by Mike Stoner
—Leave him alone. At least he’d never have fallen for Bright Teeth there.
‘We’ll still do it. Sleep on the bus.’ Naomi is pulling my hand. ‘Come on.’
—Sleep on the bus, sounds good.
‘OK. That suits us.’ I stand.
‘What?’ she shouts over the cacophony of noise.
‘That suits me,’ I say. ‘That suits me.’
We arrive at Ghekko in two taxis. Julie’s is there first, and by the time we pull up she’s yelling at a confused-looking taxi driver. Geoff is standing slightly back from the scene looking worried as always and Marty is rubbing Julie’s back trying to calm her down. The rest of us drop out of our taxi; I’m the only one who actually falls onto his hands and knees.
‘Whoa there, Newbie. You OK?’ Kim helps me up.
‘Yes. Thanks. Not used to the drink.’ I brush myself down and see Julie throwing three notes onto the bonnet of the taxi.
‘And fuck you, you fucking racist,’ she says as she walks away, shaking her hair back and sticking her chin up in the air. The driver pounces on the notes before a warm breeze can float them off his car.
‘What was that about?’ Kim says as we all try to catch up with Julie. She’s already going through Ghekko’s doors.
‘Taxi quoted ten thousand and then charged twenty. Said ‘cos we were white we could afford more,’ Marty explains.
‘Then?’ says Kim.
‘Well Jules didn’t like that. Said he was a racist and she wanted the Indo rate.’
‘Driver’s got a point.’ Naomi is now knocking elbows as we go into the club.
‘Has he?’ I ask. ‘Shouldn’t we all be treated the same? If it happened back home…’
‘But we have got more mon…’ Geoff’s voice is lost on the other side of the door as deafening sound and blinding darkness engulf us.
I feel a flutter of panic in my chest. I wonder if it’s because of Old Me or the place, but Old Me stays quiet and keeps himself to himself; it must be the place.
We’re huddled together like worried sheep until our eyes adjust and a waiter comes to us with a torch. We follow and are shown some near-invisible tables and chairs that appear every now and then in the minimal disco lights. I grope for the back of my chair and lower myself onto the plastic. It feels like it’s been nicked from a classroom. I try to blink the darkness from my eyes and it works a little. There are only two sets of disco lights and a neon strobe in the corner of the room, which gives us all glowing purple eyes and skin and surreally bright white teeth. Naomi is sat next to me again and her face is suddenly covered in freckles unseen before. I give her a wide toothy grin and she laughs.
‘You look freaky,’ she says.
‘So do you. You’ve got so many freckles you’ve got a pizza face.’
Her smile falters for a second but then comes back, albeit less confidently.
I’m not too bothered. So what if I hurt her feelings. Get in there, Newbie; time to not give a shit. Even if I have to force it.
Drinks come. My eyes get used to the dark and people start appearing at the tables around us and in gloomy corners like beasts coming out of a mist.
Julie tugs on the waiter’s sleeve and says something in his ear. He nods and walks off.
‘Sorted,’ she yells across the table.
‘Good girl,’ Kim yells back, but I see the words more than hear them above the thump of bass.
‘What’s she asked for?’ I ask Naomi.
‘Obat.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Medicine.’
‘Medicine?’
‘Ecstasy.’
‘From the waiter?’
‘It’s how it works here. All these clubs push their own drugs.’
The waiter returns and hands Julie something. She hands over some money then offers pills out around the table. Geoff shakes his head and pushes his chair away from our circle. Jussy takes one and pops it in his mouth, Kim and Marty also. Naomi shakes her head. I shake mine; so much for not giving a shit. Wimp.
Julie gets up and comes round behind me, leans down and yells in my ear.
‘Go on. They’re good stuff in here.’
I shake my head again.
‘Go on. Chill out.’
I shake my head again.
‘Maybe later,’ I mouth at her.
She shrugs her shoulders and dance-walks her way back to her chair, little white bits of fluff glowing in her hair under the UV.
‘Never done it?’ asks Naomi.
Shake and point back at her.
She nods and says, ‘A couple of times. Not tonight though. Don’t want to be too stupid. Want to enjoy tomorrow.’
Julie and Jussy are now on the dance floor. There are three girls in tight jeans and a man dancing together and that’s it. Jussy has his eyes closed and is mostly dancing with his arms and Julie is spinning in circles, interweaving her hands above her head like some hippy chick in an old Woodstock documentary.
Kim rolls his head around on his shoulders while tapping along on the table. Marty is smiling to himself, watching Julie. Geoff gets up and raises his hand to us all.
‘You off?’ I shout.
He says into my ear, ‘Not my thing. You want to share a taxi?’
I squeeze a little don’t give a shit out and tell him I’m staying, even though something or someone in me is desperate to get out and go home to a safe bed.
‘OK.’ Geoff pats my shoulder and leaves.
One song, if that’s what they are, melts seamlessly into another, the same beat continuing from tune to tune. Beers become whis-keys and the taste stirs up the unwanted.
—You enjoying this? asks Laura.
—Sort of.
—You should take a pill. Be really stupid.
—I will if I want.
—Be a big boy. Shag old Freckles here later.
—I might. Can’t exactly shag you, can I?
—Think of me while you’re doing it.
—I probably will.
—That’s not very nice for Freckles, is it?
I get up and nearly knock my chair over, staggering away to leave Laura to her jealousy. I trip out onto the dance floor. Julie is still spinning but her eyes are now open. She sees me and smiles and runs her fingers through her hair, lifting it and letting it drop down over her face. She looks relaxed for the first time since I’ve met her.
My body parts move in no particular order. By luck one or two of them find a beat to follow. Naomi dances next to me and moves the right parts to the right time. Julie turns me back around to face her and her finger is between my lips, pushing something in. It’s small and round and sits on my tongue for a second seeping bitterness until Julie pinches my nose and I swallow.
‘Take your medicine,’ she yells into my ear. ‘Relax. Go with it.’ She ruffles my hair and spins off across the floor, bumping into the man with the three girls. They all laugh and Julie is part of their group now.
I turn back to Naomi and she is only inches away. Perfume and fresh body odour waft around her. Laura gets up and leaves.
Yeah, good. Bugger off.
The moments are flying around like leaves caught on a breeze; circling, rising, falling, circling, rising.
I catch one and me and Laura are running in the rain, laughing. I squint to try and see where we are. But the moment is blown from my hand. I go to grab another and I miss. There is only me and these moments flitting around, out of my grasp. I am reaching out in all directions but I can’t get hold of one, no matter how high I jump or how fast I move. I don’t want to lose them. I need them.
I finally close my fist over one and open it. I see her holding a melon to her nose in a supermarket. Then that too is lost, impossible to hold as a gust picks it up. It swirls off and joins the others spinning around in front of my eyes. The beating of his heart is loud and fast in my ears. I want to block it out, I want to be left alone and gather all these pieces up in my arms and hold them close so I can never lo
se them. I only manage to get my fingers on one sole moment: we watch James Stewart running up a street in the snow yelling, ‘Merry Christmas, merry Christmas everybody’, and she is curled up under my arm with her head on my chest. She says the lines along with Jimmy. Dampness through my T-shirt.
‘Are you crying?’ I ask.
‘Aren’t you?’ she says.
And I touch my eye and there is a drop of moisture in the corner.
The moment flits off. Darkness. I can see nothing, but I hear crisp little sounds around my ears, near and far, like bats circling in the night, audible in the blackness even though the drum of his heart is so strong I can feel it vibrating through me.
I grab out blindly, hoping to find something to hang onto, to fill this void. What am I without these moments I’ve guarded and kept and cherished? What is my reason for being if I haven’t got them? How is he doing this to me? Why is he doing this to me? Does he even know what he’s doing?
I manage to get another and the darkness falls away. It’s squashed in my palm and I turn away from the wind and open it up, keeping it in my hand with my fingers pressed down hard against it. I watch as it shows me the moment, a lump in my throat, feeling small and stupid again.
‘Why were you kissing him?’
‘I wasn’t, I was hugging him.’ She shakes my hand off her shoulder and yanks open the taxi door.
‘Hugging, kissing. Why were you doing it?’ I push myself in beside her before she has a chance to shut the door on me. She slides across the seat until she is elbow, hip and knee against the far door. The gap between is full of ice.
‘Because he’s a friend. And I don’t have to explain it to you, but I will if it makes you shut up.’ She pulls her skirt down over her thighs. ‘I’ve known him since I was ten. I haven’t seen him for about a year and his sister died six months ago.’ She shrugs her shoulders. ‘So I gave him a hug.’
I say nothing. An embarrassed blush heats my face.
‘Where to, mate?’ asks the driver.
‘I’m sorry, you know,’ I say, ignoring him, ‘I just came back into the room and you were hugging. I didn’t know. I’m sorry.’ I go to touch her leg but she somehow makes herself even more compact against the door.
‘The meter’s running. Where to?’
I find myself looking at the driver’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. I can even feel him accusing me.
‘Beacon Avenue,’ answers Laura.
‘I’m sor…’ and I lose it. My fingers haven’t the strength to hold it anymore. I’m back in the darkness, my arms swirling around me, feeling for anything, hoping for the rest of that moment to fall into my fingers so that it is resolved, or for a moment of laughter or love or intimacy. But I’m flailing, like a man without his parachute, falling through a vacuum.
A LITTLE
PIECE OF CAKE
T he lights whirl and spin, and when I close my eyes they leave pale pink, blue and green trails behind my eyelids. The music is numbing to my ears, it is just a beat, a tempo that speeds up and slows down and echoes in my head. I am dancing and dancing and smiling at Naomi and anyone who dances near. Every now and then Naomi asks me if I want to leave, but I say no. Kim, Jussy and Marty have already left. I don’t want to. The dancing is the most important thing; I don’t want it to stop, the drug does exactly what it is designed to do. I am the dancing brain-dead. But then I see her, sitting there, in the place where moving lights meet darkness, and I think she smiles at me, and her eyes are so large and dark and her long, thick hair falls over her shoulders and her lips part so slightly with her smile, that I have to sit near her, just two empty seats away. I do not talk. I just look at her profile and I am hooked.
‘She’s lovely. Looks Indian.’ Julie has appeared from some dark part of the club and sits on my other side. She puts her mouth almost over my ear so I can hear. ‘Talk to her.’
‘What do I say?’
‘Ask her if she’s a prostitute.’
I look at Julie and she twitches her eyebrow and then the corner of her lip and then nods. ‘Go on.’
‘Of course she’s not a prostitute.’ Prostitutes are not like her. Prostitutes are…I don’t know what they are, but she certainly isn’t one.
‘Just say hi. She probably doesn’t speak English anyway. Then ask her.’
As Julie finishes saying this, the girl looks at me briefly and then back to the dance floor with that almost indiscernible smile; Mona Lisa on the pull.
I move across two seats without any thought of rejection or worry or any sign of Old Me whatsoever and say, ‘Hi.’
‘Hello,’ she says.
‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘No. Thank you. I am Eka.’ She offers her hand and I take it. It feels like a mix of satin and sand; hard work softened with moisturiser.
‘Are we leaving?’ Naomi has left the dance floor and is now leaning across Julie and shouting in my ear, her eyes on Eka. ‘Early rise tomorrow.’
‘No. I’m staying. You go. I’ll meet you at the bus in the morning.’
‘Oh. Fine.’ Fine, short and curt; the word that hides so many meanings. But I’m not going to worry about the meaning of that one. Naomi fades into the darkness like a body sinking in a lake.
Julie is laughing.
‘Nice one. You just don’t care, do you? Always thought she was a stuck-up cow anyway,’ she says. ‘Ask prozzie how much,’ a whisper-shout with a light thump to my arm and then she swirls her way back onto the dance floor.
‘Your girlfriend?’ asks Eka.
‘Just a friend.’
‘You want to leave?’
‘What?’
‘Come. We go.’
‘Wait. Stay there.’ I pause. I look at her. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Please?’
‘Are you a prostitute?’
Her hand lights up in the beam of a random spinning disco light as it cuts through the air. The sting of the slap is intense.
‘Sorry. It was a stupid question.’ I curse Julie and look back to the dance floor where she is punching one hand and then the other into the air. The slap tingles down my cheek. ‘Very stupid.’
‘You are very stupid. Very rude.’ She pouts for a second then her face relaxes again. ‘But OK. You say sorry very quick and many prostitutes here. But please do not ask again or I go home. You make me angry, but you are drunk, so I forgive you one time.’
I sit in silence next to her, savouring each little pinprick feeling on my face that her hand created. I also feel her eyes studying me, creating their own little prickling sensation.
‘You say stupid things, but I think you look like nice man.’ She stands up. ‘Come. Let’s go.’
I’m too surprised to say anything, so instead just follow her through the near-darkness and out into the humid night where boys sell cigarettes and taxi drivers yell, ‘Hey mister, hey mister.’ She leads me to a taxi and we climb in and she asks where I live and I tell her and she tells the driver and she puts a hand on my leg and a silent twenty minutes later we are outside my house and I’m paying the driver too much but so what. We enter the house and then my bedroom and we lie on the bed and she rolls away and says, ‘I am very tired,’ and falls asleep with her back to me, long black hair falling across the pillow. Her shirt rises two inches up her back revealing smooth, perfect skin the colour of light chocolate. I run my tongue over my lips. We stay like this, her asleep, me watching. As time dances around, fast then slow then fast, I come close to touching her flesh, but I don’t; it’s enough just to look, to savour the beauty.
‘Look at the arse on that.’
‘I’d rather not,’ I say.
We’re following some bloke along the high street. He’s all broad shoulders, thick neck and biceps pushing out of a T-shirt that he probably bought too small deliberately. His rear is hugging the inside of a pair of Levis. Laura’s eyes are fixed on it.
‘He’s fresh from the gym. No one’s ever that toned all the time.’ I try to kee
p the whinging tone of jealousy out of my voice.
‘Jealous,’ she tells me. ‘Don’t be. It might be a nice rear but the rest is just far too hard. It’d be like holding a lump of concrete.’ With this she yanks my hand and pulls me into her favourite ‘olde worlde’ tea room. ‘Time for a cup of tea and slice of cake.’
‘I’m not jealous. Looking is fine. Coffee and walnut?’ I point through the display cabinet at one of the homemade cakes coated in thick buttercream.
‘Looking is fine. You do it enough. No, carrot cake. You?’ She swings her bag around and fumbles around the clutter for her purse.
‘I do not. Carrot for me too.’
‘No, you’ll have the Pavlova, so I can have a bit too.’ She smiles her overwhelming smile at the girl behind the counter. ‘And a pot of tea for two please.’
The girl smiles back, then looks at me and does the same. It’s natural and charming and her light-blue eyes sparkle.
‘You’re doing it now,’ Laura says as the girl turns her back to make the tea.
‘Doing what?’
‘Looking.’
‘I’m being polite. That’s all.’
‘I’ll bring it over to your table,’ says the waitress over her shoulder. I notice she also has a nice arse and my eyes stay fixed on it as my body turns.
‘Saw that.’ Laura squeezes behind a wooden chair at a wooden table with real flowers in a glass vase in the middle.
‘OK, so I look. We both look. As long as that’s as far as it goes, we’re alright.’
Laura adjusts her top and pulls it down a bit, exposing a little cleavage.
‘And as long as I always see that look in your eyes when I show you a bit of flesh, we’re definitely alright.’
A pot of tea, two china cups and saucers and two large slices of homemade cake are put on the table.
‘There you go,’ says the girl with twinkling eyes. ‘Enjoy.’
‘Let’s set some ground rules,’ Laura says as she forces her fork into my meringue, sending splinters of white onto the table. Her eyes look at it as though they are still looking at Muscle Man’s butt. ‘I fancy your cake, and I’m going to have some of it. I admired that man’s butt, but I don’t want it and would never have it. I know this cake looks good and will taste good because I’ve eaten here so many times before.’