Zadie Smith - NW

Felix was sincere, but saw he had provoked a sort of smirk in Tom, which in turn provoked in Felix a need to press his point home more strongly: “Listen, this girl changed my outlook totally. Globally. She sees my potential. And in the end, you just got to be the best you that you can be. The rest will follow naturally. I’ve been through it, Tom, right? So I know. The personal is eternal. Think about it.”

How close to superfluous his job was these days! The slogans came pre-embedded, in people’s souls. A smart thought: Tom discreetly congratulated himself for having it. He nodded at Felix deeply, satirically, samurai-style. “Thank you, Felix,” he said, “I’ll remember that. Best you that you can be. Personal equals eternal. You seem like a bloke who’s got it all figured out.” He lifted his empty glass to clink against Felix’s, but Felix was not impervious to irony and left his own glass where it was.

“Seeming ain’t being,” he said quietly and looked away. “Listen—” He drew a folded envelope from his back pocket. “—I’ve got things to do, so…”

The boy saw he had overstepped: “Of course. Look — where were we? You need to make me an offer.”

“You need to give me a reasonable price, mate.”

It was only now that Tom realized he did not, after all, despise Felix’s habit of over-familiarity. On the contrary, to be called “mate” at this late point in their acquaintance felt like a melancholy step down in the world. And why am I only able to enjoy things once they’ve passed, wondered Tom, and tried to place a mental finger upon a hazy quote from a French book, which made exactly this point, and helpfully gave the answer, too. Candide? Proust? Why hadn’t he kept up with his French? He thought of Pere Mercer, on the phone, this morning: “The trouble is you don’t follow through, Tom. That’s always been your trouble.” And of course Sophie was making essentially the same point. Some days have a depressing thematic coherence. Maybe next the cloud overhead would open up and a huge cartoon hand emerge from below, pointing at him, accompanied by a thunderous, authorial voice: TOM MERCER. EPIC FAIL. But it had already been pointed out to him — also this morning! — that this approach, too, was only another kind of trap: “Tom, darling, it’s really terribly narcissistic to think the whole world is against you.” Listening to his mother’s voice down the line he had been impressed by how calm and kind she sounded and how satisfied she was with her diagnosis of his personality. Thank God for his mother! She didn’t take him seriously, and laughed when he was being funny, even when she didn’t understand, as she almost never did. They were country people, his parents, and of grandparental age, for this was a second marriage for them both. They could not conceive of his daily life, did not e-mail, had never heard of Sussex University until he attended it, had no experience of either a “downstairs neighbor,” a “night bus,” the realities of an “unpaid internship” (“Just go in there and present a few ideas, Tom, and show them what you’re worth. At the very least Charlie will listen. We worked together for seven years for Christ’s sake!”) or the sort of nightclub where you leave your clothes — and much else — at the door. They did not have double lives, as far as he could tell. They drank with dinner, never to excess. Where his father found Tom infuriating and inexplicable, his mother went a little gentler on him, at least allowing for the possibility that he really was suffering from some varietal of twenty-first-century intellectual ennui that made it impossible for him to take advantage of the good fortune he’d been born with. There were limits, however. One shouldn’t pretend that Brixton was any sort of place to live. “But Tom: if you’re feeling low, 20 Baresfield is empty until at least July. I don’t know what you have against Mayfair. And you’ll have somewhere to park the car without fear of it being burned to a shell in some riot.” “That was twenty years ago!” “Tom, I refer you to the Aesop fable: leopard, spots.” “That’s not a fable!” “Honestly, I don’t know why you didn’t move into it in the first place.” Because sometimes one wants to have the illusion that one is making one’s own life, out of one’s own resources. He didn’t say that. He said: “Mother, your wisdom surpasseth all understanding.” To which she said, “Don’t be facetious. And don’t make a mess!” But he was making a mess. With this girl. It was all a terrible mess.

“A reasonable price,” repeated Tom and touched the side of his head, as if the strange thoughts were a misfiring synapse, and a tap to the temple might tamp them back down.

“’Cos you’re talking silly money,” said Felix, and began packing away his tobacco and Rizlas and phone in a manner that seemed, to Tom, to perfectly convey disappointment, not only in the failure of the deal, but in Tom himself.

“But you can’t seriously be asking me to give it to you for less than six hundred!”

Halfway through this sentence Tom recognized the strange, inappropriate plea in his own voice.

“Four hundred’s more like it, bruv. My lot will tow it. That’s generous! You wouldn’t get that much for scrap. You’d probably have to pay that much to get it towed.”

The audaciousness of this made Tom smile: “Seriously? Come on. Let’s be serious.”

Felix kept his poker face. Tom, still smiling, put his chin in his hand, and “thought” like a cartoon of somebody “thinking.”

“Five hundred? Then we can both go home. I really can’t go lower than that. It’s an MG!”

“Four fifty. Ain’t going no higher than that.”

Tom’s phone started up once more. He wore an inconclusive expression: he reminded Felix of the actors milling backstage after the matinee, with the evening performance still before them. Not fully in character, but not free of it either.

“Life-destroyer on line one. You’re not easy, Felix. I can see nothing gets past Felix.”

Felix withdrew the crumpled notes and began slowly counting them out into a neat pile.

• • •

S o the garage lent you an MG.

Nah, dred, I bought it.

Is it. You must be doing all right.

Weren’t that much. Been saving. Doing it up myself as a gift for Graceproject for myself. A project car.

You know why you bought that though, don’t you? Do you know? You don’t know, do you? Do you wanna know? I’m going to impart some wisdom on you, blud, get ready. You think you know why, but you don’t know…

Felix heard it as clearly as any actual conversation with his father: it seemed to exist on the same plane of reality. Maybe it was simply like spotting a train very early, far down the track. The boys at the garage were to pick the car up later today and have it delivered to the resident parking bays in Caldwell. To do that they would have to ask his father for a parking pass. A little after that his father would call him. The prospect of this took the shine off the triumph that should accompany purchase. The further he got down Regent Street the worse it got.

Felix, listen: you can’t buy a woman. You can’t buy her love. She’s gonna leave you that way. Love’s gonna leave you anyway so you might as well not bother with the cars and the jewels. Serious.

Felix passed in front of the Valentine kid with his leg in the air and arrow primed. Who would be happy for him? His thumb hovered over the roller ball on his phone, moving back and forth through the various digits of his siblings, but connecting with each a potential headache that made him hesitate and finally put the handset back in his pocket. Tia would have her children underfoot, and her loneliness and boredom turned easily to jealousy, even for things she cared nothing about, like cars. Ruby would only want to know what the car could do for her — when she could borrow it, where she could drive it. She lived in her twin’s spare room, had nothing and no-one, and pitied herself deeply. She expected charity always, while simultaneously wanting the best of everything. Why’d you buy that wreck? Fool. Both twins had a horror of second-hand goods. Grace, too. He wouldn’t be telling her anything about it until it looked like it had just rolled off the assembly line. Devon was the only one who might be interested, but you couldn’t call him, you had to wait for him to call.