Girl A(7)

‘You know,’ I said, ‘I used to live around here.’

He caught my eye in the mirror, and laughed.

‘That’s a yes?’

‘That’s a yes.’

I had asked him to drop me somewhere local and busy. He stopped outside another hotel, a cheaper one, and nodded. The club was in its underbelly, down a narrow staircase, with a dance floor at the back and a vacant stage above it. It was busy enough. I took a seat at the bar and ordered a vodka tonic, and looked for somebody who would be glad to talk to me.

There had been times when Devlin and I had travelled so much that I would forget which continent we were on. I would wake up in a hotel room and walk the wrong way to the toilet, taking the route from my apartment in New York. I would come to in an airport lounge and need to read my boarding pass – really read it – to recall where we were flying next. There was always solace in sitting at a bar; they were the same the world over. There were lonely men with similar stories, and people who looked more tired than I did.

I sent gin to the man six seats down, who was wearing a shirt with a golden pin of wings, and searching for his wallet. He looked happy to receive the drink, and surprised; moments later he touched my shoulder, smiling. He was older than I had first thought. That was good.

‘Hello. Thanks for the drink.’

‘That’s fine. Are you on the road?’

‘I flew from Los Angeles today.’

‘That’s pretty dramatic.’

‘Not really. It’s a regular route. You’re not from around here either?’

‘No. Not any more. You’re a pilot?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you the main pilot or the second pilot?’

He laughed. ‘I’m the main pilot,’ he said.

He told me about his job. Listening to most people talk about their careers is tedious, but he was different. He spoke with sincerity. He talked about his training in Europe, and the first inevitable time that he flew alone. His hands reached for controls in the space between us, and when the disco lights hit them I could see small muscles shifting, just beneath the skin. It made you a drifter, he said, but a rich one. In those early years, he had lived in a state of anxiety, thinking always of the next landing, adrenaline pulsing through his body in the hotel beds. Now, he was arrogant enough to sleep well.

‘The main pilot,’ he said, still laughing. ‘So. Where next?’

We danced for a short time, but we were older than the bodies around us, and neither of us was drunk enough. I was fascinated by a group of girls beside me, their limbs careening together. They wore a variation of the same, skin-slick dress, and laughed as one many-headed creature. Watching them, I touched the tired skin at my throat and at the corners of my eyes. The pilot was behind me, with his fingers slotted between my ribs.

‘You can come to my hotel,’ I said.

‘I fly back tomorrow. I can’t stay.’

‘That’s fine.’

‘I didn’t want you to be disappointed. Sometimes—’

‘I won’t be disappointed.’

It had been raining, as the driver promised. The streets were shining and quieter, and neon floated in the puddles. There were only taxis left on the roads, but none of them were stopping; we needed a busier junction. I watched the lights of the city slide over his face, and took his hand. ‘There are things that I need,’ I said. ‘To make it worth my while.’

‘Really,’ he said. He had turned away from me, looking for a car, but I saw his jaw lift, and I knew that he was smiling.

In my room, I opened the minibar for drinks, but he stopped me, and sat down on the bed. I removed my dress and peeled my underwear to the floor, then knelt down before him. He surveyed me, nonchalant, just as I had hoped that he would.

‘I want you to humiliate me,’ I said.

He swallowed.

‘You see,’ I said, ‘it needs to hurt.’

His fingers were twitching. I felt the familiar twinge in my cunt, like a new pulse. I arranged myself on the bed beside him, stomach down, with my head resting on my arms. He stood, came to me, with plans on his face. The turndown service had taken place, I saw, and there were chocolates on the pillow.

When he had left, I ordered room service, and I thought about JP. It was as though he had been waiting for my attention all day, patient and just out of view. One more drink, and I might have called him. I had his work number, which he always answered. I could have been distressed at Mother’s death, alone in Manchester, and with no one else to turn to. ‘And I’ll be in London next week,’ I would say, as an afterthought. ‘Maybe even longer.’

I had heard that he lived in the suburbs now, with a new girlfriend and a small dog. ‘Or a small girlfriend and a new dog,’ Olivia had said. ‘I don’t recall.’ I thought about the day that he left our flat. I had expected that he would rent a van or ask a friend for help, but he fit his belongings into two suitcases and a series of cardboard boxes, and waited on the street for his cab. It was raining, but he refused to come back in, as if the proximity would have made him change his mind. It wouldn’t. There was nothing that either of us could have done to change things. I pulled my legs up to my chest and felt the scars on my knee, the skin smoother there. Then I touched the scars from the other surgeries. My fingers followed their familiar route. The scars were immaculate; in dim light, you couldn’t see them. When I had pointed them out to JP, he was uninterested: ‘I never even noticed them,’ he said, and I liked him all the more for that. No, there was nothing that either of us could have done. To think of something else, I wondered if Evie’s party was over. It was late, and later still where she was. I turned off my light and set an alarm for breakfast.