‘Is it because of the boner?’
‘What do you mean, Max?’
‘Tarek said that if you see a grown-up’s willy and it’s a boner then all the other grown-ups go spectrum, and you have to go to see a psychiatrist.’
I sat, trying to find an answer to this. Tarek had covered a lot of angles in one sentence.
‘So do I have to go and see a psychiatrist?’
‘I don’t know, I think it might be a good idea.’
‘Do you have to go and see a psychiatrist too?’
‘No, Max, I don’t think so. But Mum and I will be coming with you when you go for the first time.’
He bristled at the injustice of this.
‘You saw the boner too, Dad.’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘So why don’t you have to go?’
‘Max, you’re eleven.’
Max rolled his eyes in that way only eleven-year-olds do.
‘In the next few years you’re going to be discovering a lot about your body. And about other people’s bodies. And Mum and I want to make sure that you don’t find that scary.’
‘I know about sex, Dad.’
‘I know you do, Max. But Mum and I want to make sure you’re OK.’
I tried to take his hand but he pushed me away.
‘Are you going to tell Mr Sharpe about the psychiatrist?’ There was humiliation in his eyes; his voice was very small.
‘Yes, probably. But he won’t tell anyone else. And if you go for a few times and Mum and I decide it’s not really necessary, then you can stop. OK?’
He picked up the rest of the Maltesers and went upstairs to his room. I sat, feeling worse than ever. I’d be angry with me too if I were him.
Max and I ate our fish and chips.
The doorbell rang. My first thought was Millicent without her key, and my second thought was the police.
It was Fab5.
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘All right, Alex,’ said Fab5. He went through to the kitchen and sat in my chair, stole a large chip from Max.
‘Hey,’ said Max.
‘Good to see you too, wee guy.’
I had hoped Millicent would love Fab5. She never did.
‘Fab5? Like, we’re cool and we’re black and it’s 1979? Guy needs to accept his reality.’
Fab5 thought Millicent lacked a sense of irony; she thought the same about him. If you forced me I would side with Millicent; she saw from the start what I did not: that he had slipped his moorings, that he was adrift.
Fab5 was my oldest friend, though. True, there was something a little faded about him now, a little stretched around the edges. It was getting harder to laugh at the stories about women and cocaine. He partied a little too hard and his hair had taken on a warm red-brown sheen that doesn’t exist in nature. He knew this, though, and that’s why we were still friends. Behind the laughter there was a wistfulness for a time when he and I were young together, and London, it seemed, lay at our feet: a time before Millicent, in other words. I wondered sometimes if Millicent disliked Fab5 for that reason too – he was a reminder of a younger, less faithful me.
My wife worries that I might revert to type.
Fab5 helped himself to one of my cigarettes. ‘You going out like that, Lex? She’ll not be pleased.’
‘What?’
‘Dee, you incorrigible twat.’
Dee Effingham. The Sacred Cock at seven.
‘What time is it? And don’t say twat in front of Max.’
Max pushed his tongue hard against his cheek and made a two-tone mm-mm sound.
‘See, you’re corrupting my wee boy, Fab5.’ Twat was the right word, though.
‘It’s six twenty-five, Dad,’ said Max.
‘Run, Alex,’ said Fab5. ‘Run like the wind.’
It wasn’t till I was on Drayton Park that I saw the scarves and the hamburger boxes, and realised it was match day at the Arsenal. Even weaving through the side streets, I couldn’t avoid the football completely. I made the Sacred Cock at five to, but I’d half-run the last five hundred metres.
I ordered a pint of Flemish.
‘Hello, Gorgeous. What’s got you so hot and bothered?’
‘Oh, Dee. Hi.’
‘See, I blend in. Let me get that for you, hmm? Have you been running?’ She chucked a fifty at the barman.
‘Yes. You got me.’
‘You’ve got that freshly fucked man-of-the-city thing going on. Didn’t pull you out of bed, did I?’
‘I wish.’
‘So do I, Gorgeous. So do I.’
‘Do you kiss Middle England with that mouth, Dee?’
‘No, Gorgeous. First rule is never swear on the telly. And it’s all of England, you know. And Wales, and Northern Ireland. And, oh you know, those funny little people up north.’
‘Yeah, my mum loves you.’
‘Not your dad?’ She mimed a hurt little pout, shaking her shoulders, and for a moment her breasts had me in their forcefield: the dangerous ravine of cleavage, the smooth milk-white vastness. She made a show of following my gaze and gave a mock-seductive sigh. ‘Bad boy, Gorgeous. Caught looking.’
‘I was just wondering …’
‘Yes …’
‘… whether that was part of your clothing range?’
‘Nice recovery, Gorgeous. Sure that’s what you were thinking?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Because I could have sworn …’
‘I’m happily married, Dee, but if I wake up single tomorrow, you’re first on my list.’
‘And you think that choice lies with you. That’s so sweet, Gorgeous. So terribly tousled and sweet. And you would absolutely be second on my list …’
She insisted I match her drink-for-drink. We got quietly drunk in a corner, forgot to go upstairs to watch the comedy. I didn’t want to sleep with her any more than she wanted to sleep with me, but there was something so charismatic and so pretty and so direct about her that I started to understand why Middle England loved her so much. And I was flattered that she was flirting with me over her large glass of Chenin Blanc. Flattered, too, that she wanted to work with me. It would have been bad manners not to flirt back.
On my third pint of Flemish she got me on to Max. I pulled a photo from my wallet.
‘Ooh,’ she said. ‘Gorgeous begets gorgeous. Is his mother very beautiful?’
‘I think so.’
‘I’ll bet. Call your hot wife. Get her down here. And your son, if he’s still up.’
‘He goes to bed at nine.’
‘Not a showbiz kid, then?’
‘No.’
‘How very wise.’
And anyway, I thought, Millicent wouldn’t like this. Whatever this is. However innocent this