Beede leaned down and grabbed a hold of his small, khaki workbag as though intending to make a dash for it but then he didnt actually move. Something (in turn) held him.
Kane frowned. Beede, why the fuck are you here? he asked again, now almost sympathetically.
They make a good coffee, Beede lied, dropping the bag again. Fuck off. The coffee is heinous, Kane said. And just look at you, he added, youre crapping yourself. You hate this place. The piped music is making you nauseous. Your knee is jogging up and down under the table so hard youre knocking all the bubbles out of my Pepsi. Beedes knee instantly stopped its jogging.
Kane took a quick swig of the imperilled beverage (it was still surprisingly fizzy), and as he placed the glass back down again, it suddenly dawned on him the way all new things dawned on him: slowly, and with a tiny, mischievous jolt how unbelievably guarded his father seemed
Beede?
Hiding something?
His mind reeled back a way, then forwards again
Hmmn
Beede. This rock. This monolith. This man-mountain. This closed book. This locked door. This shut-down thing.
For once he actually seemedalmostwell, almost cagey. Anxious. Wary. Kane stared harder. This was certainly a first. This was definitely a novelty. My God. Yes. Even in his littlest movements (now he came to think of it): knocking his disposable carton of creamer against the lip of his coffee cup (a tiny splash landing on the spotless nail of his thumb); kicking his bag; picking up his book; fumbling as he turned over the corner of a page, then unfolding it and jumpily pretending to recommence with his reading.
Kane rolled his cigarette around speculatively between his fingers. Beede glanced up for a moment, met Kanes gaze, shifted his focus off sideways in the general direction of the entrance (which was not actually visible from where they were seated) and then looked straight down again.
Now that was odd. Kane frowned. Beede uncertain? Furtive? To actively break his gaze in that way?
What?!
Unheard of! Beede was the original architect of the unflinching stare. Beedes stare was so steady he could make an owl crave Optrex. Beede could happily unrapt a raptor. And hed done some pretty nifty groundwork over the years in the Guilt Trip arena (trip? How about a gruelling two-month sabbatical in the parched, ancient Persian city of Firuzabad? And hed do your packing. And hed book your hotel. And itd be miles from the airport. And thered be no fucking air conditioning). Beede was the hair shirt in human form.
Kane took another swig of his Pepsi
Okay
But how huge is this?
He couldnt honestly tell if it was merely the small things, or if the big things were now also subtly implicated in what he was currently (and so joyously) perceiving as a potentially wholesale situation of emotional whitewash (Oh come on. Wasnt he in danger of blowing the whole thing out of proportion here? This was Beede for Christsakes. He was sixty-one years old. He worked shifts in the hospital laundry. He hated everybody. The word judgemental couldnt do him justice. If Beede was judgemental then King Herod was a little skittish.
Beede thought modern life was all waffle. Hed never owned a car, but persisted in driving around on an ancient, filthy and shockingly unreliable Douglas motorcycle c. 1942, with the requisite piss-pot helmet. He didnt own a tv. He found Radio 4 chicken-livered. He feared the microwave. He thought deodorant was the devils sputum. He blamed David Beckham personally for breeding a whole generation of boys whose only meaningful relationship was with the mirror. He called it kid-narcissismalthough he still used hair oil himself, and copiously. Unperfumed, of course. He was rigorously allergic to sandalwood, seafood and lanolin; Jeez! An oriental prawn in a lambswool sweater would probablyve done for him).
Okay. Okay. So Kane freely admitted (Kane did everything freely) that he took so little interest in Beedes life, in general, that he might actually find it quite difficult to delineate between the two (the big things, the small). He tipped his head to one side. I mean what mattered to Beede? Did he live large? Was he lost in the details?
Or (now hang on a second) perhaps Kane promptly pulled himself off his self-imposed hook (no apparent damage to knitwear) perhaps he did know. Perhaps hed drunk it all in, subconsciously, the way any son must. Perhaps he knew everything already and merely had to do a spot of careful digging around inside his own keen if irredeemably frivolous psyche (polishing things off, systematising, card-indexing) to sort it all out.
But Oh God thatd be hard work! Thatd take some real effort. And itd be messy. And he was tired. And quite frankly Beede bored him. Beede was just soso vehement. So intent. So focussed. Too focussed. Horribly focussed. In fact Beede was quite focussed enough for the both of them (and why not add a small gang of Olympic Tri-Athletes, an international chess champion, and that crazy nut who carved the Eiffel Tower out of a fucking toothpick into the mix, for good measure?).
Beede was so uptight, so pent up, so unbelievablyuhpriggish (re-pressed/sup-pressed you name it, he was it) that if he ever actually deigned to cut loose (Beede? Cut loose? Are you serious?!) then he would probably just cut right out (yawn. Again), like some huge but cranky petrol-driven lawnmower (a tremendously well-constructed but unwieldy old Allen, say). I mean all that deep inner turmoilall thatthat tightly buttoned, straight-backed, quietly creaking, Strindberg-style tension. Where the hell would it go? How on earth could it?
Eh?
Of course, by comparison and by sheer coincidence Kanes entire life mission
Oh how lovely to hone in on me again
was to be mirthful. To be fluffy. To endow mere trifles with an exquisitely inappropriate gravitas. Kane found depth an abomination. He lived in the shallows, and, like a shark (a sand shark; not a biter), he basked in them. He both eschewed boredom and yet considered himself the ultimate arbiter of it. Boredom terrified him. And because Beede, his father, was so exquisitely dull (celebrated a kind of immaculate dullness he was the Virgin Mary of the Long Hour) Kane had gradually engineered himself into his fathers anti.
If Beede had ever sought to underpin the community then Kane had always sought to undermine it. If Beede lived like a monk, then Kane revelled in smut and degeneracy. If Beede felt the burden of lifes weight (and heaven knows, he felt it), then Kane consciously rejected worldly care.
A useful (and gratifying) side-product of this process was Kanes gradual apprehension that there was a special kind of glory in self-interest, a magnificence in self-absorption, a heroism in degeneracy, which other people (the general public the culture) seemed to find not only laudable, but actively endearing.
Come on. Come on; nobody liked a stuffed shirt; nobody found puritanism sexy (except for Angelo who wanted to shag Isabella in Measure for Measure. But Shakespeare was a pervert; and they didnt bother teaching you that in O-level literature); nobody but nobodywanted to stand next to the teetotaller at the party
Hey! Wheres the guy in the novelty hat with the six pack of beer?
Kane half-smiled to himself as he took out his phone, opened it, deftly ran through his texts, closed it, shoved it back into his pocket, took a final drag on his cigarette and then stubbed it out.
So whats that youre reading?
He picked up his lighter (a smart, silver and red-enamelled Ronson) and struck it, lightly
Nothing.
After an almost interminable six-second hiatus, Beede closed his book and placed it down with a small sigh on to his lap. Whatever happened to that girl? he asked mechanically (having immediately apprehended the fatuous nature of Kanes literary enquiry). Kane frowned
Wow
To answer a question with a question
Masterly.
Girl? Kane stared back at him, blankly. Which girl? The waitress?
Dont be ridiculous, Beede snapped. The little girl. The skinny one. I havent seen her around in a while
Skinny?
Kane adopted a look of cheerful bewilderment.
The redhead, Beede persisted (thoroughly immune to Kanes humbug). Too skinny. Red hair. Bright red hair
Red hair?
Yes. Red hair. Purple-red
Purple?
Yes (Beede yanked on his trusty, old pair of mental crampons and kicked them, grimly, into the vertical rockface of his self-control).
Yes. Purple.
Kane didnt seem to notice.
Purple? he repeated, taking some time out to savour the feel of this word on his tongue
Purple
Purrrrr-pull
then glancing up
Ooops
and relenting. You probably mean Kelly, he vouchsafed, almost lasciviously. Little Kelly Broad. Lovely, filthy, skinny, little Kelly
Kelly Broad. Of course, Beede echoed curtly. So are the two of you still an item?
An item? Kane smirked at this quaint formulation. Hell, no he took a long swig of his Pepsi, thats all he burped, excuse metotally fucked now.
Beede waited, patiently, for any further elucidation. None was forthcoming.
Well thats a pity, he finally murmured.
Why? Kane wondered.
Beede shrugged, as if the answer was simply obvious.
Why? Kane asked again (employing exactly the same maddening vocal emphasis as before).
Because she was a decent enough girl, Beede observed stolidly, and I liked her.
Kane snorted. Beede glanced up at him, wounded. He took a quick sip of his coffee (in the hope of masking any further emotional leakage), thenurghwinced, involuntarily.
Tasty? Kane enquired, with an arch lift of his brow. Beede placed the cup back down, very gently, on to its saucer. Kane idly struck at his lighter again
Nothing.
So you think I had a problem with her? Beede wondered, out loud, after a brief interval.
Pardon? Kane was already thoroughly bored by the subject.
A problem? You mean with Kelly? Uh He gave this a moments thought. Yes. Yes. I suppose I think you did.
Beede looked shocked.
Kane chuckled. Oh come on
What?
You oozed disapproval.
Did I?
Through every conceivable orifice.
Beedes nostrils flared at this cruel defamation, but he drew a long, deep breath and swallowed down his ire.
Okay. Okay he murmured tightly. So what do you think I disapproved of exactly?