Jonathan Lee - High Dive

‘Have you got a girlfriend, John?’

A smile crimped the corners of his mouth. ‘I don’t know what you’re suggesting, Freya Finch, but you’re making me very uncomfortable.’

She laughed at this and he laughed too.

She swallowed a very small forkful of chicken and rice. Took another gulp of beer. He pointed out that she was an extremely slow eater. Much quicker on the drinks, he said. She felt warm now, alert. Playful, attractive. The cork had popped; something had changed. But what was she doing here? The thing with John had been stillborn. Everyone knew this to be true. If they were supposed to be together, they’d be together by now, wouldn’t they? Did she only want him in order to want somebody who would maybe want her back? She enjoyed being a small, thin, successful drinker. People assumed she’d be wasted after just a glass or two, but she could handle … How much could she handle? She hiccuped and the room seemed to dim.

When John reached for his beer the logo on his white T-shirt stretched and the muscles in his forearm flickered. ‘How’s your dad?’ he said.

‘OK. He’s hoping to be out of there in a day or two.’

‘Yeah? That’s good. He needs to get himself a healthier lifestyle, that’s all. Get down to the beach.’

‘He’s on his feet a lot in the hotel.’

‘Yeah,’ John said. ‘But ideally the feet would be moving.’

‘Don’t be mean about my dad.’

‘You’re smiling,’ John said.

‘I was thinking about him at this wedding, a party we went to for my cousin.’

‘Dancing, was he?’

‘Yep, that’s what he called it.’

‘Bad?’

‘It definitely wasn’t any dance I know. He was just causing his head, his shoulders, his two arms and his two legs to sort of tremble, pretty violently, at roughly the same time.’

John laughed. ‘Diving’s supposed to require grace, right?’

‘Yeah. I’m not sure what happened. There are two halves of him, and in the middle there’s this gap.’

It was weird the way some words could enact the exact thing they described. ‘Gap’ opened a gap. The silence threatened to last. But John, maybe sensing this, began telling an unexpected story. It was about a time, just before starting his art foundation, when he’d spent a long weekend house-sitting for family friends in London.

‘They were a German couple.’

‘The owners?’

‘Yeah,’ he said.

He’d been tasked with looking after their elderly red setter. Alas, the red setter had died on his watch, just lay down and died by the sofa on the Saturday. Died. He didn’t know what to do. It was dead. Shit, what should he do?

‘It definitely didn’t seem appropriate to disturb their holiday,’ John said. ‘At least, not until I’d figured out what to say. You know, to soften their … their grief, or whatever.’

On the Sunday, Wilhelm the red setter was rigid. Surfer John reasoned it wouldn’t be long before he began attracting the attention of flies. He found the Yellow Pages and phoned a vet, and the vet referred him to a pet cemetery, and a taxi was too expensive so he decided to get the Tube.

‘You got the Tube,’ she said. ‘The London Underground, with a dead dog?’

He was going to put the dog in its custom-made wicker dog basket. But what if kids wanted to say hi, what if kids on the Tube tried to pet the dead dog through the bars? That would badly suck. ‘That was my reasoning, Freya Finch.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘I ended up putting Wilhelm in a suitcase.’

‘John!’

‘What? It seemed the right thing to do. What are the rules?’

He took the suitcase on the London Underground. At Hammersmith the lift wasn’t working, so he began to lug the dog-filled suitcase up the stairs. An absolutely massive bald guy said, Let me give you a hand with that, son. No no, I’m fine, John said. But the bald guy insisted: I’ll take it ten steps and then you can take it ten; it’ll be a workout, mate. And then the bald guy took the suitcase and ran off with it.

Doing voices for the dog owner, the dog owner’s husband, and at one stage for Wilhelm himself, John explained with new vitality how the post-holiday conversation with Mr and Mrs Mencken had gone. Yes, your dog is dead. Yes, your suitcase is gone. Unfortunately the suitcase and the dead dog were stolen at much the same time. He described all of this, and shared some of the swear words that were thrown his way in both German and English, and speculated as to what the thief must have thought when he opened the luggage with glee. From John’s description of the event there seemed to emerge, regardless of the truth or falsehood of the story, regardless of her giggles, regardless of the attentive timing with which he delivered his lines, a portrait Freya was surprised to recognise: Surfer John was lonely. It had never really occurred to her before that handsome, popular people could be lonely. John could work a room at a party, for sure, but maybe all this time he’d had dreams of different rooms.

‘Did you ever see the Germans again?’

He blinked. ‘Yeah. They still come round for dinner with my parents sometimes. They like to have weekends by the sea. What’s weird is that Mrs Mencken sometimes gets a little … despite the dog thing, she can get a little flirty.’

‘Well, you’re a good-looking guy, John.’

He rearranged his legs. He put his hand on her knee. ‘You’re not too bad yourself, Freya Finch.’

She looked at his hand. It had come out of nowhere, that hand.

‘You have nice legs,’ he said.

‘Have you considered poetry, John? I really think that’s your true calling.’

‘I just think you’re very cool.’

‘Why?’

‘Did I already mention you’re pretty?’

‘What about my amazing wit? My brain? My drinking skills?’

‘It’s all connected,’ he said. He sighed. ‘Sorry. Think I might be drunk.’

She moved her foot so that it touched his foot. They sat looking at each other. She looked at his arms. She pictured him balanced on his board. To be balanced like that was what everyone wanted.

She felt deep in the moment now, aware of every little gesture and breath, the seconds that flit by and the ones that fatten. There was a new energy within her, hustling for release. It wasn’t about him, exactly. It was about a sense of risk, was it? Everything felt improvised, their pauses and word choices, their voices stupid but clear.

‘I hope your dad gets, you know, completely better,’ he said. ‘I like him, he’s like you, he’s funny.’

‘I don’t want to be funny.’

‘You make people smile.’

There were times these last few nights when the house had seemed to grow around her. When it had seemed unbearable to be alone for another hour.

He leaned forward and she closed her eyes, but not the whole way; she could still see a version of John brushed by lashes. She waited. She sensed him assessing her. What if he didn’t like what he saw? People saw different things at different moments in different ways. There were all sorts of ways of seeing. A stray fragment of poppadom crunched under his legs, or her legs; she wasn’t sure. It would be seriously massively mortifying if he didn’t, after this, make a move. There were heartbeats. Lots of them. Fuck’s sake. I mean honestly. She moved against him. Pressed her lips to his. Warm taste of the almost-champagne. Wheatier hint of beer. Spice of sauce. He didn’t use his tongue straight away, which was the sign of a good kisser. When the proper kiss came it was warm and deep, hungry. They were intertwined. He was on top of her. They kissed like that, her body taking his weight. It felt good, liberating, not to be able to move.

His left hand was under her skirt. He placed it between her legs and kissed her neck. His hand was warm between her legs. She kept thinking someone might see through the living-room window. They moved upstairs to her bedroom.