David Szalay - London and the South-East

‘What you doing nights?’

What is irritating is that Ned, still preparing for the day’s trading, is obviously not that interested in what Paul is doing nights. When he asks the question he is hidden from sight, fiddling with something at floor level.

Oliver seems to have wandered off into the darkness.

‘You know. Supermarket work.’ Paul says this simultaneously with licking the cigarette paper, and it seems unlikely that Ned would have heard it. Nevertheless, standing up and dusting off his hands he says, ‘Oh yeah.’ And then, ‘Too early for a pint?’

‘Not for me, mate,’ Paul laughs hollowly.

‘No, I s’pose not.’

Ned starts to pour a Foster’s — the tap quickly sputters, spitting out only foam. He sighs, and withdraws.

Sleepily, Paul turns to the hall — now that his eyes are more used to the darkness, it is full of shapes. The tables and the large hooded lights that hang over them. ‘Oli?’ he says.

Oli’s voice, from somewhere out in the hall — ‘Yeah?’

‘All right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Ned’s just changing the barrel.’

Paul tries to shrug off his sleepiness. The darkness and dusty silence of the hall do not help. He wishes that he could lie down under one of the tables, on the filthy, mildewed carpet — its colour is something of a mystery — and sleep. He empties his throat, loudly — as if to startle himself into wakefulness — and steps over to the rack where the club cues are kept. They are a miserable, motley crew — some grotesquely warped, some unweighted, their tips knocked down to splintery mushrooms. One is even cracked. Surely no one ever uses it, yet it is still there in the rack …

He hears Ned return from his ‘office’ saying, ‘Sorry about that.’ It is nice to see Ned — he has not seen him for two months. And with all that has happened, old Ned for one is still the same. ‘No problemo,’ Paul says.

Ned transfers several pint pots of foam to the little stainless-steel sink before the lager starts to flow. ‘As fresh as it gets,’ he says, pushing the pint towards Paul.

‘And a Coke for Oli.’

‘Yeah, sure.’ Ned has just poured himself a quarter pint of Foster’s and slung it down his throat. He wipes the foam from his mouth. ‘Which table you want?’ he asks, taking a can of Coke from the fridge.

‘Whichever,’ Paul murmurs, still yawning in front of the cues.

‘Whichever. Right.’

When he has poured the Coke into a pint glass, Ned turns to a panel of sixteen brown light switches with a marker pen number next to each one. ‘Number eight then.’

And suddenly the table is there.

Staring at the cues, Paul wishes that he had not smoked that last spliff, an hour ago. That had been a mistake. It had flattened him, made him want to slither upstairs and lie face down on the bed. That was what he would normally be doing at this time — and tomorrow, tomorrow would be the same as today — they were going up to London to have Easter lunch with Heather’s parents. It would be hell for him, of course — sitting down to a steaming roast dinner in the middle of the night — but Heather was insistent. He takes one of the cues and weighs it in his hand. Then he shuts one eye and looks down it. It is fucked. He is faintly troubled by something that happened at about eleven thirty last night, when he was on his way home from the twenty-four-hour shop. Turning into Lennox Road, he saw Heather emerging from Martin’s car. She had been out with Alice. When he walked over, she explained that Martin had been meeting someone in the same place, and had offered her a lift. ‘Where was that?’ Paul had asked. They were standing next to the yellow Saab. Martin was still strapped into the driver’s seat, with his hands on the wheel. When she told him where it was — the bar of the Metropole — Paul said, ‘Oh, very swish,’ and stooping to peer into the car, he had thanked Martin for driving her home …

‘Here the balls,’ Ned says, wiping some foam from his mouth.

Without exchanging the fucked cue, Paul walks to the bar for the pitted plastic tray. Oli has emerged from the darkness and is waiting in the penumbra of the table’s light, swinging his cue impatiently from side to side. ‘Set the balls up, will you, Oli,’ Paul says, putting the tray down on the baize. It is what he always says — a sort of liturgical utterance, words that hallow what follows and set it apart from the usual fare of life.

He has met Martin several times over the past two months. None of these meetings has been pleasant. Leaving the supermarket one morning, he walked into him — muttering, ‘Sorry, mate,’ and only then seeing who it was.

‘Oh, Paul,’ Martin said.

‘Yeah. All right, Martin?’

Peering past him into the shop, Martin said, ‘Um … How’s it going?’

‘Fine.’

‘Great. That’s great!’

‘And you?’

Martin nodded. ‘Fine.’

‘All right, well …’

‘Yes, I …’

‘See you soon I hope, Martin.’

‘Of course. See you soon, Paul.’

He had been immensely troubled by this meeting. It had upset him for a week; sent him scurrying for whisky, ending the era (how short it had been!) of teetotal Paul. It seemed to pop open questions that he had hoped were shut and put his small, private sense of satisfaction under strain.

The doorbell sounds — the snooker players have started to arrive — and Ned, wiping foam from his mouth, switches on the security camera’s grey-and-white screen.

It sometimes happens that, when unusually tired or stoned, Paul produces snooker of a semi-professional standard. On these occasions — his muscles strangely limp, his mind vacant — he somehow makes the balls move exactly as he wants them to.

So it is today.

Initially, however, while Oli starts (and is at the table for some time), Paul — sitting under the brass score sliders — struggles just to stay awake. Several times, Oli has to tell him to keep up with the scoring, and once his cue slips from his hand and smacks the carpet — just as Oli is taking on a tricky black. He misses. Paul tells him to take it again. Oli shakes his head — he looks displeased. With a sigh, Paul stands. Oli sits with his arms folded, frowning. When he sips his Coke, it is with a furrowed brow. He does not feel that Paul is taking it seriously — with a sort of negligent laziness, he stoops to the first shot he sees, one that does not require him to move from where he is standing. It is not an easy red. It is as if he wants to miss it, Oliver thinks, so that he can sit down again, and sleep.

Slapdash, nonchalant, Paul pots it.

And yawns.

*

Oliver is a sulky loser, and vanishes from the hall while Paul is settling up with Ned. ‘There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about, actually,’ Ned says.

‘What’s that?’

He lowers his voice. ‘I’ve had a word with Jack Oakshott.’

‘Oh yeah?’ Jack Oakshott, the president of the Brighton and Hove Snooker Association. Paul has met him once or twice.

‘About young Oliver.’

‘Sure.’

‘Jack thinks he could go far,’ Ned says, wiping foam from his lip. ‘He’s very enthusiastic.’

‘What about?’

‘About putting him in for the Youth Championship. It’s in Bristol, in September —’

‘The Youth Championship? At his age?’

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Ned says. ‘You’re thinking —’

‘What about the Juniors?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Wouldn’t that be more realistic?’

‘Listen.’ Ned is whispering. Why, Paul does not know. ‘Jack’s thought this out. If we put him in for the Juniors, he might win. Sure. But winning the Juniors — it’s no big deal. Listen. Jack can reel off a list of Junior winners that never went on to go pro. It’s a sort of kiss of death. The Juniors. That’s what Jack says. Now the Youth Championship. Well, I don’t need to tell you all the big names have won it in their time. It is the number-one springboard to professional status.’