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 leaves the 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 a debt 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 Miss Nightmare 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 …?’
‘Got a husband, boyfriend? Girlfriend? Significant Other plus Side Dude?’
‘I’d not be here if I did have one?’ I blurt, baffled. I then realise how explicit this is regards my purpose, even though it’s not really my fault he asked such a direct question. I waffle: ‘… In closed-up bars in the middle of the night. Drinking drinks with herbs in them.’
‘Hey, I’m not here to judge,’ Zack says, hands up.
He’s managed to make me feel like Shirley Valentine cracking on to a Greek waiter, needing a holiday from herself. I feel patronised. Would he have asked a woman of his own age these things, I wonder? Maybe, yes – I have a suspicion that Zack has the gift of annoying people when he isn’t intending to annoy.
‘Have you got a girlfriend?’ I say, hoping my intonation makes it clear I don’t care. Although … if he says he has, that’s an easy out for me. Zack tilts his head in a contemplative way.
‘Nah. It’s complicated, but nah.’
It’s complicated means ‘I’m messing someone around and I think the fact makes me interesting,’ Susie always says.
‘Aren’t you drinking?’ I ask, as I realise Zack is now rinsing the cocktail shaker under a tap rather than sorting anything else.
‘I’ve got an Asahi on the go,’ he points to a bottle on the counter.
He dries his hands, walks round, and takes up position on the stool next to me.
‘Enjoying it?’ he says of the Martini.
‘Yeah, incredible,’ I say, politely, having some more, really wanting to take the fruit salad out of it so it’s more accessible, but not wanting to hurt