‘Doormen,’ one of the men piped up.
Tyler didn’t look at him but she nodded sagely, acknowledging the suggestion. ‘There was talk of sabotage.’
‘Rival clubs,’ the man said again. ‘This town’s run by them, you know.’
‘Anyway,’ Tyler said, still without a glance at the men, ‘that was exciting for all of five minutes but the upshot was that there was no music.’
‘Whereabouts in America are you from?’ said the other man.
‘What has this got to do with us?’ I said.
Tyler glanced at the men. ‘The Midwest. Where the twisters are.’
‘You don’t look American.’
I sighed. ‘I really think we should finish our conversation.’
‘I don’t want to. I want to tell you about last night.’
I dragged on my fag and exhaled, frustrated. ‘Go on then.’
‘So we sat around in a circle on the floor of the club, talking about sex.’
‘Your suggestion, I presume?’
She took off her sunglasses and tugged a stray hair out of the hinge. ‘Well, what the fuck else? Charades? You need a bit of stimulation at that point. You need a good fuck or a good fight or a good sing-song.’
‘Want some weed?’ said one of the men. I looked at him holding out his soggy joint and shook my head.
Tyler batted the offer away with her hand. ‘No. Hate pot. Too slow.’
‘What’s the matter, love?’ the man said to Tyler. ‘Is your body too bootylicious for me?’ The other man laughed.
‘Bored,’ said Tyler, ‘my body is too bored.’
I drained my glass, anticipating our imminent departure. I hoped this wasn’t going to turn out like the time a man had overheard us talking about drugs in a queue for a cashpoint and said: I thought junkies were meant to be thin? She’d punched him.
She lit up another cigarette. ‘And some reprobate,’ she said exhaling, ‘posed the question: What’s the worst thing someone can say to you just before sex?’
The men froze. You could have heard a joint drop in that beer garden.
Tyler went on: ‘So people started putting forward their suggestions, you know. Put this horse’s tail butt-plug in… Call me Uncle Mo… I won of course.’ She tapped her fag in a leisurely way and smiled like a boar, pink wine-tusks disappearing into grin-folds.
‘Go on then,’ I said. ‘Let’s have it.’
She made me wait a few seconds. Dragged on her fag. Sipped her drink. Leaned in, tongue lolling in her bottom lip. ‘Make a face like you don’t understand.’ She reclined, victorious.
The men stood up and went inside.
‘Shall we get another drink?’ I said.
‘Yes, more drink. More everything. There’s a party going on not too far away if you fancy it. New friend of mine. An artist. I’ve got something in my pocket.’ I looked at her. Of course: the whole conversation had been an elaborate preamble. Tyler was good: talking about parties made you want to party. I felt like it by then — I felt as though (oh, the justifications, they come like flying monkeys through the window) getting lost somewhere together might be good for us.
I said: ‘I need at least ten hours’ sleep in the next forty-eight hours.’
‘Baby, that’s so feasible that it’s verging on Logic.’
THE COWPAT AND THE PSYCHIATRIST
Nick the Artist opened the door and held his arms wide at the sight of Tyler. His hair was hairsprayed into a tsunami of a side-parting.
‘I’m so glad you came!’ he said, and looked at me like he wasn’t so glad.
‘This is my friend Laura,’ said Tyler.
‘You’ll have to excuse my informal attire,’ I said. ‘I was planning on coming in a wedding dress but I just couldn’t find one that fitted… ’
Tyler laughed — not her usual laugh but one that got her by socially sometimes. ‘Come get a drink,’ Nick said.
We walked through the crowded studio and people didn’t move to let us pass, we had to say excuse me a lot and walk sideways with our hands up like crab-claws around manbags and jutting elbows. The studio was in a semi-derelict building just behind Oxford Road and through the grey-paned windows the grey city towers loomed like tired totems. Everyone at the party seemed to be wearing the same thick, black-rimmed glasses. The party was a private view — a launch for Nick’s new collection. He’d invited Tyler the previous night at the mill. Before or after your sex-face story? I asked. Oh, after, she said. But he’ll be disappointed if he thinks he’s in there. Too prissy for me. He’d be making a face like he didn’t understand because he wouldn’t actually understand.
‘Annihilations’ consisted of cushion-thick canvases hung from the walls at daring intervals. Splodges of dark oil paint on darker backgrounds, clumsy blobs and squares — they looked to me like large versions of micro-bacterial slides that a monkey had attempted to replicate with handfuls of baby shit. We reached a trestle table that didn’t look strong enough to support the two ice buckets teetering on its gummy surface. Tyler fished two beers from a bucket and opened them with her teeth. She had a tiny curved scar on her top lip — I imagined this was from removing a bottle-top inexpertly at some point. She handed me a beer and whispered: ‘Let’s not stay long. It’s all rather austere.’
I clawed up a handful of peanuts from a bowl on the table and sprinkled them into my mouth.
‘What are you doing?’ said Tyler. ‘Do you not know that there will be hipster urine particles in there?’
I shovelled in another handful. She pressed a wrap into my other palm.
‘What’s that?’ I said, spraying nuts. The affectation of innocence was such a comfort sometimes. Still. The wrap was like a gauntlet, a glove thrown down, a dare.
When I was secure in a cubicle I uncurled my palm. What was this? As I carefully picked open the wrap I saw it was a flyer, the words gradually revealed. I jiggled the crystals around to decipher it in full.
THEMES OF THE EMBITTERED HEART: A Talk on W.B. Yeats by Professor Marty Grane, Goldsmiths University, London. Join us for a lunchtime lecture about the later works of the great Irish poet. The Georgian Library, Mosley Street. 4th May. 1 P.M. Free.
I stared at the words. Had Tyler done this on purpose, as a joke? This was going to be difficult. I could hardly bear to, it was so desecrating. I say hardly.
As I handed it back to her I said: ‘Was that flyer especially for me?’
‘What flyer?’
‘The one you’re using as a wrap.’
She looked confused. ‘I picked it up off a stack on the counter at work. I didn’t even look at it.’
‘Oh. It’s for a talk on Yeats in Manchester next month.’
‘Your favourite!’
‘Fancy it?’
‘Sure.’
Approximately twenty-three minutes later I was in the corner of the studio dancing by a tinny stereo to a song I didn’t know and didn’t care that I didn’t know, it had a beat and that was enough for me. I could work with it. I could work with anything. Tyler was eyeing up two boys and I have to say boys, they were doing their utmost to look like boys, in tight jeans by the window. She went over to them and I heard her shout: ‘What is it with young men and this knock-kneed flamingo stance? You clearly haven’t got enough Vitamin Me in your diets. Straighten your legs. Straighten your legs right now.’
There was a woman next to me, running on the spot, smiling. I ran with her, keeping my arms and legs in time with hers and in time with the music.