Girls' Night In

by Jessica Adams

Rudy can feel his libido rising as he walks.

  In the park, Rudy picks up a reasonable looking stick – about a foot long with a good wide berth and no sharp bits – and tosses it skywards. It spirals across the horizon a few times before coming to a halt underneath a bouffant horse chestnut. Mojo is there almost before it’s landed, skidding to a halt and having to retrace his steps a little. He locks his powerful jaws round the stick and brings it back to Rudy.

  ‘Good boy … good boy.’ Rudy buries his fingers into the warm ruff of thick hair under Mojo’s chin and gives him a good tickle. He picks up the stick from where the dog left it at his feet and throws it again. He watches the huge animal gallop off into the distance for a while and then turns his gaze to the bench at the foot of the hill. Is she there? He tucks his hands into his pockets and starts the steep walk back down towards the bench. There is someone sitting there, hard to tell even if it’s a man or a woman from this distance. His pace quickens. Mojo appears at his side and joins him as he walks purposefully downhill, his rubber-soled suede boots squeaking against the greasy tarmac path underfoot.

  A shape emerges from the undefined blob sitting on the bench. It has bare shoulders and brown hair. Could be. Could be her. The hair is long – yes, it is definitely her – and is held back with a black plastic claw-type-thing – reminds Rudy of an eagle’s foot. He loves that thing.

  She turns briefly to watch a hyperactive Highland terrier tear past in pursuit of a pigeon. Her nose, in profile, is perfectly straight, like it’s been hand-finished with a plane. Her mouth is turned up ever so slightly into a small smile and she’s wearing that dress again. That dress that Rudy loves so much. It’s a sort of crushed velvet and tie-dyed about ten different shades of claret and bottle green. It has very thin shoulder straps and, as witnessed on the one occasion that Rudy has seen her walking, a skirt of the perfect weight and shape to be easily inflated by the slightest gust of wind, revealing an extra inch or two of her lovely legs. There’s no wind today, though. It’s bright and still and excitingly warm, no clouds in the sky at all, save for a few smudges to the east that look like they’ve been left there by grubby-fingered children. Parliament Hill is as busy as you’d expect it to be on the warmest day of the year – there are people everywhere, stretched out on the grass, semi-clothed and sunbathing.

  Rudy approaches the bench and considers his next move. Where to sit? Right here at the furthest edge of the bench, away from her? Towards the middle, closer to her, but still leaving her ‘personal space’ unencroached upon? Or should he just take his chances and plonk himself down there at her side? His breathing becomes hard and heavy as he tries to scrape together the nerve to sit down. In and out. In and out. In and out. Just do it, just do it, just … bloody … well … do … it. His breath by now is audible and the girl turns to meet his eye. She looks uncomfortable. Fuck. He lets his breath go, takes the other end of the bench and pulls a battered old paperback from the inside pocket of his jacket. Doesn’t know what it is. Some old shit that Maria lent him a couple of years ago. ‘Oh, you’ll love it. It’s so funny and so observant about men and life and relationships. You must read it.’ So he’d just smiled and said thanks and tucked it into the bowels of his overcoat thinking, ‘How many years do I have to know you, Maria, before you’ll understand that I don’t like reading, I don’t like books, I don’t like words, I don’t like other people’s thoughts in my head – how many books are you going to lend me before you realize that I’m just not interested?’ But then he’d noticed that it was written by the same guy who wrote the book that the girl in the Velvet Dress was reading. So last week he’d pulled the book out of his pocket and he’d started reading it. And it was quite funny, he supposed. About a man who runs a record shop in North London who’s useless in relationships. It might have reminded him of himself if he had a job or if he ever actually had any relationships.

  Rudy opens the book and then inexplicably clears his throat rather loudly, as if trying to attract someone’s attention. The girl cocks her head a little in his direction and Rudy decides to turn the throat-clear into a full-on coughing fit. The girl turns away and immerses herself visibly deeper into the book on her lap. So, no sympathy, thinks Rudy. Hmmm … interesting. Very interesting. Not even a flicker of concern. She’s either a heartless bitch or she’s just very shy. Rudy decides to go with the ‘very shy’ option. It fits in better with his overall fantasy of her. If she turned out to be a heartless bitch, then he’d just have been wasting his time every Saturday morning for the past six weeks.

  That was when she’d first appeared – six weeks ago – from nowhere and straight into his life, just like that. The first time he’d seen her he was walking so fast that all he could make out was a blur of crushed velvet and shiny hair. The second time, he’d passed her slowly enough to distinguish a perfect nose and a paperback novel. The third week, he’d approached her from behind and been enchanted by the plastic claw holding her hair back from her face, its talons digging brutally into the thickness of her hair. By the fourth week he’d got up the nerve to sit on the bench with her, but had stood up again after less than a minute and continued on his way. It was last week that he’d had the brainwave about the book. It gave him something to do while he sat here, something to quell the awkwardness and embarrassment of the situation.

  The girl in the Velvet Dress looks away from her book very briefly and smiles ever so slightly at Mojo, who’s eyeing her dolefully from where he’s stretched out under the bench.

  Rudy smiles to himself. Nothing warms Rudy to a stranger more quickly than a flattering remark or an affectionate attitude towards his dog. This girl on the bench, she’d given Mojo a nice look the first time she’d seen him, too, that same half-smile she’d used just now when the Highland terrier had run past her. She obviously likes dogs, which is good. Which is vital, in fact. I mean, Mojo is his best friend. Now, if she liked Muddy Waters and B. B. King and could play a bit of flamenco guitar as well, then she might just turn out to be his perfect woman.

  Not that he’ll ever find out. Of course not. He isn’t going to talk to her or anything. He never does. Because the woman with the Velvet Dress and the Hair Claw isn’t the first woman that Rudy has shared a bench with on Parliament Hill. Oh no. This year there’s been the woman with the Blue Nail Polish and Jaunty Hat and before that the woman with the Pink Nose Stud and the Pigskin Rucksack and then the woman with the Raffia Bag and the Diamante Hair Grips, the one with the Dangly Earrings and the Snakeskin Shoes and the one with the Ethnic Ankle Bracelet and the Big Silver Rings. Rudy likes accessories. Not for himself, but on women. He loves them. Women can hide behind clothes, behind fashion, but it’s through accessories that women give themselves away.

  So – what does Rudy know about this stranger, about the girl in the Velvet Dress?

  She’s single, that’s for sure. They all are, all these girls in the park. Of course they are. Why on earth would they be sitting alone in the park on a Saturday afternoon if they had someone to be with?

  The velvet tells Rudy that she’s sensuous, receptive to textures, likes a bit of luxury in her life. He imagines her to be the type of woman who might stop at a posh Belgian chocolate shop on her way home from work and ask for just one Champagne Truffle, gift-wrapped in a tiny little box. No wolfed down Mars Bars for this girl, no KitKat on the way to work, Twix bar in her office drawer or gobbled Cadbury’s Wispa when she thought no one was looking. Just a brief moment of pure luxury.

  He imagines her taking her chocolate home, all aquiver with excitement and then making herself a proper cup of tea, in a pot, with leaves.

  He imagines her with a cat, a Persian, maybe, or a Ragdoll. Something with luxuriant fur. She probably buys him a piece of cod every now and then, or poaches a chicken breast for him, in milk.

  The dress would have been a treat, too. Something she’d seen in a shop window, fallen in love with, saved up for for weeks. It would have been tissue-wrapped and handed to her in a shiny paper bag
with rope handles. She still keeps the bag, in the back of her wardrobe. A souvenir of a perfect moment.

  The girl in the Velvet Dress slips her finger between the next two pages of her book and chuckles almost imperceptibly under her breath at something she’s just read. She turns the page over and sighs contentedly.

  Rudy clears his throat again and eyes her surreptitiously. Were you watching, you might think that he’s about to talk to her, that he’s getting up the nerve. But you’d be wrong. Rudy doesn’t need to talk to her, he doesn’t need to get to know her – he already knows so much. He’s never spoken to any of the women. That would just spoil everything. He prefers getting to know women without having to talk to them. That way he doesn’t have to find out that they’re thick, or bitchy, or boring, or silly, or shallow, or that they have a horrible accent or an ugly voice, or that they just really don’t want to talk to him. At all. Better just not to try. Better just to sit here on the bench and breathe them in, work them out from the telltale clues they subconsciously leave all over the place. The body language, the jewellery, the book, the accessories. The way they react to Mojo, the way they react to him, the way they react to the weather and to things going on around them. Bitten nails or long nails, short hair or long hair, clean shoes or scruffy shoes – you could learn more about a person’s levels of self-esteem looking at signs like that than you could in a whole year of psychotherapy. Probably.

  But what about affection, you might ask, what about contact, what about sex? The thing is, you see, Rudy doesn’t actually need any physical contact with his bench women. He has Maria for that sort of thing, the barmaid at the Lady Somerset. Naughty little Maria with her uplift bra and her thick lipstick and her tiny little buttocks and lethal hipbones that protrude like shark fins from either side of her abdomen. She’s half his size all over, and at least ten years older than him. She’s on for anything, any time. She isn’t interested in chat or love or going out or anything. She just likes coming back to his flat after the pub closes and crawling all over his big long body for as long as he’ll let her. She’s great. But she’s nowhere near his ideal woman. She’s way too thin, for a start. But she gives him exactly what he needs and in a funny sort of way, he loves her for it.

  The girl in the Velvet Dress looks at her watch (plain, leather strap, looks like she’s had it for years), folds down the corner of her page, closes it and slips it in to her bag (drawstring-top leather duffel). She stands up, hitches the bag on to her shoulder and turns to leave.

  And then something unbelievable happens. She stops, turns around and looks at Rudy. She stares at him for what feels like at least ten minutes and then opens her lips, very slowly. Her cheeks starts reddening and she begins twisting her hands together self-consciously.

  She smiles. ‘Bye,’ she says. She sticks one hand up at him, stiffly, palm-first, and begins walking away.

  ‘Yeah,’ mutters Rudy, sitting bolt upright, dropping his book at his feet and, a few seconds too late, ‘yeah – see you.’ She’s already halfway into the distance. ‘See you.’

  He watches her amble down the hill, her hands in her pockets, her head downcast.

  Jesus.

  Jesus Christ.

  What was that? What the fuck was that?

  Rudy leans down to pick up his book, his head swimming. She spoke to him. The girl in the Velvet Dress spoke to him. She said ‘bye’. What does it mean? What does she want?

  He frowns and tucks the book back into his inside pocket. Why did she speak to him?

  And then a terrible realization dawns upon him. She’s been coming here on purpose just to see him! Every week, the same bench, the same time. It’s obvious. She’s … she’s … stalking him. He’s being stalked by a mad, obsessive, lonely, unloved, unhinged woman. Oh Jesus!

  He stands up quickly and looks around him, making sure she’s no longer in sight. She isn’t.

  ‘Come on, boy.’ He slaps his thigh and Mojo joins him as he begins to walk back down the hill.

  Rudy needs a drink now. His hands are shaking slightly and a light film of sweat clings to his brow. His pace quickens as he hurries down the tarmac path, towards Highgate Road, towards the Lady Somerset, looking over his shoulder every now and then as he walks.

  Stella Duffy

  Stella Duffy is an award-winning writer who has written thirteen novels, over fifty short stories, and ten plays published in fifteen languages. She is also a theatre-maker and the Co-Director of Fun Palaces, the grassroots campaign for communities and cultural access. She lives in London.

  A Swimmer’s Tale

  Stella Duffy

  I have come here to escape. To forget about the love that never was. (Not true of course, but right now, I would prefer the never was.) I can bear never was far more easily than never will again. Less present pain in return for denying earlier pleasure. I am raw and can no longer imagine what the earlier pleasure might have been. It is all hurt, all loss. And still there is no word, no sign, from you. I am melodrama abandonment, but find no enjoyment in my over-the-top. I’ve always placed far too much hope in the possibility of eternal clairvoyance for lovers. The possibility of love for lovers.

  Girlfriends and boyfriends and ex-lovers and maybe-lovers and concerned mother smiles have all offered helpful advice. The same helpful advice. I was counselled warm beaches, hot sun, hotter bodies. I was counselled sun and sea and surf and alcohol and illicit drugs if at all possible and beyond that, over and above the hedonism of sinning skin, I was counselled hedonism of the flesh. Let them get in. Anyone, anyflesh, anyman, anywoman. Just let someone in, not too deep, but far enough, fill enough of that aching gap and then you won’t notice it quite so much. The pain, the loss, the yawning void of the full urn on my mantelpiece. (You’d think after almost a year I’d have done something with it, scattered them somewhere, for God’s sake. My friends think it’s time I did something with it. They’re quite possibly right. Their Tightness is why I’m here.)

  My friends think it’s high time I did something with you. But I’m still waiting for a sign, a smile, a cool breeze in the middle of the night from a draft-proofed double-glazed window. You promised you’d let me know it was all right. I’m still waiting. How hard can it be for you to break back through? Is your love really so held by traditional physics? Where’s the quantum leap of desire you promised me? I’m looking for miracles and seeing darkness magnified through tears. I’m looking for hope and losing you to black holes.

  The obvious correctness of my friends’ and family’s suggestions though, is why I’m here now, why I’m by the sea. Come to find myself again. (They actually meant come to lose you for the first time, come to let you go, though no one had the guts to say so.) I think perhaps I was supposed to try Barbadian lust, Bondi bonding, cruise the cruisers and find one for me. (Maybe not the latter, even my most desperate mates don’t think seventy-year-old rich Americans are my type.) Instead I have chosen Wales. Anglesea. Peninsula insular. Like me. Like I’ve become. I used to be the outgoing one of our pairing, the loud one. There seems little point now. Without my other there is nothing for my shadow to fall against. I find I am undefined.

  You found me too loud always. In bed, in bath, in Bath. In hotels especially. Too thin walls letting through my too loud desire. You tried to hush me, shut me up. You tried to shut me. Impossible. I blossomed open, time-lapse photography fast, when I met you. And stayed that way – it’s why daily life scrapes against my open flesh now – I do not know how to close up again. Not since you. You loved to go away, summer killed you in London and you made a motorway maid of me too. We found the finest – and grottiest – hotels in the land, and the so many others. As long as they were within the reach of the sea, or sunshine, or just a running tap if that was all we could manage. You needed water and I needed you. Need you.

  At first I thought this was a mistake. There was too much of a sense that you might be round the next corner, hiding in the headway. I kidded myself for a whole half a day that we had ar
ranged for you to meet me later. I do not like to dine alone. It takes no time at all to eat a three-course meal by myself and even the best intentioned kitchen staff cannot maintain the pace when there is no knife-and-fork banter to fill up the clock space necessary for perfectly sautéed meat. You did not come to the table. I offered your glass to Elijah, but he wasn’t thirsty either. I drank it myself instead. I have drunk alone far too many of the bottles I used to share with you. It’s one way to get to sleep. It’s the only way to get to sleep. Which is still infinitely preferable to waking up.

  Milos. Cycladian sea island. Circadian rhythms shot to fuck by the fuck shooting through me to you and back again. We are on a tourist boat charting the island circumference. You marvel at my bravery as I dive into cliche-clear waters. I marvel at your bravery as you dive into me. I swim beneath the sea and look up to you, magnified by the depths of sea-through ocean. You are an amplified version and the water might be sea, might be me. My love/lust/lost-in-you tears make you huge. You fill the space of my vision. You fill the space of me.

  The first night here it rained seven hours solid. Howling rain pelted by a broken wind against my window. I knew how it felt. I lay awake as I do so often now, waiting for you. Wondering if here you might be able to find me again. I worry that you are lost out there, elemental soul beating against closed doors unable to worm-hole your way through to me. And then too, I worry that there’s nothing to worry about. That there is none of you left. That the reason you have not managed the Cathy/Heathcliff reunion we promised each other is because there is nothing to reunite. I am real, corporeal. You are not. I should hope that your present nothingness is the truth, hope for your sake that you aren’t wandering the darkness trying to find me. Should, don’t. My grief is still selfish enough to deny you a peaceful nothing. I just want to touch you again. (And even when I say that, I know it’s not true. One touch would never be enough. I would keep you with me forever.) Your departure has made a genie-keeper of me. I’d lock you back in that urn quick as kiss you. I’d lock you back in my flesh quick as love you. Love you quick again.