Fred wanted me to come and watch him play five-a-side football that evening. They played every Wednesday, he said-a regular lads’ feature. He was cheerful and laid-back, as if nothing had happened last night. He told me he was deadheading roses in suburbia, but he kept thinking about my body.
Pauline told me I had to have my literacy-hour material ready by the end of the week and did I think that was possible. Oh yes, I replied, unconvincingly, head throbbing. I usually buy a roll with cheese and tomato at the sandwich bar on the way to school, but today I’d forgotten, so while the other teachers ate healthy sandwiches and fruit, I had boiled potatoes and baked beans from the obese dinner lady, followed by steamed pudding and custard. Comfort food: It made me feel better.
I made the children write the letter f over and over again, following the dotted lines on their work sheets. F for fox and frog and fun. “And fuck,” said four-year-old Barny, an August baby and youngest in the class, to the hoots of his admiring friends.
At circle time, we discussed bullying. I didn’t look at Damian when I talked about everyone trying to care for each other, and all the children gazed at me with their cruel and innocent eyes. He sat quite near me, picking bits of fluff out of the rug, eyes swimming behind his thick glasses.
“Better?” I asked him as they left for the day.
“Mmm,” he mumbled, head hanging. I saw that his neck was grubby; nails dirty. I felt suddenly irritated and angry with him, and wanted to shake him out of his hopelessness. Maybe that’s how I was being, I thought: Maybe I was letting myself be bullied.
It’s amazing how much noise ten men can make. Not just shouting at each other, but grunting, screaming, howling, yelling, hitting the ground with a thwack, hurtling into each other, kicking each other’s shins so I thought I could hear the bones crack. I was amazed not to see blood gushing, bodies on stretchers, fisticuffs. But at the end of the hour they were all sweaty, smelly, fine; clapping each other round the shoulders. I felt a bit stupid, standing on the sidelines and watching them like part of the fan club. There were four other women there, as well, who obviously knew each other, were part of some kind of group who went out every Wednesday to watch their men getting pulped. Clio, Annie, and Laura, and someone whose name I never quite got and didn’t like to ask again. They asked me how I’d met Fred, and wasn’t he a charmer, and were friendly in a restrained kind of way that made me think there was a different girl most weeks and they didn’t want to commit themselves. I guess I was meant to have cheered Fred on, as he rushed past me in a hot blur, eyes glazed, yelling something, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it.
Afterward, he came over and draped an arm round my shoulder and gave me a kiss.
“You’re sweaty.”
I didn’t mind that much, but on the other hand I didn’t intrinsically take huge pleasure in it in some primitive hormonal way.
“Mmmm.” He nuzzled me. “And you’re all cool and lovely.”
After work, I’d been to Louise’s flat to have a bath, and she’d lent me a pair of gray cotton trousers and a sleeveless knitted top to put on. I hadn’t wanted to go back to my place. “Coming for a drink?”
“Sure.” The last thing my body needed was a drink, but I wanted company. As long as I was with other people, in a public place, I felt safe. Just the thought of it getting dark again, and me in my flat, on my own, made me breathless.
“I’ll see you after the shower.”
One drink turned into several, in a dark pub whose landlord obviously knew them all well.
“And she’s been getting all these mad letters,” continued Fred, as if it were all a big joke. His hand moved round to my side, feeling its way down my ribs. I shifted nervously, lit another cigarette, tipped the last of the lager down my throat. “Including ones that threaten to kill her. Haven’t you, Zoe?”
“Yes,” I mumbled. I didn’t want to talk about it.
“What did the police say?” asked Fred.
“Not much,” I said. I made an attempt at lightness: “Don’t worry, Fred. I’m sure you’ll be suspect number one.”
“It can’t be me,” he said cheerfully.
“Why not?”
“Well… er.”
“You’ve never seen me sleep,” I said and immediately wished I hadn’t, but Fred just looked puzzled. It was a relief when Morris started telling me how they used to come here on quiz night.
“It’s cruel, really,” he said. “It’s just too easy. It feels like helping ourselves to their money. We’re lucky they don’t just take us out back and break our thumbs.”
“The Hustler,” said Graham.
“What?” I said.
“Is my idiot brother boring you?”
“Don’t be mean,” I said.
“No, no,” said Morris. “It’s another reference. That’s what Herman Mankiewicz said about Joseph Mankiewicz.” Now he grinned over at his brother. “But Joseph was the more successful one in the end.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know who these people are.”
Unfortunately, they then started to tell me. To me the interplay of these old friends and brothers was a bewildering mixture of ancient jokes, obscure references, private catchphrases, and I generally thought the best thing was to keep my head down and wait for something I could follow. After a while the frenzied, competitive cross talk subsided and I found myself talking to Morris once more.
“Are you together with any of…” I said in a subdued voice and giving a discreet nod in the direction of the various young women around the table.
Morris looked evasive.
“Well, Laura and me are sort of, in a way…”
“In a way what?” said Laura across the table. She was a large woman with straight brown hair pulled back in a bun.
“I was telling Zoe that you’ve got ears like a bat.”
I assumed that Laura would get furious with Morris. I would have. But I was starting to see that the three women hovered on the edge of the group, mostly talking among themselves and only being brought into the general conversation when necessary, which didn’t seem to be very often. The boys, fresh-faced, bright-eyed after the football, looked more like little boys than ever. Why had I been embraced by their little group? As an audience? Morris leaned over very close to me and I almost thought for a moment he was going to nuzzle my ear. Instead he whispered into it.
“It’s over,” he said.
“What is?”
“Me and Laura. It’s just that she doesn’t know it yet.”
I looked across at her as she sat there, unaware of the sentence hanging over her head.
“Why?” I asked.
He just shrugged, and I felt I couldn’t bear to talk about it anymore.
“How’s work going?” I said, for want of anything better.
Morris lit a cigarette before answering.
“We’re all waiting,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
He took a deep drag and then an even deeper gulp of his beer.
“Look at us,” he said. “Graham is a photographer’s assistant who wants to be a real live photographer. Duncan and me go around showing stupid secretaries how to do things with their software that they should have read in the manual. We’re waiting for one or two of our ideas to, well, come to fruition. The way things are now, you need one halfway plausible idea and you’re worth more than British Airways.”