Page 36 of Glitterland
“Hell, no.”
“Why not?”
“Too many reasons to articulate, but let’s start with: I’m English, I have some self-respect left to me, and we’re in my kitchen, not a heart-warming American sitcom where people do that sort of shit because they are quirky and free-spirited. Also, I need decent quantities of drugs and/or alcohol to even contemplate getting down with my bad self.”
He shook his head. “I don’t get it.”
“What’s to get? They make you feel good.”
“I’m like…” He put his fingertips together, forming a little square.
“Seriously?”
“Don’t reckon my nan would like it.”
“Your nan isn’t the one getting blatted.”
He shrugged. “But when I’m dancing, it’s like…it’s like ’ow you are when you’re—” A touch of colour gleamed beneath his tan. “—when you’re wif me, but except wif the music. That feeling. Y’know.”
“I think I’ll stick to fucking. Since, at the very least, I’m not expected to performthatin a room full of strangers.”
He laughed and turned back to cooking, body still moving a little in time to the music.
“So, what did you do today?” he asked, chopping away.
Well, Darian, I spent the morning fretting about going shopping, the early afternoon psyching myself up to go shopping, and the rest of the afternoon nearly having a humiliating panic attack in the middle of Sainsbury’s. That left me just enough time to put myself back together and de-lunatic my flat for your arrival.
“Oh, this and that,” I said aloud, which was sufficiently discouraging that even Darian didn’t press it.
“Babes,” he said in a bit, “what you buy three garlics for?”
“You said to buy three garlics.”
Laughing. Again. “Three bits, you donut. You trying to catch a vampire or summin?”
“I’m trying,” I said frostily, “to solve seven across.”
“D’you wanna hand?”
I sighed to demonstrate I was put-upon before I read, “‘Nose and eyes, from what we hear, often indicated by hands.’ Five letters.”
“’Aven’t a clue,” he said, at last. “That don’t even make no sense.”
“It’s ‘votes,’” I said, scribbling it in.
“You what?”
“Well, ‘from what we hear’ usually means sounds like. ‘Nose and eyes,’ sounds like ‘noes and ayes,’ you know, yes and no, and voting can be calculated by raising hands. So it’s votes.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, nodding. “Wait, what am I saying? I’d’ve nevva fought of that in like a million years. You’re so clever, babes.”
I cleared my throat. He’d said he thought I was clever before (I am clever—mad, but clever), but I don’t know why it suddenly made me uncomfortable. “It’s just about learning the tricks,” I said, awkwardly. “Once you know how they’re put together, you can solve them. It’s got very little to do with being clever. Want to try another?”
“Yeah, ahwight.”
“How about this, five down. ‘Honestly? No, otherwise.’ Two, three, three.”
“I don’t like it when they’re more than one word, I fink that’s cheating.”
