Misspent Youth

17. LINE ’EM UP

IT HAD BEEN YEARS since Jeff had ventured into a pub. A long time ago, before he lived in Empingham, his local kept his own pewter tankard behind the bar for him. Those were the days when he enthused about real ale and had regular sessions with his friends and colleagues of a Friday night. Twenty years ago now. Probably even longer if he was honest.

He’d arranged to meet Alan and James in Stamford for a boys’ night out, starting off at the Vaults on Broad Street. The whole event was a straight fix of nostalgia, although he wasn’t sure for whose benefit. A couple of his Europol team went into the Vaults first for a quick check and gave him the okay. When he walked in, James and Alan were waiting with expressions of mild derision.

“Your babysitting squad has approved then, have they?” James grunted.

“Please,” Jeff said. “If I get shot, it’s your tax money that’s been wasted. What are you drinking?”

James looked at his pint pot on the table, still three quarters full. “Bateman’s, please.”

“Same here,” Alan said.

Jeff went up to the bar to collect the order. Several people around the lounge were staring at him. There was an outbreak of heated whispering across the room. The barmaid was very attentive, a blonde girl who couldn’t have been twenty. When she smiled at him he tried to avoid looking at the zits on her cheeks.

James had almost finished his first pint by the time Jeff got back to the table. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

“What are you drinking?” Alan asked.

“Lager shandy,” Jeff confessed. “I’ve still got to be a bit careful healthwise.” A polite lie. He simply didn’t want to end up like…well, James, basically. He’d been down that road once before, thank you very much. Just one last pint and a stop at the all-night burger bar; week after week, year after year. When you were young it didn’t matter, your body could handle it. Cumulative effects were so small as to be unnoticeable. It was only in later life you regretted and cursed all those binges and excesses. This time around he was determined to be more careful, to take care of himself. Nicole had certainly complimented him on the shape he was in. It made him realize he was more frightened by aging now than he ever had been before.

“I hear you might be coming on board with us,” James said.

“On board?”

“Nicole gave me a full report of what happened.”

Superb self-control prevented Jeff from choking on his beer. “Oh, that.”

Alan laughed and nudged James. “See how a young girl can turn his head. He never signed on when you were running the company.”

Jeff gave them a weak smile. There was absolutely no way he was going to be able to tell James about this. It didn’t matter that Nicole had made all the moves; sleeping with a friend’s granddaughter had to be pretty close to the top of all-time Bad Things. “She made a good case for you to overhaul my finances. They need looking at properly.” He’d even fixed up a repeat meeting at the hotel for next week.

“Certainly bloody do,” James grunted. “Brussels keeps changing the rules. Bastards. You’ve got to stay five steps ahead of them or they’ll scoop up your entire salary. We’ve heard they’re going to increase Social Insurance to eighteen percent of overall income in a couple of years’ time. That’s on top of income tax. And you’ve got to be top rated on that, Jeff.”

“It’s a pretty frightening figure, yeah.”

“Two years,” Alan mused. “That puts it conveniently after the presidential elections.”

“Doesn’t matter, nobody votes for the president anyway. Last time it was barely a forty percent turnout, and most of them were from Luxembourg.”

“None of the candidates would ever mention higher taxes anyway, not even if they go negative,” James said. “That way they all benefit from deniability. Just like Area fifty-one in Independence Day.”

“That was culpable deniability. Randy Quaid told the president about it.”

“Yeah, Quaid was playing Jeff Goldblum’s dad.”

“Second time Goldblum was in an alien invasion film.”

“Remake of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” Alan said promptly. “Midseventies with Donald Sutherland and Leonard Nimoy.”

Three girls walked in. Jeff doubted if the eldest was more than sixteen. All of them wore incredibly low tops and short skirts. They clustered around the bar, chattering away like a flock of sparrows.

“Jesus,” James muttered. “Where the hell were they when I was that age?”

“Their parents didn’t exist when you were that age,” Alan told him.

The girls all ordered vodka mixers. Jeff couldn’t remember what the legal pub age was these days. Was Europe currently being as liberal about booze as it was drugs (except tobacco, of course)? Whatever the age, it didn’t seem to bother the girls. When he looked at their legs that initial pulse of admiration withered slightly. None of them was particularly tall, and two of them were already mildly chubby. It was all attitude and clothes that made men turn and look. So unlike Annabelle, he thought. Now there was a genuine looker.

James stood up and drained the last of his pint. “My round, hurry up, chaps.”

“Same again,” Alan said.

“I’ll just have a half,” Jeff said.

James gave him a disgruntled look, and went off to the bar.

“This’ll be my last,” Alan said. “I can’t knock it back like I used to. It doesn’t matter how many genoproteins are buzzing round inside me, I’m not as young as I was.”

“Whatever you’re comfortable with,” Jeff said.

Alan leaned in across the table. “I still can’t believe that it’s really you, that this whole ridiculous procedure worked. I feel like I want to rip it out of you and use it on myself. If it was just a single pill or gadget, then I would do it. Jesus, Jeff, do you realize what you are?”

“I’m beginning to, I think.”

“Fucking lucky, that’s what. The luckiest man that ever walked across the face of the planet. You’re young again. You’ve got your whole life again. Life is always wasted on young people, they don’t know what it’s about. But not you, you already know. You know what to do to make it count, every bloody minute of it. And you’ve got Sue to go home to each night as well. Tell me that isn’t bloody tremendous.”

“Hey, come on, Alan. You’re good for another thirty years, and that’s just with today’s treatments. By the time you’re a hundred they’ll be giving you that single pill for rejuvenation.”

Alan contemplated the last of his beer. “Bull, Jeff. I’ve got the worst time of my life ahead of me, and our wonderful medical industry will stretch it out and out until I just scream for it to end.”

Jeff wanted to look around to see where the hell James had got to. He needed help here. “That’s crap. Look at me, Alan, I am real. It happened to me, it can happen to you.”

“I’ll be dead or demented by the time they start dishing it out to the masses. Oh fuck, Jeff, how did we ever come to this?”

“You haven’t come to anything, Alan. You’re as active now as you were thirty years ago.”

Alan snorted, his jaw muscles working hard to stop his real anguish from emerging. “Not active where I want to be. Christ, not for years.”

Jeff muttered oh shit under his breath. Where was James?

“Collecting to support our country’s patriots, gentlemen.”

Jeff looked around. There were three men standing beside the table, late twenties with close-cropped hair. Jeff could remember the National Front from the first half of his life, their ranks always made up from skinheads or bulky, physically intimidating lads. Somehow they always managed the trick of looking as if violence could explode at any second without actually saying anything threatening. These three were almost the same, except one of them was Asian—and Jeff really didn’t think the National Front had modified its stance on membership, not even in these politically correct times.

All of them had gold and scarlet dragon tattoos spiraling around their wrists, the red segments glowing faintly. More tattoos were just visible above their collars. Knuckles and hands were scarred, trophies of a dozen street fights. Each wore a Union Jack badge with FREE ENGLAND printed across the middle. Seeing that, Jeff finally understood who they were.

“Hope you can contribute,” the one in front said. It wasn’t a question. He held out a pouch with several cash cards already in the bottom.

From the corner of his eye, Jeff saw the Europol team rising from their seats. He made a tiny be calm gesture with his hand.

“I’d be happy to,” Jeff said. He fished around in his pocket for his cash cards, and found one loaded with fifty euros.

“Jeff!” Alan hissed.

“How’s that?” Jeff dropped it into the collection pouch.

The man holding it gave him a careful look. “Do I know you?”

“Doubt it,” Jeff said. “I haven’t been in this pub for thirty years.”

There was a long moment while the man tried to figure out if Jeff was taking the piss or if he was just drunk.

“Here you go.” Alan dropped another cash card in the pouch.

The man’s concentration wavered, moving away from Jeff. “Thanks, old man. Together we’ll bring your country back to how it used to be, don’t you worry.” The three of them moved on to the next table where the young girls were sitting giggling.

Jeff breathed out silently, his eyes locked on Alan’s. “Bloody hell.”

James returned to the table. “Three pints. Jeff, I decided you’ve got to drink more. What’s the matter with you two? You look like…”

Jeff stood up. “We’re leaving.”

“What? I haven’t touched this yet.”

“Come on.” He was giving none-too-subtle twists of his head to indicate the three collectors. “Now. We’re eating early tonight.”

James finally glanced at the collection team. “Oh right. I’ve already donated.” He raised his hand and waved at the team. “Night, lads.”

“Night, James,” the Asian one said. “You take care of yourself, hear? It’s a bad world out there.”

Alan and Jeff exchanged another look. “Definitely time to leave,” Alan said.

AS THEY WALKED DOWN BROAD STREET, Jeff slowly became aware of what they looked like together: Alan in his dark green conservative suit with its trousers shiny from too many cleanings and pressings. James, wheezing along in an expensive yellow and green cashmere cardigan with leather buttons. And himself, dressed in loose ochre trousers and black Adol shirt, complimented by a smart leather jacket, all of it chosen by Sue, and actually quite stylish, he admitted to himself. Anyone would think he was taking a couple of old uncles out to their 2010 reunion club.

People were looking at them that way, too. Youngsters walking about as their own evenings kicked off. Boys strutting their stuff in smart clothes, girls huddled together, tottering along in ridiculously tall heels. As they saw Jeff and his friends they dismissed them instantly. Jeff was surprised how much that brush-off hurt. Especially as the youngsters all seemed to be having a good time. Broad Street was full of laughter and giggles, welcoming shouts between groups, music and sharp, colored light spilling out of pubs and club doorways. It was a scene that exerted a strange degree of attraction on Jeff. Everyone was happy, out for a hot night of fun. And they all believed he was not, nor could be, a part of that. An invisible barrier of exclusion protected the three of them as they walked along in search of the Chinese restaurant where James had booked them a table.

What Jeff wanted to say was: “Come on, lads, let’s go hit some of the clubs instead.” And the three of them would scoot in past the bouncers and party on down until exhaustion and alcohol wiped him out as dawn was rising, maybe a few totes of the wacky bakky as well. It would be living, it would be experiencing, engaging every sense and emotion a body possessed.

But if he said it, they wouldn’t come, he’d be on his own. So he plodded along dutifully with his old friends and felt obliged to point out that as well as featuring in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, Jeff Goldblum had also starred in Earth Girls Are Easy, which was technically an alien invasion film, so that made four altogether.