He’s not wrong. It’s not his fault. I came here with Penny tonight. I’m the one who should have protected her. I hold back my desire to crush his balls with my knee just for the sheer enjoyment of knocking that accusatory expression off his face, and I leave that evil house.
It’s raining. I look around but there’s no trace of her. My heart starts racing.
OK, take it easy. She’s not a child. It’s true you went to the party together, but you didn’t exactly sign a deal in blood. So she left, did she? Well, that’s her business.
But I can’t convince myself not to worry. Part of me realises I’m a fucking liar. I think back to her frightened expression before we arrived – her moist, glistening eyes – and I get seriously pissed at myself.
I try to call her on her phone but it just rings. I fire off a few expletives.
She didn’t have enough money with her, so she couldn’t have taken a taxi. Maybe a bus?
I ask a couple where the closest bus stop is, then start running like crazy.
She’s in a bus shelter that’s actually not giving her any shelter at all. She’s sitting on the bench staring out at the muddy street. The bus arrives, spraying water everywhere. Penny gets up to climb on board. I don’t really get what I’m doing here, and most of all I don’t really get what I’m feeling; I only know that as soon as I embrace her from behind, wrapping her tightly in my arms, I feel like I’ve conquered some essential part of myself.
15
Penny winced at the sight of him, and her tears soon turned into a strangled sob.
‘Asshole!’ she said, struggling to get away from him. She got on the bus and Marcus followed.
It was empty apart a few souls slumped in the front seats. Penny sat somewhere at random, her hair dripping like a leaky downpipe. She stared out the window in a grotesque display of indifference. A pool of rainwater had collected on the floor, and she stared out through the window as if Marcus were invisible.
In reality, it was the opposite. She was trembling all over, a little from the cold and a little from anger, clenching her fists as if to signal imminent and ceaseless conflict between them both.
‘You should have waited for me,’ Marcus told her.
She turned and gave him a fierce look, but it was a fragile ferocity that risked melting into a sea of tears. Then she imagined Marcus and Rebecca having sex in the basement and laughing at her, and once again was overwhelmed by rage.
‘Get away from me!’ she ordered him. ‘You didn’t keep your end of the deal. Go sit somewhere else – I don’t want you here. You disgust me.’
‘Stop talking bullshit,’ he replied in an icy tone that irritated her even more.
She got up from her seat, scrambled past him with her nose in the air, and went to stand by one of the doors, clinging to the metal bar. Marcus quickly joined her. They stood there in silence – Penny soaked through and tottering on her high heels, losing her balance with each brake and turn, his arms always ready to catch her. Every time it happened Penny told him not to touch her, but every time he did, and her heart skipped a beat, making her feel miserable as well as helpless.
At one of the many stops, Marcus took her hand. ‘Let’s get off here,’ he said, pulling her from the bus.
‘No! I’m not home yet.’
He showed no sign of listening to her, but continued holding her hand, as if leading her off in a specific direction. The rain had let up but it was still mercilessly cold.
Marcus stopped in front of a diner that was like a portal back to the era of flared trousers and feathered hair. They passed through a glass door with a polished brass frame, stamped with the words ‘The Gold Cat’. Marcus greeted an older lady behind the counter as if he knew her.
‘Hi, Sherrie. Could you please bring us a towel?’
The woman nodded at his request. She was plump and petite, around sixty years old, with a bright, yellow-gold crest atop her white hair, which was styled like Farrah Fawcett’s in Charlie’s Angels. The room itself was decorated in different shades of yellow, from the floor up to the pendant lamps. Three or four customers sat in booths devouring mountains