him hurried and crabby.
And what would have happened to him if he had kept on dancing? The answer, watching Bottles, was suddenly clear. He would have become a vet. He would have been a vet because he would have been less ambitious, less self-denying. He would have been more himself. If he had kept on dancing, he and Bottles might have stayed friends and he would have gone on with the amateur acting and the animals.
I should have told my polished little social circle to get lost. They dropped me soon enough. When I needed help.
That had never bubbled to the surface of Michael's conscious thought before, but it was true. The future newsreaders avoided him when he came back from California – they were not up to tending the wounded. Bottles had gone on to tend his dying friends.
Gosh, he missed her, now in this future he made for himself without any friends.
Bottles, honey, he thought. I need you. I'm sorry.
The air swirled, and Bottles bounded back into his life wearing a tank top and clunky shoes and long hair. 'Babe!' she cried, 'Howya doin'?'
'I'm OK, Bottles,' said Michael, his voice warm. He was surprised by the flood of affection he felt for her.
They hugged and she pressed herself against him, and kissed him on both cheeks. Bottles said, 'It's good to see you. You know, it wasn't such a rocking good time without you.'
He'd forgotten how everything she said was quotes, in someone else's voice. He was touched by that now. Now she looked young and small and scared, but above all else, sweet.
Michael kissed her forehead. It was too much like child abuse otherwise. 'God they were dumb not to make more of you in our school.'
'Like I said, you were the nicest man in the year.'
'There wasn't much competition.'
'No,' she agreed lightly, and gave him a gentle little bat. She slipped out of his hug. 'But you haven't aged well. Too much science, love. I bet you went to university.' There was scorn in her voice.
'I did.' He had to chuckle.
'Ruined you for life. The trouble with being a swot is that you think you're dedicated to something else, when really, you're only dedicated to yourself.'
She turned back to him, appraising. 'You're… how old?'
He had to think. 'I'm thirty-eight.'
Bottles did not say he didn't look 38. 'So… that makes it sometime in 1998. Gosh, did the world survive that long?'
'It did, and so did you.'
She paused for a moment, considering. 'Hmmm.'
Impulsively, she flung herself onto the sofa, but kept her shoes hanging over the edge of the sofa arm. She looked like something from a Roxy Music album cover.
'I grew up happy, baby,' she announced. 'I'm fat and happy, and I never give Romford Comprehensive a moment's thought. The secret was to leave London and go somewhere where they make their own fun. Two days after school finished I ran off to Scotland with a real creep. On the way back, the train stopped in Newcastle. I jumped off it at the last minute, just grabbed my bags, said 'Sod off' and stayed in Newcastle. I waited in bars, stuff like that.' Her voice went very small and quiet. 'I was on the game for a while.'
Suddenly, there was a spliff in her hand. She looked around the living room, the wall-to-wall carpet, Phil's paintings, his family's furniture, and the bay window. 'Posh,' she said, with little interest. 'Nothing much happens here, does it?' And then she said, 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. You've done well, Michael. You look so adult, like a kind of teddy bear.'
'That doesn't make sense.'
'You look like an adult teddy bear, a Papa Bear.'
'How did we screw up?' he asked.
'We didn't.'
'I mean, why didn't we stay friends?'
'Um. We were young and frightened and we fell in love in a kind of way and you weren't ready for it.'
'You know why we never did it?'
'Because I moved like a bison on a trampoline?' She had the habit of taking the piss out of herself. Her smile was crooked.
'It's true, you did, but I thought that was sexy. But I'm queer, and I wanted to tell you first, and I was… more scared than most of saying so.'
'I knew that!' she exclaimed.
'You did?' He smiled, embarrassed.
'Of course I knew that, Babe. That's why…' It was just the teeniest bit difficult to say. 'That's why I felt safe around you. Both of us ran away from people because we thought we were ugly.' Maybe Angels find it easier to say things than real people.
'You ignored me in Club Louise.'
She sighed and shook her head. 'You looked so naff. I mean you looked like one of nature's born Radio Three listeners. And punk was all style, and you can only keep up a style by being mean. So I was mean. Forgive me?'
He nodded. 'Yeah.'
'Can we have sex just once?'
He settled in next to her, and sucked the dope in, and waited for it to buzz his brain. It never did, with him. Michael had marijuana impotency, too. But it produced a pleasant lazy atmosphere. She gave him a long lazy tobacco-and-peppermint kiss, and began to give his dick a rub.
'There's something else I have to tell you. I… I…' Michael sagged with disappointment at himself. 'Why can't I say it? I hardly ever get it up.'
'Hmm,' she said, cosily in his arms. 'That's OK. I never have orgasms.'
'What? You?'
She cradled him. 'Mmm hmm.'
'But you had all those men at school.'
'Maybe that's why, or maybe I was trying to prove to myself that there was nothing wrong. If there is anything wrong with not having orgasms.'
A pause. A beat. They both burst out laughing. 'It's fucking awful not having orgasms!' Michael yelped.
She nodded. 'I keep thinking I'm going to get there, I'm going to get there… and nothing fucking happens.'
'At least you can fake it. I just sit there dangling.'
'Hey, we're famous. The Dysfunction Twins.' She took another drag and said, 'We could have lived together and had the same boyfriends.'
'That sounds really good. We could have both disappointed them.'
'We could have cried on each other's shoulders and told the lot of them to go get screwed.' Bottles and Michael casually held each other like lovers, old lovers who are eighty.
'Men,' said Michael. 'They're no good to live with.'
Bottles adopted the tone of a school-ma'am. 'Never. Never live with a man.'
'They belch,' offered Michael.
'They fart on the tube.'
'They don't wash up.'
'Or they start to, make a big deal about how much they're helping, and then bugger off before it's finished.'
'They get mad if you don't call them, but they don't even notice when they haven't called you.'
'They want you to take care of them and then they go and fuck some other cunt.'
'Or arse.'
'Give me another kiss.'
They smooched. It was a theatrical kiss, a kiss in quotes, a spotlit kiss. It made her giggle.
