Tim Parks - The Server

‘If you’d like to change,’ he said, ‘I won’t look.’

We stopped and I got into the back. I fished in my pack for some dry things.

‘It’s a bit risky,’ I told him. ‘I’ve got my period.’

‘Don’t worry.’ He was driving again.

‘What will your wife think if she starts seeing stains on the back seat?’

‘Just don’t worry.’

I lay down on the seat, pulled off my filthy trainers, my socks, and started to wriggle down my soaking jeans. We were still on the back roads before the motorway and the car was swinging this way and that.

He laughed, ‘I’m in such a funny mood. I can’t decide whether to turn the radio on or not. It’s been so nice not hearing anything for ten days and at the same time I feel so tempted. Only I know once I’ve done it I’ll lose something. I’ll feel contaminated.’

I kicked off my panties and sat up a bit to get my feet through the fresh ones.

‘Maybe we should stop at a petrol place,’ I said. ‘I need to pick up some tampons.’

‘OK.’ He kept his eyes on the road. ‘Another thing is I can’t decide whether to light up or not. It was easy not smoking there, but I always smoke in the car.’

I was busy sorting myself out.

‘The funny thing is I’m sure if I turn the radio on I’ll light up immediately. Same decision.’

I stuck a wad of tissues in my panties and pulled them up snug. I’d chosen a skirt instead of trousers. It was forbidden to show knees at the Dasgupta.

‘You’ll have plenty of time for not smoking,’ I told him, ‘if you go back there.’

‘That’s true.’

‘Bet you don’t, though.’

He didn’t reply. I reached under my T-shirt and undid the bikini top. Everything was damp.

‘Another thing I can’t decide …’ he said quietly.

Knowing I was supposed to say, ‘Yes?’ I didn’t.

‘Is whether I want to sneak a look at you.’

‘Ha! Don’t ask me.’

‘You’re a funny girl,’ he said. He hesitated. ‘When you pulled up my trousers, I mean.’

‘Be hilarious,’ I laughed, ‘if you turned the radio on and there was Dasgupta’s voice. Sttartt-tagain.’

‘I have it tuned to BBC six,’ he said.

‘Aren’t we progressive.’

I peeled off my top, pulled the new one around my waist, a red one, closed the clip, turned it round and worked it up. For a moment I stayed like that, with this red bikini top wrapped round the underside of my tits in the odd light of the car with the yellows and pinks of the road flashing and shifting. There was dead silence from up front. I pulled the top up and at that moment the radio crashed on. It was frenetic rockabilly.

I laughed. ‘Too late, mate. I’m done.’

I pulled on a black pullover, climbed over to the front seat and wriggled myself comfortable.

‘So, how are you doing, Geoff?’

He sighed, ‘Want a smoke?’

Around ten he pulled off the motorway, made a few quick turns, like he knew where he was, and parked about thirty yards from a pub.

‘Before closing time,’ he said. ‘Just one.’

‘Why not?’

The place was noisy. He got in the pints while I went to the loo. There was a machine for tampons. I sorted myself out. Walking across the bar between the tables felt very strange and very ordinary.

‘Someone’s happy.’

He’d already got through half his drink.

‘Are you sure you want to go back there? I just can’t see you becoming a Dasgupta guy. You’re too …’ I couldn’t think of anything.

‘Dead sure.’

He was looking me in the eyes.

‘ Sila, samādhi, paññā ,’ I said.

‘Yes.’

‘You’ll have to keep the Five Precepts. No booze, no smoke, no food after midday, no chat, no sex.’

‘Right.’

‘Hard to see why you’re trying to make out with me then, Mr Diarist.’

He smiled. ‘I’m not trying to make out with you, Lisa.’

‘Right. Anyway, I’m more or less a virgin again after nine months at the Dasgupta. So be warned.’

What did that mean?

He drank fast. ‘What I don’t understand,’ he said, ‘is why you decided to leave now. After so long, I mean.’

I was enjoying the beer too. It felt so bitter and rounded in the mouth.

‘Because of your diary.’

‘My diary?’

He couldn’t decide if I was pulling his leg.

‘Another pint?’ he asked. ‘First hardly touched my throat.’

I watched him at the bar. He had an easy manner but seemed slightly nervy. Carrying the pints to the table, his right hand was shaking.

How wonderful pubs were, I thought then. I was having these sudden waves of enthusiasm. But how wonderful too not to have been in one for so long. Lisa isn’t really a pub person, I thought.

‘Your wife will never let you leave,’ I told him. ‘She’ll dig her claws in. You’ll feel guilty and give way.’

‘We’ll see,’ he said.

‘I bet she loves you really. She’s just bitter because you make her feel old and useless, with your pretty young girlfriends and your obsession with this scatty daughter.’

He drank his pint, watching me with an absorbed expression.

‘Not to mention your fixation with your career. I mean, do you ever re-read what you write? It’s all me me me. Jesus!’

He didn’t answer.

‘I went out with an older guy once who was completely fixated on his career. It was such a turn-off.’

Not true. It turned me on like crazy.

‘Why would my diary make you want to leave?’ he asked. ‘To do what, anyway? What are your plans?’

‘As soon as you get home,’ I told him, ‘you’re going to be wanting to save your publishing company, or write a book or do something to prove you’re not a failure. You’ll never go back to the Dasgupta. You’ll keep putting it off and then you’ll forget it. You’ll start a new affair with some new secretary. That’s what you’re like. Anyone reading what you wrote could see that.’

He frowned. ‘You didn’t answer my question.’ But now he glanced at his watch. ‘I suppose we should get moving.’ He began to drink up. ‘Come on, tell me the truth, why did my diary make you want to leave? If it did.’

I shifted my beer mat to the edge of the table, so it was hanging over an inch, flicked it up in the air with the back of my fingers and caught it on the second somersault. ‘Nine months out of a pub and I get it first time.’

‘Why? Come on.’

‘It reminded me of sex.’

‘Sex? I can’t remember writing about sex.’

‘It reminded me how exciting it is to be anxious and to have decisions to make. There’s none of that at the Dasgupta.’

‘That’s not sex.’

‘It felt like sex.’

‘Drink up,’ he said.

I poured half of my second pint into his and he smiled and drank.

Walking back to the car I took his hand, automatically, the same way I’d flicked the beer mat, the same way I’d poured the beer in his glass, and as we were about to separate to open our different doors, he pulled me round and kissed me. It was a short firm kiss on the lips, nothing adventurous, but as soon as we were in the car I turned to him, he leaned over to me and we kissed again. This time it was a careful kiss that turned warm and then hungry and then busy, really busy. It was a good kiss.

‘Oh, God.’ I laughed. ‘First the radio, the fags, then the booze, now the kiss. What next?’

‘All the better for ten days’ abstinence.’

‘Nearer ten months for me.’

We pulled out into the road and at the first junction there was a police car, lights flashing but no siren.

‘Shit,’ he said.

I said quietly, ‘If you don’t think you should drive, then stop. We’ll find a place for the night.’