The Bad Book Affair. Ian Sansom

      ‘I’m just saying, like. He was, what, twenty-one, twenty-two?’

      ‘Right.’

      ‘And the other fella.’

      ‘Which other fella?’

      ‘The actor fella. The leather jacket and the T-shirt.’

      ‘Marlon Brando?’

      ‘Ach, no, the other one.’

      ‘James Dean?’

      ‘Aye, that’s yer man. How old was he when he died?’

      ‘I have no idea, Ted,’ said Israel.

      ‘Twenty-five? Twenty-six?’

      ‘And?’ said Israel.

      ‘You’re a young man no more at thirty,’ said Ted, taking a huge bite of scone, as if the scone itself might bite him back if he didn’t get at it quick enough.

      ‘Yes you are,’ said Israel. ‘Of course you are.’

      ‘You’re not in your twenties in your thirties,’ said Ted, chewing, his mouth wide open.

      ‘Yes, right, that’s very true, Ted. Brilliant. Thank you for pointing that out. You’re not in your twenties in your thirties. You did maths in school, then?’

      ‘Big difference, twenties and thirties,’ said Ted, ignoring Israel, swallowing. ‘Big, big difference.’

      ‘No it’s not.’

      ‘I’m telling ye. Yer movers and shakers, they’ve all done their moving and shaking by thirty, haven’t they?’

      ‘Well, some of them have, but—’

      ‘Maurice Morris here.’ Ted nodded towards the pinstriped figure of Maurice moving among them. ‘Look what he’d achieved by the time he was thirty.’

      ‘I have no idea what he’d achieved, actually. But I’m sure—’

      ‘Well, what about yer Romantical poets, then? What about them?’

      ‘Who?’

      ‘All done in, weren’t they, by thirty?’

      ‘Who?’

      ‘Kates, and—’ Ted attacked the scone again.

      ‘Keats?’

      ‘Aye. All hanged themselves, didn’t they, by the time they were—’

      ‘No, they did not all hang themselves,’ said Israel, factually. ‘And I think Wordsworth lived till—’

      ‘Exception that proves the rule,’ said Ted. ‘Like Johnny Cash.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Oldest swinger in town.’

      ‘You’re losing me, Ted.’

      ‘That’s why you’re depressed. The birthday, and breaking up with the girl—’

      ‘I am not—’ said Israel.

      ‘The beard. The diet.’

      ‘I’m not on a diet!’

      ‘Have it your way.’

      ‘I will. Thank you. I think thirty is a fine age.’

      Ted finished his scone. Israel looked around Zelda’s.

      Thirty was an absolute disaster.

      At thirty you could no longer pretend that you might have lived a different, more extraordinary life, because you’d already lived a large part of your life—thirty useless years, for goodness’ sake!—and it was utterly ordinary and straightforward and dull, dull, dull. Ted was right. At thirty you have lost touch for ever with the great and the good and the rich and the famous—the simple fact is, you do not move and you do not shake. At thirty there’s no way you’re going to start behaving like…whoever the hell you are, it doesn’t matter, because in fact you’re just a half-decent butcher, or a baker, or a candlestick-maker, or even a librarian, let’s say, for the sake of argument, a mobile librarian named Israel Armstrong, on the northernmost coast of the north of the north of Ireland, and your whole life—let’s just pretend, for who could possibly imagine a life of such inanity and nullity?—is preoccupied with cataloguing, and shelving, and making sure you remember to switch off the lights before you go home to the pathetic little converted chicken coop—imagine!—where you live on a farm—oh God—in the middle of the middle of nowhere around the back of beyond, and your idea of a good time is coming here to Zelda’s to drink ersatz coffee with elderly men and women in car coats…

      Basically, his life was over.

      ‘Israel?’ said Ted.

      Israel did not answer.

      ‘Hey?’ Ted clicked his fingers in front of Israel’s face. ‘Wakey wakey.’

      ‘What?’ said Israel.

      ‘Ye eatin’ yer scone?’ said Ted.

      ‘I suppose,’ said Israel, as though a scone were all he deserved in life. ‘What is it today?’

      ‘Bacon and cheese,’ said Ted.

      ‘Oh God. Not again. Why do they do that? That’s not a scone!’

      ‘That’s a scone and a half,’ said Ted.

      ‘Exactly: that’s lunch,’ said Israel.

      ‘Ye not having it, then?’

      ‘I’m a vegetarian! How many times do I have to tell you!’

      ‘Can vegetenarians not eat scones?’

      ‘Vege-tarians,’ said Israel.

      ‘I didn’t know they couldn’t eat scones.’

      ‘Not with bacon in they can’t.’

      ‘Aye, well,’ said Ted, reaching across. ‘There we are now.’

      Minnie bustled over with the coffee pot.

      ‘Refill?’

      Israel took a hasty sip of coffee.

      ‘It tastes off,’ he said, grumpily.

      ‘What does?’ said Minnie.

      ‘The coffee,’ said Israel.

      ‘It doesn’t.’

      ‘Coffee can’t go off,’ said Ted.

      ‘The milk can.’

      ‘Our milk is not off,’ said Minnie.

      Israel sniffed the milk in the jug.

      ‘It’s fine,’ said Ted.

      ‘It must be the coffee, then,’ said Israel. ‘It has a sort of fishy smell. Is this an Americano? Are you using that chicory stuff again?’

      ‘Ach,’ said Minnie, ‘the machine’s not working.’

      ‘That machine has never been working,’ said Israel.

      ‘It has, so it has,’ said Minnie.

      ‘When?’

      ‘It’s usually working.’

      ‘Not since I’ve been living here.’

      ‘How long have you been living here?’ said Ted, in an accusatory fashion.

      ‘Long enough,’ said Israel.

      ‘Aye,’ said Ted.

      ‘Life sentence,’ said Israel.

      ‘Ooh, did you see Prison Break, Ted?’ said Minnie.

      ‘That the one