Alan, raising his glass.
'Tell you what, girl,' said Russ, 'you really livened the place up, you have. Strew. The one we had before was a right dog. A right old poodle.'
'No,' said Alan, 'strew. That's right.'
'No,' said Russ, 'you have.'
'No,' said Alan, 'this is it.'
Til tell you what and all. The voice on her. She talks like a fuckin princess, she does.'
'Strew. Like a fuckin duchess, mate.'
'Like a fuckin emp ress mate! She does. I could listen to her all day and all night. Here's to you Mary! Your good elf!'
You see? she wanted to say. I'm good —I am.
Mary looked round the public house. Though only mildly furious in its pattern of exchange, the room was as crowded and cacophonous as the place she remembered from her second day—when she had been with Sharon, and with Jock and Trev. But how much less loud and various things seemed to her now. Oh, it was still interesting all right, interesting, interesting: did you see the way that woman looked up from her evening paper and towards the stained window with a ragged gasp, or the way that man tried to suppress a beam of love at his patient dog, lying under the table with its nose on its paws? Yes, but it's not enough to fill my thoughts, even here with friends, spending money earned from time sold. She thought, I'm becoming like other people. I'm getting fear and letting the present dim.
• • •
But it had to happen, Mary.
Life is made of fear. Some people eat fear soup three times a day. Some people eat fear soup all the meals there are. I eat it sometimes. When they bring me fear soup to eat, I try not to eat it, I try to send it back. But sometimes I'm too afraid to and have to eat it anyway.
Don't eat fear soup. Send it back.
Some people have fear but some have confidence instead. Which do you have? You're not confident, I know that. I know that, because actually no one has confidence. The most confident men and women you know—they haven't got confidence. No one has. Everyone has fear instead. (Unless they have that third thing, which men call madness.)
They fear they are a secret which other people will one day discover. They fear they are a joke which other people will one day see, which other people will one day get.
Do you know, for instance, what little Alan is afraid of now? He is afraid that Russ and Mary will shortly go off together somewhere for a protracted session of hysterical sex. He is. He can see Mary unfurling her immaculate white panties, glancing shyly over her shoulder, while the mightily hung Russ lolls smiling on the bed. And Alan can see himself, Alan, watching the whole spectacle from some abstract vantage, silent, unblinking, and perfectly bald, like a being from the future. Russ, on the other hand, is afraid that Alan will tell Mary, or that Mary will inadvertently discover, that he, Russ, can neither read nor write. (Russ has a further heroic foible: he refuses to believe that he has an unusually small penis. He is wrong about this; he ought to stop refusing to believe it; he does in fact have an unusually small one.) Whereas Mary is afraid of the address in her bag. She is afraid of Prince and what he knows. She is afraid that her life has in some crucial sense already run its course, that the life she moves through now is nothing more than another life's reflection, its mirror, its shadow. Everything she sees has an edge on it, like prisms in petrol, like faces in fire, like other people hurrying through changing light—visions that we sense ought to reveal something, or will soon reveal something, or have already revealed something that we have missed and will never see again.
• • •
'Time,' said the man behind the bar, 'time, gentlemen, please.'
Alan sprang up guiltily, barking his kneecap on the table and toppling an empty glass. As it fell, Russ tried to catch it, but only slapped the glass still faster to the floor. It didn't smash or break. It rose up to live again on the wet tabletop.
'Here, let's
'Tell you what, girl,' said Russ, 'you really livened the place up, you have. Strew. The one we had before was a right dog. A right old poodle.'
'No,' said Alan, 'strew. That's right.'
'No,' said Russ, 'you have.'
'No,' said Alan, 'this is it.'
Til tell you what and all. The voice on her. She talks like a fuckin princess, she does.'
'Strew. Like a fuckin duchess, mate.'
'Like a fuckin emp ress mate! She does. I could listen to her all day and all night. Here's to you Mary! Your good elf!'
You see? she wanted to say. I'm good —I am.
Mary looked round the public house. Though only mildly furious in its pattern of exchange, the room was as crowded and cacophonous as the place she remembered from her second day—when she had been with Sharon, and with Jock and Trev. But how much less loud and various things seemed to her now. Oh, it was still interesting all right, interesting, interesting: did you see the way that woman looked up from her evening paper and towards the stained window with a ragged gasp, or the way that man tried to suppress a beam of love at his patient dog, lying under the table with its nose on its paws? Yes, but it's not enough to fill my thoughts, even here with friends, spending money earned from time sold. She thought, I'm becoming like other people. I'm getting fear and letting the present dim.
• • •
But it had to happen, Mary.
Life is made of fear. Some people eat fear soup three times a day. Some people eat fear soup all the meals there are. I eat it sometimes. When they bring me fear soup to eat, I try not to eat it, I try to send it back. But sometimes I'm too afraid to and have to eat it anyway.
Don't eat fear soup. Send it back.
Some people have fear but some have confidence instead. Which do you have? You're not confident, I know that. I know that, because actually no one has confidence. The most confident men and women you know—they haven't got confidence. No one has. Everyone has fear instead. (Unless they have that third thing, which men call madness.)
They fear they are a secret which other people will one day discover. They fear they are a joke which other people will one day see, which other people will one day get.
Do you know, for instance, what little Alan is afraid of now? He is afraid that Russ and Mary will shortly go off together somewhere for a protracted session of hysterical sex. He is. He can see Mary unfurling her immaculate white panties, glancing shyly over her shoulder, while the mightily hung Russ lolls smiling on the bed. And Alan can see himself, Alan, watching the whole spectacle from some abstract vantage, silent, unblinking, and perfectly bald, like a being from the future. Russ, on the other hand, is afraid that Alan will tell Mary, or that Mary will inadvertently discover, that he, Russ, can neither read nor write. (Russ has a further heroic foible: he refuses to believe that he has an unusually small penis. He is wrong about this; he ought to stop refusing to believe it; he does in fact have an unusually small one.) Whereas Mary is afraid of the address in her bag. She is afraid of Prince and what he knows. She is afraid that her life has in some crucial sense already run its course, that the life she moves through now is nothing more than another life's reflection, its mirror, its shadow. Everything she sees has an edge on it, like prisms in petrol, like faces in fire, like other people hurrying through changing light—visions that we sense ought to reveal something, or will soon reveal something, or have already revealed something that we have missed and will never see again.
• • •
'Time,' said the man behind the bar, 'time, gentlemen, please.'
Alan sprang up guiltily, barking his kneecap on the table and toppling an empty glass. As it fell, Russ tried to catch it, but only slapped the glass still faster to the floor. It didn't smash or break. It rose up to live again on the wet tabletop.
'Here, let's
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