by Kate Russo
“I’m into my wines now. The missus wanted me off the hard gear—snow, ’shrooms, K—nuhtamean?”
I have no fucking clue what you mean.
“She’s worth it, though, my Keeley. True ride or die, that bird.”
What?
“And I’m a dad, mate. Did you know that?” Carl sits up straight, excited.
Bennett looks down at Rosie. Can it be that this mutt is what Carl means by fatherhood? “No, I don’t think I did know that.”
“Eighteen months, now. Best eighteen months of my life. I’m well into it. Participant father and all that,” he says with his voice rising, full of pride. “You’ve got a lil’ girl, don’t cha?”
“Not little. She’s nineteen.” Bennett shifts uncomfortably at the thought of Carl picturing Mia.
“Bloody hell! You’ll be a grampy soon.”
Bennett grips the arm of his chair so he doesn’t lunge at Carl like a pit bull. One with two good eyes.
“I hope not. She’s at St. Martins now.”
“Good on her. Following in Daddy’s footsteps.”
By the time Mia was six, Bennett had instructed her to stop calling him “Daddy.” It never sounded right. Now he knows why.
The foul chardonnay has gone straight to his head and he’s thinking about heading to the Claret as soon as he can escape Carl. Claire’s on the day shift, and he might as well drink something nice. He’s thinking he’d like to kiss her with the taste of this disgusting wine still in his mouth, just to see what kind of face she makes.
“How’s your good woman?” Carl asks.
Carl’s forgotten Eliza’s name. He has no idea about the divorce, which would have happened around the same time this wanker was changing his first diaper.
“You’d have to ask Jeff.”
“Mate.” Carl lets his head hang low, as though he feels Bennett’s pain. “You living alone in that big gaff?”
“Renting it on AirBed these days.”
Carl’s ears perk up at this. Bennett immediately regrets letting down his guard.
“I’ve been curious how that works, actually.”
Bennett braces himself, sensing the cogs turning in Carl’s mind.
“Like, have you got to let to everybody? What about the Muslims and all that?”
And all what?
Carl leans in. “I was reading ’bout this geezer in Lancaster that was letting out his gaff on AirBed to these two Syrians . . . Well, they was British technically, but Syrian, really, nuhtamean? They was letting the place for two months or somefink like that. Anyway, six weeks in and the coppers are raiding the place. Figured the carpet-kissers was building a bomb in there.”
Bennett glances down at the Daily Mail, no doubt the source of this twisted tale.
“Aren’t you worried ’bout that happening at your gaff?”
Nope.
“Were they actually building a bomb?” Bennett asks.
“Fuck, mate, how would I know?”
“I thought maybe it was in the article you read.”
“Don’t think it said. Basically, it was warning about letting to foreigners on AirBed and that.”
Bennett shrugs. “I had a couple from Jordan a few months back. They were visiting London to meet their new grandchild. She made the best falafel I’ve ever tasted.”
“Oh, I do love a good falafel,” Carl concedes. “With a bit a halloumi?” He kisses the tips of his fingers, signaling perfection.
Bennett drains his glass. “Good to see you, mate,” he says, pulling himself out of the chair and noticing Carl looks hurt. “I’ve got to get that phone charger, then back to work,” he adds, putting one earbud in.
“What you so keen about on those buds?”
Drowning you out.
“Oh, you know . . .”
“No idea, mate. That’s why I’m asking.” Carl shifts in his chair, looking up at Bennett earnestly.
Rosie looks up, too, waiting for an answer.
Shit.
“Roots Manuva. You know him?”
“I didn’t peg you for a gangsta, Benji.”
Bennett smiles. It is ridiculous.
Carl, excited, pulls out his phone. “I got a geezer that books one of them clubs in Brixton. I’ll find out if Roots’s got anything coming up. I’ll text you.”
“Right,” Bennett says, popping in the other earbud. “I’ll catch you later,” he says, confident Carl doesn’t have his number.
* * *
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From the phone shop, he heads to Soho. He surprises Claire at the bar with a sloppy chardonnay kiss. She loves hating it, pulling him across the bar by his shirt collar and shoving her tongue inside his mouth with all her customers watching, an act they no longer find all that surprising. She then tells him he looks sexy in his paint clothes and he should wear them out more often. When her shift ends, she changes out of her low-cut, navy blue cotton frock, the one that clings to her body—her tip dress, she calls it—and puts on a pair of jeans and her favorite “Feminist as Fuck” T-shirt. He would prefer her to stay in her tip dress, but he can’t complain, not when he was wearing paint-spattered clothes. He suggests they go back to Townhouse for her favorite lavender martini; they endure dirty looks for their attire. After that, they head across the street to some tapas place for charcuterie and cheese and those little fried peppers everyone is always banging on about. On the cab ride home, Claire has one hand on the door handle and the other on his crotch, looking over at him every few seconds to enjoy his dilemma. How exactly is he supposed to look aroused for her, but not aroused for the cabbie? She loves doing this kind of thing, making him play two roles at once. He is starting to feel like he has two lives, the one with Claire and the one before Claire, all of which seems to be going, effortlessly, out the window. The whole day would’ve been different, if he hadn’t switched from Babybel to English cheddar, but Claire’s right—the cheddar tastes better and life is better with her than without her. They have sex twice when they get back to her place and both times she is on top. She doesn’t like missionary, because she can’t orgasm that way. According to her, no woman can. “If a woman cums in missionary, she’s faking it,” Claire assures him, a sentence that explains so much about his marriage. They fall asleep buck naked, as they often do, and now he can’t decide which he prefers—the feeling of her soft skin against his or the feeling of her Egyptian cotton sheets.
* * *
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In the morning, he wakes up in Claire’s tiny double bed to the sound of his phone vibrating on the bedside table, his dick pitching a tent under the sheets. The only people that ever text him are Claire and Mia. Claire is fast asleep next to him and Mia would never be awake at six-thirty unless something was wrong.
Oh, shit.
Startled, he grabs the phone, his penis shriveling at the thought of Mia in danger.
The text is from an unknown number. Strangest thing, mate. Roots is playing Brixton Phoenix tonight. Secret show. Got us on the guest list.
Carl? How the fuck did he get my number?
“Everything alright?” Claire groans, barely audible from her side of the bed.
Setting the phone down on the table, he rolls onto his side and puts an arm around Claire’s waist. “That guy I was telling you about last night? He wants me to go to a gig with him tonight.”
“That sounds nice,” she says, still half asleep.
Bennett grunts, too groggy to explain to her why it’s not nice.
It’s never occurred to Bennett to go see Roots Manuva. He’s never looked up the artist’s tour dates or even wondered when his next release might be coming out. As far as Bennett is concerned, Roots Manuva performs every day in his ears and that’s all he needs to know. He’s never thought about what other Manuva fans might look or act like.
He doesn’t really want to know. The music is personal to him. Why would he want to share Roots Manuva with a whole bunch of strangers, people who are probably more obsessed with the man than he is? Why would he want to know who loves the thing he loves more than he does? That’d be like finding out about Jeff all over again.
As it caresses the cheeks of Claire’s behind, his dick returns to life. He’s not even in the mood, but recently his penis has developed a mind of its own, ready to go even when his mind is preoccupied by other things and indifferent to the crucial moments of arousal. Nevertheless, when she feels it growing, Claire rolls around to face him, buries her head under his neck, nuzzling and kissing his collarbone.
“I got an AirBed request yesterday morning,” he blurts out.
“Yeah?” she asks, confused by why this should come up now. She continues kissing his chest and down to his abdomen.
“This woman wants to let for a few months.”
She props her chin on the palm of her hand. “You have an erection. You do know that, right?”
“You can just ignore it.”
She grimaces and he can tell she’s wondering if his ambivalence has something to do with her.
“I’m just not sure what to do. I need to respond in the next four hours if I want to keep my Super Host status,” he says, staring up at the ceiling, where there’s a weird damp stain that looks like Mr. Potato Head. “If I decided to let to her, I’d probably need to do a contract outside of AirBed.”
“If that’s the case, then your Super Host status doesn’t matter, yeah?”
“Maybe, but I don’t want to give it up.”
“It’s not the Nobel Prize, Bennett,” she tells him, turning his chin to her so that he’s looking her in the eye.
No shit.
It’s not that he thinks his Super Host status is akin to world peace, obviously, but he has earned it and, like most people, he wants to keep the thing he’s earned. She doesn’t understand that what he’s considering here is bigger than an online status. It’s a possible big life change—selling the house he’s lived in for twenty years, or at least letting it long-term. He’s thinking about finally moving to East London, like he’s always wanted to do, and he’s wondering whether all this planning should take Claire into account. And here she is bloody teasing him about being a Super Host; a status that means he can charge top prices. And what does he do with that money? He takes her out to a bar where she can sip her disgusting lavender martinis, made from the very same flower that his grandmother used to keep in a vase on her toilet. If there were such a thing as a Super Bartender status, wouldn’t she take that seriously?
“Yes, I know,” he says, kissing her forehead.
“Do you think you could live in your studio for all that time?” she asks.
Tread carefully.
“I don’t know. I might need to find something else.”
Claire looks around her bedroom, which is crammed with the bed and built-in wardrobes. Only one wall is furniture-free and it has a big window looking out onto Stoke Newington High Street. Around the window, paperbacks are stacked up to shoulder height. “There’s probably not enough room here, right?”
He smiles. He doesn’t want to say no, especially not when she already knows the answer.
“You could continue to work in your studio during the day, but live here. That’s pretty much what you’ve been doing anyway.”
She’s not wrong, but for Bennett, the magic of this arrangement is that it’s unspoken. He’s not sure he’s ready for happy circumstance to become blueprint. She raises an eyebrow, keeping her eyes locked on his. He can tell that she’s not going to let him wriggle out of this.
“Don’t you enjoy getting nights off from me?” he says.
She hits his chest with the back of her hand. “What you mean is, you enjoy getting your nights off. Don’t turn this around on me.”
Damn, she’s smart.
“It’s a big decision,” he concedes.
“I guess you’d better make it in the next four hours,” she says, throwing back the duvet and standing up stark naked in the morning sun, “or you’ll lose your precious status.”
* * *
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It wasn’t a full-fledged argument that ensued after that, but certainly some passive-aggressive sparring, the kind of thing Bennett was used to having been married. Claire’s suggestion that he stay with her while he’s letting out the house is sensible; after all, he can still use his studio, which would alleviate the necessity of finding a larger residence, at least for now. Still, it seems obvious to him that what Claire’s suggesting is more of a life trajectory than a practical solution to a problem. What happens when his house becomes vacant again? Does he move back? What happens if he decides to sell it? When he’s looking for a new place, is he shopping for one or two people? Once you move in with someone you don’t then move out, not unless you’re breaking up, right? By moving in with her for a few months, what she’s really suggesting is the first in a line of dominoes, set to tip over—and God knows what’s at the end of that line. When he told her he needed some more time to think it over, she suggested that, yes, he should do that; in his own home, not hers. He wanted to point out, that if they were to move in together, she wouldn’t be able to kick him out every time she’s angry with him. But she didn’t look like she was in the mood to let him have the last word, so he let it go.
* * *
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By nine, he’s on the platform waiting for a train back to West London. Not sure what to say, he still hasn’t responded to Carl about the gig. He’s inclined to make an excuse, because he’s worried Carl will ruin his love for Roots Manuva. Carl ruins everything. He looks up at the timetable. Still fifteen minutes until the next train.
“Mr. D!”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
He doesn’t need to look up. Richard’s presence comes with an olfactory warning, a potent, sweet and sour combination of BO and Lynx body spray. If only the young man could understand that covering up bad smells isn’t the same as getting rid of them.
Bennett smiles as Richard and another young man approach, probably the guy he pulled at some club last night, although he doesn’t look like Richard’s type, meaning he doesn’t look like Bennett. This kid is kind of preppy, wearing an oxford shirt, khakis, and boat shoes with no socks. It’s a look Bennett would normally criticize if he wasn’t himself currently in his paint clothes, flip-flops, and yesterday’s underwear.
“What brings you to Dalston this fine morning, Mr. D?” Richard slaps him playfully on the arm, looking him up and down, “In your studio duds, no less.”
The preppy kid stares down at his Sperry Topsiders, his wavy blond fringe falling in front of his eyes.
“Heading home,” Bennett says. “You?” Because if he can get Richard talking about himself, maybe there’s a chance he won’t have to explain his own circumstances any further.
“Off to work. The people need their coffee! Oh my God, we have to call Mia!”
“No need,” Bennett says, trying not to sound panicked. “I’ll call her later.”
Richard strokes Bennett’s shoulder with one hand, as he pulls his phone from his bag with the other. “Don’t be ridiculous, we’re all just standing here!”
The other guy’s eyes wander around the platform. Bennett gives the kid an awkward smile, because he looks like he might throw up, probably from the combination of last night’s vodka and Richard’s stench. And it can’t be easy to watch the guy you went home with last night, stroking the arm of an older man. Bennett backs up a few steps, out of Richard’s reach, while the kid fiddles with his phone.
“MIA! You’ll never guess who I am standing next to on the train platform!” He uses his paparazzi voice, like he’s a reporter for TMZ and Bennett is Ed Sheeran.
Bennett
considers ripping the phone from his hand and throwing it onto the tracks. He can hear Mia’s muffled and indifferent voice, “Okay. Then tell me.”
Richard’s date starts jumping in place, like he’s nervous or really needs a piss.
“It’s your dad!” Richard sings through the phone, smiling a reality-TV smile.
“Seriously?” Her voice elevates, so that Bennett can clearly hear her. Oddly, she’s the one that sounds panicked. “Is Calum still with you?”
The other guy looks at Richard and shrugs his shoulders. All the color has drained from his face.
Who the fuck is Calum? This guy?
Richard looks over at Bennett, dumbfounded, and then at Calum, terrified, and his TV smile disappears. “Yeah.”
“Put my dad on the phone,” Mia demands.
Bennett takes the phone from Richard and walks down the platform, away from Richard and Calum.
“Hello, darling,” he says, sounding fatherly, jammy, and warm.
“Why are you in Dalston?” There’s no warmth in his daughter’s voice. He can picture her on the other end with the phone, standing with one hand on her hip, the way she did when she was a little kid, demanding an explanation.
“Who’s Calum?” He smiles at her, even though he knows she can’t see it.
“Fuck sake, Dad.”
“You can tell me over breakfast.”
* * *
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They agree to meet at a greasy spoon a couple doors down from Mia’s flat. After giving Richard his phone back, Bennett introduced himself to Calum. A not entirely unpleasant introduction, considering the little shit is probably fucking his daughter. Polite and shy—bordering on sheepish—he, like Bennett, played with his hair when he was nervous, which he had parted heavily to the right. He could be a spokesman for Tory youth, this kid—a young Boris Johnson with a slightly more appealing face, Bennett thinks, though he intends to reserve judgment. After all, looking like Boris Johnson isn’t so much a judgment as an unfortunate coincidence.