You Are Not a Stranger Here - Adam Haslett [41]
A WEEK PASSED. On Tuesday, the office called about a semidetached in Parson’s Green; they couldn’t find the paperwork. James let the machine answer and phoned back the next morning. How was the holiday going? Simon asked. Where had he gone off to? A village in Cornwall, James said, just a bed-and-breakfast, a quick walk to the sea. Wonderful to have time on his own.
Matinees were cheaper than evening shows and London was full of movie houses. He watched the films he had missed over the last few months, soon moving back further in time to the repertory houses—seventies classics, the Italian directors, the films of Dirk Bogarde. If he rose at eleven, had a leisurely breakfast, and chose a long picture, the matinee would consume most of the afternoon, and evening would soon be upon him. He cooked at home and visited the common at night. Each evening, as he sat on the bench waiting for the light to fade, he wrote a letter to his father, even if it was only a few lines, being sure to place it in an envelope as soon as he returned to the flat.
One Friday night he arrived home from the cinema to discover the fridge was empty; he had seen a double feature, and it was now past closing time. Just as happy not to have to cook, he showered and changed before heading out for a curry.
The place was crammed with an after-work crowd that had stayed for supper and was getting progressively drunker. He sat on his own at a table near the kitchen, reading the newspaper. Just as his food arrived, he heard a voice behind him.
“Is that you, Finn?” He turned around and saw a broad-faced male of his own age, his complexion brightened with alcohol, leering down at him. “Clive Newman, from Stockwell, you remember—football in the fog.” Without waiting for confirmation, he went on. “Crazy coincidence, hey? I’m back for just a week, Hong Kong—banking—and Trisha’s here too, girlfriend of mine. Why don’t you come over then, Jamie? That’s it, right? Jamie?”
“James.”
“Right. Eat with us,” he instructed, lifting the dish of rice from James’s table and heading for his own. What could he do? He picked up the rest of his food and moved reluctantly to the front of the restaurant, where a group of seven or eight sat around a table covered with beer glasses.
“Everyone! We have here Stockwell’s finest actor—H.M.S. Pinafore, wasn’t it, Finn?” A few of the assembled chuckled absently while the others continued to chat. Someone had passed his tandoori down the table and a young woman in pearls and lipstick was picking at it with a fork.
“Did we order this?” she asked.
“Actually . . . ,” James began, but Clive had his arm around him and had begun to speak.
“Have you ever been back, Finn? I was there last year—Old Boys’ Day—cricket versus the school side and all that. For a prep school they do quite a job—tents, speeches—the whole routine. None of the fellows showed up, though, just a pack of geezers.” The table’s food arrived and people began spooning the oily mixtures onto their plates. “Where do the years go, hey? Lost there somewhere.”
Despite himself, James’s mind wandered back: chapped legs in winter; the mud-soaked parquet of the basement changing rooms.
“It’s all ahead of us,” Clive Newman said. “Christ, we’re only a quarter century old, aren’t we, my angel?”
“Yeah,” the girl sitting next to James said, appearing not to have heard the question. Trisha was an ethereal-looking character with a mass of hair as light as the skin of her face. Her eyes were large and protruding, as though she were forever alarmed. James thought them an unlikely couple.
“Are you in business too, then?” she asked in a soft voice, beneath the rising chatter of another round of drinks. She was speaking to James alone, removing Clive from the conversation with the quietness of her tone. Clive turned to his food and was soon caught up in discussion with a man sitting across the table.
“Well,” James began, “at the moment I don’t do much of anything.