David Szalay - London and the South-East

‘Jane?’ he says.

‘Hello.’

‘Do you want a drink?’

‘Okay.’

‘What would you like?’

‘What would I like. What are you having?’

He returns from the bar — she is joining him in a bière blanche — and she says, ‘This is a nice place.’

‘Yeah,’ he says, putting the glass bucket of beer on the table. ‘I think it’s new.’

‘Is it? Thank you.’

‘I think so.’

‘It’s nice,’ she says.

‘Yeah.’

‘I didn’t know about it.’

‘No. Well, I think it’s new. Um,’ he says, a moment later, ‘so you’re from Hove?’

‘I live in Brighton.’

He smiles. ‘Oh, the other place.’

‘The other place. London-on-Sea.’

‘Yes. Well. We’re more genteel in Hove.’

‘Yes.’ She sips the cloudy greyish beer. ‘Mm. This is nice.’

‘It is, isn’t it.’

She is not shy. She is wary, watchful. And she seems somehow without the tough shell of worldliness that normally forms on people in their maturity — or if she is not without it, it is translucent and ineffectual — and perhaps because of this it is easy to imagine her when she was very much younger than she is. Loose wisps of grey hair stand out at the margins of her smooth forehead. ‘That’s a nice picture,’ she says.

‘Yeah … I think it’s for sale actually.’

‘Is it?’

‘You … interested in art?’ Paul ventures.

‘Mm. Yes.’

‘What sort of thing?’

‘Oh. I don’t know really.’

‘Well, it’s difficult to know these days, isn’t it.’

Despite this difficulty, he soon finds himself putting forward some extremely strident opinions. Suddenly he seems to have a strident opinion on everything. He is sounding off on whatever question has the temerity to show its face. To stop himself, he asks her whether she is an art teacher — ‘You seem to know so much about it’ — and with a sharp laugh, a shake of the head, she says, ‘No, maths, I’m afraid. Sorry.’

‘Well, that’s more important than art.’ She smiles sceptically. ‘No, it is. How long have you been teaching then?’

‘God, do I really have to say?’ She has something of the hollowed-out, exhausted quality of some teachers; she is savagely matter-of-fact (dismissing her twenty-five-year membership of the profession with the statement ‘there’s not much else you can do with a maths degree’) and at the same time she seems emotionally vulnerable, easily upset. ‘Let’s just say it’s been a while.’

‘All right.’

‘Longer than I care to remember.’

‘I know the feeling. Still, it must be …’

While he puts questions to her, he wonders why her face is a strange sort of reddish brown. Perhaps it is just the light in the pub. Perhaps she has slapped on too much foundation. He has plenty of time to wonder this because she is now talking non-stop. Something seems to have set her off. He wonders what it was. One minute he was asking polite, interested questions — and she was passing him polite, meticulous answers; the next she is flushed, intense, voluble, plaintive, waspish. The subject seems to be the politics of education. Initially, he listens pert with interest. He is not able to maintain this for long, however. She seems exasperated about something — PFI, top-up fees, streaming, parents, ministers … Something. Zoning out, he nods thoughtfully, his phatics — once lovingly wrought one-offs — now no more than mass-produced murmurs. And surely she, as a teacher — a maths teacher — must have noted the total lack of positive evidence that he is following what she is saying, must have picked up on the listlessness of his eyes and posture. Or perhaps not — perhaps these are precisely the things that years of maths teaching have made her unable to see. Self-preservation. Just stand there and say your words, and then …

‘What?’ he says suddenly. ‘Sorry?’

‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I’ve been off on one again.’

‘No,’ he insists. ‘No. Not at all.’

‘I’ll stop now.’

‘Not on my account.’

‘Me, me, me!’

‘It was interesting.’

‘I’ve got a bit of a … thing about all that.’

‘Sure. And it’s totally understandable.’

‘What do you do?’

‘Me? Um. I’ve been working on a night shift,’ he says. He smiles. ‘If I seem a bit tired, that’s why.’

‘You don’t seem tired.’

‘Well, I suppose I shouldn’t. I only got up a few hours ago. No, it’s a good excuse to get straight on with …’ He hesitates. ‘These.’ Indicating his empty beer bucket.

Except for a slight quiver, she seems to ignore this hint of an alcohol problem, and quickly says, ‘Where’s that?’

‘Where’s …?’

‘Where do you work, on the night shift?’

‘Oh … Just … A supermarket.’

‘Which one?’

‘Sainsbury’s. You know the west Hove Sainsbury’s?’

‘Yes, of course. You’re the night-shift manager there?’

He nods. ‘M-hm.’

‘What’s it like?’

‘It’s all right.’

With her large, light brown eyes on him she waits for him to say more. ‘You know. I just have to make sure everything’s neat and tidy. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s not that demanding, to be honest.’

‘And,’ she says, ‘if you don’t mind my asking, why do you work nights? I mean, do all managers have to do it? For a while? Is that how it works?’

He is tempted to tell her yes and leave it there. Instead, he says, ‘No. It’s not like that.’

‘So do you like it?’ She smiles. ‘Maybe you’re a night owl!’

‘It’s all right.’ His tone is sombre — unintentionally so — and she immediately makes her eyes serious. ‘I s’pose I was a bit down,’ he says. ‘When I started. You know.’ She nods. ‘So. Well …’ And to his surprise, he finds himself launching into a long spiel about himself — one which is not even true; which has to fit with his self being a supermarket manager. So he says that he used to manage the fresh produce — ‘the fruit and veg, you know’ — and that when his marriage — ‘well, it ended’ — he started to suffer from insomnia, ‘and I thought I might as well work nights. It seemed appropriate somehow.’

She listens with an expression of intent sympathy, her head slightly lowered, looking up from under pencil-line eyebrows. When he pauses, she puts sympathetic questions. ‘Wasn’t it weird?’ she says quietly. ‘To work at night.’

‘It was weird. At first it was very weird, yeah. You get used to it. You do get used to it.’

‘You get used to everything,’ she says.

‘You do. That’s true.’

‘How long have you been doing it?’

‘Not that long. Six months.’

‘Are you going to carry on?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I know it’s none of my business,’ she says.

‘No, go on.’

‘Maybe … I don’t know …’ She is looking at the tabletop; then she turns to him. ‘Maybe … Do you think you’re hiding from something?’

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Maybe …’

‘I don’t know. I’m probably just being silly.’

‘Not at all.’

‘Psychobabble …’

Something touches his foot, and he looks down to see one of her black trainers stepping swiftly away. ‘I’m sorry. And before that?’ she says, flushing. ‘Before you worked nights. Did you like your work?’

‘Yeah, I did. You know.’ He smiles wryly. ‘As much as one can. Being fresh-produce manager, it’s a bit like working in a garden.’

She looks surprised. ‘Is it?’

‘Sometimes. You know — the fresh fruit and vegetables. Organic matter. Yeah, it is.’