Broken Hero (15 page)

But not tonight. Tonight she is wearing something narrow and dark, that hangs off one shoulder and clings desperately to her on the way down. And then it stops halfway down her thighs, and there is pretty much just leg for quite a long way until some rather elegant wedges adorn her feet. And her hair… something has happened to her hair. It is shiny, and pulled back loosely, with a subtle fifties vibe worked into it. There is a lot of skin, and, well, I have always known that Kayla is terrifyingly athletic, but she avoids the mildly freakish look of a body-builder. She is muscled, but leanly. She has more… shape than I would have imagined. If I’d ever imagined. I hadn’t. And yet now, despite my best efforts, it is very hard to deny that, in fact, the whole effect… it is… attractive.

“Damn, girl,” Hannah’s abrasive tones cut through my surprise, “you are going to fucking kill on that floor tonight.”

“The whole feckin’ point,” Kayla says. She reaches into a tiny bag she is clutching in one fist. She jams out her phone at Hannah. “These three,” she says. “Meeting them here.”

All of which leads me to believe that Kayla approaches dating in much the same way she approaches a swordfight. It’s a slightly daunting idea.

“Let’s see them.” Tabitha elbows toward Hannah and the phone screen.

Thankfully that is the moment I feel Felicity slide her hand up my spine. I turn, kiss her. A moment of respite from the world. Then, all too quickly, it’s over and Felicity is looking past me, taking in the rest of the group. “Oh, Kayla,” she says, “you do look lovely.”

Kayla shrugs. “I feckin’ know that.”

I lean down, kiss Felicity’s head, and take the opportunity to say, “How long before we can leave?”

She leans back, looks at me ruefully. “Come on,” she says, “you faced down a horde of Nazi robots today. You can take on a dance floor.”

“On second thoughts,” says Felicity, “that was a terrible idea. Let’s find a seat.”

In front of us, a thick mass of Oxonian youth bounces about like dice in a cup to the rhythm of a bass line that is more felt than heard. To be honest, it all looks rather violent. And not my sort of thing at all.

Yet, for some reason, my foot is tapping.

I should hate this. I came here ready to hate this. I was mentally prepared for that. But, watching the teenagers dance, I see a sort of abandon in them that resonates with memories of my own youth. I never went to a club like this exactly, but I definitely remember back when I was a student—beers and music, and… other things that a former policeman will not talk about. A time when I used to let music move rather than cocoon me.

It has been a long time since I danced with anyone, but I would rather like to coax Felicity Shaw into that twisting mass of humanity.

She, however, is heading toward some stairs and hauling me after her. The others follow us.

“Drinks,” I manage to make out Hannah saying. “Nice one.”

The upstairs of Park End features several bars, a second dance floor, and a circular balcony that looks down on the floor below. Kayla and Hannah position themselves on the edge of the balcony and peer down. Felicity races toward a table and the two chairs next to them, then stares down a gaggle of teenage girls who get there at the same time.

“I’ll grab some drinks,” I say, nodding toward the mobbed bar as she slumps down.

Tabitha and Clyde stand next to each other, looking awkward. A lull in the throb of the music lets Clyde hear me, he looks up gratefully. “I’ll come too.”

There is an art to getting to the crowded bar. It involves a lot of shoulder and elbow work, and has to be subtly done if one is to avoid injury. It’s a knack, and again something I used to have a modest amount of skill at. It takes me a while to get through the first two rows, but then all of a sudden I’m at the bar, and I can only vaguely hear Clyde—lost behind me—asking people if they would mind getting out of his way, perhaps, maybe, please. I smile slightly. Despite all my expectations, I think I may be enjoying myself.

Two minutes later, I am clutching three pints, a glass of wine, and two bottled drinks with the names of fruit on them. I grab Clyde from the back of the bar crowd where he’s still being thwarted by his own politeness and drag him back to Felicity and the others.

“Thanks, love,” says Felicity. She takes a fairly substantial sip of the wine.

Hannah and Kayla are looking over the edge of the balcony, down at the dance floor. “What about him?” Kayla points.

“Not exactly my type.” Hannah shrugs.

“Well what’s your feckin’ type then?”

It strikes me that it took saving the world twice before Kayla treated me in a way that even approached mild disdain. Hannah has managed to get right in there.

Which is a good thing of course, and would be a silly thing to be jealous about if I were actually jealous. But it’s not helpful that Hannah is encouraging this procreation plan. It’s not healthy behavior on Kayla’s part.

“My type?” Hannah squints at Kayla. “Well, it’s erm…” It is one of the rare occurrences when she looks less than sure of herself. I try to pretend I’m not eavesdropping. “Slightly less male,” she finishes.

My attempt to look as if I’m not paying any attention is betrayed by my eyebrows shooting up.

Kayla stares at Hannah hard. “You like the ladies, then?” she says finally.

Hannah nods.

Kayla eyes momentarily tighten. Hannah has that professional shield up, a carefully manicured neutrality. Then Kayla breaks into a broad grin.

“This is feckin’ perfect. You are going to be the feckin’ greatest wingwoman I’ve ever known.” She grabs Hannah by the wrist. “Come with me now.” She drags her toward the stairs leading back down to the main dance floor.

I look over at Felicity. “Did you…?”

She shrugs. Which I suppose is all that little revelation really deserves.

Clyde and Tabitha keep intermittently looking back down the stairs and then taking large sips of their drinks. They seem to be avoiding each other’s eyes.

“Very interesting music from a structural point of view,” Clyde says at last, shouting to make himself heard. “I mean, on one level it’s very formal, but there’s so much room for looseness within those strictures. Not my normal fare, but really rich in influences. Almost a bricolage-like approach, if one will allow a comparison to the visual arts.”

He stops as abruptly as he started. Stares into space. I nod, mostly to be polite. Everyone else seems to be doing pretty much the same. Personally, I just think it’s a terrible song that just happens to be ridiculously catchy, and to possess a curious power over my hips. They sway from side to side without my approval. On an additional note, I think this might be the best I’ve felt in days.

“Bit light for me,” Tabitha says, still not looking at Clyde. She takes another sip of her beer. She’s almost finished it.

“Well,” Clyde smiles, “it’s not Dvorak, is it?”

Tabitha still doesn’t meet his eye. “Probably not.”

Both of them take large sips. They stare into their empty pint glasses. Clyde puts his down on the table, seems not to know what to do with his hands, and picks it up again.

Tabitha turns to him, hesitates. He turns to her. The moment hangs. Felicity and I try to freeze, be nothing more than human furniture. Tabitha glances away then back.

“Wanna dance?” she says finally.

“Well,” Clyde says, shoulders already pistoning, “erm, I mean, what I was going to say was—”

Tabitha grabs his arm.

“Yes,” he finishes.

They descend, leaving Felicity and me behind. I stare after them. And even with the music bludgeoning some of the rough edges out of my mood, I still feel doubt gnaw at me over that one. They have walked that path before and it didn’t lead anywhere that tourists would like to send postcards home from.

“You think they’ll…” I start.

Felicity doesn’t move, just watches the stairs. “I don’t think we have any right to comment,” she says after a while.

“I don’t think they should,” I say.

She nods. “They have history.” Finally she looks at me. “Keep that to yourself, though.”

I smile. Always sensible. My Felicity. I sit in the empty chair next to her. It stops my hips from further misbehavior at least, though my toe refuses to stop tapping. I take her hand in mine.

“So, everyone is dancing…” I tilt my head in the direction of the dance floor.

Felicity grimaces. “I realize this whole thing was my idea, but I just… I can’t. It’s, God, they’re just… Everything is sticky. And loud. And very, very young.”

She’s right. I’m all of thirty-five, and in this crowd I look almost geriatric. Except part of me feels like the youth is rubbing off on me.

“You’re the most beautiful woman here,” I tell her, wrapping her fingers in mine.

She smiles, indicates her face with her free hand. “But this,” she waves a hand at her face, “takes me much longer to achieve than it would take them.”

I smile. “Don’t spoil the illusion for me.”

The free hand slaps me gently.

“Come on,” I say, “let’s dance a little. It’ll be terrible, but we’ll be team building.” I grin at her.

Felicity straightens her back. “I am the head of a major division of the Ministry of Defense. I cannot be seen dancing in night clubs.”

“Yeah,” I say, “but if anyone recognized you as the head of a major division of the Ministry of Defense then you’d be no good at your job.” I lean forward. “And I happen to know you’re very good.”

That earns me an eye roll. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

We descend to the dance floor. I have no skill in this arena. Fortunately, I have found that the key to socially acceptable dancing is not skill. Instead it’s something closer to what gets me, barely trained as I am, through encounters with terrifying monstrosities beyond the ken of my fellow man.

As Felicity starts to sway to the beat, I ask myself:

What would Kurt Russell do?

He’d pop it and lock it like a champ, and then he’d drop it like it’s goddamned hot.

So I dance exactly like that. Not with style, not with class, and certainly not with grace, but with a sort of abandonment that ignores the fact that I am surrounded by other people. It’s freeing, letting go of the social niceties, just letting the music bring something buried out of me. Moving how I want to move. Unfettered by fear.

I whirl around Felicity in a flurry of poorly coordinated limbs. I grab her hand and fling her back and forth. She looks as if she’s caught between terror and hilarity. It’s not a terrible place to be. I pull her close, kiss her, and then fly away. And nobody spares us a glance. We’re just two more idiots in the night.

For one beautiful moment there is only this. Only now. Without worries about what’s been and what’s to come.

Then laughter interrupts me.

Hannah is standing on the edge of the dance floor, almost doubled over. I grind to a halt.

When she manages to straighten, she is breathing hard. She points at me, dissolves into giggles, then finally recovers long enough to say, “Oh, oh my… Oh, you dance like the oldest man on earth. It’s fucking brilliant.” And then she’s stumbling toward the bar, bouncing off girls and boys with laughter and smiles.

I stand watching her.

Felicity comes and takes my hand. “We can go now, right,” she says. She sounds tired.

“Yes,” I say. “Yes we can.”

I stare at nothing across the conference table, eyes half-lidded. Kayla reflects my look back at me. She’s back in plaid, hair sagging in front of her eyes. Her hands play with her phone, turning it round and around, but she doesn’t seem to be up for looking at it. She stifles a yawn. Hannah sits next to her. She looks exhausted too, but somehow smug about the whole thing.

Only Felicity, for all her complaints last night, looks alert and chipper. Well, alert and mildly annoyed. She checks her watch for the tenth time in as many minutes.

“We agreed nine a.m., didn’t we?” she says for the fifth time. She knows we did. I nod slowly anyway.

Hannah rolls her head to look over at Kayla. “So,” she says, “how’d it go with that third guy last night?”

Kayla looks down at her phone and grimaces. “Same as the other feckers. He was a looker, so that was nice. Not stupid either, though to be honest, in retrospect the night club seems a bit of a feckin’ stupid place to go if you want to make sure someone’s not a dumb feckin’ arsehole.”

Hannah nods sagely. “For most blokes, talking to a girl at a club and not exposing yourself as a dumb arsehole is a pretty high commendation, I think.”

Felicity surprises me by uttering a brief, “Amen to that.”

I check my watch. Where is Clyde?

“It’s the feckin’ arm wrestle that makes them puss out,” Kayla decides to say at that moment.

I exchange a glance with Felicity. She looks less surprised than I think most people who have been in any sort of successful social interaction should look.

“Have you considered,” I start, “that trashing a prospective boyfriend in a public arm wrestle—”

“I’m not looking for a feckin’ boyfriend.” Kayla looks at me as if I just asked if she’d like to take a dump on the conference room table. “I’m looking for a good genetic sample. This is simple feckin’ Darwinism, and you better feckin’ remember that.”

We stare at each other for a moment. I’m not entirely sure what one says in this sort of situation. Nothing in life has prepared me for how to deal with a eugenics approach to one-night stands.

Felicity is checking her watch again, and I smell freedom. I turn to her. “Why don’t I go down and check the lab, make sure they didn’t get held up.” Possibly with more enthusiasm than decorum would suggest.

Felicity nods. “Yes,” she says. “This is getting ridiculous.”

That is definitely one word for it.

I always find the MI37 lab to be depressingly mundane. Long benches and stacks of scientific equipment; a Bunsen burner mostly strangled in its own rubber piping; a chemistry set that sits in a sink glistening wetly rather than bubbling and steaming; over-sized microscopes; laptops open to nonsensical databases. It is depressingly short on obscure tomes and fantastical creatures preserved in formaldehyde.