Love, etc.

i remember you

Stuart Hello!

We've met before. Stuart. Stuart Hughes.

Yes, I am sure. Positive. About ten years ago.

It's all right--it happens. You don't have to pretend. But the point is, I remember you. I remember you. I'd hardly forget, would I? A bit over ten years, now I come to think of it.

Well, I've changed. Sure. This is all grey for a start. Can't even call it pepper-and-salt any more, can I?

Oh, and by the way, you've changed too. You probably think you're pretty much the same as you were back then. Believe me, you aren't.

Oliver What's that companionable warble from the neighbouring wankpit, that snuffle and stamp from the padded loose-box? Could it be my dear, my old--old as in the sense of former--friend Stuart?

'I remember you.' How very Stuart. He is so old-, so former-fashioned that he likes naff songs which actually predate him. I mean, it's one thing to be hung up on cheap music synchronous with the primal engorgement of your own libidinous organs, be it Randy Newman or Luigi Nono. But to be hung up on the sun-lounger singalongeries of a previous generation--that's so very, so touchingly Stuart, don't you find?

Lose that puzzled expression. Frank Ifield. 'I Remember You.' Or rather, I remember yoo-oo, / You're the one that made my dreams come troo-oo. Yes? 1962. The Australian yodeller in the sheepskin car-coat? Indeed. Indeedy-doo-oo. And what a sociological paradox he must have represented. No disrespect to our bronzed and Bondi'd cousins, of course. In the
world's fawning obeisance before every cultural sub-grouping, let it not be said that I have anything against an Australian yodeller per se. You might be one yourself. If I prod you, do ye not yodel? In which case, I would give you honest eye-contact and an undiscriminatory handshake. I would welcome you into the brotherhood of man. Along with the Swiss
cricketer.

And if--by some happy whim--you actually are a Swiss cricketer, an off-spinner from the Bernese Oberland, then let me just say, simply: 1962 was the very year of the Beatles' first revolution at forty-five turns per minute, and Stuart sings Frank Ifield. I rest my case.

I'm Oliver, by the way. Yes, I know you know. I could tell you remembered me.

Gillian Gillian. You may or may not remember me. Is there some problem?

What you have to understand is that Stuart wants you to like him, needs you to like him, whereas Oliver has a certain difficulty imagining that you won't. That's a sceptical look you're giving me. But the truth is, over the years I've watched people take against Oliver and fall under his spell almost at the same time. Of course, there've been exceptions. Still, be warned.

And me? Well, I'd prefer you to like me rather than the reverse, but that's normal, isn't it? Depending on who you are, of course.

Stuart I wasn't actually referring to the song at all.

Gillian Look, I actually haven't the time. Sophie's got music today. But I've always thought of Stuart and Oliver as opposite poles of something . . . of growing up, perhaps. Stuart believed that growing up was about fitting in, about pleasing people, becoming a member of society. Oliver didn't have that problem, he always had more self-confidence. What's that word for plants which move in relation to the sun? Helio something. That's what Stuart was like. Whereas Oliver--

Oliver --was le roi soleil, right? The nicest spousal compliment I've had in some time. I've been called some things in this sublunary smidgeon which goes by the name of life, but King Sol is a new one. Phoebus. Phoe-Phi-Pho-Phumbus--

Gillian --tropic. Heliotropic, that's the word.

Oliver Have you noticed this change in Gillian? The way she puts people into categories? It's probably her French blood. She's half French--you remember that? 'Half French on her mother's side': that ought to mean quarter French, logically, don't you think? Yet what, as all the great moralists and philosophers have noted, has logic got to do with life?

Now, had Stuart been half French, in 1962 he would have been whistling Johnny Hallyday's Gallic version of 'Let's Twist Again.' That's a thought, isn't it? A pungent pensee. And here's another: Hallyday was half Belgian. On his father's side.

Stuart In 1962 I was four years old. Just for the record.

Gillian Actually, I don't think I do put people into categories. It's just that if there are two people in the world I understand, they're Stuart and Oliver. After all, I have been married to both of them.

Stuart Logic. Did someone use the word? I'll give you logic. You go away, and people think you've stayed the same. That's the worst piece of logic I've come across in years.

Oliver Misprise me not about les Belges, by the way.