‘Close the window,’ she said. She was wearing black leggings and when she rolled away from him he could see she had nothing on beneath them. ‘It’s freezing in your car.’ You should try getting dressed then, he thought. He closed the window and she fell immediately asleep again. In the silence he asked himself a thousand questions. Had she even been home? Where had she been? The odour coming off this girl was starting to make him feel ill. He began to despise her. She knew about the American Dream, he’d trusted her with that most sacred thing and this is how she respected it. He shook his head. Enough. Fuck her. He’d drop her off at the next service station.
At the track people stared, they stared as she approached and looked back over their shoulders after she passed. It was all done quite openly, as if they weren’t aware they were doing it, or, if they were, hadn’t considered that she could see them too. He glared at them challengingly, trying to shame them into looking away, but it was like he wasn’t there. Then he began to realise what it was; they stared brazenly because they didn’t care if she saw them. Dressed like that, inked like that, parading herself like that – in their heads it gave them permission. It’s different littering in nature than in a slum. They walked in front of the grandstand. Hundreds of eyes all looked down at her. He put his arm around her; she was rigid.
‘Will you be all right by yourself?’ he asked. She laughed at him and then strolled away.
During the race he tried to spot her in the crowd. Each lap he scanned the faces, growing a little more frantic each time. He was running safely at the back of the lead group. He wanted to show her his fast finish and impress her just when she thought he’d lose. There were three people ahead of him. He’d raced them all before many times and none of them was a threat. He was excited to show off for her. But where was she? His eyes jumped about among the crowd. It was a small crowd. It wasn’t as if she didn’t stand out. Nothing. He would take the bell soon. She’d miss it. But he couldn’t wait for her any longer. The three runners in front pulled away. He wasn’t worried. They’d gone too soon, wouldn’t be able to sustain that pace over four hundred yards. He’d accelerate on the back-straight and take them there. Wait, was that her? He craned his head to see. Suddenly the three runners ahead all stopped. One fell to the ground. A fourth came past him. Only when he crossed the line did he realise the race had finished, the final lap he’d been waiting for had just happened, and he’d come fifth.
‘How did you do?’ She was waiting for him by the car.
‘Forget it. If you couldn’t even be bothered to watch.’
They drove back in silence. It was dark. He was thinking about the way she had been looked at, the way their eyes had pawed her obscenely. But then why dress like that? If you make a cake expect people to want to eat it. And he was no different. He’d like to have said he was, that he saw through all that, but whatever else he was he was still also a teenage boy and it was exactly those things that had first thrilled him. He hadn’t dumped her at a service station when he had the chance.
‘It took seventy-five years for the telephone to connect 50 million people,’ he said. She looked at him. ‘It took more than sixty years for planes and cars to reach 50 million. Even Facebook took three and half years.’
‘Great story,’ she said.
‘Have you heard of Pornhub?’ Are you on Pornhub? ‘How long do you think it took to get to 50 million? Go on, guess.’
‘Just tell me.’
‘Sixteen days. Or so I’m told.’ He tried to see her face in the passing headlights but she’d turned away again. What was his point? He had one, or the grain of one, but he wasn’t sure he was making it.
‘So?’
‘So, I guess people are just people.’ They went under a bridge, passed a junction, drove slowly through unmanned roadworks that went on for miles. The roads were nearly empty. It was calming driving through the black countryside.
‘I’m just a novelty act for you,’ she said much later. He was about to deny it automatically, but he then stopped and didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to lie to her. It seemed important for reasons he couldn’t place. The lights of a big city blinked to the side of them. He thought of all the things that would be happening there at that exact moment. Someone would be dying; someone in that city was alive now who wouldn’t be alive by the time they got home. Someone else would be born in that same span of time. He speculated on the birth-to-death ratio. The population of the world troubled him. He had raced in that city before. It was a huge place that just kept spreading outwards. You reached the suburbs and then seemed to drive as long again to reach the stadium. Someone there would be having the best night of their lives, or the worst, someone would be committing a crime, or be the victim of it. Someone else again would be at a fancy-dress party, posing as a clown or a court jester.
‘And I’m just a novelty act for you, too,’ he eventually answered. She looked at him sharply. Then her hand crossed the divide and rested on his thigh, squeezing it gently and remaining there.
‘I like that, though,’ Madeline said. ‘When we’re together we’re both out of place.’
‘Fifth, though, Benjamin? Really?’ His mother was looking at him with a curious, misleading smile.
‘Just one of those days,’ he said dismissively.
‘But you’ve never had one of those days before.’
‘Then I guess I was due one. Anyway, it’s not about winning, it’s about taking part. Isn’t that what they say?’ He didn’t believe that, of course, but he quite enjoyed provoking her. She was a snob, and what made her worse than a snob was that she didn’t realise it. Yes, she was quite right, he had never finished fifth and it was clearly a conversation to be had. But it was the conversation that would surely follow that one that he was bracing for. He wondered how far she’d go. He’d managed to keep her and Madeline apart for weeks until both parties had started to suspect it was deliberate, and then finally, unavoidably, they’d at last had the pleasure a few days previously. ‘You look so… individual,’ his mother had said. The meeting had only lasted two minutes and during that time everyone had been quite civil, amiable even. But Ben had imagined all kinds of sneers and slurs and had apologised on their behalf the moment they’d left the house.
‘I like your father,’ Madeline had said.
Tellingly, he thought, neither parent had offered an opinion on her after that first introduction and he was convinced that since then they had just been biding their time, waiting for an excuse. Fifth place was that excuse. He was surprised actually, that his mother had waited this long. She didn’t normally have a problem saying what she thought, it was in fact something she took great pride in. ‘I call a spade a spade.’ How many times had he heard that? She thought it justified all her prejudices. But this was new ground. It was softer ground and wouldn’t be as simple to back out of. Perhaps that explained her caution. But she was who she was, and he sat opposite her, waiting. It’s all about taking part. What nonsense. His antennae probed the air, monitoring the pressure, alert to threatening pulses.
‘It’s a long way up there.’ This was his father speaking. ‘What, five hours? You can never tell how that drains the legs.’ He was offering them a way out. His mother snorted.
‘Don’t be daft. He’s driven further and won.’
‘And your hip?’ his father asked, trying again with what he thought was a simple get-out. ‘Any pain?’ It wasn’t that he was afraid of conflict, just that it rarely improved matters. And the closer the combatants, the greater the potential for damage. No, far better to leave things unsaid, to let heightened emotions dissipate over time.
‘My hip felt fine, too, Dad.’ His father sighed and sat back in his chair. They were as bad as each other.
‘So,’ his mother continued, assuming a free hand, ‘what happened then?’
‘Well, there were fourteen of us on the start line. We ran around the track a few times and by the end four of them were in front of me. So, I came fifth.’
‘And there you have it,’ she said. ‘Wonderful. You should write for a newspaper with powers of description like that.’ No one spoke for a long time. They ate their dinner in silence. He wasn’t hungry but forced himself to eat everything; he felt, somehow, that not doing so would have been to expose a weakness. Afterwards, he took all three empty plates to the sink and washed them up. He could feel his parents communicating behind his back. He returned to the table and sat down again. This wasn’t over, hadn’t even properly begun. He looked at her and raised his eyebrows.
‘What was your time again?’ she asked, knowing full well he’d not yet told her.
‘About forty-five seconds down.’ She actually gasped and looked at her husband in genuine shock.
‘Did you hear that?’
‘I’m right here, my love.’
‘But forty-five seconds? How? Were you distracted?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what the word means, Ben.’
