Starter For Ten Part 15

pull on my overcoat and scarf and check the reflection in the train window. Collar up or collar down? I'm aiming for a sort of Graham-Greene, Third-Man look, but getting an Ultravox video.

Five minutes away, and I'm practising what I'm going to say when I see Alice again. I haven't been this nervous since Jesus in G.o.dspell when I had to take my top off to be crucified. I can't even seem to smile properly; a lop-sided grin with my mouth closed makes me look like a stroke victim, but when I open my mouth my teeth are a jumbled cream-and-black, like a bag of Scrabble tiles. A lifetime of fresh fruit and vegetables means that Alice Harbinson has perfect teeth. I imagine her dentist looking into her mouth and just weeping at the sheer, pure, snowy splendour of it all.

As the train pulls into the station, Alice is waiting at the far end of the platform, huddled up against the snow in an expensive-looking long black overcoat that almost touches the ground, her head wrapped in a grey woollen scarf, and I wonder where she's put her balalaika. If she doesn't quite break into a run when she sees me, she at least walks a little faster, and as her face comes into focus I can see she's grinning, and then laughing, her skin whiter, her lips redder and there's something softer and warmer about her away from college, as if she's off duty, and she throws her arms around me, and says she's missed me, and she's so excited I'm there, and we're going to have so much fun, and for a moment this feels like perfect happiness, here on a country train station in the snow with Alice. Until I see, over her shoulder, this dark, handsome, moody man who I a.s.sume must be Alice's dad. Heathcliff in a wax-jacket.

If I'd had a forelock I'd have tugged it, but instead I offer him my hand. Recently I've been experimenting with shaking hands, because it's what I imagine grown men are meant to do, but Mr Harbinson just looks at me as if I've done something incredibly un-cool and eighteenth century, like curtseying or 157.

something. Eventually he takes the hand, squeezes it just hard enough to show that he could fracture my skull if he chose to, I then turns and walks away. As I drag my bags to the green Land-Rover in the station car park, Alice walks on ahead with her arms looped around her dad's neck, like he's her boyfriend or something. If I put *

my arm around my mum's neck like that she'd call social i services, but Mr Harbinson seems to take it in his stride, puts "I his arm round Alice's waist and pulls her towards him. I trot up alongside. "*

'Brian's our secret weapon on the team. He's the boy-genius I've been telling you about,' says Alice.

'Well, I'm not sure if genius is the right word,' I say.

'No, I'm certain it's not,' says Mr Harbinson.

Driving through the country lanes. I sit in the back amidst the muddy Wellingtons and walking boots and sodden Ordnance Survey maps, as Alice keeps up a monologue about all the parties she's been to and the old friends she's seen, I and I scrutinise every word, just to check for the presence ^ of Romantic Interlopers, a hot young actor maybe, or some $ lightly muscled sculptor called Max or Jack or Serge. But the coast seems clear, so far anyway. Maybe she's censoring herself in front of her father. I doubt it though. I think Alice is one of those strange people who behaves exactly the same way in f front of her parents as she does in front of her friends. ?'

Mr Harbinson listens and drives in silence, quietly emanating a subtle buzz of hostility. He's absolutely ma.s.sive, and I try to imagine why someone who makes art doc.u.mentaries *J for BBC2 should have the physique of a brickie. And hairy, the * kind of man who shaves his cheeks twice a day, but obviously terrifyingly intelligent. It's almost as if he was raised by wolves, but wolves who knew the value of a decent college education. He also seems impossibly young, good-looking and cool to be a dad, as if having a family is something he slipped in between Hendrix concerts and LSD trips.

158.

*'i Eventually we anive at Blackbird Cottage. Except 'collage' isn't really the word. It's huge and beautiful, the kind of house that 'rambles', a series of converted barns and farmhouses, almost a whole village, knocked together to accommodate the country residence of the Harbinson family; all the luxury of a stately home, without any of the politically inconvenient aristocratic connotations. In the snow, it's like an animated Christmas card. There's even smoke coming out of the chimney, and it's all very rural and nineteenth century, except for the sports car, Alice's 2CV, and a tarpaulin-covered swimming-pool where the cowshed used to be. In fact any notion of practical, agricultural labour has long since been swept away, and even the dogs seem middle cla.s.s; two Labradors who come bounding up as if to say 'so pleased to meet you, tell us all about yourself. I wouldn't be surprised to find out they have Grade Four Piano.

'Meet Mingus and Coltrane!' says Alice.

'h.e.l.lo Mingus and Coltrane.' There's a slight lapse in dog etiquette when they start snuffling at the cold meats in my suitcase as we cross the farmyard. I hoist the bag up into my arms.

'What d'you think?'

'It's lovely. Bigger than I expected.'

'Mum and Dad bought it for about five guineas or something, back in the sixties. Come in and meet Rose,' and it takes me a second to realise Rose is her mum.

There's that old chauvinistic cliche about women turning into their mothers when you marry them, but in the case of Alice's mother, I wouldn't mind. Not that I'm going to marry Alice or anything, but Mrs Harbinson is beautiful. When we come into the kitchen, a vaulted barn of copper and oak, she's stood at the sink listening to The Archers, and for a second I think Julie Christie's scrubbing the carrots; she's small, with soft wrinkles round blue eyes, and a soft blonde perm. I inarch forward across the bare flagstones, arm 159.

extended like a tin soldier, determined to persevere with the handshake thing.

'So this is the Brian I've heard so much about,' she says, and smiles, and waggles the tip of my finger with her muddy hands, and smiles at me, and I have a momentary flashback to a teacher I had a crush on when I was nine years old.

'Very pleased to meet you, Mrs Harbinson.' I sound like a nine-year-old.

'Oh, please don't call me Mrs Harbinson, it makes me feel so old. Call me Rose.'

As she bends forward to kiss me on the cheek I have a reflex action to lick my lips, so the peck on her cheek is a bit too moist, and there's this exaggerated smacking noise that seems to bounce off the flagstones. I can actually see my saliva glistening just below her eye. She discreetly wipes it away with the back of her hand before it can evaporate, and pretends to be adjusting her perm. Then Mr Harbinson looms between us, and kisses the other cheek, the dry one, proprietorially.

'And what shall I call you, Mr Harbinson?' I ask, cheerily.

'Call me Mr Harbinson.'

'Michael! Don't be mean,' says Rose.

'. . . or Sir. You can call me Sir . . .'

'Just ignore him,' says Alice.

'I bought you some wine,' I say, tugging the bottle out of my bag and handing it to him. Mr Harbinson looks at it as if I've just handed him a carafe of my own p.i.s.s.

'Oh, thank you so much, Brian! You can come again!' says Rose. Mr Harbinson doesn't look so sure.

'Come on, I'll show you your room,' says Alice, taking me by the arm, and I follow her up the stairs, leaving Mr and Mrs Harbinson whispering behind me.

In the maisonette on Archer Road there's a point about halfway up the stairs where, if you crane your neck ever so slightly, you can actually see into every room in the house.

160.

Blackbird Cottage is not like this at all. It's ma.s.sive. My room, Alice's old room, is at the very top of the house, under ancient oak beams, in the East Wing or something. One wall is taken up completely with enlarged childhood photos of Alice; in a flowery pinafore-dress baking scones; picking blackberries in a pair of dungarees; playing Olivia in a school production of Twelfth Night, and, I guess, The Good Woman ofSchezuan with a drawn-on moustache, and dressed in a black bin-liner as a rather unconvincing 'punk-rocker' for a fancy-dress party, V's flicked demurely at the camera. There's a polaroid of her parents in their twenties, proud owners of one of the very first bean-bags, looking like members of Fleetwood Mac, in matching embroidered waistcoats and smoking what may or may not be cigarettes. Shelves of children's books indicate that Alice was obviously something pretty big in the Puffin Club; Tove Jansson, Ingrid Lindgren, Eric Kastner, Herge, Goscinny, Uderzo, Saint-Exupery - world literature for tots - and, somewhat incongruously, a broken-backed paperback edition of Lace. An A-level art montage of Madonnas from the Uffizi and a cut-out Snoopy comic-strip. Framed certificates proclaim that Alice Harbinson can swim 1,000 metres, play the oboe up to grade 6 and the piano up to grade 8, simultaneously for all I know. My bedroom is The National Museum of Alice Harbinson. I don't know how she expects me to get any sleep.

'D'you think you'll be alright here?' she says.

'Oh, I think I can manage.' She watches me scanning over the photographs, with no pretence of embarra.s.sment or false modesty. Here is a record of my life - good, isn't it? At four, she was all you could wish for in a four-year-old, at fourteen she was just fine, thank you very much.

'No use looking for my diary, I've hidden it. And if you get cold, which you will do, there's a blanket in the wardrobe. Here, let me help you unpack. So what d'you want to do tonight?'

161.

'Oh, I don't know, just hang out. Sonic Like It Hot's on telly.'

'Sorry, no telly here.'

'Really?'

'Dad doesn't approve of TV.'

'But he's a TV producer!'

'We've got a telly in London, but he thinks it's wrong in the country. What's that look for?'

'Oh, I was just thinking - three houses, one telly. With most people it's the other way round.'

'No need to get all Socialist Worker, Brian, no one's listening. Boxer shorts, eh?' She's holding my underpants. A mild erotic frisson fills the air between us, and I'm profoundly grateful to Mum for ironing them. 'I had you down as a tanga-briefs man.' I'm trying to work out if this is a good or bad thing, when Alice squeals, 'Oh my G.o.d! What's this . . . ?'

She's found the foil parcel of a.s.sorted meats in my bag. I try to s.n.a.t.c.h it off her.

'Oh, that's just my mum's packing . . .'

'Let me see . . .'

'It's nothing, really.'

'Contraband!' She tugs the parcel open. 'Meat? You've smuggled in your own supply of meat!'

'Mum's worried I won't get enough protein.'

'Give us a bit then - I'm gasping.' She takes a piece of pallid boiled bacon, and flops onto the bed. 'Hmmmm. Bit dry.'

'That's Mum's special recipe. She cooks it overnight, slices it, leaves it on a radiator, then finishes it off with a hairdryer.'

'Well don't let Rose catch you with it. She'll be mortified. Blackbird Cottage is a strictly meat-free zone.'

'So what do Mingus and Coltrane eat?'

'Same as us. Vegetables, muesli, rice, pasta . . .' They feed their dogs pasta. 'What have you got there?'

162.

'Your Christmas present.' I hold out the gift-wrapped LP. 'It's a tennis racket.'

She glances at the postcard, a provocatively romantic Chagall sellotaped to the alb.u.m. I'd laboured long and hard over the message, and gone through several drafts, before coming up with the eloquent and emotive; 'To Alice, my newest, bestest (sp.?!?) friend, all my love always Brian'. I'm particularly pleased with the way the wryly humorous '(sp.?!?)' comments on the 'bestest friend/love' element without necessarily undermining the sincerity of the emotion, but in the end she doesn't even bother to read it before she starts tearing off the wrapping paper.

'Joni Mitch.e.l.l! Bluer 'Oh no, you've got it, haven't you?'

'Only about six copies. You were spot on though. I love Joni. I actually lost my virginity listening to Joni Mitch.e.l.l.'

'Not "Big Yellow Taxi", I hope.'

'Court and Spark actually . . .' I might have guessed. 'How about you?'

'My virginity? Can't remember. It was either Chopin's Funeral March or Geoff Love and His Orchestra Play Big War Themes. "The Dambusters' March", I think. Followed by an eerie silence.'

She laughs and hands it back. 'Sorry. Have you still got the receipt?'

'I think so. Is there something specific I should swap it for?'

'Surprise me. No Kate Bush though, please. I'll let you finish unpacking.'

'When's tea?'

'Dinner's in half an hour.' On the way out she hugs me once again. 'I am so glad you're here. We are going to have so much fun, I promise you.'

After she's gone, I put the newly ironed granddad s.h.i.+rts on wooden hangers, enjoying the feeling of residency and 163.

permanence. If I play my cards right, I could actually still be here on New Year's Day. Even the 2nd, or 3rd maybe . . . Opening the wardrobe, I half expect to find Narnia.

In the end, protein turns out to be the least of my worries. Dinner is nut-roast. I'd heard about nut-roast, and sort of always thought it was a joke, but here it is, a pile of lukewarm, gritty cake with vegetarian cheese melted on top, my first experience of nuts as something other than a bar snack. It sits on my plate like a worm-cast. I wonder what the dogs are having?

'How's your nut-roast, Brian?'

'Delicious, thank you, Rose.' From somewhere I've picked up the notion that it's polite to use the other person's name a lot - 'yes Rose, no Rose, lovely Rose' - but I think it's making me sound a bit Uriah Heep-y. Best follow it up with a little humour. 'It's my first experience of nuts as something other than a bar snack!'

'Shut your stupid, ugly face and keep your filthy, plebby hands off my beautiful daughter, you unctuous little p.r.i.c.k,' says Mr Harbinson. Well, he doesn't say it, but he looks it.

Rose just fingers her perm, and smiles, and asks, 'Okay with those courgettes?'

'Absolutely!' In actual fact I've never eaten a courgette in my life, but just to underline my enthusiasm I pop a forkful of the damp, watery discs into my mouth, and grin idiotically. Like all green vegetables, it tastes of what it is, boiled cellulose, but so keen am I to please Rose that it's all I can do to stop myself rubbing my belly and saying 'hmmmm . . .' I wash the pond-weed taste away with some wine. There's no sign of my carafe, and I a.s.sume that it's been taken outside and shot. Or maybe the dogs are having it with their pasta, and some garlic-bread. This wine, though, is so syrupy and warm that it feels as if I should be sipping it from a plastic 5ml spoon.

'Your first time in Suffolk, Brian?'

164.

Tve been once before. On a mountaineering holiday!'

'Really? But isn't it terribly flat?' says Rose.

'I was misinformed!'

Mr Harbinson exhales loudly through his nose.

'I don't understand. Who told you . . . ?' says Rose.

'Brian's joking, Mum,' says Alice.

'Oh, I see, of course!'

It's clear that I should stop trying to be funny, but have yet to work out what the alternative is. Sensing the need for a.s.sistance, Alice turns to me, puts her hand on my arm; 'If you wanted to see something really funny, Brian, you should have been here yesterday.'

'Why, what happened yesterday?'

Rose is blus.h.i.+ng. 'Oh Alice, darling, can we keep it to ourselves please?'

'She can tell him,' growls Mr Harbinson.

'But it's so embarra.s.sing! . . .'

'Tell me!' I say, joining in the fun.

'But I feel so foolish,' says Rose.

'Well. . .' says Alice '. . . we had some friends round, like we always do on Boxing Day, and we were playing charades, and it was my turn, and I was trying to do Last Year At Manenbad for Mummy, and she was getting so frantic and overexcited, and shouting so hard, that her cap popped out and landed right in our next-door neighbour's gla.s.s of wine!'

And everyone's laughing, even Mr Harbinson, and the atmosphere is so fun and adult and amusing and irreverent that I say, 'You mean you weren't wearing any underwear?!?'

Everyone is silent.

'I'm sorry?' asks Rose.

'Your cap. When it popped out. How did it get ... past your . . . underpants?'