Naked City by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Short Stories
Publisher: Route
Published: 2010-09-27T04:00:00+00:00

7.00pm

The early evening lull. Adam enjoyed that. There were fewer offices at this end of town, so there was never such a crush of suits as when he’d worked in Victoria Street. He preferred people to dribble in by degrees, giving him plenty of time to assess them. He liked to stand at the corner of the bar watching the legs as they descended, liked trying to guess how the rest of the body might look.

This time he could tell, from the tap of heel and toe, before the legs even came into view, that his customer was a woman, on her own. Something in the way she sauntered towards him, the way she leant on her elbow, planting her chin on her hand, something in her breathy slightly petulant voice, stirred recognition. Not the face. Not the ripe-plum mouth. Not the hair, which had been through a myriad of styles and palettes. She fixed her eyes on his.

‘Large vodka and tonic please.’

‘Ice and lemon?’

‘Thanks, Adam.’

Keeping his grip steady on the tongs, he dropped several ice cubes into a glass. ‘Stella?’

‘You haven’t changed.’

‘Much…’ The sharp satisfying crack of the ice as the vodka was added. A splash of tonic: she wouldn’t want it too diluted. He added an olive on a cocktail stick and a straw. ‘How long’s it been? Ten years at least?’

She removed the straw and took a long drink. ‘I bumped into Phil the other day, remember? What did we call him, The Fixer? Anyway, he told me he’d heard you were back in Liverpool, working here. Nice to get the news third-hand.’

Adam shrugged. That was the way it was really. When he’d gone down south he’d said goodbye to old friends, been swallowed up by the maw that was London and hadn’t expected to return.

‘Hey, over here.’ A large American was waving a large note. Adam was proud of his ability to anticipate custom and annoyed at the interruption. He moved away from Stella to serve the man and was about to call one of the girls over to help him behind the bar when she appeared miraculously, smoothing the front of her apron. ‘Mahmoud said you wanted me.’

Adam, the manager, wanted to kick Mahmoud, the prescient unpaid skivvy, in the teeth. Instead he went back to Stella. She’d nearly finished her drink and there was a bright cocktail-hour fervour about her he distrusted. He’d put more tonic in the next one. ‘Are you meeting somebody?’ he asked.

‘You don’t believe I’d call in just to see you?’ She twirled a set of keys on her middle finger. ‘Actually, I’m celebrating.’

‘Celebrating?’

‘Independence Day.’

‘Sorry love, you’ve lost me.’

‘I’ve left him, Adam.’

‘Who?’

‘Nick, of course. You came to the wedding, remember?’ She spun the keys again. ‘I’m starting over.’

As a barman, Adam was used to outpourings of the recently separated, though generally later at night than this. He made a non-committal grunt.

‘I had this crazy plan,’ she said. ‘I thought maybe I could come back into town, rent my old studio and start painting again.

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