and fifty hours of TV a week. My alternative was nowhere, it was nugatory, it was nada, nowt, niente, null, nix, nil, nought, nothing. My time was up.
For a long time I had nursed a secret belief that, if I wanted, I could be better than anyone at anything, if I put my mind to it. I reckon most people feel the same, most men at least. So Tom looked as if he was making it as a barrister? If I’d chosen to be a barrister I’d be a lot better at it than him. So Lucy’s a bond trader? That could have been an option for me. So Henry writes elegant, beautiful computer programmes? Mine would be far more elegant, far more beautiful, if I’d ever chosen to give it a proper shot. Now the issue of choice had left the issue. What was I going to do? Take up an adult education course in law, computers and bonds? Furthermore, the evidence for such ludicrous contentions was weak at the best of times. Some strong performances at the junior school debating club, a bit of verbal facility, a knack with quadratic equations; it was never really enough. Now it would be laughable, if I hadn’t lost my sense of humour about the whole thing. The reason I gave for not having followed them all was that what they were doing just wasn’t worth bothering with. The question of what was worth bothering with just wasn’t worth bothering with either.
‘One day. You’ll see.’
Henry paid up and we ambled back to the flat. I resolved to go and revise my maths downward on all dimensions.
That and do an obituary. When I’m feeling in need of cheering up, I do an obituary. It gives you something to work towards. This is the one I worked on when we got back from the supermarket:
SIR FRANCIS STRETCH QC
PATENT LAWYER
Sir Francis Stretch, the eminent barrister, has died at his Nash house in London’s Regent’s Park, aged 71.
Sir Francis was instrumental in the radical reforms of patent law as it related to the emerging information technology industry in the late years of this century. The achievement was all the more remarkable as he came very late to both fields, not being called to the bar until his fortieth year, having completed a computer science degree at the LSE in his early thirties.
Nicknamed ‘Golden Bollocks’ because of his combination of tenacity and extreme wealth, he was respected rather than liked by his contemporaries.
A wife, Lucy, survives him. They had two step-children from her first marriage, Fortinbras and Clytemnestra, as well as a natural son, Stan.
Two things stopped from me from downgrading myself frantically all afternoon. The first was that, as I worked on my death notice, I got a call from Tom’s dad’s office, proposing some interview dates.
‘Hello, is that Mr Stretch?’
‘Yep.’
‘Cordelia here from Charles Mannion’s office at Emporium. I’m sorry about the delay in getting back to you.’
‘No problem.’ I’m used to it, love.
‘Well, the reason I’m calling is that Charles would very much like to see you in the next couple of weeks, and I’ve got some convenient dates which I’d like to try you with. He’d like to do a breakfast if that suits you.’
‘Great, perfect.’
‘OK, how about the twenty-ninth?’
‘That’s good for me.’
‘The third?’
‘That’s good for me.’
‘The fifth?’
‘Fine.’
‘The eighth?’
‘No worries.’
‘The tenth?’
‘Couldn’t be better.’
‘Err, the twelfth?’
‘Listen, Cordelia, I’ll tell you what, any day at all is fine by me. I’m sort of a … a free agent. Any day will be just perfect.’
‘OK, I’ll get back to you to confirm in the next day or two.’
‘Thanks very much.’
I was pretty ambivalent about this whole deal to tell the truth. I had mentioned to Tom months ago that I was considering getting back into journalism, as if it was just one of a whole range of options I was toying with, and he mentioned Emporium and said it would be no problem for him to get me in. It was supposed to be ‘a men’s magazine with a difference’ (which men’s magazine wasn’t? Manhood – the Men’s Magazine that’s Exactly the Same as the Rest?), but Tom reckoned I’d get something out of them, no trouble. They were trying to make it look as overstuffed and glossy as possible, but the backers wanted it done dirt cheap. The only place they could really wield the axe was the writing staff, which left opportunities for has-beens and never-weres like me. But still, the dreadfulness of it all. I’d read these magazines – Guy Thing, Twatted, Him and all those other shinies with their flatter-to-deceive cover shots. In fact, I read them every month. But why do they pretend to be something more interesting and important than the sixth-former wank fodder they really are? In my view, there are only two differences between Twatted and Skinny and Wriggly. Firstly, the real porn is bound with staples. Secondly, in the faux-fuck mags, tanga briefs coyly husband the muffs. In Skinny and Wriggly gussets only make an appearance strung between scissoring legs like warm mozzarella. So ‘the men’s magazine with a difference’ presumably meant either more crotch shots or fewer crotch shots. In either case, I reckoned Emporium’s business proposition was terminally disabled before it started.
The only thing that made me say yes to an interview was the thought of Tom’s efforts on my behalf, and the sense of duty that these efforts inspired. Well, that and the prospect of the freebies.
Anyway, the second thing that happened that afternoon was that I opened some mail I got in the second post. As I think I’ve said, I never open mail from the bank. It always ends in tears. I never really open any mail, as everything I get is in some way connected to money that I don’t or can’t have. But Henry had left a letter for me on the kitchen table that had a hand-written address on it. I opened it and was astonished to discover that it was from Bill Turnage. He must have written the note and posted it as soon as I’d left him in Knightsbridge. It was written on some personalised stationery, waxy paper with a quirky little logo of a table in the top right-hand corner. He’d apparently designed it himself. I remembered how brilliant he was in practical lessons. He would be polishing the marquetry on his reproduction Early Georgian escritoire, while I was still trying to make a mug tree with branches that slanted upwards.
Bill had been a middle-ranking first-division friend then, sort of an Aston Villa or a Coventry City, and like them he hung around my life without ever really making a huge impression from when I was fourteen until I left school for university. Gaunt and clever-ish, brooding and outdoors-y, he was a lot of people’s middle-ranking mate, I guess. He was a lone cyclist and hiker, too independent-seeming, too cagoule-and-walking-boots for anyone really to prize him. I couldn’t
