by Eliza Clark
I hear my mam screaming and crying upstairs. I can’t hear my dad. When he comes back, I tell him I need to go because I need to meet Flo.
He drives me to the pub. He says Mam is having a hard time at the moment. She rings and rings and rings the both of us, as soon as she realises we’re gone.
Flo is there when I get to the pub. Flo is there, and so is Michael. I could kill her. She sees my face drop, and grabs my arm, leading me to the toilets where we bicker. She just wants me and Michael to get along. She wants us to be normal with each other. She hopes that a little alcohol and quality time will lubricate things between us. She goes back to the bar, and I piss, and scowl, and check my phone.
Eddie from Tesco has been blowing my texts up – I’ve been a bit cold on replying this week, and he doesn’t seem to be coping well. I tell him we’re still fine for Friday, for the third time. I even finally tell him I’ll be fine to go to lunch with him beforehand – he’s been pushing that all week. Still, I’m distinctly aware of a buzzing in my pocket for minutes after I get back from the toilets. Flo sips her pint, and Michael glares at me above his. Flo ordered me a red wine; it waits for me on the table.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘Your phone is going off loads,’ he says. ‘The vibration is so loud.’ I shrug. Flo laughs.
‘Popular! She’s a popular girl! Woman. Irina has a boyfriend now, you know?’ says Flo. No I don’t, it sits on my tongue, like he’s here, like he’ll hear. Michael looks sceptical.
‘Does she?’
‘It’s great! Works in a Tesco. I pointed him out to her.’
‘He’s starts teaching soon. We’ve seen each other, like, twice, it’s not—’ I shrug. ‘It’s fine. I’m out with him on Friday.’
I think Flo is trying to bait me. She knows how I feel about boyfriends, girlfriends. She’s seen me seize up, sever ties, snarl and snap, time and time again over those words. I’ve called her bluff. She purses her lips.
‘I’m just… Toilet,’ she says. ‘I’ll just be a second.’
‘You just went,’ says Michael. She ignores him. Michael sighs. I look at my texts.
Eddie from Tesco is intermittently trying to hammer out details for Friday, while apologising for bothering me and asking if everything is okay. I’m about to reply with something irritating and non-committal when Michael pipes up. The two of us have an unspoken rule – if Flo isn’t in the room, and we don’t have to, we just don’t speak to each other. More his rule than mine, I think. He might hate me, but I’m completely indifferent to him. I sip my wine and fold an arm under my cleavage.
‘Boyfriend,’ he says. ‘Does that mean you’re finally going to leave her the fuck alone?’
‘What do you mean?’ I say. He takes a deep breath.
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Don’t think I do.’
‘You’re like a cold that won’t go away, you know that?’ He says. ‘She gets better for a bit, and she’s normal, and then she’ll start spending time with you again, and she…’ He trails off, staring at me, staring at my chest.
‘Are you looking at my tits?’
‘Yes, yes I am, because they are always out, aren’t they?’ he snaps. ‘Fuck off, am I looking at your tits – like you put that top on by accident. Fuck off.’ I lean over and stick my fingers in his pint, I flick beer in his face. ‘You’re fucking pathetic,’ he says. ‘You know why she’s like this with you?’ He’s hissing now, spitting on me. ‘She feels sorry for you. She knows she’s all you have. And that’s why she can’t… untangle herself from you, because she’s not a horrible person. She’s not like you.’
‘If I told her to leave you and move in with me, we both know she’d drop you like a bag of hot sick. So.’ I shrug. ‘Whatever helps you sleep at night.’
Flo comes back. She’s bought me another wine even though I’ve barely touched the one I have. As she’s putting it down, she slops some of it into Michael’s lap. She apologises to me, not him.
I pick my outfit for lunch with Eddie from Tesco quite quickly. I put on a dress – I have four of the same one in different colours, this body-con thing from American Apparel, which fits like a glove. I put on half a stone, once, about a year ago, and the dresses went from understated-sexy to sausage casing. That was a lesson learned: gluten truly is the devil.
I have it in red, black, white and blue. Red seems a bit much for lunch, and I don’t know why I bought the blue in the first place because it clashes with my hair. I just go for the black and stick a denim jacket and a pair of flat-forms on with it. I take one step out of the house and realise the jacket was a fuck-up, and it ends up jammed in my backpack. I cover myself head to toe in sun cream on the bus; I can feel my skin cooking, wrinkles erupting, cancer cells multiplying. I should have worn a sunhat.
I get a frantic stream of texts from Flo. Something about a huge argument with Michael, and the logistics of leaving him if he owns the house. I let her dangle, still annoyed that she sprung him on me the other night.
I find Eddie from Tesco sitting at Grey’s Monument, bouncing his leg, fiddling with his phone, headphones on. His clothes look strange. Like, they’re new, and they fit him. Just plain jeans, and a grey T-shirt, but definitely new. I announce my arrival by coming up behind him and pulling his headphones off the top of his head. He shits himself, which I laugh at, and then fumbles his words.
‘New outfit?’ I ask.
‘Oh? This? No,’ he says. I tell him his label is hanging out, and he tucks it back into his collar. All Saints. So he’s getting bougie with his Tesco money, apparently. ‘Okay, it is new. I mean. Just. All my clothes are shit, I just… I dunno, I don’t want you to feel like you’re out with a fifteen-year-old boy.’ I tell him that’s a very specific concern, and he explains that upon asking his brother (the most fashionable man he knows) for advice, he was informed he dresses like an incel. His brother told him to just buy something plain, that fits, because there was nothing worse than some dorky, short-arse bloke trying to be fashionable for the first time in his life and ending up looking like he’d fallen on the Topman sale rack. ‘Er… Is it okay?’ He squirms. ‘I mean, you look lovely, like… really nice. Like. What are you doing with me?’
‘You look… fine,’ I say. He does. Absolutely fine. ‘Bit basic, maybe.’ I shrug. ‘You’d probably have looked a bit of a twat if you turned up in a leopard-print shirt or something, so…’
‘I totally agree,’ he says. ‘The table is booked for half past, so we should probably get a shuffle on,’ he says. He stands, and I’m still looming over him.
‘Booked? Shit,’ I say. ‘I thought we’d just be like… going to a cafe or something. I don’t know.’
‘Err…’ He looks sheepish all of a sudden. ‘I mean, I’ve not booked us into a posh one or anything, just… semi-posh?’
‘Semi-posh.’
‘Yeah.’
I tell him it had better not be too far away. ‘It’s fine for you being out in this heat; you tan. You’re always tan. You look like you’ve just been on holiday or something,’ I say. He laughs.
‘Are you joking?’
‘What?’
‘I’m mixed race, Irina? Had you not twigged? My last name is Arabic, it’s proper obviously foreign?’
It’s cute that he thinks I care what his last name is.
We walk to the semi-posh restaurant – a nice French place down by the train station, where the waiter is extremely enthusiastic and explains how French-style tapas works, and offers us the wine list. Eddie from Tesco asks the waiter to bring his recommended bottle of red, in what would have been a baller move if he hadn’t been sweating and stuttering the whole time.
There’s a lot of dairy on the menu, a lot of carbs, but Eddie from Tesco has anticipated this, pointing out the large selection of fish, and salads, and fishy salads for me to peruse. The wine the waiter brings is very nice. I’m struggling to find something to complain about.
‘This is a bit much,’ I say.
‘I know.’ He smiles and reaches over the table to take my hand. ‘I just think that… that you deserve nice things.’ I pull my hand away and tuck my hair behind my ears. ‘I worry that you don’t… Maybe you don’t see that. But it’s okay, because. I get it. I do the same thing.’
‘We’re nothing alike.’ I snort. He’s still smiling. He’s being patient with me, and he just drops it; he ignores me being a dick.
‘Do you want a starter?’
‘I really don’t think we’re anything alike,’ I say.
‘Okay. Sorry. Stupid thing to say. Do you want a starter?’
I don’t. I watch him eat bread for twenty minutes and make my way through the bottle of wine before the smiley waiter comes and takes the order for our main meal.
‘Camembert,’ I say. It falls out of my mouth, along with an order for potatoes dauphinoise, and a charcuterie-thing. Eddie from Tesco blinks at me. He smiles.
‘Wow,’ he says. ‘Go big or go home, then.’ He gets a steak. I think he orders a steak, and some other meat stuff, because he wants to look like one of those big, masculine men, whose personality revolves around craft beer and red meat consumption.
While we wait for the main, I eat his leftover bread, which is slathered with garlic butter. My eyes roll back in my head. They bring us another bottle of wine, and Eddie from Tesco gets a beer. I am too busy drinking the wine to make him drink any.
‘So, do you like Nan Goldin?’ asks Eddie from Tesco.
I do like Nan Goldin. And we play art bingo for a bit where he asks me if I like different photographers and I say yes or no. When it’s a no to Helmut Newton, he seems really taken aback.
‘I like him,’ he says. ‘I think there are loads of similarities between your works.’
‘Fuck off,’ I say. ‘Like, literally, fuck off.’
‘What’s wrong with Helmut Newton?’
‘Are you joking?’ I say. ‘I thought you were like… a woke bae.’
‘I am! I just…’ He shrugs. ‘I mean, I don’t have an art degree – an MA, even – do I?’
‘It’s not my job to educate you on…’ I take a big mouthful of wine, ‘misogynist photographers, and why they’re misogynist. It should be obvious.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry.’
‘I’m just shitting you,’ I say. ‘I get why you’d say that. I just don’t like him much. Bit… bland-white-male-titty photographer, isn’t he?’
‘Um. Yeah, guess.’
‘And I mean, I do take like… So all the women he photographs are like boilerplate sexy ladies, aren’t they? And I mean, I’m taking your photo, aren’t I? Not exactly Vogue material, are you?’
‘True,’ he says, nodding. It’s a bit sad that this is his default setting. My mam always used to tell me that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. And Eddie from Tesco is a fly, but he’s got a taste for vinegar. It’s like vinegar is all he’s ever had from people, and now he doesn’t even know what honey tastes like.
They bring the main. It’s sublime. This is the first time I’ve eaten cheese in about two years. I struggle not to drool while I eat. I keep the napkin clutched in my hand, dabbing at the corners of my mouth every time I eat a glob of Camembert, a little piece of smoked meat, a gooey potato. I ignore the sound of my waist expanding, and the intrusive images I have of my stomach in this dress once we’re done.
‘Hungry?’ he asks.
‘No,’ I say. I eat everything. Eddie from Tesco watches me, with his chin rested on his hand. Placid, and interested, like he’s at an aquarium. ‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘You’re just pretty. And you have cheese in your hair.’
I do have cheese in my hair.
By the time we’re finished eating, I’m too full to even think about dessert – but I order an affogato, with a shot of amaretto, anyway. I feel ill. I feel like throwing up, sticking a feather down my throat, like a decadent Roman empress.
There’s a dispute over the bill, which is quite hefty. Eddie from Tesco briefly tries to insist on paying. I told the waiter to bring that wine, I booked us in here, and I just drop a couple of fifties on the table and shrug, telling him rather a large invoice came in for me the other day.
‘Are you sure?’ he says. ‘Like, honestly, I was expecting it to be—’ I shush him.
‘Cover the tip, if you want.’ So, he drops a twenty on the table, and we leave. I am very wobbly, like my centre of balance has been thrown by the amount of food in my stomach. While Eddie from Tesco is trying to suggest another drink, I tell him the Uber’s on its way, and we’ll just go back to mine.
I get him to do shots with me when we get in. I try to offer him coke, and he looks horrified. I shrug, have a bump – more for me, I guess. He’s wittering on (minimum sentence for Class As; becomes toxic in your bloodstream when mixed with alcohol; deviated septum). I usher him into the garage. The studio.
I have the video camera set up opposite the sofa, on a tripod, in my studio. I want it simple – gritty, I guess, but not handheld. Handheld feels a little too Gonzo porn for my liking. I just want it static, a cold Pasolini vibe. It’s been a while since I filmed anything. I have half a bottle of red in the garage, which I polish off while Eddie from Tesco gets undressed, affixes the bunny head and the tail.
I sling my camera around my neck. I have another bump, and another. Things get a little blurry from there.
He’s a controlling piece of shit
I didn’t want to shit stir but when you went to the toilet at the pub the other night he said you’re only friends with me because you feel bad for me
He said i was pathetic and he started talking about my tits it was SOOO WEIRD.
Ask him about it.
If you break up with him, i’m here for you and so is my sofa
<3
I’ve watched the video through eight, maybe nine times now. The first thing you see, the first shot, is him. Standing by the couch, in front of the bare, brick wall. I went without a backdrop.
I’m off camera. I ask him if having his picture taken gets him off, and he laughs.
‘Maybe. Yeah, I suppose?’ His voice sounds weird; it’s all muffled, with the bunny head. I do have an external mic, so you can make it out, at least. I zoom in on his crotch – at the time I thought he was getting hard, but you can’t really tell so much in the video. You hear me asking him to gimme a twirl and shake his bunny tail.
‘I think I like you more than… modelling,’ he says. I ask him if he’s a sub. Another shy laugh. ‘I mean, a little,’ he says. ‘I just… I don’t do this for everyone.’
I tell him to grab the couch and bend over, and I walk into the shot. I look great – same outfit from the date. I look skinny, despite the carbs and the dairy. My camera is dangling round my neck, the lens protruding from my belly. If I’d thought ahead, I’d have strung it lower – phallic symbology and shit.
I’m like a foot taller than him in the shoes I’m wearing, and I take a minute to stand over him. I take a picture of his back. The way his spine curves, his bones beneath his skin, freckles, shoulder blades, dimples either side of his coccyx.
I drop the camera. My hand lifts, stops over his waist, like I want to touch him, like one of those awkward pictures of fat high school boys hover-handing a hot girl. I’ll edit that out.
I spank him, really hard, and he goes, ‘Ouch! Irina!’ I do it again, and I laugh on the video.
He goes, ‘Um.’
I remember doing it, but not laughing. I remember his skin.
I had a dream once, where I sat up in bed and left my body behind. And I rolled next to her – to my body. I touched her skin. I kissed her lips, and they were soft, and mine, but cold and rubbery.
Watching the video is like that dream; I know that’s me. I know that’s my body. But she isn’t cold and rigid, she’s pink in the face, and frantic, snapping photos, pinching and grabbing flesh like a greedy child.
She gets to be there forever. Skinny and gorg
eous and young, and I’m stuck out here. I’m stuck watching the video over and over again, rotting.
I pull down his underwear and brandish the wine bottle I’d been drinking from. He squeals when it goes in. And he flinches. His elbows give way and he flops over the arm of the couch like a flaccid dick.
I step back, take a bunch of photos. I lie down on the floor to get a better angle. I stumble on my heels, which I’ll edit out as well because it looks so stupid.
I didn’t notice it at the time, but you can see him trembling. You can see the shallow, sharp rise and fall of his shoulders. He was hard the whole time, I’m sure, but on film it reads less like poorly contained arousal, more like a prey animal, pinned, helpless.
‘You good?’ I ask him. ‘Hey – you good?’ And he splutters, in the bunny head; you hear him splutter.
I stomp over to the tripod and stop the film. He picked himself up from the couch, his chest making a wet, peeling sound as it parted from the leather, took off the bunny head. He’d been crying – probably the entire time. Not like crying like an emotional release; it was just genuine distressed crying.
I probably would have stopped if he’d said something.
I told him, if you were uncomfortable, you should have told me. Don’t put this on me. You’re a Big Boy, Eddie from Tesco. He shrugged. His arse was bright red, and he winced when he pulled on his jeans. He stared at the floor instead of my face or my tits.
‘I’m fine. It’s fine,’ he said. But I didn’t believe him.
He left. He gave me a shifty goodbye and left. He walked home, I think. I don’t know.
That was a week ago. I’ve been feeling strange about it. Bad, but then annoyed that he’s made me feel bad. Like, don’t make it my fault, you know? Say something? I watch the video again and again. I watch it until the sun goes down.
Then he turns up at my door, paralytic drunk and sobbing. He knocks – hammers – saying he’s sorry for freaking out, and being weird and yes, he should have said something, and can he please come in. I don’t open the door. I pretend I’m not in, but I don’t think it works.