The Fly Guy (7 page)

“I was just going to get another round in.”

“Don’t bother. Is this your mate then?”

“Yeah, Martin, Zoe. Zoe, Martin.”

“Well where will we go then?”

Martin said, “I never liked this place anyway.”

“Don’t know, but let’s get out of here,” Zoe said, and Ozzy pursed his lips around his straw and drained the last of his cocktail from the glass. Then they left the club, walking out into the warm city air.

“There’s always the Alabama,” said Martin.

“No fucking way,” said Zoe “Not after the last time.”

“What happened last time?” They stopped at the corner, waiting for the lights to change.

“Zoe got done in the face,” Ozzy said. The traffic whizzed past.

“What? Someone hit you?”

“Fucking damn right someone hit me. This tart smashed me in the face with her stiletto.” The traffic stopped and the green man flashed and beeped. They stepped onto the road.

Martin shook his head and asked, “Why? Why did she hit you?”

“Fuck knows. I didn’t do a thing, didn’t even see her before she started giving me a hard time, then I tell her to fuck off and she reaches down and then she’s got her stiletto in her hand and she fucking hits me with it, straight in the fucking face by my nose. Here look, you can see it. Look.” She stopped and turned to Martin, pointing to her face. He leaned down to see. Her skin was covered in a greasy film of a tan foundation. He couldn’t see any marks, just smears where the make-up was too thick.

“I, um, I can’t see.…”

Cars started beeping. The lights had changed. They were still in the middle of the road. She was still pointing at her face.

“It’s right there, right there, a big mark from where she stabbed me with her heel! Bitch.”

The cars beeped again, someone was shouting out their window. Zoe turned. “Fuck off!!” she shouted, pulling up her top to expose her bra, then continuing to the other side of the road. Martin gave a wave of apology before following her. As the cars drove past they gave long aggressive beeps. Ozzy was waiting on the footpath rolling a cigarette.

“Not the Alabama then. How ’bout J.D.’s?” He licked the cigarette paper and rolled it tight, then put it between his lips, smiling. “They got happy hour till ten.”

“J.D.’s,” Zoe said, and took it from him, putting it in her mouth, pouting her lips, and closing her eyes. Ozzy held the lighter and lit the end. She inhaled deeply. The tobacco glowed. Ozzy put his arm over her shoulder and they both turned and started to walk.

Martin followed them. Ozzy was much taller than Zoe, and as he rested his arm across her shoulders, she held onto his hand with both of hers and every now and then pressed her cheek against it. His jeans were low around his waist and his loose white t-shirt wasn’t doing much to hide his skeletal frame. His hair was black and lank, half covered by the red bandana. She was wearing Doc Martins. Her trousers were black leather, old worn leather, like an old couch. Martin could see the dark roots of her hair, could see rolls of skin bunching above her skirt through her netted top.

Ozzy leaned over and kissed the top of her head. She squeezed a bit closer to him. She came up to just below his shoulder. Despite the size difference, they seemed to walk in step. They looked comfortable together, passing the rolled cigarette back and to, before tossing it on the footpath.

The night was coming down into the city, but it didn’t feel cold. Taxis pulled over, emptying groups of guys and bunches of girls onto the street. The guys were puffing their chests out and the girls were keeping close to each other, laughing and clutching hand bags. It was just the start of the night, and the lights of the club signs were just starting to come into their own, just starting to stake their place, to make sense in the clutter of light of the city centre.

As they approached J.D.’s Ozzy turned his head and said, “No pussying out now, you’ve got no excuse. We haven’t been out in ages. Yeah?”

Inside J.D.’s they ordered more double cocktails despite Martin protesting that he only wanted a beer. When Zoe went to the toilets, Martin said, “Shit that’s terrible what happened at the Alabama. Was she really hurt?”

Ozzy shook his head. “Not as bad as the other one was. What was she telling you?”

“That some girl hit her in the face with her stiletto for no reason.”

Ozzy nearly spat his drink out. “Ha! No reason! Zoe had wound her up so far that the girl snapped. She was calling the girl a slag and a bitch and yeah, she took her shoe off and went for Zoe. I don’t really know what the fuck it was all about, I think that it had something to do with Zoe’s ex, but really …”

“Didn’t you ask her what it was all about?”

“No, I don’t give a shit! I mean, it’s got nothing to do with me, has it? And she’s been going on and on about it, but I still don’t know what the fuck it was all about. Anyway, the other bird got Zoe once in the face but it ended up with her on the ground, face down, Zoe kneeling on her back whacking the back of her head with her own stiletto heel. There was blood, but I don’t think it was Zoe’s. I dragged her off and then we were pulled outside by the bouncers. Just as well, because from what I heard, she ended up being taken away in a fucking ambulance. Nah, man, the reason we’re not going to Alabama is because we got no hope of getting in if we’re with her.”

“Jesus. How did you hook up with her?”

“She used to come into the club with a guy, massive guy, looked like a boxer. Always lined up tequilas, like, six shots at a time between the two of them. I thought she was hot then. Then she started coming in without him. I asked her about it, she said they’d broken up. I said there must be a queue of guys waiting to take his place. I told her that her drink was on me, that she could get me back on my break. Half an hour later she was giving me head in the staff car park.”

“Holy shit, the life of a pirate.”

“Arrggh.” Ozzy growled and leaned forward conspiratorially. “That’s nothing mate. We’ve been going to a club. A sex club.”

“A what? Like a, a swingers club?”

Ozzy winked and smiled. “Oh yes,” he said. Zoe appeared.

“What happened to your face?” she said to Martin. “You look like you just saw your mama have a wank.”

“Em, I …”

Ozzy butted in, “I was telling him about the Sugar Club.”

“Ooh, I didn’t know you were that kind of friends! Bum chums are we?”

“No way, Marty is as into pussy as I am, babes.”

“Well there’s lots of that, and cock too, if you fancy trying it out. You look like you might, Martin. Eh? Go on, tell me I’m wrong.”

Martin took a sip from his cocktail. “Well, it would take a lot of these, I can tell you.”

They all laughed and drank some more.

The night started to loosen up. J.D.’s was getting full of girls in heels and guys with gelled hair. There was a queue outside the door, a steady stream coming in, all wanting to have a good time. The DJ was playing Motown remixes, and the beats were crisp and the bass and horns were pushing grooves, releasing regular movement into the air, which was making people move. Even if it was just a nodding of the head or the slight sway of the hips, no-one was standing still.

It was past ten and happy hour was over, but there were more drinks lined up on the bar than before. In this crowded space, in this big ground floor room in the city, there was a constant movement of fluid; the bar staff pouring and pouring and pouring, glasses filling up and emptying, people filling up and lining up for the toilets. In between they danced and laughed, moved around each other in group orbits.

Martin saw all around him the tight shirts and fake tans, the make-up and false eyelashes, the plays for attention, the back and to of friendships and unsaid wishes for something closer.

“How’s life at ICE?” he asked.

“Same as when you left. Billy is still a wanker, but you get on with it.”

“I don’t know how you work there,” Zoe said, “if he was my boss he’d be hanging by his balls by now.”

“Well, babes, he’s just a duty manager. Everyone wants so bad for him to fuck up, but he never puts a foot wrong. He thinks he’s so above the rest of us. If only being a bastard was a sackable offence. I’m sure everyone has complained about him at least once, but he’s hanging on in there.”

The more the club filled up the louder they had to talk, until within an hour Zoe was shouting in Martin’s ear. He had his head down, leaning into her and she was on her tiptoes with her hand on his shoulder. Martin had to close his eyes so he could concentrate on what she was saying, to keep the beats and swirling music out and to keep the words in, to stop them from disappearing as soon as they were spoken. It seemed like they were the only ones standing still, keeping their place in the club; around them the people danced and pushed past.

Every time Martin opened his eyes he was surrounded by people he hadn’t seen before, laughing and shouting at each other, making faces and exaggerating gestures. Martin couldn’t see Ozzy. He had started bantering with a group of lads and girls and been carried away with them in the tide of people and alcohol. He had by now probably hooked up with another cluster of revellers. Martin had stopped looking out for him a while ago. He was concentrating on what Zoe was shouting into his ear.

They were gradually getting pushed closer and closer together until now their bodies were against each other, his arm around her waist and her face was against his neck, and as he listened to her he could feel the vibration of the heavy dub beats travelling through her body. She was telling him about her last relationship.

“He totally did one on me. One year. He was always telling me how much he loved me. He bought me things and told me how much he loved me. One year. Then I got pregnant.”

Martin shouted back, “Did you want that? I mean, were you happy?”

“When I was a teenager I had cysts on my ovaries. They told me I could never have kids. So it was like a miracle. But one I hadn’t wished for, I had accepted the no kids thing. It took me fucking ages to work out, you know? But I decided that it must be fucking destiny or something. This might be the only guy who could ever give me kids. It’s now or never. And when I made that decision then I really wanted to go ahead with it. Full blast. It didn’t matter if I was ready or not, life happens, you know? I mean, fuck it, it’s a baby. It’s a life inside me. One I never thought I would have. So that’s that. Then he turns around and says he doesn’t want me to do it. So it’s like, the child or him. I mean fucking hell, you know? So he talks me out of the baby, promises me all sorts, all about our life together, what we’ll do, the stuff we’ll be able to do and have if there isn’t a baby in the way. On the Sunday—the abortion is booked for the Tuesday—on the Sunday I check his phone.”

“Why did you check his phone?”

“A feeling. He had been on the phone a lot, texting a lot; I just had a look through his messages when he was in the shower. It only took a minute before I found a whole bunch of messages. Two girls. Two other fucking girls he was fucking. Two.”

Martin opened his eyes to look at Zoe. Her face was so close to his now that when he turned his head her nose was touching his cheek. He couldn’t focus on her she was so close. He leaned back and looked her straight in the face. His neck was sore from bending down to listen. She really was much shorter than he was. Her eyes were welling with tears.

All of a sudden he could see her as a fifteen year old, cheated on for the first time by an older boyfriend. A boyfriend who had told her he loved her, that she was the most special girl in the world, that she was the only light in his dark sky. He could see her as a six year old whose teary-eyed mother had explained, as the back door shut and the car engine started outside, that no matter what happened between Mommy and Daddy they both still loved her.

He took a swig of beer from his bottle and saw Ozzy in the middle of the room, surrounded by a circle of guys. He was leaning back with his arms triumphantly aloft and his mouth wide open and one of the guys in the group was holding a jug of blue neon liquid above his face, tilting it slowly as the group began to cheer. Martin leaned down to Zoe again, putting his lips close to her ear, breathing in her sweet perfume and acidic hair spray. On her shoulder there were tattoos of bird silhouettes flying in a
V
formation.

“Shit. What did you do?”

“I went fucking ballistic. I wanted to rip his balls off.”

“I mean what did you do about the abortion?”

“I went through with it.”

“Fucking hell.”

“I know. Fucking hell.”

“What did Ozzy say when you told him all this?”

“Who? Ozzy?”

“Yeah, I bet he offered to track the guy down and do one on him or something.”

“Ozzy? I haven’t told Ozzy any of this. He doesn’t care about shit like this.”

“Really?”

“Ozzy is hot but he doesn’t have much else going on beyond what’s in his pants.”

“I’m a writer.”

“So what?”

“Oh. Well, writers have … they, em, feel differently, you know, insight.”

“You’re still a man. Go on then, what’s your insight?”

“Well, you shouldn’t have checked the fucking phone.”

With that Ozzy appeared behind Zoe, grabbing her round her waist. His goatee and ’stash were wet. His white t-shirt was stained blue around the collar. His bandana had disappeared and his dark hair was slicked back away from his forehead. He leaned down so his chin was on her shoulder and started singing along with the song that was being pumped into the air around them while pulling stupid faces and trying to lick Zoe’s cheek. Zoe started laughing and turned around to him, taking his face in her hands.

Martin headed for the bar. Behind the bar there was a mirror, and he saw himself among the line of faces. He did look more scruffy than any of them, like he had walked in looking for a different bar, or got confused with what night it was. Club night? I thought it was Wild West. He bought another three bottles and when he found his way back through the dancing shouting mass of people, Ozzy took his and said, “Nice one mate. Down these and we’ll head to the club. Whatcha reckon?”