The Post-Birthday World. Lionel Shriver

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      “That bird not only hated snooker fans, she hated the idea of snooker fans,” he said, wiping his hands on a hot towel. “To Jude, snooker players were like schoolboys who can stand ten-p pieces on their end at lunch. Fair play to them, and no harm done, but you don’t ask for their autograph.”

      The waitress took their orders; feeling extravagant, Irina added à la carte additions to the deluxe sashimi platter of sea urchin and sweet shrimp.

      “If Jude thought snooker was trivial,” Irina resumed, “why did she marry you?”

      “I’d money and stroke, and she could hold my occupation in contempt. Best of both worlds, innit?”

      “Didn’t she think it was nifty, you on TV, at least at first?”

      “Yeah, no mistake. But it’s queer how the thing what attracted you to someone is the same as what you come to despise about them.”

      Irina dangled a translucent slice of cucumber. “If Jude’s relationship to my illustrations is any guide, you’ve got a point. You do know what she said?”

      Ramsey tapped a chopstick on the table. “I wager she wasn’t no diplomat. But you ever wonder if one or two of her observations weren’t spot on?”

      “How could I think what she said was ‘spot on’ and still keep working at all?”

      “She did think your composition was brilliant, and that your craftsmanship was class. But there was something, in them first few books, a wildness—it’s gone missing.”

      “Well, you don’t just go put ‘wildness’ back. ‘Oh, I’ll add a little wildness!’ ”

      He smiled, painfully. “Don’t get your nose in a sling. I was only trying to help. Making a hash of it as well. I don’t know your business. But I did think you was right talented.”

      “Past tense?”

      “What Jude was on about—it’s hard to put into words.”

      “Jude didn’t have a hard time putting it into words,” Irina countered bitterly. “Adjectives like flat and lifeless are very evocative. She put her sniffy disapproval into action, too, and commissioned another illustrator for her preachy story line. I had to toss a year’s worth of work.”

      “Sorry, love. And you was bang on—what we was talking about, it’s not something you can add like a pinch of salt. It’s not out there, it runs through you. Same as in snooker.”

      “Well, I guess illustration isn’t as fun for me as it used to be. But what is?”

      Her degenerative expectations seemed to sadden him. “You’re too young to talk like that.”

      “I’m over forty, and can talk however I please.”

      “Fair enough—you’re too beautiful to talk like that, then.”

      Lawrence was wont to describe her as cute, and though Ramsey was a bit out of order the more serious adjective was refreshing. Self-conscious, Irina struggled with the oily strips of eel. “If I am, I didn’t used to be. I was a scrawny kid. Knobby, all knees.”

      “What a load of waffle. Never met a bird what wasn’t proud of being skinny.”

      “But I was also a klutz. Gawky, ungraceful. Do you think that’s boasting, too?”

      “It’s hard to credit. Wasn’t your mum a ballerina?”

      Irina was always amazed when anyone remembered biographical details mentioned years ago. “Well, not a performing one, after she had me. Which she never let me forget. Anyway, I disgusted her. I wasn’t limber. I couldn’t do splits or tuck my heels behind my head. I could barely touch my toes. I was constantly knocking things over.” Irina talked with her hands; with a smile, Ramsey moved her green tea out of reach.

      “Oh, it was worse than that,” she went on. “I guess plenty of kids aren’t Anna Pavlova. But I had buck teeth.”

      Ramsey angled his head. “Looks like a fine set of chops to me.”

      “I don’t think my mother would have sprung for them, but luckily my father paid for braces. Really, my front teeth weren’t just a little crooked. They hung out of my mouth and rested on my lower lip.” Irina demonstrated, and Ramsey laughed.

      “Well, you helped explain something,” he said. “You’re not—aware of yourself. You are beautiful, and I hope you don’t mind me saying so. But you don’t know it.”

      Abashed, Irina reached for her sake cup only to discover that it was empty; she pretended to take a slug. “My mother’s much more beautiful than I am.”

      “Even allowing that were ever true,” he said, signalling for another round of sake flagons, “you must mean she was.”

      “No, is. At sixty-three. In comparison to my mother, I’m a schlub. She still works out on a bar, for hours. All on three sticks of celery and a leaf of lettuce. Sorry—half a leaf.”

      “She sounds a right pain in the arse.”

      “She is—a right pain in the arse.”

      Their sashimi platters arrived, and the chef was such an artist—the spicy tuna was bound with edible gold leaf—that eating his creation seemed like vandalism.

      “Me,” said Ramsey, surveying his platter with the same respectful look-don’t-touch expression with which he’d met Irina by his car, “I watch buff birds strut the pavement, first thing goes through my head ain’t, ‘Blimey, love a bit o’ that, ’ey!’ but, ‘Bloody hell, she must spend all day in the gym.’ I don’t see beauty; all I see is vanity.”

      “Great excuse for skipping sit-ups: oh, I wouldn’t want to look ‘vain.’ ”

      “No chance of that, pet.”

      Irina frowned. “You know, something changed when that tin came off my teeth. Too much changed. It was sort of horrifying.”

      “How’s that?”

      “Everyone treated me like a completely different person. Not just boys, but girls. You’ve probably been good-looking all your life, so you have no idea.”

      “Am I?”

      “Don’t be coy. It’s like me pretending to be ashamed of having been skinny.” Worried that she was encouraging something that she shouldn’t, she added, “I only mean, you have regular features.”

      “Grand,” he said dryly. “I’m overcome.”

      “I’m convinced that decent-looking people—”

      “I fancy good-looking better.”

      “—All right, then, good-looking people. They haven’t a clue that how they’re treated—how much it has to do with their appearance. I even bet that attractive people have a higher opinion СКАЧАТЬ