‘I kid you not,’ protests Mike. ‘That’s how it is. I guess they’re fired up by the play and the wine, impressed by my pad, whatever. Things are progressing pretty rapidly and I’m just rolling with it. We’re more than halfway around the bases, and I’m like this—’ he gestures with both his hands ‘—and they’re like this and like this, when the doorbell rings.’
‘You ignore it.’
‘Of course I do. But then I hear a key in the door.’
‘Who’s got a key?’
‘My fucking mother, that’s who! I’d left a set at her house months ago, when I was on holiday and she wanted a stopover in town. “Michael,” she calls softly. “Are you still up?” I’m up, alright. We all start to tidy ourselves sharpish, but within seconds there she is. I make introductions. The girls think it’s hilarious, of course. “I’m afraid I’ve been out on a jolly,” Mum says. “I would have called ahead but my phone died.” Her phone is always dying. She might guess the lie of the land but doesn’t let on, and before I know it the three of them are hooting with laughter.’
‘And then what?’
‘I went to bed. The sight of my dolled-up mother meant I wasn’t even capable of having a wank to let off steam.’
‘And now?’
‘We’re all Facebook friends. I don’t think I could see either of them without thinking of Mum. I’ve moved on to new pastures.’ He wags a finger at Dan’s tolerant smile. ‘Don’t even think of disapproving.’
He rises, clothes-pegging the empty glasses with finger and thumb, then leans and adds in a murmur, ‘Here’s a paradox of sorts. I savour each new girl, each conquest if you want to call them that, the act itself, its — its unique aesthetic details, for weeks or months afterwards. Years, in some cases. I’m a savourer, an appreciator, a connoisseur. And yet at the same time, I struggle to muster enthusiasm for a repeat performance with a girl I’ve been seeing for a month. God knows how you play the game to your rules. When I get back, you can tell me.’
Dan, watching his friend saunter to the bar, feels a blend of pity and envy characteristic of their alliance. Town mouse and country mouse. Fox and hedgehog. Tortoise and hare. Perhaps it’s just as well Mike keeps his liaisons short and shallow. As far as Dan can tell, he’s always respected his philandering and hapless father more than the formidable mother who funded his education. An appreciator? Of X, yes — of half of what life has to offer — but not of Y, not of the whole equation.
Dan feels comfortable defending his own position. His marriage is not a whirlwind of passion, and he has the potential Achilles heel that Natalie was his first and only. But he’s considered this many times: his reward is something finer, a complex, maturing bond of which Mike, for all his japes, knows nothing. Not X, not Mike’s territory, but Y. Right?
‘Well?’ prompts the japer, returning from the bar. ‘Playing the lurrve game?’
‘I suppose the main difference is that I’m not playing a game.’
Mike mouths the last five words in time with him — he considers his answer trite. Dan shrugs.
Later: he has cut it fine, and jogs along the foot tunnel towards the mainline station. As he takes the stairs two at a time, he misses his footing, plunges forward, and is one inch from knocking out his front teeth on the top step.
He stands up carefully, tests his jarred back and climbs into the vast chill of the station as though from an airlock into outer space, fingertips on his surprisingly intact teeth. Can he blame the beers this time and the slippers last time? Or does he need to slow down? Is he getting old already?
On the platform, two people he took to be strangers suddenly kiss. The world is full of possibility.
9. Honour codes
‘Every day I hear fools saying things that are not foolish.’
Nobody could call Brenda the black sheep of her family: her father, Vincent Vickers, builder, property developer, solar panel supplier and serial bankrupt, is hardly fleecy white. Her mother has proved a devoted wife — Vince’s third, the one retainer of his unlikely loyalty — as well as a big-hearted mother to two children, but the formative years of Brenda and her younger brother Austin were not a well-considered project. Mike’s mother, on the other hand — Elizabeth, never shortened — was organised, exacting and, until recently, unforgiving. While Mike may have grown up wondering why his parents couldn’t have stayed together, for Brenda the mystery was what could possibly have attracted her dad and Elizabeth to each other and sustained their five-year marriage.
Brenda is driving as far as Dalwhinnie, the nearest village on the Edinburgh railway line (road miles are precious because her van’s cam belt is ready to snap). Yes, she’s feeling sick at the prospect of her non-date with James, but no sicker than she would before meeting a new doctor or work associate: her social phobia is not sexual. Men are implicated in the world’s hostility, in its sneering rejection of her, but they are not the ringleaders. During her darker episodes men seem merely a different species, stupid and dangerous but without malice. In happier moods she is positively drawn to their simple honour codes and their exaltation of the physical. But there is something particular about James. She has a feeling they’re on the same side.
He’s there before her, standing beside the station Christmas tree as arranged, reading a free paper folded over in one hand. He’s ditched the shabby coat and woolly hat, and is sporting a sort of bomber jacket over a roll-neck jumper. He’s made an effort. Her nerves are, for once, the better sort of nerves. She takes a deep breath.
‘Hey.’
He starts. ‘Brenda! Hi.’ His jaw is smooth, a hint of tobacco. He looks happy to see her, and suggests they climb the Seat before it gets dark. Another breath. No trace of the usual horrors. This might just work out.
Natalie Mock has her bare feet on Dan’s lap. He can’t keep his hands off them, and the tickling is a distraction.
‘Can’t you just—’ She pulls them away, reads for a while, and then adds, reflectively, ‘Perverts always have a thing about feet, don’t they? I’ve never understood that. Feet are just feet.’
‘Mmm,’ answers Dan distantly, still reading the tablet balanced on the arm of the sofa, taking hold of her feet again, pushing his thumb along her instep as though scooping ice cream and ignoring her evasive twitches. ‘I hereby confess that I have a thing about your feet. I can’t get enough of them. Being trampled to death by your feet would be my ideal way to go.’
‘Careful,’ she says, kicking him. ‘What. You. Wish. For.’ The tablet falls on the rug with a thump, and Dan looks up.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ he says, in his serious voice. ‘Is it time?’
‘For?’
‘Is it time we had a baby?’ Christ. Here we go.
‘I don’t want a baby, Dan. You know I don’t. I’m not a having-a-baby kind of girl. Woman. Whatever.’
‘I know. But think about what that means. It means this is it. The story ends here with us sitting on the sofa.’
‘What story? The human race isn’t about to die out. Four babies are born every second.’
‘But not our babies.’
‘And every ten seconds, a child dies of hunger.’
Dan frowns, suddenly discomposed. When he hears a statistic like that, he actually thinks about what it means. Doesn’t jump up and down or become a vegan, but thinks about it and — in an instant — understands its moral enormity. Nat does love him for that.
‘Just think about it,’ he says, quietly. ‘That’s all I’m asking.’ He’s trying to look philosophical, but was clearly hoping for a more encouraging reaction. Too bad. Natalie has already thought about it. The idea of pushing a buggy is absurd; insulting, even. She thinks of women with ravaged bodies, stunted careers, dulled brains, cheerfully blaming it all on those ravenous little bundles of selfishness, the children. A fate not for her.