Jack Tumor (18 page)

And then Les stopped what he was doing and sniffed the air.

“What's that smell?”

Oh, no. The Old Tramp.

Les scanned the room nasally, trying to track down the source of the stench. He began to focus on me. I was doomed. Not only was I going to ravish his daughter, but I was going to do it smelling like a gay hobo.

My panicked eyes met Mrs. Upshaw's. She returned my stare for a second. I think she understood. Understood everything. And then she galloped to the rescue.

“It's my new perfume,” she said. “Do you like it?”

I loved Eve Upshaw in that moment. If the aforementioned rent in time/space was really available, I'd have gone back to when Eve was a teenager and taken her away from all this—from Les, from the chips, from her nylon overall—found an island somewhere with goats and coconuts, and we'd have been happy together, Eve and I.

“What?” said Les, his smooth meaty face registering surprise. “Oh, aye. Nice.” And then his tiny little mouth went into a spasm, which I was forced to interpret as a smile. I suppose he
thought that this unprecedented use of scent in the chip shop meant that Mrs. U. was in the mood for love. “Very nice.”

Very nice for him, perhaps, but bloody unpleasant for me to think about, and a nasty intrusion to our island with the goats and coconuts, and the grass skirt, and nothing to do but find new ways to pleasurize each other. It's her wearing the grass skirt, by the way, not me. Just wanted to clear that up. In case you were wondering.

And then Uma was there to banish such thoughts (I mean the thoughts of Eve on the island, and Les with Eve), and I'd swear that when she appeared in the doorway the whole chip shop filled with light, as if she was being illuminated by the flashbulbs of a thousand paparazzi.

C
'mon then,” she said.

OH, BOY.

OH, BOY.

OH, BOY.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

Oh, boy.

“You're not going out like that.”

Les, of course. And he had a point. Except that she
was
going out like that.

“You look lovely, dear,” said Mrs. Upshaw, which was also true.

Uma was wearing a top that rippled with iridescence like a mermaid's scales, and a black skirt so short you'd think there was some world material crisis and they'd brought in rationing.

“She'll catch her death. Or worse.”

Brave words, but there was little defiance left in Big Les now. He knew he was defeated.

“It's warm out,” said Mrs. Upshaw, and Les was out of the ring.

Uma lifted the counter and floated past. I tried to say goodbye to Mr. and Mrs. Upshaw, but I'd lost my voice and I didn't find it until we were out in the street.

“Where do you want to go?”

“Isn't that your job? Deciding things and stuff ?”

The words may have sounded stroppy, but the tone was flirtatious.

I ran through the possibilities, in table form.

 

 

THIS IS ALREADY DECIDED—TELL HER WE'RE JUST GOING FOR A WALK. TRY TO SOUND MYSTERIOUS, WITHOUT BEING CREEPY IF YOU CAN MANAGE THAT. I'LL TAKE CARE OF THE REST
.

So I told her, cranking up the mystery quotient, then easing off on the lever before we reached creepy, just like Jack told me, and she seemed okay with it all, although she didn't appear much mystified in either a good or bad way.

It was seven o'clock now, and the streets were emptyish, as most people were at home, having their dinner or watching telly. I thought how nice it would be to be sitting at home watching telly, not having to think of things to say to pretty girls who knew much more about life than you did.

“So what's with the new image then?”

“Oh, my hair and that? Just sort of felt like a change,” I said as casually as I could.

“Suits you. You don't look like such a sad case anymore.”

“Thanks.”

YOU'RE EASILY PLEASED
.

The first thirty seconds were going well. Obviously the dopamine had helped. The last drops were still in there, but it wouldn't last much longer. I hoped Jack would give me another spurt.

Uma was looking at me. I was expected to say something.

TELL HER SHE LOOKS LIKE A RARE ORCHID; LIKE A YOUNG FAUN; LIKE A STILL-UNRAVISHED DANAË, AWAITING THE SHOWER OF GOLD; LIKE LEDA SUPINE BENEATH THE BEATING WINGS
.

“Oh, er, you look . . .” What? I didn't just want to be Jack's mouthpiece, I wanted to find my own words. Nice? Scrumptious?
Intelligent? Worthy of a place as sexy alien onboard the
Enterprise
?

LIKE ARTEMIS, HOT WITH PURSUIT; LIKE PSYCHE, TENDER IN THE DARKNESS
.

“Gorgeous.”

UGH
!

“Ta.” She looked quite pleased, but she was probably used to being called things like gorgeous. “Why are we going in the direction of the graveyard?”

“Are we?” I noticed that we were, in fact, heading towards the old graveyard of St. Arsenius, the local posh Anglican church. I detected Jack's subtle hand at work on my legs. “Er, we are. Yes. For a walk. Nice and quiet. With the graves and everything. Flowers.”

“Okay, but not yet. Let's go somewhere else first.”

Bum. Odeon or McDonald's? Time to decide.

“Like the pub.”

“The pub . . . but I've never . . . Okay, yeah, the pub. I was going to say that. Always a good idea to go to the pub. First. Pub . . . drink . . . good.”

“Liar. You've never been, have you?”

She said it with a laugh in her voice. Couldn't quite tell if it was laughing-with or laughing-at. Probably at. It was usually at.

“Yes. A few times.” Pause. “No, not really.”

I hung my head in shame, but Uma didn't seem bothered.

“Have you got any money?”

I took out my wallet.

“Nice purse.”

“It's a wallet.”

“Touchy.”

“No, it's just that . . . well, it's a wallet.”

There was five pounds in my purse, I mean wallet. I felt deep into my pockets, and scraped together another two-fifty.

I held it all out to show her: “Is that enough?”

“Yeah, it'll do,” said Uma, not really trying to hide her disappointment. It was the first proper setback in my hot date with Uma Upshaw. Would it be the last?

GET ON WITH IT
.

So we diverted from our path to the graveyard and walked the couple of streets to the Spleen and Marrow. I tried to get really close to Uma to show that I liked her, without actually touching, which she might think was me trying to grope her. As we walked we kept bumping together in a random way that wasn't one thing or the other, and I learned the interesting fact that boys and girls walk to a different rhythm.

Conversation came in fits and starts, and got stuck for a while on chips, and why you don't get a free bag of scraps (that's bits of loose batter from the fryer, in case you've never had them) anymore. I was relieved when we arrived.

And it
was
my first time in a pub. I'd never been with Mum, of course, because she didn't go out. I'd seen pubs and bars on the telly, so I roughly knew what to expect, but telly doesn't prepare you fully for reality. If it did, then there'd be a lot more pretty girls in the world, because nearly all the girls on the telly are pretty.

There was one of those doors where you don't know if you should push or pull, but I finally managed to get the better of it and entered with a sort of falling motion.

First pub impressions: warm and smoky.

The place was sparsely populated, with just a few yellow-eyed old geezers dotted about at the tables, most of them smoking, all of them looking pretty glum. They could have been the same gang from the hospital ward, but with their coats on. Perhaps their lives consisted only of this constant shuttling between the hospital and the pub.

Everything inside the Spleen and Marrow was brown, although I don't know if that was deliberate, meaning someone had painted it all brown, or if it was just stained brown with brown stuff that people brought with them, like smoke and mud and grime and grease.

“Get us a Campari and lemonade, will you?” said Uma, sounding the cheeriest thing in there by a factor of a million. “And,” she added decisively, “some crisps.”

She took off her jacket and sat down on a chair. The seat of the chair was made of red plastic which had split, and the foam bulged out like a hairy beer belly bulging through the gaps in a shirt.

“Yeah, sure, I'll just, er . . .” and I shuffled off towards the bar. Campari. I'd heard of Campari. I'd get one of those too.

NO YOU DON'T
.

Why?

LADY'S DRINK
.

Oh.

A lady's drink. No, I couldn't get one of those. Because I wasn't a lady. Okay, what did I want?

Hello, Jack, come in please. Need some help here. What do I want?

A CUP OF SACK, OR GLASS OF MALMSEY. YES, THAT WOULD
DO THE TRICK. BUT I DON'T SUPPOSE WE'VE MUCH HOPE HERE. IT HARDLY MATTERS, SO LONG AS YOU DRINK DEEP, AND DRINK LONG
.

No use at all, which meant it was down to me. Beer would be the manly thing, but I'd tasted beer a few times and it was horrible. About the only alcoholic thing I'd ever tasted that I liked was Martini and lemonade at our next-door neighbor's New Year's Eve party, but I had a nasty feeling that if Campari was a lady's drink, then Martini and lemonade might be a gay one.

And then an inspiration.

Alcopop!

They tasted like pop, but they were made of alcohol! They were invented to get children drunk. Genius.

I reached the bar. The man behind it looked a bit like Les Upshaw but without his twinkling, happy-go-lucky side.

I'm being sarcastic.

This one looked like he'd been hacked out of a quarry and towed here by truck.

“A Campari and lemonade and a Tangerine Tosshead, please,” I said, in a gruff, lumberjack kind of voice.

The barman stared at me. You'd have to call it a withering stare. Anyway, I withered.

“Age?”

I thought about confusing him by claiming to be seventy-two. Some sort of freak of nature, eternal youth, monkey-gland treatment.

“Eighteen.”

He carried on withering me for a while and then, greed overcoming his belief that underage children shouldn't be served
alcohol, he turned and did his thing with glasses and bottles and coolers and came back with what I'd asked for.

“Four ninety-eight.”

I gave him the five pounds and said loudly, “Keep the change,” because that seemed the thing to do—open-handed and grownup. Very Ernest Hemingway. And then I remembered the crisps.

“And some crisps, please.”

The barman breathed heavily, like it—the breathing, I mean—was something he was still getting to grips with.

“Flavor?”

I couldn't think of any flavors. Not one.

“Er, what have you got?”

His eyes rolled slowly upwards, and for a moment I thought he was in the middle of dying, but then he said, counting off with his huge, calloused fingers like jumbo sausage rolls: “Whale-and-bacon, lemur, veal, cheese-and-cucumber, squid . . .” and I think he would probably have gone on for another half an hour or so.

“Plain,” I said, to stop him.

Long pause.

“You mean ready-salted?”

“Yes.”

“Sea salt or rock?”

“Erm . . . just the normal, whatever that is.”

“What kept you?” said Uma, when I finally got back to her.

“Crisps,” I replied, laying before her the drinks and three packets, one sea salt, one rock salt, and one whale-and-bacon (to be on the safe side).

“Oh,” she said distantly.

“Don't really fancy them now.” That was annoying. Never mind, her loss, my gain. I was about to open up the whale-and-bacon when I heard a warning voice.

NO! CAN'T EAT STRONG-FLAVORED SNACK PRODUCTS IF YOU'RE GOING TO SNOG HER. DON'T YOU KNOW ANYTHING? WHY DO YOU THINK SHE CHANGED HER MIND? SHE THOUGHT IT THROUGH WHILE YOU WERE AT THE BAR. NOTHING WORSE THAN COMING ACROSS A MASHED MORSEL OF CHEESY MUSH WHEN YOU'RE TONGUE-SURFING
.

“When I'm what?”

“When you're what what?” said Uma.

“Oh, sorry. Nothing. How's your Campari?”

“Nice.”

She sipped her drink and a little line of pale red moisture formed itself around her lips. And, now I was looking lipwards, I saw that whatever stuff she had put on them, lip gloss or lipstick, had bits of sparkle in it. I couldn't decide if this was babyish or slutty. Well, my head couldn't decide, but elsewhere decisions were being made.

I took a gulp of my Tangerine Tosshead. There was a slight mechanical problem as my lips got sucked into the neck of the bottle and I had to pull them out with a loud smacking noise. Uma turned away courteously. The stuff was sickly sweet. Which was fine, but then the alcohol felt its way blindly through the sugar and put its claws into my gullet, and I had to swallow a mini-retch, which left me with a big burp caught half in and half out. Finally the pain was so bad I had to release it, so I held the bottle up to my lips and tried to belch discreetly back into it, which seemed like the politest of the options I had before me. I
don't know why, but the bottled burp made the drink fizz into a frenzy, and it bubbled and spilled out and down my front and onto the table.