Emma Unsworth - Animals

Tyler was standing at her front door in her kimono and a skullish clay facemask. It was hard to tell what her face was doing but her hand was up to her nose, her first fingers stroking her philtrum as she heavily breathed.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Who was that?’

The mask had gone all patchy under her nose — she looked like a very shit white rabbit. ‘Three guesses.’

I knew then. I also knew that I’d known as soon as I’d heard her shout. ‘What, here? In England?’

‘Biggest mistake I ever made, letting him pay for this hellhole.’

I’d brought a bottle of wine with me. We didn’t talk much as we drank, every now and then she’d have a one-sentence outburst like I’m bigger than him now , and Fucker’s shrinking . When the wine was finished I suggested going out to a bar but she shook her head. ‘Don’t fancy it. I’ll drink more in here, though, if you don’t mind the trip to the store.’

‘I don’t mind.’

‘Mull something over while you’re walking, why don’t you.’

‘Fire away.’

‘Move in with me.’

I didn’t need to mull. I was living with my parents. ‘Okay.’

I’d drunk half my wine by the time I sat down.

‘Laura’s writing a novel,’ Marty said.

‘Oh, now and then, you know.’

A slight twitch to his nostrils, where a brush of fine hairs protruded. He was drinking whisky, I could smell it. Something stirred in my stomach, something that usually nestled there. I reddened.

‘You must send it to us when it’s done,’ said Sheila. I nodded. Burning burning I was burning. I sat down. ‘We’re focusing on novels, with perhaps the odd short story collection and poetry anthology.’ She leaned towards me. ‘We’re trying to get Marty to let us publish some of his old poems.’

‘I bet they’re all Baby this baby that ooh ooh ooh … ’ said Tyler.

‘Now now,’ Marty said. ‘No need to get personal.’ He was blushing then, too, and I felt my own face cool. Saw it all in a flash. The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook for Christmas, rejection letters pinned for posterity on the wall of his poky room in halls, the summer job in the bookshop, the full-time job in the bookshop, the retreat back into academia… Other Observations: a dimple when he grinned and a gap between his two front teeth that would have marked him out as village idiot if he hadn’t been so smart. Different Clothes: denim shirt, red knitted tie, black cord jacket, the shirt tucked into his jeans, jeans held up with a blue belt with a gold buckle.

Don’t look at his belt buckle.

Tyler did most of the talking, disagreeing with things I said, sharing a private joke with Marty, telling her own (superior) anecdotes, or her (superior) versions of mine. I felt myself retreating. Competing for attention with Tyler was futile. She didn’t just change the temperature of rooms, she changed their entire chemical make-up so that anyone in the room would only be aware that the room was an extension of her and she was the thrumming nucleus. As I embarked upon my third glass of wine I noticed that Tyler had gone to the toilet and Marty had quickly followed her. I tried to make conversation with Sheila and Michael but I couldn’t help but be distracted. After too many wrong-footed intonations, too many quizzical glances to see if I was listening, I made my excuses and went to the Ladies. I heard Tyler in a cubicle, sniffing and rummaging around, and then she came out and said, ‘Hey, Lo, wanna bump?’ She was holding a baby-blue wrap, sugar paper. London. I looked at it and frowned. ‘Marty’s.’

‘Marty has coke?’

‘As you see.’ Proffering.

‘Hm.’

She handed it to me. ‘I think he likes you. In the worst way.’

‘What makes you say that?’

When they called last orders Sheila and Michael said goodbye and left the three of us to it.

When they kicked us out we danced down the street and down a side alley. Tyler wiped a stone windowsill with her sleeve. Marty opened a wrap, nudged out some of the contents and racked up three lines. I looked around. A single rain-hooded tuk-tuk meandered slowly past on the main road.

‘Here,’ Tyler said, handing me the note. ‘Atta girl. Just like a Dyson.’

My phone rang. Jim.

‘NO,’ said Tyler, taking the phone from my hand and dropping the call.

I snatched it back. ‘You shouldn’t have done that! We don’t drop each other’s calls. He’ll be worried.’

‘Send him a text and say the reception’s bad and you’ll call him back in the morning.’

Marty said: ‘Where now?’

‘I know just the place!’ said Tyler. ‘A Spanish drinking den!’

She grabbed our hands and marched us back up the alley.

Criss-crossing streets, roads, cabs beeping, we arrived at a wooden door. Tyler rapped on a little window within the door and it slid open.

‘ Si ?’ The shape of a man’s head through the mesh. Loud music thick with drums and shouts tentacle’d out into the air.

‘Are there any ice skaters in for my guest tonight?’ said Tyler. ‘I was promised ice skaters.’

It wasn’t her accent. She sounded like Joan Crawford.

I just wanted to get inside and down to the music and the drinks and the writhing darkness and some way to keep moving rather than just be standing there. The window slid shut and then the whole door opened. We stepped inside. Tyler nodded at the man behind the window as we passed. I grinned. He jerked his head towards the stairs. We made our way down flight after flight of narrow stairs, each landing turning and twisting into another flight. They seemed to go on for ever, the music getting louder, the temperature hotter. Eventually we arrived at another door. Above it, the amber disc of the emergency light was full of dead flies, dark like sunspots. Tyler opened the door. An assault of sound and smoke. The room was long and thin, lightless apart from a few neon signs hung crookedly on the walls. The furniture consisted of upturned crates — everyone sitting on them had their knees almost round their ears. The ceiling was low, so low that several taller men were stooping where they stood. We made our way to the far end of the room where there was a bathtub full of ice, beer and wine. The labels from the bottles had all washed off. Next to the bathtub there was a large punchbowl and a stack of plastic cups. ‘DON’T DRINK THAT,’ Tyler said. She skittled three cups in her fingers and pulled a bottle of wine from the bathtub. I looked around the room. People were staring at us, there was no doubt about it, paranoia notwithstanding, so I grinned and moved with the music to try and blend in. In a nearby corner four men stood holding cups of punch. They were dressed in conquistador costumes with ruffled shirts open to the waist. A band from a Spanish restaurant who had clocked off early. In the other corner two men were sitting playing flamenco guitar, punch cups down by their feet. One appeared to be passed out, slumped over his instrument, with only his fingers still moving. Nobody was smiling.

‘Everyone in here is fucked,’ I said.

Tyler handed me a cup of wine. ‘Yu-huh.’ She raised her own cup and began whooping and stamping out of time. I had a faraway feeling that we might be better not drawing attention to ourselves. Marty sat down on a crate and I sat next to him, Tyler on the other side. The light shifting, my eyes tripping, Marty looked younger, younger than me, or no age at all.

‘Do you still write poetry?’ I said.

‘Sometimes, late at night. When the ghosts come knocking.’

I looked at him. Sincerity. How refreshing. I felt his leg come to rest against mine. I moved my leg away and wished I hadn’t. Jim would have flirted while he was away. I wasn’t dead inside. Far from it.