Jeremy Clarke

Morning after

• From magazine issue: 28 September 2013

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  Jeremy Clarke

  Morning after

  

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I spotted Trev’s phone on his bedside table next to his Lambert & Butler Golds and his disposable lighter. It was a smartphone. Not a brand I recognised. The hard casing was partially melted. I tried to wake it up. I didn’t know whether to tap the screen, swipe it, or talk to it nicely. I tried all three methods and succeeded only in opening Trev’s eyes. The eyelids sprang apart, instantly awake. ‘All right, Bud?’ he said, genially. ‘What time is it?’ I said.

He took the phone and activated it. ‘Ten twenty-nine,’ he said. He showed me the phone’s home screen to prove it. Virtual raindrops were streaming down the inside. He switched on a pair of windscreen wipers that squeaked realistically and he roared with delighted laughter at the absurdity of it. My mission to pinpoint my position in time as well as space now accomplished, I walked around to the empty side of his bed, lay down on my back beside him, groaned and expired.

He reached out for a fag, poked it between his lips and put a long flame against the end. The filter was submerged entirely by Trev’s encircling lips and he sucked the guts out of the fag in four or five Herculean tokes. Disposing of the collapsed remains, he promptly lit a fresh one for a more leisurely smoke.

‘What time did we get back?’ he said, exhaling a great nimbus plume of smoke. ‘Pass,’ I said. I couldn’t even hazard a guess.

The pubs were quiet for a Saturday night, so we’d called a taxi and gone over to Torquay where the pubs and clubs are never quiet. Not to my knowledge. We offered the spare places in the cab to anyone in the pub who fancied an outing, and these were accepted by three total strangers: a laughing woman sitting alone at the bar, a man with a permanent, wide and apparently genuine smile, and his friend, an unsmiling unapologetically masculine woman who seemed very nice.

‘How did we get home?’ said Trev. ‘Taxi,’ I said with a momentary flash of insight. ‘Don’t remember it,’ he said, dismissing the subject. Alighting on a much more congenial one, he said, ‘The fanny in that club we went to — what was it called again? Man, it was everywhere!’ He might have been an old 49er reporting on a visit to El Dorado. ‘We’ve still ended up here, though,’ I reminded him bitterly. ‘Like this.’ ‘Your trouble is you get too pissed,’ he said. ‘And what’s your excuse?’ I said. ‘I was doing OK!’ he said indignantly. ‘I was getting on like a house on fire with this one particular party. She was outside, smoking. And then that lesbian woman came over and stuck her nose in for some reason, she must have fancied her or something, and that ruined it.’ ‘Well I’m blowed,’ I said.

I remembered my phone. ‘I’ve lost my phone,’ I said. ‘I’ll ring it,’ he said. ‘I never thought of that,’ I said.

He reached for his, scrolled through his phonebook and rang the number. I got up and tottered to the lavatory, from where I could hear that someone had answered Trev’s call and was holding a cheerful conversation with him.

On my return, I heard him say, ‘Cheers, Bud! Cheers!’ and end the call. A happy outcome by the sound of it. ‘Well?’ I said. ‘Well, what?’ he said. ‘Well, who was it, and where were they?’ I said. ‘I forgot to ask,’ he said. ‘Coffee?’ I said. ‘I could try one, I suppose,’ he said.