Noughties by Ben Masters

minutes, one-twoing it while Ella banged on about Hardy’s “poetics of ambiguity”). “It seems to me,” I nervously began, “that Hardy wants to whip the reader into a miserable pulp … kind of thing” (I mean just look at me: I’m living proof). “Just as you think things can’t possibly get any worse, he like buffets you on the head again, but a little bit harder. He pushes it to extremes. Like that bit when Old Father Time kills his brother and sister andleaves the suicide note” (Is this a memory I need right now?) “it’s well crushing. How is the reader meant to like recover from that?” (I have got the right novel, haven’t I, because they’re both looking at me like I’m chatting breeze.) “It’s so like fragile and brutal all at the same time. So moving … in a way. The terseness of the suicide note, contrasted by the like complexity of Jude’s reactions, is true to life sort of thing—things happen fast and are over quickly” (unlike this tute) “yet we continue to assimilate and suffer long after, if you know what I mean?” (Get on with it … I need to get on with it.)
    “Oh please!
‘Done because we are too menny
,’ ” blurted Dylan, who had been patiently allowing me to dig my own grave. “It’s so facile and contrived … surely it inspires nothing but laughter!” (Well, if you put it like that …) “It makes me think of Wilde’s remark” (excuse me?) “that ‘one must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing,’ which could have been better applied to the death of Jude’s children. It’s straight out of Victorian melodrama.”
    (I’m looking at Ella. What could I have done?)
    “Ermm … well, you know … it’s like … kind of … well … absolutely … I mean it’s ludicrous! That’s what I was trying to say. So unrealistic … removed from reality. I agree … totally.”
    Like I said, I’d soon get the hang of this tutorial jazz.
    Dylan smiled, Ella frowned, I blushed. And then I wondered what Lucy was up to back home.
    A waiting room. I’m on a hard chair that affords no comfort. I can hear sounds of terror and confusion. I’m trapped and burdened by impending bad news. Silence. Is it safe? Isit safe? It’s dark and I shiver … a nightmare of being back in the womb … a dispossessed return … depersonalized … Something bad is coming—
    Sudden noise. Back in the King’s Arms.
    There’s a bunch of Americans to my right, yawping and like oh-my-godding. They’re everywhere in Oxford, drawn by its filmic sweeps and dreaming pointy bits. They ramble on about
Harry Potter
and
Brideshead
, experiencing the city through a screen.
    “I need a Guinness and a Gem,” says their spokesperson.
    No you don’t. You would
like
a Guinness and a Gem. You don’t
need
them. You’re not going to keel over if you don’t have them … if anything you’ll be less likely to.
    Their sense of entitlement trumps ours. We’re just a fascinating subspecies … quaint and formal … less assured and too self-mocking.
    “And I guess I’ll have a Stella.”
    You guess or you know? Shall we wait a bit until you find out for sure? And, by the way, these statements need a softener—a “please” or a “may I”—to take the edge off. I purposely raise my game in compensation:
    “Alright buddy. Could I have eight pints of Fosters please? Nice one.” (Well, I
could
, but am I going to? Shut up!)
    Two round-trips see my purchases over to the gang.
    “Cheers, bruv.”
    “Nice one, boss.”
    Looking around the table I see a gallery of wear and tear: the body bags saddled beneath the eyes; the corduroy frown lines ironed into the foreheads; the resident sweat patches. We’re all frayed and scuffed, barely held together by gel, wax, and creams. Sanj is blinking again, bless him.Maybe it’s all the emotion; the sense of occasion dragging his lids and weighing his brow. I refrain from pointing this out. It