Boy Parts(77)

‘I can,’ he says. He laughs. I hate this. I’m just here for a free meal – he mentioned the Tate earlier. If I can just behave myself, for like an hour. He asks me to tell him about The North because he’s never been any further up than Manchester. He’s been to Edinburgh once or twice, but that hardly counts, does it? Because it’s really just the London of Scotland, isn’t it? How does it compare to London? Don’t you feel hemmed in? Don’t you feel like there are no opportunities? No jobs? No arts funding? No money? Do you have any restaurants like this? Isn’t it worth taking a risk and living down here? Don’t you miss the hustle and bustle? Sure, the rent is cheaper, but has your quality of life really improved? Did you move back for your parents? A boyfriend? Do you just like being a big fish in a small pond?

‘Ah, well,’ I say. ‘You know. I hated it here, I hate it there. Whole country’s fucked. Brexit, Tories, ’n’ that. Fucking service-based economy. There’s the post-Thatcher government ghettoisation of the North but at least the wealth gap isn’t rubbed in your face everywhere you go. I don’t know what you want me to tell you. The rent is cheaper. There aren’t any restaurants like this.’

That seems to make him sad – that there aren’t any restaurants like this. When the plum wine comes, he tells me how it’s made, and I don’t give a shit. I just don’t give a shit. It tastes like cough syrup, but it’s obviously expensive, so I drink it, and I nod. And then I drink this awful cocktail he ordered for me. It has yuzu in it, and it’s bitter as fuck, and I feel like I’m licking a lemon rind. I’d have been happier with a pint of fucking tap water.

Is he talking to me about his job now? I don’t even feel like I’m here. I feel like he’s talking to me from the opposite end of a long tunnel. I think he orders for us. I think I just agreed to the tasting menu. He asks me if I like the cocktail, and I shake my head, and he makes some comment about my palate, and I hear my teeth squeak together because I’ve clenched my jaw so hard.

‘Excuse me,’ I say. And I go to the bathroom. And I’m hyper-aware of a room full of Tories looking at my arse, and tutting, and assuming I’m a call girl because I suppose it is now a crime to wear a see-through dress to a posh restaurant. My fanny isn’t even out. There’s a panel. There is a fucking panel.

There’s another woman washing her hands in the bathroom, who listens while I tell her this. She tells me she thinks my dress is nice, I think. She could have also just gone ‘hmm’, because I wasn’t really listening to her, or looking at her, and then she was gone. I go into the toilet stall. I say stall; it’s posh, so the stall is its own little room. The toilet has a heated seat and speaks in a perky Japanese accent. It sprays warm water directly into my vulva after I’m done pissing, and I go, ‘Fucking hell!’ loudly, because I wasn’t expecting it. It also dries me off, with a little blast of hot air. And when I come back out of the bathroom, I’m aware I want to talk about the fucked-up talking toilet, but fucked-up talking toilets that spray water up your gooch without asking are probably just par for the fucking course here, aren’t they?

Uncle Stephen tells me he complained about my cocktail, and got me a new one. The same one. I just don’t think I like yuzu. And when he tells me it’s unacceptable, with the amount he’s paying them, looking genuinely perturbed, I am reminded of the iconic scene from Keeping Up with the Kardashians where Kim loses her earring. They are on holiday in Bora Bora, and Kim is swimming in the ocean wearing $75,000 diamond earrings, and loses one. She loses one, and has a complete meltdown, ugly crying, and sobbing, and then, ever down to earth, Kourtney appears from around a corner, baby on her hip.

‘Kim, there’s people that are dying,’ she says.

‘Kim?’ says Uncle Stephen.

‘You know, when Kim K loses her earring. And it’s like… There’s people that are dying.’

‘Always good to have some perspective,’ he says. The first course comes. It’s sashimi. Uncle Stephen chastises me for taking a bite, rather than dropping the whole thing in my mouth. He eats loudly, reminding me of that bit in The Return of the King (the film) where Denethor is eating cherry tomatoes, and making Pippin sing for him. In this metaphor – allegory? – I guess I’m Pippin, which is strange because I’ve never identified much with the Hobbits before, and I’m actually a little annoyed that this is the position I’m in. Shocked to hear it comes in pints, and wondering if my simple Hobbit songs are good enough for these grand halls and their talking toilets.

He talks to me about his job while he eats. He’s some sort of advertising thing? God, I don’t care.

‘Is this cocktail better?’ he asks.

‘I just… I don’t like yuzu,’ I say. He flags down the waiter.

‘You’ll drink a Bellini, won’t you? Bring her a Bellini, a strawberry one, and make sure you use champagne not that Italian twaddle. I’ll know.’

They bring me a Bellini, and the smell of champagne makes my gut curl. But I drink it.

‘Tell me about you,’ he says. ‘I feel like we’ve only talked about me. I know you’re a photographer, of course, but what else is there?’

‘What else is there,’ I say. ‘I killed a boy, once.’

‘Oh, did you?’ Uncle Stephen chuckles.