As they strolled under the bright streetlamps of the Chillington
Road, Howard and Greg passed a mother ferrying a child in a pushchair. The
toddler pointed at Greg and said in a staccato, twee squeak, 'Mummy - look
- at - that - big - fat - man!'
Greg's laugh shook like a series of sonic booms. The mother
looked at him. Apologetic nervousness played on her face.
Greg hid his can of strong larger behind his back, smiled
gently at the mother and winked. 'He's a bit
young for you isn't he
Love?' He bent down. 'Hello young man!' Greg pulled some daft faces and made
farting noises so revolting that Howard winced. The child chuckled hysterically.
Greg offered to escort the mother home. She thanked him and declined.
The students reprised their march to the Union disco.
'Chatting up
mums now are we Greg? Whatever next?'
laughed Howard.
'
Sodom'and'Gomorrah!' I was
not chatting her
up, you fucking
imbecile!' snapped Greg angrily. 'I wanted them to
be
safe and sound! Is it morally fucking wrong to want to see them
home safe and sound? What with all the nutters out there.'
Greg fell quiet: an uncharacteristic condition. Howard saw
him wipe something from his eye. Seeing this unusual behaviour Howard thought
it best to make less risqué conversation and embarked on a tentative monologue
about the first subject that entered his mind: Jacintha.
'For fuck's sake, give it a frigging rest!' barked Greg.
'I'm driven insane by this bleeding
Jacintha chick.
Fuck her!'
Howard shrank away. Shocked and embarrassed he silently
castigated himself. He made a mental note to change his conversational habits
and stop lamenting poor Jacintha so much, at least verbally. Within his mind
it was impossible to desist, the guilt was agony. In retrospect he felt disgusted
with his own capacity to enrage his companion. He desperately tried to conjure
up a new topic of conversation, but in his state of desperate turmoil he was
unable to summon anything light-hearted to say. Greg's capriciousness was
terrifying and was worsening of late.
In silence they passed through the main doors of the Students'
Union; descended the concrete stairs; flashed their Union cards at the green-uniformed
ladies seated behind tills mounted on improvised tables; bought tickets; dumped
their coats at the cloakroom and entered the fray in the main hall. Greg's
mood was jovial once again. He joked with the ticket brokers and with the
cloakroom attendants. The disco was well underway: pop thundered and lights
flashed and thrashed through the crowded darkness. Greg spied some attractive
girls near the stage and moved towards them seemingly as automatically as
an amoeba drifts towards food. The girls' faces, bosoms and legs were beautiful
enough to incur the envious wrath of a goddess.
Merry in attitude, Greg made a break and ambled over to
the girls. They were gorgeous to the point of being utterly intimidating.
Howard hesitated. When Greg approached they became animated but standoffish.
Howard watched with fixed curiosity. There was ice to be broken and Greg set
about the task with the unshakeable confidence of a lion tamer pitched against
fractious Persian cats. Greg spoke. The beautiful women recoiled and seemed
to show distaste at what had been said. Greg continued to laugh and natter.
Slowly their resentment seemed to ebb and their demeanour softened. Their
censure melted into amicability. The acquaintance was now fond and soon they
were laughing with zest at the mysterious things Greg gleefully said to them.
Howard watched and felt trepidation: he felt as if he should
join Greg to balance the equation to the more natural two guys with two girls
but if he marched in and was blown out by the girls - and he couldn't foresee
a different scenario - then he would make another mockery of himself with
Greg as witness. Then in the future Greg was likely to casually humiliate
him by sadistically joking with Gallie and Karen about Howard's indignity.
So Howard decided he would need to play safe. He decided to warm up by trying
to pull a less daunting woman, in the same way tennis players ease into a
match with a few easy practice serves and volleys. He returned to the bar
and looked glum. He saw one of his course mates: a chubby faced woman with
kindly eyes and dressed in dungarees and pumps. She was unglamorous but that
wasn't a problem: he felt she was more likely to accept his overtures, after
all this
was merely a warm-up act. He had never spoken to her before
but she seemed informal in her aspect. And she was alone! It was time to grasp
the nettle. He edged towards her. She looked at him and smiled.
'Christmas comes and goes and so will you!' he found himself
muttering awkwardly. The seriousness, misery and pathos with which with he
animated this opening was bizarrely at odds with the childish flippancy of
its gist. He castigated himself. What the hell did he say such a dire line
for? It wasn't even Christmas! She would think he was a complete idiot. Should
he apologise? No. He would batten down the hatches, turn on the charm and
hope for the best.
'Is that your best effort?' enquired the girl in the neutral
tones of one asking the time.
'I really couldn't say,' he said with a knowing half smile.
The girl smiled and tilted her head. 'That was really a
really half-hearted delivery, but it will do, I'm not fussy, I'm hardly expecting
some romantic literary speech in
here I suppose. You can buy me a drink,
if you like. Pernod and lemonade.'
Unbelievable! That cheesy chat-up line had
done the trick!
And it could be adapted for year-round use.
Easter comes and goes and so
will you. Yeah, that works.
Summer comes and goes and so will you.
Yes, that works well too! It certainly
was a versatile line. But Howard
didn't want the girl to consider him an idiot who relied on such a crass line.
'Wow, I hooked you with that terrible line!' he laughed.
'Huh!
I hooked
you, actually! But I might
throw you back into the water again when I've finished my pernod.'
Feeling vivacious, Howard rushed to the bar. But the queues
were deep. He was tormented by the grave friction of time. He rapaciously
imagined dancing with the girl, taking her for an engaging takeaway and capping
it all with a sexy romp under his duvet. He had pulled! He actually felt sanguine.
The engine of the Universe
could conjure up pleasure after all. With
a frustrated eye he studied how the bar staff poured the beer with all the
haste of frail old women. It was as if the bar was a sleepy village embedded
in the manic city centre of the disco. He performed a drunken calculus of
how long it would take to get served based on the time it took to pour and
buy the drinks, the average number drinks per order and the number of jostling
students blocking him from the bar.
'
Fuck!' he whispered to himself. He remembered a
discussion he had with Dominic about time. Howard repeated what he had said
to Dominic: '
In every moment of your life the universe splits into two:
one in which your heart beats, and one in which it stops.' Howard felt
as if he was suffering a billion deaths, and would suffer a trillion more
before he was able to procure the girl's pernod and lemonade.
However, no matter of temporal obstacles, future becomes
past. As he got to the bar and was served, he speculated that one day his
wait for death would be over. It was just a matter of time and the future
always seemed to arrive unsuspectingly. He paid for his drinks and hurried
back to give the girl her pernod.
She wasn't there.
He felt that she must have gone to the ladies. He awaited
her return, and once again he contemplated time. But now, as hope drained
like sands from an hourglass, his depression returned. He thought of the future
as he remembered thinking about it as a small boy in the school playground.
The future was all before him: an exotic realm ready to be explored, a rich,
magical kingdom to be plundered. And yet he was in this future right now,
and it was foul. There was no magic in the future. Just existence. Just pain.
The girl did not reappear. Greg was dancing on the dance
floor, performing one of his comedy dance routines. His female companions
were laughing at his clowning antics. Usually Howard too would laugh just
watching him, but not now. He swallowed the pernod and lemonade, clutched
his own beer in its plastic pint glass and went through an open glass door
into the large bar room. He spied Dominic and Karen seated at one of the many
round tables near the bar. He avoided them, returned to the disco hall, stood
alone on the edge of the dance floor and thought of Jacintha. Once again his
stomach ached with sharp guilt.
'Come with me if you want to live!'
Howard looked up to see Greg beckon.
'I'd rather not.'
'Ya daft bastard! What you bleeding talking about? I've
got you fixed up with this cosmic chick over there. If you've had yer nuts
tighten when clocking a lass a few times in yer innocent life, I can tell
you that pair of crackers are enough to crank yer knackers to frigging breaking
point from twenty yards.'
Howard gazed at the stunning girls Greg had been dancing
with. They were stood by the stage where he had first seen them. They furtively
talked to each other as if exchanging secrets that had to be whispered even
over the calamity of the disco.
'They are fucking sublime, I admit it but I couldn't possibly.
Perhaps next time,' said Howard. He looked intently at Greg. 'There's
always
another time.'
'There's
never next time with gorgeous creatures
like them, they don't let them out of Hell for long' roared Greg. 'Ha, more
tottie for me eh?'
A few minutes later the girls were patting Greg on the arm
and giggling at various tattoos he was suddenly revealing to them. He attempted
to pull down his trousers, but the girls manhandled him to stem his exhibitionism.
Howard stared in transfixed awe at this awesome performance. Despair infused
him with its idle wrath. He envied Greg for his knack at handling women and
he despised the pretty women Greg was chatting to because he was convinced
they would not give him the time of day. He looked around the bar room at
all the students, smoking and drinking and noisily arguing and bragging over
the round tables and benches that lined the perimeter. At that moment he loathed
them, with their shiny faces and their smug expressions. All of a sudden he
detested them all. They would be lawyers and architects and bankers and shop
managers and somethings-in-the-city and salesmen and accountants and managers
and brokers of car insurance: he hated them one and all. He sipped bitterly
at his pint of Grobbish lager. He looked around through narrowed eyes. Two
boilersuited women, plain of face, played pool in a dark corner. One was leaning
over the table, reaching for an awkward shot. Not even the boilersuit could
disguise the fact that her waist was vast. Her heavy breasts disturbed the
balls. Regardless of this she played her shot. Howard hated the boilersuits
and their bloated contents that seemed to him like squirming fat chrysalises
concealing gorging creatures within. The more he gazed at the students the
more his misanthropy waxed. What foul pigs, what loathsome disgusting pigs!
 | | | | |
| From: |
JGR | Subject: | 2002-10-01 14:05:04 |
| | | | |
| From: |
Knoeier | Subject: | 2002-12-18 17:39:07 |
| | | | |
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