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“Big difference, twenties and thirties,” said Ted, ignoring Israel, swallowing. “Big, big difference.”
“No it’s not.”
“I’m telling ye. Yer movers and shakers, they’ve all done their moving and shaking by thirty, haven’t they?”
“Well, some of them have, but-”
“Maurice Morris here.” Ted nodded toward the pin-striped figure of Maurice moving among them. “Look what he’d achieved by the time he was thirty.”
“I have no idea what he’d achieved, actually. But I’m sure-”
“Well, what about yer Romantical poets, then. What about them?”
“Who?”
“All done in, weren’t they, by thirty?”
“Who?”
“Kates and-” Ted attacked the scone again.
“Keats?”
“Aye. All hanged themselves, didn’t they, by the time they were-”
“No, they did not all hang themselves,” said Israel factually. “And I think Wordsworth lived till-”
“Exception that proves the rule,” said Ted. “Like Joh
“What?”
“Oldest swinger in town.”
“You’re losing me, Ted.”
“That’s why you’re depressed. The birthday and breaking up with the girl-”
“I am not-” said Israel.
“The beard. The diet.”
“I’m not on a diet!”
“Have it your way.”
“I will. Thank you. I think thirty is a fine age.”
Ted finished his scone. Israel looked around Zelda’s.
Thirty was an absolute disaster.
At thirty you could no longer pretend that you might have lived a different, more extraordinary life, because you’d already lived a large part of your life-thirty useless years, for goodness’ sake!-and it was utterly ordinary and straightforward and dull, dull, dull. Ted was right. At thirty you have lost touch forever with the great and the good and the rich and the famous-the simple fact is, you do not move and you do not shake. At thirty there’s no way you’re going to start behaving like…whoever the hell it was, it didn’t matter, because in fact you’re just a half-decent butcher or a baker or a candlestick-maker, or even a librarian, let’s say, for the sake of argument, a mobile librarian named Israel Armstrong, on the northernmost coast of the north of the north of Ireland, and your whole life-let’s just pretend, for who could possibly imagine a life of such inanity and nullity?-is preoccupied with cataloguing, and shelving, and making sure you remember to switch off the lights before you go home to the pathetic little converted chicken coop-imagine!-where you live on a farm-oh god-in the middle of the middle of nowhere around the back of beyond, and your idea of a good time is coming here to Zelda’s to drink ersatz coffee with elderly men and women in car coats…
Basically, his life was over.
“Israel?” said Ted.
Israel did not answer.
“Hey?” Ted clicked his fingers in front of Israel’s face. “Wakey wakey.”
“What?” said Israel.
“Ye eatin’ your scone?” said Ted.
“I suppose,” said Israel, as though a scone were all he deserved in life. “What is it today?”
“Bacon and cheese,” said Ted.
“Oh god. Not again. Why do they do that? That’s not a scone!”
“That’s a scone and a half,” said Ted.
“Exactly: that’s lunch,” said Israel.
“Ye not having it then?”
“I’m a vegetarian! How many times do I have to tell you!”
“Can veggetenarians not eat scones?”
“Vege-tarians,” said Israel.
“I didn’t know they couldn’t eat scones.”
“Not with bacon in they can’t.”
“Aye, well,” said Ted, reaching across. “There we are, now.”
Mi
“Refill?”
Israel took a hasty sip of coffee.
“It tastes off,” he said grumpily.
“What does?” said Mi
“The coffee,” said Israel.
“It doesn’t.”
“Coffee can’t go off,” said Ted.
“The milk can.”
“Our milk is not off,” said Mi
Israel sniffed the milk in the jug.
“It’s fine,” said Ted.
“It must be the coffee then,” said Israel. “It has a sort of fishy smell. Is this an americano? Are you using that chicory stuff again?”
“Ach,” said Mi
“That machine has never been working,” said Israel.
“It has, so it has,” said Mi
“When?”
“It’s usually working.”
“Not since I’ve been living here.”
“How long have you been living here?” said Ted, in an accusatory fashion.
“Long enough,” said Israel.
“Aye,” said Ted.
“Life sentence,” said Israel.
“Ooh, did you see Prison Break, Ted?” said Mi
“That the one with the tattooed fella?”
“Aye.”
“Was it on last night?”
“Aye.”
“I think I Sky-plussed it. I was watching this program last night about the American security services on the History Cha
“Ooh. Really? Was it any good?”
“In America,” said Ted, raising his fingers as though about to conduct. “In America, they have sixteen security agencies.”
“Sixteen?” said Mi
“I bet you didn’t know that, now, did you?” Ted said to Israel.
“No, I must admit, I didn’t-”
“There’s the CIA,” said Ted.
“Oh god,” said Israel. “Are you going to-”
“The FBI. The NSA.”
“Never heard of it,” said Israel.
“National Security Agency,” said Mi
“How do you know that?” said Israel.
“The Defense Intelligence Agency,” said Ted, counting on his fingers. And…some others.”
“Drugs Enforcement Administration?” said Mi
“Aye, that’s one,” said Ted.
“How the hell did you know that?” said Israel.
“Sure, wasn’t Denzel Washington in one of those films?”
“Was he?” said Ted.
“Aye?” Mi
“The coffee,” said Israel, grimacing. “It really is-”
“I was telling ye, we can’t get the parts,” said Mi
“How long have you had the machine?”
“The Gaggia?” said Mi
“Right. Well, there you are,” said Israel. “It’s obsolete.”
“It’s a very good make,” said Mi
“It’s an antique,” said Israel. “Like everything else in this godfor-”
Ted reached forward and clipped Israel round the ear.
“He smells lovely,” the women at the next table were agreeing among themselves at that very moment, as Maurice Morris wafted over to them, and he did, they were right, Israel could smell it as he ducked down with the force of Ted’s blow; he smelled absolutely lovely, Maurice; it was the sharp, sweet lemony smell of a Turkish cologne, which Maurice had discovered while on holiday with friends at a luxury golf resort hotel in southern Turkey some years previously, a cologne to which he had become famously-according to his campaign literature-addicted, and which he had sent over specially from London, and whose smell of exotic sweetness had until recently cut famously and decisively through the manly whiff of his cigar smoke, though, alas, since the begi