Misspent Youth

24. CELEBRITY STATUS

THE BARMAID AT THE VAULTS gave Jeff a wide knowing smile as she pulled three pints for him. He endured it awkwardly, impatient for the glasses to fill. It was like being taunted by school-yard bullies. Nothing you could say to make her stop, nowhere to go to avoid her gaze.

Once the last drop of beer came out of the pump tap he hurriedly dropped a hundred-euro cash card on the bar, and fled back to the table with the three glasses. “Jesus, does everybody know?”

Alan chuckled as he lifted his glass. “’Fraid so, old boy. There’s poetic justice for you.”

“How the hell is this poetic justice?”

“Without your memory crystal there would never be this god-awful Orwellian twenty-four-hours-a-day, every-street-in-every-town surveillance. We simply couldn’t store that much data, not on good old-fashioned hard drives. The insurance company would never have put that camera outside your flat. Your little friend could have gone home without anyone ever seeing. Instead, you came along with your great save-the-world-from-capitalism crusade, and now you can’t actually get crime insurance coverage unless there is a Big Brother camera pointing at your front door. Cheers!” He took a gulp of beer.

“Hey, releasing the memory crystal was never about politics.”

“You changed the world,” James said. “Now live in it. We have to.”

Jeff gave his friend a surprised look. There had been a lot of anger in James’s voice. For once the big man wasn’t happily slurping down his beer. Now what have I done? He’d come to the pub purely so he could get out of the manor. Life at home was not good right now.

“Could be worse,” Alan mused. “The world could have turned out like it did in Blade Runner.”

James took a long drink. “That would have been preferable.”

“What the hell is up with you?” Jeff asked.

“Nothing wrong with me. How about you?”

Jeff couldn’t figure this out at all. “I’m fine, thank you.”

“So we gather.”

“You’re not seriously upset about me meeting that girl, are you?”

James gave him a moody glare over the rim of his glass. “I don’t know, which one?”

“Come on, you two,” Alan said. He was looking between them with quite a degree of discomfort. “We’re not re-creating the end of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly here.”

“Good!” Jeff took a long drink, deliberately ignoring James. He knew now. Somehow his old friend had found out about him and Nicole. And what do you say to that? The man’s granddaughter. Small wonder he was so angry. He suddenly wondered if Nicole had come clean and told James herself because Jeff had kept canceling their meetings.

“I never could work out which one was supposed to be the ugly,” Alan said.

“Lee Van Cleef,” James said irritably.

Jeff had always supposed it was Eli Wallach, but kept quiet.

“So what did Lacey have to say for himself at your dinner?” Alan asked.

“Not much. He asked me if I’d say a few words in favor of his campaign.”

“Jesus, what did you tell him?”

“I said I’d think about it. Nobody got back to me about it after the evening, not even Lucy Duke.”

“You’re a civil servant,” James said. “They can’t use you; you’re supposed to be impartial.”

“I am not a bloody civil servant.”

“Government pays for you, you’re a civil servant.”

“That is such a load of crap.”

“Why? We paid for your precious treatment. And that whole bureaucratic con trick must have added a couple of percent to everyone’s income tax. Now we’re paying you again to work on their next pie-in-the-sky idea. I mean, Jesus H. Christ, they’re already leaking that top bracket income tax is going to hit seventy-five percent next budget. And it gets spent on the likes of you.”

“The high temperature superconductor is not pie in the sky,” Jeff said with forced politeness. “It’ll be a huge boon for everyone.”

“Except for the established energy suppliers,” James said. “It will ruin them, and for what purpose?”

Jeff cast a confused glance at Alan, who just shrugged. “What?”

“We don’t need your stupid government project,” James snapped. “We have enough energy, and if we need more the market will find ways of supplying it.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, we do not have enough energy. How can you say that, you’re the same generation as me, you’re damn well old enough to remember what we had back in the last century. And now look at us, most of the population can’t afford a car anymore.”

“They could if you hadn’t taxed them out of existence.”

“Me?” Jeff exclaimed. “What do you mean, me?”

“Well I don’t count you on my side.”

“Oh…” Jeff stood up, and gave his old friend a disgusted look. “Enough. I don’t have to put up with this shit.” He made to leave, then abruptly turned, his forefinger wagging accusingly at James. “And next time, have the courage to come out with what really bothers you.”