Page 10 of Last Night

I tentatively rap my knuckles on the heavy wooden door and there’s the noise of keys being jangled on the other side. We’ll be locked in together. It occurs to me this date is not hugely safe, either. I don’t know Zack, it’s the middle of the night, and no one knows I’m here. Given none of my friends are likely to see any message until tomorrow, it’d help with the investigation more than save me.

‘Hi there Eva,’ Zack says. ‘Welcome to my humble hacienda!’

Oh, God.

‘Hello,’ I say. ‘Woah, it looks different in the dark.’ Creepy. What I mean is creepy. And it’s silent.

I step inside and try not to flinch when he locks the door again behind me, though I’m vaguely reassured when he leavesthe bunch of keys hanging in the lock.

‘Yeah, I’ll chuck a few more lamps on, hang on. You don’t want to make the place look too open in case you get the pissheads banging on your door or the motherfucking popo doing you for an illegal lock-in.’

I laugh, without being sure that ‘motherfucking popo’ was meant to be funny.

He throws the place into better light and I relax slightly.

‘Sit up there and I’ll mix you one of your lavender Martinis,’ Zack gestures at the bar stools, opposite the backlit bar, with its Banksy print of two policemen kissing. ‘If that’s what you’re feeling?’ he says, and I nod vigorously. I’m not feeling it, I’ve recovered the few degrees I needed to realise 1) the last fucking thing I need is a Martini, and 2) the last thing I want is fucking, but it’s too late now.

It isn’t too late as such, I know that. I am clothed, enfranchised and technically able to leave.

I hate the fact I feel obliged to do anything because I was stupid enough to initiate this. Thinking I’m now committed to some sort of sexual encounter is everything I would hotly and passionately argue against, if it was a hypothetical, and especially if it was someone else. It’s one of those unpleasant moments in life you confront the fact your beliefs in theory and behaviour in practice can be two entirely different things.

Now Zack is theatrically slapping fresh lavender heads between his hands, clapping to ‘release their perfume’, and threading them onto cocktail sticks with lemon slices, and the complexity of the drink alone feels like adebt to pay. I thought once he wasn’t working, he’d flip the lids on beers.

‘Want music on?’ he says.

‘Sure.’

‘Name an album.’

‘What, any album?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Uhm …’ Ugh, a coolness test, and I don’t want the cringe of anything overtly seductive. ‘Fleetwood Mac?Tusk?’

Zack leans towards the door, talks as if to a pot plant on the bar.

‘Alexa, play Fleetwood Mac,Tusk.’

‘Is this your place?’ I say, as it starts, struck by Zack’s freedom to entertain on the premises.

‘No, the owner Ted is in Lanzarote. He lives there part of the year. The cold part. I run it for him when he’s away. He’s like an uncle to me.’

Zack spins a coaster into position in front of me and sets the Martini on top of it.

‘Thank you!’

‘What’s your deal, then, Little MissNightmare Before Christmas?’

‘Nightmare before …?’

‘The Tim Burton film, like a cartoon? You look like the girl in it. Big eyes and the white raggedy dress. Kinda spooky.’

‘She’s called the Corpse Bride, isn’t she?’ I say, with a smile as I sip.

‘Her name’s Sally.’

‘Ah. My deal …?’

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