Somewhere Only We Know (11 page)

“We’re on the Candy Cock Tails tonight,” she reminded him. “I hope you like rum.”

They left the wider streets behind them and entered the network of mews, the capillaries of the city and – even with the temperature as high as it was – a chill fell over their exposed skin as they moved into the shade of old, damp buildings. Closet, it transpired, was one of those “secret” bars that Alex had only ever heard about; he felt a frisson of excitement. You’d totally miss it if you didn’t know it was there. Just a stately black door behind equally stately black railings, as one mews turned a corner and became another, a heavy brass door knocker in the shape of a C the only hint that this was the place they were looking for. Nadia confidently banged the knocker, before turning around and nudging Alex when she noticed he didn’t have his ticket confirmation print-out in hand, like she did.

The door pulled open, letting loose a blast of stale air and R&B music from within. The bouncer merely glanced at their print-outs and waved them on inside, down a dark staircase with slightly rickety bannisters and a threadbare carpet runner down the middle of its wooden steps. Nadia went first, turning back halfway down the descent to give him a grin; what sort of place was this anyway? It seemed pretty dingy, and dingy just didn’t seem like Nadia’s style. A short, equally shabby, corridor at the foot of the stairs led to a thick beaded curtain, concealing the room beyond, from which loud music and conversation pitched to be heard over it was emanating. With another smile at him over her shoulder, Nadia slipped through, sending the beads jerking and twisting in her wake.

The main bar was even darker than the staircase had been, lit at low levels with lamps with red bulbs and faux-chandelier shades. There were a few chairs here and there, but mainly seating seemed to be the beanbags and oversized cushions that were scattered across the floor. Slender silver poles were columns holding up a heavy, tasselled canopy over a spotlit stage directly across from the bar, the queue for which was already three people deep across its entire length.

Alex was startled out of his staring by Nadia deftly plucking his print-out from his limp grasp.

“I’ll get the freebie cocktails,” she told him. “I know the barman,” she confessed, “so I’ll get served quickly, and he’ll make them extra strong! Why don’t you grab a seat?”

“You mean, grab a cushion?” Alex asked, gesturing sarcastically around them. Nadia screwed up her nose at his crabbiness and whirled away to inveigle herself at the bar. Feeling immensely stupid, Alex wandered the open space until he picked out what he considered to be the plumpest floor pillow and awkwardly sat down on one side of it. The nearby red light cast a pinkness like sunburn onto his arms.

True to her word, Nadia was back almost immediately, carefully balancing two long cocktail glasses as she picked her way across the cluttered floor. She handed him both drinks so she could sit down before taking one back off him and chinking her glass against his with a smile.

“Cheers,” Alex said as she did. “So, when does this ‘show’ start?”

“In about half an hour,” Nadia answered. “Or whenever. It’s kind of ‘go with the flow’ in here.” She sipped at her drink through the straw and Alex followed suit, grimacing a bit at the creamy sweetness of it.

“I think I prefer the Cowboy Martini,” he confessed. “And, you know, chairs.”

Nadia stretched her legs out in front of them, easing her flip-flops off her feet and leaving them casually on the floor. “Oh, come on Alex!” She sunk down on the big cushion until she was lying completely on her back, knees bent to the ceiling and bare feet flat to the ratty carpet. “You asked me to help you live a little!”

“I asked you no such thing,” Alex grumbled, feeling distinctly uncomfortable with the amount of lounging that was going on. The place was getting busier by the minute and the rest of the patrons seemed to have the same idea as Nadia, lolling haphazardly on their beanbags, drinks held aloft to prevent spillage. “But what exactly is tonight’s new learning experience? How to get a bad back?”

Nadia simply sank all the deeper into the cushion. “Oh, I don’t know. How to laugh..?”

Nadia

Nadia had been coming to see Candy at Closet since she was an undergraduate. One of her course mates had started getting hot and heavy with Closet’s owner, a man thirty years his senior who went by the professional name of “Aslan”. As it happened, the pair’s working relationship went on much longer than their sexual one, as Sean was now Aslan’s front-of-house manager and always, always good for an extra shot’s worth of strength in a cocktail.

Alex was sitting ramrod straight as if he was on bare concrete rather than an over-stuffed velvet cushion. Okay, so it wasn’t exactly a surprise that an underground gay bar wasn’t exactly his “scene”, but Candy always did a show the first Thursday of the month and Nadia never missed it. Besides, she liked pressing Alex’s buttons; he was so English, so tight and scrunchy.

“So,” she began, conversationally, turning her head to see Alex all the better. “Have you ever had any gay experiences?”

Alex went the same colour as his pina colada. “What?” he spluttered. “Why would you ask me that?”

“I just thought it was contextually appropriate.”

“You what?”

“You know, because we’re in a gay bar?” Alex looked around himself again, eyes widening in realisation. Nadia burst out laughing. “Come on, Alex! You knew this was a gay bar!”

“I did not!”

“Alex, it’s called
Closet
.”

Alex opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish; you could almost see the cogs whirring.

Nadia narrowed her eyes. “You don’t have… a problem with this being a gay bar, do you?”

“No!” Alex insisted vehemently, still looking around as if he was seeing the place for the first time. “Not at all, it’s not that. It’s just… I was surprised. And I’m straight.”

“So?” Nadia pressed, propping herself up a little on one elbow. “Me too.”

Alex pitched his voice low. “So are we even allowed in here?”

Nadia laughed again. “Of course we’re allowed in here, you idiot! Calm down. Here, sit back a bit, people are looking!”

Alex slunk back against the cushion, letting his legs spill over to the floor like Nadia’s. “So, did you really think I was gay?” he asked her, taking a drink from his cocktail, sipping straight from the glass, forgoing the obviously far-too-phallic straw.

“No, not really, but you never know,” Nadia shrugged. “And loads of people have had at least one, you know,
experience.
”

Alex looked directly at her, tilting his head on the swell of the cushion. “Oh yeah? How about you?”

“Okay, well, not me personally,” Nadia granted. “But Caro is bisexual. She’s had a full-blown girlfriend. They went out for, like, six months. And Holly had a snog with a girl at school, which I’m not certain counts, but she likes to roll it out to titillate men, nevertheless.” She wasn’t sure if Alex was titillated or not, but he took a very deep drink from his cocktail.

“I’ve never met anyone like you,” he said to Nadia, after a minute. “You’re really…”

“Great?” she supplied, with a sarcastic grin. “Wonderful? Fabulous?”

Alex pondered her face silently as he carefully considered his choice of words, and Nadia noticed – despite herself – that when he looked more intense like that he really was very handsome, and she felt her heart do its silly fast pitter-patter under the frills of her blouse.

“Artless,” he supplied, eventually, and Nadia came crashing back to reality. She groaned aloud, unable to help it.

“Artless?” she echoed, in disbelief. “How flattering!”

“Hey, it’s a compliment!” Alex insisted, a small smile on his face.

“I don’t even know what you mean by it!”

“A compliment,” Alex repeated, his smile growing wider. “You say and do what you want. You don’t mind what people might think of you. You invite strangers into your life and you try and swing over the bar. You’re just you and it’s effortless – artless. You don’t try to be someone else. And that's great. That’s all I meant by it.”

Alex fell into silence and sipped from his cocktail self-consciously. Nadia felt a warm little lump in her throat. “Artless” turned out to be much more of a compliment than “amazing” or even “beautiful”.

“Well,” she said, after a moment, having gotten herself back under control. “Thank you. But right now, I’d love to be someone else. Someone with a British passport!” Alex laughed a little too politely at her bad joke and suddenly things were weird and awkward where they hadn't been before.

Saved by the bell, Candy’s entrance music crackled and popped from the ancient speakers and Alex’s attention turned to the stage, where Candy himself – London’s most beautiful drag queen – twirled onto the stage to rapturous applause in a cascade of sequins and light. Nadia saw Alex laugh in delight at the display and settle down a little more comfortably, the beanbag adjusting around them both.

Chapter 8

Nadia

It had taken up two courses of food and a good bottle and a half of wine, but Matt was still stuck on the same topic. Nadia honestly was happy that his dad had finally got a Tottenham season ticket after being on the waiting list for what sounded like most of his lifetime, but it really wasn’t a subject that deserved two hours of discussion.

As Matt studied the dessert menu, Nadia studied him. This was their fifth date, a full-blown three-course affair in a restaurant that had proper candles, not tea-lights, and all on Matt’s dime. He’d been sweet and attentive, and had even worn a shirt – not a polo one, a real one – with buttons all the way down. She knew how he was anticipating – if not flat-out expecting – the night to end and had given herself the time taken by the meal to decide if she agreed with him.

“Hey, random question…” she found herself asking. Matt looked across at her over his menu expectantly. “What’s the best compliment you’ve ever given a girl?”

Despite the warning, her question was clearly more random than Matt had predicted; he blinked twice and a slight panic set in around his eyes as he rapidly racked his brain for the best way to answer.

“Forget it.”

“No, no, I’m just thinking. Do you mean like, a chat-up line?” Matt asked. Nadia managed to keep her sigh contained inside. “Because,” Matt laughed, “I had a great one at university. I used to use the old, ‘I can make your bed rock!’ He continued laughing at his own joke; Nadia just looked at him, nonplussed. “I er, studied geology at uni,” Matt belatedly explained. “You know, bedrock? Bed rock?”

“Ahhh.” I know what seats in White Hart Lane your father has a season ticket for, but I didn’t know what your degree was in, Nadia caught herself thinking.

“My mate Joe, though, he was the worst for the bad lines,” Matt continued, clearly not clocking Nadia’s mood. “One time, he actually got a bird by going up to her at the student bar and saying, “Hey, girl, I’d like to wear you like I wear my sunglasses – one leg over each ear!” Can you believe it? I shit you not. They went out for like a year after that. Bizarre!”

“Yeah. Bizarre,” Nadia echoed, not quite sure what else she was meant to say to information like that. “But I meant an actual compliment. You know. Something personal.”

Matt gave her a sly grin, closing his menu and placing it flat on the table between them. “Aww, Nadia, are you fishing for a compliment?” He reached across the table for hers.

Nadia reared back slightly. “No. No, it’s nothing like that. It’s just that a friend and I were having a conversation about compliments…”

“Because I’ve already told you that you look beautiful tonight,” Matt continued, still smiling. And he had, Nadia remembered belatedly; it hadn’t really registered. But before she could answer, Matt half-stood and lent his entire body across their table-for-two, lifting her face up by the chin and kissing her soundly. Nadia felt as well as heard the immediate lull in conversation as nearby tables stopped to look across at the display.

Nadia felt herself relaxing into the kiss, her blood thrumming excitedly under her skin as her body responded to the proximity of his. Matt’s conversation skills might leave a lot to be desired, which only meant he was bound to be all the better at the sort of thing that didn’t need any words. As he finally pulled away, she noticed his eyes were as glazed over as she felt and she was a little gratified to see that he felt it too.

She guessed it was her way of pretending, pretending that nothing was going to happen, pretending she wasn’t going anywhere. She should be thinking about decluttering her life, her parents had warned her. Thinking about closure. Of goodbyes. Definitely not hellos. Definitely not fledgling friendships, new relationships, first-time-sex all over again. She was sick of feeling the edge of loss already, as if she was a ticking bomb or a carton of milk whose expiration date was nearing. It felt good to be present. And it felt good to pretend.

Alex

Nadia was a little full-on for 10am on a Sunday morning. Well, Nadia was usually a little full-on, full stop, but that day she seemed to be on some sort of higher setting.

Alex considered her question, seriously. “I need more information. Presumably this necessitates the loss of the hands or feet alongside?” he asked her.

“Of course.” Nadia rolled her eyes. She was doing that magic thing she could do, walking backwards through a crowd without bumping into anyone or anything, as if she had eyes in the back of her head. “You couldn’t just have like, stumps at your shoulders and then random hands just sort of floating there, two feet below. Be serious.” She walked on, sure-footed; the Southbank tourists parted for her without comment. Alex trailed in the wake.

“Do you have to do that? You’re making me nervous.”

Nadia laughed. “I’m hardly going to walk into the Thames.”

“How do you know? You can’t see where you’re going.”

“I like to be able to see your whole face when we talk.” She shot him a grin. “Every eye roll, every pursed lip of disapproval,” she teased.