by Ben Brooks
‘You retard,’ Sam said. ‘Why would someone just have cancer in the nipple?’
‘I don’t know. Why would someone just have cancer in the tits?’
‘She might not just have cancer in the tits. We don’t know yet. The cancer might have gone to other bits.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means she might die.’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Excuse me,’ the man with toilet-seat-shaped hair said. We turned around again. The wide woman had crossed her arms. ‘I asked nicely, now could you please keep it down? The film’s going to start in a second.’
‘Her mum’s got cancer,’ Aslam said, pointing at Alice.
‘Cancer,’ Sam said, nodding.
‘Of the tits.’
‘I’m very sorry to hear that,’ the man said. ‘But I’d still like to watch the film.’
‘I’d like to watch the film too,’ Aslam said. ‘That’s why I’m here. Only the film hasn’t started yet. So don’t shit yourself, gaylord.’
‘Would you like me to call someone?’
‘Yeah, call your mum and tell her she’s a twat.’
I groaned and hit Aslam around the back of the head.
‘You nasty little prick,’ the man said, taking hold of Aslam’s hood and standing up. I looked at Sam and Sam smiled. He pulled the lid off his large Sprite and nodded at me and threw it over the man.
The man froze.
He didn’t know what had happened.
He dropped Aslam and touched his cheek and looked at his hand like it was covered in blood. His wet fringe was pinned against his forehead in thin, grey strands. Everyone started to struggle out down the row of people.
‘I’m really sorry,’ I said, bringing a corner of my shirt up to the man’s face. I was thinking about him being on a first date with the wide woman who he would maybe fall in love with and marry and visit in hospital when she was about to die from multiple heart attacks.
‘Off,’ he said. ‘Fuck. Off.’
So I ran after the others. Alice was waiting for me in the aisle. We held hands and left. Two weeks later, Alice’s mum died and we all went to the park and Alice drank until she fell asleep and we carried her home.
27
At the hotel reception desk, I hide four open wounds on my left hand. That happens sometimes. I scratch. I took the Tube from Victoria to Marble Arch and it was easy. We go with school sometimes. It’s hard. I get anxious imagining my cartoon-flat body being peeled off the rails.
The hotel is as shiny as the photographs. It doesn’t feel like a place that’s been built by humans. It’s too big. It feels like a landscape people happen to be passing over.
I say my name and the receptionist gives me a keycard. She says something about breakfast. Each of her hands is half the width of mine. I expect her to stop me. I expect her to tell me that children aren’t allowed hotel rooms. I expect her to accuse me of credit card fraud and do a citizen’s arrest on me.
She doesn’t.
She smiles.
I walk quickly across the marble foyer, to a lift. Floor four. The lift door opens and a blonde woman pushes out an elderly man in a wheelchair. The man is asleep. Orange cubes of food are nestled in his beard.
In the room (421), I hold my hand under the tap and dab it with soap. It stings. My heart is going tripletime, but slowing. Everything is soft in the room. Everything is the colour of biscuits. I lie on the bed and boil the mini kettle for tea. I fall asleep and dream about having underwater sex with a mermaid Macy. The sun gets too close and the water evaporates and she dies. When I wake up I don’t want to move.
*
I’m waiting for Macy in the foyer. We did texts. I said I couldn’t meet her from the station because of work. I said I was wearing a sombre-looking suit that’s outgrown me and she said she was wearing a grey pencil skirt with a black hoodie. There are more people now, shifting across the marble in pairs with luggage on wheels. It makes me think of ducks. I imagine throwing bread crusts at them. I imagine throwing whole loaves of bread at their heads and then apologising profusely while playing staring with the dents in my shoes.
She appears.
She’s wearing what she said she was wearing. She seems to have no luggage. Her calves are narrow and tightly curved. Two swathes of blonde hair are pulled back across her forehead and pinned behind her head. She’s sexy. She would probably be beautiful if beautiful was a word that ever happened in my head.
She puts down her bag and slowly looks around. I am underneath her line of sight. She pushes a knuckle into the corner of her eye, pulls it away and stares at it. A passing man nods and smiles at her. I think, back off. I walk towards her. She’s looking away. I’m very close. Too close, maybe. I take two steps back.
‘Macy.’
Macy spins.
‘Etgar.’
We look at each other’s faces. There’s nothing I recognise in hers. I thought there would be heavy weather. I thought there would be severe disappointment or quiet anger or general upset. None of those are there. Nothing else is either. Her face is a book written in Kanji. There are oil spills under her eyes and brackets around her mouth. I am one pint taller than she is.
I try to make my spine straight and my forearms tense. It is extremely important to try and make myself look like a man. It won’t work. I don’t know. She will decide now what happens next. She could say nothing and leave the hotel and continue her life minus my interference. I don’t know what will help her decision. Something tiny, I feel. Something tiny will tip her scales and drag her away. The size of my feet or the bruises on my face or the spot next to my left nostril.
Everything is just stuff touching other stuff.
There’s a hand on my hand. It’s Macy’s. I was scratching at the open holes. I didn’t notice. A line of blood has run down the valley between two of my knuckles. She guides my hand into the pouch of her hoodie and wipes it clean. She is doing a mum smile to me. She is doing a you are not okay and I’m sorry smile.
I don’t want to say anything.
I don’t want to have to say anything.
I want to stand, unmoving, with my hand in Macy’s pouch while she smiles at me like someone who would not kind of have sex with Aaron Mathews and lie about it afterwards.
‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘Sorry. I didn’t notice. That happens sometimes. It’s – I don’t know. Sorry. Thank you.’
‘It’s okay, hon. Don’t worry. Shall we go up to the room before dinner? I’d like a shower.’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Go to groom.’ I pinch myself. ‘The room. Okay.’
We go to wait in front of the lift. I catch sight of the receptionist and see that she’s been watching. When she sees me seeing her, she quickly finds something more interesting between her hands. I feel braver standing next to someone, neither of us being familiar to anyone else here but each other. I don’t know if we are familiar to each other. I know I’m not a mortgage broker. I don’t know what Macy is. She’s nice. She’s here. We both are.
In the lift, I say, ‘Aren’t you going to leave?’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. I’m short.’
‘You’re taller than I am,’ she says.
*
Macy showers while I use the mini-kettle to make tea. Hearing the water makes me not able to not imagine her naked. She isn’t what I expected. I don’t know what I expected. I expected a cold, sex-crazed woman who drank coffees I couldn’t pronounce and understood quantitative easing. Maybe she is that. She doesn’t seem like that. We went into the lift and along the corridor. I don’t understand why she is here. I don’t understand why she hasn’t disappeared.
I put two teabags in two mugs and add water. There’s only Earl Grey. Earl Grey tastes like ugly flowers. I turn on the television. The bald man’s there. I don’t want to listen to him. I don’t want to think. I take a small bottle of pink wine out of the minibar and drink it under the duvet, reading about fighting alligators in
The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook.
When Macy comes out of the bathroom, she’s wearing a black dress that makes her look like a woman from a James Bond film. Her hair is half dry. It has all been flipped onto one side of her head. I feel like an ant lost in a living-room carpet.
‘What are you reading?’ she says, dropping onto a corner of the bed and tugging a brush through her hair.
‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘A book about not dying.’
She laughs. ‘I like Martina Cole.’
‘Me too,’ I say. ‘No. I don’t know what that is.’
‘Are you ready for dinner?’
‘Okay.’
*
Everything feels different when we sit down in the hotel restaurant.The other people are in matching pairs.Wearing their own clothes. Talking about holidays. Drinking after-dinner espressos. Serious people doing serious lives. We are two people who sexed on the Internet. Macy could be my mum. What if I’m adopted and she is my mum? That’s happened before. Not to me. It was on the news.
A waiter comes over and asks if we’d like wine. I nod. I point at two words in the middle of the list. I have decided to not try and pronounce anything ever again. The waiter disappears. Me and Macy hide behind our menus.
Choosing food in restaurants is difficult. I always want to split into several people and eat various meals then vomit everything back up and become one person again to choose my favourite.
Macy chooses quickly. She folds her menu up and leans back, picking at the fabric of her dress like a scab.
The waiter comes back, holding the wine in a retarded claw-like way. He pours a very small amount into my glass. I look at him, confused.
‘Could I have some more?’
‘Don’t you want to try it?’ He nods at the glass.
I nod at him.
He nods again. ‘It might be terrible,’ he says, winking.
I think, yes, it will definitely be terrible, because it’s wine. I don’t understand. I pick up the glass and pour some into my mouth. I try not to wince. The waiter stares at me. I stare at the waiter.
‘Is it okay?’
‘Um. Yes.’
‘Good.’
He pours more wine into my glass, then leans over to fill up Macy’s. She’s biting her lip to keep a laugh from coming out. I don’t understand. I don’t understand why I had to try it. Nothing would happen if I didn’t like it. No one likes the taste of wine.
The bottle lands on the table between us. We tell the waiter what we want. I choose risotto. Macy chooses steak. Our menus disappear with the waiter and there’s nothing left to hide behind, except the wine glasses, which are almost windows.
I try to think of things to say. I run through films in my head, searching for relevant quotes. Wine, I think. Sideways.
I take a sip from my glass. ‘It tastes like the back of a fucking LA schoolbus,’ I say. It comes out louder than I expected and in a voice that isn’t mine. I wince. ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘No, it doesn’t.’
Macy stares at me, curiously and kindly, and with her mouth open. Other people stare at me too.
We use a lot of nothing words to fill up the space between us. I ask how she is. She says okay. She asks how I am. I say fine. I ask how her trip was. She says okay. She asks if I’ve been here before. I say no. It’s like the talking you do with teachers when you see them outside of school. When you know you have to say something but you don’t know what you have to say. We both sit up straight and take big glugs of wine. There are a lot of elephants on the table. They are miniature and pink and we aren’t yet sure what shape they are. I try to work out how much each glug of wine is costing. Fifty pence, I think.
When we’re more drunk and familiar, talking gets less weird. The waiter brings our food. Neither of us eats. I try to ask Macy about her business but she doesn’t want to talk about it. She asks about mortgage brokering.
‘Never mix work and food and women, I always say,’ I say. I don’t always say that. And it doesn’t sound very suave. ‘More wine?’ Suave is a very suave word.
‘Thanks.’
I use the retarded claw way of holding the wine while I pour it. I pour some into mine, and start pouring some into Macy’s. I drop the wine bottle on her steak. It sits there, flowing off the table and into the deep green sea of carpet. Macy laughs very loudly. People look at us. The waiter sees and walks over. He picks up the wine and Macy’s plate.
‘I’m terribly sorry,’ he says.
‘Why?’ I say.
Macy starts laughing again. I nudge her foot with my foot and hoist up my eyebrows. It means this is funny but let’s pretend to be serious for the waiter because he’s a normal human man trying to do his normal human job.She coughs.
‘That’s fine,’ she says. ‘Another bottle of the same and another steak would be super.’
He leaves. I pour half of my wine into her glass. She finishes it in one sip. She quietly says ‘Jesus’ and she’s smiling. I think, I’m not doing a good job of not looking like a child. I finish my wine.
‘Do you go on a lot of dates?’
She knows.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I mean no. Some. Sometimes. The bottle was very slippery. I think he dipped it in water. I’ll ask him to not do that again.’ I turn around to look for the waiter. I say, ‘Waiter.’
‘You’re very tense.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry.’
‘Okay.’
I put my finger in my risotto, then take it out. It’s supposed to make me look comfortable and at ease. It doesn’t work. I look brain damaged and overly tactile.
‘Are you always anxious around people?’
‘Only around byoofell lades,’ I say. ‘Oh God.’ I put a hand over my face and open a V between my fingers to see through. ‘Beautiful loodies,’ I say. ‘Fuck.’ Macy is laughing again. I can count her teeth through the gap in my hand. ‘Beautiful ladies,’ I say. ‘There.’ She reaches forward and pulls my hand away. Her hand is cold. It is a good, gentle cold, like drinking water in the bath.
‘Come out.’ More wine and another steak arrives. My glass fills up. ‘Can you show him how to pour?’ Macy says. The waiter sets the bottle down on the table and demonstrates the claw. I make one with my hand. He picks up the bottle and lodges it between my thumb and fingers. Shaking slightly, I pour my own wine. To the brim.
‘Very good,’ he says. ‘Only usually we do a little less.’
‘Thanks.’
‘It’s hard,’ I say, turning to Macy as the waiter leaves. ‘I keep thinking it will come out of my hand and smash into a thousand pieces and I’ll fall into the pieces. Then doctors will have to graft skin from my bum onto my face.’
‘I’ll lend you skin.’
‘I’ll look nicer.’
‘It’ll be like you’re wearing plastic bags.’
‘No,’ I say.
We start on our food. Mine is cold and tastes of old cheese and paper. Macy’s smells good. I can’t eat steak because it makes my mouth too tired. Risotto is easy. Risotto is baby food. I drink wine every two mouthfuls and it starts to taste less bad. I think, maybe acquired taste is actually a real thing. Maybe people do like wine. It’s not as nice as just eating the grapes, but it’s okay. And it makes me less anxious. My shoulders start to sag and rush hour in my head comes to a close. The bears get home to their wives and go to bed. Night night, everyone.
‘That was good,’ Macy says.
‘You have some on your mouth.’
She dabs at her lips.
‘Is it gone?’
‘No. It’s sort of on your cheek. Left.’
She dabs at her cheek.
‘Now?’
‘No.’
‘Can you get it?’
‘Okay.’
She hands me the serviette and leans across the table. I drop it. I jab my finger into her nostril. She yelps and pulls away. I push Dad’s tie into my mouth. I realise I am drunk. The nose thing was what I used to do
to Alice, when we weren’t in the bath and I couldn’t do it with my toe.
‘That felt weird.’
‘You have an empty nose. It’s clean. Well done.’
‘Thanks, hon.’
‘Sorry for putting my finger in your nose.’
‘Forgiven.’
‘Do you want dessert?’
‘Dessert wine?’
‘Deal.’
Macy waves the waiter over and we order more wine. I’m starting to get tingles. My body is always drunk before my head. When bad things happen from drinking, the last memory I usually have is realising that my body feels heavy and warm.
28
Me and Macy are holding hands in the back of a black cab. Outside, the sky is black and glassy. Our driver isn’t saying anything. He’s got the radio on low and it’s playing something depressing by Adele. I wonder who he thinks we are. We look like a middle-class mum and son, I feel.
Macy asked him to drive us to the closest gay nightclub. It wasn’t my idea and I don’t know why it’s happening. I’m drunk. We didn’t have sex. We finished the wine then had mojitos because I said I didn’t know what they were and I still don’t know what they are and I definitely don’t like them.
‘Are you sure it’s gay?’ Macy says. She releases my hand. We pull up beside a converted warehouse with a neon purple entrance. There’s a queue running past a fenced-off area where people are smoking and kissing and touching hands.
The driver laughs. ‘Gay,’ he says. I push money through the window that separates us and Macy and I climb out. We join the back of the queue, behind a man with bleached hair and scuffed boots. Macy takes my hand again. A thick, heavy thud is coming from inside of the building.
Nightclubs are scary.
There are too many people having fun in ways I don’t understand. It doesn’t make sense. Once, me, Alice and Aslam got into Diva with fake IDs. People were shouting and hitting each other in the face. A man asked me something and I didn’t hear properly so I didn’t reply. I smiled a little. The man said ‘fucking retard’ to his friend. I smiled more. One of the men pushed me. I pulled my t-shirt up over my head and sat down on the sugar-wet wooden floor. Alice hooked her hands under my armpits, pulled me up and led me outside. We caught the 84 back to her house. We watched four episodes of Parks and Recreation then fell asleep in our clothes.