Free No More Mr. Nice Guy: A Novel by Howard Jacobson Page B

his nose, with his chin, with an eye-lash. And as for the taste of his sperm – it is good to report that he has suffered no lasting aftermath of trauma in that regard: he comes into mouths all over Manchester without giving a single cause for complaint. Except –
    Except when he is in the company of Kurt.
    If Kurt’s fucking in the same room he is, he can’t come. If Kurt’s fucking in the same house but in a different room he can come but the girl always spits him out. Kurt sours his sperm, that’s what it comes to. Kurt curdles him.
    They remain friends, catch the school bus together, go rooting around the second-hand book stalls on Shude Hill together, buy shirts in Halon together, go to the Hallé together, swot in the Central Library together, get told off in the Central Library for making too much noise together, but they can’t pull keife together, can’t share one, can’t start from an end each and meet in the middle. Invidiousness has entered their friendship.
It’s a free country, not Kurt’s fault if someone prefers his sperm to Frank’s
… but Frank knows that in his soul Kurt can’t leave it at a free market; in his soul, and in relation to Frank, Kurt has come to think like a genetic supremacist: he believes that chromosome for chromosome he is the better man. Frank makes the better jokes, but he shoots the better spermatozoa. And it’s not the joke that gets the girl, it’s the jism.
    Of course Kurt never
says
this to Frank. He loves Frank. Wouldn’t hurt him for the world. But there’s an unmistakable
noblesse oblige
about him now. When Frank is offered a place at Oxford Kurt is pleased for him in the way that one is pleased for a man with no arms who wins an egg and spoon race – it’s not something he can begrudge him. Kurt himselfgoes to Birmingham. Only Birmingham. But then
he
doesn’t have anything to prove, does he?
    Frank doesn’t like the way Kurt sits on his settee and looks about him whenever he comes to stay with him in Oxford; he has a way of making Frank feel that he is living in a doll’s house. Cute. Dinky. Nice for him. Well done, Frank. Your secret’s safe with me. Out in the college courtyard he pats Frank’s bicycle seat. Springs, eh? Aren’t you doing well! Kurt himself drives a sports car around Birmingham. Brrrrm brrrrm. But then that’s to be expected. Tasty sperm, tasty car. He marries, too, after graduation. Meets her, impregnates her, marries her, boom. Brings her swollen-bellied to meet Frank, his best friend, presently fucking his life away in a language school in Summertown.
    Liz – Frank.
    Liz!
    Frank!
    Steady.
    Not a qualm about sitting her in a corner of the disco where Frank is to be found Je t’aiming it in the psychedelic crossfire. God, that Frank! Kurt Je t’aimes it himself, just once, with a double-jointed Italian. Go on, Liz laughs. Go for it. Kurt doesn’t look like Elvis any more. He looks like the Temptations. The lights pepper him purple and orange. Thank your lucky stars I’m into responsible husbanding these days, Frank. And yourself, do you mean to go on fucking much longer? Well, why not. Ssh! It’s safe with me. Your secret.
    And then the baby. Look what we’ve got, Frank. Go on, hold. Isn’t she beautiful? But then that’s to be expected. Tasty sperm, tasty baby.
    And tasty wife? Yes. No. Frank can’t make up his mind. Yes. Maybe. Narrow green eyes. Generous mouth. Goodish legs. Flat behind. Breasts nothing special either, but then sheis feeding, and a tit with a baby on the end of it is
hors de combat
even for someone as omnivorous as he is.
    Yes. No. Yes, tasty. It’s the laugh. It’s what happens to the green eyes when she laughs. It’s how wide she opens her mouth. It’s the amount of chest she gives it. It’s her concentration on the thing you’ve said to make her laugh. It’s her gift for exclusive attentiveness.
    Frank!
    How will her laugh be now?
    She has another baby and loses a third. Frank writes a letter