite a long way, as a matter of fact, but with modesty and good grace. “Foxed” and “amazed” on triple-letter scores, incidentally.

  Supper is brown-rice stir-fry, which looks and tastes a little like we've stir-fried the dustpan sweepings, but is just about edible if you add enough soy sauce. Besides, by the time we get around to eating it, we're fantastically drunk, and talking over each other and laughing and dancing around the living room to old Nina Simone songs, then seeing how far we can slide along the varnished wooden floors in our socks. Then when we're lying in a crumpled, giggling heap, Alice very suddenly takes me by the hands, smiles mischievously and says, “D'you want to go upstairs?” My heart pops up into my mouth.

  “Well, that depends. What's upstairs?” I say, foxed and amazed.

  “Come with me and find out,” and she scrambles up the stairs on all fours, shouting behind her, “Your bedroom, two minutes—bring the wine!”

  Concentrate. Just concentrate.

  I go to the kitchen sink, move the soaking wok to one side, run the cold tap and splash my face, partly to sober up, partly to check I'm not dreaming, then holding the wine bottle and the half-filled glasses precariously with the tips of my fingers, I follow her upstairs.

  Alice isn't in my room yet, so I go to the sink and very quickly brush my teeth, listening out for her footstep so that she doesn't catch me at it and think I'm taking things for granted. Then when I hear her coming along the corridor, I rinse and spit, and turn off the overhead light and arrange myself nonchalantly on the bed and wait.

  “Da-daaaaa!”

  She's standing in the doorway, arms outflung like an Oscar winner, but I can't tell what I'm meant to be looking at. Her breasts, maybe? Hoping against hope, I wonder if maybe she's put on special underwear, and then I spot the Rizlas in one hand and the tiny cling-film pouch in the other.

  “What is it?”

  “Skunk, man. Wick-ed skunk. We can't do it downstairs—Michael's like a sniffer-dog. That Bohemian Dad thing only stretches so far.” She grabs a copy of Richard Scarry's Busy, Busy World from the bookshelf and starts rolling the joint on it.

  “What about your mum?”

  “Oh, Mum actually gets it for me, from this creepy guy in the village. What can I say! Housewife's ruin. Still, she's got to fill her days somehow, I suppose. It's amazing stuff. Amaaaaazing!” God help me, she's putting on a West Indian accent, Jamaica-cum-Aldeburgh, and for the first time ever I find myself really embarrassed by her. “Really strong gan-ja, mon, reeeeeally nice weeeeed …” Please, stop that, Alice, please? Now she's lit it, and is inhaling deeply, and holding the smoke in her lungs while her eyes roll back in her head, then she pouts and blows the smoke out toward the paper lampshade, and I wonder if marijuana is an aphrodisiac.

  Alice looks at me with one lazy eye, and offers me the joint, as if it were a challenge. Which it is.

  “Your turn, Bri.”

  “Actually, I don't think I can, Alice.”

  “Why not? Why don't you want to get high, Bri?”

  This strikes her as very, very funny, and while she bangs her head against the headboard I say, “No, I'd love to, it's just I never learned to smoke, not even tobacco, I'm useless, I can't take it back, not without coughing my lungs up anyway.” Actually, smoking was one of the things I hoped to do at university, like reading Don Quixote, growing a beard and learning to play the alto sax, but I just haven't got round to it.

  “You're a strange one, aren't you, Brian Jackson?” she says, suddenly very serious. “How can you not smoke! Smoking's pretty much the thing I do best. Or second best anyway …” she says, winking the other lazy eye. Marijuana must be an aphrodisiac. “Okay, we'll try something a little more provocative. But, first, some music!” And she stumbles over to the clunky, flat-deck, childhood tape recorder, which has “Alice's” written on it in Liquid Paper, then digs around in her old desk drawer for a tape, jams it in and presses play. It's someone singing “A Froggy Went a Courtin'.”

  “Wow—Proustian Rush!” she says. “This song is my childhood. I fucking love and adore this song! Don't you? Right, come here, young man, sit up straight …” We kneel up on the bed, facing each other, and she brings her face up to within a couple of inches from mine.

  “Okay, put your hands here …”—and she takes my wrists, and pushes them behind my back—“… and purse your lips, like this.” Her mouth is just inches away, I can smell the sweetness of the soy sauce and ginger on her breath. Then she takes her hand and pinches my cheeks together into an exaggerated pout.

  “Froggy went a courtin', he did ride, uh-hum …”

  “Now, what you are about to receive, Mr. Brian Jackson, is called a blow-back, and no, it's not what you think it is, so nooo sauciness, please. I'm going to blow the smoke into your mouth, and you are to inhale deeply and hold the smoke in your lungs and you will not cough, d'you understand? I forbid it! Instead you will hold your breath for as long as physically possible, and only then will you exhale. Is that clear?”

  “Perfectly clear.”

  “Okay, then. Here we go!”

  She places the joint between her lips and inhales deeply, then smiles, raises her eyebrows as if to say “Ready?,” and I nod, yes, I'm ready. She brings her lips right up to mine so that they are centimeters, millimeters away, surely not even that, surely they're touching, and then she blows, and I suck in my breath, which is only natural, really, given the circumstances, and I want the moment to go on forever.

  “Froggy went a courtin', he did ride

  A sword and pistol by his side

  A Froggy went a courtin' he did ride, uh-hum …”

  Finally, when my lungs are about to burst, I exhale and she flops back and asks, “What d'you think?” Once I've worked out how to operate my mouth, I say, “Okay!”

  “Feel anything?”

  “Not massively.”

  “Want to go again?”

  Oh, God, yes, Alice, do I? More than anything in the world …

  “Yeah, yeah, all right …”

  “Are you sure? It's very strong.”
r />   “Really, Alice, trust me. I can handle it.”

  When I regain consciousness, Alice has gone, and I'm under the duvet, and Froggy's still going a-courtin'. The tape's on auto-reverse. I've no idea how long I've been under, so I jab at the stop button and look for my travel alarm clock—1:30 a.m. I'm suddenly desperately thirsty, but thank goodness there's still half a bottle of refreshing red wine by my bed, so I sit up and drain most of the bottle. I check to see if Alice took my trousers off before she put me to bed, find that she didn't, but am too stoned to know whether to be pleased or disappointed.

  Besides, I'm too busy thinking about food. I have never been hungrier in my life. Even courgettes seem appealing. Then, thank God, I remember I am the possessor of Cold Meats, bless you, Mum. I dig the foil parcel out of my suitcase, tear a ribbon of fat off a piece of boiled bacon, and stuff the lean into my mouth. It's good, but something's missing. Bread. Need sandwich. Must have bread.

  Walking is less easy than I remembered, and getting downstairs seems almost impossible. I don't want to turn any lights on, but it really is pitch-black here, so bracing myself against the walls on either side I take fairy steps along the hallway and down the stairs into the kitchen. Time stretches, and the journey seems to take maybe several days, but I get there eventually and begin the physically demanding task of chiseling myself two slices of homemade whole-meal bread. The resulting sandwich is the size, weight and texture of a household brick, but I don't care anymore, because it contains Cold Meats. I settle down at the table and pour myself some milk first, to try and make the bread less gritty, but the milk has curdled and separated, and I'm about to cross to the sink to spit it out, when the landing light clicks on and I hear a creak at the top of the stairs.

  Maybe it's Alice! Maybe we can carry on from where we left off. But it isn't. It's Mrs. Harbinson. Rose. Naked Rose. I swallow the curdled milk.

  Of course, I should just say something straightaway, just a sexless, casual “Hullo, Rose!” but the dope and the wine have made me fuzzy and muddled, and I don't want a naked woman screaming at me at two in the morning, so I just sit there, very quietly, and hope she'll go. She opens the door of the fridge, and then she bends over, and the white fridge light and the bending over make her look really naked. Closer scrutiny reveals she's actually wearing a pair of thick gray socks, which gives her nudity a sort of wholesome, muesli quality, like a line drawing from The Joy of Sex, and in my drug-fuddled state I find myself wondering if there is such a word as pubicy. What is she looking for? And why is it taking so long? I imagine that she “looks-good-for-her-age” too, but then I've never actually seen a whole woman naked, not in real life and all at once, only odd bits and pieces, and even then none of them were older than nineteen, so I'm not really an authority on the subject. Still, I suppose the situation isn't without a sort of hackneyed eroticism, albeit one that's tempered slightly by the parcel of body-temperature gammon nestling on my lap. Suddenly anxious that maybe she'll smell the meat, I try to fold the foil over silently, and the resultant crackling seems to reverberate round the kitchen like an electrical storm.