Emma Unsworth - Animals

How different the winding, stony path of the morning to the straight, solid road of the night. The sky was pigeon grey. The way the day begins decides the shade of everything.

We disembarked at Manchester just before nine. On the platform my every step felt like a decision. I was full of spinning magnets attracting and repelling their own poles: walk, sleep, drink, call, don’t call, eat, sit down, don’t sit down. I stopped to pick up a stranded worm off the pavement and throw it into a tub of primroses. A little further along I saw a bee, almost motionless on the pavement but still with the solidity of moving blood and air keeping it upright. It was alive. I looked around for a twig. Found a scrap of paper. Coaxed the bee on. Back to the primroses I went, knock-kneed as an apprentice plate-spinner, balancing the bee. I held the paper over a flower and nudged the bee on with my finger.

‘Come on,’ said Tyler.

‘But there’s a dying bee.’

‘Oh, the karma bank, the karma bank. It’ll just fuck us over, you know, like all the rest.’

When the bee was safe I pulled my phone out of my pocket. Three missed calls and two texts from Jim. He was home, at his. I could collapse there. Fuck the rules. I couldn’t cope with any more surprises.

‘Tyler.’ She stopped walking. ‘I’m going to Jim’s.’

She looked at me. ‘Suit yourself.’

On Oldham Street I passed shop fronts shut up and not just for the night. Cash loan exchanges, pawnbrokers, boarded-up newsagents. Down past the CIS, the half-built Co-op. Victoria Station. The cathedral. The dripping-moss bridge. Knew I was almost at Jim’s when I heard the ragged sound of the metal sign spinning outside the laundrette on the corner. I thought he’d probably still be in bed, jetlagged or just lying-in.

I slithered along the main hall and fumbled my key into the lock. A scratch as the key bit. Once I was inside, I attempted to undress. It was as tricky as unlocking a door. At the sound of a creak, I looked up, half-naked, to see Jim standing in the doorway of the bedroom.

‘I thought this was going to stop.’

I hopped backwards, one leg still in my tights. ‘It is,’ I said when I came to a standstill.

He went back into the bedroom and in the time it took me to gather up my clothes he came back out with an armful of bedding. ‘This way,’ he said. I followed him into the lounge and watched him make up a bed on the couch.

‘You serious?’

‘Yep.’ He kissed me as he passed. ‘Sweet dreams.’

‘Jim!’

‘Nope.’

I lay on the sofa, feeling my heart pounding in my chest. I got up. Went to the toilet. The window. The kitchen. The lounge. I watched the red fireflies of the entertainment system’s standby lights. I went back to the couch and got back under the covers. I listened to a lawnmower.

Jim got up around noon. I was lying on the sofa, Pterodactyl-style, my hands up like claws near my chest. I was watching a cookery programme that was making me feel sick but I couldn’t move to find the remote to turn it over. Instead I was wincing every time the presenter said ‘boil’ or ‘butter’.

‘Morning.’

‘Morning.’

‘Good time in London then?’

‘All right.’

‘You know that shit comes into the country sewn into some poor bastard’s leg.’

He was holding a mug of something. I swung my legs round and sat myself up. Jesus. All the warning lights across the dash of my forehead were flashing. ‘What are you drinking?’

‘Coffee.’

‘Is it fairtrade?’

He looked at me. ‘Don’t you dare.’

‘No, don’t you dare. All I’ve done was have a little holiday with my friend when I never go fucking anywhere and it didn’t even turn out that great, and on top of all that I’m so fucking worried about my dad.’

The Dying Dad Card. I played it.

‘I know you are. That’s partly the reason we’re doing all this so quickly.’

I looked at him. He’d actually said it. Trumped me. He looked down, ashamed. Softer: ‘What happened?’

‘Just… I didn’t have the greatest time, Jim.’

He came and sat next to me, put his arm round me, kissed my neck. ‘You stink,’ he said into my ear.

‘Mm hm.’

‘I sort of like it.’

‘I know.’

I kissed his neck and his chest, working my way down to the top of his boxers and then pulling them down, using my mouth. He moved onto his side and tried to pull me up and turn me round, but I kept facing him and said from the plateau of his belly ‘I need a shower’, then moved back down with my mouth, finished him so I could also be sure — You know. I didn’t know where I was up to.

After, he said: ‘I’m playing Stockholm a week on Sunday. Why don’t you come?’

‘It’s Tyler’s thirtieth.’

‘What, all weekend?’

It didn’t seem to want to be summer any more. Late June and the leaves on the trees were tugging at the branches. Some of them had even managed to wrench themselves free, landing on the ground shiny and curling at the ends, like dying fish. I stood outside Jacqueline’s house in Chorltonville for many minutes before I plucked up the courage to walk up and ring on the bell (the handle of which hung from the ceiling of the porch like the whistle-blower on a steam train). There were two pairs of pristine wellies by the side of the mat.

Jacqueline opened the door. She was wearing a floral tea dress, leggings and thick-soled sandals. Her toenails were painted black. ‘Laura! How nice to see you! Won’t you come in?’

She kissed me on both cheeks and held my hands for a moment. I squeezed her hands, shaking them. I don’t know what I was hoping for — something to be conducted between us: prehistoric camaraderie, maturity, contentment. Nothing came. I followed her down the hall, closing the front door behind me. Jacqueline’s house was cool and calm. Everything was magnolia and lemon and pine. She led me into the lounge, where a toddler was sitting on the rug in front of an unlit wood-burning stove. The toddler stared at me, a teddy drooping in its hand, and started to cry.

‘Now, now,’ said Jacqueline, walking towards the toddler and picking it up. The baby stopped crying but hid behind her shoulder. ‘This is my old friend Laura. Are you going to say Hello? Say, Hello Laura!’

Awkward silence. The baby didn’t look old enough to talk.

‘Hello,’ I said.

More crying.

Jacqueline tutted and bounced her hip. ‘She’s a mard-arse,’ she said, ‘just like her daddy.’ She nodded to the wall above the wood-burner. There was a wedding photo on a shelf, in between a posh candle and a record that had been made into a clock. On the photo, Jacqueline was wearing a big white flouncy dress and the man standing beside her had closely clipped hair and narrow glasses, his mouth open in a downward smile, the smile of forced glee. He looked like a children’s television presenter.

‘Bore,’ said the toddler, pointing down at the floor.

‘Ball,’ said Jacqueline, ‘that’s right — where is your ball?’

‘Bore,’ said the toddler again, looking at me.

‘What’s her name?’ I said.

‘Daisy.’

‘Cute.’

‘Thanks. Do you want a brew?’

‘Please. Hey, do you mind if I use your bathroom while you put the kettle on?’

‘Go for your life. Top of the stairs and left.’

On the first-floor landing there was a Never Mind the Bollocks poster in a gilded frame. As I sat on the toilet I held on to the wedding invite in the pocket of my jeans so that it wouldn’t fall out. I read the backs of three shampoo bottles.

Back downstairs, Daisy was bashing coloured blocks together on the floor. She stopped when she saw me, looked at Jacqueline, and wailed. I looked away and sat down, ignoring her the way I ignored Zuzu. Daisy stopped wailing and the sound of block-bashing began again. I looked at Jacqueline. She picked her tea up from by her sandals and pointed to a mug down by the side of my chair. I picked up the tea and took a sip. Scaldy-hot. I took another sip.