Chapter 8: Freddie - oh dear! Maybe things aren't so bad...

"Heyyyyy! Toni! You haven't changed at all!"

Frederik had. He had changed almost beyond recognition. His quiff started some way further up his head than I remembered and there were fewer strands therein and more lacquer thereon. What hair he had was not exactly blond any more, but then not exactly grey either. It looked somehow colourless. His skin was for the most part also without colour except that his cheeks were rosy, not with youth but with beer. Beer had also had a detrimental affect on his waistline. Eerily, however, he appeared to be wearing the same clothes he had had on a decade before. He wore a white T-shirt stretched tight over his belly, a denim jacket with its collar turned up, jeans and leopard-skin winkle-pickers. He didn't look like a European lawyer. He looked like a superannuated student. Which was, of course, exactly what he was.

I wanted to turn and run. People at the bar rested their pints against their chests and nodded meaningfully in his direction. He was thrusting his hands at me, his thumbs up, his knees bent, and his "Heyyyy" had the force of several dozen decibels. I smiled wanly and went over.

"Freddie! You look great."

He smiled with false modesty and passed a hand over the structure which had been his hair. Then he smiled roguishly and punched me in the side.

"You look better! God, your guy, he's a lucky guy!" He took a swig from his bottle of Sol with a lemon segment stuck in the top. Reg the landlord didn't run to lime. The Sol had probably been gathering dust since the beginning of the last recession.

"So why are you here, Freddie? It's term time, isn't it?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Yeah, I guess. But hey, I had to get away. All work and no play, you know?"

I guessed he wasn't running any risks at all on that score. I nodded sagely.

"So what are you doing these days?"

"Well, like I said, I'm still working for my masters, but I've started a company as well. My brother Willem and me, we operate an Elvis memorabilia business on the Intemet. These shoes, for example," and he brought the winkle-pickers up into sharp focus before my eyes, "These shoes are fifties originals."

"They weren't actually owned by Elvis, were they?” I asked, genuinely impressed.

"No, but they might have been," he wiggled a fat finger in my face.

"Ok, so it's memorabilia in a fairly loose sense, then."

His brow was furrowed. "Huh?"

"I mean, it's fifties stuff, really, rather than Elvis memorabilia, isn't it?"

He was still confused.

"No, it's Elvis - you know, fifties, Memphis, US of A. Rock and Roll."

He was doing that thumb thing again.

"Whatever."

"But what about your course? When can I say I know a European Lawyer? When are you going to be practising in the Hague?"

"Oh that. Well, it's kinda difficult. It's not really me, but my Dad wants me to be some stuffed shirt lawyer, so I have to keep on with my studies or he'll cut off my allowance."

He swigged once more nonchalantly at his beer. I gulped air, trying to take in the full moment of this statement. I did a quick calculation. The man was thirty-two.

"Are you happy still being on an allowance?" I asked, trying not to sound as shocked as I was.

His expression indicated that he hadn't thought about it deeply. He looked surprised.

"Why should I not be? I am my own boss."

He frowned and straightened his back, which pulled his belly up, revealing most of his jeans, but not his belt.

"Nobody tells me what to do with my money. The old guy doesn't know that I'm here in Britain. Why would I tell him? It's my decision, right?"

"Right. So what are you doing here, then?"

"Vacation, man," he nodded, "I'm here to check out London."

"I'm afraid most of the Mods and Rockers have gone now." I smiled at him and was met with a vacant nod, "But there's still a lot to see. Why are you in Bath? Friends?"

“I met a girl in Rotterdam one night. She was vacationing with her friends and she gave me her address. I called her from the airport and asked if I could come and stay. She was real surprised to hear my voice."

She'd probably thrown away his address with relief and a hint of foreboding, praying that he'd lose hers. It could have been me - but he'd never had romantic ambitions in my direction.

"So are you in contact with anyone from Toulouse days?"

"No, not really. I had a call from Charlotte. She's living in the States. She sounded kinda surprised that I was still at the same address. I don't know, you guys, you've all moved on so far ahead of me."

He smiled and shook his head merrily.

"So what's Charlotte doing these days?"

"I think she said she was a buyer at some department store? Blumendahl, I think. Yeah, Blumendahl."

"Bloomingdales."

"No, Blumendahl."

"Whatever. She was heading that way six years ago. Good job. But then she did study fashion after France, so she had the right training. Why did she call you?"

"She was coming to Holland and wanted to get hold of her old lover."

"Oh, of course, Stefan. Do you still see each other?"

"Yeah, from time to time. He's busy though. He's a personnel manager for some big shot company in Amsterdam. He never seems to have the time to party."

"You could just go out with him for a quick drink, or a coffee, couldn't you?"

I tried not to sound sanctimonious.

"Yeah, right!" he said dismissively, a look from under his transparent eyebrows indicating that this could not possibly be so.

I remember feeling like this. I remember feeling that a life without drink was no life. I remember feeling that it should be surfed on a wave of alcohol-fuelled bonhomie, that what mattered was not the content of what you said, but how amusingly and how loudly you said it. I remember endless conversations made up entirely of one-liners and punctuated by theatrical belly laughs, as if we were all competing to be the one having the best time.

"Hey, you used to like your drinking like me!" he said, correctly.

"I still like a drink," I bridled rather, "But I can't afford to drink all the time. Work and all that. I suppose I changed; grew up a bit."

He sniggered, "Got old, you mean!"

I winced. Wasn't that what I was always accusing Simon of? The truth was, I'd never been a good drunk. After the laughter and the high spirits I would turn into an introspective but vociferous bore; thinking the world would be fascinated by my business, exaggerating my problems where necessary to enhance their entertainment value. I found inappropriate people wildly attractive. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realise this.

Frederik had started to talk, oblivious to the fact that he had only half my attention.

"What about Marc, have you seen him recently? God, you two were so hot!" and he shook his hand loosely and blew on his fingers, just in case I was in any doubt as to his meaning.

"No, no. Last thing I heard he was making commercials. He's probably married now."

"You think? He didn't seem like the marrying type of guy to me. A lover, yes - husband, no."

"Really?" I said with some surprise.

"Yeah, he was too into his films. I thought he'd be working at that. Commercials, huh? I expected he'd be doing big movies by now; you know - Rocky, Rambo, that sort of thing."

I felt that appraisal discounted the validity of anything he had to say on the subject of auteur-addict Marc. I sat back to watch my erstwhile friend and allowed him to talk.

He’d been at the home of his English acquaintance for four days now and she'd suggested he go out for the evening. Apparently she had a partner and a short fuse. I bet, I thought. She must have been driven insane.

After we'd talked for a couple of hours about what had happened to us in the time since we'd been real friends, which in my case was quite a lot of work and in his case a lot of the same as before, he was anxious to find a 'rock place' to go dancing. It turned out that his day involved rising at midday, missing lectures, having lunch, playing at being a businessman on the internet (but earning bugger all) and then going out drinking until six in the morning before collapsing on a mattress in the room he shared with his brother in the house they shared with four others. He was by far the oldest there, but the others were no spring chickens. By the time I had weaselled out of clubbing with him I was almost sick with disappointment and disillusion. When Simon asked how the evening had gone I didn't feel up to telling him. But we snuggled down together and made warm and tender love when we got to bed.