Bear Necessity

by James Gould-Bourn

  “I won’t charge for the kiss,” said Vesuvius, winking at Danny as he placed two bottles of water on the counter.

  “Don’t worry,” said Krystal as Vesuvius went back to cleaning glasses. “He only likes the married ones.”

  “I am married,” said Danny in between deep gulps of water. “Sort of.”

  “Sort of?”

  “It’s a long story,” he said, looking at his empty ring finger. He’d never worried about his wedding ring when Liz was alive, but after her death he suddenly became terrified that he was going to lose it, so he’d wrapped the ring in cotton, put it in a matchbox, and hidden it in the drawer of his bedside table, which was where it had lived ever since.

  “Every man who comes in here has a long story,” said Krystal. “Don’t tell me, let me guess. Your wife ran off with another bloke? We get a lot of those.”

  Danny shook his head and took another sip of water. Krystal thought for a moment.

  “She ran off with another woman?”

  “Nope.”

  “Another panda?”

  “Funny.”

  “Was it a dwarf? Because we had this one guy whose wife—”

  “She’s dead,” said Danny.

  Krystal watched him for a moment, her lips twitching with a wavering smile. “You’re joking, right?” she said.

  “I wish I was,” said Danny, screwing the cap back onto the bottle.

  “What happened?”

  “She died in a car crash, just over a year ago.”

  “Shit,” said Krystal. “Sorry.” She spun her bottle top between her fingers and watched it dance across the bar. “My mum always said I had a big mouth.”

  “Sounds like I’d get on well with your mum,” said Danny. He smiled.

  “You’d be the only person who does,” said Krystal. She took a sip of water, and the two sat in silence for a minute.

  “She was a dancer, actually,” said Danny. Krystal frowned. “My wife. Liz.”

  “She clearly never taught you much.”

  “No shit,” said Danny. “Thanks for today, by the way. I know you didn’t want to do it, but I’ll probably die in my sleep tonight if it’s any consolation.”

  “I thought you were going to croak back there, to be honest.”

  “I was close. Everything started to flicker at one point and I remember thinking, So, this is it. This is how it ends.”

  “I keep telling Fanny to get that strip light fixed.”

  They both smiled.

  “Seriously, though, thanks,” he said.

  “Don’t mention it. I never thought watching a grown man on the verge of throwing up for two straight hours could be so entertaining.”

  “I really don’t know how you do it,” said Danny, wincing as he gently massaged his knee.

  “It’s easy. You get up early, you go to bed late, you always make sure you have ice in the freezer, and you go through so much Voltarol that you end up with a borderline diclofenac addiction. You dance six or seven days per week for four or five hours per day, month in, month out, for about five years, and voilà, you too will be qualified to spin around a pole in a dodgy nightclub while crusty old wankers stuff clammy ten-pound notes in your underwear.”

  “The way I dance, I’d be lucky if people stuffed ten-pence pieces in my underwear.”

  “You weren’t that bad, to be honest. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you were terrible. Like, really fucking terrible. Like, so bad that I actually started to feel sorry for you. But still, you weren’t as bad as I expected. Nothing a little practice won’t fix anyway. Okay, a lot of practice. A metric shit-ton of practice. But you’ll get there.”

  “Not until I find some rhythm, I won’t. I’ve got more chance of catching a bullet in my teeth than I do of catching a beat.”

  “Now that’s something I could help you with,” said Krystal. She sounded sincere.

  “I bet,” said Danny.

  “Get yourself a metronome.”

  “A what?”

  “It’s this thing with a hand that ticks,” said Krystal. Danny followed her finger as she wagged it for emphasis. “You use it to keep time.”

  “Isn’t that called a clock?”

  “No, you muppet, a clock is— I’m not even going to explain what a fucking clock is. Just google it. Metronome. Get yourself one. And use it. Not just when you’re trying to dance, but whenever you’re doing anything at all. Chopping onions. Washing the dishes. Brushing your teeth. Cleaning the windows. Do it all to the metronome, and you’ll learn to keep a beat without even knowing it.”

  “Nothing’s coming up when I search for it,” he said. He showed his phone to Krystal.

  “Not ‘metro gnome,’ you fucking— Jesus, give it here.” She snatched the phone from his hand and tapped away at the screen, her nails clacking against the glass. “That,” she said, handing the phone back to Danny. “Buy one. Or even better, download one for free. Just search for metronome apps.”

  “Thanks,” said Danny. “Any other tips?”

  “Yeah, rewatch all the dancing films you’ve ever watched, and then make a list of all the ones you haven’t and watch them too.”

  “That’s going to be a very long list.”

  “You’ve never seen a dancing film?”

  “It depends on what you call a dancing film.”

  “Like a film, but about dancing.”

  “Oh. No, then.”

  “Flashdance? Footloose? Billy Elliot? Strictly Ballroom? Please tell me you’ve at least seen Dirty Dancing. Tell me that and I can just about forgive you,” she said.

  Danny shook his head. “Liz was always trying to get me to watch it with her,” he said, suddenly unable to think of a single decent reason why he never had. “It was one of her favorites.”

  “She sounds like my kind of girl,” said Krystal.

  “And mine,” he said. He turned his water bottle upside down and watched the droplets zigzag down the plastic.

  “Well, watch it. And then rewatch it. Like a hundred times. Everything you need to know is in that film. Not just about dancing but about life.” Krystal slid from her stool. “Anyway, I better go warm up.”

  “Warm up?” said Danny. “How are you not warm? You’ve just been dancing for two hours.”

  “Different kind of warm-up,” said Krystal. She nodded towards one of the podiums where another dancer was circling a pole with a cigarette pinched between her lips.

  “Got it,” said Danny, taking the hint. “I’ll leave you to it.”

  “Good luck with the whole panda thing,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Thanks,” he said, fully aware that he was going to need it.

  CHAPTER 16

  Will watched Mr. Coleman shuffle the length of the whiteboard, his marker squeaking against the enamel as he scribbled something in capital letters.

  “International ‘What Do Your Parents Do for a Living’ Day,” said Mr. Coleman, reading the words he’d just written down. “Anybody ever heard of this?”

  Some of the kids shook their heads. Others stared blankly.

  “Well, me neither, but apparently it’s a thing, and apparently we have to talk about it today. By the way, for those of you who were wondering, yesterday was International Duck Day—I know, I can’t believe we missed that one either—and tomorrow is International ‘Teachers Are Amazing and Rarely Appreciated and Are Overworked and Underpaid’ Day, so make sure you spread the word.”

  The only sound in the room came from somebody’s pencil rolling off the desk and landing on the floor.

  “So the point of today is to celebrate, well, capitalism, I imagine, although according to this handy fact sheet that the Education Gods were kind enough to furnish me with, it is, and I quote, ‘a day to celebrate the many and diverse ways in which our parents help to keep the world turning.’ Your parents don’t keep the world turning, just so you know. Physics keeps the world turning, but you get the idea. For those of you whose parents are not currently employ
ed, fear not, the world will not suddenly grind to a halt. It will continue to spin, at least until the day when the sun implodes and vaporizes this sorry little planet we call home. For those of you whose parents are currently employed, however, how many of you know what they do for a living?”

  A number of kids raised their hands, including Will, who still had no idea about his dad’s recent change in circumstances.

  “Great,” said Mr. Coleman. “How’s about some of you come up here and tell us all a little bit about their work. Mum or dad, it’s up to you. We don’t need a monologue, just a few words.”

  Mr. Coleman saw Will’s hand slinking beneath the sea of arms.

  “Actually,” he said, “you know what? Let’s play a game, shall we? Instead of telling us what your parents do, how about you show us.”

  “What, like a video?” said Jindal.

  “Why would I have a video of my mum at work?” said Atkins.

  “I’ve got one of my dad battering a shoplifter when he worked security at Zara,” said Kabiga as he scrolled through his phone.

  “I’m not talking about videos,” said Mr. Coleman. “I’m talking about using your imagination!”

  A low murmur of discontent passed through the class at the mention of the word imagination.

  “Like charades?” said Mo.

  “Precisely, Mo,” said Mr. Coleman. “Like charades.”

  “Why can’t we just say it?” said a kid at the back of the class.

  “Because that’s boring! That’s what all the other classes are doing. This will be more fun.” Mr. Coleman glanced at Will, who gave him the faintest smile of acknowledgment.

  “You got a weird idea of fun, Mr. C.”

  “Look, I’ll go first, okay?” said Mr. Coleman. “I’ll show you what my dad used to do for a living.”

  He took off his jacket and draped it over the back of his chair.

  “Your dad was a stripper?” shouted somebody. Laughter filled the classroom.

  “Very funny,” said Mr. Coleman. “I haven’t started yet. Okay, here we go.”

  He sat down on the chair and picked up a pair of invisible drumsticks. Then, clacking them together above his head like a Monsters of Rock headliner, he launched into an unexpectedly enthusiastic albeit entirely silent drum solo.

  “Guitarist!” shouted Cartwright.

  “Drummer!” shouted everybody else.

  “Exactly!” said Mr. Coleman, wiping the sweat from his brow.

  “Same thing,” muttered Cartwright.

  “A percussionist for the London Symphony Orchestra, to be precise. You should have seen him, he was quite the player.”

  “I bet he was,” said Mo. “Girls always fancy the drummer.”

  “How do you know?” said Kabiga.

  “Because he is a girl,” said Claire Wilkins, who sat behind Mo. Everybody sniggered.

  “That makes one of us,” said Mo. The room erupted with chants of “Burn!” and “Savage!”

  “I didn’t mean that kind of player,” said Mr. Coleman, belatedly realizing his slipup. “I meant player of the drums. Although he was quite popular with the ladies, actually. Not quite so popular with my mum though. Anyway, who wants to go next? Mo? Come on, show everybody how it’s done.”

  “Easy,” said Mo. He took a seat in Mr. Coleman’s chair, held an imaginary steering wheel in front of him, and proceeded to honk his horn, yell in Punjabi, and flip off the various other drivers committing multiple infractions on whatever imaginary road he was driving on.

  “Taxi driver!” yelled the class.

  “Well done, Mo,” said Mr. Coleman as Mo returned to his seat. “Please remind me never to get into your dad’s taxi.”

  “My dad’s an estate agent,” said Mo. “My mum’s the taxi driver.”

  “Then please remind me to say wonderful things about you at parents’ evening. Will, your turn. Get up here and show us what you’ve got.”

  Will shuffled to the front of the class. He stood around looking sheepish for a minute before grabbing an imaginary shovel and halfheartedly driving it into the ground.

  “Coal miner!” shouted somebody.

  “Gold digger!” shouted another kid.

  “Drummer!” shouted Cartwright.

  Everybody laughed, including Will. He put down his invisible shovel and started laying bricks instead, this time with more enthusiasm, but he looked more like he was scaling a wall than attempting to build one.

  “Rock climber!”

  “Spider-Man!”

  Will, laughing even more now, turned to Mr. Coleman for help. The teacher smiled and shrugged.

  “Don’t look at me, Spider-Man!”

  Will picked up an imaginary hammer and pretended to bash it into a nail.

  “Handyman!” shouted Jindal.

  Will pointed at Jindal and prompted him to elaborate.

  “Carpenter!” shouted Jindal.

  “Builder!” shouted Cartwright.

  Will pointed at Cartwright and gave him the thumbs-up.

  “Well done, Will. And well done, Cartwright!” Cartwright beamed like he’d just got a C-minus in a maths test. “Take a seat, Will, I think you need a rest after that.”

  Some of the kids patted Will on the back or playfully thumped him in the arm as he made his way to his desk.

  “Right,” said Mr. Coleman, exchanging a nod with Will. “Who’s next?”

  The game went through a few more rounds (there would have been more, but one kid spent at least ten awkward minutes trying to find a way of showing the class that his mother was a gastrointestinal endoscopist) before the bell rang and everybody commenced that most paradoxical of migrations, the one where students rush from one class and drag their heels to the next.

  “Will?” said Mr. Coleman as Will and Mo tried to fit through the door at the same time. “Can I have a quick word?”

  The two boys shared a look of dread before Will returned to the classroom to face whatever punishment was coming for whatever it was he’d done wrong.

  “It’s okay, Mo,” said Mr. Coleman when he saw Mo lingering in the doorway. “I won’t be needing your mediation services today, thank you.”

  Mo looked at Will, shrugged, and closed the door behind him. Will took a seat.

  “Nice bit of acting back there,” said Mr. Coleman. “You could be a movie star. Well, a silent movie star anyway.”

  Will smiled. He stopped fidgeting and waited for Mr. Coleman to find the right words for what he wanted to say next.

  “I know this is none of my business, Will, and I’m sure you’re probably sick of people giving you advice or telling you what to do, but, well, I just want you to know that I get it. The silence, I mean. I can’t pretend to understand what you’re feeling, or what you’ve gone through this last year, but I do know a little bit about what it’s like to lose somebody close to you.”

  Will looked down at his hands and gently picked at the corner of his thumbnail.

  “My grandfather died when I was about your age. He was more like a parent than a grandparent though. My dad was always busy with orchestra rehearsals and my mum was a nurse who often worked nights, so my grandfather basically raised me for the first ten years of my life. His hair was gray and his eyes were gray and everything in his wardrobe was gray, but when he walked into a room it was like the sunshine had walked in right behind him. He was old even then, but I still thought he’d be around forever, because, well, you do, don’t you? So when he died it came as a massive shock, like a train had come out of nowhere and slammed right into me. I didn’t speak about him for a long time afterwards. Not to my mum, not to my dad, not to my friends. I just didn’t know what to say. Talking about him in the past tense seemed so strange that I couldn’t bring myself to talk about him at all, if that makes any sense.”

  Will nodded, his eyes still fixed on his hands.

  “One day my dad gave me this old stuffed rabbit toy. I’d never seen it before, but he said it belonged to my grandfather. He�
�d found it while clearing out his belongings and he thought I might like to have it. The rabbit was called Colin, and it was the saddest thing you’ve ever seen. Three limbs, one ear, big clumps of fur missing. He looked like he’d been run over by a lawnmower. In fact, I think he actually had been run over by a lawnmower. But Colin made the best listener, even with one ear. I could talk to him about my grandfather in a way that I couldn’t talk to people.”

  The corner of Will’s mouth twitched slightly.

  “I know, I know. Go ahead and laugh. I’m only telling you this because I know you won’t talk. Otherwise I’d probably be out of a job tomorrow.”

  Will reassured Mr. Coleman that his secret was safe with a finger to the lips and a subtle nod.

  “Thanks, I appreciate it,” said Mr. Coleman. His chair groaned slightly as he leaned back and crossed his arms. “The truth is that I felt comfortable talking to that rabbit because, unlike everybody else around me—my family, my friends, my teachers—Colin wasn’t trying to fix me. He didn’t pretend to know how I felt. He didn’t expect me to ‘be like I was before’ ”—Mr. Coleman made quotation marks with his fingers—“as if nothing had changed and life should somehow continue as normal despite this gaping hole that had suddenly appeared right in the middle of it. He didn’t expect anything because, well, he was just a stuffed toy. All he could do was listen. So that’s what he did. He listened. And it helped. Before then I didn’t think I’d ever be able to talk about my grandfather again. But I’ve since come to realize that difficult things don’t necessarily have to be difficult to talk about. The difficult part is finding the right person—or rabbit—to talk to. Not that I’m saying you should start talking to animals, of course, although if you do, then please, don’t tell anybody that I was the one who suggested it. I’m sure Colin would be happy to give you a free consultation, though, and you’re more than welcome to talk to me anytime, even though you probably think I’m crazy by now. We can play charades if you’d prefer.”

  Will smiled as he pictured Mo yelling at the class from his imaginary taxi.

  “I guess what I’m trying to say, Will, is that when terrible things happen that we can’t understand, sometimes it takes something equally unexpected to help us make sense of it. Do you see what I’m saying? Or am I rambling like an idiot?”