Starter for Ten

by David Nicholls

  “Your opinions. D'you think you'll mellow? You know, with age?”

  “Absolutely no way! Ah'll tell you one thing, Brian Jackson. You know that load of crap they tell you about how you're meant to be left-wing till you're thirty, then you're suddenly meant to realize the error of your ways and go all right-wing? Well, big fat bollocks to that. If we're still friends in the year 2000, which is, what, fourteen years' time—and I hope we will be, Brian, my ol' pal—anyway, if we're still friends, and I have in any way altered or compromised my political, ethical or moral views about tax or immigration or apartheid or trade unions, or if I've stopped marching, or attending meetings, or have turned even remotely right-wing, then I give you permission to shoot me,” and she taps the center of her forehead. “Right. Here.”

  “Okay. I will.”

  “Do. Do.” Then she blinks very slowly, licks her lips, and attempts to swig from the empty bottle before saying, “Hey, listen, I'm sorry about getting all heavy with you this morning.”

  “What d'you mean?”

  “You know what I mean—getting all Sylvia Plath on you.”

  “Oh, that's all right.…”

  “I mean, I still think you're a complete prick and everything, but I'm sorry for giving you a hard time.”

  “And why am I a complete—?”

  “You know why.…”

  “No, go on, tell me.…”

  She smiles at me sideways, from under heavy black eyelids. “For not having it off with me when you had the chance.”

  “Ah, well …” And I think about kissing her for a moment, but there are too many people looking, and Alice upstairs, so I say, “… Maybe … some other time?”

  “Oh, no, you blew it, I'm afraid. Once-only offer, pal …” And she bops me on the shoulder with her head. “Once. Only. Offer …” And we sit there, not looking at each other, until Rebecca says, “So where's your friend then?”

  “Spencer? No idea. Upstairs, I think.”

  “I thought he was meant to be having some kind of mental breakdown or something.…”

  “Yeah, well, Alice is helping him get over it.”

  “So do I get to meet him or what?”

  Rebecca and Spencer isn't a combination I'd imagined before, and the consequences could be disastrous, but I need to know where he is and what he's doing and how far down Alice's top his hand is, so I say, “If you want,” and we heave ourselves up out of the depths of the sofa and start to look.

  We peer into each of the rooms in turn, until we find them, in a small, packed back bedroom at the top of the house, over in the corner, about two inches apart. All around them people are dancing, or not dancing, because there's not enough room, but bobbing their heads to “Exodus” by Bob Marley, and Alice is waggling her shoulders too, slightly out of time, biting her lower lip, and, okay, they're not kissing as such, just “talking,” but they might as well be, considering how close they're standing. Spencer's got that annoying lopsided charm-boy expression on his face, like he's The Fonz or something, and Alice is mooning up at him all cow-eyed and interested with her arms crossed over her leotard, as if auditioning for the role of “country wench,” shoving her cleavage up under his chin, just in case he'd missed it.

  “That's him, in the corner,” I say.

  “The suede-head?” says Rebecca.

  “He's not a Fascist,” I say, though I don't know why I'm defending him, he probably is a Fascist, or as good as.

  “Good-looking, isn't he?”

  “Oh, right, well, yeah, right, thanks for that, Rebecca,” I say.

  “Aw, shut ya face, ya daft sod. You've got nothing to worry about on that score.” Is she being sarcastic? I can't tell, and I can't concentrate anyway because now Alice is actually running her hand over the top of Spencer's head, and giggling, and trying to pull her hand away in a sort of pathetic, girly, oooh-doesn't-it-feel-fuzzy kind of way, and Spencer's stooping, taking her hand again, and putting it back on top of his head, and grinning his stupid lopsided Fonzie grin, and saying no, go on, have a feel, have a feel. He'll be showing her his scars from that glass fight next, and I think, What a scam, shaving your head to make your friends think you were having some kind of crisis or breakdown, when in fact it's just a cheap trick to get beautiful women to stroke your scalp. I wonder how long it would take me to go downstairs, fill the washing-up bowl with cold water, come back and throw it over them when, God bless him, Patrick Watts goes over and does it for me by starting a conversation.

  “… Oi, are you listening to me, you nutter?” says Rebecca.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So are you going to introduce me or what?”

  “Absolutely, let's go. Just don't get off with him, though, will you?”

  “Och, what do you care?” she says, and we head over.

  “… and Patrick is the captain of our team!” Alice is announcing proudly, as we arrive.

  “Yeah, I heard,” says Spencer, not looking Patrick in the eye.

  “Oh, hiya, Rebecca!” says Alice, and, bizarrely, throws her arms around her. Rebecca hugs her back, but pulls a face at me over her shoulder.

  “Spencer, this is my good friend Rebecca,” I shout over the music, and they shake hands.

  “The famous Spencer. Pleased to meet you at last,” says Rebecca. “Brian's told me a lot about you.”

  “Right!” says Spencer and there's a little pause, and the five of us just stand there, all bobbing slightly, and then from out of nowhere, I find myself shouting …

  “Hey, you should talk to Rebecca about your LEGAL PROBLEM, Spencer!”

  I'm not sure why I say it, but I do. I think, in fact I'm pretty sure, it's because I'm trying to be helpful and friendly and keep the conversation going, but I say it anyway, and after a little pause, still smiling, Spencer asks, “Why's that?”

  “Because she's a lawyer.”

  “I'm studying law, that's not the same thing.…”

  “No, but still …”

  “So what's your legal problem then?” says Patrick, interested now.

  “Spencer's getting done for fiddling his dole …” I say.

  “You're joking …” says Alice, coming over all righteous and left-wing all of a sudden, and squeezing Spencer's arm. “… The bastards. You poor thing …”

  “Nice one, Brian …” mouths Spencer, smiling but not really.

  “Well, if you didn't do it, then I'm sure you'll be fine,” says Patrick, loftily.

  “But he did do it,” I say, just to clarify things.

  “So you've got a job then?” says Patrick.

  “Just cash-in-hand. Petrol station,” mumbles Spence.

  “Except he got caught with …” But Spence's eyes flick across at me, and I stop speaking.

  “Well, then …” Patrick sniggers, shrugging his shoulders. “I have to say, best of luck, mate.”

  Spencer's glaring at me steadily now as Rebecca starts on Patrick: “So what if there's no work out there?”

  “Well, there obviously is work out there.…”

  “No, there's not.…”

  “I think you'll find there is.…”

  “There's four million unemployed!” says Rebecca, turning nasty now.

  “Three million. And he's clearly not one of them, is he? That's the whole point. If he was working cash-in-hand, he obviously could get a job, but it seems that the pay wasn't good enough for his particular lifestyle, so he decided to take money from the state instead”—is he going to keep calling him “he”? I wonder—“you can hardly blame the state for wanting something back when they find it's been stolen. It is my money, after all.…”

  Bob Marley is singing “No Woman, No Cry,” and I watch Spencer as he necks his lager, glowering at Patrick all the time from under hooded eyes. I catch his eye for just a second, then quickly look back to Rebecca, who's gone red-faced and is belligerently jabbing her finger into Patrick's chest in an attempt to tear out his still-beating heart.

  “It's not your money,
you don't pay tax!” says Rebecca.

  “No, but we will, we all will, a great deal of tax in fact. And call me old-fashioned, but I think I have a right to demand that it doesn't go to ‘unemployed' people who aren't really unemployed …”

  “… even if the job pays below the breadline?”

  “Not my problem! If the employee wants a better job, then there's a great deal he can do about it; join a Youth Opportunities Scheme, get some qualifications, get on his bike and look for—”

  … And the next words Patrick says are “PLEASE-GET-HIM-OFF-ME-PLEASE!” because Spencer has stepped forward suddenly, jammed his forearm hard under Patrick's chin and is holding him high, high up against the wall, and even though I've seen Spencer get into fights maybe seven or eight times now, it still takes me by surprise, like suddenly discovering that he can tap dance. In this instance, it all happens so quickly and deftly that for a while no one else outside our circle sees what happens, they just keep bobbing away to “No Woman, No Cry.” But then Patrick starts kicking out with his legs, denting the plasterboard walls, and Spencer's forced to brace Patrick's body with his own, and is pushing his free hand into Patrick's face, squeezing his mouth together.

  “Come on, mate, for Christ's sake …” I say.

  “Okay, then, question number one, who's ‘he' ?” hisses Spencer, his face inches away from Patrick's.

  “What d'you mean?” lisps Patrick.

  “Well, you keep talking about ‘he'—who's ‘he' ?”

  “You, of course …”

  “… just let him go,” I say.

  “And what's my name?”

  “What?”

  “… come on, please, just pack it in …”

  “My name, what's my name, you pompous little prick … ?” says Spencer, squeezing Patrick's cheeks for emphasis, pushing his head back hard against the wall. The record comes off with a scratch, and people start to turn to watch. Patrick's face is bright red now, his teeth clenched, his toes searching for the floor, and he's spluttering through saliva and orange juice as he says, “I … can't … remember …”

  “Pack it in, you two!” shouts someone from the doorway, where a crowd has started to form on the landing. “We're calling the police,” shouts someone else, but Spencer's indifferent, and I hear him say, in a whisper, his forehead touching Patrick's, “Well, the correct answer's Spencer, Patrick, and if you've got any careers advice you want to give to me, you'll have some respect, and give it to my face, you stuck-up, little …”

  And then there's another flurry of motion as Patrick gets an arm free, and brings it up open-handed against Spencer's ear, a noisy ineffectual glancing swipe, but enough to make Spencer release the pressure on Patrick's neck, and then suddenly Patrick is lashing out, arms and legs flailing madly, hissing and spitting like an incensed child. People are screaming, and tumbling backwards out of the tiny room, and in the chaos I see Alice holding on to Spencer's arm, trying to pull him out of the way too, like some sort of movie poster heroine, but he shakes her off and she falls back against the window frame, cracking her head loudly. I see her scowl and put her hand to the back of her head, checking for blood, and I want to cross the room to her to make sure she's all right, but Patrick is still swinging his arms round madly, lashing out at Spencer, who's crouching low, ducking out of the way, until suddenly he sees his moment. He stands, places one hand flat on Patrick's chest, holding him out of range, pulls the other arm back and then throws his whole weight forward into his fist, making contact with the side of Patrick's head with a loud, wet smacking noise, like meat slapped down on wood, sending him spinning round once, twice, and down face first onto the floor.

  There's a moment's silence, and then a sudden rush of people over to Patrick, who has rolled over onto his back, and is tentatively dabbing at his nose and mouth with his hand, checking for blood, and finding it in abundance. “Oh, my God,” he's mumbling, “oh, my God,” and I think he's about to cry as Lucy Chang squeezes through to the front, supporting the back of his head with her hand, helping him up into a sitting position, and I only really see three people clearly after that.

  Rebecca is standing in the middle of the room with her hands over her mouth, suspended somewhere between laughter and tears.

  Alice is leaning against the window frame, staring open-mouthed at Spencer, one hand rubbing the back of her head.

  Spencer has turned his back to Patrick, and is flicking his hand out into the air, examining his knuckles, breathing heavily. He looks up at me, blows air out through his gritted teeth and says, “Let's go, then, shall we?”

  Downstairs they're all singing along to “With a Little Help from My Friends.”

  30

  QUESTION: The conditions blepharitis, ectropion, amblyopia and heterophoria would all result in what condition?

  ANSWER: An inability to see clearly.

  We stride down the terraced streets in silence, Spencer somewhere close behind me. I can hear his footsteps slap the wet pavement, but I'm too angry, too embarrassed, too drunk and confused to talk to him just now, so I keep my head down and stride on.

  “Great party!” says Spencer eventually.

  I ignore him, stomp on ahead.

  “I liked Alice.”

  “Yeah, I noticed!” I say, without looking back.

  We walk a little farther in silence.

  “I know, Bri! How about a game of ‘If This Person Were …'?”

  I start to walk a little faster.

  “Look, Bri, if you've got something to say to me, just say it now, 'cause this is just fuckin' stupid …”

  “And what if I don't? You going to hit me, too?”

  “It's certainly very tempting,” he mutters under his breath. “All right, mate,” he says, “you've made your point, just listen, will you?” but I keep walking. “Please?” he says. The word doesn't come easily, and he sounds like a petulant child, forced to say it against his will, but I stop and turn to listen.

  “All right, Brian. I'm very sorry … for hitting … the captain of your University Challenge quiz team …” But he can't get to the end of the sentence without starting to giggle, so I turn again, and keep on walking. After a while I hear him running up behind me, and I flinch maybe, but then he's standing in front of me, scowling, walking backwards quickly. “What did you want me to do, Bri? Just stand there and take it? He was treating me like shit.…”

  “So you decided to hit him?”

  “Yeah …”

  “Because you disagreed with him?”

  “No, not just that …”

  “And you didn't think of maybe arguing with him, debating your point of view, in a calm, rational way?”

  “What's my point of view got to do with it? He was trying to make me look like a tit …”

  “… So you resorted to violence!”

  “I didn't resort to it. Violence was my first choice.”

  “Oh, yes, very cool, you're very hard, Spence.…”

  “Well, you weren't exactly going out of your way to help me, were you? Or were you scared he'd drop you from the team?”

  “I was sticking up for you!”

  “No, you weren't, you were just flapping your big fucking social conscience around in front of your girlfriends. If you hadn't raised the subject—”

  “What did you want me to do, hold his arms behind his back for you? Those are my friends, Spencer.…”

  “That pillock? Your friend? Fucking hell, Brian, it's worse than I thought. He treats you like a piece of shit.”

  “He does not!”

  “He does, Bri, I saw him do it. He's a complete wanker and he deserves what he got.…”

  “Well … at least he doesn't try and get off with the girls I like.…”

  “Whoa, whoa, hang on there.” And he stops me, putting one open hand on my chest, just as he did to Patrick, before he punched him, and I wonder if he can feel how fast my heart is beating. “You think I was trying to get off with Alice? You really think that's what
I was doing?”

  “Well, it certainly looked that way to me, Spence—all that head-rubbing …” And I go to put my hand on his head, but his other hand snaps up, grabs my wrist and holds it tight.

  “You know, Bri, for someone who's meant to be educated, you can be pretty fucking stupid sometimes.…”

  “Don't talk to me like that …” I say, wrenching my hand away.

  “Like what?”

  “Like that, like you always talk to me! What is it, Spence, this need to … smash everything up? I'm sorry things aren't going well for you at the moment, I'm sorry if you're not happy, but there's stuff you can do about that, Spencer, practical stuff, and you just choose not to, because it's easier to just fuck about, and fuck things up, and sneer at people who are actually trying to do something with their lives.…”

  “What, like you, you mean?” he says, sniggering.

  “You're just jealous, Spencer, you always have been jealous of me, just because I work hard, just because I'm clever and got some qualifi—”

  “Whoa, hang on. Clever? Is that what you call it, you cocky cunt? When I first met you, you couldn't even tie your fucking shoelaces! I had to teach you to do it. You had ‘left' and ‘right' written on your Plimsolls till you were fifteen! You couldn't even get through a game of football without bursting into tears, you soft sod. If you're so clever, then how come you don't know what people say about you behind your back, how much they laugh at you? I've stuck up for you for years and years since your dad died …”

  “What's my dad got to do with it?”

  “You tell me, Brian—you tell me.”

  “Just leave my dad out of it, all right!” I shout.

  “Or what? What are you going to do, cry?”

  “Fuck off, Spencer, you fucking … bully.” But there's a hot itchy feeling behind my eyes, a tight knot of panic in my stomach, and I suddenly realize that I have to get away from him, so I turn around and walk back the way we came.

  “Where you going?” he shouts after me.

  “Dunno!”

  “You running away, Brian? Is that it?”

  “Yeah, if you like.”

  “So how am I meant to get back?”