Animals (16 page)

‘Some people would argue parenthood is the most adventurous thing you can do.’

Tyler slammed her glass on the table. ‘Well, they’ve got to, haven’t they? It’s one of the great unspoken rules.
Never admit how resentful you feel towards your children
.’

‘Know what I think, Tyler? I think you stayed too long at the fair.’

‘Know what I think, Jeannie? “Wilful” is a word that should be reserved for horses.’

I calmed her down in the bathroom. ‘You know, you have to let people choose their own adventures.’

She stopped brushing her teeth, pulled the toothbrush out. ‘What are you not telling me?’

‘Nothing. Come on. Spit.’

‘No, you spit.’

There was no point –

‘Jim and I haven’t been using protection.’

It sounded very formal.

‘You’re fucking kidding me?’ Blobs of toothpaste gathered on her décolletage as she spoke. ‘IS NOTHING SACRED?’

‘It doesn’t mean I want to get pregnant.’

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘But it does mean that you might.’

‘So I’ll have an abortion.’

Gotcha. I saw her thoughts follow mine and hit the wall I had her up against. I kept her there, watched her wriggle. Then I sat down on the side of the bath. ‘Is anyone ever sure, though, when they really think about it? What kind of fool would think,
Know what I’d like? Less sleep, less money, less privacy
… Best-case scenario is it happens by accident.’

She put her toothbrush carefully into a free hole in the holder. ‘I don’t know why I expected to be involved. My bad.’

‘Don’t be like that.’

‘Nah, it’s too late. You’re on the track.’

The next day it was still frosty between us but frostier still between Tyler and Jean – the basis of comparison, of lesser evils (like the eternally sobering sight of someone drunker than you regardless of your own state), rendering the conversation we’d had in the bathroom almost forgotten. I heard Ro talking to Tyler in the kitchen while I was smoking in the garden.
Don’t you dare drag her back into anything, you hear me?
We left as soon as we were showered and dressed, around noon.

We took a tour of London pubs and museums, ending up in a pub by Euston around six with a plan to catch the first off-peak evening train. I followed Tyler towards the bar and then over in the corner of the pub I caught the eye of someone recently familiar. Recently very familiar. Intimate even.

Yep.

He waved. I waved back.

‘Who are you waving at?’ said Tyler, following my gaze. ‘No fucking way.’ I looked at her. Her face split into a grin. ‘MARTY?’

He was halfway across the room. ‘
TYLER
?’ Adjusting his glasses as he ran. ‘Tyler
JOHNSON
?’

‘MARTY GRANE, AS I LIVE AND BREATHE!’

They hit each other like footballers in a chest-hard embrace. I stood there, boggling.

‘Hang on,’ said Marty, stepping back and looking at me. ‘You know each other?’ Lots of fast pointing – you, her, you, her. Tyler looked at me.

‘Marty did the Yeats talk at the library,’ I said. Then to him: ‘Tyler’s my flatmate.’

‘Landlord.’

‘Whatever.’

They embraced again. I moved to one side and ordered a large glass of white wine. Typical. Just. Fucking. Typical.

‘Look at you,’ Tyler said, flicking Marty’s collar as she pulled back. ‘Luckily I know the insidious truth beneath the dandy veneer.’

I took a large swig of wine and swallowed.

‘You look exactly the same,’ he said. ‘Exactly.’

I let my head fall back and I looked at the ceiling, my mouth hanging open in a silent howl.

‘Marty and I did our Masters together,’ Tyler said. ‘Then he defected down south. And now I hear you’ve gone all Romantic? Fuck you!’

‘I fell in love with another! Allow me that, you pebble of a girl.’ Tyler cackled. ‘I still remember every line anyway.’

‘I should think so. You were the Wife of Bath.’

Marty loud-whispered: ‘
I have the power durynge al my lyf upon his propre body, and noght he
…’

They laughed. Oh, the loneliness of ignorance. It was lonelier than genius because you didn’t even have your knowledge to keep you company. I picked up my wine and tipped all of it into my mouth. Ordered another.

‘Make that two,’ said Tyler.

‘Come and join us!’ said Marty. ‘We’re just over there.’

I looked over. A man and a woman were sitting at a table, regarding us cautiously. Tyler flew towards them, jacket tassels flapping.

‘Americans,’ Marty said, watching her. ‘Don’t you just adore them? They’re like basking sharks, running at life with their mouths open.’

I paid for our wines.

‘Well, this is random,’ Marty said. (
Desperately random, like the elaborations of
…) ‘What brings you two to London?’

‘Tyler’s niece’s christening.’

‘Tyler has family? I thought she came out of The Pod.’

‘Hard to believe, I know.’

‘How’s the novel?’

I pretended I hadn’t heard and walked past him with the wines. As I put them down on the table I caught the edge with my hand so that the man’s pint spilled a little. I chastised myself for my obviousnesses, my elaborate social effort.
You do not possess the normal micro-movements of politeness
. ‘Sorry.’

‘Sheila Jones and Michael Perrin,’ Marty said, catching up. ‘Old friends from Oxford.’ (Wooo
.
) ‘They’ve just set up their own independent publishing house, so we’re celebrating. Tyler Johnson, who I studied with for my Masters in Manchester. Laura Joyce, who I met there last week.’

Hello. Hello hello hello.

‘Masters courses are the greatest,’ Tyler said. ‘You get just deep enough before you get bored and the seminars are like dinnerless dinner parties where everyone shares the same interests. If I ever get any money I’m going to spend my whole life doing one after another. I’d do one on Modernist architecture, one on 1960s French cinema, one on twenty-first century European history …’

Her dad had paid for the last one – same time he’d paid for the flat.

Before we lived together I went round to hers unannounced one evening. I was twenty-six, she was twenty-three. It was mid-December, dark and sleeting, and I was surprised to see the bottom door of the block wedged open with a half-empty bottle of mineral water. I bent to pick up the bottle as I opened the door and then tucked it back in as the door closed, in case someone who was fixing or cleaning something had left it there so they could get in and out. The motion detector strip-light on the low ceiling flickered to a buzzy glow. Then I heard it – a blare of words from a few floors above. Her floor. Her voice.

THE FUCK OUT MY HOUSE.

A soft bump from the same place, a person falling against a wall, a shoulder charge, hard to tell much in terms of damage or intended damage.

She said it again, slower, louder.

THE FUCK. OUT. MY HOUSE.

I was on the first landing by now. I thought,
She’s being robbed or worse
. I couldn’t move quick enough. A pale man, late fifties, checked shirt and cheap jeans, passed me on the last flight of stairs. He was sore-shaven, his whole face red apart from his eyes, which had a vague, milky look. He didn’t look like a robber. A lover? I already knew Tyler’s sex life was a broad church. I still wished I’d taken more time to look at him, to retain more of his details. I’d always been curious. I was still so curious. But he was past me in seconds, and by the time I reached Tyler’s floor I heard the main door slam shut below.

Tyler was standing at her front door in her kimono and a skullish clay facemask. It was hard to tell what her face was doing but her hand was up to her nose, her first fingers stroking her philtrum as she heavily breathed.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Who was that?’

The mask had gone all patchy under her nose – she looked like a very shit white rabbit. ‘Three guesses.’

I knew then. I also knew that I’d known as soon as I’d heard her shout. ‘What, here? In England?’

‘Biggest mistake I ever made, letting him pay for this hellhole.’

I’d brought a bottle of wine with me. We didn’t talk much as we drank, every now and then she’d have a one-sentence outburst like
I’m bigger than him now
, and
Fucker’s shrinking
. When the wine was finished I suggested going out to a bar but she shook her head. ‘Don’t fancy it. I’ll drink more in here, though, if you don’t mind the trip to the store.’

‘I don’t mind.’

‘Mull something over while you’re walking, why don’t you.’

‘Fire away.’

‘Move in with me.’

I didn’t need to mull. I was living with my parents. ‘Okay.’

I’d drunk half my wine by the time I sat down.

‘Laura’s writing a novel,’ Marty said.

‘Oh, now and then, you know.’

A slight twitch to his nostrils, where a brush of fine hairs protruded. He was drinking whisky, I could smell it. Something stirred in my stomach, something that usually nestled there. I reddened.

‘You must send it to us when it’s done,’ said Sheila. I nodded. Burning burning I was burning. I sat down. ‘We’re focusing on novels, with perhaps the odd short story collection and poetry anthology.’ She leaned towards me. ‘We’re trying to get Marty to let us publish some of his old poems.’

‘I bet they’re all
Baby this baby that ooh ooh ooh
…’ said Tyler.

‘Now now,’ Marty said. ‘No need to get personal.’ He was blushing then, too, and I felt my own face cool. Saw it all in a flash. The
Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook
for Christmas, rejection letters pinned for posterity on the wall of his poky room in halls, the summer job in the bookshop, the full-time job in the bookshop, the retreat back into academia … Other Observations: a dimple when he grinned and a gap between his two front teeth that would have marked him out as village idiot if he hadn’t been so smart. Different Clothes: denim shirt, red knitted tie, black cord jacket, the shirt tucked into his jeans, jeans held up with a blue belt with a gold buckle.

Don’t look at his belt buckle.

Tyler did most of the talking, disagreeing with things I said, sharing a private joke with Marty, telling her own (superior) anecdotes, or her (superior) versions of mine. I felt myself retreating. Competing for attention with Tyler was futile. She didn’t just change the temperature of rooms, she changed their entire chemical make-up so that anyone in the room would only be aware that the room was an extension of her and she was the thrumming nucleus. As I embarked upon my third glass of wine I noticed that Tyler had gone to the toilet and Marty had quickly followed her. I tried to make conversation with Sheila and Michael but I couldn’t help but be distracted. After too many wrong-footed intonations, too many quizzical glances to see if I was listening, I made my excuses and went to the Ladies. I heard Tyler in a cubicle, sniffing and rummaging around, and then she came out and said, ‘Hey, Lo, wanna bump?’ She was holding a baby-blue wrap, sugar paper.
London.
I looked at it and frowned. ‘Marty’s.’

‘Marty has coke?’

‘As you see.’ Proffering.

‘Hm.’

She handed it to me. ‘I think he likes you. In the worst way.’

‘What makes you say that?’

When they called last orders Sheila and Michael said goodbye and left the three of us to it.

When they kicked us out we danced down the street and down a side alley. Tyler wiped a stone windowsill with her sleeve. Marty opened a wrap, nudged out some of the contents and racked up three lines. I looked around. A single rain-hooded tuk-tuk meandered slowly past on the main road.

‘Here,’ Tyler said, handing me the note. ‘Atta girl. Just like a Dyson.’

My phone rang. Jim.

‘NO,’ said Tyler, taking the phone from my hand and dropping the call.

I snatched it back. ‘You shouldn’t have done that! We don’t drop each other’s calls. He’ll be worried.’

‘Send him a text and say the reception’s bad and you’ll call him back in the morning.’

Marty said: ‘Where now?’

‘I know just the place!’ said Tyler. ‘A Spanish drinking den!’

She grabbed our hands and marched us back up the alley.

Criss-crossing streets, roads, cabs beeping, we arrived at a wooden door. Tyler rapped on a little window within the door and it slid open.

‘
Si
?’ The shape of a man’s head through the mesh. Loud music thick with drums and shouts tentacle’d out into the air.

‘Are there any ice skaters in for my guest tonight?’ said Tyler. ‘I was promised ice skaters.’

It wasn’t her accent. She sounded like Joan Crawford.

I just wanted to get inside and down to the music and the drinks and the writhing darkness and some way to keep moving rather than just be standing there. The window slid shut and then the whole door opened. We stepped inside. Tyler nodded at the man behind the window as we passed. I grinned. He jerked his head towards the stairs. We made our way down flight after flight of narrow stairs, each landing turning and twisting into another flight. They seemed to go on for ever, the music getting louder, the temperature hotter. Eventually we arrived at another door. Above it, the amber disc of the emergency light was full of dead flies, dark like sunspots. Tyler opened the door. An assault of sound and smoke. The room was long and thin, lightless apart from a few neon signs hung crookedly on the walls. The furniture consisted of upturned crates – everyone sitting on them had their knees almost round their ears. The ceiling was low, so low that several taller men were stooping where they stood. We made our way to the far end of the room where there was a bathtub full of ice, beer and wine. The labels from the bottles had all washed off. Next to the bathtub there was a large punchbowl and a stack of plastic cups. ‘DON’T DRINK THAT,’ Tyler said. She skittled three cups in her fingers and pulled a bottle of wine from the bathtub. I looked around the room. People were staring at us, there was no doubt about it, paranoia notwithstanding, so I grinned and moved with the music to try and blend in. In a nearby corner four men stood holding cups of punch. They were dressed in conquistador costumes with ruffled shirts open to the waist. A band from a Spanish restaurant who had clocked off early. In the other corner two men were sitting playing flamenco guitar, punch cups down by their feet. One appeared to be passed out, slumped over his instrument, with only his fingers still moving. Nobody was smiling.