Are You Experienced? Read online

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I replied.

  ‘Liz. Dave.’

  ‘Hi,’ she said, offering me a cheek to peck. (Fantastic skin, too. )

  ‘And have I introduced you to these?’ said James, taking a step back and indicating two pairs of identical brown-leather boots, sported by him and Paul.

  ‘What the hell is that?’ I said.

  ‘Walking boots. Brand new,’ replied James. ‘We’ve done our final big shop. Look.’ He lifted a huge green Y H A -shop bag on to the table, and we all sat down.

  ‘Rucksack; money belt; mosquito-repellent stick; mosquito-repellent spray; mosquito-repellent gel; water-purification tablets – eight packs; travel wash – four tubes…’

  While the pile of junk mounted on the table, I caught sight of Liz’s face. She was squinting slightly, and her mouth was set in an angry pout. James, you see, was doing his big trip with Paul (oldest friend and general obedient stooge), while Liz was stuck in London doing an art foundation course.

  ‘.… mini sewing kit; water-resistant torch; special sweat-absorbent socks; nylon emergency towel; rubber all-purpose sink plug; and, best of all… this.’

  In his hand, James held out a palm-sized piece of square black plastic.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Da-daaah.’ He prised open the plastic, revealing a square of paper which, after delicate unfolding, showed a map of the world.

  The last thing I wanted to see was a map of the world, since it inevitably indicated that he was about to force-feed me with yet another account of the latest, infinitesimal changes to his ‘master plan’. I opted for swift diversionary tactics.

  ‘Walking boots? What do you need walking boots for?’

  ‘For our trek. We’re doing a trek in the…’

  ‘Since when have you been into walking?’

  ‘Since always.’

  ‘Bollocks. You always said you hate the countryside. You think it’s boring.’

  ‘This is the Himalayas we’re talking about, Dave. It’s notcountryside.’

  ‘It is. It’s just big countryside.’

  ‘David – we’re going to see three eight-thousand-metre peaks. Do you realize how many eight-thousand-metre peaks there are in the world?’

  ‘No, and I’m not int–’

  ‘Six.’

  ‘Seven,’ said Paul.

  It’s six.’

  ‘There are seven.’

  ‘Six.’

  I turned to Liz. ‘Fascinating company, these two.’

  She shrugged and half smiled at me.

  ‘James,’ I said, cutting in on their argument, ‘you’re boring. The pair of you are piss-boring. Talk to each other about your trip in private, OK? There are two other people here, and we’d like to stay awake, so can we try and talk about something real?’

  ‘Hah,’ said James.

  ‘What do you mean, “hah”?’

  ‘That’s… just… not very elegant.’

  ‘Elegant?’

  ‘I mean – that kind of… open jealousy… is… is just embarrassing.’

  ‘Oh, I see. I’m not bored – I’m jealous.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And in my heart of hearts, I really am desperately interested in how many hills there are that are a little bigger than lots of other hills.’

  ‘Dave – you can’t face us talking about our trip because it reminds you that you are pissing away your year. You’re pissing it away because you haven’t planned anything, and you haven’t planned anything because you’re basically too scared to go travelling.’

  ‘I’m going abroad.’

  ‘To Switzerland?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oooh – aren’t we brave? You’re really risking life and limb there. Waiter in a Swiss hotel! Hazardous stuff.’

  ‘Don’t be an arsehole, James.’

  ‘Shocking hygiene, too. You’re going to get really ill in Switzerland.’

  ‘James, you’re being annoying,’ said Liz. ‘Maybe he wants to learn French. Or German. Which part of the country is it?’

  ‘I’m going to the French-speaking bit, near to the…’

  ‘Do you want to learn Fwench, David? Something pwactical for your CV?’

  I could feel my face going red.

  ‘You’re jealous, and you’re a coward,’ he said. ‘You can’t face doing any real travel because you don’t think you could survive in… in a different culture.’

  ‘I could survive.’

  ‘Why aren’t you doing it, then?’

  ‘Just…’

  ‘Will you lay off him,’ said Liz. ‘Not everyone is like you, James. If he doesn’t want to travel, he doesn’t want to travel. It’s not compulsory, you know.’

  That was it. The moment I fell in love with her. Or started to fall in love with her.

  James bit back a scowl and tried to smile. He didn’t like being contradicted in public by his girlfriend. (That’s the kind of arsehole he was.) ‘Yeah, but… I mean, you’d go travelling if you weren’t stuck in your art foundation course.’

  ‘I’m not stuck in an art foundation course. I chose to do an art foundation course.’

  ‘Yeah, but if you had the time, you’d go off to Asia or something, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I probably will go to “Asia or something”. I’ve got a perfectly long summer holiday.’

  ‘I know. We’ve discussed that. All I mean is, if you had a year off like Dave, you wouldn’t waste your time pissing around in Europe.’

  ‘And all I mean is, stop showing off. We all know where you’re going. We think you’re very clever and very brave. Now drop it.’

  Silence descended. They stared at each other. Veins were standing out on James’s temples. I was almost fainting with delight.

  ‘Shall I get more drinks?’ said Paul, with a cough. ‘What do you…? Urn… how about the same again?… I’ll get that, then.’

  Paul retreated to the bar, his shoes squeaking slightly as he walked. James and Liz continued to stare at each other.

  ‘I need the toilet,’ I said, standing up. ‘Oh, no I don’t. I’ll go later.’ I sat down again, trying to hold in an evil smile. James gave me an angry look. I shrugged, pretending not to understand what he meant. Turning my head, I realized that Liz was also holding in a smile, but rather less effectively than me. A smirk was playing on her lips, and it wasn’t directed at James, but at me.

  ‘How long are you going to be in Switzerland, Dave?’ she said.

  ‘Just for the ski season. About four months.’

  ‘Well, with Dr Livingstone here heading off, my social life is in danger of withering away. Will you give me a ring when you get back?’

  Tunnel vision. Racing pulse. Cold sweat. ‘Um… yeah. I haven’t… um… got your… ‘

  ‘Here’s my number.’ She pulled a pen from her bag, and wrote on a beer-mat.

  ‘Thanks.’ I smiled at her, and she blinked back. I turned to smile at James, but he seemed to be exhibiting the symptoms of advanced flu, and couldn’t even look at me.

  I know it’s bad to think about your friends this way, but for several years it had been obvious to both of us that James had the better of me. It wasn’t anything specific, but an accumulation of little things had put him on top. Now, with that beer-mat in my back pocket, for the first time since we were fifteen I felt as if I had the better of him.

  I floated home from the pub, my fingers fluttering every few seconds to touch the small bulge, square with rounded corners, in the back of my jeans.

  You are. You’re asking me out

  I had spent the first half of my year off working at the Sock Shop in King’s Cross. When you work in a clothes shop, all you do is walk around folding up what the customers have unfolded. This makes the Sock Shop a particularly weird place to work, because you can’t fold a sock. Your life begins to have so little meaning that you start wondering if you’re still alive. After that, you even start doubting whether or not socks actually exist.

/>   Most of my friends had done similar (though usually less surreal) jobs, and were now spending their money on a trip to India, South-East Asia or Australia. Everyone seemed to have big ideas about how they had to find themselves, whatever that meant, through some journey to a poverty-stricken flea-pit half-way up a malaria-infested mountain on the other side of the planet. There was a general belief that a long and unpleasant holiday was of crucial importance to one’s development as a human being.

  At this stage, I still had no plans for what I was going to do when I got back from Switzerland, but felt pretty certain that the last thing I fancied was going somewhere dirty. Basically – I hate being ill, and I just couldn’t see the point of packing myself off to certain dysentery and probably worse. I also couldn’t figure out what you do all day in a country that’s too poor to have museums. Not that I like museums particularly -1 just mean that sightseeing’s O K for a while – a few weeks, maybe – but what do you do if there aren’t any sights? Do you just wander around looking at the poor people and eating disgusting food that ruins your liver for the rest of your life? What do you do all day?

  The most eloquent defence of travel I got was from Paul, who said, ‘Dunno. There must be something to do. Apparently the dope’s really cheap.’ James had then launched into some enormous long-winded theory about imperialist cultural assumptions and putting yourself into a situation where you’re challenged to think about things that are taken for granted in the West, but I could tell that what he actually meant was ‘The dope really is cheap.’ Besides, anyone who talks about challenging their cultural assumptions and then goes to Thailand is clearly talking out of their arse.

  Even though I thought the whole thing sounded pretty pointless, I still felt under a certain amount of pressure to do it. However I rationalized my desire to stay in Europe, I always ended up feeling that in all honesty, it came down to cowardice. No other explanation was possible. If I couldn’t face going to the Third World, I was a coward.

  In the back of my mind, I was hoping that something would happen which would whisk me away to a land of suffering, danger and poverty, but I wasn’t willing to make it happen myself. I wanted to have one of those big trips behind me, but I’d never get around to putting myself through it. Suffering, danger and poverty are all fine by me, but din and disease are two things I happen to hate. I just didn’t want to go.

  As for what I’d do when I got back from Switzerland, I felt depressed just thinking about it. I would have earned plenty of money by then, and the obligation to travel would be more powerful than ever. I needed to think of some way to spend it that didn’t look like too much of a cop-out.

  My job in Switzerland turned out to be just as dull as the one at the Sock Shop, with Alpine boredom differing only from the metropolitan variety in that it is slightly more sweet-smelling. I somehow failed to meet a horny millionairess with months to live, and arrived back in England with no plans as to what I should do with the rest of my year. By now it was March, and all my friends were either abroad or at university.

  After repeated desultory flips through my address book, I was forced to acknowledge that something radical had to be done if I wanted to have a life. I dug out the beer-mat and stared at Liz’s phone number.

  For several days, whenever I passed within reach of a telephone, my pulse accelerated slightly. But I couldn’t quite make myself ring her.

  After doing the old dial-half-the-number, walk-around-the-house-a-few-times, dial-half-the-number, go-and-buy-some-milk, dial-half-the-number, nip-out-for-a-newspaper, dial-half-the-number, go-into-the-garden-and-torture-a-small-animal routine each day for almost a week, I finally forced myself to go through with it.

  ‘Hello – is Liz there, please?’

  ‘Yup – speaking.’

  ‘Oh.’

  I didn’t know what to say. What was it you were supposed to say in these situations?

  ‘Hi,’ I tried.

  That was it. That sounded right.

  ‘Hi. Who is this?’

  ‘Um – it’s me. Dave. Dave Greenford. James’s friend.’

  ‘Dave! Shit – it’s good to hear from you. How’s things?’

  ‘Fine, fine.’

  ‘What have you been up to?’

  ‘Oh – this and that. You know. I’ve just got back from Switzerland.’

  ‘Oh yeah. Of course. How was it?’

  ‘Crap. They’re all wankers.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What – all of them?’

  ‘Everyone I met.’

  ‘God. That’s bad luck.’

  ‘Not really – more a statistical certainty.’

  ‘Right. Sounds like you really got into the local culture.’

  ‘Absolutely. Yodelling and rubber cheese – what more could a guy want?’

  ‘You’re going back soon, then?’

  ‘Soon as I can. Anyway – what about you? What are you up to?’

  ‘Nothing. I’ve been bored to piss.’

  ‘Bored to piss? That sounds serious.’

  ‘Everyone’s away. All my friends have just vanished off the face of the earth.’

  ‘I’m so pleased to hear you say that. I’ve got exactly the same problem. It’s tragic. Everyone’s disappeared. I’ve been having the social life of a maggot.’

  ‘I would have thought maggots had quite a good social life,’ she said. ‘I mean, you never see a lonely maggot, do you?’

  What a weird thing to say. I felt my cheeks flush. This was it. I was falling in love with her again.

  ‘Make that a maggot with a speech impediment and acne,’ I said.

  ‘A wiggle impediment, maybe.’

  This was amazing! We were really bonding now.

  ‘Imagine being a maggot with a wiggle impediment,’ I said. ‘No one would talk to you. If you had, like, half a wiggle, you’d only be able to go round in circles, and everyone would take the piss really badly.’

  ‘Do you reckon there’s such a thing as a really sexy, popular maggot? With a curvaceous wiggle?’

  I was almost helpless with lust.

  ‘Look – Liz. Are you doing anything?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know – are you up to anything, like, this week?’

  ‘Are you asking me out?’

  ‘No, no, no. I’m not, I’m not. I just… sort of wondered if we could sort of meet up for a drink or something.’

  ‘You are. You’re asking me out.’

  ‘No – it’s nothing like that, I just…’

  ‘Stop squirming, you pratt. I’m winding you up. You’re James’s mate. You’re not exactly going to turn round and start groping me the minute he leaves the country, are you?’

  I chuckled weakly.

  ‘You two are still going out, then?’

  ‘Of course we are. Look – I’ve got sod all to do this evening. Do you want to meet in Camden around eight?’

  ‘Right. OK. Cool.’

  ‘I’ll see you at the station exit.’

  ‘There’s two.’

  ‘At the main one, then.’

  ‘They’re the same.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be such a knob. I’ll see you at the prettier one.’

  Then she put the phone down.

  Shit!I’d never been bossed around like that before. I ormally spent a good twenty minutes negotiating a suitable meeting place, and she just .. . bloody hell! This was amazing.

  Another plump, juicy, bursting peach

  I was late for our meeting at Camden station, but Liz was even later. I noticed for the first time that one of the exits was marginally less ugly than the other, and that was where she turned up.

  We went to the World’s End pub, and I ordered a Guinness in the hope that I’d come across as a bit of an intellectual.

  It was the first time we’d ever been alone together, and once we’d sat down with our drinks it became clear that we didn’t really have very much to talk about. Our only c
onnection was James. I didn’t want to encourage her to talk about him, but I didn’t want long silences either, and when the first one began to gape open, I chickened out and took the easy option.

  ‘Any news from James?’

  ‘Yeah, lots. He seems to be getting on fine. Got a letter every few days at first, then it started going down. Haven’t had one for about a fortnight now.’

  ‘When’d he go?’

  ‘January.’

  ‘Shit – three months.’

  ‘Five more to go.’

  ‘I didn’t realize it was that long.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘That’s a long time. Eight months. Don’t you reckon he’ll get bored?’

  ‘Bored? You think he’ll polish off everything there is to do in Thailand, Hong Kong, Bali, Australia and America in eight months, do you?’

  ‘No – it’s not that – it’s just… eight months away from home. That’s ages. No Marmite. No EastEnders. Warm beer.’

  ‘Warm beer?’

  ‘Apparently, yeah. Except maybe in Australia.’

  ‘I was hoping that he’d be marginally more worried about missing me.’

  ‘Exactly. That too. Eight months…’

  ‘It’s hard enough already.’

  ‘And you don’t mind him running away like that and leaving you alone for all this time?’

  ‘He didn’t run away. It’s his year off for God’s sake. I wouldn’t want to go out with someone whose idea of fun was sitting in St Albans working as a filing clerk all year.’

  ‘I suppose not. Didn’t you want to go with him, though?’

  ‘Of course I wanted to go with him. D’ you think I’d rather be in a pub with you than on a beach in Thailand with James?’

  ‘No. I suppose not.’

  ‘There is the small matter of my own life to consider. I can’t just leave like that. I’m in the middle of a course.’