“Don’t you want one more chance, Alfie?”
“I’ve had my chance.”
11
J ACKIE DAY IS IN THE STAFF ROOM when I arrive. She has her bucket in one hand and her copy of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter in the other. She has all her kit on-the yellow gloves, the blue nylon coat, the flat shoes she cleans in-but she is making no move to go to work. It’s nearly nine o’clock but she still has her face buried in that old paperback.
“How’s Mick?” I ask her. “Still got her dreams?”
“Hello,” she says, not looking up.
Lenny the Lech walks in. Lenny is one of those short, fat men who swaggers around as though he is some kind of tall, thin catch. Like me, Lenny is a former teacher who went out to sell English by the pound in Asia-Manila and Bangkok in Lenny’s case. Something about him spoiled out there. He has that soft, bloated look that Europeans often get when they stay too long in the tropics-or when they stay too long in tropical bars. Lenny got laid a lot more in Asia then he ever did at home and now he looks at women the way that a farmer sizes up his cows. At Churchill’s his lechery is legendary.
“Have you seen that new little Polish number in the Advanced Beginners?” he asks me, rolling his eyes. “I wouldn’t mind showing her a bit of solidarity. What do you reckon, Alfie? I wouldn’t mind letting that comrade get her hot little hands on my means of production.”
“I don’t think the Poles are Communists anymore, Lenny.”
“She’s a little red minx, that’s what she is,” says Lenny the Lech. Then he notices Jackie. “Ah, our resident Essex girl. Top of the morning to you, my girl.” He goes over to her and puts a proprietorial arm around her shoulders. “Stop me if you’ve heard this one, darling. Why do Essex girls hate vibrators? Give up? Because-”
Suddenly Jackie is on her feet, her eyes blazing, accidentally kicking her bucket.
“Because they chip our teeth,” she says. “Heard that one already, Lenny. Bit obvious, that one. What else would an Essex girl do with a vibrator but suck on it-right, Lenny? You’re going to have to do better than that.”
“Steady on,” says Lenny. “It’s just a joke.”
“And I’ve heard them all,” she says. “Why does an Essex girl wash her hair in the kitchen sink? Because that’s where you wash vegetables. What do Essex girls and beer bottles have in common? Come on, Lenny, come on.”
“I don’t know,” says Lenny, practically scratching his fat head.
“Both empty from the neck up.”
“Now that’s funny,” chuckles Lenny.
But Jackie is not smiling. “Think so? Then you’ll like this one. What do a blonde Essex girl and a plane have in common?”
“They both have a black box,” says Lenny. “I know that one.”
“You do? But I bet you don’t know as many as me. I’ve heard the lot, Lenny. What’s the difference between an Essex girl and a mosquito? A mosquito stops sucking if you hit it on the head. Why do Essex girls wear pants? To keep their ankles warm. How do you make an Essex girl’s eyes sparkle? Shine a torch in her ear.”
Lenny smiles, but it is starting to look a little strained. Jackie is standing in front of him, holding her copy of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter in one of her yellow-gloved hands, trying to stop her voice from shaking.
“I know all the jokes. And you know what, Lenny? I’m not laughing.”
“Keep your hair on, darling,” Lenny says, quite offended. “It’s nothing personal.”
“I know it’s nothing personal, Lenny. And I even know it’s nothing to do with Essex girls. I know that a man like you thinks all women are stupid whores.”
“I love women!” protests Lenny. He turns to me. “If I can say that without sounding like Julio Iglesias.”
“I don’t think you can,” I say.
“From what I hear around this place,” says Jackie Day, “only one person in this room is a dumb tart. But do you know what, Lenny? It’s certainly not me.”
She slips her book inside her nylon coat and picks up her bucket. Then she walks out without saying another word.
“Some people just can’t take a joke,” says Lenny the Lech.
Lena is waiting at the end of our street.
There’s an old spit-and-sawdust pub on the corner and grinning men with pints in their fists are looking out of the stained windows at her, leering and evaluating and scratching bellies that are displayed like prize gourds.
“Alfie.”
I walk straight past her.
“You used to like me.”
I look at her, this young woman who has bewitched my father, made him move to a rented flat, encouraged him to search for his youth on a rowing machine, made him drop his swimming trunks in a public place, and I try hard to find her ridiculous. It’s difficult. She has got the blonde hair and legs that go on like a river, but I know she is no bimbo. I know that she is smart. Although how smart can she be if she has shacked up with my old man?
Lena is not ridiculous. It’s the situation that’s ridiculous. It’s my father who is absurd.
“I still like you,” I say.
“You just don’t like the thought of anyone having sex with your father. Except your mother.”
“Not even my mother, now you come to mention it.”
We smile at each other.
“I don’t know what to say to you, Lena. It’s hard to think of you as a friend of the family. My family is in pieces.”
I look at her, trying to imagine how my father sees her. I can understand how he could fall for the face, the legs, the body. I can understand how exciting she must be after half a lifetime of marriage. But surely he can see that wanting her is being greedy?
“You should understand, Alfie. If you love someone, you want to be with them.”
“My father doesn’t know the first thing about love.”
“Why are you like this? I know you feel sorry for your mother. But it’s more than that.”
“Because he wants too much. Too much life. He’s had his life. He should accept that.”
“You can’t want too much life.”
“You can, Lena. You can be a glutton for life, just like you can be a glutton for food or drink or drugs. If this thing with you is more than just a fling, if my dad really wants to start again, if it’s serious, then he wants more than he deserves.”
She asks me if I want a coffee and I agree to go across the road with her to the little Italian café called Trevi, just to get her off the street. It’s not the grinning fat men in the old spit-and-sawdust pub that bother me. It’s the thought that my mother might come around the corner at any moment.
“I just don’t understand what’s in it for you,” I say when we have ordered our cappuccino. “You haven’t got any visa problems, have you? There are no problems staying in the country, are there?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Why not? I don’t get it. Even if you want an older man, you don’t have to go for my dad. I mean, there’s old and there’s ready for the knacker’s yard. There’s old and there’s Jurassic Park.”
“He’s the best thing that ever happened to me. He’s wise. He’s kind. He’s lived.”
“I’ll say.”
“He knows things. He’s seen life. And I love his book. Oranges for Christmas. It’s just like him. Full of tenderness and heart.”
“What about my mother? What happens to her? Is she just meant to crawl into the corner? Where’s the tenderness and heart for her?”
“I’m sorry for your mother. I really am. She was always very good to me. But these things happen. You know that. When two people fall in love, someone else often gets hurt.”
“It can never work. He’s an old man. You’re a student.”
“Not anymore.”