Emma Unsworth - Animals

‘Whoa,’ he said. His eyes were tight and sunken with travel: the red-eye flight from JFK and a connection at Heathrow. I held his face, kissed him hard. He tasted of mint and coffee. He smelled of plastic and his own delicious sweat. I drew back and we stood there for a minute taking each other in, the fear-excitement that there might have been a change in the space of a week; the slow-swell satisfaction-disappointment in knowing there wasn’t. I did Brief Encounter like always — tight lips, Old English posh: ‘You’ve been a long way away. Thenk you for kemming beck to me… ’

I dished out the food. We sat at the table. The curry was too hot, the spices raw, the sauce floury, the meat fibrous. The last time I’d cooked for Jim I’d made a tortilla without pre-cooking the potatoes. It was almost as though I enjoyed failing. Was I, as I had long suspected, one part optimism two parts masochism, like all the best cocktails?

‘You shouldn’t have,’ Jim said, squinting.

‘I know.’ I dropped my spoon into the still-full bowl. ‘Tell me about New York.’

‘Oh, you’d love it, Laur. It’s all your favourite things.’

I picked up my spoon again, made a fist round it. ‘Like what?’

‘Lively, contradictory, seemingly organised on the surface but beautifully chaotic underneath.’

‘Does it have a dark, complex soul?’

‘I think it wishes it had.’

‘Very good, Mr. Partington. Now, take all your clothes off.’

Sex with Jim was, amongst other things, a way of reminding myself I had a body. I’d had sex in my teens to get out of my body; in my twenties and thirties, so far it was about making me remember again. Jim’s body was springy and curved in a woodish way — he’d lost weight since he’d stopped drinking and his work kept his arms high-toned. He pulled me on top of him and I tried to encourage him to do the things I liked, be rougher and smack my ass so I pushed harder onto him. You are here, here and here. Close your eyes. You’re still here, aren’t you? But Jim had gone shyer since he’d stopped drinking, like he’d lost his bottle in more ways than one. It was sort of okay and sort of… frustrating. I didn’t know whether bringing it up would make him more self-conscious (was there anything less sexy than a conversation about sex?) and we had so much on, so I enjoyed the feeling of his spread hands, holding me (convincing me), and his chest hair that smelled of salty-smokiness.

We lay in bed afterwards discussing the wedding. ‘We’re pretty much on track,’ I said. ‘Listen to me! No, Jim, seriously, we’re moving forward on this… You can shoot me, you know. Any time you like. So tomorrow I’ve got a few more emails to reply to, which I’d have done today if I hadn’t been so head-rottingly hungover. The caterers have more questions about the ham and we’ve had a few more RSVPs, also people are still asking about presents and if I have to use the Your presence is our present line one more time then I’m going to have to wire my nipples to the mains and beat myself to death with a knotted rope just to feel original again.’

He kissed my eyelids. I told him about the club. He laughed. I showed him my thread vein. He said it was cute. I felt invincible. Such is the inner sanctum of bed: when you’re in there with the person you love the rest of the world can go to hell. At least that’s the way it feels when you’re not discussing logistics. The wedding chat invited quite literally the rest of the world in. I decided to only ever bring it up again in the kitchen; that was where it belonged.

The Northern Quarter, Friday, October. Tyler and I had gone drinking after our shifts. By 8 P.M. we were ten drinks in, wedding-drunk and almost dancing. Over by the bar I saw him stirring his drink. It wasn’t the kind of place you stirred your drink (no ice, no fruit, straws of dubious cleanliness) so I knew something was up. After I’d been watching him a few seconds he looked at me and back to his drink. Another two seconds, me, his drink.

Game on.

Tyler was sitting next to me, her head drooping as she looked at her phone. A few feet away, the sound periodically blunted by gyrating bodies, ‘She’s A Rainbow’ by World of Twist belted out from a bass speaker.

‘Tyler,’ I shouted over the music, ‘do you fancy a shot?’

‘Tequila,’ she said without looking up. ‘I had too much sambuca on Tuesday, I can still feel it coating my tonsils. And he’s gay but go for your life.’

I bounced up to the bar. His mouth twitched but otherwise his expression didn’t change. The marine wash of bar lights gave him an elvish opalescence, his skin a pale contrast to black hair and brows. So hard to say how you sense that peculiar attraction, the kind that shakes you to the root of your own mythologies (there was the bad child on the settee, the fourteen-year-old running from the parked car, the twenty-year-old shyly saying actually she’d like that more maybe, the thirty-year-old bored and guilty in her boredom, each former self acknowledged as he passed, yes hello hello, present, present if not quite correct. He had all of me in all of five seconds). He looked like he was drinking something with tonic, which boded well: something with tonic was my drink of choice for going the distance. I’ve always believed you can tell a lot by someone’s drink. He delicately — nimble fingers, I noticed those straight off — took the straw he’d been stirring with out of his drink and set it down on the bar, where a little pool of shiny liquid seeped around it. I looked to the barmaid and ordered two shots. As she turned to the optics I turned towards him and offered to buy him a shot. He shook his head. Smiled. Still not a word. I wondered whether he was mute. Could I love a mute? We could write each other notes, that would be romantic. He took his drink up to his lips and sipped. Swallowed. Put the glass back on the bar. The moonish meniscus swayed to a standstill. Was he ever going to speak? He smiled again. He was like the Mona Lisa. I almost said, You’re like the Mona Lisa but stopped myself. I was aware I looked odd enough as it was, sweaty and stone-eyed with ranting and wine. My shots arrived. I handed over the cash. Waited for my change. When I’d put my change in my purse I tucked my purse under my arm and took a shot in each hand. Turned to him. ‘Well,’ I said. ‘Have an intense one.’ Wankerish of me, I know. But I mean, really, it’s one thing being all intriguing and beckoning but when—

‘Hang on.’

I stopped. Turned. The shots quivered in my grip. This could go one of several ways but it definitely wasn’t done.

I said: ‘I come here every week and it’s a lot nicer than me and my dad isn’t a thief but he probably knows a few although as far as I know he’s never been anywhere near the stars and I don’t even like raisins .’

He grinned. Actual teeth. I stood there, poised with two tequilas, wondering whether to put them back down on the bar, take them over to Tyler, or neck them right there just for the fuck of it. I looked over to where Tyler was sitting. She nodded and mouthed GAY. I turned around and placed the shots back on the bar.

‘You sure you don’t want one of these?’

He looked over to Tyler. ‘Is one of them not for your friend?’

‘Oh, she’s fine.’

‘Okay then.’ I handed him a tequila and cheers’d his shot with mine — momentary awkwardness, first proximity, dangerous angles, then clear all clear. My fingers wide on the glass I tipped it back with a seasoned pelican swallow. He did his in two and ran his tongue over his top teeth, throat twitching.

‘So,’ I said, ‘what do you do with yourself when you’re not standing in bars being enigmatic?’