David Szalay - London and the South-East

‘You don’t want to stay and see Jaw?’ the Pig said.

Paul looked at him irritably. ‘What?’

‘You’re not interested in seeing Eddy Jaw?’

‘I’ve got to go, Dave.’

‘All right.’

Then, a minute later, the Pig went on, ‘It’s just that you’ve not seen him in a while, I don’t think. And who knows when you might have a chance to see him again.’

Why are you doing this? Paul thought. He stared at him — stared for a few moments into his mild blue eyes, trying to understand. He must surely have known that Paul would see Eddy on Monday, that he would be seeing him every day for the foreseeable future. Was this an act, then, played for the benefit of Murray? Or Andy, half asleep, his head fallen forward, his eyes taking in the grease-stained, rice-scattered tablecloth? It occurred to Paul that the Pig might not know that he too had been approached by Eddy Jaw. Whether he knew or not, he must suspect it — and there was something strange, knowing, not entirely innocent, about the way he had mentioned him. ‘I saw him a few weeks ago,’ Paul said.

‘Oh, did you? Fair enough.’

The waiter approached with the lager and vodka-Coke.

‘The bill, please,’ Paul said firmly. He had a pressing sense of hurry, did not want to be there when Eddy arrived.

‘Where’d you see him?’ the Pig asked.

‘Where did I see him? I saw him in the Penderel’s Oak. I think you were there, weren’t you?’

‘When was this?’ Murray said.

‘Three, four weeks ago. I can’t remember exactly.’

‘Jaw was in the Penderel’s?’ The situation, Paul felt, was suddenly threatening. He thought he sensed some sort of understanding between Murray and the Pig, and told himself not to be paranoid. He was under stress. Exhausted. Irritable. Not sober. ‘You know he was,’ he said to Murray. ‘I saw you talking to him.’

Murray shook his head. ‘I don’t remember. When?’

‘It was the day you had that bust-up with Marlon.’

Murray did not like this being mentioned — especially as Andy, though semi-conscious, seemed to smile. Murray smiled himself, in a pained, nervous way. ‘Yeah, well … I was fucking pissed that night,’ he said. ‘I don’t remember much about it.’

‘There’s not much to remember. Jaw was there and you spoke to him. That’s all.’

The waiter set the folded bill down in front of him, on a saucer with several mints. ‘Thanks,’ Paul said, pleased to be able to change the subject without seeming overly keen to. ‘So, the damage …’

‘He’s here,’ the Pig said grimly.

Paul, who was sitting with his back to the entrance, turned and saw a large figure, who had just entered, being accosted by one of the waiters, and asked if he wanted a table. He heard Eddy’s loud voice saying, ‘No, I’m here to meet some people.’ The waiter stepped aside, and Eddy advanced over the noiseless carpet into the shadows of the interior, making for their table, which was now the only one to be occupied. ‘This is a bit fucking miserable,’ he said, smiling widely. ‘All right, everyone? Happy birthday, Dave.’ The Pig nodded in acknowledgement of this, and Eddy made a great show of kissing Angel’s hand, while she tittered. Then he turned to Paul. ‘All right, Rainey? Last time I saw you, you were so pissed you could hardly stand up. You were leaning against the wall of a fucking toilet drooling down your front. I hope it was drool.’

‘All right, Eddy?’ Paul said. ‘How you keeping?’

‘Very well. And you?’

‘Yeah, not bad …’ Eddy was not listening to him. He had placed a large hand on Murray’s suited shoulder and was saying, in a way that suggested he hadn’t seen him for years, ‘Murray Dundee — how the fuck are you?’

Murray, who had always been intimidated by Eddy Jaw, seemed unwilling to look him in the eye, and said, ‘Yeah, I’m well, Eddy. Well. Not bad. And you?’

‘I just said. I’m very well.’ He extended a hand to Andy. ‘I’m Eddy,’ he said. ‘Which of these losers do you work for?’

Andy shook his hand, and then pointed at Paul, saying, ‘That one.’

And everyone laughed.

In the sombre rose of the Christmas-tree light, the hour approaching four, Paul sparks the spliff he has made. He had left, hurried out of there, said he had to get the last train. And the others — Murray, Andy, Eddy, the Pig and Angel — the others had piled into a black cab on the Gray’s Inn Road. The goodbyes had thus been rushed. And they were all the wrong way round. With Eddy, who he would see on Monday, it was a sincere ‘Yeah, good to see you, mate, hope to see you again sometime, stay in touch’. And with Andy and Murray, who he might well never see again, ‘See you Monday, lads.’

‘See you, Paul,’ Murray had shouted, as he entered the taxi. His voice was insouciant — why would it not be? Then, however, from the back of the cab, through the window as the others were getting in, he had shot Paul a strange look. Several times over the weekend Paul has revisited that look. And as the inhaled smoke starts to soften and seduce the part of his mind that has been so intransigently resisting sleep, he does so again. At first it seemed straightforwardly accusatory. Angry. Then he thought that there might have been sorrow in it too. And, most strangely — he has been thinking about it all weekend — unless he is mistaken, a trace of pity. It lasted only a moment. Then the shivering taxi was gone, and he walked alone down to Chancery Lane. To part like that was sad. To part like that from a friend … What did that say about him? He shied away from the question. Anyway, he and Murray were not really friends. Not really. Still, to part like that was sad. And it occurred to him that there were, perhaps, people who had proper friendships — not ones that were provisional, insubstantial, illusory — and who would not do what he had done not because they had such friendships, but had such friendships because they would not do what he had done. He was feeling quite depressed.

The effect of the spliff seems to make his whole being vibrate slightly. He wonders if Eddy might have told Murray, yelling in the pandemonium of some club, what was going to happen on Monday. Today. Drunk, after a line or two of coke, he might have told him. Paul hopes that he did. It would spare him the worst. The desire to lie down, to sleep is becoming overpowering. He struggles to finish the spliff. It is pathetic — he thinks — how unnatural he was in Eddy’s presence on Friday. He is useless at subterfuge. And there had been something odd about Murray too. Preoccupied with his own performance, he had not noticed it at the time. As he stubs out the unfinished spliff, however, he has a distant, unsettling sense of this oddity, but it is lost in dark, swirling clouds, and seems unreal.

ALCOHOL DRINKS AS a way of life started for Paul, he supposes, in the Northwood days. Simon was a serious drinker. They would get drunk at lunchtime every day, and then go back to the Cheshire Cheese after work. That the pub was so quaint made it seem unserious somehow. And everything was going well — money was being made — the boozing was exuberant, not morose. Now, when he is sober, there is always a sense that he is waiting for something.

Walking out of Delmar Morgan, Paul’s first thought had been of alcohol drinks. It was eleven, and the pubs had just opened. In truth, part of him had started thinking of alcohol drinks the moment Eddy had said, ‘There isn’t a job for you here, Paul.’ And a part of him had — if he is honest — even been pleased to hear those words. He had immediately felt licensed, permitted, almost obliged, to go out and drink until he was very drunk. There was nothing to stop him doing that anyway, of course — he had money — but he was not the sort of uninhibited alcoholic who pours a beer, or mixes a Bloody Mary, first thing in the morning. He did not have — as George Best is said to have had — a wine bar by his bed, so that waking in the middle of the night (probably still in his clothes, lights burning silently all over the house) he could top up his blood-alcohol level before passing out again. Paul’s alcoholism still operated within limits — very substantial limits — but limits nonetheless, and to exceed them he had to have, he himself insisted on this scrupulously, a reason . Of course, he could always find a reason — and he always did — but it was nevertheless a sort of luxury to have a real reason; and terrible misfortunes, disasters, vicious setbacks and disappointments, were superbly fit for purpose. His shock and humiliation, his stunned sense of collapse as he walked down Victoria Street, were entirely unfeigned. His legs were trembling under him. He felt awful, weepy, as if he’d been beaten up, and he entered the first pub he saw, which was the Albert.