Lolito (13 page)

I try to think of things to say. I run through films in
my head, searching for relevant quotes. Wine, I think.
Sideways
.

I take a sip from my glass. ‘It tastes like the back of a fucking LA schoolbus,’ I say. It comes out louder than I expected and in a voice that isn’t mine. I wince. ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘No, it doesn’t.’

Macy stares at me, curiously and kindly, and with her mouth open. Other people stare at me too.

We use a lot of nothing words to fill up the space between us. I ask how she is. She says okay. She asks how I am. I say fine. I ask how her trip was. She says okay. She asks if I’ve been here before. I say no. It’s like the talking you do with teachers when you see them outside of school. When you know you have to say something but you don’t know what you have to say. We both sit up straight and take big glugs of wine. There are a lot of elephants on the table. They are miniature and pink and we aren’t yet sure what shape they are. I try to work out how much each glug of wine is costing. Fifty pence, I think.

When we’re more drunk and familiar, talking gets less weird. The waiter brings our food. Neither of us eats. I try to ask Macy about her business but she doesn’t want to talk about it. She asks about mortgage brokering.

‘Never mix work and food and women, I always say,’ I say. I don’t always say that. And it doesn’t sound very suave. ‘More wine?’ Suave is a very suave word.

‘Thanks.’

I use the retarded claw way of holding the wine while I pour it. I pour some into mine, and start pouring some into Macy’s. I drop the wine bottle on her steak. It sits there, flowing off the table and into the deep green sea of carpet. Macy laughs very loudly. People look at us. The waiter sees and walks over. He picks up the wine and Macy’s plate.

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ he says.

‘Why?’ I say.

Macy starts laughing again. I nudge her foot with my foot and hoist up my eyebrows. It means
this is funny but let’s pretend to be serious for the waiter because he’s a normal human man trying to do his normal human job.
She coughs.

‘That’s fine,’ she says. ‘Another bottle of the same and another steak would be super.’

He leaves. I pour half of my wine into her glass. She finishes it in one sip. She quietly says ‘Jesus’ and she’s smiling. I think, I’m not doing a good job of not looking like a child. I finish my wine.

‘Do you go on a lot of dates?’

She knows.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I mean no. Some. Sometimes. The bottle was very slippery. I think he dipped it in water. I’ll ask him to not do that again.’ I turn around to look for the waiter. I say, ‘Waiter.’

‘You’re very tense.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry.’

‘Okay.’

I put my finger in my risotto, then take it out. It’s supposed to make me look comfortable and at ease. It doesn’t work. I look brain damaged and overly tactile.

‘Are you always anxious around people?’

‘Only around byoofell lades,’ I say. ‘Oh God.’ I put a hand over my face and open a V between my fingers to see through. ‘Beautiful loodies,’ I say. ‘Fuck.’ Macy is laughing again. I can count her teeth through the gap in my hand. ‘Beautiful ladies,’ I say. ‘There.’ She reaches forward and pulls my hand away. Her hand is cold. It is a good, gentle cold, like drinking water in the bath.

‘Come out.’ More wine and another steak arrives. My glass fills up. ‘Can you show him how to pour?’ Macy says. The waiter sets the bottle down on the table and demonstrates the claw. I make one with my hand. He picks up the bottle and lodges it between my thumb and fingers. Shaking slightly, I pour my own wine. To the brim.

‘Very good,’ he says. ‘Only usually we do a little less.’

‘Thanks.’

‘It’s hard,’ I say, turning to Macy as the waiter leaves. ‘I keep thinking it will come out of my hand and smash into a thousand pieces and I’ll fall into the pieces. Then doctors will have to graft skin from my bum onto my face.’

‘I’ll lend you skin.’

‘I’ll look nicer.’

‘It’ll be like you’re wearing plastic bags.’

‘No,’ I say.

We start on our food. Mine is cold and tastes of old cheese and paper. Macy’s smells good. I can’t eat steak because it makes my mouth too tired. Risotto is easy. Risotto is baby food. I drink wine every two mouthfuls and it starts to taste less bad. I think, maybe acquired taste is actually a real thing. Maybe people do like wine. It’s not as nice as just eating the grapes, but it’s okay. And it makes me less anxious. My shoulders start to sag and rush hour in my head comes to a close. The bears get home to their wives and go to bed. Night night, everyone.

‘That was good,’ Macy says.

‘You have some on your mouth.’

She dabs at her lips.

‘Is it gone?’

‘No. It’s sort of on your cheek. Left.’

She dabs at her cheek.

‘Now?’

‘No.’

‘Can you get it?’

‘Okay.’

She hands me the serviette and leans across the table. I drop it. I jab my finger into her nostril. She yelps and pulls away. I push Dad’s tie into my mouth. I realise I am drunk. The nose thing was what I used to do to
Alice, when we weren’t in the bath and I couldn’t do it with my toe.

‘That felt weird.’

‘You have an empty nose. It’s clean. Well done.’

‘Thanks, hon.’

‘Sorry for putting my finger in your nose.’

‘Forgiven.’

‘Do you want dessert?’

‘Dessert wine?’

‘Deal.’

Macy waves the waiter over and we order more wine. I’m starting to get tingles. My body is always drunk before my head. When bad things happen from drinking, the last memory I usually have is realising that my body feels heavy and warm.

28

Me and Macy are holding hands in the back of a black cab. Outside, the sky is black and glassy. Our driver isn’t saying anything. He’s got the radio on low and it’s playing something depressing by Adele. I wonder who he thinks we are. We look like a middle-class mum and son, I feel.

Macy asked him to drive us to the closest gay nightclub. It wasn’t my idea and I don’t know why it’s happening. I’m drunk. We didn’t have sex. We finished the wine then had mojitos because I said I didn’t know what they were and I still don’t know what they are and I definitely don’t like them.

‘Are you sure it’s gay?’ Macy says. She releases my hand. We pull up beside a converted warehouse with a neon purple entrance. There’s a queue running past a
fenced-off area where people are smoking and kissing and touching hands.

The driver laughs. ‘Gay,’ he says. I push money through the window that separates us and Macy and I climb out. We join the back of the queue, behind a man with bleached hair and scuffed boots. Macy takes my hand again. A thick, heavy thud is coming from inside of the building.

Nightclubs are scary.

There are too many people having fun in ways I don’t understand. It doesn’t make sense. Once, me, Alice and Aslam got into Diva with fake IDs. People were shouting and hitting each other in the face. A man asked me something and I didn’t hear properly so I didn’t reply. I smiled a little. The man said ‘fucking retard’ to his friend. I smiled more. One of the men pushed me. I pulled my t-shirt up over my head and sat down on the sugar-wet wooden floor. Alice hooked her hands under my armpits, pulled me up and led me outside. We caught the 84 back to her house. We watched four episodes of
Parks and Recreation
then fell asleep in our clothes.

We’re at the front of the queue. A tall man in a bomber jacket looks at the face on my pretend driving licence. His lip twitches. I look like a gerbil in the picture. Macy doesn’t get asked for ID. She reaches for her pocket but stops midway, examines her knuckles and looks directly up. I put my debit card into a reader and someone stamps black balloons onto our wrists and we go inside.

‘This is going to be fun,’ Macy says.

‘What?’

‘This is going to be fun.’

‘Oh.’

People aren’t fun.

There are a thousand bears wrestling under revolving lights and lasers. Several men are topless. Layers of sweat cover their chests like cellophane. My body accumulates weight. I am as heavy as one hundred hotel rooms. I try to dig through the floors of my pockets. Maybe I can escape. I will make tiny tunnels and disappear down them. No. Breathe. Stay here with Macy. Then sex her. That’s why you’re here. Look:

Her hips are scales and her fingers are against the back of my neck. I should try to dance. I should try to make my body move in an appealing way. I should seduce her with my body-popping prowess. Macy is Shakira. I will be Ricky Martin.

Left.

Right.

Left.

Jesus.

I look severely retarded. If I keep doing this someone is going to make me sit in a wheelchair. Someone is going to call an ambulance. Are people looking? It’s hard to see anything. The lights are blue now. We’re in a loud underwater cave. Macy’s grinning. Her eyes are closed. I don’t understand. We have been inside for one minute.
I want to be not inside for all of the minutes left between now and for ever.

‘I’ll get drinks,’ I say.

‘What?’

‘Drinks.’

‘What?’

I panic and walk away towards the bar. I tuck in my elbows. There are bears either side of me. They are holding notes in their fists and leaning forward at uncomfortable angles. Macy’s arm curls around my back. Her mouth comes to my ear.

‘Are you okay?’ she says.

‘Yes.’

‘You don’t look okay, hon.’

I don’t want to be here but Macy does. I should be able to stand in a building with people and not collapse. I’ll drink. I’ll drink and learn dancing with my eyes. I’ve seen
Step Up.
I can try. ‘I’m okay.’ I’m Channing Tatum.

Macy orders our drinks. She gets two half-orange, half-red cocktails that come in glasses shaped like fruit bowls.

‘Relax,’ she shouts.

‘I am relaxed,’ I shout.

‘Good.’

‘Yeah.’

I hold the fruit bowl in both hands and tip whatever the liquid is back into my mouth. Trickles of orange escape my cheeks and drip off my chin. Macy laughs.
She passes me hers and I drink that too. My stomach mumbles. Warmth spreads through my canals.

‘Come on,’ Macy says. I follow her through the tight spaces between bodies. Gaps open and close like lift doors. I think, this doesn’t make sense. My legs keep moving. I am relying on my legs to not get too upset and lie down. I ricochet off wet shoulders. Macy stops in a small clearing, raises her hands over her head and begins to rotate her hips. I want to run forward and hug her. I want to bury my head between her breasts and disappear. I can’t. I have to try.

*

I’m trying to make my body bend while Rihanna sings about love and how it goes away. There are more people now. My phone starts to ring. It’s Hattie. I want to answer it. I try to push out a path to somewhere quieter.

‘CAN YOU HEAR ME?’ she says.

‘YES.’

‘ETGAR?’

‘YES.’ I find a corner to press myself into, next to the women’s toilet.

‘I THOUGHT I LOVED YOU BUT IT WAS JUST BECAUSE JAMES WAS SO FAMILIAR AND YOU AREN’T AND I DON’T KNOW BUT I DEFINITELY DON’T AND WE SHOULD STOP DOING THE
HUMPING BECAUSE I’M GOING TO BE SERIOUS WITH JAMES FROM NOW.’

I didn’t expect her to call and say that. I didn’t expect her to call. I’m happy she did.

‘Okay.’

‘OKAY?’

‘OKAY.’

‘OKAY.’

‘I’M SORRY FOR BEING A DICK I WASN’T GOOD AT THINKING ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE THIS WEEK.’

‘I’M SORRY TOO HAVE FUN WHEREVER YOU ARE SEE YOU ON TUESDAY.’

I feel a little lighter. I’m going to go and pick Macy up. I’m going to ask her to teach me dancing. I’m going to be fine.

*

She’s gone. She disappeared. I don’t know when. I don’t know what’s happening. A woman came wearing holsters filled with Jägermeister and sold me three shots. Then I danced more. Then a song came on and all the arms went up and I was looking through the arms for Macy’s and they weren’t there.

I’m standing at the bar. I’m holding a bottle of lime-flavour Mexican beer, trying to make my breathing get slow. I imagine my lungs as an accordion playing the
funeral march. I close my eyes and see Alice behind them. She’s sitting at the opposite end of the bath, with panda eyes, shaking her head. I think, fuck you. You had fun being fingered by Aaron Mathews. I’m going to have fun in a gay nightclub in London. I’m going to finger the fuck out of everyone. I’m going to forget that you exist. I’m going to drown you.

‘Can I get you a drink?’ a man next to me says. He’s around Macy’s age, and wearing a denim jacket above loose blue chinos. His hair is parted in the middle, each side tucked behind an ear. I want to run away but I’m going to have fun. I’m going to have so much fun.

‘Yes,’ I say, pointing out a random yellow bottle on the glass shelf over the barman’s head. The man next to me does a
come here, now it’s your job
gesture with his hand. He orders the drinks, drops a forearm onto the bar and leans to one side. I pinch at thigh-skin through my pocket. ‘Alan,’ the man says, picking my hand up from my side and shaking it.

‘Wicked,’ I say. ‘Super doop.’

‘Now you tell me yours.’

‘Oscar.’ Alan lets go of my hand. He’s been holding it for an unusually long amount of time. I think, does Alan fancy me? I think, probably not. He just wants someone to stand with. That’s all anyone wants. We’ll both stand here. Macy will come back. It’s okay. Breathe.

Have fun.

Alan downs his drink and tells me to do the same. I
do the same. He leads me away from the bar and starts to dance gently against my side. I close my eyes. I make my arms take it in turns to go up and down. I picture a team of narwhals congregated in a morning sea, trying to get close and not being able to. Alan grunts. His head’s moving like a cartoon Egyptian. I don’t want him to be upset but also I don’t want him to grind me. He puts a hand against my back. The muscles in my legs involuntarily tense so hard it hurts.

Have fun.

Katy Perry’s playing. Alan mouths the words at me. He’s grinning and his eyebrows are almost lost in his hair. I try to make my eyes go blank and bright.