Show Them a Good Time

by Nicole Flattery

  I walked those same hallways and everything I had done in my life up to that point felt absolutely worthless. I came to my sister’s room. I sat on the edge of her bed and said, ‘Hi.’ She held her baby in her arms. She looked up, looked at me like she’d never seen me before in her life, like I was the faint trace of a person. ‘Hey,’ she said, very politely and slowly. ‘Hey, how are you?’

  Not the End Yet

  The arranged place was not easy to find. Angela drove, her window rolled down. She knew if someone glanced inside her car, they would think: That woman’s life has gone to shit, and she has been living, like a pig, in her car. She imagined the smug satisfaction such a person might derive from the scene: Things are hell for me but I don’t live in my car! The world’s dumb and uneven distribution of sadness was something she had no interest in. Let them have it, she thought. She knew she didn’t live in her car. She lived in a house. Her car was in a state of disorder, yes, but then again so was her house. Except people couldn’t see into her house. If they pressed themselves close to the glass she could simply say, ‘Shoo, peepers!’ and close the blinds. Her car didn’t have blinds. Her car had an overflowing ashtray, a litter of coffee cups, clothes and bundles of coloured paper. Her house was in a row of other houses. She wasn’t that invested in it. It was done when that was the theme – curbing, piping, structure. These days, it was taking her longer to get out of the car and into the house. But, she still did it. The upshot was: her life hadn’t gone to shit.

  The car park was deserted, except for a lone, hunched figure resting on the bonnet of a car, in communication with the cloudless night. This moonlit man was Angela’s date. She rolled her tongue absently over her back teeth and watched through the windscreen as he cupped his hands and attempted to light a cigarette. Even as the wind ruined his efforts, he remained unruffled. This, to Angela, was a sign of huge integrity. She smoothed her skirt down over her hips and thighs. She checked her wide-eyed expression. She went slowly about her maintenance. She was older now, forty-one. She would have been unaware of that herself, except people told her. The world practically crossed the street to tell a woman she had gotten older.

  ‘What the fuck is that?’ Angela’s date said, gesturing to her car, as she rose gracefully from the driver’s seat.

  There was always a moment on Angela’s dates, usually at the beginning, when she allowed herself to think: This guy’s the whole package! As the night progressed, the realisation invariably arrived that this man was not a package at all. He was an envelope, an envelope with a bill in it, an envelope she, quite frankly, wanted to put in a drawer and forget all about.

  She felt invaded by his judgement but refused to show it. ‘It’s a Honda,’ she said, sweetly.

  *

  The restaurant was a basement really, with a damp smell of impending disaster and a neglected feeling. Angela and her suitors conducted all their encounters underground, in this place where the name changed frequently – letters disappearing, vowels skipping across the brightly lit sign – but the menu remained indifferent to external pressures. She chose this place because it had little or no phone signal. Otherwise, their fingers would be moving across their screens, sloppily swiping. When they swung the front door open, carrying in the heavy, co-mingled scent of perfume and aftershave, the staff stared at them. A teenage boy seated them with a reluctant sigh, as if exhaling was too much of an effort. Two further teenagers, stumbling at a furiously slow pace in true disbelief that anyone would demand service at this time, provided a tablecloth, cutlery, glasses. When Angela and her date (forty-five, salesman, no visible scars) gave their orders, the waiter nodded as if he might be willing to consider it.

  Her date held up the menu in his paw hands, the familiar black marker scrawled across several of the selections. She ordered the salad, anticipating the single tomato rolling around her plate.

  ‘So you go on many of these?’ her companion asked, reddening. An entry to a dirty joke.

  There was a deep silence and they let it labour between them for a moment.

  ‘Yeah,’ she replied. She had heard a lot of arguments against honesty in this particular arena, but she disregarded them. ‘Make them feel special!’ her oldest friend advised, but making people feel special required a lot of exertion and alcohol.

  Although intimacy made her anxious and, often, physically sick, she had an absurd level of success in securing dates. In one careful photo taken at the wedding of a colleague, she sat beside a pristine tablecloth, her palms clasped like a choirgirl, her grin lopsided and benign. It was pleasant. You would have no problem being stuck in a tight dinner-space, island B&B or tiny house with this woman. You would barely know she was there. Other women engineered their profiles all wrong: too sexy, too obvious, their indecent mouths suggesting a closeness that had yet to be earned. She got a lot of attention for one particular set-up: hair loose, eyes alert. Soft. There was nothing to suggest she had made mistake after mistake after mistake.

  ‘Is it much fun?’ Her date (navy suit, tan shoes) fidgeted in his chair.

  ‘Kind of.’

  In truth, she had begun to approach these dates with the same level of clinical excitement as might accompany the scheduling of a dental appointment: the same dim sense of obligation, the same knowledge that a man was going to examine her and decide something was horribly awry. But she forced herself to enjoy it. It was the last good feeling, to look across a table and know someone else was terrified too.

  ‘Right.’ He nervously scanned the room.

  They drank for something to do with their hands and mouths. Angela cursed her gin and tonic. It was impossible to look wise, and to project an air of disinterest in various earthly disasters, while using a straw.

  ‘I said I was stopping after hitting ten,’ he said. ‘One zero. You know, with what’s going on, some guys don’t know how to stop. But I don’t like this. I don’t like superficial connections with people.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ Angela said. ‘I love them.’

  ‘Angela, I don’t want to jump to any conclusions. I don’t like conclusions, they are dangerous, but may I say something?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘On first read, you strike me as a cold person.’

  She considered this for a moment, as it was not an unreasonable observation.

  ‘I can be likeable if you get to know me,’ she promised, silently wondering if this was true or one of those first-date lies she would have to catalogue and monitor. ‘I just mean I never thought I would become one of those people who enjoys talking to strangers. I never thought my life would swerve off like that, but it has.’

  ‘Tell me about your friends.’

  ‘I have two,’ Angela said, boastfully.

  She was in possession of one old friend who offered helpful advice like, ‘Have some self-respect!’ Her old friend was full of bizarre ideas inherited from her time in business. She also had a friend in the supermarket. Where all her other friends had disappeared to was a mystery she had no interest in solving.

  The silence became quite natural after a while. They ate their dinner to the beat of it.

  He gleamed suddenly, as if he had made a discovery. ‘What music do you like?’

  ‘I like the classics,’ Angela said.

  ‘Oh yeah? Me too. Which ones?’

  Angela threw open her arms and sang loudly but rushed, rendering the lyrics incomprehensible.

  ‘I don’t know that one.’

  Her date’s face was unmoving. And oddly small, she noted warily. It was an awfully tiny face.

  ‘There’s plenty more where that came from,’ Angela promised. ‘I have a lot of CDs in my car. I don’t like the radio so much lately.’

  ‘Nobody does,’ he sighed. ‘Who do you blame for it all?’

  ‘It’s not anybody’s fault. That’s what they say on the radio.’

  ‘I have a few ideas,’ he said, edgily. ‘So what age are those kids you teach?’

  ‘I’m not su
re,’ Angela smiled. ‘They are short and move quickly in all sorts of directions.’

  Out of Angela’s class of twenty-six children, there were now only nine remaining. She sometimes passed absent students on the streets, riding or being pushed on scooters by their parents. The kids pretended not to know her. The remaining few spoke a language that was not from this planet, a language Angela couldn’t understand. She distributed safety scissors and said, ‘What’s that?’ loudly, to let them know she was on to them, curtail any uprising against her.

  ‘It’s good to have work you enjoy,’ her date announced. Angela thought he looked restless, like he was gearing up to make some class of speech.

  ‘Do you know what sort of man I used to be?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘I used to be the sort of man who always said, “I just need a break!” But now I’m making money for the first time in my life, selling dating equipment. What do you think of that, eh? You wait twenty years and – BOOM – all the money comes at once.’

  ‘Money is no good when you’re dead,’ she intoned.

  ‘I could have a younger girlfriend,’ he said.

  Angela could tell he was in the early stages of grief for someone he had never known.

  ‘You are probably judging me for saying that.’

  ‘Not at all.’ She saluted him from across the table. ‘It’s a grand historical tradition.’ She paused. ‘Why do you do it anyway? It seems like a base job for a cosmopolitan individual, exploiting people’s loneliness.’

  ‘Cash,’ he said. He stared past her, to the front door. ‘I have gambling debts.’ He hesitated. ‘It’s probably something to do with my father as well.’

  ‘The excuse that never dies,’ Angela said. ‘Something something my father. I swear when the world does end, there’s just going to be one man meandering around the scorched earth saying again and again: “I had a bad relationship with my father.”’

  ‘Are you a feminist?’ he asked abruptly, as if she might be surprised he knew the word.

  ‘At this stage in my life, I can take it or leave it,’ she replied. She lit a cigarette and watched the smoke swirl up towards the splintered ceiling. Witnessing her defiance, one of the teenagers glared at her through the long bar mirror. She was waiting for her date to mention an ex-wife. She wanted to run into the past and scatter these women like birds.

  ‘Were you married?’ she asked.

  ‘I was,’ he said and looked at her in a practised, sheepish way.

  Angela shifted in her seat, preparing for her own declaration. She gazed off into space. ‘There’s a time in a woman’s life when everyone she is sleeping with is married, then there’s the extended period of time when she may be married herself, then suddenly everyone she is sleeping with is divorced.’

  ‘That’s an interesting theory.’

  ‘It’s just an old saying of my mother’s,’ she shrugged.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘no one gets off lightly – my dog is dead, my bicycle is destroyed, my life is a bit messed up, to put it mildly. But that’s marriage, isn’t it?’ He nodded as if in sincere agreement with himself. ‘You?’

  ‘I got the car in the divorce.’

  He smirked. ‘Kids?’

  She made a zero figure with her thumb and wedding-ring finger. ‘So,’ she asked and dipped her finger into the surface of her drink, ‘have you been doing anything?’

  ‘This,’ he said, pointing back and forth between them. ‘A lot of this, interacting with new people.’

  ‘Same.’

  There had been a series of bad dates recently. There was the man with a face of deep crevices and dents who, up close, looked rather like the moon. There was another who rested his slithery hand on hers while trying to sell her life insurance. No matter how many times Angela thought That’s not happening again, it happened. It happened and it happened. It was all over quickly, but it happened. Dating was not the worst of it though.

  Angela cleared her throat. ‘I did something else.’ She closed her eyes, as if preparing for confession. ‘I stole a cat.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘There has been a cat hanging around the school grounds and, today, I bundled it up under my coat and took it home. It did not belong to me in any way,’ she grinned, ‘but now it does.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Firstly, it had a great look. If sunglasses were an option for this cat, he would have been wearing them. I have always been weak for that sort of coolness. Also my principal told me if it was still there by the end of the week, he was going to cook and eat it.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, that’s disgusting.’

  ‘It is,’ Angela said, ‘but that’s him all over. It’s his nature. He’d do it because the world’s ending and he can. I would use the word “lunatic” to describe him. First day, he separated all us female teachers into two groups. He didn’t say it but I could see his mind working: the women he wanted to sleep with, and the women he considered good teachers.’

  ‘Which group were you in?’

  ‘Neither.’ Angela gestured for a second drink. ‘But you should have heard the arguments in the staff room: he wants to lick me up and down, he wants to mentor me. I eat lunch in my car a lot.’ Angela was suddenly passionate. ‘You know, there is a lot I will tolerate in this life, and a lot I have tolerated, but the cooking and eating of a cat to prove you’re a tough guy is not a pursuit I will entertain.’ She looked down at her napkin, surprised by her sudden outburst.

  ‘Have you named the cat?’

  ‘Screechy.’

  ‘That’s a gorgeous name.’ Her date looked at her with warmth. ‘Angela, I got you wrong. I apologise. You’re a kind and considerate woman.’

  ‘Stop,’ she said stiffly. ‘I have some interesting qualities too.’

  ‘I never thought I would meet a nice woman, let alone another animal-lover.’ He paused. ‘I don’t want to paint her in a negative light, but my ex-wife murdered my dog.’

  ‘I guessed that.’

  ‘Imagine that bathroom in there,’ he pointed to the restaurant bathroom, ‘normal bathroom, tiles, bit of mould, nothing spectacular.’

  ‘I can see it.’

  ‘Now picture it with blood everywhere. That was how it was. A disappointing sight.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Angela said.

  ‘What was up with your ex?’

  ‘He was non-violent. He didn’t murder anything, as far as I know. All in all, an agreeable man.’ She paused. ‘Do you like clever people?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘You would have liked him then. He wasn’t clever at all. It wasn’t a big deal like people make it out to be.’ She looked at him. ‘Not that he was an imbecile either.’

  ‘What is it all for, Angela? Sometimes, when I am selling them the damn equipment I want to say, “Don’t bother,’’ but I can’t because of the money and the commission.’

  ‘I have an old friend who thinks it’s for companionship. Someone to hold your hand at the end, that sort of thing.’

  ‘I don’t like the sound of your friend much,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah,’ she agreed. ‘She’s not great. It’s terrible when you get old enough to dislike your old friends.’

  She glanced down; her salad was gone. She had no recollection of putting that fork in her mouth. Her body was always making decisions independent of her.

  ‘Angela, would I be correct in saying we have a deep and profound connection at this present moment in time?’

  ‘You wouldn’t be too far off.’ She pondered. ‘Would you like to sit in my car with me for a while?’

  When they stood to leave, the teenagers gathered in a circle and unenthusiastically waved them off. As they settled the bill, the man interlaced his fingers with Angela’s. One of the serving boys made a discreet retching face at this display of middle-aged affection. In the car park, her date said, ‘Look, the stars are low,’ – and they were.

  In her car, they sat in silence. Her date rested his
feet impolitely on the dashboard. He looked like a monarch, surveying his kingdom.

  ‘You know that number I gave you?’ Angela asked.

  ‘Your telephone number?’

  ‘Yeah. If you are going to use that number the best time is between 5 PM and 8 PM because that is after school and before night.’

  ‘What do you do at night?’

  ‘I go to the supermarket,’ Angela said simply.

  ‘Is it … nice in the supermarket?’

  ‘It’s a good time,’ Angela said. ‘I have a friend there.’

  They both stared out the windscreen.

  ‘Angela, I want to take you home. But before I take you home, can I tell you something?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Men are after me. Threatening men I encountered during my gambling period.’ He slouched dramatically in his seat. ‘I would like to spend the night with you but I don’t want to put you in a bad situation. In truth, I’m being blackmailed and I’m being followed.’ He let out a long, weary sigh and ran his hands over his face, as if the blackmailing would be okay if it weren’t accompanied by the following, and the following would be fine if it weren’t accompanied by the blackmailing.

  ‘I have never dated a man who was being blackmailed before.’ She paused. ‘We can take my car if you think that will throw them off?’

  He glanced around Angela’s car. ‘We will take mine, I think.’

  He took Angela home and banged her like he was partaking in a burglary – ransacking the house for something he would never find. Angela was confused, but alive. This could be it: the last neck they clawed at, the last post-coital conversation, the last beautiful excuses they ever made.

  The morning came while she was still feigning sleep. Before the sun even lit across her body, he was back on his dating equipment. The man was determined he was not departing from this planet with Angela’s cursed face as his final conquest. Fair enough, Angela thought. These were testing times and she was recently big on forgiveness. It was being pushed heavily on the radio. Sometimes, she left these situations feeling something near happiness. Leaving was such a non-event. You turned a doorknob either to the left, or to the right. Leaving was the same everywhere.