The walls of Bonita’s were mounted with muddy macros of flowers. Candles in dimpled red jars glowed on every table. The mid-tempo music was evocative of beaches and tropical weather, even though all I could see out of the big windows was the movement of the empty escalators. I was in Lakeside Thurrock, a giant shopping centre off the motorway. On the phone, John had said he liked its atmosphere – and that it was nice to get out of Wakesea for the evening. But he looked flustered when he came in, despite being early. The wet wrinkled half-moons of his underarms slid into view as he took off his unscuffed leather jacket. He sat down and looked around. I like to see what the big boys are doing, he said. Who are the big boys? I asked. The big boys of franchising. I’m in the franchising business, he said. Anyway, tell me about yourself.
The room went dark, light, dark as the candles flickered. I felt as though we were in a play and had to perform ourselves. Everything looked like a prop. I became nervous, the way I always did when anyone asked me to talk about my life. I had established facts about myself – I was once a dancer, now a modern jazz instructor for children. I was nearly twenty-seven. He slapped the table, so the cutlery jumped. I thought about being an actor when I was your age. He said your age dismissively, as if he had beaten me to my age in a race. I can do great impressions, he said. I don’t watch television or the news, I said. You won’t know who I’m impersonating then, he said, raising his eyebrows.
I might go back to dancing, I said. He examined the bowl of guacamole near my plate. You’ve been at the school a long time, he said. Have you heard of YouTube? I asked him, my mind racing. I didn’t know anything about YouTube but it sounded impressive, like I was thinking big. We could film the girls dancing. Cultivate them as personalities. I just need to convince Barbara. The Tube, it’s on the computer, isn’t it? I’m not a computer guy, he said. Anyway, I can’t really leave her, I said. She’s given me a lot of opportunities. She built the dance school from the ground up. I recited what I had written on the funding application earlier that year: Barbara’s is the most successful touring dance school in the eastern region.
I’m fascinated by you, he said. It was hard to explain to a self-made businessman that some of us got satisfaction from being needed in ways that didn’t always confer authority. If everyone put themselves first, we’d be doomed. What do you want? he asked. It was the way he said you, as though I had never thought about myself before.
We stood in the car park facing each other. What’s going on? I asked, because I had been telling myself not to ask. He moved forward, so I had to stare up at him. You intrigue me, he said. It seemed a strange thing to say after I had told him about myself. He wanted to pretend that he didn’t know what was happening between us. I knew that meant we would see each other again. But the only way I could be sure of what he was thinking was to make him think the same as me. I grabbed his neck, drew him closer. He began kissing back after a few seconds. Hoo, he said afterwards, I wasn’t expecting that. He looked at me sideways. It reminded me of how I had been told to look at goats in the petting zoo when I was younger, but I think he was trying to show me that he was shy or that it was his best angle.
Barbara seemed to know that something had changed. She called me to her office for a catch-up session. While I had never purposely kept anything from Barbara, I thought it best not to tell her about John. It was nice not to share something with my boss, as though I had a lurid piece of gossip about myself. He had called me the previous night. He spoke on the phone with a different voice and I pretended not to know him as he told me his sexual fantasies.
During summer, Barbara and I relocated the school to various coastal towns in Essex. The rest of the year, we had a small studio in Colchester. Barbara drove back every night, and because I still hadn’t learnt to drive, I rented a place in whatever town we were staying in and sublet the little flat I had in Colchester. But her office felt the same wherever we went. The scent of clary sage which she pumped into the air every few hours to relieve her tension. The blinds always down.
Have you heard of YouTube, Barbara? Pardon? she said, adjusting her glasses and then the golden orb she wore around her neck. Whenever I suggested anything new to do with the business, she became tired or her hearing went, so that it was embarrassing to repeat myself. Nothing, I replied. I’ve seen you moping, Vee. I’m not going to be around for ever, she said, again. The first time, I’d thought she had cancer or some other terminal illness, but she had been saying it for a year now.
You have to empower yourself. She reached for the clary sage. Long walks, flower-arranging, learning Italian, weightlifting, decoupage, kick-boxing – pick one, she said, when I asked her how. Empowerment sounded lonely. She was trying to hand me my freedom in the way that people do – teasingly, haltingly. But I was afraid, so I said I was happy.
John and I went to another restaurant in the shopping centre. I called our dates parents’ evenings and he thought it was because of his age, not because he was a parent. At the restaurant, he made notes, asking me to rate it on a five-point scale for service, presentation and ambience. I kept thinking of what Barbara had said, about empowering myself. Pasta kept falling out of my mouth, like I couldn’t concentrate on doing two things at once: eating and looking normal. What’s wrong? he asked. We both watched my unchewed gnocchi land back onto the plate. My jaw snapped the empty air. Work, I said. Afterwards, we drove back to Wakesea, the water flat and black below us, the town’s outline sawtoothing the sky.
White lozenges of motorway signs dissolved into the dark and we were finally in the town, winding past the tiny houses. He put the radio on, a song that had been playing from every car and shop all summer. The chorus went carry on having fun, fun, fun/never stop being young. This is such an odd place for a lone woman to move to, he said. He said ‘lone woman’ in a quavering voice like someone might say ‘lone killer’. I’ve always wanted to move around for my work, I said. But it probably wouldn’t have happened if Barbara hadn’t called the day after the psychic. I stopped speaking, changed the radio station. What psychic? He glanced at me, and then looked away swiftly, as if he was worried I would answer. I shook my head. Nothing. My road came into view. It was always quiet, as though the other residents had fled.
I lived in a rented house at the end of the terrace. John peered out at its lit windows. He didn’t turn the engine off. Why are the lights on? I do it to put off the burglars, I replied. I’ve told you that. He had never come into my house before. I asked him nervously whether he was going to get out. He leaned over and kissed me, mouth pursed. And then he moved back and stared ahead, seemingly waiting for me to leave. Well, I’ll hear from you soon, I said. I got out and slammed the door. The night air was cold coming in from the sea. It tapped my chest and my bare arms. I searched for my key, hoping it wouldn’t take so long that it looked like I was waiting for him, but also that I wouldn’t find it so quickly that I would disappear into the house and he would forget about me, about us.
The car idled outside as I stood in the hallway and stared into the mirror. My make-up had run. I looked like a child’s drawing of a dangerous stranger. Lipstick bleed, mascara pitted around my eyes. Was that why he hadn’t come in? No one withheld for that long. When I went into the kitchen, the floor was covered in slugs. They must have come in when it rained. But it was now so hot again that they had dried up. I didn’t have any cutlery, or anything sharp, apart from a nail file that I had left on the counter. I knelt down on the floor and scraped up one greying slug with the file and threw it into the bin. Then I walked back into the living room to draw the curtains. The halogen bulb made the fat pink roses on them swim. I switched it off and lifted a curtain. John was watching me from the car, his face grainy in the darkness. I imagined him as a strange man compelled by my every move. I walked to the door slowly and waited for him to knock.