Rupert Thomson - The Insult

I grinned. ‘It’s probably the next-door neighbour.’

‘That’s right, it’s the next-door neighbour,’ the next-door neighbour said, ‘and the next-door neighbour wants to know what the fuck six knives are doing stuck in the side wall of his garden shed.’

Loots tried to explain that he used to work in a circus and that he was just demonstrating the art of knife-throwing to a friend.

The next-door neighbour interrupted him. ‘First I’m kept awake half the night, some wedding, now there’s a fucking circus in my garden. Go demonstrate in your own garden, for Christ’s sake.’ He blew some air out of his mouth. ‘Jesus.’

Loots retrieved his knives, then led me towards the fence.

‘And don’t fucking break my fence,’ the next-door neighbour shouted after us, ‘all right?’

We didn’t start laughing until we dropped down on the other side. Then we couldn’t stop. Every time Loots said, ‘It’s probably the next-door neighbour,’ we started again. My stomach ached with it.

‘Were you really a knife-thrower?’ I asked him.

‘Well, I trained as one,’ he said, ‘but they never actually let me loose on anyone.’

The two of us laughing, but more quietly now. Sitting on a damp lawn, with our backs against the fence. Dawn in the suburbs.

At last we walked back towards the house. There was something I was still curious about, though, and now seemed as good a time as any. I turned to Loots.

‘Do you do any tricks with bicycles?’

‘Bicycles?’ He sounded baffled. ‘How do you mean?’

‘Oh, you know,’ I said casually. ‘Handstands, juggling — that kind of thing.’

‘No, I don’t know anything about that.’

I smiled to myself. Obviously he didn’t want to talk about his bicycle trick. He was probably still perfecting it. I decided not to press him. Loots was a man of many talents, and some of them were hidden. If anyone understood the value of secrecy, it was me. The fact that he also had secrets didn’t frustrate or discourage me at all; if anything, it lifted him higher in my estimation.

We travelled back into the city together. The tram was empty to begin with, then it filled. The people getting on hadn’t been awake for long. They talked in murmurs, if they talked at all; they were still carrying their last night’s sleep with them. I heard the stamp of tickets being punched in the machine. The wheels grinding on the rails. The whiplash of electric cables overhead. Loots fell asleep beside me, his cheekbone knocking against my shoulder. I opened the window and cool foggy air flowed in. November.

Just before my stop, I reached into my pocket to check that my key was there. My hand closed round a piece of paper. I lifted it to my nose. The scent of apple blossom still lingered.

Inge had suggested that I choose the place. Somewhere you’re comfortable with, she said. Somewhere you know. While it was thoughtful of her, it wasn’t easy. All the places I knew — or rather, used to know — I couldn’t go to any more. I could only think of the Bar Sultan, which was in a small street on the east side of the railway station. Gregory had taken me there one night.

We’d agreed to meet at nine o’clock. I was there at three minutes past. I couldn’t see her, though, so I took a stool at the bar and ordered a beer. It was a long, narrow place. Dark wood, framed photographs of local football teams (the owner used to keep goal for the city), and a juke-box and a pool table in the back. I wondered what would happen when she arrived. I didn’t think we’d dance again; there was nobody to blackmail me into it this time and, besides, the music wasn’t suitable. Maybe we’d talk. I didn’t have much to say that anyone would believe, but I was curious about her. I knew so little. I drank my beer and when it was gone there was still no sign of her. I ordered another.

It’s all right to be on your first drink when you’re waiting for somebody, or on your second, that’s all right, too. But if you’re on your third, it starts to feel like something’s wrong. I asked the bartender what the time was. Ten-thirty-five, he said. Inge was an hour and a half late. My neck ached from looking round whenever the door swung open. My head ached as well. I’d been looking forward to the moment when the crowd parted to reveal her, like something at the centre of a flower. I’d been looking forward to it, and now it wasn’t going to happen.

By the time I ordered my fourth beer I was past caring. I drank it down in two savage gulps and ordered a fifth immediately.

Someone sat down on the stool I’d been saving for her. Well, she wasn’t going to be using it. She wouldn’t be coming now, and that was probably just as well. I couldn’t even remember what she looked like. Somehow I couldn’t bring myself to leave, though. It wasn’t twelve o’clock yet, and, anyway, I didn’t feel like going to Leon’s. I went to Leon’s every night. So there I was, five drinks inside me, sitting at the bar.

I couldn’t have said exactly when I noticed the girl sitting on the stool beside me. Midnight, maybe. Maybe later. It seemed to me that she’d been sitting there for some time. Not saying anything. Just sitting there, like me. Her elbow touching mine. But I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone. Not any more. I’d been stood up. Whatever dream I’d had, it was in pieces. The girl was still there, though, even after I’d registered all that.

‘Have you got a light?’ she said.

I found a lighter in my pocket. She cupped her hand round the back of mine and guided it towards her cigarette.

‘Thank you.’

She inhaled, drank from her drink, then blew the smoke out. She was still sitting there. Dark-brown hair, with gold in it. Dark eyelashes.

‘Can I kiss you?’ she said.

I stared at her. I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right.

She leaned closer. ‘I’d like to kiss you.’

And before I could say anything, one of her hands reached up and rested on my shoulder, then her lips touched mine.

That girl from the wedding. Inge. Her small mouth. That tremor in her voice. You don’t have to. She was actually, now I thought about it, pretty ugly. Repulsive even. Old, too. Thirty-five, at least. What had I ever seen in her? There was a kind of revenge in the way I kissed the girl who was sitting next to me, a vehemence that tasted sweet. And after that, another kiss. Longer this time. And suddenly all thoughts of revenge had lifted and there was only disbelief. That this girl, who was beautiful, had kissed me. That this was happening at all.

‘There’s something I should tell you,’ I said.

She pulled back. ‘You’re married.’

I smiled at her. ‘No, not that.’

‘It’s some disease then.’

‘No.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘You don’t like girls.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘I can’t think of anything else.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’m blind.’

She laughed. ‘I knew that.’

I wondered how.

‘That white stick of yours,’ she said. ‘Kind of gives you away, doesn’t it.’

‘You don’t mind?’ I said.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t mind.’

The city was deserted. It must have been late.

Wide streets, silver tramlines bending off into the distance. A cold wind blowing.

Spiral staircases rose into the air, built out of newspaper, sweet-wrappers, empty bags of crisps. And sometimes there was a van parked on a street-corner with a flap open in the side of it. One fluorescent light. A man in a white jacket selling sausages, chips with mayonnaise, soft drinks.

Then just houses with dark windows, leaves on the pavement. The moon high up in the branches of a tree.

Nina, I whispered to myself. Nina.