Animals (6 page)

‘I thought you were going to be Jim.’

‘Sorry to disappoint you.’ She sounded like she was lying down, her voice flat and gargly.

‘Actually, it’s a relief to hear you,’ I said. ‘Mastering meaningful speech is next up on my list of Things to Achieve Today. I’m not quite ready for Jim but I can just blart vowel-sounds at you and it’s okay.’

‘It’s more than okay. I understand your blarting perfectly.’

‘You’re the world’s leading expert in the field of my blarting.’

She inhaled and sighed. ‘You staying there today, then?’

‘Jim’s back shortly – you know that.’

‘Ah.’ She sniffed. ‘Pulling rank, is he?’

‘It’s not like that, I just need to get things straight. Myself, mainly. I’m practically brain-dead. Jim might as well be coming home to someone on life support – hey, at least he might have some sympathy for me that way …’

‘Listen, just don’t apologise, whatever you do. That only feeds the fire. I made the mistake of reading the news earlier. You know what the biggest problem is right now with Western society?’

‘Our lack of real commitment to addressing climate change?’

‘Our pornographic appetite for contrition. You have to be sorry for everything, all the time. Are you
sorry
you ate all those burgers? Are you
sorry
you smoked all those cigarettes? Are you
sorry
you said that dumb thing online? It’s not morality, it’s just another fix, another kind of greed: give me all your sorry, I’m so hungry for sorry. But sorry changes nothing. There are more progressive motivations. When you go out and tear the night a new hole you do it for a reason, even if that reason is taking a vacation from Reason.’

‘Yeesh, Tyler, I really hate that expression.’

‘Sorry – I forgot, you have previous.’

‘Hey, they were only internal and very small. I was eating too much bread.’

The curry was a predictable disaster. I ruined everything I cooked because of my inherent lack of cruise control. I had to remind myself to stand by pans.
You are cooking. Concentrate. Stir.
When I heard the key in the lock I ran to the door, hurling myself into his arms before he’d put his bags down.

‘Whoa,’ he said. His eyes were tight and sunken with travel: the red-eye flight from JFK and a connection at Heathrow. I held his face, kissed him hard. He tasted of mint and coffee. He smelled of plastic and his own delicious sweat. I drew back and we stood there for a minute taking each other in, the fear-excitement that there might have been a change in the space of a week; the slow-swell satisfaction-disappointment in knowing there wasn’t. I did
Brief Encounter
like always – tight lips, Old English posh: ‘You’ve been a long way away. Thenk you for kemming beck to me …’

I dished out the food. We sat at the table. The curry was too hot, the spices raw, the sauce floury, the meat fibrous. The last time I’d cooked for Jim I’d made a tortilla without pre-cooking the potatoes. It was almost as though I enjoyed failing. Was I, as I had long suspected, one part optimism two parts masochism, like all the best cocktails?

‘You shouldn’t have,’ Jim said, squinting.

‘I know.’ I dropped my spoon into the still-full bowl. ‘Tell me about New York.’

‘Oh, you’d love it, Laur. It’s all your favourite things.’

I picked up my spoon again, made a fist round it. ‘Like what?’

‘Lively, contradictory, seemingly organised on the surface but beautifully chaotic underneath.’

‘Does it have a dark, complex soul?’

‘I think it wishes it had.’

‘Very good, Mr Partington. Now, take all your clothes off.’

Sex with Jim was, amongst other things, a way of reminding myself I had a body. I’d had sex in my teens to get out of my body; in my twenties and thirties, so far it was about making me remember again. Jim’s body was springy and curved in a woodish way – he’d lost weight since he’d stopped drinking and his work kept his arms high-toned. He pulled me on top of him and I tried to encourage him to do the things I liked, be rougher and smack my ass so I pushed harder onto him.
You are here, here and here. Close your eyes. You’re still here, aren’t you?
But Jim had gone shyer since he’d stopped drinking, like he’d lost his bottle in more ways than one. It was sort of okay and sort of … frustrating. I didn’t know whether bringing it up would make him more self-conscious (was there anything
less
sexy than a conversation about sex?) and we had so much on, so I enjoyed the feeling of his spread hands, holding me (convincing me), and his chest hair that smelled of salty-smokiness.

We lay in bed afterwards discussing the wedding. ‘We’re pretty much on track,’ I said. ‘Listen to me! No, Jim, seriously, we’re
moving forward
on this … You can shoot me, you know. Any time you like. So tomorrow I’ve got a few more emails to reply to, which I’d have done today if I hadn’t been so head-rottingly hungover. The caterers have more questions about the ham and we’ve had a few more RSVPs, also people are still asking about presents and if I have to use the
Your presence is our present
line one more time then I’m going to have to wire my nipples to the mains and beat myself to death with a knotted rope just to feel original again.’

He kissed my eyelids. I told him about the club. He laughed. I showed him my thread vein. He said it was cute. I felt invincible. Such is the inner sanctum of bed: when you’re in there with the person you love the rest of the world can go to hell. At least that’s the way it feels when you’re not discussing logistics. The wedding chat invited quite literally the rest of the world in. I decided to only ever bring it up again in the kitchen; that was where it belonged.

The Northern Quarter, Friday, October. Tyler and I had gone drinking after our shifts. By 8 p.m. we were ten drinks in, wedding-drunk and almost dancing. Over by the bar I saw him stirring his drink. It wasn’t the kind of place you stirred your drink (no ice, no fruit, straws of dubious cleanliness) so I knew something was up. After I’d been watching him a few seconds he looked at me and back to his drink. Another two seconds, me, his drink.

Game on.

Tyler was sitting next to me, her head drooping as she looked at her phone. A few feet away, the sound periodically blunted by gyrating bodies, ‘She’s A Rainbow’ by World of Twist belted out from a bass speaker.

‘Tyler,’ I shouted over the music, ‘do you fancy a shot?’

‘Tequila,’ she said without looking up. ‘I had too much sambuca on Tuesday, I can still feel it coating my tonsils. And he’s gay but go for your life.’

I bounced up to the bar. His mouth twitched but otherwise his expression didn’t change. The marine wash of bar lights gave him an elvish opalescence, his skin a pale contrast to black hair and brows. So hard to say how you sense that peculiar attraction, the kind that shakes you to the root of your own mythologies (there was the bad child on the settee, the fourteen-year-old running from the parked car, the twenty-year-old shyly saying actually she’d like that more maybe, the thirty-year-old bored and guilty in her boredom, each former self acknowledged as he passed, yes hello hello, present, present if not quite correct. He had all of me in all of five seconds). He looked like he was drinking something with tonic, which boded well: something with tonic was my drink of choice for going the distance. I’ve always believed you can tell a lot by someone’s drink. He delicately – nimble fingers, I noticed those straight off – took the straw he’d been stirring with out of his drink and set it down on the bar, where a little pool of shiny liquid seeped around it. I looked to the barmaid and ordered two shots. As she turned to the optics I turned towards him and offered to buy him a shot. He shook his head. Smiled. Still not a word. I wondered whether he was mute. Could I love a mute? We could write each other notes, that would be romantic. He took his drink up to his lips and sipped. Swallowed. Put the glass back on the bar. The moonish meniscus swayed to a standstill. Was he ever going to speak? He smiled again. He was like the Mona Lisa. I almost said,
You’re like the Mona Lisa
but stopped myself. I was aware I looked odd enough as it was, sweaty and stone-eyed with ranting and wine. My shots arrived. I handed over the cash. Waited for my change. When I’d put my change in my purse I tucked my purse under my arm and took a shot in each hand. Turned to him. ‘Well,’ I said. ‘Have an intense one.’ Wankerish of me, I know. But I mean, really, it’s one thing being all intriguing and beckoning but when –

‘Hang on.’

I stopped. Turned. The shots quivered in my grip. This could go one of several ways but it definitely wasn’t done.

I said: ‘I come here every week and it’s a lot nicer than me and my dad isn’t a thief but he probably knows a few although as far as I know he’s never been anywhere near the stars and I don’t even like
raisins
.’

He grinned. Actual teeth. I stood there, poised with two tequilas, wondering whether to put them back down on the bar, take them over to Tyler, or neck them right there just for the fuck of it. I looked over to where Tyler was sitting. She nodded and mouthed GAY. I turned around and placed the shots back on the bar.

‘You sure you don’t want one of these?’

He looked over to Tyler. ‘Is one of them not for your friend?’

‘Oh, she’s fine.’

‘Okay then.’ I handed him a tequila and cheers’d his shot with mine – momentary awkwardness, first proximity, dangerous angles, then clear all clear. My fingers wide on the glass I tipped it back with a seasoned pelican swallow. He did his in two and ran his tongue over his top teeth, throat twitching.

‘So,’ I said, ‘what do you do with yourself when you’re not standing in bars being enigmatic?’

He smiled. ‘You really want to talk about
that
?’

‘No,’ I said, burning for my crassness. I skittered, recovering. (This is the way it is with me, I don’t know whether I want to be the life and soul or the mystery.) ‘Not at all,’ I said, ‘I don’t want to talk about anything. I just feel like I should because I’m a product of my generation and we abhor a lull in communication. Sometimes I envy Neanderthal times. A caveman moment, where you could just stand there throwing meat at each other. None of the inane chitter-chat.’

A single nod. The firmest eyes. A chin not unlike the horn of a saddle.

‘I’m a pianist,’ he said.

No penis jokes.

‘Classical or jazz or …? I can’t think of any more.’

‘Both, but mostly classical. I mean, that’s where the big bucks are.’ A twinkle at this. Was he? Yes – yes, he was. Ripping the piss. Oho, this boded well.

‘Go You.’

‘Go me,’ he said, squinting. That squint. He had me at
that squint
. ‘I played the RNCM earlier. That’s why I’m here.’ He looked around, raised his eyebrows and sipped his long drink. ‘
Some
one recommended it.’

‘Was it your girlfriend?’

‘No, it wasn’t my girlfriend.’

‘Is she quite boring, then?’

‘You could say that.’

‘Boring in a kind of non-existent way?’

‘There’s no “kind of” about it.’

(HOORAY.)

‘So,’ he said. ‘What do you drive?’

‘A hard bargain.’

‘Let me guess: you’re a comedian.’

‘Way off. Freezing, in fact.’

‘Let’s have it then.’

‘I’m a writer.’

‘A writer of what?’

Words.
Laura, I scolded myself, YOU ARE NOT BOB DYLAN.

‘Short stories mostly. But I’m working on a novel. I know everyone says that but it’s nearly finished and I’m quite determined.’

Quite determined?
Jesus. I sounded like Elizabeth fucking Bennett.

‘Great,’ he said. ‘Anything published?’

I did a sour little tequila burp and hoped he hadn’t noticed. ‘A few things, in a small way.’

He stuck out his hand then. ‘Jim.’

‘Laura.’

His was a good hand. Clam-shaped nails, raised veins, knuckles just worn enough. I had a fleeting erotic vision; a rush that spilled from jaw to ribs to pelvic floor – lowering myself, holding his hips, not losing eye contact, seeing what his face did. I hoped the vision hadn’t passed through my hand as I took his, and then I hoped it had. I sensed a gentleness emanating from him, a soft lamp on somewhere inside. I wanted to collapse like a blooming flower in reverse stop-frame animation, rush to the point of his hand, and go in there. I wanted to be inside him. I felt – as I did again and again whenever I had hold of Jim – Yeats’
loveliness that has long faded from the world.

I woke up naked in a bed that wasn’t mine. Someone next to me who wasn’t Tyler. A not-unpleasant achiness. Memories of deep kissing, his hands on my shoulder blades, the nape of my neck attended to. Closeness. Intimacy. I remembered undressing, the condom, the carpet. A rented room. Magnolia paint, sloe gin his niece had made, no cigarettes. I rolled over, and
there
: the back of him pale and straight like a candle. I reached out – atoms displacing atoms, that’s all it was, funny, just before the moment of contact – then my hand was on him. Warm, downy skin prickled. He murmured and turned to face me.

We’d stayed in the bar until two then we got a taxi back to his place. Tyler ended up at a party in Salford, bum-grinding with a
Coronation Street
star who wouldn’t admit he was in
Coronation Street
– not surprising under the circumstances; the circumstances being nitrous balloons and Arrested Development on Spotify.
Actors
, her morning voicemail said.
Actors.

I called her back at the end of Jim’s street.
So how about you and your fancy friend?

So how about that?

Well, I’d only gone and fallen in love.

Beyond all fantasies, this one, right from the start. It’s a beautiful thing when you know you have a bolder look in your eye and can bolt one back. That sudden ownership of someone’s body, the requited favouritism when it comes to yours. That sense of communion. I can touch you here, here and here – look at me just touching you all over. I made love to Jim religiously; it felt like prayer or what I knew of prayer. The ritual. The bending. I felt a new point to things, a new purpose, an endlessness in that. I’d been so disappointed to discover at the age of sixteen, after losing my virginity to a gentle, shy schoolmate and dating him for a year or so, that an orgasm was merely what I had been giving myself all those years (Is that
it
? Oh, it is. Oh, well). Jim and I explored each another, turning stones, dropping depth gauges. It was about what I could do to him, and it was about seeing what what I was doing was doing to him; the tease and retreat, the whispered exchange of devils. And beyond all that, the purity of possibility. You haven’t had the chance to fuck up. You could be anything. You could be
perfect
(unlikely, but the freedom of having the whole rainbow of potential flaws in the running is not to be underestimated). He doesn’t know yet about your limited geographical knowledge; that you don’t read the papers every day; that you sometimes hide instead of answering the door (and the phone). You are yet to drink white wine and turn into a complete fucking lunatic over absolutely nothing. You are yet to, yet to, yet to.