Frozen

by Richard Burke

  We danced. And soon enough, as the floor filled, a ginger-haired boy began to dance around us. She opened our circle of two to admit him, and then we were three. And then they were two. I returned to the smoky alcove, now the sole custodian of slopped drinks, purses and coats.

  A slow track came on, and the groups and singles filtered away to their tables, leaving pairs of strangers eyeing each other uncertainly. Some slipped into a clinch, others not. Gail clamped her man firmly to her and went straight for the snog. The other man who had been with Verity and Gail had disappeared. Her other two friends were at another table, talking to a group of three men. Verity shrugged and smiled at Ginger, and he gave her a philosophical grimace. She came and flopped next to me. I smiled at her, and she clutched my arm and smiled back.

  She drained her second Malibu. I went to buy her another, and amazingly, the barman served me without a word. When I got back, Ginger was leaning over her, talking. I nudged him aside to pass the drink, and he stood back, fidgeting. As I sat next to her, Verity tweaked her eyebrows at him and grinned. He grinned back, and disappeared into the thickening crowd. She shuffled closer to me and leaned across to chink her glass, inaudibly, against mine on the table. I chinked back, pushing closer to her in turn, and swigged.

  People swayed in silhouette, hair fringed with slowly cycling colour: red, green, blue, yellow, red. The dry-ice machine roared, and clouds of smoke rolled out across the floor, swirling round the dancers' feet.

  Later, I sat with my second water-flavoured pint and watched them kiss. They were perched on a brass rail that ringed part of the dance-floor, craning towards each other, necks extended, bodies not yet touching. She groped for his hand and planted it on her waist. Without unlocking their lips, he manoeuvred round to stand in front of her and squashed himself against her, his thigh between hers, her throat arched up to meet his mouth. His hands running down her sides, stroking up, her skirt riding higher. Lights pulsing, music pumping, each thick beat harder and more forceful than the one before.

  Later, she came over for her coat, trailing him behind her on a fingertip. She mouthed, “See ya, gorgeous,” wrinkled her nose confidently, and winked. They drifted together towards the exit.

  I waited, so that I wouldn't see them again outside. The music was a chant: Go, Harry, leave, Harry, go, Harry, now—go now, Harry, leave, Harry, now, now, now. I left.

  The air was sharp and still. The concrete buildings shone in the orange streetlight. I walked towards the bike racks. My ears were ringing in a suddenly silent world.

  Two in the morning.

  They were there, on a low wall by the bikes. She was on his lap, one arm round his neck, the other hand drifting over his chest, with her fingers poking through the gaps in his shirt. One of his hands was on her waist; the other was up her skirt. Her eyes were closed, his open. He saw me, and hitched his hand higher on her thigh. She moaned through his mouth, urged herself towards him. His gaze moved away from me, unconcerned.

  I bent to unlock my bike.

  “Harry!”

  She unwound herself from Ginger, straightened her skirt and tottered over to me. “You going, Harry?”

  I could barely hear her. My head still sang in time to the music—Go, Harry, go, Harry, now, go now. I nodded and bent back to the rusted lock. The key snagged in it. I jerked it savagely.

  She stood, uncertain, tight to herself and shivering. I put my leg over the bike and flicked the pedal into position.

  “Thanks for coming,” she muttered, not looking at me.

  I hefted my weight on to the pedal.

  “Hug,” she blurted suddenly, and held out her arms.

  Stiffly, we hugged, her yielding towards me, me astride my bike. She tilted up her face and reached for my mouth. I pulled back, turning it into a kind of peck.

  Not too close, Harry.

  Never too close.

  “I love you, Harry,” she said drowsily. Drunkenly. “You're a good mate.” She nestled her cheek on my collarbone.

  “Verity? Come home?”

  With a slow effort, she straightened and took a step back. She sniffed hard, and her gaze seemed to clear. “Wassa time?”

  “Two.”

  “Be along in a mo’.” She nodded sagely.

  She staggered back to Ginger and sat astride him again, sank her head towards him, closing her eyes. I watched for long enough to know that she wasn't coming.

  I cycled home in the cold moonlight, the wheels of my bike humming on the silent streets. In north Oxford, I ducked left on a whim and followed the canal. I could barely make out the path, a dark gravel strip between the dark water and the darker verge.

  Home, I manoeuvred my bike through the narrow gate and round the side of the house, quietly cursing the shrubbery and my still-ringing ears. I caught a movement and looked up. Lit by the moon through a window, Gabriel's face was flat shapes and dark gashes. He let the curtain drop, and the windows became as lifeless and blank as they had been when I arrived. Verity's curtains were open, the room still in darkness. Somewhere in there was her bed, her clothes, mirrors, hairbrushes and perfume.

  Still looking up, my face offered to the moon, I tripped over a tussock and fell flat on the grass. It was wet. It tickled my face. It was embarrassing.

  And I wished she had been there with me. To laugh.

  CHAPTER 25

  ONE AFTERNOON A week, Adam played squash.

  I walked along the viewing gallery. The air smelt of sweat and hot rubber. The whipcrack of ball and racquet echoed off the walls. Adam was playing on the last court of five, on his own, hitting the ball in an easy rhythm from backhand to forehand, and back again. I watched him for several minutes before a particularly wild slice dropped the ball limply at the front of the court. He scooped it up, and as he turned he saw me. “Harry! How are you? Come on down.”

  When I opened the door to the court, he was playing again. He deftly caught the ball on his racquet.

  “Fancy a game?” He jerked his head towards where his kit-bag was tucked away. There was a second racquet, with a towel and his glasses on top of it. I shook my head. “Mind if I carry on?”

  He settled back into his rhythm, step–lean–hit–return, step–lean–hit–return... a steady beat of pneumatic impacts.

  “Glad to see you, actually...” Thwack. “... Been thinking of you...” Thwack. “... This isn't social, I take it?”

  I had to time my reply to his strokes. Between smash and bounce, I said, “There's something I need to ask you.”

  “Yes?” He grunted each time he hit the ball. His face was slick with sweat and his shirt was sticking to him.

  “About Verity.”

  “Well, that's a surprise.”

  “Oh, fuck's sake, Adam...”

  “All right, Harry. Chill. I care too, remember.”

  Chill—whack. I care—whack.

  “Actually, that's why I want to talk to you.”

  The ball bounced past him and rolled slackly to a halt near the back wall. He stared at me, breathing hard, his eyes wide.

  “Shoot,” he said cautiously.

  I stayed against the wall, but it was a struggle not to pace up and down or wave my hands around.

  “You stopped seeing her months ago, yes? Cut her dead. Your words.”

  “I wish you'd—oh, forget it. Yes. Yes, I did.”

  I was back in the movies. I asked it casually, the confidently dropped bombshell. “So why was she still ringing you?”

  Only Adam didn't stick to the script. He should have been defensive, or shocked, he should have broken down. But all he did was nod, equally casually. “She rang all the time.”

  I was nonplussed. “But you said...”

  “I didn't say anything. I told you when I finished with her, that's all.”

  I started to get angry. Back on script. “You lied, Adam!” Well, not angry as such—more crabby. Still, I can dream, can't I?

  Adam put his racquet down carefully. He started doing sit-ups.
>
  “Where's...” Oof. “... this...” Oof. “… coming from, chum?”

  “What I want, chum, is the truth.” I handed him the letter I had received that morning.

  Verity's phone bill, updated to the day she fell. There were calls to several numbers I recognised: me, Sam, the studio—and Adam, at home and on his mobile. Well, fine, I had thought, I may not like it, but they were seeing each other. Then I had looked at the dates. The calls continued right through the three-month period of the bill; there was at least one a week, often many more. The last call—the one that had caught my attention—was on the morning of the day she had fallen, and had lasted nearly forty minutes. Adam was the last person Verity had ever called.

  He stopped doing sit-ups and studied the bill, squinting without his glasses. Then he handed it back to me, and sat examining his squash racquet. “Oh, God...” He rubbed his face.

  “Adam, you lied! Again!” I couldn't quite believe how cool he was being.

  He shook his head behind his hands, and then dragged his gaze up to meet mine. “Yes, I did, Harry. I lied. Again. I lied. Oh, fuck fitness, I'll buy you a late lunch.” He stood, wincing at the effort.

  I waited for him in the club lobby, sipping a revolting espresso, and wondering what he would tell me this time that I could possibly believe.

  *

  “The thing is,” Adam said, between mouthfuls of steak, “I love Sarah. That's the thing to remember. I mean, I really do love her.”

  I shoved a couple of herby sausages around my plate, in a soup of gravy and mash.

  He watched me, chewing. “I didn't know what to do, Harry,” he said. “She just kept calling. And I had finished with her, months ago. It was supposed to be fun, just fun.” He waved his fork about, as though he could describe something with it. Then he was still, suddenly downcast. “You've no idea, Harry. She was ringing my mobile five, six times a day. Rang Rita at the office endlessly. Then Verity threatened me. Said she'd tell Sarah it was still going on.” He sniffed reflectively. “I told her it was definitely over; she could say what she wanted.”

  Adam gave up on his steak, and took a slug of wine. He finished the glass in two swigs, and poured himself more. He offered me a refill and I shook my head—I was getting wiser, belatedly.

  “Anyway. She went ahead and did it. She made sure Sarah knew. Started ringing me at home when she knew I wasn't there. Wouldn't leave a name or a message. Sarah guessed who it was, of course.”

  His glass was empty again. He cupped and swirled it. A meniscus of wine spread around the inside, thinner and thinner. He sucked at his lips pensively. “Well,” he muttered to himself, “there you go.”

  I'd hardly said a word since the squash court. I wasn't about to start now.

  Adam prodded his steak unenthusiastically. My bangers and mash were cold. He waved at the waitress for another bottle of wine, looking at me speculatively, but I wasn't going there. Not again. He ordered a bottle anyway, and set about another full glass.

  “But excuses don't matter, do they?” he continued. “The point is, I lied. It was easier to say I wasn't speaking to Verity than it was to explain why I still was. She was getting so... intense.”

  He looked at me earnestly, his eyes magnified through his glasses, his pupils wide. They were slightly misty, raw from the wine. Whatever he read in my face, it disappointed him. He dropped his head into his hands and rubbed savagely, before hauling himself upright again with a huge effort.

  He filled my glass, and drained his own. I made a mental note just to leave the glass alone: if it was already full, he couldn't top it up. The waitress collected my untouched sausages and what remained of his steak. She put dessert menus in front of us, and we ignored them.

  Adam drew a pattern on the tablecloth over and over with a butter knife, which she had forgotten to clear.

  “I need your help, Harry,” he said. “I don't deserve it. I don't even know how to ask for it anymore.”

  “Oh, do you?” I said—more gently than I had intended. I knew I shouldn't, but I felt sorry for him, damn him. He did need me, I could see it in him: not so much to talk, but to sit and watch a sunset, or the traffic streaming along the Oxford ring-road, or the foam swirling in the river, at once caught and adrift. And for all his deceits, I needed him too.

  “Sarah wants to leave me,” he said bleakly. He glanced at me, and then dropped his eyes to the tablecloth again. The butter knife traced an endless loop, round and round and round. “Those phone calls... Verity really went for it. She was ringing Sarah all the time. Screaming at her, all sorts of stuff—pretty damned explicit, some of it. Scary, too.”

  He stared out of the window, blankly, before dragging his attention back. His eyes were watery. “We'd agreed it was just a fling, Harry. I swear. But when I ended it, she clung on.” He paused. “And now Sarah's hardly talking to me. And when she does, she just screams at me. Throws things. A couple of nights ago she locked me out and I had to go and find a hotel.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezed his eyes shut.

  The waitress walked over. She opened her mouth to ask if we wanted dessert. I caught her eye in time, and mouthed, “Bill, please.” When she came back with it, Adam didn't even notice. He traced a finger round the base of his glass, lips pursed. “She scares me, you know. She's not in control anymore. She's sobbing one minute, violent the next. You should have seen our last row. She actually threw a knife at me, can you believe that?”

  He chuckled sorrowfully. He rolled up his sleeve and showed me a line of bruises on his forearm.

  “We're eating off plastic these days,” he muttered. “She's smashed all the crockery. But the worst is, after the knife I hit her back. I just couldn't make her listen, and she wasn't stopping, and... I hit her, Harry.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him I understood, that I had seen first hand what Sarah was capable of—but I caught myself in time. I had promised her. Let others do the betraying. I would be true to my word.

  Adam saw straight through me. He laughed softly. “I do know you went to see her, Harry. She told me. Actually, you're her latest weapon.” His face contorted as he imitated her. “Harry's got the decency to apologise, Harry's a gentleman, I bet Harry's not screwing other women...” He laughed bitterly.

  More betrayal, then—from Sarah this time. But then, hadn't I betrayed Adam by going to see her in the first place? And hadn't that been because Adam had lied to me? None of us were angels.

  “Yeah,” Adam sniffed. “Enough said. Forget it. Still, don't go and see her again, Harry. Please. Things are fragile enough without other people sticking their oar in.”

  He reached for the bill, waving away my offer to split it, and we left.

  *

  We shared the silence, sitting on a bench in the park and watching the world. A group of boys were playing a loose game of cricket, still in their school uniforms, ties loosened and shirt buttons undone.

  “I'm scared, Harry.” Adam laughed self-consciously. “She could kill me, Harry. I mean it.” Adam's tone was reflective, sad. “If she doesn't do it with the knife, she'll do it in the divorce courts. She's going to rip me to shreds.”

  I thought of her foot crunching down on shattered crockery. Her finger pressing every knot of wood on the tabletop. Her distant, nervous eyes. Her voice: You realise that you're really, really angry...

  The boys gave up playing cricket and began to toss the ball to each other. The aim was to throw it so hard and low that the other boy couldn't possibly catch it. The game was leisurely, brutal, slow and savage.

  “What do you want, Adam?” I asked, gently. The truth is, I don't find it easy to stay angry for very long. I felt sorry for him.

  “I want her back, Harry.” He said it heavily. “I want the way we were. The real Sarah. The one who doesn't throw knives.” He raised a hand to stop my obvious thought. “I know. My fault for screwing Verity.”

  Screwing. An ugly word. But then, why should the truth be pretty?

  “T
rue,” I said.

  “Yeah, true. And I shouldn't have lied.” He blinked hard, and sighed. “I need you, Harry. I need this.” He was waving his hand vaguely between us. “The way we used to be. No questions, no lies, no mysteries. I fucked up, Harry. I admit it. But I still need you.”

  It's hard to hate a person you've known for twenty years. Filmy eyes, puffy face, serious mouth, jaw set. I had never seen so much of Adam before. A single mistake had shot cracks through everything that mattered to him. And I wondered, Could I? Could I just put it all behind us, start again?

  He searched my eyes, knitted his eyebrows. “Never again, Harry,” he said. “No more lies, no more fuck-ups. I swear.” He sniffed another rich lungful, the scent of trees and grass. “And Harry?” He squatted in front of me and peered earnestly into my eyes. “Thanks.”

  *

  We got a taxi to the Ship, a pub by Wandsworth Bridge, and bagged an outside table. The view was a grey-painted derrick and a stretch of stagnant mud, but neither of us cared. The wind was blowing onshore, bringing the clammy scent of ooze. The wooden all-in-one table and bench rocked on the uneven paving, and spilled our drinks. The sky was big and clear and the blue was softening into evening.

  “Aren't you supposed to be at work?” I slurred.

  “Fuck 'em.” Adam raised his glass and grinned. I grabbed at mine to prevent it spilling when he set his down.

  A woman walked past, carrying drinks to another table. He swivelled to watch.

  “Hmmm. There you are, much more interesting than work. Which reminds me. You were saying in the taxi. Sam Someone. Give.”

  “She's Verity's partner,” I said defensively. “I like her.”