‘A gypsy king gets to be king by calling himself one.’
‘What?’ she said.
‘Sorry. Random thought for the night. Passed some travellers earlier. The gypsy king in a given group, he gets to be king by announcing it, I read.’
‘And then proving himself?’
‘Maybe. But mainly it’s a matter of confidence, is the point.’ His dick was hard against his inner thigh. ‘I used to swim,’ he said. ‘Do you swim at all?’
She shook her head and he tried not to let his disappointment show.
‘You’re a thoughtful one, aren’t you?’ she said.
‘I can shut up any time you want. My friends are always telling me: Jack, why don’t you shut the fuck up?’
‘Are they?’
‘No. Not really. My friends never say that.’
‘Because you’re so fascinating?’
‘Because my name’s not Jack.’
She laughed and touched her hair, took a slow slip of wine. Be bold, he thought. Do what’s bold.
‘I’ve money for a room,’ he said. ‘I’m guessing you’ll not be staying here otherwise. Would you join me for a drink, in a good room? I doubt at these prices it’s full.’
A pause. ‘And why would I do that?’
‘For a nice drink.’
‘I have a drink here. It happens to be nice.’
‘How nice, though?’
‘Any other reasons?’
‘For what?’
‘Why you’d want me in a room?’
‘I’m outraged,’ he said. ‘I’m offended is what I am.’
‘I’m lacking a boatload of the pre-sex information, you know.’
‘There’s pre-sex information? That’s a thing?’
‘To be sure it is,’ she said. ‘Name, birthday, origin of that accent.’
‘My accent is pure Falls, as you’ll know. Once we’re upstairs we can do our bit to broker peace.’
‘Weakest line yet,’ she said. ‘I think I even heard some English.’
‘Bollocks you did. It’s you that has the English.’
‘Maybe you don’t notice it in yourself.’
‘Aye, bollocks.’
‘Saying “aye” now, are we? Certain way you say a thing. Your language lets you down.’
‘You should hand out a wee form when you first meet a guy,’ he said. ‘Client info.’
She narrowed her eyes. He wasn’t sure why he’d said it. A feeling he had in his gut.
‘The thing is,’ she said, ‘I don’t go in for racists.’
‘Oh?’
‘Picking on my handsome Argentinian. The one who brought us our drinks. Nasty.’
‘I seem to recall you called him a child killer.’
‘Nothing nationality-specific in that, is there? Whereas all that stuff about greasy hair, stereotypes …’
They looked at each other for a long moment. She was quicker than he was. She was still smiling. He thought of it as a smile. At a neighbouring table a man was supporting his wife in conversation, murmuring affirmative words and corroborating facts. He wished he could swap his Tullamore for a vodka and water. He was sick of the bite the whiskey left in his nose. A platter of fruit travelled by and something about its molecular complexity, its sheer decorative excess, made his stomach do a flinch. He was drunk, for sure. Drunk.
‘If you think I’m racist you’ve got it totally wrong. You don’t know me from Adam.’
‘Who’s Adam?’
‘Adam and Eve. Any bells?’
‘Ding dong,’ she said.
‘It’s an expression, Lena.’
‘Oh —’ she bit her delicious bottom lip — ‘I thought he might be a friend of Jack.’
‘Jack?’
‘Jack who gets told by his friends to shut up.’
‘Oh … Jack.’
He tried to smile but couldn’t quite do it. Knew he was being teased but couldn’t quite accept it. Felt a trace of the old embarrassment he’d experienced at school, knowing something he’d said wasn’t right, or that he’d sniggered at the wrong bit of a naughty story. He looked at his face in mirrors these days and thought he could see the emotional muscle tone slowly going soft, replaced by little twists and twitches, and when he smiled the smile glowed with engineered cheer — the McCluskeys’ flashing Santa. And now, sitting here looking at this beautiful woman — she was beautiful now; she’d been promoted from pretty to beautiful on account of being tricky to access — he was thinking of Dawson again and he could hear a dog barking and a new anger was rising up in him. He didn’t know what to do with it.
‘I couldn’t be less racist,’ he said. ‘Not least with the Argies. The Falklands? You know about the Falklands? I’m hoping you don’t subscribe to the standard propaganda.’
‘Boring,’ she said, tipping a last drop of wine through her lips.
His face felt stiff, warm. ‘No, it’s not boring. They had no right to be there.’
‘We, you mean.’
‘The Brits. No right.’
Her eyes shone as new wine arrived. A white cloth was draped over the waiter’s sleeve. He filled Lena’s glass and proceeded to pour an unrequested one for Dan.
‘Everyone’s a right to take back what’s theirs,’ she said. ‘Do you disagree? Don’t you, as a rule, like to take what you deserve?’
If there was a sexual connotation to this, an invitation to steer things back towards the personal, he didn’t have the wherewithal to grab at it. ‘That’s what the Argies did. They’re the ones who took back what was theirs.’
‘In the night,’ Lena said. ‘Sneaking.’
‘You’d have preferred walking or charging.’
‘Seized the airfield and barracks, did they not? Overnight with no notice, my brother says.’
So then, a brother. He drank some wine and tried to act empty. ‘You mention advance notice, ultimatums. But why do you think Thatcher offered no ultimatum to Buenos Aires? Why do you think she gave orders to sink the Belgrano, no warning? Sailing west, it was, withdrawn from action.’
‘Presumably there aren’t always warnings.’
‘With terrorists?’
‘With war.’
He mentioned the UN. She blinked. She didn’t know. Her ignorance filled him with new fuel. ‘Discussions were going on in the United Nations in New York about — whatever — the leasing or whatever of the islands. Did you not read that, Lena? No? That’s a huge thing, the main thing. There were discussions of the Argies having them back. So, what happens? Thatcher makes calls to get these discussions to collapse, I believe, many people believe. That’s why the junta, as a last resort, revived their dormant old invasion plan. Because that’s the context. Responsibility, you know? Here’s more context: Thatcher’s tough time at home, humiliated, mocked for being weak. Laughed at in the Commons, right? So what does she do? The fair thing, the reasonable thing? Or the thing that will play well with the public, at the expense of lives? Fights aren’t all about the fight, that’s all I’m saying. They’re always about something else. They’re about — it’s the past. Egos and … and weaknesses. About people silencing other accounts, pretending there’s a single story.’
He sat back. He felt in serious need of water. How long had he been talking? It felt like the longest speech of his life.
‘Whatever you think of her,’ Lena said, ‘she took the islands back with decisive style.’
‘What, Lena? Please. Are you serious, Lena? The Tories? Style?’ He leaned over to the next table, unoccupied now, and stole a fistful of nuts from a bowl.