‘I was right the first time, wasn’t I?’
There is no point in replying for the sweater is once again halfway over her head, and she begins to wiggle and squirm like a music hall performer escaping from a sack. By the time her head plunges through the neck hole, and her startled face readjusts itself to the glare of the bedroom lights, there is no need for him to answer. She crosses quickly to the door.
‘Well, you coming, or what?’
He doesn’t like reality television, finding the humiliation that is visited upon the contestants embarrassing. Whether they are stuck in a house, or on an island, or whether they are encouraged to sing, model, diet, cook, or dance, it all seems to boil down to the same thing: laugh at other people and then feel smug about yourself at their expense. Yvette, on the other hand, loves these kinds of programmes, but she has given up trying to persuade him to sink into the sofa and relax with her in front of the telly. The one time he agreed to do so she turned on the television, ordered an Indian meal, and then began to text in her vote as she decided whether successive male contestants were gay, straight, or taken. He knew that if he said anything critical she would just accuse him of being boring so he remained silent, but by the time the meal arrived he was desperate to leave. She took the food into the kitchen and quickly spooned it out of the containers and on to two paper plates, before dashing back into the living room, practically dropping the two plates on to the coffee table, and once again picking up her mobile phone and starting to text. She idly removed the Indian restaurant’s plastic forks and paper napkins from her back pocket and tossed them down next to the two plates. He looked at her, but she did not meet his gaze.
‘It’s all right, Keith. You can have some of my chicken vindaloo and fried rice if you like. I’m not that hungry.’
These days they don’t bother with the television. They sit in her remodelled kitchen on the two designer barstools, and he opens a bottle of Sancerre from the case of wine that he arranged to be delivered to her house. He has tried to tell her that she should put a couple of bottles in the fridge, but she doesn’t seem to listen. He passes her a long-stemmed glass of warm wine and realises that in her own way Yvette is trying. However, he recognises that their relationship must occasionally be difficult for her, for he can be private to the point of being hermetically sealed and, in the past few months, Yvette has been offered little more than enigmatic smiles and semi-educational gestures, such as an introduction to the world of wine. As a couple they have shared nothing, except the temporary convenience of her former marital bed, and no matter how attractive he finds her he knows full well that there is no substance to their relationship. He worries that the wine might be too dry for her, but she takes another sip and appears to be waiting for him to say something. They can’t even listen to any music together for she finds his passion for Stevie Wonder, and for American soul music of the seventies in general, as tedious as he finds her love of independent northern bands, particularly the Arctic Monkeys. Once it was clear that the television was not going to work she did attempt music, but why anybody would choose to listen to the mindless lyrics of a song called ‘Balaclava’, or a discordant cacophony with the unlikely title of ‘Fluorescent Adolescent’, was beyond him. When he finally expressed his distaste she simply shrugged her shoulders and turned off the CD player. She has never again suggested that they listen to any music, for which he feels a mixture of relief and guilt. He has tried to talk to her about the social significance of soul music, and he did confess his desire to one day write a book about music, but he quickly recognised that their conversation was rendered positively one-sided, and somewhat uncomfortable, by the undeniable fact that the music he was enthusing about was recorded before Yvette was born. Indie bands, or hip-hoppers with acronymic names, suggest to him not a new generation of music, but the evidence of a general cultural malaise. This being the case they have accustomed themselves to sitting in silence on the steel and chrome barstools and drinking their warm white wine before he is once again ushered out of the door.
‘You know,’ he begins, ‘I’m not sure that we should continue to see each other.’
Yvette puts down her glass of wine, making sure that it is centred on the circular wooden coaster that she imagines will protect the kitchen work surface. He doesn’t wait for her to say anything, choosing instead to press ahead with his unrehearsed words.
‘I don’t want things to become difficult for either of us and, to be honest, I’m beginning to feel as though we either have to take it to the next stage or accept the fact that we’re not able to move forward. Am I making sense?’
‘What do you mean by “the next stage”?’
Yvette runs her tongue along the full length of her bottom lip and stares at him.
‘No, it’s just that well, for a start, you work for me. Or with me. Whatever, you know what I mean. And then we don’t have that much in common, do we? I’m a bit of a downer compared to you. It’s not like I can come with you to some Club 18–30 in Spain, or on a piss-up to the Canary Islands.’
‘You’re worried about the age difference? Is that it?’
‘Yvette, that’s part of it. I’m just trying to be sensible about everything. I don’t like mess, and so I’m just thinking that it’s best to be honest.’
‘And what about how I feel? If it doesn’t feel right to you, that’s one thing, but how about working together to fix it? You know, saying, “okay, it’s not perfect” and then just trying to sort it together, or do you just want out?’
He moves to top up her wine, but without taking her eyes from his face Yvette covers the glass with her hand. He pauses, unsure whether to prolong this encounter by pouring himself another drink. He lowers his eyes and looks at the canary yellow and white label on the bottle, and then he pours himself a small amount.
Two hours later he is on a Hammersmith and City train to Shepherd’s Bush. He peers through the window at the low horizon, which is ragged with rusting fire escapes and abandoned buildings, as the train passes quickly through the desolate parts of the city. He changed at King’s Cross, but luckily he didn’t have to spend any time on the platform. These days it doesn’t pay to linger anywhere in the city, and being dressed as he is only serves to mark him out as prime mugging material. As he reached the top of the second escalator, he called Annabelle but the line went almost immediately to voicemail. He thought about leaving a message, but the idea that she might be with her friend Bruce annoyed him so he closed the phone. Then he realised that he was being petty, and this was really about his son, and so he opened his phone and for a moment he was rooted to the spot with indecision. It was then that he heard the dull roar of an approaching train so once again he flipped the phone shut and tumbled rapidly down a neighbouring escalator and squeezed through the carriage doors as they were closing. Three teenagers sit opposite him, and when the train plunges into a tunnel he can see his reflection in the window behind their heads. He can see that, like his son Laurie, all three kids are partly white, but it is clear from their baggy dress sense, and from the way that they slouch and speak, that they identify themselves as black. Gone are the days when, sitting on the tube at night, he would feel perfectly safe if a posse of black youths got into his carriage. Back then he often took silent satisfaction in seeing how their exuberance made older white people somewhat uneasy, but today’s teenagers no longer respect any boundaries. Black youths, white youths, mixed race youths, to them all he is just a middle-aged man in a jacket and tie who looks like he doesn’t know shit about nothing. He lowers his gaze and tries to figure out the genders of the gang of three, whose faces remain shrouded beneath oversized hoods. A few seats away, an elderly white lady with a blue silk print scarf, and wearing expensive designer flats, sits by herself with two carrier bags of groceries balanced delicately between her feet. Bloody hell, couldn’t she find a better time to do her shopping? By the time the train sways and lurches its way out of Paddington station and back into the evening gloom the three teenagers are on their feet. The smallest one, who he now realises is a girl, has had her iPod snatched by the older of the two boys. She begins to chase him, but the boys toss the iPod to each other and the girl’s frustration mounts.