“How d’you mean?”
“Old music. Museums.”
“Oh, I see. Very good. Who brought you along?”
She bridled a little. Why did she have to be “brought along”? Why couldn’t she have discovered it for herself, come on her own, persuaded others to accompany her? She actually knew the answer to those questions. The bridling was unnecessary.
“A couple of guys we met in the pub.” She wanted to laugh at the sheer outlandishness of this most ordinary of explanations. She wasn’t someone who met a couple of guys in a pub.
“I probably know them,” said Terry. “Who are they?”
“Two chaps from Scunthorpe.”
“Not Gav and Barnesy? They’re legends.”
“Are they?”
“Well, only because they’ve been coming from Scunny for twenty-odd years, never miss. And Barnesy can dance, did you know that?”
“He showed us in the pub.”
“He’s serious. Always got his little tub of talcum powder.”
“What does he do with it?”
“Sprinkles it on the floor. For grip, you see? That’s what the serious ones do. Talc and a towel, that’s what you keep in your sports bag.”
“You’re not serious then, Terry?”
“I can’t dance like I could. But I wouldn’t miss one. This is the last thing we’ve got left here, more or less. It’s a sort of long good-bye to the old days, when I had my scooter, and we used to get into…
Suddenly, Annie saw everything too clearly, and she felt sick. It had all gone, the whole fucking lot; it was all over. Gooleness, Duncan, her childbearing years, Tucker’s career, northern soul, all the exhibits in the museum, the long-dead shark, the long-dead shark’s cock, and his eye, too, the 1960s, the Working Men’s Club, probably working men as well… She had come out tonight because she believed there had to be a present tense, somewhere, and she’d followed Gav and Barnesy because she’d hoped they knew where it was. Is. And they’d dragged her to yet another haunted house. Where was the now? In bloody America, probably, apart from the bit that Tucker lived in, or in bloody Tokyo. In any case, it was somewhere else. How could people who didn’t live in bloody America or bloody Tokyo stand it, all that swimming around in the past imperfect?
They had children, these people. That was how they stood it. The realization rose slowly through the bitter ale she’d been drinking, and then slightly more quickly through the lager that lay on top of it, and the gin that lay on top of the lager, the increased speed possibly a result of all the bubbles. That was why she wanted children, too. The cliche had it that kids were the future, but that wasn’t it: they were the unreflective, active present. They were not themselves nostalgic, because they couldn’t be, and they retarded nostalgia in their parents. Even as they were getting sick and being bullied and becoming addicted to heroin and getting pregnant, they were in the moment, and she wanted to be in it with them. She wanted to worry herself sick about schools and bullying and drugs.
An epiphany, then. That seemed to be what it was. But epiphanies were a little like New Year’s resolutions, Annie found: they just got ignored, especially if you experienced them during a northern soul night when you’d had a couple of drinks. She’d probably had three or four epiphanies in her entire life, and she’d been either drunk or busy every time. What good was an epiphany then? You really needed one on a mountaintop a couple of hours before you were going to make a life-changing decision, but she couldn’t recall ever having had these experiences singly, let alone in tandem. And in any case, what use was an epiphany that revealed to you that everything you did revolved around the dead and the dying? What was she supposed to do with that information?
The consequence of ignoring her epiphany was that she stayed in the club, and drank, and danced a little, with pudgy Gav, mostly, because Barnesy was off doing handstands and kung-fu kicks and dusting the floor with talc, and because Ros left at around midnight, with Annie’s permission, and because Terry Jackson stayed at the bar, drinking and getting morose about the good old days, when you could get into a fight without anyone running off whining to the bloody Health and bloody Safety brigade. And when she eventually left, at two in the morning, Barnesy followed her out, and then home, and she found herself inviting a man she had only just met to spend the night on her couch, and then sitting on her sofa watching him attempting to do the splits while declaring his love for her.
“I do.”
“No you don’t.”
“I bloody do. I bloody love you. I’ve loved you since I saw you in the pub.”
“Because my mate turned out to be gay.”
“That just made it easier to make my mind up.”
Annie laughed and shook her head, and Barnesy looked pained. It was something, anyway. It was an anecdote, an event, a moment that didn’t refer back to something earlier in her life, or the life of the country. This was happening now, in her living room. Maybe that was why she’d offered Barnesy the couch in the first place. Maybe she’d hoped he might do the splits while telling her he loved her, and, gratifyingly, that was exactly what was happening.
“I’m not just saying it because I’m, you know, exerting myself acrobatically. It’s the other way round. I’m exerting myself because I love you.”
“You’re very sweet,” she said. “But I need to go to bed.”
“Can I come with you?”
“No.”
“No? Just, like, no?”
“Just no.”
“Are you married?”
“Do you mean, is my husband asleep in the marital bed, which is why I’m not letting you in there? No.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“There’s no problem. Well, there is, actually. I’m seeing someone. But he lives in America.”
Consistency and repetition were beginning to make the lie feel something like the truth, in the way that a path eventually becomes a path, if enough people walk along it.
“Well, there we are then. America…” He turned his palms upward, to enforce the point he felt he’d just made.
“We don’t have that kind of relationship.”
“Think about it.”
“Barnesy, there’s nothing to think about.”
“I think you’re wrong.”
“What is there to think about?”
“It’s not about thinking, is it?” said Barnesy passionately.
“So I was right. There’s nothing to think about.”
“I’m getting a divorce. If that makes any difference. I’ve been thinking I would for a while, but meeting you has made my mind up for me.”
“You’re married? Bloody hell, Barnesy. You’ve got a cheek.”
“Yes, but hear me out. She hates the all-nighters. She hates northern. She likes bloody… I don’t know. Girls with big hair who’ve won them talent shows.”
He stopped, and seemed to consider what he’d just said.
“Bloody hell. That’s really true. We’ve got nothing in common. I’ve only just realized how unsuited we are. I really am going to get a divorce. I’m not just saying that to you. I’m going to get one anyway.”
“Well, see how you feel when you get home.”
“My mind’s made up.”
“I don’t think you and I would be much better.”
“Why not? You had fun tonight, didn’t you?”
