Read Animals for Free Online Page B

had left. He had a late flight so I’d stayed at his, drinking wine on my own and playing
Portal 2
on his PS3. At 2 a.m. I was starving and there was nothing in so I staggered to McDonald’s in St Ann’s Square in his canvas espadrilles (did they ever record for Google Earth at night, or was that just during the day? Mortification). I bought too much food and ate it walking back, and then – schoolgirl error – got in bed too soon. The internal tide turned and I knew there was only one way it was going to go. Just thinking about that night made vomiting inevitable so I paid quickly and left the shop. Around the corner I leaned against a wall and dropped my bags. The glass bottles rang against each other. The sound, and the lurch of worrying about them breaking, made me even sicker. Jim’s street was about five minutes away, towards the arena. Did this require another taxi? Yes, my stomach said, yes it did. I reached for the wall and pressed my palm flat. I retched. Nothing. Sometimes a retch was worse than a gip. I tried not to think about food or fun of any kind and definitely not Jim. My nerves surged. You know that feeling. You feel pins and needles rushing and wonder if it means you’re healing.
    When I felt like I could move I walked to the rank outside the station and got in the front cab. The driver was nice enough about the shortness of the journey. I think he saw the panic in my eyes. When I got to Jim’s I walked up the steps at the front of his building (he lived on the ground floor, mercifully) and let myself in.
    He’d had a key cut for me in January and the plan was for me to move in when we were married but I couldn’t see it yet. Cohabitation. Would I have to contribute to the décor, posters in clip frames, that kind of thing? Was Athena still open? I loved Jim’s place but it didn’t feel like home. Still, where did? Not Tyler’s. Tyler’s was Tyler’s. Maybe when I made some money I could rent my own flat opposite Jim’s and we could wave to each other over the road, like Woody Allen and Mia Farrow across Central Park. That would be romantic. Or lonely – would it just be lonely?
    My phone started to ring. Expecting it to be Jim, I hunted through my bag and cleared my throat. The screen said ICE. In Case of Emergency. My parents’ house. Dad, probably. I watched the letters flashing. His body. My body. What I’d done. What he hadn’t. Oh, the shame of raiding my body’s chemical joy-stores! I was no better than a looter. When it stopped ringing I noticed the time on the screen. I had just over an hour.
    I put a pan on the hob, heated oil. Sliced onions. Fried spices. Tipped the mutton in. I’d never cooked with it before but I knew that it was basically the same thing as lamb, the archaic name reassuring. Dickens probably did a lot with mutton. The steam from the searing meat made me feel like I might vomit. I stepped back and flicked on the extractor fan in the hood over the hob. I added ginger, garlic, curry powder. I turned down the heat and went for a little lie-down on the settee. When I felt up to it I went back to add water and tomatoes to the pan. There. That could sit awhile. Next: washing. But first … Jim had some rehydration salts in his medicine cabinet. I took a glass from the cupboard and tipped a packet of rehydration salts into it. The salt sat at the bottom of the glass in a little pile. It looked like cocaine. I took the glass to the sink and turned on the cold tap. Water twisted out in a clean, violet-edged ribbon.
    Tyler and I had stayed a few hours in the pub, growing raucous with much table-pounding and face-gripping. We’d sorted plenty out, over tables, over the years. It was dark when we decided to head across town. We walked along the canal towpath, up, over bridges, under arches. Above Deansgate Locks there was a row of chain bars. Outside each bar was a small, roped-off section, guarded by doormen, where clubbers stood smoking. Tyler unhooked each rope as