Us (5 page)

Of course we argued about this. The Channel Tunnel, he said, was ‘like leaving your front door open'. What did he imagine might happen? I asked. A great, marauding horde of toreadors and trattoria waiters and onion-sellers pouring out into Folkestone, Kent? In fairness, my father had lost his own father in Belgium in 1944, and perhaps this provided some deep-seated justification for his hostility, but still, it was irrational in such a rational man. To my father, ‘abroad' was a strange, unknowable place where the milk tasted odd and lasted an unnaturally long time.

So I was not well travelled; in fact I barely knew Europe until I met Connie. Wherever we went, she had been there before. Her European map was already dense with red pins signifying stolen rucksacks, missed flights, languorous kissing in ornamental parks, pregnancy scares, fresh oranges off the tree and ouzo for breakfast. On my very first visit to her flat I had glimpsed several photographs stuck to her fridge, new-wave Connie and her art-school friends with gelled perms, blowing kisses at the camera or smoking topless – topless! and with cigarettes! – on a balcony in Sicily.

My very first visit to her flat.
I'm not even through the door yet. She's still talking to Jake.

After my sister's ironic sherry trifle had been disposed of we were all encouraged to swap places and ‘mingle', Connie and Jake vacating their chairs at ejector-seat speed. ‘Mingling', it transpired, involved continuing their conversation at a different part of the table, and I watched as the acrobat produced from somewhere, I don't know where – from his tights, perhaps – a small plastic Ziploc bag of dusty sweets which he offered to Connie, who accepted with a nod, almost a shrug of resignation, before passing the bag to my sister and on around the table. They couldn't have been very nice sweets, because everyone was grimacing and washing them down with water. Soon I found myself sitting between two actors on drugs, a position that, a number of peer-reviewed research papers have since confirmed, is precisely the worst place a biochemist can be. One of the actors had been performing excerpts from his one-person show, to my mind one person too many and when the Ziploc bag reached us, he broke off and, shook it underneath my nose. At the end of the table, I caught a glimpse of my sister nodding, nodding, eyes wide in encouragement.

‘No thanks,' I said.

‘You don't partake?' said the actor, pouting. ‘You should! Have a cheeky half, it's lovely.'

‘I'm sorry, but the only acid in my house is deoxyribonucleic—'

‘Hey, has anyone got any chewing gum?'

I left the table.

Karen intercepted me in her bedroom where I was searching through great piles of overcoats.

‘You're going? It's not even ten!'

‘I don't really think it's my “scene”, Karen.'

‘You don't know until you try it.' She was looking terrifically pleased with herself, my sister. Not quite brave enough to rebel in my parents' presence, she enjoyed using me as their proxy. I was simply the nearest old square to hand. ‘Why are you so boring, D?'

‘Oh, I practise every night.'

‘It drives me crazy!'

‘Just as well I'm leaving, then.' I had found my coat and was wrapping my scarf around my neck.

‘Stay and try it.'

‘No.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because I don't want to, pusher-man! Why are you so keen for me to do something that I don't want to do?'

‘Because I think you should try things! It might reveal a new part of your personality.'

‘Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but this is it. This is everything, this is all there is.'

Karen placed her hand on my chest. ‘I think Connie likes you.'

‘Oh. Really.'

‘In fact she told me so.'

‘You are such a liar, Karen.'

‘She said she found you very interesting, even all that science stuff. She said it made a change to meet someone who was interested in something other than themselves.'

‘I can't find my other glove. There's a glove here somewhere …'

‘She said she found you very attractive.'

I laughed. ‘Then the drugs have kicked in.'

‘I know! I was as surprised as you.'

‘And what makes you think I like her?'

‘Your lolling tongue. Also, you'd be insane not to. Everyone loves Connie, she's amazing.'

‘If you find my other glove, can you keep it for me please? It looks like … well, this one. Obviously.'

Karen blocked my way to the bedroom door, and began unwrapping the scarf from my neck. ‘Stay. Just for half an hour. The moment people start touching each other's faces, then you can go.'

It did not take long for the 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylampthetamine to seep through the bedrock of tuna pasta bake. It was as if an invisible presence were wandering the room, tapping people on the head with a wand that turned them into idiots.

‘Let's sit soft!' commanded my sister, eyes goggling, and the guests moved from the kitchen. I put the Pyrex in to soak before being dragged into the tiny living room, which was decked out as a kind of shabby harem with pillows on the floor, candles recklessly tickling the bottom of curtains and the air grey with cigarette smoke. Carole King's
Tapestry
was replaced by something with a tinny snare and choppy piano. The word ‘bass' was rhymed with ‘face' and soon the dancing began. One of Karen's friends, I noticed, was topless under dungarees.

I was beginning to feel foolish. It was like waiting in a queue for a rollercoaster that I had no intention of riding. Why did I remain, leaning in a corner, making stilted conversation with a dramaturg? My motivation slouched on a beanbag, Jake curled up at her feet like an immense ginger cat. Karen was right; I had liked this girl immediately. I liked her obvious intelligence, the keen attention she directed at people. I liked the humour that played perpetually in the corner of her mouth and smudged eyes. And I found her attractive, of course – her face, her figure …

Well, these days, Connie's figure is the subject of perpetual care and a recurring circular argument –
I look awful, no you don't, yes I do, you look wonderful
– an endless rally that I can do nothing to break. She feels, has always felt, that she is too large. You look wonderful to me, I say. She shrugs this away. I look like a blurred photo of myself, she says, I no longer have cheekbones – as if this was what anyone wanted in a face: bones. The truth is I feel the same way about her now as I did back then, which is to say very strongly. We had so little in common and yet she seemed to me to have more wit and grace and
life
in her than anyone in that crowded room, or indeed my world at that time.

So I waited, and eventually she caught my eye and smiled wonderfully, and Jake's eyes followed too. He growled and tried to take her wrist as she stood – a little unsteadily, I noticed. She removed his hand and crossed the room towards me.

I excused myself from the dramaturg.

‘You're still here!' she said in my ear.

‘Just for a while,' I said in hers.

‘I wanted to apologise. We didn't really get a chance to speak at dinner. Jake's very interesting, but he doesn't have much of a sense of humour. Or curiosity.'

‘No, I noticed.'

‘I liked it when you threatened to cut off his legs.'

‘Did I do that? I did, didn't I?'

‘I was watching your face. You got very eloquent, very passionate. Of course I didn't understand half of what you were saying. I'm completely remedial when it comes to science. I don't know what revolves around what, or why the sky's blue, or the difference between an atom and a molecule. It's embarrassing, really. I took my niece to the seaside last summer and she asked me why the tide came in and out and I told her it was something to do with magnets.'

I laughed. ‘Well it's one theory, I suppose.'

She put her hand on my arm. ‘
Is
it magnets? Please, please tell me it's magnets!'

I was in the process of explaining the influence of the moon's gravitational pull on large bodies of water, when she paused and put her hands on her chest and opened her eyes wide.

‘Sorry,' she said, ‘I just got a bit of a rush. Are you feeling it yet?'

‘The drugs? Oh, I don't really do that kind of thing.'

‘Very sensible. Very.'

We looked around the room. The drugs seemed to be having a devastating effect on people's posture, with everyone hunching their shoulders and bobbing their heads in a sort of hyper-tense disco. My sister in particular was scrunched up like a squirrel, sucking her lips inwards in concentration as she shook tiny imaginary maracas.

‘Look at them,' said Connie, shaking her head. ‘People always say
take this, drink that, you'll lose your inhibitions
. What we need is something that'll give them back.
Here, try this, it'll make you massively sensible.
We'd all have a much better time. Imagine waking up and saying to yourself, “Christ, I was
totally
inhibited last night.”'

‘Actually, that's exactly what I do say.'

She laughed, for the first time I think. ‘Lucky you! Sounds lovely.' There was a brief moment where we did nothing but smile, then: ‘It's very loud in here. I need some water. Can we go in the kitchen?'

I noticed Jake, his hooded eyes glaring territorially. ‘Actually, I was about to head off home.'

‘Douglas,' she said over her shoulder, reaching out her hand, ‘you give in
far
too easily,' and I wondered what she meant as I followed her through.

In the kitchen I battled with my desire to wipe down all the surfaces.

‘Your sister tells me you're some kind of genius.'

‘Well, my sister has a low “genius” threshold. She says the same about practically everyone in that room.'

‘That's different, though, isn't it? That's talent, and not even talent most of the time. Self-confidence, that's what it is. When she says “genius” she just means they've got a really loud voice. You, you actually know things. Tell me again, about the fruit flies.'

I did my best to explain in layman's terms, while she stood at the sink and drank water from a pint glass in one long gulp, then remained standing with her head thrown back, a good deal of water running the length of her neck.

‘… then we take the next generation of fruit flies and examine how the chemical agents have altered the … are you all right?'

Coming round, she blinked and shook her head a little. ‘Me? Yeah, I'm fine, I drank a little too much and now …' She sighed and drew her hands down her face. ‘Christ, that was a bright idea! I've just broken up with someone, you see.'

‘Oh, I'm sorry.'

‘No, it was the right thing to do, it was a terrible relationship, it's just … it was four years, you know?'

‘A long time.'

‘Keep talking to me, won't you? Don't go away.'

I had no intention of going away. ‘So we look for changes in the fly's pheno—'

‘You seeing someone, Douglas?'

‘Me? No, not at the moment, not for some time. Pressure of work,' I said, as if this were the reason.

‘I knew you were single.'

‘Is it really so obvious?'

‘No, I mean your sister told me. I think she's been trying to fix us up.'

‘Yes. Yes, I'm sorry about that.'

‘Don't apologise. Not your fault. She's convinced that I'd be good for you. Or was it the other way around? Either way, nothing's going to happen.'

‘Oh.' This struck me as unnecessarily blunt. ‘No, well, I suspected that.'

‘Sorry, sorry, not because of you – you seem really, really nice – just because, you know, rebound and everything. I'm a bit …'

A moment passed. ‘I presumed you were interested in—'

‘Jake? God, no!'

‘It seemed that way at dinner.'

‘Did it? I'm sorry, I wanted to talk to you but he just wouldn't stop and – Jake? Really, not for me. Can you imagine that flying through the air towards you, like a great hennaed bear, arms outstretched. I'd keep my hands deep in my pockets, safety net or no safety net.' She poured red wine into the pint glass then gulped it down as if it were lemon barley water. ‘If I wanted a self-absorbed egomaniac, I'd call my ex.' She pointed an unsteady finger at me. ‘Don't let me call my ex!'

‘I won't.'

There was a pause, and she smiled. Lipstick had been replaced by the black stain of the wine, and her dark fringe was now sticky with sweat. Pupils dilated, her eyes were wonderful. She tugged at the front of her dress. ‘Is it hot in here, or is it me?'

‘It's you,' I said. I had been considering what it would feel like to kiss her, weighing this against what it would feel like to miss the last tube. The kiss felt possible, but it felt un-gentlemanly to take advantage of standards that had been chemically lowered. Which was clearly the case, because now she shivered and smiled and said:

‘Please don't misinterpret this, Douglas, but would you mind coming over here and just … holding me?'

At which point a fiery ball of hair barrelled low into the kitchen, scooped her up and dangled her over his shoulder. ‘Are you hiding from me, little lady?'

‘Actually, can you put me down please, Jake?'

‘Scuttling away with Doctor Frankenstein …' He was shifting her on his shoulder now, as if adjusting a roll of carpet. ‘Come and dance with me. Now!'

‘Stop it, please!' She seemed embarrassed, upset, her face red.

‘Jake, I think you should put her—'

‘Here, watch this. Can you do this, Doctor Frankenstein?' And with an ease that would have been admirable if Connie had been willing, he tossed her into the air and caught her on the palms of his hands, his elbows locked so that her head bounced against the lightshade. Her black dress had ridden up and with one hand she tugged it down, the smile on her face fixed and mirthless.