The Girl Below(21)

I found Alana in the queue to the ladies’, her cheeks and lips restored to their schoolgirl rose by a few pints of beer.

“There you are!” she said. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

“I was by the bar, with your friends from work—right where you left me.”

If she noticed my sardonic tone, she ignored it. “I’m so glad you’re hitting it off with Chris and Mike,” she said. “They’re such top blokes.” She winked at me. “And single too.”

“I’m not looking for anyone,” I said. “I told you I was happy on my own.”

“Bollocks,” she said. “You were always so obsessed with boys. You haven’t changed that much—surely?”

“They’re not my type,” I said, wishing she’d change the subject.

“Oh, that’s right,” she said, a little archly. “I forgot about you and your types.” We had reached the front of the queue, and Alana ducked into a vacant stall. She locked the door and shouted through it, “What about Steve? You have to admit he’s a bit of all right!”

I didn’t think he was, but she wanted to hear otherwise. “Steve’s hot,” I said, shouting back. “And he obviously thinks the same thing about you.”

Over a flushing toilet, I heard her giggle—had she forgiven me?—then I went into a stall and when I came out she was gone. Fighting my way back, the bar swarmed in front of me, an impenetrable scrum. I considered going home, but didn’t want to leave things on a sour note with Alana or the others. Pushing my way through the crowd, I collided head-on with some guy before we sprang apart, both clutching our heads in pain. “I’m very sorry,” he said, in a strange, jerky accent, and I looked up and saw it was that Icelandic guy. Up close, he was even more striking, with eyes that could cut through glass. He brazenly looked me up and down before asking, “Which way were you trying to go?”

“Over there,” I said, pointing toward where I thought the others were.

“Well,” he said, slowly. “This is really a shame.”

I returned to the others and tried to act relaxed, like I had when we’d first arrived, but I couldn’t think of what to say to Mike that would put things right between us without also leading him on. Perhaps there was nothing, and I ought to just leave. When one of the blokes suggested going for a curry, I saw my out and quickly declined, saying I was tired. Alana seemed less disappointed than Mike, who tried to persuade me to go with them by offering to pay, then, when I wouldn’t, insisted on collecting my phone number on the pretext of making sure I got home safely. When we said our farewells, he gave me a crushing bear hug that tried very hard in its pressure to communicate more than just good-bye. I told Alana I would call her the next day, and whispered in her ear, to make amends, that I thought she and Steve would make a cute couple. “Thanks,” she said, squeezing my hand as they tumbled from the bar, the boys arm in arm and already belting out “Wonderwall,” the hooligan version.

The instant they left, I realized how drunk I was, how far from home. Just thinking about the number of tube changes made me weary. I drifted toward a bald patch in the crowd next to the cigarette machine, and decided to at least sober up before I set off. I was standing there, a few minutes later, feeling self-conscious, when I noticed the Icelandic guy throwing glances in my direction—too many, and too lingering for them to be accidental. He did not look at me expectantly like Mike had. His look was direct, almost a challenge; he was daring me to resist looking back.

Before he even walked over to the cigarette machine and casually dropped in a few coins, I could tell he was a player, but there was something about those men that put me at ease. You always knew where you stood with them, what you were letting yourself in for: nothing.

“What happened to your pals?” he said, pressing the button above Lucky Strike.

“They went to get a curry, but I didn’t feel like going.”

He opened the cigarette packet before answering. “You made a good decision. These Englishmen, they meet a pretty girl, they have fun together . . . but they always ruin it by taking her for a curry on the way home. They don’t know what is sexy. Myself, I don’t know either, but I know it’s not curry.”

Putting down the opposition, false modesty: smooth, but I let him get away with it. He introduced himself. He was Dutch, not Icelandic, and his name was Wouter—the kind of name that only a confident man would admit to outside his homeland. He said he was a multimedia artist and I pretended to believe him, just as I pretended not to mind when he didn’t ask what I did or even what my name was. Nor did he offer to buy me a drink, perhaps realizing that he didn’t have to.