“Well. Yes. Some fun. But to be honest I spent much of the evening with Gav. Or Terry Jackson. Or Ros. You were on your own most of the time.”
“That’s how I dance, though. The way I do it, with the handstands and all that, I have to be on my own on the dance floor. I wouldn’t be like that if we were just, you know, inside watching telly.”
“Do you mean, you wouldn’t be off on your own, with your own telly? Or do you mean that you wouldn’t be doing handstands while our favorite program was on?”
“Well. Both. Neither. My fishing I’d do on my own. I mean, I do already. I’m just saying.”
“It’s good to be straight with each other right from the start.”
“You’re taking the piss,” said Barnesy, mournfully.
“I am a bit.”
“Fair enough. I’m talking rubbish, aren’t I?” He stood up. “I think I’ll be going.”
“I’m serious about the sofa.”
“That’s very kind of you. But I wasn’t ever very interested, to be honest. My game plan was always, you know, sex or bust.”
“But what’s bust?”
“Bust is going back to the all-nighter. I don’t usually crap out early. It’s a tribute to you that I’ve wasted any time here at all.”
Barnesy offered his hand, and Annie shook it.
“It’s been a pleasure, Annie. Not as much of a one as I’d have wanted, but, you know. Can’t have everything.”
The next morning, she still wasn’t entirely sure whether she’d dreamed him, whether his small, muscular body and his talcum powder and his flips and spins were meant to be decoded by a psychoanalyst, who would tell her that she had a peculiar view of male sexuality.
She made the mistake of trying to explain her evening out the following morning, in her session with Malcolm. She was possibly still a little drunk when she went to see him and she decided that Malcolm’s stuffiness would provide a satisfyingly easy target for her mood of tipsy recklessness; talking to him about sex plans would be as much fun as squirting him with a water pistol. But she squirted, and he got wet, and then he sat there, looking sad, and she could no longer remember why she ever thought it would be fun.
“A sex plan? You met up with a gay friend to prostitute yourself?”
Where to begin with this?
“Her being gay isn’t really relevant.” Probably not there.
“I didn’t know there was a lesbian in Gooleness.” Definitely not there, in fact. Malcolm was not going to find it easy to leave Ros’s sexuality unexamined.
“There are at least two. But that’s not…”
“Where do they go?”
“What do you mean, where do they go?”
“Well, I know I’m out of touch. But I’ve never heard of any lesbian bars or clubs here.”
“Malcolm, they don’t need to go to lesbian clubs. In the same way that you don’t need to go to heterosexual pubs. Clubs aren’t a necessary part of homosexuality.”
“Well, I don’t think I’d be comfortable in a non-heterosexual pub.”
“They go to the cinema. And to restaurants, and pubs, and people’s houses.”
“Ah,” said Malcolm, darkly. “People’s houses.” The implication was clear: you could get up to almost anything in private homes, behind closed doors.
“Maybe you should talk directly to her,” said Annie, “if you’re so curious about Gooleness lesbians.”
Malcolm blushed.
“I’m not curious. I’m just… interested.”
“I don’t want to come across as egotistical,” said Annie, “but can we talk about me?”
“I don’t know what you’ve come here to talk about.”
“My problems.”
“I’ve lost track of what they are. There seems to be a different one every week. We don’t even mention your long monogamous relationship anymore. All those years seem to count for nothing. You’re more interested in picking men up in nightclubs.”
“Malcolm, I’ve told you about this before. If you’re going to be judgmental, then perhaps it’s better if I stopped coming.”
“Well, that sounds to me as if you intend to do a lot of things I’d want to be judgmental about. Which in turn sounds to me as if you should keep coming to see me.”
“What would you want to be judgmental about?”
“Well, do you really intend to sleep around?”
She sighed.
“It’s as if you don’t know me at all.”
“I don’t know this version of you. The one that suddenly decides she wants to have sex with the first Tom, Dick and/or Harry that comes along.”
“Except I didn’t, did I?”
“Last night, you mean?”
“I could have slept with Barnesy, but I didn’t.” She wished she’d taken the trouble to find out his first name. A first name would have helped her preserve some dignity in situations like this.
“And why didn’t you?”
“Because, no matter what you think, I’m not a complete slut.”
She wasn’t any kind of slut at all, of course. She’d slept with one man for fifteen years, sporadically, and mostly without any real enthusiasm. But even saying the words “I’m not a complete slut” had somehow boosted her sexual confidence. She couldn’t have imagined saying them twenty-four hours earlier.
“What was wrong with him?”
“Nothing. He was sweet. Odd, but sweet.”
“So what were you looking for?”
“I know exactly what I’m looking for.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Really. Somebody my age or older. Somebody who reads. Maybe somebody with a, a creative bent of some kind. If he had a child or children of his own, I wouldn’t mind. Somebody who’s lived a bit.”
“I know who you’re describing.”
Annie doubted it very much, but for a moment she wondered whether Malcolm was going to produce somebody for her—maybe a recently divorced son who wrote poetry and played in the Manchester Philharmonic.
“Really?”
“The opposite.”
“The opposite of what?”
“Of Duncan.”
It was the second time recently that Malcolm had made an observation that could, presumably wrongly, be described as perceptive. Tucker was the opposite of Duncan. Duncan had no children of his own, no creative bent, and he hadn’t lived, not even a little. Or at least, he had never thrown stones at a noted beauty’s window, had never been an alcoholic, hadn’t toured the United States and Europe, hadn’t thrown away a God-given talent. (Even Tucker’s way of not living could be described as living, if you had a crush on him.) Was that it? Was she in love with Tucker because he was the opposite of Duncan? Was
“That’s stupid,” she said.
“Oh,” said Malcolm. “Oh well. It was just a theory.”
