Pulse

country.’
    ‘That’s amazing. That’s the most important thing anyone’s said all evening.’
    ‘Apart from how good the lamb was.’
    ‘Stigmatising smokers, taxing the fuck out of them, making them stand on street corners in the rain, instead of thanking them for being the nation’s cheap dates.’
    ‘It’s the hypocrisy I can’t stand.’
    ‘Anyway, smokers are nicer than non-smokers.’
    ‘Apart from giving non-smokers cancer.’
    ‘I don’t think there’s any medical basis for the theory of passive smoking.’
    ‘Nor do I. Not being a doctor. Just as you aren’t.’
    ‘I think it’s more a metaphor really. Like, don’t invade my space.’
    ‘A metaphor for US foreign policy. Are we back to Iraq?’
    ‘What I meant was, well, it always seemed to me that when everyone smoked, non-smokers were nicer. Now it’s the other way round.’
    ‘The persecuted minority is always nicer? Is that what Joanna’s saying?’
    ‘I’m saying there’s a camaraderie. If you go up to someone on the pavement outside a pub or a restaurant and ask to buy a cigarette, they’ll always give you one.’
    ‘I thought you didn’t smoke.’
    ‘No, but if I did, they would.’
    ‘I spy a late switch into the conditional tense.’
    ‘I told you, all smokers are liars.’
    ‘Sounds like a matter to be discussed after we’ve all departed.’
    ‘What’s Dick laughing at?’
    ‘Oh, prosthetic balls. It’s just the idea. Or the phrase. Multiple application, I’m sure. French foreign policy, Hillary Clinton.’
    ‘ Dick .’
    ‘I’m sorry, I’m just an old-fashioned guy.’
    ‘You’re just an old-fashioned child.’
    ‘Ouch. But Mummy, when I grow up, will I be allowed to smoke?’
    ‘All this stuff about politicians needing balls. It’s just … bollocks.’
    ‘Touché.’
    ‘You know, I’m surprised that pal of yours didn’t go back to the doctor, or the surgeon, and say, Can I have a different sort of cancer instead of the one that makes you chop my bollocks off?’
    ‘It wasn’t like that. He had a choice of different approaches. He chose the most radical.’
    ‘You can say that again. Nothing 60/40 about it.’
    ‘How can you do 60/40 when you’ve only got two balls?’
    ‘60/40 is a metaphor.’
    ‘Is it?’
    ‘Everything’s a metaphor at this time of night.’
    ‘On which note, can you call us a literal taxi?’
    ‘Do you remember the morning after a big smoke? The cigarette hangover?’
    ‘Most mornings. The throat. The dry nose. The chest.’
    ‘And the way it was clearly separable from the booze hangover you often had at the same time.’
    ‘Booze makes you loose, fags make you tight.’
    ‘Eh?’
    ‘Smoking constricts the blood vessels. That’s why you could never start the day with a decent crap.’
    ‘Was that why?’
    ‘Speaking as a non-doctor, that was your problem.’
    ‘So we’re back where we began?’
    ‘Which is where?’
    ‘The inverted plastic bag and –’
    ‘Dick, now we really are going.’
    But we didn’t. We stayed, and talked some more, and decided that Obama would beat McCain, that the Conservatives were only temporarily indistinguishable from the Labour Party, that al-Qaida would certainly attack the 2012 Olympics, that in a few years Londoners would start gettingnostalgic about bendy buses, that in a few decades vineyards would once again be planted along Hadrian’s Wall as in Roman times, and that, in all probability, for the rest of the life of the planet, some people somewhere would always be smoking, the lucky buggers.

Sleeping with John Updike
    ‘I THOUGHT THAT went very well,’ Jane said, patting her handbag as the train doors closed with a pneumatic thump. Their carriage was nearly empty, its air warm and stale.
    Alice knew to treat the remark as a question seeking reassurance. ‘ You were certainly on good form.’
    ‘Oh, I had a nice room for a change. It always helps.’
    ‘They liked that story of yours about Graham Greene.’
    ‘They usually do,’ Jane replied with a slight air of complacency.
    ‘I’ve always meant to ask you, is it true?’
    ‘You know, I never worry about that any more. It fills a slot.’
    When had they first met? Neither could quite remember. It must have been nearly forty years ago, during that time of interchangeable parties: the same white wine, the same hysterical noise level, the same publishers’ speeches. Perhaps it had been at a PEN do, or when they’d been shortlisted for the same