Miranda looked on him with pity. ‘It won’t be like that. Not for us,’ she said. ‘Polly’s talking about it all being different by then, not about actual immortality.’
‘Christ,’ Amos said. ‘What is all this? There’s so much to be done now. Why are we talking about what’s going to happen to us in a hundred years time?’
‘I like my idea,’ Miranda insisted.
Selwyn stirred himself. He reached up to grasp Miranda’s wrist, and drew her back into the circle. She had stuck sequins along her cheekbones and they flashed in the candlelight.
‘Then you shall have what you want,’ he told her. Most of them laughed. Selwyn was joking, but the joke was in part a reference to his acknowledged supremacy and power in the group. What Selwyn decided usually came to pass.
Silence had fallen after that. In their different ways they were all thinking about the conversation and peering, into the chinks between the phrases, at the remote and chilly landscape of their old age. It had seemed no less distant than the moon.
Or perhaps it was just me who was contemplating it, Colin thought now.
Maybe the others were all far too preoccupied with the constant murmur of sex. Or the roar of sedition, in Amos’s case.
‘He’s mine, for fuck’s sake. You’re not having him, whatever you say.’
The sudden shout made Colin jump. The young couple who had been sitting in the window were now on their feet and measuring up to each other as if they were about to trade blows. The dog jumped off the bench and whimpered and the boy grabbed at the lead clipped to its collar. The girl reached to snatch at the lead too. In doing so she lost her footing and overbalanced against Colin’s table. It tilted sharply and his glass slid off and smashed on the floor. Beer and shards splashed over his shoe and sock.
‘Shit, Jessie,’ the boy hissed.
The girl turned to look at what she had done, but she didn’t miss the opportunity to grab the lead out of the boy’s hand first.
‘Bugger off,’ she told him.
The boy was scarlet in the face and everyone in the room was looking at him. Beer dripped off the leg of Colin’s trousers.
‘You’re a cow,’ the boy told the girl. He banged past the table and marched out of the bar. The dog whined again, and then consoled itself by lapping at the puddle of spilled beer.
‘Mind the glass, Raff,’ the girl screeched. She jerked on the lead to haul the animal out of danger, and anchored him to the leg of a heavier table. She and Colin stooped together and began to gather up the shards of broken glass.
‘I’m really, really sorry,’ the girl muttered. ‘He wanted to take my dog, you know?’
‘Watch out,’ the barman said, arriving with a cloth and a dustpan. The girl mopped up the puddle as he swept the debris away. Colin ruefully examined his wet ankle, shaking off the tinkly remnants of broken glass.
‘Shall I, like, mop you up as well?’ She made some flapping movements with the dingy cloth. Colin took a folded white handkerchief out of his pocket and did the job for himself.
‘It’s all right. No permanent damage,’ he said, sounding pompous in his own ears.
‘Really? You’d better let me buy you another drink, though, since the last one went in your shoe.’
Colin sat upright and looked at her. She was no more than eighteen, with a pretty, monkeyish face. Her open top showed the upper tendrils of a tattoo extending above her right breast. She smiled suddenly at him, and Colin smiled back.
‘Just a half,’ he said.
‘Right. What was it?’
‘That one,’ he pointed. The dog watched with its ears pricked as she bought two halves and carried them back to the table.
‘There you go. Can I join you? Just split with my bloke, haven’t I? Mind you, that’s no great loss. He’s a disaster. This is Rafferty, by the way.’ The dog’s tongue fell out of its mouth. ‘And I’m Jessie.’
‘Colin,’ Colin said. ‘Sorry about the boyfriend.’
‘Uh, well. There’s not a lot of choice round here, that’s the thing. It’s make the best of what there is or DIY, if you get me.’
Colin laughed.
‘So, you on holiday?’
‘Not exactly,’ Colin said.
Jessie took a packet of Golden Virginia and some Rizlas out of her pocket and began to construct a roll-up. ‘It’s all right,’ she pre-empted the barman’s protest. ‘There’s no law against making a fag, is there? I’m not going to smoke it in here.’
She turned her attention back to Colin. ‘So?’
‘I have a friend, some friends, who live near here. I’m just visiting. For a few days, maybe longer.’
‘Where’s that, then?’
‘Mead House. Do you know it?’
Jessie turned down the corners of her expressive mouth and wagged her head from side to side.
‘La-di-dah.’
‘Is it?’
‘Yeah, it’s posh for this part of the world.’ She gave a quick cough of laughter, and at the same time checked out Colin’s shoes and watch. ‘Dead posh. You should see the places that aren’t. Open your eyes a bit, that would.’
‘Do you live in, uh, Meddlett?’
‘Yup. Born and bred. And Damon.’
‘Damon?’
‘Him.’ She jerked her head to the door.
‘Why was he trying to take your dog?’
‘He did belong to both of us. Me and Damon’re living together, right? Rented a place off this bloke who was going abroad, and we got the dog as well, the same time, from a dogs’ home. Made us seem like a family. But the bottom line is he’s mine. Raff knows it, Damon knows it. He was trying it on, just now, that’s all.’
Jessie raised her chin, but Colin could see that she was on the verge of tears. Rafferty pulled himself forward almost to throttling point in order to rest his jaw on the corner of her knee. He rolled his eyes upwards and Jessie stroked his head.
‘Can’t stay with us, Raff, can he? He’ll have to find himself somewhere else to live. Fucking loser,’ she muttered.
‘What do you do, Jessie? Have you got a job?’
She sniffed. ‘Yeah. Course. I’m not one of those scroungers. I’ve been on the casual all summer, since I left sixth-form college. Cleaning. You know, holiday lets and that. End of the season, now, though. I could go on the agricultural, but that’s mostly for the foreigners. Have to think about uni, won’t I, next year? Now me and Damon are finished.’
‘That sounds to me like a good idea.’
He was becoming quite the embodiment of pomposity, Colin thought. He glanced at his watch. Somehow it was now twenty minutes to nine. They had finished their drinks while they were talking.
‘Yeah, I gotta go too,’ Jessie said at once. She stood up abruptly and detached Rafferty’s lead. ‘Night all,’ she called loudly to the other customers. Four pairs of eyes watched them as they filed out.
In the car park, Colin took a deep breath and gave thanks for the fact that he hadn’t tried to buy them both another drink. It was a long time since he had consumed