“The Memorial Tournament. In America. Muirfield.”
“Okay.”
“You know who he is?” the man asks, as the silent TV shows a close-up.
“Tiger Woods,” István says.
“Yes.”
They’re both looking at the screen now.
“Phenomenal player,” the man says.
“Yeah,” István says.
They watch the golf for a few minutes, the man telling István something about who the players are and what the situation is while István takes sips of his drink and pretends to be interested.
“What do you do?” the man suddenly and unexpectedly asks.
“Do?”
The man nods, lifting his drink to his mouth.
“Work?”
“Yeah.”
“Sort of… security?” István says, not quite sure how to put it.
“Oh yeah?”
“That sort of thing.”
“I’m not surprised to hear that,” the man says, “actually. The way you waded in so fearlessly the other night. You were an absolute hero.”
“Well.”
“I mean it.”
“Thanks,” István says.
“Thank you.”
There’s a moment of mild awkwardness.
“No problem,” István says.
“So what d’you do exactly?” the man asks, leaning back and stretching his free arm, the one that isn’t holding his drink, along the back of the sofa. “What sort of work?”
“Door work mainly.”
“Okay.”
“You know.”
“Yes, I do,” the man says, as if it is in fact something that he has some particular knowledge about.
“Yeah?”
“Sure. Where d’you work?”
“At the moment at this place in Soho,” István says.
The man smiles. “What’s that like?”
“It’s okay.”
“What sort of place is it?”
“It’s… you know.” István is unsure how to describe it.
“Nudie show?” the man suggests.
“Something like that. You know. Pole dancing. Whatever.”
“Sure.”
“Private dances.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not really into that myself,” István says.
“No?” The man seems interested to hear this, and István slightly regrets saying it in case it gives him the wrong idea.
“It’s just not my thing.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t have a problem with it.”
“No,” the man agrees.
“If people enjoy it…”
“People do.”
“Sure. It’s okay,” István says.
“Which place actually?”
István says the name of the place.
“Oh yes.”
“You know it?”
“Not really.”
“It’s okay,” István says again.
“I know of it,” the man says.
István has another sip of his drink.
The man tells him that he has a private security agency and that, if István is interested, he might be able to find some work for him. “Maybe more interesting work than what you’re doing now.”
“Yeah?”
“Maybe.”
István waits for him to say more about it.
He doesn’t.
They sort of drift back into watching the golf again and then, during a hiatus in the action, while the screen is showing a shot of the wind-rippled surface of a lake, the man asks, “Where you from, István? It’s István, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Where you from?”
“Hungary.”
“What’s that like?”
István isn’t sure what to say. He isn’t sure what sort of answer the man is looking for. He says what he tends to say when people ask him that question—“It’s okay.”
“You go back much?”
“Sometimes.”
“Visit family?”
“Yeah.”
“You must miss it,” the man says.
“Yeah. Sometimes.”
“How long have you been here?”
“London?”
“Yeah.”
“Two years,” István says. “About two years.”
“Like it?”
“Yeah.”
From the end of the hallway there’s the sound of someone entering the apartment—the front door opening and shutting and a jingle of keys.
“My wife,” the man explains. With what might be an involuntary nervous gesture, he smooths his silkily corrugated hair with his hand. Or at least his cupped hand follows the line of his skull. His hair, which was obviously once dark but is now mostly silvery gray, doesn’t need smoothing.
His wife appears a minute later, dressed like she’s been at work in an office.
“This is István,” the man says.
István stands to shake her hand.
She’s a tall woman, maybe even slightly taller than her somewhat stocky husband.
They eat at a table in the large kitchen. It’s a takeaway, Indian. There’s red wine. They cover some of the same ground again, with the man’s wife asking the questions now.
Where is István from.
How long has he been in London.
Does he like it here.
The man seems happy to let his wife do most of the talking. He eats slowly and methodically, serving small amounts onto his plate from the foil dishes in the middle of the table and then equally slowly and methodically transferring them to his mouth.
“So where do you live?” his wife asks István.
“Ilford,” István says.
“I don’t know it,” she says, as if she actually might know it, as if it were only a matter of chance that she didn’t live there herself. “What’s it like?”
“It’s all right,” István says.
She waits for more.
“You know,” he says.
She shakes her head.
“It’s quite mixed,” he says.
“Mixed?”
“Yeah.”
“How did you end up living there?” she asks him.
“I knew some people. Some people who already lived there.”
“Hungarians?”
“Yeah.”
She asks him if he has his own place.
He explains that he lives in a house share with quite a few other people.
The man asks if it’s okay if he finishes the aloo gobi. His wife says it’s okay with her, and the man’s eyes turn to István, who says, “Yeah.”
The man spoons the remaining aloo gobi onto his plate.
“It’s really nice,” István says, meaning the food.
“It is, isn’t it?” the man says. “It’s from a place called the Royal Tandoori. Old-school Indian place. Been there forever.”
He pours more wine for them all.
His wife wants István to describe what happened the night he saved her husband.
István tries to do that.
He says he was on his way home from work, as usual, and noticed some activity in the alley.
“The one next to Foyles,” her husband puts in. “You know.”
With her eyes still on István, she nods.
“So yeah,” István says. “I saw something happening there and went to see what it was. That’s it.”
“So you scared them off?” she asks.
“They legged it at the sight of him,” the man says.
“Something like that,” István agrees.
What the man was doing there at four in the morning hasn’t been explained, and István doesn’t ask.
He leaves at about ten o’clock.
The man sees him to the door. As István puts his jacket on he again mentions the possibility of finding him some work through this agency that he apparently has. “Do call me if you’re interested,” he says, patting István on the shoulder.
“Yeah, okay,” István says.
The man stands in the open doorway while István waits for the elevator.
It takes about half a minute to arrive, during which István just stands there with the man looking at him from the door.
“Take care,” the man says when it arrives.
He goes running on Wanstead Flats. Waiting at the traffic lights on Aldersbrook Road, he jogs on the spot, and then does a full circuit of the Flats, open-mouthed and staring straight ahead. He finishes at the bottom of the steps that go up to the pedestrian bridge over the North Circular. Still flushed and sweaty, he stands on the bridge, six lanes of traffic underneath it. It’s dusk and the traffic has its lights on. He walks home through dull streets of terraced houses. This isn’t the kind of life he imagined having when he moved here. It was quite fun at first—or at least it was new and different, and he was able to feel that he was starting again, which was something he wanted. He hadn’t imagined, though, that after two years he would still be living like this. Sharing a small house with half a dozen other people. Listening to the trains passing outside the window all night. Working fifty hours a week and still not having any money left at the end of the month, and with no prospect of anything except more of the same.