The Rotters' Club by Jonathan Coe

Author:Jonathan Coe
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307429278
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-17T16:00:00+00:00

10

Five days later Philip asked him the key question and Benjamin had to admit that he didn’t know the answer.

“So—is Cicely your girlfriend now?”

“I don’t think so,” Benjamin replied, and then held up his finger to test the direction of the breeze, in a futile attempt to ward off further interrogation.

“You don’t think so?” said Philip, incredulous. “What does that mean? I mean, someone’s either your girlfriend or she isn’t.”

“Well then, she isn’t.” He hadn’t a clue which direction the breeze was coming from. He had an idea that you were supposed to lick your finger before holding it up, but had never been able to understand why. Besides, now that he thought about it, there wasn’t much of a breeze anyway. “I think this must be east,” he added, hazarding a wild guess and pointing further up the mud-spattered lane.

“So what did she mean?” Philip persisted. “What did she mean when she said ‘We’ll be seeing more of each other?’ ”

“I suppose she just meant—well, that we were bound to bump into each other, in the normal course of events.” The truth was that he didn’t know what Cicely had meant, and it annoyed him that Philip seemed to suspect this. “Look, don’t you think it would be more helpful—rather than standing here discussing my love-life, or lack of it—if we tried to work out where the hell we are?”

It was a Wednesday afternoon, the day of the Walking Option’s weekly expedition, and already a typical scenario was unfolding. Not only had they managed to get lost after walking about five hundred yards, but in the course of trying out alternative directions and rounding up the dawdlers who had almost immediately begun to loiter out of sight, the group had managed to disperse. Now Philip and Benjamin were alone in a country lane somewhere in the vicinity of the Upper Bittell reservoir, and had not seen the hapless Mr. Tillotson and his frayed, famously inadequate road atlas for about half an hour.

“This is too much like hard work,” said Philip, after they had staggered on for another twenty yards or so. “Let’s have a break for refreshment.”

A nearby stile presented itself obligingly for this very purpose. They sat down, one on either side, Benjamin facing the lane and Philip overlooking a long stretch of pastureland, green-yellow in the sunshine, dotted here and there with contentedly masticating Friesians. He opened his Army and Navy Stores rucksack, took out a thick stack of cheese sandwiches wrapped in tin foil and passed one of them to Benjamin. They split open a can of Guinness and took it in turns to wince over its heavy, bittersweet oiliness.

“Nothing like a good bit of exercise, is there?” said Philip, after they had eaten and drunk in silence for a few minutes. “Tones the muscles up. Makes you feel on top of things.”

Benjamin had mellowed under the influence of the sunshine, the food and the alcohol. He was prepared to be philosophical about Cicely’s ambiguous declaration now.

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