Animals (19 page)

‘How are you doing it?’

‘I dunno, throwing it.’

‘Drag it along by the wall. You have to make it seem as though it’s looking for shelter. Cats love that shit. My dad used to say that their pleasure in cruelty showed a certain level of intelligence. We had about ten of them living around the ranch. Feral but dignified. He found one of them dead on the porch one winter, frozen solid. He picked it up and carried it round the back of the house and rapped on the kitchen window with it. My mom said it was stretched out completely stiff, like a baguette.’

The toilet flushed. She came out into the hall.

‘How did that go?’

She grimaced. ‘Slugs in jelly. It’s the stress.’ Zuzu started vigorously scratching the carpet, looking at Tyler. ‘Yes, you’re so good at scratching. Really, I have raised a magnificent little show-off. I could not be more proud.’

The cat jumped up on the window, looked out at the rain, turned back to Tyler and howled.

‘Yes, yes, dearest,’ Tyler said, walking over to Zuzu and stroking her. She turned to me. ‘I can’t go away again. I can’t abandon her like that. To her, I am God. Look, see, right now she’s saying,
Turn the big light back on, would you?
I control her food, her warmth, her entertainment. Why would I not be in control of the sun?’

‘That’s the beauty of pets, I guess. They never outgrow you.’

‘Too true. She will never look down on me and say,
You fucking mess.
She will always be in awe. Now how about a martini? I don’t think I can handle any more packing today.’

I looked to where she’d been sorting books. There were barely ten in a pile I supposed was mine. I stared at them for a few minutes and then shrugged and followed her to the kitchen. She took two different-sized martini glasses from the cupboard and put them in the fridge. She rinsed a jam jar with vermouth and poured it out into a bowl. Shook vodka with ice in the jam jar and prepared to strain it with a cheese grater. Tyler made great martinis.
That’s right, I sold my soul for mixology skills. So who’s the big fool? Satan, that’s who! SUCKER.
She hooked up her phone to the digital radio to play music through the speakers and put on one of her favourites: ‘Cocktails for Two’ by Spike Jones & His City Slickers.

She handed me a martini. The song giddied up with a whizz and a pop. ‘I’ve been thinking about my birthday.’

My mind flicked to Stockholm and back again.

‘Jeannie was going to come up for it and get a break from the baby but she’s been back in rehab.’

‘Fuck.’ I put my cocktail down. ‘
Fuck.
’

Tyler slurped her martini. ‘Best place for her. I think the christening sent her under.’

‘So it’ll just be me, you and Nick.’

‘Nick?’

‘Yes, he’s one of us, don’t worry.’

‘I didn’t realise you’d got so close.’

She tilted her head. ‘Oh yes, I quite like him. He treats sex like it’s a race. He just fires ahead and says
That’s me!
when he comes. Then he rolls off. But I’m onto him now, so I go for it and shout
LOSER!
in his face when I beat him. It feels like a really honest transaction.’

My phone beeped in my pocket. I pulled it out and looked at the screen.

Kirsten can’t do it but says thanks x

‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ I said.

‘What is?’

‘They can’t get organic ham for the buffet, only beef.’

She started making a second round of martinis. I drank half of mine in one gulp. Bliss, there, for a second, in the unsullied alcohol. I felt my blood being exchanged for vodka and was glad. My phone beeped again in my hand. I looked at it, thinking Jim might have sent the message twice by mistake or be following up – but no.

A picture message.

A pink-grey thing, for which interpretations rolled and wrestled within my mind’s back-catalogue of similar objects – balloon animals, raw sausage,
Nessie
? – before the undeniable truth.

A Penis.

More specifically An Erect Penis.

More specifically Not Jim’s Erect Penis.

Marty Grane’s.

I stared at it, too shocked to even blink. I was transfixed. On a distant planet somewhere, Tyler was shaking the jar again.

The photo had been taken from above. It looked as though Marty was sitting in an armchair, around which variously patterned fabrics – hoisted plaid shirt, Persian rug, chintzy upholstery – ringed the main event. His trousers were down to his knees. His balls were quite bald compared to Jim’s. Possibly shaved. Imagination caught the pass and ran with it: Marty, naked, foot up on the side of the bath, beavering away with a Gillette Venus …

Could it be a mistake? (
Oh HI, my good angel! Been a while!
) Could Marty have confused my number with one of his ‘non-regulars’? If so, then any minute he’d realise and I’d receive a mortified follow-up that would be almost as messy to field. I couldn’t bear the thought of having to console him about this.

‘You know what they give you at Alcoholics Anonymous in the States, to mark your progress?’

Someone somewhere was talking to me.

‘Laura?’ I looked. At Tyler. ‘You okay?’

I turned my phone off. ‘Mm-hm.’

‘Poker chips.’

I felt every passing second keenly – knowing that, even if he had meant to send me the photo then every second of my non-replying would intensify his shame. He’d be pacing right now, beating his chest, his horror reducing, reducing, reducing down to one single word.
WHY?

In the background, the song played on. I stashed my phone in my pocket.

‘What’s the matter? Is it Jim?’

‘No. I –’

‘You get a different-coloured chip for however long you last.’

‘Um.’

‘Know what colour the last chip is, the Ultimate Chip, to say you’ve been sober a year?’

‘Pink?’

‘No, dummy. Black. Don’t you think it’s strange, though, referencing another addiction? I mean, what do they give you at Gamblers Anonymous, shot glasses?’

‘You sure you can’t see my nipples?’

Friday night. Her thirtieth birthday. The balcony of a first-floor champagne bar off Peter Street. The monstrous blade-phallus of the Hilton Tower in view.

‘They’re fine,’ I said.

‘I don’t mind the general thrust being perceptible,’ she said. ‘I just don’t want areola contours, you know.’

She was wearing a cowl-necked gold lamé dress that stuck to her curves like plating. Backed by the twilit city, with her gold eyelids and bronze lips, she looked like something
made
.

I’d come straight from the call centre after getting changed in the toilets. My work clothes and make-up bag were in a carrier bag under the table. I kept nudging it with my foot so I wouldn’t forget it. I kept thinking about the flight I had to make. I hadn’t yet packed. But it would be fine, totally fine. I had a whole morning to do it. I didn’t have to be at the airport until noon tomorrow.

The waitress came out to take our order.

‘Vodka-tonic, please,’ Tyler said.

‘Same for me, please.’

The waitress nodded. ‘We only serve doubles – is that okay?’

Tyler looked at her. ‘BANDITS.’

The waitress went inside.

Tyler plonked herself in a chair and lit a fag. The fabric of her dress folded into ripples above her lap.

‘How’s your day been?’ I said.

Her arm shimmered as she placed the lighter on the table. ‘I had two croissants this morning to line my stomach, like a true sophisticate. A liquid lunch. And then an afternoon of domestic drudgery.’

‘You haven’t been doing housework, have you?’

‘Jesus, no. But first off Jean called to wish me Happy Birthday and told me she felt high from cleaning the shower in her rehab room with Cillit Bang. I pretended the line was bad and hung up. Then, when I was doing my eyeliner, someone cold-called me to ask what brand my washing machine was.’

There wasn’t a washing machine in the flat.

‘What did you say?’

‘Well, it’s the first time I’ve had to spell H-I-T-L-E-R.’

Our vodka-tonics arrived. I took a large swig and crunched an ice cube in my teeth. The bar was busy and loud, blasts of commotion making us turn and look whenever anyone came outside to smoke. At one point someone fell over inside and the bouncers rushed to drag them out.

‘Amateur night,’ said Tyler. ‘Almost as bad as New Year’s Eve.’

My phone beeped. I looked at it. A text from … bracing, bracing … Jim.

‘Is he keeping you in check?’ Tyler said. ‘Coordinating my birthday from afar? The audacity of the man. This is weapons-grade passive-aggression, Lo, and you mustn’t stand for it.’

‘Hush. He’s just looking forward to seeing me, that’s all. Now, do you want another drink?’

The door swung open and a man came out carrying a tray. He looked familiar. I scanned his face. The android screen locked and flashed. Identity confirmed. Nick.

‘Hey, cutie,’ Tyler said. I looked at her. At him.

On the tray there was an orange ice bucket with a green bottleneck protruding and three shiny flutes lying on the ice like fish. Nick did the honours – the cork firing off towards a nearby table and causing someone to dodge it like a bullet. He poured us all a flute. I downed the remains of my vodka-tonic in anticipation. He handed a flute to Tyler and she pulled his hand further up to her lips and kissed his knuckles.

They smiled at each other. I necked half my glass of champagne. Look on the bright side, I told myself, you can leave early now.

Nick said: ‘I hope you’re both proud of me. I have managed to store something special all week in the medicine cabinet. It’s burned a hole in the fucking wall, let me tell you. Every time I’ve gone for a shower or a piss I’ve nodded towards it and said,
Soon
…’

My stomach fluttered, a minor thrutch. A dog responding to a bell.

Tyler took his hand under the table and went to the bathroom first. Nick brought his flute to his lips and sucked back champagne in a long, smooth inhalation. His eyes were very very black. Whatever Tyler was being introduced to in the bathroom, Nick had been acquainted with for quite a few hours.

‘How’s the exhibition going?’

‘Well, thanks. Looks like we’ll be taking it to Berlin in autumn.’

‘Congratulations.’

‘How’s the wedding coming?’

I wondered what Tyler had divulged. These drunken indiscretions, how often we mistake them for intimacies.

‘Almost ready. Just a few loose ends to tie up.’

‘I heard that the ham’s been problematic.’

I drained my flute. Nick refilled it.

Tyler barged back out onto the balcony and took a seat. ‘Fuck’s sake,’ she said, grabbing her champagne and tipping it down her neck. ‘It’s like a fucking
roux
.’

Nick smiled. ‘It’s worth it, don’t worry.’

I watched it possess her. She became a metal shell of purest night. ‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘Where did you …?’

Nick poured more champagne. ‘Don’t leave Laura out.’

She passed it to me under the table. I slipped it into the side of my bag and made my way to the bathroom. But when I got into the cubicle I found I couldn’t do it, didn’t want to. I rubbed the little bag and thought – well, the word that came to mind was, hilariously,
fuckit
. I could see the future too clearly. The memories we’d make tonight would not be new ones even though they might look like it on the surface. Given the same stimuli the brain makes the same connections and distracts you with emotion so you feel like they’re new. I liked distraction well enough. I also liked the idea of free will.

I went back out to the balcony and passed the bag back to Nick. While he was gone, Tyler said: ‘Why not?’

‘Don’t fancy it.’

‘It’s really fucking good.’ Her voice was claggy.

I stayed with them drinking, watching their disintegration, and before long it was all talk of the past week’s social triumphs accompanied by clumsy footsie.

‘Look, do you want me to go?’ I whispered as Nick charged to the toilet for the fifth time. Who had it? I’d lost track of their clandestine pass-the-parcel.

‘No,’ she said, ‘stay.’

I tried to distract myself by watching the people coming and going inside the bar, trying to work out how they knew each other, how much they cared. An hour or so later, a woman walked in who I thought looked familiar. The woman was about forty judging by the speed at which she moved, skinny and nervous, but her face looked much older, with sunken cheeks and deep crow’s feet, stringy hair coiled into a knot high on the back of her head. She made her way over to the bar, followed by a pair of men in their twenties in jumpers and jeans. As I turned to Tyler to ask whether she recognised her I saw that her face was ashen and she had started to slide very slowly under the table. Nick was watching her, none the wiser.

‘Tyler,’ I said, ‘isn’t that –’

Tyler didn’t say a word, just kept sliding. When she was fully under the table she looked up at me and nodded. Mouthed
MARIE
.

I put my legs forward to obscure her, in case Marie looked over to the window and could see beneath the table. I looked over at Nick. ‘Nick,’ I said, ‘don’t make it obvious but there’s someone just come in that we really need to avoid – that Tyler especially needs to avoid.’ He nodded.
Yeah, and?
I went on. ‘So the best thing to do is look at me as though I’m saying something really interesting and possibly even slightly funny and let’s hope that they either leave or move to a place where we can get Tyler out without them seeing her.’ He nodded again. Stopped nodding and laughed uproariously. ‘Okay, don’t overdo it. We don’t want them to look over at us specially, but if they happen to glance at us we need to look as though we’re utterly engrossed in each other rather than pretending that somebody isn’t hiding under the table.’

I prayed that Marie or whatever she was called wouldn’t recognise me. I’d been round to hers once with Tyler – a terraced street in Belle Vue so forgotten that it was practically a study in post-industrial melancholy – and waited outside, trying not to look through the front window’s slipped nets. Beneath the table, Tyler had her hand around my ankle, squeezing gently.