• • •
“How old are you, Felix?”
“Thirty-two.”
“But why d’you look younger than me?”
Felix split the bag of crisps down the seam and laid them out on the table.
“Is it. How old are you?”
“Twenty-five. I’m already losing my bloody hair.”
Felix bit down on his straw and smiled round it: “My old man’s the same way. No wrinkles. Genetics.”
“Ah, genetics. Explanation for everything these days.” Tom shielded his eyes with his hand, to make out the sun was bothering him. Felix’s gaze was intense — he met your eyes no matter how you tried to avoid it — and Tom was not used to looking at even his closest friends that way, no matter a perfect stranger to whom he hoped to sell a car. He took a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on. “And how did you get from working in film to mechanic-ing, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I’ve done all sorts, Tom,” said Felix cheerfully, and got his fingers into position to count them off. “Cheffing, that’s where I started — I did a GNVQ in catering, didn’t I — got quite far with that when I was younger; head chef at one point at this little Thai place in Camden, all right place; chucked that in, did a bit of painting and decorating, bit of security, you know, in the clubs, bit of retail, drove a truck delivering them crisps you’re eating round the M25, worked for the Royal Mail,” said Felix, with an accent so peculiar it was hard to imagine who was being impersonated. “Used to make these.” He pointed at his chest. “Then got lucky, got into some stuff — you know the Cot-tes-low?” asked Felix, slowly, as a way of marking all the vital Ts. “It’s a theater,” he explained, abandoning all the Ts and adding an F, “near here. Was front of house for a year, box office that means. Then I was assistant backstage putting the props where they needed to be, all that — that’s how I got into the film thing. Just very very lucky. Always been lucky. But then I really got deep in the drug thing, to tell you the truth, Tom, and I’m just basically picking myself up off the floor from that the past few years, so.”
Tom waited for the bit about the mechanic thing — it didn’t come. Like a man who has been thrown a lot of strange-shaped objects, he clung to the one that struck him first.
“You used to make t-shirts?”
Felix frowned. It was not the thing that usually interested people. He stood up and pulled at his own t-shirt so its faded message at least read straight without creases.
“I’m sorry, I don’t speak — is it Polish?”
“Exactly! Says: I Love Polish Girls.”
“Oh. Are you Polish?” asked Tom doubtfully.
That struck Felix as very funny. He fell back in his seat and was a good time repeating the question, slapping the table and laughing, while Tom took quiet sips off the head of his pint like a little bird swooping over a puddle.
“Nah, Tom, nah, not Polish. London born and bred. These I did a long time back — business venture. Five years back — know what? It’s seven. Time flies, innit! Truthfully it was my old man’s idea, I was more like… the money man,” said Felix awkwardly, for it was a bold way to describe his thousand-pound stake, “Each one was in its own language. I love Spanish girls in Spanish, I love German girls in German, I love Italian girls in Italian, I love Brazilian girls in Brazilian—”
“Portuguese,” said Tom, but the list continued.
“I love Norwegian girls in Norwegian, I love Swedish girls in Swedish, I love Welsh girls in Welsh — that was more of a joke one, you get me? — nah, that’s harsh, but you know what I’m saying — I love Russian girls in Russian, I love Chinese girls in Chinese. But there’s two types of Chinese — not many people know that, my mate Alan told me. You got to have both. I love Indian girls in Hindi, and we had a lot of different ones in Arabic, and I love African girls in I think it was Yoruba or something. Got the translations off the Internet.”
“Yes,” said Tom.
“Made three thousand of them and took them to Ibiza, to sell them, didn’t I. Imagine you’re walking through Ibiza town with a t-shirt says I love Italian Girls in Italian! You’d clean up!”
Repeating the idea, with Lloyd’s enthusiasm, as Lloyd had first conveyed it to him, Felix was almost able to forget that they had not cleaned up, that he had lost his stake, along with the good job at the Thai restaurant he had given up, at Lloyd’s insistence, so that he could go to Ibiza. Two thousand five hundred t-shirts still sat in boxes in Lloyd’s cousin Clive’s lock-up, under the railway arches of King’s Cross.
“Tom, what about you?”
“What about me what?”
Felix grinned: “Don’t be shy now. What would I put you down for? Everyone got a type. Let me guess: bet you like some of that Brazilian!”
Tom, somewhat dazzled by the gleaming hardware in Felix’s mouth, said, “I’ll say French,” and wondered what the true answer was, and found it troubling.
“French girls. Right. I’ll throw one of them in with the deal. Still got a few.”
“Isn’t it me who’s making the deal?”
Felix reached over the table and patted Tom on the shoulder.
“Course it is, Tom, course it is.”
The phrase “the drug thing” still hovered over the table. Tom left it alone.
“And are you married, Felix?”
“Not yet. Planning to. That your Missus keeps belling you?”
“Christ, no. We’ve only been going out nine months. I’m only twenty-five!”
“I had two kids when I was your age,” said Felix and flashed the screen of his phone at Tom. “That’s them in their Sunday best. Felix Jr….; he’s a man now himself, almost fourteen. And Whitney, she’s nine.”
“They’re beautiful,” said Tom, though he hadn’t seen anything. “You must be very proud.”
“I don’t see much of them, to tell you the truth. They live with their Mum. We ain’t together. To be honest, me and the mum don’t really get on. She’s one of them real… oppositional women.”
Tom laughed, and then saw that Felix had not meant to be funny.
“Sorry — I just — well, it’s a good phrase for it. I think that may be what I’ve got on my hands. An oppositional woman.”
“Listen, if I told Jasmine: the sky’s blue, she’d say it’s green, you get me?” said Felix, clawing at the label on his bottle of ginger beer. “Got a lot of mental issues. Grew up in care. My mum was in care — same thing. Does something to you. Does something. I known Jasmine since we was sixteen and she was like that from time. Depressed, don’t leave the flat for days, don’t clean, place is like a pigsty, all of that. She’s had a hard time. Anyway.”
“Yes, that must be hard,” said Tom, quietly, and took another large swig of his pint.
After that they sat in silence, both looking out upon the street, as if only accidentally sat together.