Starter For Ten (33 page)

I float home. I've not really eaten anything except crisps and peanuts for twenty-four hours, so I'm starving hungry, and I've managed to pull a muscle in my neck while kissing Alice, which has got to be a good thing. I also have that dizzy, hollow, drugged feeling that you get when you've stayed up all night, and am pretty much running on adrenaline, elation and someone else's saliva, so I stop in the garage and get a can of Fanta, a Mars bar and a Mint Aero for breakfast, and start to feel a little better.

It's a beautiful crisp winter morning, and there are crowds of school kids holding hands with their parents, strolling to school. Standing eating the Mint Aero at a pelican crossing I catch the eye of the little girl stood next to me, who's glancing curiously at my shoes and trousers which are still caked in mud, so that it looks as if I've been dipped in milk chocolate. This strikes me as the kind of quaint picture-book image that little kids respond to, so I smile at the little girl, bend down and say aloud, in a J.D. Salinger-ish kind of way: 'I've actually been dipped in milk chocolate!'

But something happens to the words between my brain and my mouth, and it suddenly sounds as if this is the strangest and most disturbing thing that anyone has ever said to a child. Her mum seems to agree too, because she scowls at me like I'm The Child-catcher, picks up her child and hurries across the road before the lights have even changed. I shrug if off, because I'm determined not to let anything spoil this morning, because I want to keep hold of this feeling of slightly queasy elation, but there's something else bothering me, something that I can't quite shake off.

Spencer. What do I say to Spencer? Apologise, I suppose. But not too solemnly, I won't make a big deal about it, I'll just sort of say, hey, sorry about last night, I think things got a bit out of hand, mate, and then we'll just sort of laugh it off. And I'll tell him about how Alice and I made love, except I won't call it that, I'll call it 'got off with each other', and then things will be back to normal. Of course it's probably best if he does still leave today, but I'll make an effort, I'll bunk off lectures and patch things up and escort him to the train station.

But when I get back to Richmond House, he's not there. In fact the room seems exactly the same as when we left it yesterday afternoon - the bed frame, the mess of duvets and cold, damp towels, the smell of ammonia and Special Brew and Calor gas. I wonder if he's left any possessions here, and then remember that he didn't actually have any in the first place; just a thin plastic bag with a three-day old Daily Mirror and a stale meat pasty in it, still beside my desk where he left it. Anxious, I pick up the plastic bag, and head out to the kitchen, where Josh and Marcus die eating poached eggs and cheeking then share prices in The Times.

'Did either of you see Spencer last night?'

'No, 'fraid not,' says Josh.

'Isn't he with you?' grumbles Marcus.

'No, we got split up at a party. I thought he'd make his own way back.'

'Why? Where have you been then, you dirty stop-out?' leers Josh.

'Just staying over at a friend's place. My friend Alice's actually,' I say, and then remember that I'm not meant to tell anyone.

'Whooooooooooo,' they say in unison.

'Well, you know how it is, you've either got it or you haven't!' I say, put Spencer's stuff in the bin, and leave. I haven't got 'it' of course, I've never had 'it', never will have 'it', am not even sure what 'it' is, but there's no reason why I shouldn't let people think that I do have 'it', even if it's just for a little while.

Rosemary stood up and leaned down and said her most sincere thing to him: 'Oh, we're such actors you and I.'

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night

QUESTION: In his article of 1926, published in the review 'Lef by the poet Mayakovsky, Sergei Eisenstein proposes a new form of cinema that relies less on the static, logical, linear unfolding of action, and more on a stylised juxtaposition of images. What is Eisenstein's name for this new cinematic form?

ANSWER: Montage of attractions.

There's a generic convention, recognisable particularly from mainstream American film, where the hero and heroine fall in love with each other during a protracted, wordless montage sequence, inevitably underscored by some sort of lush orchestral ballad, usually with a sax solo. I'm not sure why falling-in-love should be wordless - maybe because the actual business of sharing your most intimate thoughts and secrets and desires is a bit of a chore for those not immediately involved. But anyway, this sequence illustrates all the various fun things that young lovers are meant to do - eating popcorn at the movies, giving each other piggy-backs, kissing on a park bench, trying on goofy hats, drinking glasses of wine in a foam-filled bath, falling into swimming pools, walking home arm-in-arm at night whilst pointing out the different constellations etc. etc. etc.

Well, with Alice and me, the last week has been absolutely nothing like that at all. In fact, I haven't heard from her, which is fine because my new watchwords are Cool and Aloof, and I'm taking great care not to infringe on her precious independence, especially as she's so busy with Hedda Gabler. And I really don't mind not hearing from her. In fact, I've only telephoned her, what, five, six times during the entire week, and I haven't left messages either, so the beauty of it is that, as far as Alice is concerned, I haven't phoned her, either! Admittedly, there was one slightly sticky moment when Rebecca Epstein picked up the phone, and I had to subtly alter my voice a little way into the call, but I think I got away with it.

Instead, I've been distracting myself by listening to a lot of mid-period Bush and pouring all my feelings into a love poem that I've been working on for Valentine's Day, in three days' time, the day before The Challenge. Of course I recognise that Valentine's Day is nothing more than a cynical, exploitative marketing construct, but there was a time when Valentine's Day was a really big thing for me, and involved this huge, Reader's Digest-style mail-out. I'm a lot older now, more emotionally discerning, so now it's just a card to Mum and Alice and that's my limit. The Cool and Aloof thing to do with Alice, of course, would be not to send her a card at all, but I don't want her thinking that I've gone off her or, worse, that what happened between us was only about sex.

As for the poem, it's going okay, but I can't seem to settle on the appropriate verse form, and have been experimenting with the Petrarchan sonnet, the Elizabethan sonnet, rhyming couplets, Alexandrines, haikus and blank verse, and may well end up writing a limerick.

Alice, palace, chalice, phallus, malice ...

In the end, it turns out that Patrick's nose isn't broken at all. That's not to say it isn't red and misshapen and swollen, and it's certainly taken the edge off the Action Man good looks for the moment. There's a scar on his cheek too, appropriately enough, which I think looks pretty cool and hard, but I don't tell him this.

'Docs it hurt?' I ask.

'Does it look like it hurts?' he scowls.

'A bit.'

'Well, it does hurt. It bloody hurts as a matter of fact,' and to prove his point he touches it to make it hurt, then winces theatrically. We're in his neat military-style kitchen, making tea before the rest of the team arrive for the last rehearsal before our TV appearance. 'You do realise that it's still going to be like this next week? When we're on television'} In front of millions of people?'

'Not that many millions, Patrick. And anyway, I'm sure they'll be able to cover it up with make-up or something.'

'Well, I hope so, Brian, because more or less the whole of my family are going to be there in the studio, and I don't want to have to explain that some skinhead cockney oik did it just because he didn't happen to agree with my political views.'

'That's not the only reason he did it, is it though?'

'He did it because he's a wild animal who should never have been let off his leash. He's just very lucky that I've decided not to sue.'

'No point. He hasn't got any money.'

'No wonder, too. I'm not surprised he can't get a decent job . . .'

'Actually, he's very intelli . . .' '...not if that's how he behaves himself . . .'

'Well, you were being a bit . . .'

'A bit what?'

I contemplate telling him - pompous, ignorant, obnoxious, rude, patronising - but decide against it, because at the end of the day my best friend did beat him up, so instead I just say, 'Anyway, I got you this - a peace offering, to say sorry, on Spencer's behalf . . .' and I hand over the gift, a massive slab of a Cadbury's Fruit and Nut, a left-over Christmas present from Nana Jackson. This feels a bit unprincipled, because of course Spencer would never, ever dream of apologising, and tor a moment I contemplate bringing the slab of Fruit and Nut down hard on the bridge of his supercilious right-wing nose, imagine the noise it would make, that satisfying loud crack, but I hand it over politely instead, because we are meant to be a team after all. Patrick mumbles a terse 'thank you very much' and stashes the chocolate on the very top of the wall-cupboards so that he doesn't actually have to share it with anyone.

The doorbell rings. 'If that's Lucy, Brian, then you should apologise. I think she was a little shaken by the whole thing, to be honest.' I run downstairs, and open the door to Lucy and her panda.

'Hello, Brian!' she says, brightly.

'Lucy, I just wanted to say that I'm really, really sorry about the fight the other day . . .'

'Oh, that's okay. I was going to call you in the week to see if . . .'

ALICE! Alice appears over Lucy's shoulder.

'Hiya, Alice!' I say.

'Hello, Brian,' she says, and gives an imperceptible smile, because after all, we have a secret.

The rest of the meeting passes uneventfully enough. There's no news about who our competition's going to be, because they like to keep it secret until the day of recording, but Patrick tells us not to be thrown if it's Oxbridge or the Open University; 'They're very overrated,' he says. Then there's a lot of practical stuff about hiring the minibus from the hockey team, and putting up posters in the Student Union for anyone who wants to come along and support us. One of Patrick's big-boned, right-wing pals from the Economics department has offered to drive the minibus of supporters up to Manchester, providing we can get enough people to show an interest. 'So if there's anyone you want to come along, get them to sign the form in the Student Union.'

Alice is going to invite the cast of Hedda Gabler, and Lucy has some medic pals, but the only person I can think of to invite is Rebecca. I'm not entirely sure that she wouldn't boo, or cheer the other side, but I decide to at least give her the option.

'Now . . .' says Patrick, consulting his type-written notes '...the final item on the agenda. We need to decide on some kind of team mascot!'

I don't really own anything that could qualify as a mascot, and Patrick owns nothing even remotely soft or amusing, so in the end it's a toss-up between Alice's favourite old teddy, Eddie, or the skull of Lucy's anatomical skeleton, which very wittily Alice suggests we wrap in a college scarf and call Yorick.

We go for Eddie.

After we finish, I have to run off down the street to catch up with Alice, who's got to get straight to rehearsals.

'So what are you doing tomor ...?'

'Rehearsing . . .'

'But during the day?'

'Well, I've got to get an essay in, so . . .'

'Fancy the pictures?'

'The pictures?' She stops in the street, looks both ways to check no one's looking, and says, 'Okay. The pictures.' We make an arrangement, and I skip home to really get cracking on that poem.

And the following afternoon, she bunks off her essay to be with me exclusively and we go to the pictures together. The cinema's not ideal, of course, because the opportunities to talk or to just look at her, are limited. Also, she wants to go and see Back to the Future at the Odeon, which she insists will be 'a laugh, a bit of fun', but I have something a bit more intellectually demanding in mind. So instead we go and watch the Tuesday afternoon double-bill of ground-breaking early silent film at the Arts Cinema; Dali and Bunuel's startling surrealist 1928 masterpiece Un Chien Andalou and Eisenstein's masterly Soviet polemic Battleship Potemkin (1925).

We buy a whole load of confectionery from the newsagents beforehand, because, as I point out, the mark-up on confectionery in the cinema is absolutely outrageous, and then settle down in centre aisle seats, two of only six people in the whole auditorium. The lights go down, and the atmosphere of suppressed sexual desire, like a mild electric current running through us, is almost tangible, as is the smell of damp cigarettes and curdled Kia-ora, and the cold, and the vague feeling of infestation. It's Un Chien Andalou first. During the startling sequence involving the slitting of the eyeball and the decomposing donkey on top of the piano, Alice leans forward in her seat with her hands over her eyes, and I rather cornily put my arm round the back of her chair, as if shielding her from Dali and Bunuel's grotesque insight into the workings of the subconscious mind.

Then the lights come up and there's a brief intermission during which we eat a big bag of chocolate-covered peanuts, drink cans of Lilt, and debate surrealism and its relationship to the unconscious mind. Alice isn't a fan. 'It just leaves me cold. It's very ugly and alienating. It just doesn't move me or involve me emotionally, that's all . . .'

'It's not meant to engage or involve you emotionally, not in a conventionally sympathetic way. Surrealism is meant to be strange, unnerving. I find it very emotional, it's just that the emotions that we feel are often ones of anxiety and disgust . . .' and of course the ironic thing is that, unlike the surrealists, all I want is for Alice to be engaged and involved in a conventionally sympathetic way, and not to feel emotions of anxiety and disgust.

Then the lights go down, and things perk up again as Battleship Potemkin comes on. I keep sneaking looks at her during the famous Odessa Steps sequence until she smiles back at me, and I lean across and kiss her. And thank God, she kisses me back, for quite a while actually, and it's great. There's a slight citrus/dairy clash of flavours, because she's moved on to wine gums while I'm still on chocolate peanuts, and I can't really let rip because there's a peanut kernel wedged back in my wisdom teeth, and I don't want the kissing to get too fiery or wide-ranging in case she dislodges it. In the end I needn't have worried, because Alice soon breaks away and whispers, 'I think I'd better watch the film. I want to know what happens to the sailors!' and we go back to Battleship Potemkin.