Emma Unsworth - Animals

I went back out to the balcony and passed the bag back to Nick. While he was gone, Tyler said: ‘Why not?’

‘Don’t fancy it.’

‘It’s really fucking good.’ Her voice was claggy.

I stayed with them drinking, watching their disintegration, and before long it was all talk of the past week’s social triumphs accompanied by clumsy footsie.

‘Look, do you want me to go?’ I whispered as Nick charged to the toilet for the fifth time. Who had it? I’d lost track of their clandestine pass-the-parcel.

‘No,’ she said, ‘stay.’

I tried to distract myself by watching the people coming and going inside the bar, trying to work out how they knew each other, how much they cared. An hour or so later, a woman walked in who I thought looked familiar. The woman was about forty judging by the speed at which she moved, skinny and nervous, but her face looked much older, with sunken cheeks and deep crow’s feet, stringy hair coiled into a knot high on the back of her head. She made her way over to the bar, followed by a pair of men in their twenties in jumpers and jeans. As I turned to Tyler to ask whether she recognised her I saw that her face was ashen and she had started to slide very slowly under the table. Nick was watching her, none the wiser.

‘Tyler,’ I said, ‘isn’t that—’

Tyler didn’t say a word, just kept sliding. When she was fully under the table she looked up at me and nodded. Mouthed MARIE .

I put my legs forward to obscure her, in case Marie looked over to the window and could see beneath the table. I looked over at Nick. ‘Nick,’ I said, ‘don’t make it obvious but there’s someone just come in that we really need to avoid — that Tyler especially needs to avoid.’ He nodded. Yeah, and? I went on. ‘So the best thing to do is look at me as though I’m saying something really interesting and possibly even slightly funny and let’s hope that they either leave or move to a place where we can get Tyler out without them seeing her.’ He nodded again. Stopped nodding and laughed uproariously. ‘Okay, don’t overdo it. We don’t want them to look over at us specially, but if they happen to glance at us we need to look as though we’re utterly engrossed in each other rather than pretending that somebody isn’t hiding under the table.’

I prayed that Marie or whatever she was called wouldn’t recognise me. I’d been round to hers once with Tyler — a terraced street in Belle Vue so forgotten that it was practically a study in post-industrial melancholy — and waited outside, trying not to look through the front window’s slipped nets. Beneath the table, Tyler had her hand around my ankle, squeezing gently.

‘She’s asking the barman something,’ Nick said, smiling. He was doing well, considering. Clearly he was enjoying a mission.

‘Right,’ I said, smiling back. ‘Is she buying a drink? Don’t look for a bit but… ’

‘No,’ Nick said, gazing lovingly at me, ‘no, she’s turning around.’

‘Okay, stop looking.’

‘She’s walking out.’

Through gritted teeth: ‘Stop looking!’

‘She’s gone.’

A cold wash of relief. ‘How about the boys?’

‘Gone.’

I looked down to Tyler. She climbed out, sat down and emptied the bottle.

I went to the bathroom to cool down. It was tiled like a Parisian subway, all Fifties emerald and cream. There was a bank of four butler’s sinks along one wall, big rectangular bowls and arching taps. I put the plug in to get a nice little pool to cool down with, but the water was so inviting I had the urge to get closer, to lap at it.

I told myself that I would go back to Tyler’s for a polite hour and then head over to Jim’s.

As we walked to Hulme I went ahead at every corner to check that Marie and her henchmen weren’t waiting. After fifteen minutes we reached the bridge over the Mancunian Way. I stopped to spark up. A taxi went past, engine clattering. The noise of the traffic on the motorway below was terrible, like something huge that was breathing too hard. I looked ahead, and saw Tyler and Nick walking arm in arm. A feeling of relief washed over me. As though I could slip away and leave them to it.

A few weeks after I’d moved in with Tyler I woke in her bed to find her gone. As I strained in the darkness I heard the front door click shut. I got up and went to the door, opened it, and heard the main door slam downstairs. I went down, barefoot, my pyjamas loose and letting the cold in. I hugged myself as I opened the main door and stepped out into the night. She was walking twenty metres or so ahead. I followed her down the road and then right along the next road towards town, past the chicken-wired scrubland. It was the very middle of the night — that exact point between late and early — when everything is poised, waiting, and not a bird or an engine breaks the stillness. I had to be very quiet. I thought she might be sleepwalking and you know what they say about waking sleepwalkers but also I didn’t want her to stop. I followed her to the bridge, stopping when she stopped and concealing myself behind the base of a streetlamp. She started to climb, stood on the third rung, her boot heels biting the steel and hooking her on. She raised her arms like a warlock and tipped back her head. She stood there for a long time, fifteen minutes or so, just balancing. I knew she was awake. I left when I saw her start to get down, went back to the flat and got back in bed, pretended to be asleep.

Back at her place she poured us each a glass of wine and then smeared the remains of the night onto a CD case. She did. He did. I didn’t. There was blood on the note they were using. Tyler noticed and said, ‘One for the wash.’

Nick lay across the sofa (a true gent) and I sat on a cushion on the floor by the coffee table, tapping my fag in a dead beer can. Tyler brought out the jar from the ice-box, too, chucked some of that down for good measure, and stood in the middle of the room talking. Whenever Nick or I tried to interject she interrupted and talked over us until we ceased; surrendered to the Mighty Goddess of Birthday. I checked my phone. It was 1 A.M. I could leave soon.

I looked at Nick. He seemed oblivious to everything except Tyler’s tits jiggling in her dress. Saucer-eyed, rubbing her rigid arms, rocking back and forth, she looked like a T. rex having a mild epileptic fit. She jiggled over and took a fag from my packet. Took my lighter and jiggled back to her position centre-stage. Put the fag in her mouth. ‘I can’t be doing with it,’ she said, around the cigarette. I stood up and walked towards her, turned the cigarette in her mouth the right way round and lit it.

‘What’s that?’ I said.

‘Oral.’

I looked at Nick. He was looking at Tyler. How had they got onto—?

‘What, not at all?’ Nick said.

Jim’s. Bathroom, then Jim’s.

‘Nah. It’s frustrating. It’s like some fucker hovering with the lighter or the note. I feel like saying, Put a cock in it, love.’

‘Typical,’ said Nick. ‘You spend decades telling us you’re not getting enough—’

‘Try centuries sweetheart and who is this “you”?’

‘—and now we’re doing it—’

‘It’s not me this “you” I know that much.’

‘—too much. There’s no—’

‘Be specific that’s the first rule of argument you silly boy.’

‘—pleasing Women.’

‘Oh whinge whinge whinge you know I’d have a lot more sex if I didn’t meet so many fucking whingers and ditherers last guy I slept with was down there for hours I wanted to say look my friend I appreciate the effort but the sensation went a while ago.’

‘Hey, Tyler,’ I said, ‘I’m calling a cab.’

‘So this is a length issue?’ Nick said. A wonky smile at his own mangled cleverness.