‘We stood in silence outside the restaurant while I rolled another cigarette.’
‘You gave your first one to a homeless guy.’
‘That’s right. And you kept wiping your nose.’
‘I’m pretty sure I wanted to go.’
‘Wait. Wiping your nose, and I was moving deliberately slowly, making you wait.’
‘Don’t remind me. That’s one of the reasons why I wanted to leave. And you weren’t nearly as cool as you thought.’
‘I said wait, Willow. Cold. Wait in the cold as I lit my cigarette then put the lighter back in my jacket pocket. Or–’
‘What?’
‘–was it my trouser pocket?’
‘Can we just go inside, please?’
‘Wait. WAIT. Hit that button.’
‘What button?’
‘That button.’
‘Why?’
‘For the heat lamps.’
‘What heat lamps?’
‘The heat lamps above your head.’
‘What was it you did, or said, then? Get–’
‘It was my jacket.’
‘–on with it.’
‘Definitely my jacket. That’s right. Anyway–’
‘You kissed me.’
‘And then we dated for two years.’
‘Three.’
‘Can’t have been that bad a first date.’ Willow stands up. ‘Hey, what’s your rush?’
‘I want another drink.’
‘You can’t drink when you’re pregnant.’
‘I’m not pregnant.’
‘Remember how you always used to think you were pregnant?’
‘Remember how you always used to drink too much and annoy me?’
‘Like right now?’
‘Exactly. You’re fucked.’
‘I’m boring. Home’s drunk. And mad. My sister is bad at organising the deconstructed Tetra Paks. The recycling bin’s been a complete mess all day.’
‘You know, this whole sister thing was funnier when we were students. But now, if people hear you talk about ghosts like they’re real, they’ll think you’ve lost it.’ She goes inside. Suddenly I feel very heavy. And empty, as though there’s no breath inside me. When she comes back with another drink she sits and says, ‘I didn’t mean to sound like a dick just now. People have weird ways of coping with things, don’t they.’
‘I don’t want to go home,’ I tell her, looking down at my foot, which is shaking.
‘Then,’ says Willow, coughing as she rolls a cigarette, ‘come to mine instead.’
‘The problem is, I don’t really want to be anywhere.’
‘My housemate’s away. We can drink his wine.’
‘Have you cleaned the green plate yet?’ I ask.
‘We’re not getting any coke in,’ Willow says before hitting the button. ‘And besides, I’m meant to be pregnant, aren’t I?’ She smiles.
‘You’re absolutely fucking right. I’m sorry. Have you taken the test?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Well,’ I say, ‘you’re glowing.’
She laughs. ‘Definitely just the heat lamp,’ she says, wrapping her scarf around her neck. ‘Hold on.’
I’m sitting on the bench. Threat of carrion airstrike imminent. Can’t get anything up, least of all myself. Too much blood squirting round in my head, my belly, my chest. Bouncing the springs. Lying alone. Spending three hours contemplating veins then trying to bring myself off under the covers in the hope that overt repetitive movement will tire me out. A relief like her eyes, Willow’s, that say, ‘Fine, phew,’ and, ‘Okay.’
And maybe, then, after splatting endorphins all over my stomach, or the pair of dirty boxers I usually take off and use as a mop, and after lying for fifteen more minutes with my limbs growing colder in the air growing bluer and the sheets even greyer and a finger fiddling in the splash of puddle, acting much like a curious child who hasn’t seen something that strange before, or even tasted mud (just to see what it’s like), feeling the void-like space in my arse left by the deflation of enlarged prostate stress, dry but a little crispy (will have to bathe for another three hours) after relentlessly tugging my doughy cock, underfilled, underpressurised, underused by someone other than you (me), until the final build to the depressing, pathetic and ultimately uninteresting crescendo, I’ll fall asleep, and NOT dream of the kukri knife. The notch, the blade being pulled across the stranger’s throat, catching blood in a Tupperware bowl. Surgical gloves. No, black cotton gloves, though they–
‘Are you coming?’ It’s Willow, back from the toilet.
–could leave fibrous traces on the corpse.
‘Coming?’ I cough. It never happens. I barely sleep. I just lie there spilling out, spilling me, stroking and hoping the notch will catch my dribble, which comes thick and slow and dehydrated. Willow sits back down. Thin and underwired and possibly carrying someone’s child, though by now it seems very unlikely. ‘It’s not knowing that scares me,’ she says.
I say, ‘Jesus, just take the fucking test.’
‘But that’s the thing,’ says Willow. ‘There’s a part of me that enjoys being scared.’
‘There’s no way something’s growing inside you,’ I say. ‘Now,’ standing, ‘if we keep sitting here we’ll get shat on.’
Willow looks up at worriedly. ‘I’ve been ready for ten minutes,’ she says.
‘Sorry, I was thinking.’
‘What about?’
I put my hand in my jacket pocket and say, ‘Nothing, cigarettes.’