Animals by Emma Jane Unsworth Read Free Book Online Page B

knowing there wasn’t. I did
Brief Encounter
like always – tight lips, Old English posh: ‘You’ve been a long way away. Thenk you for kemming beck to me …’
    I dished out the food. We sat at the table. The curry was too hot, the spices raw, the sauce floury, the meat fibrous. The last time I’d cooked for Jim I’d made a tortilla without pre-cooking the potatoes. It was almost as though I enjoyed failing. Was I, as I had long suspected, one part optimism two parts masochism, like all the best cocktails?
    ‘You shouldn’t have,’ Jim said, squinting.
    ‘I know.’ I dropped my spoon into the still-full bowl. ‘Tell me about New York.’
    ‘Oh, you’d love it, Laur. It’s all your favourite things.’
    I picked up my spoon again, made a fist round it. ‘Like what?’
    ‘Lively, contradictory, seemingly organised on the surface but beautifully chaotic underneath.’
    ‘Does it have a dark, complex soul?’
    ‘I think it wishes it had.’
    ‘Very good, Mr Partington. Now, take all your clothes off.’
    Sex with Jim was, amongst other things, a way of reminding myself I had a body. I’d had sex in my teens to get out of my body; in my twenties and thirties, so far it was about making me remember again. Jim’s body was springy and curved in a woodish way – he’d lost weight since he’d stopped drinking and his work kept his arms high-toned. He pulled me on top of him and I tried to encourage him to do the things I liked, be rougher and smack my ass so I pushed harder onto him.
You are here, here and here. Close your eyes. You’re still here, aren’t you?
But Jim had gone shyer since he’d stopped drinking, like he’d lost his bottle in more ways than one. It was sort of okay and sort of … frustrating. I didn’t know whether bringing it up would make him more self-conscious (was there anything
less
sexy than a conversation about sex?) and we had so much on, so I enjoyed the feeling of his spread hands, holding me (convincing me), and his chest hair that smelled of salty-smokiness.
    We lay in bed afterwards discussing the wedding. ‘We’re pretty much on track,’ I said. ‘Listen to me! No, Jim, seriously, we’re
moving forward
on this … You can shoot me, you know. Any time you like. So tomorrow I’ve got a few more emails to reply to, which I’d have done today if I hadn’t been so head-rottingly hungover. The caterers have more questions about the ham and we’ve had a few more RSVPs, also people are still asking about presents and if I have to use the
Your presence is our present
line one more time then I’m going to have to wire my nipples to the mains and beat myself to death with a knotted rope just to feel original again.’
    He kissed my eyelids. I told him about the club. He laughed. I showed him my thread vein. He said it was cute. I felt invincible. Such is the inner sanctum of bed: when you’re in there with the person you love the rest of the world can go to hell. At least that’s the way it feels when you’re not discussing logistics. The wedding chat invited quite literally the rest of the world in. I decided to only ever bring it up again in the kitchen; that was where it belonged.
    The Northern Quarter, Friday, October. Tyler and I had gone drinking after our shifts. By 8 p.m. we were ten drinks in, wedding-drunk and almost dancing. Over by the bar I saw him stirring his drink. It wasn’t the kind of place you stirred your drink (no ice, no fruit, straws of dubious cleanliness) so I knew something was up. After I’d been watching him a few seconds he looked at me and back to his drink. Another two seconds, me, his drink.
    Game on.
    Tyler was sitting next to me, her head drooping as she looked at her phone. A few feet away, the sound periodically blunted by gyrating bodies, ‘She’s A Rainbow’ by World of Twist belted out from a bass speaker.
    ‘Tyler,’ I shouted over the music, ‘do you fancy a shot?’
    ‘Tequila,’ she said without looking up. ‘I had