Charlotte Street Read Free Page B

thuggish babies. They’ll spread and multiply, like in
Arachnophobia
. They’ll stick to people’s faces and pound them with their little fists.’
    Dev considered my wise words.
    ‘You didn’t used to be like this,’ he said. ‘Where did you go? Who’s this grumpy man?’
    ‘It is me,’ I said. ‘I am Mr Grumpy. I called home last week and Mum was like, “You never come back to Durham, why do you never come home to Durham?”.’
    ‘So why do you never go back to Durham?’
    ‘Because it’s a reminder, isn’t it? Of going backwards. Anyway, Sarah doesn’t have that problem. She’s gonna have tiny thuggish babies.’
    ‘I don’t think she’ll have thuggish babies. I thought Gary was, like, an investment banker?’
    ‘Doesn’t mean he’s not gonna have thuggish babies,’ I said, pointing my finger in the air to show I would not accept any form of contradiction on this. ‘He’s
exactly
the type of man to have a thuggish baby. A little skinhead one. Who’s always shouting.’
    ‘But that’s just a
baby
,’ said Dev.
    ‘Whatever,’ I said. ‘Just don’t feed one of them after midnight.’
    There was a brief silence. An AC/DC track came on. My favourite. ‘Back In Black’ – the finest rock song of its time. I was momentarily cheered.
    ‘Let’s have another pint,’ I said. ‘A
Żubr
! Or a Zyborg!’
    But Dev was looking at me, very seriously now.
    ‘You should delete her,’ he said, flatly. ‘Just delete her. Be done with it. Leave Mr Grumpy behind, because Mr Grumpy is in danger of becoming Mr Dick. I’m no expert, but I’m sure that’s what they’d say on
This Morning
, if you phoned up and asked one of those old women who solve problems.’
    I nodded.
    ‘I know,’ I said, sadly.
    ‘These are 2000 calories!’ said Dev. ‘2000! I read about it in the paper!’
    ‘You read about it in
my
paper,’ I said. After several pints in the Den, we’d had the ‘one we came for’ and stopped at Oz’s for a kebab on the way home. ‘I’m the one who showed it to you and said, “Read this! It says kebabs are 2000 calories!”’
    ‘Wherever I read it, I’m just saying, 2000 calories is a lot of calories for a kebab. But they’re good for you, too.’
    ‘How are they
good
for you?’
    ‘They line your stomach with fat, so that when the apocalypse comes, you are better prepared. We’ll survive longer. Tubby people will inherit the earth!’
    Dev made a little ‘yahoo!’ sound, but then started coughing on his chilli sauce. He’s a little obsessed with the apocalypse, through years of roaming post-apocalyptic landscapes, scavenging for objects and fighting giant beetles on videogames, which he genuinely regards as his ‘important training’.
    Right now, he was having trouble getting the key into the door. You’d lose points for that in an apocalypse. You’d also lose points for wearing glasses, but they’re an important part of Dev. He has an IQ of around 146 according not just to a psychiatrist when he was four but also to some interactive quiz he did on the telly, which makes me proud of him when I’m drunk, though you’d never think it was anywhere
close
to 146 to speak to him. He has applied for four of the however-many-series of
The Apprentice
there’ve been, but for some reason they are yet to reply satisfactorily to this part-owner of a very minor second-hand videogame shop on the Caledonian Road, which I would find funny, if I didn’t know this actually broke his heart.
    It’d be easy to argue that Dev was defined at fourteen. His interests, his way with girls, even his look. See, when Dev was fourteen, his grandfather died, and that had a huge impact on his life. Not because it was emotionally traumatic, though of course it was, but because Dev’s dad doesn’t like to see moneywasted. And the year before, Dev had started to notice he wasn’t like the other kids. Just small things – not being able to see a sign, not being able to read a clock, and