The Coolest Guy I Know

Travelling north on the Tube with Steve and Marie one evening recently, I realised that I still fancied Marie, even though we had split up over a year ago. She's put on a bit of weight. I guess that means she's happy with Steve, although, now I come to think of it, my sister put on weight because she was so miserable after that wanker Clarkson dumped her. You just can't tell; perhaps Marie's weight is unrelated to her emotional condition. Still, Marie always seems happy, which was more than I could say when we were together.

Of course, Steve is my best mate, and Marie is his girl, and I'm more than happy with Kathy, and Marie and I were miserable together, at least at the end, so my fancying her means nothing. It's a reflex thing, a bloke thing, nothing more. She's my friend now, that's all, but it must be admitted that a few extra pounds seem to suit her, especially on her legs, which have filled out quite spectacularly. Steve, easily the coolest guy I know, is a lucky geezer.

We were sitting in a row on one of those seats that run lengthways along the Tube carriage; me, with my rekindled awareness of Marie's sexual possibilities, Marie, with her remodelled legs, and Steve, with his new haircut and his old sheepskin coat and his streetwise back alley postmodernist attitudes. Sitting diagonally opposite me, on the side away from Marie and Steve, was a middle aged guy and his wife, holding hands. They both had white hair and tanned skin, and they were both dressed up a bit; he in a dark blue overcoat, she in a turquoise suit. Although the display of hand-holding would seem to have indicated his evident fondness for his wife, I could have sworn that this old guy was staring at Marie's born again legs, staring really hard. Despite my new-found realisation that I too liked looking at Marie's legs, rather than sympathy and understanding for the old man's feelings, I felt a mild distaste. There is something discomfiting about the lust of the old for the young, though I'm sure I'll feel differently when I'm his age. I just thought he was being a dirty old bastard. But I was wrong; I had miscalculated the angle of his hungry gaze, trigonometry never having been my strong point. He was staring at Steve.

'Steven?', he said, in a really posh voice.

Steve sat up straight, and looked at the guy, and gulped.

'Mr. Crouch.' he said, and forced a smile.

'Steven! Hello!' The old guy turned to his wife.

'Do you remember Steven, Helen? Steven Hodson. He was headboy... what... five, six years ago?' His wife smiled and tilted her head towards us. Marie and I turned to look at Steve; he had shrunken back a little into the seat; his smile was fixed and his eyes were glazed.

'Five years ago, sir.', he said.

'Yes, that's right. Five years ago. There's no need for sirs now, is there Helen?' His wife smiled and nodded in affirmation. 'Goodness me! It's Alan now.'

Steve's lips parted a little further.

'So, what are you up to now? The last time I saw you must have been about three years ago. You were at Warwick?'

'Yes.' said Steve.

'So, what are you up to now?'

'I'm doing an MA in Criminology.'

'An MA? Really? Hang on, we'll come and sit a little closer.' Alan and Helen, still holding hands, shifted down four or five seats, so that he was sitting opposite Steve, and Helen was sitting opposite Marie. Steve shrank a little further still into his seat.

'An MA? In Criminology?' said Alan.

'Yes si... Alan.' Alan winced, almost imperceptibly.

'Marvellous. Marvellous. Here in London?'

'Yes sir. Greenwich.'

Alan furrowed his brow.

'Greenwich? That's one of the new ones, isn't it?'

'Yes sir. The Sociology Department is very well thought of.'

'Sociology?' An involuntary moue passed over Alan's lips.

'Yes sir. My degree is in Sociology.'

'Oh, you gave up History?'

'Yes sir.'

'Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.'

'Yes sir.'

'Ah, but do you still act?' Steve blushed.

'No. No, I don't.'

'Oh, that is a shame. A great shame.' Alan turned to Helen. 'Do you remember seeing Steven in that production we did of 'Antigone' about five or six years ago?'

'Five.' said Steve.

'That's right. About five years ago?'

Helen looked thoughtful.

'No', she said, and when Alan looked disappointed, she added,  'Oh yes... yes. Vaguely.'

'We did 'Antigone' when I was at Cambridge, thirty and more years ago. Marvellous. I was the second soldier.' said Alan.

'Was it a speaking part?' asked Helen.

'Well, I had a couple of lines, but it was very sad. Very sad.' Alan shook his head and smiled broadly. I took Alan to mean 'sad' in it's 90's sense; that is to say, pathetic, nerdy, crap, rather than sad as in weepy. Was this why he was smiling? Was he taking pleasure from his continued understanding of what he probably saw as schoolboy slang?

'Of course,' he continued, 'everything was paid for in those days. The grant covered everything. Not like now, eh? We even had enough money for beer!' Alan laughed aloud at happy memories of quaffing foaming pints of nut brown ale by the firesides of Fenland inns long ago. Steve smiled wanly. We were all coming down from a trip, actually, so I guess Steve coped quite well.

'Always enough money for drink, sir.' he said. Alan sobered up.

'Quite right. Quite right. So... how goes the MA?'

'Very well sir.'

'Heading for a distinction?'

'Well, I'm borderline, sir. Between a high merit and a low distinction.'

'Well, I'm not surprised.' Alan turned to his wife. 'Steven was always one of the brightest of my pupils.' I could feel Marie shake with the effort of suppressing her laughter. Steve's fixed smile had started to slip a little.

'Yes, very bright.' said Alan. 'Very promising. And a first-rate headboy.'

This was too much for Marie, who went 'PAH!', a laugh which she had tried to disguise as a sneeze. Alan and his wife took Marie and I onboard, really for the first time. Helen peered at Marie's legs over the top of her spectacles.

'I'm sorry, sir.', said Steve. 'I should have introduced you. These are my friends, Marie and Robert.' We smiled, and Alan and Helen smiled back.

'And are you both studying for your MA's too?' asked Alan.

We both nodded, even though we weren't. It seemed much the easiest thing. Alan smiled again.

'I remember the last time I saw you now, Steven. That was on the tube, too.'

'Yes sir.'

'I'd been doing my Christmas shopping, that's right. I was loaded down with books and CD's... (dramatic pause) ...and books and CD's!' Helen and Steve laughed at this little pleasantry, Helen with affectionate memory, Steve with forced politeness.

'Do you remember, Helen? That was the year when I put an empty CD case in everyone's present!' Helen laughed.

'Yes!', she said. 'You're expecting this really expensive present, and the first thing you see is an empty CD case.' Alan laughed too, but the strain was clearly beginning to get to Steve.

'The thing was,' Helen continued, 'was that I'd cracked one of my CD cases, and an empty one came in handy.' Alan smiled.

I sensed she was trying to make the best of things; for what, after all, was Alan's taste in CD's? Harrison Birtwistle operas? Bulgarian choral music? Chamber pieces played on authentic instruments? Early Motorhead? You can never tell. Perhaps an empty case signified a blessed silence in their household.

'Ours is the next stop.' said Steve with relief as the train pulled out of Finsbury Park. I guess Alan was relieved too, despite his palpable pleasure at having one of his old pupils back under his control.

'Do you live round here?' said Alan.

'Yes sir.'

'Quite a haul out to Greenwich, isn't it?'

'Yes sir.'

'We're on our way back to Arnos Grove.' said Helen.

'We've been into see 'Les Miserables'. Have you seen it?' said Alan.

'No sir.'

'Oh, you should. It's marvellous. But I'm blowed if I'm going to drive into the centre of London, so we always leave the car at Helen's sister's in Arnos Grove and take the Tube when we come up for a show. Then we stay with Anne, and drive back to Buckingham in the morning. Much nicer.'

We smiled; the train pulled into Manor House, and we made our excuses and left, not before Steve had been forced into shaking hands with both Alan and Helen.

Outside the station, Steve was oddly quiet. Marie and I looked at one another.

'What?', said Steve.

'You told me you went to a big comprehensive.' said Marie.

'You told me that you got expelled for shop-lifting.' I said.

'Did I?', said Steve.

'Yes.' I said.

Steve prepared to make a last stand.

'Well... who's to say I didn't?'

'Headboy.' said Marie.

'Antigone.', I said.

'Oh, you're both so clever, aren't you? I bet there are plenty of comprehensives with headboys, and maybe, if you weren't so fucking cynical, you might accept that some of them regularly stage the Greek Classics.'

'And did you go to such a paragon of comprehensive schooling, Steven?', I asked.

'No.', he said with a smile. He'd been caught, and was owning up fair and square, in a way in which Alan must surely have approved. Say what you will about the ruling classes, they still have a sense of fair play.

'Or was it, in fact, a minor public school?' said Marie.

"Yes, you bastards. And Crouch was my housemaster.'

'Alan.' I said. We all started screaming, with relief, I think, as much as anything. And then we went for a pint in The British Flag, where Kathy works behind the bar on a Tuesday night.

Somewhere beneath us, still holding hands, Alan and Helen were heading for Arnos Grove.