We go home and watch the rest of Genevieve.
My dad comes back maybe an hour later. He’s drunk.
“We’re all going to the pictures,” he says.
This is too much.
“You don’t approve of the pictures, Dad.”
“I don’t approve of the rubbish you go to watch. I approve of nice well-made films. British films.”
“What’s on?” my mum asks him.
“Howard’s End. It’s the follow-up to A Room with a View.”
“Oh, lovely,” my mum says. “Is anyone else going from across the road?”
“Only Yvonne and Brian. But get a move on. It starts in half an hour.”
“I’d better be going back,” I say. I have exchanged hardly a word with either of them all afternoon.
“You’re going nowhere,” my dad says. “You’re coming with us. My treat.”
“It’s not the money, Dad.” It’s Merchant and fucking Ivory. “It’s the time. I’m working tomorrow.”
“Don’t be so feeble, man. You’ll still be in bed by eleven. It’ll do you good. Buck you up. Take your mind off things.” This is the first reference to the fact that I have things off which my mind needs taking.
And, anyway, he’s wrong. Going to the pictures aged thirty-five with your mum and dad and their insane friends does not take your mind off things, I discover. It very much puts your mind on things. While we’re waiting for Yvonne and Brian to purchase the entire contents of the Pick’n’Mix counter, I have a terrible, chilling, bone-shaking experience: the most pathetic man in the world gives me a smile of recognition. The Most Pathetic Man In The World has huge horn-rimmed spectacles and buckteeth; he’s wearing a dirty fawn anorak and brown cord trousers which have been rubbed smooth at the knee; he, too, is being taken to see Howard’s End by his parents, despite the fact that he’s in his late twenties. And he gives me this terrible little smile because he has spotted a kindred spirit. It disturbs me so much that I can’t concentrate on Emma Thompson and Vanessa and the rest, and by the time I rally, it’s too late and the story’s too far on down the road for me to catch up. In the end, a bookcase falls on someone’s head.
I would go so far as to say that TMPMITW’s smile has become one of my all-time top-five low points, the other four of which temporarily escape me. I know I’m not as pathetic as the most pathetic man in the world (Did he spend last night in an American recording artist’s bed? I very much doubt it.); the point is that the difference between us is not immediately obvious to him, and I can see why. This, really, is the bottom line, the chief attraction of the opposite sex for all of us, old and young, men and women: we need someone to save us from the sympathetic smiles in the Sunday-night cinema queue, someone who can stop us from falling down into the pit where the permanently single live with their mums and dads. I’m not going back there again; I’d rather stay in for the rest of my life than attract that kind of attention.
Twelve
During the week, I think about Marie, and I think about The Most Pathetic Man In The World, and I think, at Barry’s command, about my all-time top five episodes of Cheers: 1) The one where Cliff found a potato that looked like Richard Nixon. 2) The one where John Cleese offered Sam and Diane counseling sessions. 3) The one where they thought that the chief of staff of the U.S. armed forces, played by the real-life admiral guy, had stolen Rebecca’s earrings. 4) The one where Sam got a job as a sports presenter on TV. 5) The one where Woody sang his stupid song about Kelly. (Barry said I was wrong about four of the five, that I had no sense of humor, and that he was going to ask Channel 4 to scramble my reception between nine-thirty and ten every Friday night because I was an undeserving and unappreciative viewer.) But I don’t think about anything Laura said that Saturday night until Wednesday, when I come home to find a message from her. It’s nothing much, a request for a copy of a bill in our household file, but the sound of her voice makes me realize that there are some things we talked about that should have upset me but somehow didn’t.
First of all,—actually, first of all and last of all—this business about not sleeping with Ian. How do I know she’s telling the truth? She could have been sleeping with him for weeks, months, for all I know. And anyway, she only said that she hasn’t slept with him yet, and she said that on Saturday, five days ago. Five days! She could have slept with him five times since then! (She could have slept with him twenty times since then, but you know what I mean.) And even if she hasn’t, she was definitely threatening to. What does ‘yet’ mean, after all? “I haven’t seen Resevoir Dogs yet.” What does that mean? It means you’re going to go, doesn’t it?
“Barry, if I were to say to you that I haven’t seen Reservoir Dogs yet, what would that mean?”
Barry looks at me.
“Just … come on, what would it mean to you? That sentence? ‘I haven’t seen Reservoir Dogs yet?’ ”
“To me, it would mean that you’re a liar. Either that or you’ve gone potty. You saw it twice. Once with Laura, once with me and Dick. We had that conversation about who killed Mr. Pink or whatever fucking color he was.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. But say I hadn’t seen it and I said to you, ‘I haven’t seen Reservoir Dogs yet,’ what would you think?”
“I’d think, you’re a sick man. And I’d feel sorry for you.”
“No, but would you think, from that one sentence, that I was going to see it?”
“I’d hope you were, yeah, otherwise I would have to say that you’re not a friend of mine.”
“No, but—”
“I’m sorry, Rob, but I’m struggling here. I don’t understand any part of this conversation. You’re asking me what I’d think if you told me that you hadn’t seen a film that you’ve seen. What am I supposed to say?”
“Just listen to me. If I said to you—”
“—‘I haven’t seen Reservoir Dogs yet,’ yeah, yeah, I hear you—”
“Would you … would you get the impression that I wanted to see it?”
“Well … you couldn’t have been desperate, otherwise you’d have already gone.”
“Exactly. We went first night, didn’t we?”
“But the word ‘yet’ … yeah, I’d get the impression that you wanted to see it. Otherwise you’d say you didn’t fancy it much.”
“But in your opinion, would I definitely go?”
“How am I supposed to know that? You might get run over by a bus, or go blind, or anything. You might go off the idea. You might be broke. You might just get sick of people telling you you’ve really got to go.”
I don’t like the sound of that. “Why would they care?”
“Because it’s a brilliant film. It’s funny, and violent, and it’s got Harvey Keitel and Tim Roth in it, and everything. And a cracking sound track.”
Maybe there’s no comparison between Ian sleeping with Laura and Reservoir Dogs after all. Ian hasn’t got Harvey Keitel and Tim Roth in him. And Ian’s not funny. Or violent. And he’s got a crap sound track, judging from what we used to hear through the ceiling. I’ve taken this as far as it will go. But it doesn’t stop me worrying about the‘yet.’
I call Laura at work.
“Oh, hi, Rob,” she says, like I’m a friend she’s pleased to hear from (1. I’m not a friend. 2. She’s not pleased to hear from me. Apart from that … ) “How’s it going?”
I’m not letting her get away with this we-used-to-go-out-but-everything’s-OK-now stuff.
“Bad, thanks.” She sighs.
“Can we meet? There’re some things you said the other night that I wanted to go over.”
“I don’t want … I’m not ready to talk about it all again yet.”