Pulse

silence fell.
    ‘I was thinking … last time we all foregathered –’
    ‘Before this groaning board –’
    ‘Set before us by – quick, give me some clichés …’
    ‘Mine host.’
    ‘A veritable Trimalchio.’
    ‘Mistress Quickly.’
    ‘No good. So – Phil and Joanna, let’s call them that, the epitomes of hostliness.’
    ‘That tongue, by the way …’
    ‘Was it tongue ? You said it was beef.’
    ‘Well, it was. Tongue is beef. Ox tongue, calves’ tongue.’
    ‘But … but I don’t like tongue. It’s been in a dead cow’s mouth.’
    ‘And last time we were here, you were telling us about sending valentines, you two … married turtle doves. And about the friend of yours who was going to have her stomach stapled for when her husband came home.’
    ‘It was liposuction, actually.’
    ‘And someone asked, was that love or vanity?’
    ‘Female insecurity, I think was the alternative.’
    ‘Point of information. Was this before her bloke had his radical testoctomy or whatever it’s called?’
    ‘Oh, ages before. And anyway, she didn’t have it done.’
    ‘Didn’t she?’
    ‘I thought I told you that.’
    ‘But we talked about – what was that phrase of Dick’s? – posterior intromission.’
    ‘Well, she didn’t have it done. I’m sure I said.’
    ‘And – to return to my point – someone asked if any of us felt up to making love after getting home from here.’
    ‘A question which went very largely unanswered.’
    ‘Is that where you’re taking us, David, with this Socratic preface?’
    ‘No. Maybe yes. No, not exactly.’
    ‘Lead on, Macduff.’
    ‘This feels to me like when you have a collection of blokes round a table and someone mentions how the size of your tackle is directly related … Dick, why are you putting your hands out of sight?’
    ‘Because I know the end of the sentence. And because, frankly, I don’t want to embarrass anyone by obliging them to deduce the magnificence of my, as you put it, tackle.’
    ‘Sue, a question. The class has in its last lesson been taught the difference between a simile and a metaphor. Now, which grammatical term would you say best described the comparison between the size of a man’s hands and the size of his tackle?’
    ‘Is there a grammatical term called boasting?’
    ‘There’s that term for comparing the smaller to the greater. The part to the whole. Litotes? Hendiadys? Anacoluthon?’
    ‘They all sound like Greek holiday resorts to me.’
    ‘As I was trying to say, we don’t talk about love.’
    ‘…’
    ‘…’
    ‘…’
    ‘…’
    ‘…’
    ‘…’
    ‘So that’s my point.’
    ‘A friend of mine once said he didn’t think it was possible to be happy for longer than two weeks at any one stretch.’
    ‘Who was this miserable bastard?’
    ‘A friend of mine.’
    ‘Very suspicious.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Well, a friend of mine – anyone remember Matthew? Yes, no? He was a great coureur de femmes .’
    ‘Translation, please.’
    ‘Oh, he fucked for England. Amazing energy. And constant … interest. Anyway, there was a time when – how shall I put this – well, when women started using their hands, their fingers, on themselves while they were having sex.’
    ‘When exactly would you date this to?’
    ‘Between the end of the Chatterley ban and the Beatles’ first LP?’
    ‘No, since you ask. Later. Seventies, more like …’
    ‘And Matthew noticed this … sociodigital change sooner than most, being more diligent in the fieldwork, and he decided to raise it with a woman he knew – not a girlfriend or an ex, but someone he could always talk to. A confidante. And so, over a drink, he said to her casually, “A friend of mine told me the other day that he’d noticed women using their hands more when having sex.” And this woman replied, “Well, your friend must have a really small dick. Or not be much good at using it.”’
    ‘Collapse of stout party, eh?’
    ‘He died. Youngish. Brain tumour.’
    ‘A friend of mine –’
    ‘Is that “a friend of mine” or “ a friend of mine ”?’
    ‘Will. Remember him? He got cancer. He was a great drinker, a great smoker and a great womaniser. And I remember where the cancer had reached by the time they discovered it: liver, lungs, urethra.’
    ‘The grammatical term for that is: poetic justice.’
    ‘But it was weird, wasn’t it?’
    ‘Are you saying Matthew died of a brain tumour because he fucked a lot? How does that work?’
    ‘Maybe