Always the Sun (16 page)

‘What?’ Mel said.

‘Nothing,’ said Anna.

Mel topped up Anna’s glass.

‘What?’ she said again.

Sam stood.

He said, ‘We were talking about you, Melanie. Not
to
you.’

He went up to take a shower and change his clothes. He could hear Mel and Anna laughing about something he hoped had nothing to do with him. But he thought it probably did.

Sam had to wait some weeks before the Chrysler was delivered, so his insurance company arranged a courtesy car. It arrived on Tuesday, a blue Honda that had been valeted to within an inch of its life.

On Wednesday, it was Sam’s birthday.

Mel and Jamie got up early to cook him a birthday breakfast, which they took up to him on a tray. Two fried eggs, two sausages, black pudding, bacon and two fried slices. His mouth flooded at its hot, oily crumble.

They sat with him while he ate, then presented him with gifts. Mel had bought him a CD and Jamie gave him a Swatch with a transparent face that showed the clockwork mechanism.

Sam put on the watch and turned his wrist this way and that, examining it under the dim morning light.

Mel said, ‘Jamie’s been saving up.’

‘I love it,’ Sam told her, for Jamie’s benefit. ‘I needed a new watch.’

‘Yeah,’ said Jamie. ‘The old one was a bit naff.’

Sam smiled to hide the silly hurt he felt on his watch’s behalf. He’d owned it for so long—and his father had owned it for so long before that—that it had developed a soul, like a much-loved toy.

He said, ‘This one is much better.’

Nobody at work knew it was his birthday, but then nobody at work was speaking to him. He didn’t really care. The Skinhead who shouted ‘England!’ when he came in was unusually quiet, moving chairs to follow the fall of shadow in the ward. Kenny and Byron were playing Happy Families. Everyone else was quiet, as if something embarrassing had just happened. But nothing had. For several weeks, there had been no incidents on the ward. Probably one was brewing. But it was a quiet day, without a single call put in to Ted Bone from Mick Jagger, the Pope or Kris Kristofferson.

He left on time (to the rolling of eyes) and caught the bus home.

Mel had told him to expect a birthday dinner. He opened the door to find her and Jamie waiting for him in the hallway. Mel was holding his suit, which had been dry-cleaned and was still wrapped in polythene. Jamie held a new shirt, still wrapped.

He stood in the hallway with the door open.

‘What’s going on?’

Mel linked arms with Jamie.

‘You’ve got a date.’

Sam started to laugh. He stopped himself.

‘A what?’

‘A date.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Anna’s taking you to dinner,’ said Mel.

Jamie rushed forward and stuffed the new shirt into Sam’s hand.

‘Do you like it? We chose it.’

Sam examined the shirt.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘It’s very
blue
.’

‘It’ll match your eyes,’ said Mel.

‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘I don’t want things to match my
eyes.
What do you want me to look like?’

He thought this might sound illogical, so he added: I can’t go on a date.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t even know this woman.’

‘That’s what dates are for.’

‘Duh,’ said Jamie.

‘Look,’ said Mel. ‘She’s pretty. She’s single. She likes you.’

‘She’s
paying
,’
said Jamie.

‘What’s to worry about?’ said Mel. ‘We’ve organized everything. All right? It’s no big deal. Anna’s a grown-up. She’s met bigger and uglier men than you, believe me. She won’t bite.’

He held up the shirt, like evidence in a courtroom.

‘I can’t do this,’ he said.

‘You’d bloody better,’ said Mel. ‘We’ve been planning it for weeks.’

She nudged Jamie’s shoulder.

‘Haven’t we?’

‘Yes,’ said Jamie.

Sam looked at them.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Some place called Ottavio. In town. Anna’s choice.’

His shoulders sagged.

‘OK,’ he said, and back-kicked the door closed. He ambled upstairs to the sound of cheering.

In the bathroom, new toiletries had been laid out for him. To each was adhered a handwritten sticky yellow label. A new can of shaving foam and a new razor stood on the sink, labelled USE ME!

Mel came in to see him when he was dressing. He sat on the edge of his bed, drying off his feet with a sprinkle of her talcum powder. Mel leant against the door and crossed her arms.

She said, ‘He’s downstairs, trying to iron your shirt.’

Sam pulled on his socks. Dressed only in these and boxer shorts, he examined himself in the mirror: muscular, solid of belly. Hair too long, thinning at the crown.

‘The labels were his idea,’ said Mel.

Sam gathered his hair in a short, punishing ponytail that stretched and narrowed his eyes. When he let the hair go, his face took a second too long to settle properly over his skull. He found its liquidity disturbing.

He tested the muscles in his arms.

‘Is he all right?’

Mel sat on the bed.

‘He’s getting there.’

‘Has he been to school?’

Mel shrugged.

‘What shoes are you going to wear?’

‘I don’t know. The loafers, do you think? Or the lace-ups?’

‘How can I put it? Not the loafers.’

He opened the wardrobe. His lace-up shoes, long unworn, waited there, lustrous. A sticky label adhered to one toe. It read

WEAR ME.

‘He hid the other pair,’ said Mel. ‘Just in case.’

Sam removed the shoes. Jamie had made a good job of polishing them. He set them parallel with the bed and began to free the suit of the dry-cleaner’s polythene. He pulled on the trousers.

‘Do you think he’ll be all right?’

Mel had rested one foot on the opposite knee and was minutely examining her big toenail.

‘What about?’

‘Tonight.’

‘You’re going to dinner,’ she said. ‘Not getting married.’

He experimented with the trousers’ fastening and concluded that he would not be requiring a belt that evening.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘But you know how it is. Kids see things differently.’

‘He’s not a kid. And put some gel in your hair.’

‘Do you think?’

‘Yes. Come here.’

She stood, walked over to him, and produced a comb which she ran haltingly and painfully through his hair.

‘Ow,’ he said.

She left the room to get some hair gel. She returned with it smeared over both hands and rubbed it vigorously into his hair. For a few seconds, he looked like a mad scientist. Then the hair wilted.

‘The best thing you can do for him,’ she said, ‘is enjoy yourself. He worries about you.’

He looked over his shoulder.

‘Does he?’

This had never occurred to him.

‘Duh,’ said Mel, and went to get a hair-dryer.

Jamie was waiting for him at the foot of the stairs, holding up the poorly ironed shirt. Sunlight shone through it as if through stained glass. Sam took the shirt and thanked Jamie as he buttoned himself into it. Mel helped him into the suit jacket and told him to leave the lowest button undone.

While all three of them stood in the hallway, admiring him, the minicab arrived.

He arrived late for 8.00 p.m., and learnt that Mel had lied about the time of the reservation. It was for 8.30.

He was irked and touched that she knew him so well.

Ottavio was an Italian restaurant of blonde wood and crisp white linen. The waiters wore wine-red shirts and dove-grey waistcoats.

Sam lit a cigarette and scanned the drinks menu. He decided to order a Martini. He didn’t particularly like them—to his cigarette-brutalized palate, they tasted like nothing so much as a bucket of cold, neat gin—but he wished to cultivate at least the aura of proximate sophistication. He lingered over the drink and lined his stomach with a few olives.

Exercising a complex psychological prerogative, Anna arrived at 8.45 p.m. Sam looked up when the door opened. She wore an ankle-length leather coat that added a degree of theatricality to her entrance. Her hair—he thought—was freshly cut, softer and combed forward round the hairline. She smiled hello as the waiter took the coat.

He admired the way she avoided the potential awkwardness of greeting (to kiss or not to kiss?) simply by taking the seat opposite him, crossing her legs and popping an olive in her mouth.

He said, ‘Well, you look great.’

She looked down, brushed something from her chest.

‘Thank you.’

She reached forward and popped another olive into her mouth.

‘And you look very smart.’

Without knowing it, he mirrored her, brushing at his lapel with his fingertips.

He said, ‘I can’t accept any praise. This is all Mel’s doing.’

Anna said, ‘Isn’t it just?’ and she laughed and leant forward and opened her handbag, producing a fresh pack of menthol cigarettes.

‘Do you mind?’

‘Not at all.’

She broke the seal with a painted nail and lit the cigarette with a gold lighter, took one puff, then tapped it on the edge of the ashtray.

The waiter arrived at their table. Sam left the half-drunk Martini and followed her into the restaurant. It was busy enough. The waiters made elaborate entrances and flouncing exits via the swinging door to the kitchen. To this carnival the huddled customers seemed wholly oblivious.

After they’d been seated (the waiter’s fussing put Sam on edge), there followed a short debate concerning who should choose the wine; Anna and Sam batting the burgundy leatherette wine-list back and forth between them. Eventually, Sam accepted responsibility. Once that was done, he could begin to relax. He could feel the Martini, warm in his blood.

He unfolded the crisp napkin on his lap.

He said, ‘This isn’t the kind of place I’d expect to find somebody who drinks in the Cat and Fiddle.’

She laughed and gave him a look. She told him she didn’t go there often. She owned a small apartment in the dockland redevelopment. But her mother lived round the corner from Mel, and Anna had made a point of keeping in touch with Mel and two or three other schoolfriends. It was important to maintain the kind of friendship they were now too old to originate.

She was interrupted by the arrival of the wine. Sam endured the tasting ritual (‘It’s fine, thank you’), then sat back, exasperated, as the waiter made a meal of his expertise in pouring. Anna’s glass first.

Sam watched him hurry away.

‘It’s weird,’ he said, ‘I don’t think I remember you from school.’

‘You must have been blind.’

‘Did you look very different?’

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘How many black kids were even
at
our school?’

He blushed and looked away, feeling in some way caught out.

She laughed.

Sam ran his forefinger round the rim of his wine glass.

He said, ‘I don’t know. You forget so much. Do you know what I mean? Year by year, the cast of thousands diminishes, until all you can remember is a few names. Does that sound stupid?’

She smiled, more gently.

‘I know what you mean,’ she said.

The starters arrived. They fell silent for a few moments, making nodding, appreciative faces across the table.

Then Sam said, ‘So what do you do, exactly?’

She pointed her fork at him.

‘I think I told you; I’m in insurance. But I don’t want to talk about it, because it’s very boring.’

‘I’m sure it’s not.’

‘To me, no. To you, yes.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘Do statistics interest you?’

‘Not conspicuously.’

‘Well, statistics are my job.’ She speared limp asparagus. ‘You see my dilemma.’

He put down his fork, dabbed at the corner of his mouth with the napkin and placed it again in his lap.

‘But you must have lots of stories about fraudulent claims, that kind of thing.’

‘Not my department, I’m afraid. And anyway—you’re the one with the interesting job.’

‘Not really.’

‘Oh, come on.’

He smiled.

‘The mentally ill aren’t as much fun as they’re cracked up to be. Especially when they’re taking their medication.’

‘But you must have seen a few things in your time.’

‘I’ll give you that,’ he said. ‘But not the kind of thing you’d really want to talk about over dinner.’

‘You see? Now I’m intrigued.’

‘All right,’ he said. ‘I once had to restrain a young man who was well into the process of castrating himself with a blade he took from a safety razor.’

Anna made a gagging sound.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’m not intrigued any more.’

He laid his hands flat on the table.

He said, ‘Look, I’m really sorry.’

She flapped her hand at her mouth.

‘That’s all right,’ she said. ‘Honestly. I asked for it.’

He picked up the fallen napkin and flattened it on his lap.

To ease his discomfort, she said, ‘In a way, I deal with mad people too.’

‘How so?’

‘Everyday madness,’ she said. ‘The psychology of risk. People tend to exaggerate tiny little risks, and to minimize great big, whopping ones.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as, following a train crash, the death toll increases on the roads. People are freaked out by the train crash, which is a rare occurrence and unlikely to happen again any time soon. More people die every day on British roads than die annually on the railways. But rail crashes are newsworthy. After a crash, nervous passengers take to the roads. The roads are a great deal more dangerous than the railways. And the more congested the roads are, the more dangerous they are. Simple really. But people don’t think about it like that.’

‘No,’ said Sam.

‘See?’ she said. ‘You’re bored.’

‘Not in the slightest.’

‘People worry about the rising crime rate,’ said Anna, ‘but they continue to smoke. Or they worry about what pesticides are going to do to them, and continue to eat junk food, and fail to take any exercise.’

‘And that affects the way your industry operates?’

‘Not always directly. But, of course, it’s always preferable—for us—to insure against the unlikely.’