Starter For Ten (17 page)

'How do you know they were students?' I ask, taking the bait.

'Well, they were very badly dressed for one thing. Long scarves, little round glasses, bad haircuts . . .' He smiles conspiratorially at Tone, then back at me. 'How's your eyesight, Bri?' This is a running gag between Tone and Spencer, who believe that I lied to my optician just to get spectacles.

'Fine, thank you, Spence,' and I decide to go and get some crisps.

On the way to the bar, I think for a moment about heading for the door and walking out. I love Spence and Tone, Spencer especially, and I think it's mutual, though God knows we'd never actually use the L-word, not sober, anyway. But for my eighteenth birthday Spencer and Tone tied me naked to the end of Southend pier and force-fed me laxatives, so it's a love that expresses itself in unconventional ways.

When I come back they've started talking about Tone's sex life, so I know I'm going to be in the clear for the next hour or so. Barmaids, hairdressers, teachers, school friends' sisters, or mothers even, no one seems immune to Tone's Nordic charms. The list is endless, and the detail is explicit, and after a while I start to feel I need a bath, but he's obviously got something going for him, Tone, something other than sensitivity or tenderness or consideration. It's far easier to imagine that, after making love, he rubs his knuckles very hard on his lover's head. I wonder, but don't ask, if Tone's practising safe sex, but suspect that he thinks safe sex is for wimps, in the same way that safety-belts and crash-helmets are for wimps. If Tone was thrown from a plane, he'd still think parachutes were for wimps.

'How about you then, Brian, any action?'

'Not really.' This sounds a bit feeble, so I add, nonchalantly, There is this girl, Alice, and she's invited me to stay with her tomorrow, at her cottage, so . . .'

'Her cottage? says Spencer. 'What is she? A milkmaid?'

'You know, a house, in the country, her parents' . . .'

'So you're shagging her then?' asks Tone.

'It's platonic.'

'What's platonic mean then?' asks Spencer, even though he knows.

'It means she won't let him shag her,' says Tone.

T'm not "shagging" her because I don't want to "shag" her, not yet anyway. If I wanted to, then I would.'

'Though recent evidence would suggest that not to be the case,' says Spencer.

Tone seems to find this incredibly funny, so I decide to retreat again, and go and get some more gin-and-lagers; I stumble slightly as I leave the booth, so I know they're beginning to do their work. Keenly aware of how pocket money doesn't stretch very far these days. The Black Prince is also incredibly cheap, and it's possible for three young men to get incoherent, aggressive, sentimental and violent, and still have change from a tenner.

When I sit back down, Spencer asks me, 'So what do you actually do all day then?'

'Talk. Read. Go to lectures. Argue/

'It's not proper work though, is it?'

'Not work. Experience.'

'Yeah, well, I'm very happy in the University of Life, thank you very much,' says Tone.

The applied for the University of Life. Didn't get the grades,' says Spencer.

'Not the first time you've said that, is it?' I say.

'Obviously not. So what about politics?' The question feels like being poked with a stick.

'What about it?'

'Been on any good demonstrations lately?'

'One or two.'

'What for?' asks Tone.

The sensible thing would be to change the subject, but I don't see why I should compromise my political views just for the sake of an easy life, so I tell them.

'Apartheid'

'For or against?' asks Spencer.

'...the NHS, Gay Rights'

Tone perks up at this. 'What bastard's been trying to take away your rights?'

'Not my rights. There's a move by the Tory council to try and prevent schools from portraying homosexuality in a positive light; it's legislated homophobia . . .'

'Is that what they do, then?' asks Spencer.

'Who?'

'Schools. Because I don't remember anyone teaching it at our school.'

'Well, no, they didn't, but . . .'

'So why's it such a big deal, then?'

'Yeah, I mean you turned out gay without being taught it,' says Tone.

'Yeah, well, that's true, Tone, that's a very good point. . .'

'Well, I think it's a scandal,' says Spencer, with mock indignation. 'I think it must be taught. Tuesday afternoons. Double Gayness . . .'

'Sorry, miss, I forgot my horn-work . . .'

'Gay-levels! . . .'

We all try and think of another joke and can't, so instead Spencer says, 'Well, I think it's great that you're making a stand about something important, I really do. Something that affects us all. It's like when you joined CND. Have we had a nuclear holocaust since? Nope.'

Tone lurches to his feet. 'So. Same again then?'

'No gin in it this time, please Tone,' I say, knowing that he'll put gin in it.

After he's gone, Spencer and I sit and fold up the empty crisp packets, into little triangles, knowing this is not quite over yet. The gin has made me bad-tempered, and sulky; what's the point of coming out with your mates if all they're going to do is take the piss? Eventually I say, 'So what would you protest against then, Spence?'

'Don't know. Your haircut?'

'Seriously.'

'Believe me, it is serious . . .'

'But really, there must be something you'd actually make a stand about.'

'Don't know. Lots of things. Maybe not gay rights, though . . .'

'It's not just gay rights, it's other stuff, things that affect you too, things like cut-backs in the welfare state, cuts in dole, unemployment . . .'

'Well, thanks for that, Brian mate, I'm glad you're making a stand on my behalf, and I look forward to receiving the extra cash.'

There's nothing I can say to that. I try something more conciliatory, in a mate-y tone. 'Hey, you should come up and visit me next year!'

'Sort of like a Careers Day?'

'No, just, you know, for a laugh . . .' and this is the point where I should change the subject to sex or films or TV or something. Instead I say, 'Why aren't you re-taking your A-levels anyway?'

'Ummmm, because I don't want to ...?'

'But it's such a waste . . .'

'Waste? Fuck off it's a wastel Reading poetry and wanking into your sock for three years, that's a waste.'

'But you wouldn't have to do Literature, you could do something else, something vocational . . .'

'Can we change the subject, Brian?'

'Alright . . .'

'...because I get enough fucking careers advice at the DHSS, and I don't necessarily want it down the pub on fucking Boxing Day . . .'

'Alright then. Let's change the subject.' As an olive branch, I suggest, 'Quiz machine?'

'Absolutely. Quiz machine.'

The Black Prince has invested in one of those new computerised quiz machines, and we take our fresh pints over to it, balance them on top.

'Who plays Cagney in TV's Cagney and ...?'

'C - Sharon Gless,' I say.

Correct.

'The Battle of Trafalgar was in ...?'

'B - Eighteen-oh-five,' I say.

'The nickname of Norwich City FC is ...?'

'A - The Canaries,' says Tone.

Correct.

Maybe this would be a good time to mention The Challenge.. .

'What did Davros create?'

'A - The Daleks,' I say.

Correct.

'Whose original surname was Schicklegruber?'

'B - Hitler,' I say.

Correct.

/ could just drop it into conversation, casually; 'By the way guys, did I tell you? I'm going to be on University Challenge!'

'Which American holds the record for most Olympic ...?'

'D - Mark Spitz,' says Tone.

Correct.

'You know, University Challenge, on the telly ...?' Maybe they wouldn't take the piss. Maybe they'd think it was a bit of fun - well done Bri - we are old mates after all...

'One more question, we win two quid!'

'Alright, concentrate . . .'

I'm definitely going to tell them about The Challenge ...

'Star Wars was nominated for how many Oscars?' 'B - Four,' I say.

'D - None,' says Tone.

'I'm pretty sure it's four,' I say.

'No way. It's a trick question. It didn't get any . . .'

'Not win, nominated . . .'

'It wasn't nominated either, trust me Spence . . .'

'It was four, Spence, I swear it, B - four . . .'

And we're both looking at Spencer now, pleadingly, 'choose me, please, me not him, I'm right, I swear, choose me, there's two quid at stake here' and, yes, he chooses me, he trusts me, he presses B.

Incorrect. The correct answer's D - Ten.

'You see!' shouts Tone.

'You were wrong, too!' I shout back.

'You twat,' says Tone.

'You're the twat,' I say.

'You're both twats!' says Spencer.

'You're the twat, you twat,' says Tone.

'No, mate, it's you that's the twat,' says Spencer and I decide that maybe I won't tell them about The Challenge after all.

The fourth pint of gin and lager makes us sentimental and nostalgic about things that happened six months ago, and we sit and fondly reminisce about people we didn't really like and fun we didn't really have, and was Mrs Clarke the PE teacher really a lesbian, and exactly how fat was Barry Pringle, and then, finally, finally, they call last orders.

Outside The Black Prince, it's started raining. Spencer suggests maybe going to Manhattan's nite-club, but we're not that drunk. Tone nicked a new video recorder for Christmas, and wants to watch Friday The 13th for the eighty-ninth time, but I'm too depressed and drunk, and decide to head home, in the opposite direction.

'You around for New Year?' asks Tone.

'Don't think so. I think I'm staying with Alice.'

'All right mate, well see you around,' and he smacks me on the back and stumbles off.

But Spencer comes over and hugs me, his breath smelling of lager with a gin-top, and whispers wetly in my ear, 'Listen, Brian mate, you really are my mate, my best mate, and it's great that you're out there, meeting all these different people, and having all these experiences, and new ideas, and staying in cottages and everything, but just promise me something, will you?' He leans in really close. 'Promise me you're not turning into a complete cunt.'

QUESTION: If a burn that affects only the epidermis is defined as first degree, what is the term for a burn that reaches the subcutaneous tissue?

ANSWER: A third-degree burn

No matter how predictable, banal and listless the rest of my life might be, you can guarantee that there'll always be something interesting going on with my skin.

When you're a kid, skin is just this uniform pink covering: hairless, poreless, odourless, efficient. Then one day you see that microscope cross-section in the O-level biology text-books - the follicles, the sebaceous glands, the subcutaneous fat, and you realise there are so many things that can go wrong. And they have gone wrong. From the age of thirteen onwards it's been an on-going medicated soap opera of blemishes and scars and in-growing hairs, spreading from region to region, taking on different forms, from discreetly corked pores behind the ears to lit-from-inside boils on the tip of the nose, the geometric centre of my face. In retaliation, I've experimented with camouflage techniques, but all the skin-tone creams that I've tried are a sort of albino-pink and tend to actually draw attention to the spots as effectively as a circle drawn with a magic-marker.

I didn't really mind this in my adolescence. Well, I minded of course, but I accepted it as part of growing up; something unpleasant but inevitable. But I'm nineteen now, an adult by most definitions, and I'm starting to feel persecuted. This morning, standing in my dressing gown under the glare of the 100 watt bulb, things are looking particularly bad. I feel as if I'm leaking gin and lager and peanut oil from my T-zone, and there's something new, a hard pad of matter under the skin, about the size of a peanut, that moves around when I touch it. I decide to call out the big guns. The Astringents. On the back of one of them is written 'Warning - may bleach fabrics' and there's a momentary anxiety that something that can burn a hole in a sofa might not be a good thing to apply to your face, but I do it anyway. Then I apply a final wash of Dettol, just for luck. After I've finished the bathroom smells like a hospital, but my face at least feels taut and scrubbed, as if I've been through a car-wash strapped to the bonnet of the car.

There's a knock on the door and Mum enters, carrying my best vintage white linen granddad shirt, freshly ironed, and a foil parcel.

'It's some gammon and turkey, for your friend.'

'I think food's laid on, Mum. Besides they're all vegetarians.'

'It's white meat . . .'

'I don't think it's the colour that's the issue, Mum . . .' 'But what are you going to eat?'

Till eat what they eat!'

'What, vegetables?'

'Yes!'

'You haven't eaten a vegetable for fifteen years! It's a wonder you don't have rickets.'

'Rickets is Vitamin D2, Mum, scurvy is Vitamin C, lack of fresh fruit.'

'So do you want to take some fresh fruit with you then?'

'No, really, Mum, I'll be fine, I don't need fruit or meat.'

'You might as well take it, for the train journey. It'll only go off if you leave it.' For my mother, the true meaning of Christmas has always been Cold Meats so I give in, and take the foil parcel from her. It weighs about the same as a human head. She follows me into my bedroom, to check that I'm definitely putting it into my suitcase, like a sort of motherly customs official, and I count myself lucky she's not making me pack the sprouts.

She's sat on my bed now, and starts neatly folding my granddad shirt.

'I don't know why you wear these horrible old things . . .'

'Because I like them maybe? . . .'

'Talk about lamb dressed as mutton . . .'

'I don't criticise what you wear . . .'

'Boxer shorts! How long have you been wearing boxers?'