Howard Jacobson - No More Mr. Nice Guy

Not his fault, boychick, Kurt says on the train back. Free country. If someone likes the taste of his sperm better …

Frank looks out at the Pennines. He’s never cared for them. Reservoirs and chimneys. And no sky. Rainbows in the smoke. God’s apology. No, thank you; apology declined.

How long before Frank recovers his self-esteem, sperm-wise?

‘I have heard,’ he tells his doctor, ‘that there is such a thing as a sperm test. I would like one.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Fifteen in a week.’

‘And you would like a sperm test to ascertain what?’

‘Taste,’ Frank says.

A year later he is one of a party in a friend’s parlour, parents away, whisky decanters emptying fast, seven of them sitting in a circle of ormolu chairs with their dicks out waiting for Marcia, a teamhander from Accrington, new in town, to gobble them up before they settle in to a night of poker.

Although she has already agreed to this, Marcia wants to lay down a few ground rules.

No touching.

OK, Marcia.

No coming out of my mouth until you’re finished. This is a new blouse.

OK, Marcia.

Everyone only comes once.

OK, Marcia.

But she still isn’t entirely happy. Teamhanders are like this. Punctilious. Protocol is everything with them.

I want a prize, she says.

Oh no. They all groan. If she’s a brass they don’t want to know. Absolutely not. Respectable boys don’t go with prostitutes.

Fine by her, she’ll just get back into her skirt and go then. What’s in it for her? All she was going to suggest was that they blindfold her, change seats, and let her try to identify them by taste. Put the sperm to the boy. A tusheroon for every one she gets right.

It’s Morris’s house. He’s prepared to double that to five shillings — a caser. He fetches one of his mother’s favourite cut glass fruit bowls. That’s the pot. Everyone puts in. OK? Bar flukes, Morris believes their money’s safe. Sperm’s sperm. All sperm tastes the same. Everyone agrees. Everyone except Kurt, who looks down.

And Frank, who walks out.

Later, he hears that Marcia screwed up. Only one she got right. Kurt’s. ‘I can taste something Red Indian,’ she said. And then, ripping off the blindfold — ‘You!’ After which she reneged on all her own stipulations and went upstairs with him.

They are all shtupping on a regular basis now. A house only has to be empty of parents for half an hour and there are ten of them round. Up to the bedroom fast, and then down again, a swimming Durex in each fist, just like the polythene bags you are given at fairgrounds to carry away the goldfish you’ve won. Frank too. No more window-cleaning a girl over her cardigan. He can unbutton her with his teeth now. He can part her like a peach with his hands tied back his back. He can bring her off with his nose, with his chin, with an eye-lash. And as for the taste of his sperm — it is good to report that he has suffered no lasting aftermath of trauma in that regard: he comes into mouths all over Manchester without giving a single cause for complaint. Except –

Except when he is in the company of Kurt.

If Kurt’s fucking in the same room he is, he can’t come. If Kurt’s fucking in the same house but in a different room he can come but the girl always spits him out. Kurt sours his sperm, that’s what it comes to. Kurt curdles him.

They remain friends, catch the school bus together, go rooting around the second-hand book stalls on Shude Hill together, buy shirts in Halon together, go to the Hallé together, swot in the Central Library together, get told off in the Central Library for making too much noise together, but they can’t pull keife together, can’t share one, can’t start from an end each and meet in the middle. Invidiousness has entered their friendship. It’s a free country, not Kurt’s fault if someone prefers his sperm to Frank’s … but Frank knows that in his soul Kurt can’t leave it at a free market; in his soul, and in relation to Frank, Kurt has come to think like a genetic supremacist: he believes that chromosome for chromosome he is the better man. Frank makes the better jokes, but he shoots the better spermatozoa. And it’s not the joke that gets the girl, it’s the jism.

Of course Kurt never says this to Frank. He loves Frank. Wouldn’t hurt him for the world. But there’s an unmistakable noblesse oblige about him now. When Frank is offered a place at Oxford Kurt is pleased for him in the way that one is pleased for a man with no arms who wins an egg and spoon race — it’s not something he can begrudge him. Kurt himself goes to Birmingham. Only Birmingham. But then he doesn’t have anything to prove, does he?

Frank doesn’t like the way Kurt sits on his settee and looks about him whenever he comes to stay with him in Oxford; he has a way of making Frank feel that he is living in a doll’s house. Cute. Dinky. Nice for him. Well done, Frank. Your secret’s safe with me. Out in the college courtyard he pats Frank’s bicycle seat. Springs, eh? Aren’t you doing well! Kurt himself drives a sports car around Birmingham. Brrrrm brrrrm. But then that’s to be expected. Tasty sperm, tasty car. He marries, too, after graduation. Meets her, impregnates her, marries her, boom. Brings her swollen-bellied to meet Frank, his best friend, presently fucking his life away in a language school in Summertown.

Liz — Frank.

Liz!

Frank!

Steady.

Not a qualm about sitting her in a corner of the disco where Frank is to be found Je t’aiming it in the psychedelic crossfire. God, that Frank! Kurt Je t’aimes it himself, just once, with a double-jointed Italian. Go on, Liz laughs. Go for it. Kurt doesn’t look like Elvis any more. He looks like the Temptations. The lights pepper him purple and orange. Thank your lucky stars I’m into responsible husbanding these days, Frank. And yourself, do you mean to go on fucking much longer? Well, why not. Ssh! It’s safe with me. Your secret.

And then the baby. Look what we’ve got, Frank. Go on, hold. Isn’t she beautiful? But then that’s to be expected. Tasty sperm, tasty baby.

And tasty wife? Yes. No. Frank can’t make up his mind. Yes. Maybe. Narrow green eyes. Generous mouth. Goodish legs. Flat behind. Breasts nothing special either, but then she is feeding, and a tit with a baby on the end of it is hors de combat even for someone as omnivorous as he is.

Yes. No. Yes, tasty. It’s the laugh. It’s what happens to the green eyes when she laughs. It’s how wide she opens her mouth. It’s the amount of chest she gives it. It’s her concentration on the thing you’ve said to make her laugh. It’s her gift for exclusive attentiveness.

Frank!

How will her laugh be now?

She has another baby and loses a third. Frank writes a letter of condolence. Faulty sperm, Kurt? But tears it up. His own sperm is raging. Red hot emissions. In quantities that would put to shame a sperm whale. His bed is like the Atlantic. He is coming five times a day with a partner. Four times a day without. On days that begin without and end with that’s nine, plus one more for the element of surprise.

And what am I worth as an element of surprise?

You, Liz? You’re incalculable.

They have started to meet. Once a month, that’s all. In restaurants. When she comes to London to see her gynaecologist. Frank has left Oxford. It hurt, but he’s out. He has found a flat in Kilburn. North London is what you say. He is patching a living together with a bit of supply teaching and some GCE examining and occasional reviews for small magazines. Kurt and Liz are in Cheltenham. Kurt is already head of media studies in a teacher’s college. He speaks in tongues and looks like Al Pacino. There are rumours that he has a mistress. A student. What other kind is there? Liz is having babies, losing babies, and coming to see him. He makes her laugh. Tells her about his adventures in the big smoke. Where he goes at night. Who he meets. How much sperm he’s making. If it were oil, he tells her, I’d be rich, I’d be a Sheik. Her green eyes narrow to pricks of emerald light. She laughs and laughs. That’s all.