Adam Thirlwell - Lurid & Cute

ROMY

You feel bad, I get this –

ME

Who me?

ROMY

About us and –

ME

No but –

ROMY

I mean, it isn’t the first time.

ME

It’s not?

ROMY

I mean, that time you told me about, when that girl went down on you in where was it Africa?

ME

That wasn’t unfaithfulness. That was unfortunate.

ROMY

At least you’re not one of those people who shoot girls who go to school.

ME

Is true that is definitely worse.

ROMY

At least we’ve got some moral boundaries here.

It was absolutely not the conversation I was expecting to have, like somehow I had just been deposited far away from my destination by the most inexperienced if well-meaning taxi in the world.

ROMY

Like, what are you wanting to say to me?

ME

I don’t know.

ROMY

So, then –

To be shy is in particular a problem at moments of great importance. I was trying to find the right sentences and it was very difficult.

ROMY

You don’t need to leave Candy, you know this.

She said it very gently, like you might hold a girl’s hair away from her face while she’s drunk too much on a night out and is vomiting on the street.

ME

No?

ROMY

What is wrong with you? You think that romance is a kid getting nervous when he hears the telephone ring in the house and wondering if it’s his girl. It doesn’t happen like that any more, kittykat.

ME

But what if I want to be with you?

ROMY

Then leave her, if you want to, and we can talk. Is not so complicated, no?

ME

You don’t want this?

ROMY

You’ve still got me, after all.

ME

I want you for myself, though.

ROMY

What are you? Seventeen?

No, it was the equivalent of when the minicab or delivery guy is said to be speeding towards you, but when the fifteen minutes is up he is not there, and so you call the Chinese takeout or taxi firm, but then you are told he will be there in seven more minutes, after which time has elapsed and once more you call the sad communications executive and he is definitely on your road except he is not on your road, because you are out there on that road, analysing a lone scooter for evidence it could be a car, and your gong bao prawn or vegetable jalfrezi is in some other stratosphere where your house does not exist. You are now inside a whole new physics, clutching your defunct astrolabe. In such a scenario, it’s difficult not to feel just very desolate. That Romy was not wanting me to leave Candy, I understood, meant only one thing, that she did not want to leave Epstein — and while I knew this was the mature decision I could not also stop myself thinking that I loved her, that I needed her, that all the romance I could imagine in this world was centred for ever on her. It was not at this moment possible, although it would soon be possible, for me to think that in fact I had found some kind of escape in this rejection by Romy — the morning had not yet occurred when, waking up beside Candy, I suddenly thought that in Candy’s face there was such tenderness and nobility that I understood what it would be like to leave her for ever, I suddenly saw in her face the face I had first known when she was young, and it was so tender and defenceless in those moments that I could not see how I could cope with such pain — even if really it would turn out that this thought in itself was not quite enough, for when in fact we did separate it was not at all like that, it turned out that I had not at all imagined all the complications, even when I thought I had, because the thing I had left out of the picture, also, was myself, I mean the desolation we both shared. For while I could imagine Candy throwing things out the window, hacking into my email, the true pain would be in dividing our possessions, her entering our house when I had been away for some months, to take away a bag of her clothes, or me unpacking a box and finding in it beautiful presents she had once given me. At this fiesta, however, none of this stored future was real. All that was real was my present cloud of desolation, where Romy did not love me.

& then Candy silently observes a mute passage of communication

But before I could concentrate myself in this total sadness, Candy came and took me away to some table with sangria and plates of fruit.

— This guy, she said, pointing to a beatnik, — he seems to be saying that all the zoos should be opened and the animals let out.

— That’s not totally what I’m saying, he said.

— No? she said. — Because that seems to me an OK strategy.

A sort of dance-move party began to happen, with the usual people standing on its edges, not dancing but trying to express through the very fact of not dancing their deep urge to dance — about as listless as the people standing at the edges of the coffee queue, who have placed their order, and now can do no more, and so they just stand there rechecking the same emails on their phone, waiting for the barista to call their name. I was looking at Dolores, who was looking into the eyes of some flaneur whose name was Benicio or Ahmet and that flaneur, I presumed, was the man she loved. But while I considered such things, Romy re-emerged. She had found herself an instrument that might have been a banjo — or if not banjo then distinctly similar.

— You think I should play? I said.

— Was just a thought, she said.

— Why not? I said.

— OK, said Candy.

— Shoot, said Romy.

But very soon after the moment when this banjo was very snug like a pet in my arms I knew I couldn’t really. My heart wasn’t in it. I had been neglecting my lessons on the Internet very much. But most of all I was looking at Epstein and Romy and the way they held each other, not that in any way I thought that Romy was trying to hurt me or be cruel but she couldn’t help it, and it was making me make bad mistakes in my fingering, if indeed this was a banjo, which I was beginning just slightly to doubt, but I did not want to say this in case I was wrong and would therefore lose status in the eyes of others. From the way they were talking, it was obvious that Epstein and Romy were whispering beautiful things to each other, small endearments and sexual promises, so that to be there with the banjo in my arms was like being in a state of siege. And although in such a state of siege it’s important to preserve a sense of hope, sometimes it’s difficult to do the things you know you’re meant to do. Definitely sadness was heavy in my heart. So that naturally when Dolores once again approached me I was glad to see her, and especially because she was looking at me with this brightness in her gaze that I found very welcome and opportune.

— That’s cool, said Dolores.

— You’re welcome, I said.

She was saying it with this miniature smile in her eyes that was very appealing, no question.

— You’re good, she said.

— Well, I don’t know, I said.

— He’s terrible, said Romy.

— Oh no I — said Dolores.

— Really, said Romy. — It’s all noise.

And something, definitely, was happening, but it was difficult to define precisely what. At the very least it was an interruption and as such was slightly violent, according to the usual social rules, like you have just burst into a serious seminar and stood there at the door while at the whiteboard pauses the professor with his smeared equations. That was how it felt, the overly fast way in which Romy interrupted — for sometimes an event is not even an event but the tempo at which it occurs. I was looking at Romy with an amused and anxious glare. While Dolores was in a sort of pause, as if the video of herself was buffering, not quite understanding why such sense of possession and anger was being directed to her by Romy, especially when Romy seemed very much involved with Epstein, whose butch tattooed forearms were entwined around Romy’s neck. I understood it was an opaque situation that required an explanation which was sadly impossible to give, and that was all I was really thinking, if not also a small glow of pride that Romy in this way was demonstrating such a sense of possession over me and wish for Dolores to leave our circle. Yet also I therefore did perhaps have some small anxiety that if it was visible to me, this possessiveness of Romy, and was visible to Dolores, too, then surely also it would be visible to Candy: and if it was, then what would Candy think? And it seemed obvious that the only things she could be thinking would be heartbroken and sad, so I tried very hard to avoid this possibility while not really looking at Romy, even though once again I understood that this very not looking could represent the problem in itself, but in that case where could I go at all? And while these thoughts were circulating, Dolores was looking just a little unsure, like not understanding why suddenly we were in some minstrel band and not telling her the tunes.