David Szalay - London and the South-East

‘But he’s not going to win the Youth Championship,’ Paul says tiredly.

‘Not this year.’

‘And not next year.’

‘Not next year. But in three or four years, when he comes up against lads his own age, he’ll have three or four years’ experience of the tournament. And they’ll be coming from the Juniors. D’you see?’

‘Well,’ Paul says, ‘yeah.’

‘Jack’s seen this done with other players. He knows what he’s talking about.’

‘Sure.’

‘I want to get you two together for a drink sometime — have a chat about it.’

‘Yeah, let’s do that.’

‘I’m excited about this boy,’ Ned says. He taps Paul — who does not look excited — on the arm. ‘Aren’t you excited, mate?’

‘Yeah, course.’

Suddenly solicitous, even worried, Ned says, ‘You all right?’

‘I’m fine. I’m tired, that’s all.’

‘Jack’s thinking about the Argus for sponsorship.’

‘The Argus ?’

‘Well, they know him, don’t they?’ They do know him — he was in the paper last November, in an article headlined HOVE SCHOOLBOY MAKES MAXIMUM BREAK.

‘Where is he, by the way?’

‘He’s gone. He’s left.’

‘Why? What’s his problem?’

‘Dunno. He doesn’t like losing.’

‘Who does? And he’s a winner.’

‘He is indeed.’

Paul finds him loitering sulkily in the alley outside. ‘All right?’

‘When can we play again?’ he says.

‘Dunno. Next week?’

‘Okay.’

‘Okay?’

In silence — one sullen, the other sleepy — they walk back to Lennox Road.

STARING FIXEDLY AT the oncoming motorway, Paul is trying to stay awake. The swishing hum of the engine as it toils, the monotony before him, the fact that it is more or less his bedtime — quarter to twelve, a.m. — all weigh heavily on his eyelids. In the back of the car, the children have stopped making noise, are probably asleep. Nor is Heather in a talkative mood — she has said hardly a word since they set out. And next to Paul, at the wheel, Martin’s jaw — like the air in the Saab’s cramped cabin — is tensely, nervously tight. It is Easter Day, and they are off to Heather’s parents’ house for lunch.

She did not mention to Paul until last night that Martin had offered to drive them. She told him as she was going up to bed, leaving him to spend the next few hours in uncomfortable wonderment at the lengths to which Martin would go to be of service to her. Was there anything he would not do?

‘What, he’s coming to the lunch?’ Paul had said in disbelief.

‘No, of course not.’

‘What’s he going to do then — wait in the car?’

She was standing in the doorway in her dressing gown. She yawned. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. And they both laughed uneasily.

‘But he can’t do that!’ Paul said, suddenly feeling that it was in fact too much. For Martin to regrout the shower, to unblock the drains was one thing. To do this though … ‘Come on …’ There was something weird about it. Was it not slightly insane? And should Martin not be dissuaded from such insane actions? Paul was surprised, even shocked, at Heather’s willingness to make use of him.

‘He wants to,’ was all she said.

For a few moments Paul was speechless. Then he said, ‘It’s not right.’

The doorbell’s urgent exclamation sounded on the stroke of eleven. Heather was still upstairs. She seemed unusually on edge, was yelling impatiently at Marie. The doorbell sounded again. Though it was, of course, too late — he was able to see Martin’s tall shape splintered in the frosted glass panels of the door — Paul wished, as he went to open it, that he had done something to forestall this situation. He found that he was humming to himself, out of nervousness. Nobody’s dignity, he thought, twisting the mortise, is going to survive this intact. Martin was wearing a blouson jacket of greenish-blue suede, jeans and moccasins. Also sunglasses — iridescent teardrop mirrors — which he whipped off as Paul opened the door. He was blushing, his grey-blue eyes subtly evasive. ‘Morning, Martin,’ Paul said.

‘Paul.’

‘It’s really very good of you to offer to do this.’

‘It’s no trouble.’

Paul laughed — a single, flinty Ha! ‘I’m glad you think so. I’m glad you think so. Come in.’

Martin stepped warily into the hall, looking around with the air of someone who had never seen it before; with the strange air, in fact, of someone entering a famous space, the Sistine Chapel say, for the first time — there was something of the well-behaved tourist in the way he moved his head from side to side, systematically taking in his surroundings — the beige hall, the small steps, the framed print of Salisbury cathedral. ‘Um, come through,’ Paul said, holding out a hand in the direction of the sitting room. There they stood in the residual haze of the spliff smoke; and there too Martin seemed to think that he was in a museum, piously inspecting Heather’s knick-knacks, and keeping his hands safely in his pockets. ‘Coffee?’ Paul said. He hoped that Martin would want one, if only to give him an excuse to leave the lounge, where the atmosphere stung with discomfiture, with a kind of dumb imbroglio, the social ineptitude of a botched and sinking date. Martin shook his head immediately and said, ‘No, thanks.’ There followed perhaps a minute of silence, and then, unable to think of anything else to say, Paul asked him what he was planning to do while they had lunch. Martin just shrugged and said, ‘I don’t know.’ Paul was still nodding, as if weighing up this answer, his lips held in a thoughtful moue, when — preceded by the children with their newly brushed hair — Heather tumbled down the stairs. ‘Hi, Martin,’ she said, with the merest skimming look in his direction. (Paul thought her embarrassment entirely understandable.) Martin did not even say hello to her. Excited by the prospect of travelling in the yellow Saab, it was the children who did most of the talking.

Low in the sporty leather seat, Paul struggled to stay awake as they sped up the A23, through its innumerable chalky cuttings, towards London.

The traffic is light, and the sun shines through intermittently, dumping its metallic brightness on the monochrome hues of the road. Martin stares straight ahead. In the back, the children are quiet, as if drugged by the scent of leather and — used to the sluggishness of Heather’s old Vauxhall — the smooth impulsive acceleration of the vehicle. Near Reigate, still in uneasy silence, they join the M25. The stiffly generous banter of the first fifteen minutes of the journey, as they disentangled themselves from Brighton — Paul had made a particular effort, Martin was more monosyllabic — is a distant memory now. No one has said a word for an hour. At some point between junctions eight and nine, Paul finally nods off — and wakes with a start in a quiet, residential street, to the patient, measured tick of the indicator. Aware of him in his peripheral vision, he wonders how Martin must feel. Their presence in Hounslow makes the situation seem even stranger than it did in Hove. They are on the Staines Road … His head flops loosely on his exhausted neck as the synthetic voice of the GPS system says, ‘Turn. Right.’ And Martin turns the wheel. He lets them out in front of the house. Standing on the pavement, Paul fears for a moment that Heather will invite him to join them for lunch. She does not. She says she will phone him when they have finished, and — still strapped into his seat — he smiles tensely (feeling quite foolish, Paul imagines) and drives away with a defensive brusqueness, a dash of turbo, as if he has things to do.