Emma Unsworth - Animals

I followed Tyler down the hall. Photos in odd frames were hung on the walls, like you found in so many of the new Manchester bars (‘quirky taxidermy bars’ as Tyler called them); a forced eccentricity that had dismally mutated into conformity. I didn’t imagine Jean and Tom had collected the frames so much as ordered a job lot on eBay (I chastised myself for this thought, trespassing on their hospitality, but I couldn’t help it). Desperately random, like the elaborations of a bad liar , I thought and wondered where it was from. The answer ( Silence of the Lambs ) came to me as I entered the kitchen to see Tyler’s mum seated at the table and Tom fishing about for something in the down-scaled green Aga. A warm domestic scene. People smiling, eating, drinking, happy in each other’s company. I thought of my parents’ living room, of Jim’s bed, and I thought Yes, Okay. All right. I’ll have some of that.

‘Here they are!’ Tyler’s mum stood up at the sight of me. I kissed her on the cheek.

‘Hi, Ro.’

I loved Tyler’s mum, with her flamboyant openness and heavy clothes, all that academic lingo she used so effortlessly. She walked over to the fridge, her thighs stretching a houndstooth miniskirt. ‘I put some wine in to chill for you,’ she said. I loved Tyler’s mum, really I did. She poured two large glasses.

‘Make that three,’ Tom said.

‘Four,’ said Jean. ‘Shirley’s on formula.’

This information was for me, in case I’d forgotten. I hadn’t. I’d admired Jean’s attitude to not breastfeeding, relayed to me via Tyler. Jean had taken formula and bottles in her bag with her to the hospital, this after pre-booking an epidural. There are plenty of times in life when I’m going to feel pain , Jean had said. When I’m in a building full of anaesthetists is not one of them.

‘You can do what you like,’ said Ro.

‘Wellll… ’ said Tom.

I hoped the dynamics didn’t intensify or I was going to have to make a break for the bathroom. I looked out of the window. A pug was playing in the small, neat garden. The garden was green and brown, strong solid colours in definite shapes like someone had painted it by numbers. It made me think of a nuclear testing site. The pug picked up a partially deflated ball and trotted across the garden, neck arched proudly, like a miniature show horse.

Shirley was sitting on Tom’s knee, sucking her cuff. ‘She’s beautiful,’ I said. It was what you said about babies.

‘Remember what Dad said about me when I was born?’ said Tyler. The room stiffened. ‘He said I looked like a tortoise without a shell.’

Ro handed me a glass of wine. ‘I remember you having a liking for Chenin Blanc,’ she said. I shrugged, smiled and took the wine. Ro had a constantly delighted face. Plump little jowls hanging lower than Tyler’s, falling round into the solid bowl of her chin. A vision of gravity’s better effects. Whenever I saw her looking slightly older, always the case due to our sporadic meetings, I got a rush of few-times-removed tenderness, like when I saw a favourite actor in a new film.

My phone rang in my pocket. I pulled it out. Jim.

‘Back door’s unlocked,’ Jean said.

I lit up a fag and then answered the phone as the door closed behind me. A trellis was nailed to the wall. On the trellis a clematis plant was starting to bud.

‘Where are you?’

‘Hong Kong.’

‘What’s it like?’

‘I’ve only really seen hotel rooms.’

Diddums. I stopped myself saying it. Roaring silence. Background radiation and white noise. I inhaled. Exhaled.

‘Did you book the DJ?’ he said.

That sound again.

‘Laura?’

‘No. Sorry.’

‘It’s okay — that’s why I’m asking: my parents know someone. DJ Pete from Halifax.’

‘DJ Pete from Halifax?’

‘They just want to help. Be a part of it. I’m an only one so it’s a big deal for them.’

I thought about it. Did I really care about the DJ? No I did not. ‘Sure.’ I said. ‘Fuckit.’

He laughed. ‘Well, yeah. Speaking of which, I’ve been enjoying what we’ve been doing or rather not been doing.’

I liked the abstract riskiness of it more than anything. What if I was pregnant? Unlikely, but what if? I had no idea where I was up to. I shut the thoughts down and right then it was easy. ‘You know,’ Jim said, ‘something for us to think about in the future is the fact that you have more chance of conceiving if you… never mind. Enjoy tomorrow!’

I finished my cigarette before I went back in, trying not to blow smoke on the foliage. There was nothing in cigarettes for plants.

Later, in bed, after Tyler had fallen asleep, I took out my laptop and Googled the fuck out of Marty Grane. Googled him hard, all night.

The next morning I woke early to see Tyler already up and sitting at the dressing table in the corner of Jean’s guest room.

‘’Eyyyyyyyyyyyy,’ she said, holding a comb by the side of her head. She was dressed and fully made-up — liner, shadow, lippy, rouge. The chocolate-y mole on her left cheek was more prominent that usual, highlighted by foundation and a liberal twist of kohl.

I raised myself onto my elbows. ‘How long have you been posing with that comb?’

She glanced at the clock on the bedside table. ‘Twenty-eight minutes.’

I stuck my tongue out wide and exhaled fruitily. Parched. I was so parched. ‘I feel terrible,’ I said. ‘It’s all your mother’s fault.’

‘That old chestnut. Hey, want to go for a walk? London can be picturesque in the morning if you choose your route wisely.’

‘Is your brain on already?’

‘ Bam bas bat bamus batis bant. Seems so.’

‘Why is it that the memory cells are the hardest ones to kill?’

‘Come on now, get your legs moving. Your blood will renew! Your liver will rejoice!’

‘Maybe you could just push me round a park in a bath chair, like Heidi with Clara.’

But we didn’t have time for a walk in the end. We had to be at the church for midday. I’d forgotten to hang up the dress I’d brought, so it was creased all over and the thin grey fabric hung off me like the skin of an octogenarian elephant. I’d taken three Nurofen Express and felt altitudinous. Tyler was wearing her fish-scale top and one of Jean’s trouser suits. We stood out on the street smoking, waiting for the cars, jacking up our morale by blowing smoke rings and headbutting them. Soon a minibus and a beautiful big white car turned the corner. I whistled. The car soared along, like a plane.

‘Always wanted to drive a Rolls,’ said Tyler, twisting her heel on the end of her fag.

‘No,’ said Jean firmly, taking her by the arm and leading us towards the minibus.

Stepping inside a church felt, as always, like an ornate form of excavation. The statues, the dust and the wood; alien archaeology, with signs and symbols to be sought and interpreted. I walked down to the front and sat and waited while Tyler and her family stood greeting people at the door. I sang the hymns gutsily, not sure who or what I wanted to notice me. After the ceremony I snuck outside and went round to the side of the church, disappearing behind a tree. I sparked up and wondered what to do with my dimp when the time came.

‘Are you a friend of the family?’

I turned to see the vicar standing by a small door. A dog collar under a black turtleneck. Creature on creature on creature.

‘Yes,’ I said, looking guiltily at my fag.

‘Don’t worry about that. I often nip out here for a joint after funerals.’

I looked at the floor. It was littered with jack-knifed joint-ends. I said: ‘That was a lovely service.’

‘That’s what they all say.’