Low Expectations (21 page)

‘Erm,' I say eloquently.

The last book I read was
Tiger, Tiger
, the memoir of a woman who was manipulated into a long, psychologically damaging affair aged eight with a very sick father/lover figure; my favourite book is
Lolita
. Both suggest an unhealthy interest in paedophiles. When put on the spot with these sorts of things, the most dubious answers always spring to mind.

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, I was actually very well read, though wallowing in a misanthropic, pseudo depressive phase that at the time I attributed to existential angst. It was really just the inevitable insecurity resulting from acne, bacne, and rackne.

Makeup can act as a temporary mask for these things. But my denial wasn't so deep that I could convince myself the spongy, uniform application of a yellow-beige shade with the underlying texture and consistency of asphalt fooled anyone. The colour of my foundation at that time may have been called ‘Sunny Porcelain' but it was closer in tone to Lisa Simpson. Later, the addition of powder and bronzer to my arsenal led to bizarre orange stripes. Basically, throughout most of my adolescence I felt only shakily confident when standing in pitch darkness with a five-foot radius of empty space surrounding me.

Then, the face-plague cleared. I found the joys of friendships and lost weekends replete with alcohol; my remaining years have been spent living as a happy philistine. Though it saddens me to think that I reached my scholarly apex at fifteen, I justify the superficiality of my current interests by thinking that most people cultivate their minds in order to pontificate at dinner parties.

Anyway, I can take up stimulating my grey matter again when I eventually retire. One of the lesser-known benefits of smoking, after all, is that it staves off Alzheimer's. While it is a more expensive method than Sudoku, it is also more social. Those of us still heartily puffing away will be having rousing intellectual debates around our emphysema tanks. The more prudent residents will be stationed in front of the telly: drooling, abandoned husks forced to submit to
Everybody
Loves Raymond
on a loop, trapped in the solitary confinement of their own minds.

I roll up another cigarette and bring my wandering attention back to Scott.

‘
Erm
? Never heard of it. Did it win a Pulitzer?'

He lights up another fag, shivering. He is standing too far away from the tiny heater to benefit from its warmth. I feel pleased at the thought that he is enjoying our company enough to chain-smoke beside us on this chilly evening. Though maybe he is just a heavier smoker than I had thought.

‘I can never think of my favourite anything when someone asks me directly,' I say in childish protest, ‘I get stage fright. Also, with knowledge, I am like a sponge. In the literal sense – anything I absorb is immediately ejected under pressure, leaving a holey lump of foam. I've been trying to get through
Great Expectations
, but it's a bit frustrating the way he describes every little thing in fifteen different ways. But I admit I am basing my entire opinion on the first three chapters.'

‘Hmm, you should probably stick to decorating the female form and leave the literary criticism to others, dear,' Sarah says rather condescendingly, considering I don't think she's read anything longer than a press release since leaving university.

‘What's so wrong with decorating the world? There's this Protestant undercurrent in our society that shuns beauty as
frippery, but when so much of our sensory input from the world is visual, it's so important that that information has value. I mean,' I am drawn back to the concrete monolith across the road offending my eye, ‘look at that butchered Bauhaus monstrosity. Le Corbusier's vision for social housing elevating the living standards of the poor became warped into this idea that if you give people an ugly tower block to live in, all their bodily desires will be met and they should be satisfied with their lot. Consequently, the middle and upper classes feel owed a certain standard of behaviour from the inhabitants.'

I am on a roll now. I add feistily, ‘A certain basic need in our souls connects beauty and worth, beauty and intellect, beauty and goodness. It's not politically correct, but it is true. If you give people a pile of shit to live in, they will feel like shit and treat it like shit. I think our basic needs extend beyond food, water and shelter. Our outer shell is an extension of our creative expression. Has Gok Wan taught you nothing?' I finish my rant in a mock-indignant squeak.

‘I wish I could feign manly ignorance of Gok Wan, but unfortunately Channel 4 does the best hangover telly. You may have a point there, though amidst the tangents I'm not entirely sure what it is.' Scott says with an air of faux-perplexity, a smile playing on his lips.

‘Just that decoration is as natural and worthy a human impulse as anything else, I suppose,' I finish lamely.

‘Well, what a speech! I've never heard you defend your chosen industry like that. Usually you're complaining about the amount of energy and stress you put into finding the right button, saying it's all ridiculous,' Sarah says.

‘Can't I hate and love something at the same time? I think beauty has a high value but the process of creating it can be a massive ball-ache. It just annoys me when people act as if it's an entirely worthless, shallow endeavour.'

‘People don't think it's worthless, just that it's not rocket science.'

‘Rocket science is easier! It's formulas. Trying to predict whether a pleated skort can make a global comeback is a gamble based on trends in Shinjuku and raw intuition.'

‘Running a pub is hardly rocket science,' Sarah adds dryly.

‘Ah, but as a purveyor of alcohol in this fine and thirsty nation, I am and always shall be afforded immense respect. Everyone and their gran are fond of me. Whereas to the average Joe, fashion is full of preposterous snobs or heartless profiteers, or both,' Scott says.

The same people who deride the fashion industry as a self-indulgent effusion of ego would never deny the beauty of tribal markings, masks, ceremonial robes and headdresses. Anyone who has seen the exquisite intricacy of traditional costumes can see that even in eras of relative scarcity and hardship, presentation is important. The explosion of consumer society is an extension of this urge.

Fashion simply fulfils demand. We generally choose not to think about the provenance of our clothing. Though it could be wilful delusion that makes people believe a £6 cashmere jumper is not just a bargain but humanely produced, it is more likely the human cost doesn't even occur to them.

Saturated with novelty, there is a thrum urging us to buy more, not better, constantly. Terribly overt messages that whatever we purchase will somehow alter or disguise our flaws are so all-encompassing that we do not notice them any more. High fashion may be hated as elitist but it has the workmanship and craft to be considered an art in its own right. Those skills should be preserved.

I open my mouth to voice some of these thoughts but a wave of fatigue overtakes me and I shut it again abruptly. I've been on my soapbox enough for one evening. Mum has always advised that it's best to reveal only the top ten percent of your true thoughts, the more light-hearted the better. The remainder should be kept on lockdown, saved for the ears of your future husband. It goes without saying that your real opinions will only be revealed after the ceremony. ‘Men don't want bolshy wives', was how I believe she succinctly phrased it. Dad must have been in for a terrible shock on their honeymoon.

‘Heartless profiteers is a bit harsh! But of course a stiff drink will always trump a frock,' I say with a Gallic shrug. ‘Though if all people really want is for their addictions to be fed, why is more respect not afforded to drug dealers?'

‘Cause you have to pretend to be friends with them and they never fuck off when you want them to. I don't go round insisting on sharing a drink with all the punters, do I?'

‘Georgie, can we go back in? I'm freezing my tits off.' Sarah opens her jacket to flash us her breasts; her nipples are indeed protruding beneath the silky weight of her dress. I shake my head and laugh. Scott is looking around in every direction but hers, ineffectually trying to pretend he didn't get an eyeful. I think of Beardy and wonder if he would have leered in response. Sighing, I reflect that I've started to hate him a little. Why do men have to make you hate them? Why can't they just not fuck up?

‘Let's. Do you want to join us for a drink, Scott?' I ask.

‘Are you asking because you want the pleasure of my company or just to ensure I pick up the tab?'

‘Can't I have it both ways?' I murmur.

‘You can have it all the ways you like,' he grins in response.

I raise my eyebrows at Sarah as we stand up and follow him through the door.

‘I can tell,' Sarah says to me, cryptically.

‘You can tell what?' Scott answers.

‘That Georgie is happy to spend some more time with you.'

I feel myself reddening and have to resist a strong urge to pinch and kick her.

‘Oh really? And what would you ladies like to drink?' Scott sounds surprised, but pleased. As he goes round the bar to
get two G&Ts to add to the queue (we still have half a bottle of white left) I turn to Sarah with alarm.

‘Why did you say that? Oh God, he's going to think I'm totally infatuated with him. This is so embarrassing.'

‘Aren't you happy to spend time with him? Ok, I know I am totally interfering but Beardy is a cock and Scott is handsome and at the very least seems like an asker-before-he-sticks-it-in-her. You're too timid with these things and have your stupid “Shitting Rule”. So what if he thinks you fancy him! Everyone loves being loved. I think he likes you and I don't want to see you languishing through a horrible relationship with someone who treats you like a blow-up sex toy. Well, more truthfully, I don't want to hear about it for the next however many months.'

‘I see your point, but I still kind of hate you for it. Also, Beardy isn't that bad.'

And I intend on seeing him tonight, directly after the pub closes.

‘You'll love me at the wedding.'

‘Shut up!' I whisper as Scott returns, deftly wielding the two doubles and a pint of beer for himself.

‘I see you girls haven't even finished your wine … you are terrible opportunists.'

‘Get when the getting's good, is what I always say,' says Sarah, with a significant wink in my direction. This time I do
kick her under the table and at least she has the good grace not to flinch.

Half a bottle of wine, four G&Ts, two beers and a shot of tequila each later, we are all really very intoxicated and having a grand old time. Scott has been regaling us with tales of his misspent youth travelling the world. He was kicked out in his first year at university for accidentally urinating on the Dean of his course (Geography! Horrors!) out the top-floor window of a particularly raucous house party. He probably would never have been caught had a clever friend not scrawled ‘I pissed on Smeagly' in black marker pen on his forehead while he was passed out. Scott, mirror unseen, lurched his way to class after a few hours' sleep and waved cheerfully at said man in the corridor. For some reason, the poor fellow felt he was being unjustly mocked. Scott feels that as urine is sterile and the Dean was never in the way of any real harm, he should have been given a slap on the wrist, but no matter.

After a few years in Southeast Asia, he returned to Europe and by an extraordinarily lucky twist of fate aided by cheating, won a large sum of money. Annoyingly, he refuses to divulge the details of this con, in which he was helped by a charming but shady card-shark friend in Monte Carlo – this character has since been put in jail for bigamy and fraud. Scott loyally insists that ‘He is, or was, at heart, a good man,' but I have my doubts about anyone named Juan who preys on greying,
bejewelled beauties to earn his keep. While his friend pissed away the winnings in a matter of weeks, Scott used the cash to return to London and fund his first business venture, a bar with the (hopefully) ironic title of ‘The Shithole of Shepherd's Bush'. Due to the dearth of good nightlife in West London, it became an instant success in the mystifying way that a dive-bar with good music and hot clientele can. This he credits, in no small part, to Alice frequenting it regularly with all her beautiful friends.

Alice, Alice, Alice, it always comes back down to Alice. Scott's casual observation that her crazysexycool was key to his success leads me to note for the first time how little separates ‘Alice' from ‘A lice'. I find myself wishing she had some sort of (non-life-threatening) grave hidden flaw. Something like an unbreakable hymen that prevents her from ever having sex. Though with a bit of luck he wouldn't know about that through personal experience. I honestly don't really fancy him; she just makes me deeply insecure.

Clearly, I am an awful person. I try to rid myself of such evil thoughts but they crack open and emerge with a force of their own. Don't we meanies deserve a happy ending too? Surely everyone indulges in cruel fantasies from time to time? The important thing is not to voice them, or at least, only to a well-chosen audience.

Scott is waxing lyrical about the fun he and Alice, as well as some dude named Jason, used to have in their teens. He
is a very good storyteller, speaking in a deep Scottish burr, with a crooked smile that appears when he is being self-deprecating. He is quite captivating; I probably resemble an entranced goldfish by now, in my drunken state.

After his family moved to London when he was thirteen, these Three Stooges (his words) bonded in the mews by their local comp over a stolen pack of fags. The truants ran around smoking weed and mucking about so much their parents feared it would lead to their ruin. He is reminiscing about the havoc they used to wreak, the rambunctious mischief of adolescents refusing to submit to staid adulthood, when Sarah interrupts him.