In Real Life (19 page)

‘Yep.'

‘Where are you going?'

‘Nottingham,' he said. ‘Nottingham
Trent
.'

‘I did English at Nottingham,' I said.

‘Really?' he said excitedly. ‘Did you like it?'

‘What, the course or the whole thing?'

‘Whole thing.'

I thought about this for a long time. Did I like it? Did I have a good time? It all seemed so unreal now; it was like remembering scenes from a corny TV drama. Mainly, I just felt embarrassed by how young and spoilt and full of self-pity I was.

‘It had its ups and down,' I said. ‘I'm sure you'll have a great time though.'

‘Right,' he said, nodding solemnly and stretching the cuffs of his hoodie over his fingers just like you used to do.

IAN

2014

T
he bar in Wetherspoon's is three-deep with noisy, red-faced old men. I leave Dalisay standing at the edge of the crush and push my way towards the front. When I finally get there, I ask the barmaid how much a pint of Coke and a pint of Fosters might cost.

‘Four twenty-eight,' she says. ‘And it's Pepsi, not Coke.'

‘Make it a half of Fosters and a small Pepsi then,' I say.

‘The small is only ten p cheaper,' she says.

‘Great,' I say. ‘One of those then, please.'

We carry our drinks to a booth in the corner near the back and sit down facing each other. Dalisay tries to pay
me back for her drink, sliding a pound coin across the table.

‘Thanks,' she says, when I refuse. ‘Things are so expensive here.'

‘In Wetherspoon's?'

‘In England.'

I want to ask which country she comes from but I can't quite work out a way to say it without sounding rude.

‘How long have you been working at the call centre?' I say instead.

‘Almost a year.'

‘Wow.'

‘How long has your sister been going out with Martin?'

‘God, about
nine
years, I think.'

Just then an old man with a blotchy red face stumbles up to our booth and leans in over us, his mouth hanging open, his chin all wet and shiny.

‘Are youse two related?' he asks in an almost impenetrable Mancunian accent, pointing a swollen pink finger first at me, then at Dalisay, then back at me again. ‘Are youse two brother and sister, yeah?'

Dalisay raises her eyebrows at me, honestly puzzled.

(I am ninety-nine per cent sure he's making some kind of racist comment.)

‘Come on, mate,' I say, but my voice gets swallowed by the roar of the bar before it can make its way into his ear.

‘Where are you from, love?' he asks, grabbing onto the edge of our table and swaying dangerously backwards and forwards as Dalisay squints up at him, trying her hardest to decipher his accent.

‘I beg your pardon?' she says, incredibly politely.

‘
Where . . . are . . . you . . . from
?' he barks, so loud it makes an older couple at the next table look over.

‘Oh,' Dalisay says, finally twigging. ‘I'm from the Philippines.'

‘And what made you want to come over here, then?' he says. He's teetering on his heels now and narrowing his eyes, and there's a string of spit dangling from his chin.

‘Alright, come on, mate,' I say, a little louder, lifting myself out of my seat.

Oh god.

What am I doing?

I'm not a big guy.

I've never been in a fight before.

‘What's it gorra do wiv you, mate?' he slurs, and he moves towards me lifting his fists up limply.

I raise my hands and press my fingers gently against his ribcage, to stop him from coming at me, and even just that mild bit of pressure sends him stumbling backwards, away from our table. He trips over a flap of folded carpet, lurches out towards our table for balance but misses completely and sits down hard on his arse. A few more people look over and someone at the bar cheers.
He starts swearing to himself, shaking his head. As he pulls himself back to his feet and swerves off in the direction of the gents, I see a doorman come running for him.

‘Really sorry about that,' I say.

(The Philippines, I think.)

‘Wow,' Dalisay says. ‘You saved us.'

I know she's only joking, but I still feel kind of proud of myself.

‘People here drink a lot,' she says.

Again, I'm not sure if she means in Wetherspoon's or England.

‘Yeah, they do.'

I take a sip of my half.

A long pause.

‘What's it like,' I ask, ‘in the Philippines?'

‘You heard about the . . . the typhoon? Last year?'

‘Shit, yeah,' I say.

(I think I saw something online.)

A long pause.

I try to think of something else to say, something positive.

‘What's it like, apart from that?'

(I really don't know what I'm saying.)

‘You know it's a third world country, right?'

I nod.

(I didn't know that.)

‘Things cost so much here, by comparison. Back home, for instance, you could buy a whole meal with how much it cost us for just these two drinks.'

‘No way.'

‘It's pretty screwed.'

‘I should move there,' I say, before I've even thought about what I'm saying. ‘I'm completely broke.'

‘Okay,' Dalisay says quietly.

I know I should just shut up, but for some reason I don't.

‘I mean it,' I hear myself say. ‘Recently I've just been eating things out of tins. And I had to sell my guitar, and the bloke in the guitar shop ripped me off, I know he did. He only gave me four hundred quid for it. Fuck's sake. I'm sick of having no money.'

I look down at our almost empty glasses.

I've said the wrong thing, haven't I?

Dalisay's gone quiet.

She's not smiling any more.

‘Do you have any family over there?' I say.

‘All my family are back there except my tita . . . Sorry, my
aunt
. I'm staying with her at the moment and just sending most of the money I make back home to my family. I have two brothers in college.'

‘How old are you?'

‘I'm thirty-six.'

She looks mid twenties at the most. Her skin is very smooth and there are no wrinkles round her eyes or mouth. She's wearing her pink top again. She's not smiling at me. Something's changed between us. I'm suddenly extremely aware that I've fucked this up and I wish I knew what the right thing to do or say was: the magic combination of words that would make Dalisay Rivera instantly like me again.

‘I'd better go,' she says, standing up and pulling on her coat.

‘I can walk you out, if you like,' I say, downing my last inch of Fosters.

‘It's fine. Really,' she says. ‘Thanks for the drink. See you in work.'

Before I can get up, she's gone.

PAUL

2014

O
n the way to his seminar, Paul sits on the top deck of the 42, fiddling nervously with his phone, refreshing his emails every few seconds. Australia, he thinks. Jonathan Franzen. Doctor's appointment. NaNoWriMo.

Almost at the Precinct Centre, a new email arrives.

It's from Julian:

Why haven't you been replying to my emails?

I could just tell him, Paul thinks. Tell him that I've written nothing at all. That I think I'm going to just give up writing completely, actually.

Meanwhile, the NaNoWriMo people have broken the 41,000-word barrier on their novels.

Or maybe do a Jack Kerouac, Paul tells himself,
dinging the bell. Just clear your head of all this extraneous shit and write it all in one go, over the course of a weekend.

In the silent, airless corridor of the first floor of the New Writing Centre, Paul walks past a framed picture of Martin Amis, past an office room where the admin people sit, past a large stationery cupboard, and pauses outside his seminar room. It's gone five-past. He peers in through the thin rectangular window in the door and they're all in there, everyone except Alison. Rachel Steed sits on her side of the desk, next to Alison's empty place, fiddling with a pale blue iPhone.

Before anyone spots him, Paul dashes on down the corridor, past the staff room, past his office, past Greg's office, and out through the double doors at the far end.

In the toilets, he locks himself in the corner cubicle, drops his trousers, lowers himself onto the ice-cold seat and takes a few deep breaths. As he shits, he slips his phone out of his pocket and starts composing a group email.

Dear all
, he types.
Sorry for any confusion re today's class. Due to unexpected circumstances I am no longer able to attend our seminar group. A reminder: everyone who's had their stories critiqued already should now be working on their second drafts. For reference and guidance, perhaps look back over the Lish/Carver example we covered in Wk 4 (photocopies can be found in your course handbook
).

We will critique two stories next week instead
.

Sorry again and see you all next week
,

Paul

What a mess, he thinks, tearing off a wad of toilet paper with one hand, hitting send with the thumb of his other.

Just then, his phone buzzes and chirps in his hand.

One new Twitter notification, from @jfgkdfjdlsjf at 1:11 p.m.:

Paul hears a shuffling sound above him, looks up, and from a circular hole in the ceiling directly above his cubicle, a bloodshot eye winks down at him.

‘Fuck!' Paul cries, dropping his phone on the tiles as he stands and gathers his trousers, fumbling his way out of the cubicle. He buckles his belt, retrieves his phone – the glass has shattered, the cracks flowering up the touchscreen like tiny petals from the bottom left corner – and looks up at the ceiling, which is now just a normal square of ceiling again.