Ulysses, Chapter Two

Clad once more in jeans and leather jacket, with his hat as ever was, Joe soon cheered up when two pretty girls breezed by him on the bridge into town. Surely though he was getting too old to behave in such a way. At this he chuckled, reasoning funerals were bound to make us mindful of our own advancing years.

Still, though. He held at the bridge-post, watching after the candy-colours and tiny backpacks a minute more.

Somehow Joe couldn’t picture either of those up-to-date girls ever wearing a petticoat.

Morag’s however, which he’d glimpsed when she swung herself up from their table, had been identical to the one she used to wear for school.

True, formal lingerie went with formal dress. Morag wouldn’t have attended in pink woolly thigh-length socks like the girl on the left had on.

But, identical? Exact same shade of off-white silk, exact same pattern of hemline lace?

No use Joe trying to tell himself he was mistaken. He’d been altogether too fixated on the thing for that.

Only it couldn’t possibly still fit Morag now.

It seemed to Joe a piece of the past which had found its way into the present by mistake.

A slip-up, he added to himself. The feeble pun made him no less ill at ease.

For as far as Joe knew, only in dreams did memories mingle thus with what you took to be the here and now.

Joe guessed no-one really wanted to cook after a big day abounding with unanswered questions. He at any rate by late afternoon had shelved his plans to honour the departed with eggs, and was making instead for a burger-bar which had been the social hub of his childhood. Stepping through the glass doors Joe closed his eyes in satisfaction. What after all could be ill, in a town where things changed so little that even fast-food aromas had power to transport you to a time when nothing had mattered?

And as an added bonus, there was Mini-Flash Robin. Any lingering perplexities relating to female skirts were banished on sight of Joe’s favourite male one.

“Well,” our hero commenced, as the friends sat down with their food. “How is Presh?”

Robin merely sighed. Apparently this wasn’t a good time to tease him about his love-life. Joe could tell there were others besides himself who’d had a trying day.

“You are young to be living together, Robin,” our hero said sympathetically. “Yet surely there are also rewards to pursuing a long-term relationship? Your games of netball in the park…”

“Chap could start to wish she didn’t win every time though,” put in the doleful one.

Staunchly Joe pushed his tray to Robin so he could have his first chicken nugget. There was certainly room for it. Robin in fact was wide-mouthed enough to insert a quarter-pounder whole. Hoping such gestures were a help, Joe joined him, after dipping his own nugget in sweet-and-sour sauce. The taste was a million memories. Anyone who cooked did well to avoid such words as “succulent,” but Joe found himself on the verge of it all the same.

“Do you recall,” he began with a smile, “my birthday party at this same establishment? Was it not you, and Matthew, and…”

But no. Even as he spoke, Joe knew Mini-Flash Robin had not been there. He was quite a bit younger than our hero though, so that probably followed.

Joe took a big swig from his super-sized cup of cola, and started again.

“You, my affianced friend,” he declared confidentially, “would have been better to accompany me this morning than throw some fool of a netball about. There were indeed sights to be seen,” and this Joe punctuated with a most meaningful uplift of his eyebrows.

“Ooh!” returned Robin, suddenly interested. “I bet she was good-looking.”

“She was exceedingly good-looking,” Joe confirmed gravely.

“Chap might have known she’d have been good-looking,” said Robin. “Her pants?”

“Not quite,” Joe confessed.

“Still,” Robin observed fairly, and Joe agreed.

“You shall meet her,” the latter pronounced, “for we have arranged to see each other again.”

So saying Joe downed half his remaining drink in triumph. It was intoxicating to boast to a friend. True, it might be another example of his arrested development that he confided thus in someone Robin’s age, with whom he also ate frequently here and took weekend tours of the toy-departments, but our hero couldn’t help it. Always at the back of his mind was a notion he’d somehow missed all this, and was now making up for lost time.

By the time they’d polished off the last chicken nugget Robin appeared much happier, whilst Joe could scarcely believe he’d ever felt today was out of joint. Friends could be counted on to have that effect, and he made a point of telling Robin so.

“It’s totes good for me too,” that one beamed. “Gets me away from old Presh, for one thing, while she’s being like this.”

Joe heard that. Presh didn’t have to have won at netball to walk around acting like she’d scored. These days there always seemed to be an air of victory about her.

Our hero had never been quite sure about Presh.

However, he told himself as he always did that he was only imagining it. You didn’t accuse your best friend’s girlfriend of being some sort of wicked enchantress who went round unmanning people. Presh was a nice pretty girl for Robin to play ball with, nothing more. Nausicaa to Circe was altogether too big a step.

“See you Saturday as usual then,” said Robin, standing up. “Not that you’ve got to wear that hat every time. Chap wouldn’t mind if just this once you tried showing up without it.”

“You are one to talk of fashion choices, my friend,” Joe pointed out, and laughing Robin departed, his short beige tunic bumping affectingly behind him.

He was the only boy Joe knew in Boston who wore one of those. Yet, hadn’t our hero once had another close friend who’d dressed the same? Thinking of it, Joe was certain he had, and that the friend had been younger than him as Robin was. A boy with freckles and fair hair and not quite such a wide mouth, but the same kind of short skirt with pants underneath. Which meant it definitely wasn’t Matthew.

Bumping into Morag at the funeral had been enough of a surprise, but it was something else again for Joe to be struck by just how many boyfriends he’d apparently had.

END OF CHAPTER TWO