Nightshift, page 5
We took the drinks to the table. As we pulled up extra stools, I made sure to slip in beside Sabine. Everyone clinked glasses.
‘Salud!’ said Lizard.
Sherry caught my eye. ‘He’s off to Mexico again.’
‘Salud,’ I said.
Prawn, a spotty white-blond teenager from the print room, yelled, ‘Na zdrowie!’
‘Poland,’ Sherry said for my benefit.
‘Where’re you off to, Sherry?’ I asked.
‘Spain,’ said Sherry. ‘Bor-ing.’
‘Spain’s cool,’ said Earl.
‘Yeah, it’s cool. He’s coming too,’ said Sherry.
‘Which part of Spain?’ I said.
‘Fuck knows,’ said Earl. ‘Wherever.’
‘We take our vans,’ said Prawn.
Did everyone here have a van? I wanted to ask Sabine if she had a van. And why she’d called herself SJ. I knew so little about her. But the others seemed to think we were close, and I liked them thinking that.
‘What’re you up to the next weeks?’ Earl asked me.
I didn’t want to say, Sleep, see my boyfriend—
Sabine stepped in. ‘We’ve got plans.’
‘Plans, eh?’ said Earl.
I glanced at his G-Shock watch. My plans to be at Graham’s by seven a.m. were fast messing up. I needed to text him but I’d dumped my bag with my phone on the far windowsill.
Prawn took a crumpled fax from his pocket. ‘Seen this?’ He flattened it out. DRUGS WILL NO LONGER BE TOLERATED ON SHIFT. THE MANAGEMENT. With his pale stubby finger, Prawn underlined NO LONGER.
Everybody laughed.
‘Bloody management,’ said Lizard.
‘That fucker who only did one shift sent forty copies of our bet on the Queen Mother’s deathday to Inland Revenue,’ said Earl. ‘The managers had no choice.’
‘Don’t worry about it, Prawn,’ said Sherry.
‘Yeah, like I am!’
Earl turned to me. ‘Want to have a guess at her deathdate? Costs a pound.’
‘Sure.’ It was an excuse to fetch my bag.
‘Do it next shift rather,’ said Sherry. ‘I haven’t got the list.’
‘What if she pegs it before then?’ said Earl.
‘Is your date before then?’ said Sherry.
‘Mine’s Wednesday,’ said Sabine. ‘If I win, I’ll share.’
I thought, I should still get my phone.
But Sabine pulled me down, her lips at my ear. ‘I looked forward to seeing you this shift too.’
I could smell the wine on her breath. ‘What?’
She wouldn’t repeat her belated response to my goat meal text, but I knew what I’d heard. Just like when a phrase I’d read absorbed me to the extent I forgot everything else, so all thoughts of texting Graham flew out of the pub’s diamond-gridded windows. Out into the everyday world where men and women were striding purposefully to work. Their dark suits, their shiny shoes, their strained faces, their neat hair . . .
Inside, I looked at Sabine in her schoolgirl lace-ups, chequered shorts and velvet blazer. Lizard, an old-time rocker in his skinny jeans and leather jacket. Earl, with his sharp rave style and Coño sleeping peacefully at his feet. Prawn, moonfaced but energetically punky. Even Sherry, with her ill-conceived glamour, seemed childishly endearing, like a messy three-year-old.
I’d found the tribe I wanted to join.
We were totally, utterly free.
At almost eleven a.m., the pub was about to shut. It would reopen at five p.m. to mirror its trading hours for dayshifters.
Dayshifters.
Thinking back to the game I used to play with eyes closed in my office chair, I went over to the jukebox. Flipping through the carousel of songs, I found Cyndi Lauper’s ‘True Colors’. It cost a quid for three tunes. I bought a pack of Menthol Lights at the bar to get change, then pressed the Lauper button three times. Leaving the song to repeat, I went outside.
The streets around the station had quieted. The morning was wintery though bright. After two weeks in the dark, every colour seemed intense. Pink graffiti on the rusty railway bridge. Black branches flecked with lime buds. Overhead, the wide blue expanse of the sky.
Leaning against a bollard, I lit up. I wasn’t a real smoker but, inhaling, I rode the headrush.
I didn’t notice Sabine until she jostled alongside me. Stretching out her boyish legs, she helped herself to a cigarette from my pack. I offered to light it for her. The wind blew a few stray curls across her face. She had freckles around her nose that I hadn’t noticed before. When the cigarette wouldn’t catch, I cupped my hand.
She leaned in; I lifted my head.
Her mouth twitched, showed a dimple. A dare.
I took her unlit cigarette out. Then I kissed her.
Her mouth was soft, her lips the undersides of petals. Though her tongue was strong, our tongues were strong. They moved easily together until hers pulled back, darting, teasing. She tickle-kissed my neck. I tasted her dusky perfume and pressed into her. We grabbed at each other; then stopped, lost in the warm darkness of our mouths.
When the pub door swung open, she began to grind against me. As the team came out, I could feel their eyes on us. The guys watching; the way they were watching. I tugged at Sabine’s sleeve. But she drew me closer and kissed more showily.
‘Can we talk?’ I whispered.
She didn’t answer.
With my hands on her upper arms, I moved her gently back; we broke apart.
Our colleagues pretended they hadn’t been gawking. They scattered; crossed the road, went to queue at a cashpoint.
I took her hand. It was cold like when she’d put it over my eyes. ‘Let’s go some place we can be alone,’ I said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘D’you live on your own?’
She tilted her head, warily.
‘Maybe we could go back to yours,’ I said.
She opened her mouth, then closed it.
Her eyes became hard glints.
‘It’s just a kiss, Meggie.’
‘I know.’
‘A kiss doesn’t mean . . .’
‘I know,’ I said.
My cheeks were hot, my eyes were hot. Whenever I wanted to cry I distracted myself by spelling words backwards. I looked towards the alley. I spelled snib. I spelled ytpme setarc. I felt her smooth a strand of hair back from my forehead.
In a softer voice, she said, ‘You don’t usually kiss your girl friends?’
‘Not usually.’
‘You’re cute. My cute friend who I kiss.’
I nodded and swallowed. ‘I don’t know what nights is doing to me.’
‘Come, now. Everything’s fine,’ she said. ‘Let’s go find the others.’
15
Sabine and the rest went on to another pub or a park or someone’s flat, but I went home. Later I sent Graham a text. When he didn’t reply, I called, I apologized. He asked sarcastically if I’d got lost in the building again. Not this time, I said. There was a long silence. Then I asked if I could come round that evening. I said I’d come early, cook a meal. No, he said firmly. We’ll skip cooking, get takeaways.
Guilty, grateful and off-kilter, I blew a shitload of cash on a bottle of Pol Roger Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill that came in a special wooden box. To accompany the fancy champagne, I’d have to give him good news.
I put the fizz confidently in his fridge when I arrived. But instead of drinking it, we launched straight into unexpectedly affectionate sex.
Afterwards we chatted casually, then ate a greedy number of dishes from Jay’s Vindaloo. Towards the end of the meal, the bulb in the table lamp blew. When Graham flicked on the main light, the room seemed smaller.
‘So, Meggie,’ he asked. ‘What’s happening?’
I bit at my lip. ‘Haven’t been able to decide.’
‘I thought as much.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Was not moving in with him true to myself, or was it just selfish?
He studied his empty plate. I put my hand on his. He patted it, then drummed the table. ‘Can’t do what you can’t do.’
Were we breaking up? This easily? This undramatically?
I scraped the bottom of the sag paneer with my fork. A strand of spinach hooked in the prongs. Then I heard myself say, ‘Graham, I think I might be a lesbian.’
‘It’s Sabine, isn’t it?’
‘No.’
‘C’mon,’ he said. ‘Crazy-Horse Sabine? Jelly-bean Sabine?’
I shook my head. ‘She’s just a cute friend.’
‘She sounded more than cute when you went on about her clothes and squinty eyes and candied duck and—’
‘Things change.’
‘Who’re you into now, then?’
‘Nobody.’
‘Who’re you involved with?’
‘No one.’
He eyed me sceptically.
‘You,’ I said. ‘That’s all.’
We were quiet.
Then he shifted in his chair. ‘Have you ever had sex with a woman?’
I frowned. ‘That’s private.’
‘But have you?’
‘No.’
He looked amused. ‘Really?’
I felt my cheeks redden. ‘I think about it, sometimes.’
‘Well, then, Megan Groenewald,’ he leaned over to plant a kiss on my forehead, ‘it’s time to do it, huh?’
He started to clear up the empty containers from the meal, putting them back into the takeaway bags.
I thought, That’s it. Over. The end.
I was tired; the day had been too much. A pathetic snort escaped with a sob.
‘Meggie.’ Graham came over to my side of the table. He scooped his arms looped with curry bags around my waist. I hugged him tightly back. ‘It doesn’t have to be the end.’
‘It doesn’t?’ I said.
‘No.’ He let me go, then took the bags to the kitchen.
I stood at the door.
Emptying the bins, he said, ‘You just need to try it.’
‘And, if I try it? That’ll be fine by you?’
‘I think so.’
‘Will you do stuff of your own too?’
‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘We’ll see.’
I helped him clear the rest of the plates. I was impressed by his generosity, though even more by his assuredness, his sense of self-worth.
While Graham did the washing-up, I got the videotape ready in the player. The film he’d hired was The Truman Show. At the start, the viewer is told that audiences are tired of seeing actors portray artificial emotions. After rewinding and fast-forwarding, I got the tape to pause at the first frame.
Coming into the room, Graham held up a tub with two spoons.
‘You got dessert!’ I said.
‘Always do.’
We snuggled on the sofa, eating creamy rice kheer, and I told myself: So. Bloody. Lucky.
To Graham, I said, ‘You know you’re sweeter than I deserve?’
16
The following day, Graham left for work experience at a prestigious chambers in Wales. Not having him around made it easier to stick to my intentions. To move away from the everyday, away from the day. To let go of what I knew and push off into the night. Yet pushing off into the night turned out to be harder than I’d thought.
I set a rigid nocturnal schedule with times to get up, run, eat and sleep. But off shift as on, some internal stubbornness resisted. Without sleeping pills, I lay in bed exhausted but mostly awake. Every few days, I’d pass out heavily, though the short, thick slumbers made me feel drugged: more tired, not less.
When I wasn’t maintaining functional necessities, I sat at my desk. As deadlines loomed, my calculations for how quickly I needed to read the course books became increasingly desperate. If I could get through X number of pages in Y hours then I’d have Z hours for the essay. Night after night, Z shrank while I stared into the light of my black candles.
The exploration of my lesbian side didn’t fare much better. I went to a bisexual women’s meeting in a church hall but the atmosphere was earnest, formal and conservative. I felt as uncomfortable as at my all-girls school, as much of an oddity as I’d felt then.
It was hardly a fair way to test my sexuality. London had plenty of gay, lesbian and mixed clubs, pubs and bars. I’d even seen an advert in a listings magazine for a lesbian sauna. Or I could drop in at the First Out cafe by Centre Point for a baked potato. I liked baked potatoes; I gave myself a date – the date slipped by.
I’d long assumed I did relationships better than friendships. With the few lovers I’d had, I hadn’t feared boundaries being crossed. A TV psychologist suggested that for people with authoritarian parents, the bedroom could be where they felt most liberated to rescript their lives. What he’d said stuck; I took for granted that the closeness I’d found with boyfriends could theoretically translate into closeness with girlfriends too.
Yet now I wondered if there was more to my ease with men than I’d realized. When I was with a man, I felt as if I could hide behind my form. The differences between us alone were attractive to him. Whereas in close quarters with a woman, I’d be exposed. If she saw in me what I saw, how could it possibly work? Was it transgression more than lesbianism that I was after?
Whatever I called it, with Sabine its current surged; with Graham, it flatlined. Cute friend status meant I had to find new ways to hack the circuit. Living nocturnally was not enough, nor was endless contemplation.
What I needed was to push against myself.
17
Southwark was in darkness. With a power cut to London’s central areas, our papers were late; our work was stalled. A note on the warehouse door gave instructions to meet on the roof. I followed the emergency lighting up the stairs. The thump of industrial metal guided me to our crew.
They were sitting around candles in a circle. Sabine patted the space next to her but I sat by Earl and Coño instead. Rammstein’s ‘Du Hast’ was playing on the print guys’ ghetto blaster. A few people had coffee cups, doubtless half full of spirits, but with it being our first Monday back, the atmosphere was glum.
Sabine wore a blonde faux fur hat and a white appliqué coat decorated with fairytale images. Since her hair was hidden, it could have been platinum. The change of frame around her face made her lips seem fuller, her eyes larger.
When ‘Du Hast’ began to warp, the shift leader put it off. The gunpowder night was quiet. Last time I’d been up here, I’d felt surrounded by the city; this time, we could have been floating in space.
‘Anyone done anything interesting the last two weeks?’ asked the shift leader.
When her hair wasn’t in plaited buns, it was loosely crinkled. Her body was angular, broad-shouldered: a swimmer’s build. I looked at her wide eyes, her high cheekbones. She had an appealing androgyny. If my fascination with Sabine was about looks, or even nonconformism, the shift leader made for a good rival. Why wasn’t I fascinated by her?
‘I went to the Noche de Brujas in Mexico,’ she offered when no one replied.
‘Night of the Witches?’ said Sabine.
The shift leader smiled; Sabine smiled back.
Fascination was chemical, I thought. But was it my chemicals blending with Sabine’s or did she attract everyone as much?
‘What d’you get up to?’ Earl asked Lizard. ‘Wittgenstein, Linear B . . .?’
‘Time before last, he shut himself away to read up on the Serbian-Kosovan crisis,’ said Sherry.
‘She’s a doll,’ said Lizard. ‘Brought me meals—’
‘Oh go on, you couldn’t call them meals.’
‘The lasagne, the chilli?’
‘The Findus Crispy Pancakes?’
A helicopter flew noisily overhead.
‘Learn anything that wasn’t depressing?’ asked a guy from Sabine’s Energy team.
‘Albania’s taking in Kosovan refugees,’ said Lizard.
‘We are too, aren’t we?’ said the shift leader.
‘If you apply for asylum here,’ said Earl, ‘it takes nine years to get citizenship.’
‘Things are improving, though,’ said Sherry. ‘Now that Blair’s got in—’
‘He reminds me of a school prefect,’ I said.
‘Were you a school prefect?’ said the shift leader.
‘No!’ I said. ‘Were you?’
‘Dropped out at fifteen,’ she said.
‘I was expelled,’ said Sabine. ‘Twice.’
‘What for?’ I asked, before I could remember to be cool.
‘First time, a sex thing. Wasn’t my fault but I took the rap. Second time for being a gang leader.’
‘Don Sabine!’ said Prawn.
‘I’ve never led anything but I was a goth,’ said Sherry.
‘Me too,’ said Lizard.
‘I was the darkest goth in town,’ said Earl.
Everyone laughed. I wished I’d been a gang leader or a goth. But how would my mother have coped? She got angry if I didn’t laugh at the right moments in her anecdotes about the florist shop’s regular customers.
The Energy guy turned back to Lizard. ‘If Kosovo was the time before last, what did you research this time?’
Lizard screwed up his face. ‘Hypnosis.’
‘That’s – different?’
‘When I was a kid, my uncle was into it,’ said Earl. ‘He’d hypnotize himself, then get me to stick a pin in his hand. Sometimes he stuck one in me too.’
‘Did you want him to?’ asked the shift leader.
‘Not really.’
‘Isn’t that, like, abusive?’
‘It was the pin, not the penis,’ said Sabine.
The helicopter flew close again; a candle guttered.
‘Can you try the pin thing on me?’ said Prawn.
‘I’ve only been doing it two weeks,’ said Lizard. ‘And I don’t have a pin.’
Sherry took a needle from a sewing kit in her bulky handbag. ‘Ta da!’
Lizard instructed Prawn to raise his hand. Speaking slowly in a monotonous voice, he counted down from ten to one as Prawn’s hand dropped. Lizard picked it up, then pressed the needle into his palm.
Prawn screamed. Staring at the bead of blood on his skin, he went whiter than usual.
