Pulse

Pulse

Julian Barnes

Random House Canada (2010)

Tags: Fiction, General, Literary, Short Stories (Single Author), Short Stories
Fictionttt Generalttt Literaryttt Short Stories (Single Author)ttt Short Storiesttt

Review

“Barnes’s erudition is in full display. . . . [He] combines mordant humour, perspicacity and invigoratingly crisp writing.”
—
The Independent
“[A] perfectly weighted collection. . . . Affecting.”
—The Observer
“Julian Barnes is one of those confident literary decathletes, proficient at old-fashioned storytelling, dialogue-driven portraiture, postmodern collage, and political allegory and farce. He’s a true literary professional whose most compelling work showcases his musical prose, his ear for the chattering class’s chatter (
Talking It Over
), his ability to create narratives with both surface brio and finely calibrated philosophical subtexts (
Flaubert’s Parrot, The Porcupine
).”
—Michiko Kakutani,
The New York Times

About the Author

JULIAN BARNES is the author of ten novels, two books of stories, two collections of essays and a translation of Alphonse Daudet's
In the Land of Pain
. His most recent novel,
Arthur & George
, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. His honors include the Somerset Maugham Award, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2004 he was named Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. He lives in London.

Review

“Barnes’s erudition is in full display. . . . [He] combines mordant humour, perspicacity and invigoratingly crisp writing.”
—
The Independent
“[A] perfectly weighted collection. . . . Affecting.”
—The Observer
 
“Julian Barnes is one of those confident literary decathletes, proficient at old-fashioned storytelling, dialogue-driven portraiture, postmodern collage, and political allegory and farce. He’s a true literary professional whose most compelling work showcases his musical prose, his ear for the chattering class’s chatter (
Talking It Over
), his ability to create narratives with both surface brio and finely calibrated philosophical subtexts (
Flaubert’s Parrot, The Porcupine
).”
—Michiko Kakutani,
The New York Times

About the Author

JULIAN BARNES is the author of ten novels, two books of stories, two collections of essays and a translation of Alphonse Daudet's
In the Land of Pain
. His most recent novel,
Arthur & George
, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. His honors include the Somerset Maugham Award, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2004 he was named Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. He lives in London.

By the same author

FICTION

Metroland

Before She Met Me

Flaubert’s Parrot

Staring At The Sun

A History Of The World In
10
½ Chapters

Talking It Over

The Porcupine

Cross Channel

England, England

Love, Etc

The Lemon Table

Arthur & George

NON-FICTION

Letters From London
1990
–
1995

Something To Declare

The Pedant In The Kitchen

Nothing To Be Frightened Of

TRANSLATION

In The Land Of Pain

by Alphonse Daudet

 PULSE 

Julian Barnes

This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Version 1.0

Epub ISBN 9781409041856

www.randomhouse.co.uk

Published by Jonathan Cape 2011

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

Copyright © Julian Barnes 2011

Julian Barnes has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content

First published in Great Britain in 2011 by
Jonathan Cape
Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SWIV 2SA

www.rbooks.co.uk

Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at:
www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm

The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9780224091084

Contents

Cover

By the Same Author

Title

Copyright

Dedication

ONE

East Wind

At Phil & Joanna’s 1: 60/40

Sleeping with John Updike

At Phil & Joanna’s 2: Marmalade

Gardeners’ World

At Phil & Joanna’s 3: Look, No Hands

Trespass

At Phil & Joanna’s 4: One in Five

Marriage Lines

TWO

The Limner

Complicity

Harmony

Carcassonne

Pulse

for Pat

‘East Wind’, ‘Trespass’, ‘The Limner’ and ‘Complicity’ first appeared in
The New Yorker
; ‘At Phil and Joanna’s 1: 60/40’ and ‘Sleeping with John Updike’ in the
Guardian
; ‘At Phil and Joanna’s 2: Marmalade’ in the
Sunday Times
; ‘Harmony’ in
Granta
. ‘Marriage Lines’ began as a radio commission for Alan Howard’s voice in 2007, and was later published by
Granta
.

East Wind

T
HE PREVIOUS
N
OVEMBER
, a row of wooden beach huts, their paintwork lifted and flaked by the hard east wind, had burnt to the ground. The fire brigade came from twelve miles away, and had nothing to do by the time it arrived. Yobs on Rampage, the local paper decided; though no culprit was ever found. An architect from a more fashionable part of the coastline told the regional TV news that the huts were part of the town’s social heritage, and must be rebuilt. The council announced that it would consider all options, but since then had done nothing.

Vernon had moved to the town only a few months before, and had no feelings about the beach huts. If anything, their disappearance improved the view from The Right Plaice, where he sometimes had lunch. From a window table he now looked out across a strip of concrete to damp shingle, a bored sky and a lifeless sea. That was the east coast: for months on end you got bits of bad weather and lots of no weather. This was fine by him: he’d moved here to have no weather in his life.

‘You are done?’

He didn’t look up at the waitress. ‘All the way from the Urals,’ he said, still gazing at the long, flat sea.

‘Pardon?’

‘Nothing between here and the Urals. That’s where the wind comes from. Nothing to stop it. Straight across all those countries.’ Cold enough to freeze your knob off, he might have added in other circumstances.

‘
Oorals
,’ she repeated. As he caught the accent, he looked up at her. A broad face, streaked hair, chunky body, and not doing any waitressy number in hope of a bigger tip. Must be one of those Eastern Europeans who were all over the country nowadays. Building trade, pubs and restaurants, fruit picking. Came over here in vans and coaches, lived in rabbit warrens, made themselves a bit of money. Some stayed, some went home. Vernon didn’t mind one way or the other. That’s what he found more often than not these days: he didn’t mind one way or the other.

‘Are you from one of them?’

‘One of what?’

‘One of those countries. Between here and the Urals.’

‘
Oorals
. Yes, perhaps.’

That was an odd answer, he thought. Or maybe her sense of geography wasn’t so strong.

‘Fancy a swim?’

‘A swim?’

‘Yes, you know. Swim. Splash splash, front crawl, breast stroke.’

‘No swim.’

‘Fine,’ he said. He hadn’t meant it anyway. ‘Bill, please.’

As he waited, he looked back across the concrete to the damp shingle. A beach hut had recently sold for twenty grand. Or was it thirty? Somewhere down on the south coast. Spiralling house prices, the market going mad: that’s what the papers said. Not that it touched this part of the country, or the property he dealt in. The market had bottomed out here long ago, the graph as horizontal as the sea. Old people died, you sold their flats and houses to people who in their turn would get old in them and then die. That was a lot of his trade. The town wasn’t fashionable, never had been: Londoners carried on up the A12 to somewhere pricier. Fine by him. He’d lived in London all his life until the divorce. Now he had a quiet job, a rented flat, and saw the kids every other weekend. When they got older, they’d probably be bored with this place and start acting the little snobs. But for the moment they liked the sea, throwing pebbles into it, eating chips.

When she brought the bill, he said, ‘We could run away together and live in a beach hut.’

‘I do not think,’ she replied, shaking her head, as if she assumed he meant it. Oh well, the old English sense of humour, takes a while for people to get used to it.

He had a few rentals to attend to – changes of tenancy, redecoration, damp problems – and then a sale up the coast, so he didn’t return to The Right Plaice for a few weeks. He ate his haddock and mushies, and read the paper. There was some town in Lincolnshire which was suddenly half Polish there’d been so many immigrants. Nowadays, more Catholics went to church on Sundays than Anglicans, they were saying, what with all these Eastern Europeans. He didn’t mind one way or the other. Actually, he liked the Poles he’d met – brickies, plasterers, electricians. Good workers, well trained, did what they said, trustworthy. It was time the good old British building trade had a kick up the arse, Vernon thought.