Animals (24 page)

‘I kicked over a busker’s cap once,’ I said. ‘The money went everywhere. And then I felt so bad I put a fiver in on top of the rest I’d picked up. It’s a dear do, middle-class guilt.’ This wasn’t true but it was a great story.

Deco was dark and busy and everything I wanted. Stained-glass mirrors mystified the walls and a series of birdcages hung still and empty down the middle of the ceiling, between depressed Tiffany lampshades. The bar-top itself was wooden and highly polished like a long flat slide, the sudden flower of a gramophone at the far end.

Tyler went straight to the bathroom and Marty went up to the bar. I found a table in a corner with only one chair so I asked the occupants of a nearby table if they could spare one and they moved some coats and donated what looked like a milking stool. This still meant we only had two seats. I sat down on the stool. It was low, really low, and my chest came up to the table. I pulled the stool back a little way so it wasn’t as noticeable how low I was. I looked at Marty’s ass, looked away, looked back. Realised he could probably see me looking in the stained-glass mirrors behind the bar.

Marty returned with three squat cocktails. Old Fashioneds, I deduced, seeing the orange peel spiralling in the dark liquor. I took the glass from Marty’s hand and as I did so his finger brushed mine. A dopamine rush. I put the cocktail onto the table so that I’d drink it more slowly.

‘So you went to university here?’ said Marty.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You went to Oxford, then?’

‘That was for my BA.’

‘Impressive.’

He brought his cocktail to his lips and looked at me. ‘What made you choose Edinburgh?’

‘It’s a good university!’

‘Of course it is.’

He took off his coat. He was in pretty good shape, his chest and arm muscles slid around under his shirt and his stomach was flat above his belt buckle even though he was sitting down.

DO NOT LOOK AT HIS BELT BUCKLE.

‘Did you not want to push yourself?’

HE JUST CAUGHT YOU LOOKING AT HIS BELT BUCKLE.

I looked at him. His face was good and round, his evil Cupid’s-bow lips wet from the whisky. Motherfucker.

I said: ‘I admire your balls, Marty.’

‘Budge up, buster!’ Tyler was back from the bathroom. She plonked herself on his knee and helped herself to the remaining cocktail. I sipped mine. Give me credit for that, would you? I sipped.

Tyler leaned forward and then her hand was in my hand under the table and then the bag was there, crackly in my palm, depleted yet still plentiful. I went to the bathroom. When I came back Tyler was sitting down on the stool, whispering in Marty’s ear. She stopped whispering when she saw me and stood up. ‘Another chair! Another chair is what we need.’ She flew off into the depths of the bar. I sat down on the milking stool.

‘So,’ Marty said. ‘This new title. Remind me again?’

‘
Killing the Changes
.’

The edge of his shirt-sleeve touched the end of my shirt-sleeve and tickled like a butterfly. Like something delicate, struggling. A rush went up my neck. He pulled at his beard, touched the arm of his glasses. ‘It’s not right.’

‘What do you mean, “not right”?’

‘It’s too TV drama. I’m seeing Helen Mirren with a difficult home life wrongly accused of sexual harassment in the workplace.’

I belted back my drink and slammed the glass down on the table. ‘Tough titty,’ I said. ‘I was disappointed when
A Room With a View
wasn’t about a sniper. It’s my fucking wedding.’

‘Mm, petulant. Sexy. Not.’

‘You know, your age really shows when you say words like “Not”.’

He bit his bottom lip, raised his eyebrows, nodded his head, amused. AMUSED. Oh, my bankrupt inner grammar-school debating team! I wanted to massacre them all.

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I realise that was a little below par.’

‘It’s fine.’ He reset his face. ‘So long as it’s foreplay.’

A chair landed on one side of us and Tyler landed on top of it. I thought they’d been thrown across the room for a moment, but no she was just … bouncy. I moved back in my seat.

‘Marty went to Oxford,’ she said.

‘I’d remembered.’

‘You almost went, didn’t you, Lo?’

‘“Almost” is a bit of an overstatement.’

‘Always the bridesmaid?’ Marty grinned. I grinned back.

‘I went to look round one of the colleges in sixth form,’ I said, reaching for my glass, which was empty.

‘We’re all out,’ Tyler said. ‘I’m going to the bar.’

‘Do you want some money?’ I said, looking for my bag.

‘No, what I want is for you to enjoy yourself.’

‘I am enjoying myself.’

She went to the bar.

‘You should use Yeats for your title,’ Marty said. ‘If he’s your favourite.’

‘How do you know he’s my favourite?’

‘I’m a hardline Romantic, too. Surprised you didn’t spot me a mile off.’

‘Your event publicity was hardly knavish.’

‘Hook, line and sinker.’

‘You wish.’ I pulled my lip-gloss out of my bag and swiped a scoop out, smeared it across my lips. Marty watched me. ‘Want some?’ He nodded. I applied. He rubbed his lips together. ‘You know, that suits you.’

He pouted. ‘Thanks. Hey, do you have the … erm.’

I shook my head. ‘Tyler’s got it.’

His aftershave wasn’t so bad, close up. It was strong and alien and could under some circumstances even be a turn-on. I imagined.

‘So does your fiancé like poetry?’

‘Jim? Of course he does.’ (I wasn’t sure. My mind was a blank where Jim was concerned.)

‘But he doesn’t write?’

‘He plays the piano.’

‘He covers other people’s songs?’

‘He channels. He pulls music through himself and puts it out again. It’s very creative. His process.’

‘Others because you did not keep that deep-sworn vow have been friends of mine. “Friends”. That’s a sweet way of putting it, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t want to think about anyone’s face right now, thanks.’

A dimple appeared. ‘Oh, okay, so we’re going to hell. Shall we hold hands on the way down?’

I nodded towards the bar and Tyler. ‘Go over there and say “Three Bloody Marys” and everything will be fine. I’m half-Catholic.’

Oh this was really really really bad. He moved closer. Tyler turned to glance at us and quickly turned back again. I looked at Marty and thought,
I could just kiss you, just kiss you, right now.
I tilted my head to show him his mouth might fit on the side of my throat.

He said: ‘You spend too much time guilty.’

‘I’m a writer. Guilt helps analysis.’

‘You need more to analyse. Less conversation, more action.’

‘Maybe you’re right. I have too much thinking time. Really someone should just put me in a mill or down a mine –’

‘How about I just put you over my knee?’

Three cocktails landed on the table, Tyler’s fingers in them. I shot back, looked down, told myself I must have misheard him. But I was wet and I was afraid he might know it. Jesus and all the fucks. Marty was taking me apart, layer by layer, piece by tiny piece. An autopsy with cutlery. I felt that feeling of being the focus, of the focus sharpening – even when you know it’s to your own (small-scale) destruction (oh fuckit,
especially
when you know that). I thought of the sailor Quint sliding down the deck towards the shark’s open mouth and there was something in his eye that wasn’t pure horror, there was a part of him contracting a last kick from being the sole object of the beast’s desire. I looked at Marty’s hand around his glass, mentally transplanted it to my breast, my arse cheek. I looked at the chunky zip of his trousers, imagined opening his flies, pushing my fingers inside, feeling him stiffen as I pushed him back on his chair and swung my leg over and shoved the fingers of my free hand in his mouth …

In the quantum multiverse all eventualities are possible. Which means, paradoxically, that all eventualities are inevitable. They have also quite possibly already happened. Make of that what you will, not that your will has much to do with it. Because here’s the thing.
If
you believe that consciousness is an accumulation of memory;
if
you believe that you often know what’s going to occur either through some animal instinct or a human subscription to fate, then you are a walking and talking embodiment of everything happening all at once. There is no x and y, no cause and effect. Nothing is inevitable because it doesn’t have
time
to be inevitable. You just are, all at once. Living for the moment isn’t even a choice.

Another bar. Another round. The street, a path through a graveyard. A shortcut. It’s quicker this way. I had hold of Marty’s hand. No time to think about the meaning or lack of meaning, just hold the buzz. Another street. Fag-ends. Chip wrappers. A discarded Peperami sheath like an anteater’s condom. A small fence to step over.
Is the line this thin, then?
I wondered, lifting my foot and landing on the other side of the fence. My other foot followed. And there it was, I was over, all of me over. The line was elastic. Life and death, unreality and reality, right and wrong. You could step from one to the other with no bother. It was eleven and midnight and morning and –

Marty’s hotel. The man behind reception had
Sorry, residents only
in his eyes ready for us. Tyler sashayed up to him and placed her palms on the desk.

Tell me, good sir, do all your rooms have wig stands?

I’m sorry?

Wig stands. For storing one’s wig overnight. Do all your rooms have them?

I’m sorry, I –

May I speak with the manager?

He eyed her:
I am the manager.

She held the desk and rocked up onto her toes.
Prove it
.
Give us four bottles of wine.

And he did.

I caught up with myself in Marty’s bathroom, admiring the miniature toiletries, resisting the urge to pocket a few. I sat on the toilet and pissed hard, holding the soft ballotine of my stomach as I pushed. Someone had pulled the toilet roll holder off the wall and there was a hole in the tiling where its fixture had ripped out. It reminded me of a hole that was in the wall of my bedroom at university. It was about the size of a macaroon, half an inch deep, jagged round the edges. I grew attached to that hole. The second time I took ecstasy I sat having a conversation with it for about an hour. Know what? I’ve had worse conversations. Out in the bedroom I could hear Tyler arguing with Marty.
The thing is
,
you’ve internalised a norm, that’s all. It’s not actually your
desire
to wear trousers, even though you think it is
… I finished pissing and stood. Zigzagged my pants up and zipped.

KNOCK KNOCK.

You okay in there, darlin’?
A girl’s voice I didn’t recognise.

Fine thanks, just taking a minute.

Do you feel sick?

No.

If you feel sick I could rub your back.

I don’t feel sick.

I could paint your nails then.

Okay.

I opened the door and let her in. Hieroglyphs on her arms. Long brown hair tied back and slicked with sweat. A hole in her tights just above the knee that stretched into a screaming mouth as she kneeled.

‘Who are you?’ I said.

‘I’m Alice.’

Alice? Who the fuck was Alice?

Back out in the room there were more people, sitting on the bed.

‘You were telling us about your ill-fated trip to Oxford,’ Marty said when he saw me.

I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t meet his eye. ‘They gave us salmon en croute and put fish scales on the pastry, that’s my most enduring memory – that and the smell of the history. That smell. You don’t get it when you grow up in a terrace. Books, leather, dust, whatever it is, we had none of it.’

‘An Irish Catholic family,’ Tyler said. ‘Ten of them, living in just one shoe.’

I looked at her. Black eye or no black eye. My hands were round her neck and she was spluttering. ‘GET OFF ME! GET OFF!’ She started to wrestle back. I swung for her good eye and missed. She swung for me and didn’t. My jaw cracked and I held it even though I couldn’t feel it. We both sat back down.

‘It’s fine,’ I heard Marty say to the other people in the room – who were they? I could taste metal in my mouth. Tyler was clutching her throat.

‘Fuck you,’ I said, looking around for my things, how to get them together. ‘No, really. Fuck you.’ I was all but ready to leave.

Tyler gasped. ‘I’m –’

‘No, you’re not. And my dad worked until the blood burst into his face, and you know it.’

She looked down.
Yes
, I thought.
You stay there a minute
.

I looked over to the window, the open window. The Night was there, tapping on the glass.
If you should need me
… The Universe was microwaving popcorn for the show. God was … God was at the bar, if he had any sense. I looked around for a drink. Marty handed me something. I drank it. ‘I wasn’t immune to the kudos,’ I said. Marty nodded. Tyler sipped her drink. Her throat was reddening. My jaw was starting to ache. ‘Far from it. I wanted in. Badly. But then … well, I convinced myself I wasn’t academic enough, I was too creative yadayada, I wouldn’t have time to write blahblah, but really I knew why I didn’t apply. I’d bottled it. Reached my limit with all the trials and tests. Fear of failure – is there a word for that?’

‘Normal,’ Tyler said.

Oh, Tyler, see, you can be so nice when you try …

I said: ‘I bet there’s a proper word for it.’

She got out her phone. Tapped on it. Scrolled. Tapped. Scrolled. Squinted.

‘Atychiphobia.’

‘There you go,’ I said. ‘Also known as the fuse-box.’

‘Also known as the ego,’ said Marty.

I looked at him.

He followed me to the bathroom. Locked the door. Got hold of me. I pressed my hands over his kidneys. Our faces were centimetres apart. Eyes to eyes, nose to nose, mouth to mouth, there we were, matching up. A feeling like falling asleep and jerking alert, the rush of the plunge, the clit-to-jaw synapse …