He could not believe this was happening to him. He actually tingled where she touched him. His heart seemed to be beating in some huge dry place, an echoing cavern. His mouth had gone dry. She let go of his arm, lifting the shoe she had taken off, showing it to him and smiling. She laughed, "Look," she said. "See? Wine."
He gave a small dry laugh of his own - all he could manage - and looked at the small black shoe. The hourglass shape of white leather inside it, raked from toes to low heel, was stained pale red, and still looked damp. She pushed it closer, laughing again and lowering her head as though shy, "Here, smell, if you can stand it." Her voice was deep, slightly hoarse.
He did his best to laugh, said heartily, nodding his head, bobbing it from side to side, achingly conscious of how stupid he must look, "Yup, looks like wine to me."
A terror seized him. He couldn't think what to say to her. He found himself looking round for Slater as she put one hand on the mantelpiece and slipped her shoe back on, fastening the strap again. A wine box appeared above the crowd of heads by the door. He watched it come closer, relieved.
"Ah... here comes your drink, I think," he said, nodding to where Slater was pushing through the crowd, lowering the wine box and a glass he was carrying; smiling at them when he saw Sara and Graham.
"I've been proving to Graham I really did have some wine and it smashed," Sara said as Slater, turning briefly to greet somebody he had just passed, came over to them. He set the wine box on the white mantelpiece, held the fresh glass beneath the little tap, and filled the container almost to the brim.
"Indeed. I trust he was suitably impressed,"
"Bowled over," Graham said nervously, then wished he could gulp the words back somehow. Neither of the others seemed to think anything of it though. But he felt bowled over, and could hardly believe it wasn't obvious to every single person in the room. He took his plastic tumbler up again and sipped at the wine, watching Sara over the lip of the tumbler.
"Well then, Sara," Slater said, leaning one-elbowed on the shoulder-high wood of the mantelpiece, smiling at the pale-skinned woman, "how are we, then? How's the old home town?" Slater meant Shrewsbury, if Graham recalled correctly. Slater glanced at Graham, "Sara and I were next-door neighbours for a while. I do believe our parents may even have intended us for each other at one time, without actually saying anything about it, of course," Slater sighed, looked Sara up and down. Graham's heart, or his guts, something deep inside him, ached, as Slater went on, "Not for me, of course, though looking at Sara I almost wish I was a lesbian, sometimes,"
Graham laughed, biting the sound off the instant he thought he was laughing too long. He hid behind the wine glass again, putting his lips to the liquid but not drinking despite his dry throat; he would get too drunk. He couldn't disgrace himself in front of this woman. Was she as old as he'd thought? Was Slater serious about them being some sort of childhood sweethearts, or even just close enough in age for their parents to think...? He shook his head for a second, trying to clear it. The room seemed suddenly stuffy and close. He felt claustrophobic. There was a scream from somewhere in the house; the chatter of voices quietened briefly and he could sense heads turning to the open door leading from the room.
"That, I suspect, is Hunter," Slater said unconcernedly, waving one hand. "His idea of a party trick is to tickle his wife until she wets her knickers. Sorry, Sara, I interrupted you..."
"Nothing," she said, "I was just going to say it's dull and horrible. I hate the winter there,"
"So you're here," Slater said. The woman nodded.
"I'm... staying in Veronica's place for now, while she's in the States," He heard something strange in her voice.
"Oh God, that awful place in Islington," Slater looked sympathetic. "You poor thing,"
"It's better than where I was," she said quietly. She was mostly turned away from him; he could just see the curve of her cheek, the line of her nose, and as he watched she put her head down very slightly, and her voice altered again. Slater tut-tutted to himself, looking into his glass.
"Finally left him, then?" Slater said, and Graham felt his eyes widening, that pulling back of the skin towards the ears he thought he had seen frozen on her face. Left? Separated? He stared at her anxiously, then at Slater, and tried hard not to look as interested as he felt. She was looking down, into her glass. She hadn't drunk very much.
"Finally," she said, bringing her head up, shaking her head not in negation but a sort of defiance, so that the tangled black hair bobbed once.
"And the other one?" Slater said. His voice was cold now, expression deliberately blank. Something about his eyes was hooded, making his eyes, briefly, resemble hers. Graham felt himself leaning forward, wanting to catch her reply. Had she started talking? Both their voices were low; they didn't really mean to include him in the conversation, and it was noisy in the room; people laughed and shouted, the music next door had been turned up.
"I don't want to talk about it, okay, Richard?" she said, and to Graham her voice sounded hurt. She turned fractionally away from Slater and drank deeply from her glass. She looked at Graham, not smiling, then her lips trembled and a small smile did appear.
Park, you idiot, Graham told himself, you're looking at this woman as if she was ET. Get a grip of yourself. He smiled back. Slater giggled briefly, then said to Graham, "Poor Sara married a cad who had the ill taste to become manager of a sewage works. As I've told her, now that she's left him and his personal life's in such a mess, perhaps he'll do what these managerial types usually do in such circumstances, and throw himself into his work."
Graham started to smile, though he thought the joke itself might be in rather poor taste, but then he was aware of Sara turning quickly, putting her glass on the mantelpiece and looking straight at him, coming closer, her face set in strange hard lines, eyes bright, taking him by the elbow and turning her head as if to emphasise that she was talking to Graham, ignoring Slater, saying,
"You do dance, don't you?"
"Oopsie-doopsie, me and my big mouth," Slater said quietly to himself as Sara took Graham's plastic tumbler and put it on the mantelpiece beside her own glass, then led him, stunned, unprotesting, through the crowd towards the room where the music was.
And so they danced. He couldn't remember a single record, track or tape played. Her body was warm through the layers of clothing they wore, when they danced slow dances. They talked, but he couldn't remember what about. They danced and danced. He was hot, sweating, his feet hurt after a while and his muscles ached, as though they were not dancing but running, pounding through a strange, noisy jostling forest of soft, moving trees in darkness; just the two of them.
She kept looking at him, and he kept trying to hide what he felt, but when they danced together, holding each other, he kept wanting to stop and just stand there, mouth hanging open; express through sheer immobility something he possessed no dynamic for. To touch her, hold her, smell her.
They went back to the other room eventually. Slater had gone, so had the wine box and Sara's glass. They shared Graham's glass, taking turns. He tried not to stare at her. Her skin was still white, though a sort of heat seemed to radiate from her now, something which he caught and felt, became infected by. The room seemed darker now, and smaller than it had. People moved and pushed and laughed and shouted; he was vaguely aware of them. Around her neck, the white-on-white semi-circle of scar tissue seemed to glow in the dim light, like something itself luminous.