Animals (17 page)

‘Everyone in here is fucked,’ I said.

Tyler handed me a cup of wine. ‘Yu-huh.’ She raised her own cup and began whooping and stamping out of time. I had a faraway feeling that we might be better not drawing attention to ourselves. Marty sat down on a crate and I sat next to him, Tyler on the other side. The light shifting, my eyes tripping, Marty looked younger, younger than me, or no age at all.

‘Do you still write poetry?’ I said.

‘Sometimes, late at night. When the ghosts come knocking.’

I looked at him. Sincerity. How refreshing. I felt his leg come to rest against mine. I moved my leg away and wished I hadn’t. Jim would have flirted while he was away. I wasn’t dead inside. Far from it.

‘Fast little drinker, aren’t you?’ said Marty.

I looked at him. I hoped he was going to get
really
antagonistic now. I hoped I was in some Real Actual Danger. I kept my face very straight. ‘It’s only because I’m a woman that you even see my drinking as a feature. No, hear me out on this. There was a pop concert in Manchester last year. Boy band from the Nineties. It was mostly women in their thirties who went – you know, because they’d liked them first time round.’ He nodded. Was I rambling? Fuckit. ‘So, that was the demographic. And the press went for them – I mean,
went for them
. They were “vomiting in gardens, clogging up A&E, wearing unflattering pink outfits at their age”, you know. This all coming in the wake of all the binge-drinking stories that the media had been using to demonise women, especially young women. Why? Because women’s bodies are not seen as their own. They are
birthing machines
. Are you laughing?’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘Do you think A&E was any busier that night than after a football match at Old Trafford? No. It wasn’t. I checked. Tyler and I both checked, because this shit matters to us.’

I looked round at Tyler. She was watching the dancing.

‘So,’ Marty said, ‘you’re just
expressing
yourselves with your little revolution show? I hate to break it to you, missy, but the alcohol and tobacco companies are owned by the capitalists responsible for sustaining the very system you want to crack. But by all means, revolutionise away. Just make sure it’s fun.’

‘It’s about choice. I choose to do everything I do.’

‘Wanna bet?’

Missy
. Motherfucker. Inside me, a chorus line of devils in tutus did a fast little cancan. I pulled my fag packet out of my jacket pocket, lit three fags and handed one to Marty then reached across to hand one to Tyler.

Something afoot. She had a beatific grin on her face, and when I followed her line of sight I saw a beautiful young man dancing in the middle of the room. The man kept glancing at her and making his moves more fluid, as though he was enjoying Tyler looking at him that bit too much …

I looked around the room. Two handy-looking girls were standing by the far wall, holding punch cups so tightly they had buckled in their hands. One of them looked at the man and then back at me, then at Tyler, and then back at me. Her eyes were full of rage.

‘Tyler,’ I said, leaning over Marty, ‘I think he’s trying to make his girlfriend jealous.’

‘Fuck her,’ Tyler said, still staring.

The girl started walking towards us. My feet twitched and I gripped my cup so hard that wine spilled onto my knee.

‘Tyler.’

The girl was over in seconds. She bent down and spat a few words in Tyler’s ear. Tyler didn’t look at the girl, didn’t move her gaze from the man or alter her expression, just raised her hand very slowly and tapped her fag in the girl’s drink. Twice.

The girl didn’t do anything at first, just looked in her drink, then back at Tyler, then at me (I looked away, then at Tyler). Tyler sucked on her fag but otherwise didn’t move a muscle, just kept smiling at the dancing man.
She’s fronting this out
, I thought.
Oh Jesus, this is it. This is actually it
. I didn’t want to die underground, holding a plastic cup. I thought of Jim, how ashamed he’d be at the funeral. Could I run? No, I couldn’t leave her. I sat there waiting to die. The girl stood by Tyler for another few seconds and then moved away. I half-expected her to come back with her pal and pulverise us, but the two of them just stood by the wall, glowering. The man danced on, oblivious or enjoying the tension. I allowed relief to dribble over me. I swigged my wine, and was about to turn and engage Tyler in conversation when –

There was a commotion over by the door. Tyler broke her gaze to look over. I looked, too. A girl had come in – coiffured and classily dressed in a black bodycon dress and red boat shoes.
Hola!
she was saying.
Hola!
She knew everyone. The music quietened and an air of reverence came over the room. The girl walked through the crowd, waving and nodding and kissing people. Someone handed her a drink, someone else a cigarette.

Marty emitted an audible gasp. ‘WHA –?’

I looked at him.

‘I can’t allow THIS!’ he cried, throwing his fag down and stamping on it. He handed me his drink and stood up. Before I could stop him he yelled: ‘WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS CHILD?’

The club swivelled. Liquid horror and terror and multiplying mortifications.

‘No, Marty,’ I said, ‘no, she’s –’

But it was too late. He marched across the room. ‘PUT THAT CIGARETTE OUT! PUT THAT DRINK DOWN! HOW OLD ARE YOU, GIRL?’

The music had stopped. The dancing had stopped. As Marty stood there, looking down, I saw his face change. He clapped a hand over his mouth.

The dwarf looked impossibly fucked off.

Someone behind me cracked their knuckles. People who had been sitting on crates began to stand up and move towards us.
We’re going to die
, I thought,
going to die going to die
. I threw the drinks down, grabbed Tyler and dragged her towards the door. I presumed Marty was following.

We ran until we had to stop, ten or eleven streets away, Marty behind and behind him, nobody.

‘I think the safest thing is to go back to mine,’ he said, out of breath. ‘We can get a cab. It’s not far. And I’ve got a cellar full of fine wine.’

‘Mayb –’ Tyler began.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve got work tomorrow evening.’ I was still shaking, sober or at least felt like I was.

Tyler looked at me. She rolled her eyes and then nodded. ‘All righty, don’t freak.’

Marty licked his lips. There were clumps of white granddaddy spittle congealed at the corners of his mouth. They went stringy as he spoke. ‘We should swap numbers at least,’ he said. ‘Keep in touch.’

Tyler said: ‘My phone’s dead. Swap with Laura.’

I pulled my phone out of my pocket. When numbers had been exchanged Marty bade us goodnight. I kissed him on the cheek. ‘Thanks,’ I said. I thought,
I will never see you again
.

We watched him get into a cab.

Tyler said: ‘Way to let the drugs get away, Lo.’

I laughed but I didn’t enjoy it, I could feel my bottom jaw moving with the laugh like a ventriloquist’s dummy.

‘What time is it?’

I looked at my phone, still in my hand. ‘Two.’

‘Three hours until the first train.’

‘What shall we do? Fancy another drink? A coffee?’

She linked my arm. ‘Let us wander the streets and at first light press our noses up against the window of a Poundstretcher whereupon I shall recite Sassoon in a solemn voice …’

In the end we just sat on the picnic table outside Euston, fending off stag dos. London was a jungle full of lonely hunters and I felt old in it – gummy, declawed. ‘Have any of you got any drugs?’ Tyler kept asking people. ‘No? Then fuck off.’

As I smoked I scrolled through my phone contacts – I still had Jacqueline’s number, and Kirsten’s, and Maud’s.

‘I fucked him, you know,’ Tyler said. ‘Back at uni.’

I looked at her. ‘Why does that not surprise me?’ I felt like I might throw up and knew it would be fine if I did, which helped stop me.

‘He was dirty.
Really dirty.
’

‘I don’t really want to think about it.’

‘Sure you don’t, Little Miss Spanky.’

When I was ten and Mel was twelve she and I used to play a game, the objective of which was to take it in turns to catch and spank one another hard. Of course, we got caught, in spectacular style, in my bedroom: me bent over my bed, Mel behind me, braced one foot behind the other, whacking away merrily; me pretending to cry but loving it. My dad, walking past to the toilet, was so uncertain about exactly what was going on (and I could tell, even then, that he just didn’t want to even
go there
) that he didn’t speak – just ran over, dragged Mel off, hurled her into her room and slammed the door on mine. He couldn’t make eye contact with either of us at teatime. The only person I’d told the story to was Tyler. She’d hooted.
Explains a lot! A whole lot! And so British!

How different the winding, stony path of the morning to the straight, solid road of the night. The sky was pigeon grey. The way the day begins decides the shade of everything.

We disembarked at Manchester just before nine. On the platform my every step felt like a decision. I was full of spinning magnets attracting and repelling their own poles: walk, sleep, drink, call, don’t call, eat, sit down, don’t sit down. I stopped to pick up a stranded worm off the pavement and throw it into a tub of primroses. A little further along I saw a bee, almost motionless on the pavement but still with the solidity of moving blood and air keeping it upright. It was alive. I looked around for a twig. Found a scrap of paper. Coaxed the bee on. Back to the primroses I went, knock-kneed as an apprentice plate-spinner, balancing the bee. I held the paper over a flower and nudged the bee on with my finger.

‘Come on,’ said Tyler.

‘But there’s a dying bee.’

‘Oh, the karma bank, the karma bank. It’ll just fuck us over, you know, like all the rest.’

When the bee was safe I pulled my phone out of my pocket. Three missed calls and two texts from Jim. He was home, at his. I could collapse there. Fuck the rules. I couldn’t cope with any more surprises.

‘Tyler.’ She stopped walking. ‘I’m going to Jim’s.’

She looked at me. ‘Suit yourself.’

On Oldham Street I passed shop fronts shut up and not just for the night. Cash loan exchanges, pawnbrokers, boarded-up newsagents. Down past the CIS, the half-built Co-op. Victoria Station. The cathedral. The dripping-moss bridge. Knew I was almost at Jim’s when I heard the ragged sound of the metal sign spinning outside the laundrette on the corner. I thought he’d probably still be in bed, jetlagged or just lying-in.

I slithered along the main hall and fumbled my key into the lock. A scratch as the key bit. Once I was inside, I attempted to undress. It was as tricky as unlocking a door. At the sound of a creak, I looked up, half-naked, to see Jim standing in the doorway of the bedroom.

‘I thought this was going to stop.’

I hopped backwards, one leg still in my tights. ‘It is,’ I said when I came to a standstill.

He went back into the bedroom and in the time it took me to gather up my clothes he came back out with an armful of bedding. ‘This way,’ he said. I followed him into the lounge and watched him make up a bed on the couch.

‘You serious?’

‘Yep.’ He kissed me as he passed. ‘Sweet dreams.’

‘Jim!’

‘Nope.’

I lay on the sofa, feeling my heart pounding in my chest. I got up. Went to the toilet. The window. The kitchen. The lounge. I watched the red fireflies of the entertainment system’s standby lights. I went back to the couch and got back under the covers. I listened to a lawnmower.

Jim got up around noon. I was lying on the sofa, Pterodactyl-style, my hands up like claws near my chest. I was watching a cookery programme that was making me feel sick but I couldn’t move to find the remote to turn it over. Instead I was wincing every time the presenter said ‘boil’ or ‘butter’.

‘Morning.’

‘Morning.’

‘Good time in London then?’

‘All right.’

‘You know that shit comes into the country sewn into some poor bastard’s leg.’

He was holding a mug of something. I swung my legs round and sat myself up. Jesus. All the warning lights across the dash of my forehead were flashing. ‘What are you drinking?’

‘Coffee.’

‘Is it fairtrade?’

He looked at me. ‘Don’t you dare.’

‘No, don’t
you
dare. All I’ve done was have a little holiday with my friend when I never go fucking anywhere and it didn’t even turn out that great, and on top of all that I’m so fucking worried about my dad.’

The Dying Dad Card. I played it.

‘I know you are. That’s partly the reason we’re doing all this so quickly.’

I looked at him. He’d actually said it. Trumped me. He looked down, ashamed. Softer: ‘What happened?’

‘Just … I didn’t have the greatest time, Jim.’

He came and sat next to me, put his arm round me, kissed my neck. ‘You stink,’ he said into my ear.

‘Mm hm.’

‘I sort of like it.’

‘I know.’

I kissed his neck and his chest, working my way down to the top of his boxers and then pulling them down, using my mouth. He moved onto his side and tried to pull me up and turn me round, but I kept facing him and said from the plateau of his belly ‘I need a shower’, then moved back down with my mouth, finished him so I could also be sure – You know. I didn’t know where I was up to.

After, he said: ‘I’m playing Stockholm a week on Sunday. Why don’t you come?’

‘It’s Tyler’s thirtieth.’

‘What, all weekend?’

It didn’t seem to want to be summer any more. Late June and the leaves on the trees were tugging at the branches. Some of them had even managed to wrench themselves free, landing on the ground shiny and curling at the ends, like dying fish. I stood outside Jacqueline’s house in Chorltonville for many minutes before I plucked up the courage to walk up and ring on the bell (the handle of which hung from the ceiling of the porch like the whistle-blower on a steam train). There were two pairs of pristine wellies by the side of the mat.