The Nature of Cruelty

  “Your mouth,” he says, low and deep. “It moves and I just want to…”

  “Zip it shut?” I interrupt nervously, not wanting to know what he was about to say next. Kiss it? Devour it? Neither of those are answers I can handle. Jesus, if Sasha knew what’s been brewing between Robert and me these past few days, she’d probably punch me in the face to knock some sense into me. And I’d probably have to thank her for it.

  An artful grin splits his lips. “No,” he breathes, then leans in close to my ear and whispers, “Fuck it.”

  The words are barely audible, but I hear them loud as though they’ve been blasted out of a pair of Marshall amps. And I thought I couldn’t handle it if he said kiss it.

  With violent force I push him away from me, red rising in my cheeks. “For a while there you almost had me convinced you’d changed, Robert, but I was wrong. You’ve only gotten worse.”

  And with that I pick up my empty bowl and dash from the room.

  “Who is your best fucking friend in the whole wide world?” Sasha croons as she flounces into my room, clutching a bunch of tickets in her hand.

  I’m still recovering from what happened with Robert earlier, so it takes me a moment to catch on and reply, “You are?”

  “You bet your arse I am. Guess what I managed to snag us today?”

  “Eh, tickets for something,” I say, taking a wild guess.

  “Oh, not just tickets for something. I got us tickets for none other than the bloody closing ceremony of the Olympics.”

  She drops down onto the end of my bed, and my mouth hangs open.

  “Piss off, you did not!” I almost shout, snatching the tickets from her hand (four in total) and taking a closer look at them.

  The Olympics are being held in London this summer. It’s difficult to go more than ten minutes without being reminded of that fact in one way or another, whether it’s being mentioned on TV or being blasted across a billboard. Not only that, but everyone knows that tickets for any one of the events being held are like gold dust. Never mind the closing ceremony, where some of the most iconic musicians in British history will likely be performing.

  “I so did. My friend Natalie got them for me. Feel free to kiss my feet in gratitude,” she jokes.

  “I’ll be glad to. Who are you going to give the other two tickets to?”

  Sasha grins slyly. “I’ll have to see who bribes me the best before I can answer that.”

  “What are you shouting about, Sash?” comes Robert’s voice as he steps casually into the room. He stands there for a moment, all innocence.

  He’s acting like nothing at all happened between us earlier. I cannot believe he’s acting like nothing happened.

  Sasha picks up the tickets and happily shows them to Robert, whose mouth hangs open.

  “You jammy bitch!” he exclaims. “Who did you have to blow to get your hands on those?”

  She scrunches up her face in disgust. “I did not blow anybody, fucker.”

  She swipes back the tickets, probably before Robert gets it into his head to steal one.

  “Well, where did you get them, then?”

  “A girl from work gave them to me as a thank-you for filling in for her a couple of weeks ago. She’s got kids, so she’s not really into going to gigs and stuff like that.”

  “Well, that’s lucky for you,” says Robert, dropping down onto the bed beside Sasha. “How was work today?”

  I bristle at his proximity, not uttering a word.

  Sasha lets out a sigh. “Busy as usual. By the way, I got an email from Jimmy. Did you not tell him I said I wasn’t interested?”

  Robert laughs. “I did, actually. He must be persistent.”

  “Great. That’s all I need.”

  “Did you email him back?”

  “Nope. I was about to during lunch, set him straight that it’s not happening, but then Alistair called me to see if I’m up for a trip to Brighton on Saturday. He says it’s going to be hot as hell, great beach weather. Oh, he also told me to ask you along.”

  “I was with him at lunch. Why didn’t he ask me then?”

  Sasha shrugs. “It must have slipped his mind.” She pauses then, studying her brother suspiciously. “What were you doing at Alistair’s today?”

  “Dad wanted to go. You know we have lunch together on Mondays.”

  Sasha turns to me. “You were working today, right, Lana?”

  “Yep,” I answer, glancing at Robert for a very brief second before carefully avoiding his eyes.

  “Did this little shit give you any trouble?” she asks me while simultaneously kicking Robert in the shin with her boot.

  “Ow!” he complains, and when Sasha’s not looking, he mouths the words “I’m sorry” at me. I can’t tell if he means he’s sorry for being weird in the restaurant or for what he said to me down in the living room – or both. He’s never been the apologetic type, so it takes me by surprise.

  I grin at Sasha and lie, “Not particularly.”

  She smiles back at me. “Damn. I was hoping you’d say yes so I could kick his arse.”

  Robert snorts. “You could try.”

  “Is that a challenge?” Sasha questions, whipping her head back to him.

  Robert gets up from the bed, and then he dives forward, grabs Sasha’s tickets out of her hand, and dashes from the room.

  “Prick!” she shouts, jumping up and chasing after him.

  I stand and walk to the door, calling, “Jesus, how old are you two?”

  I hear them having some sort of a scuffle in Robert’s room. When I go to see what kind of seven colours of shit they’re kicking out of each other, I find that Sasha has Robert’s face pressed up against the mattress on his bed. She yanks the tickets back out of his hand and then sits on his shoulders.

  “Has anyone ever mentioned how weird you both are?” I ask, leaning against the doorjamb.

  Robert fakes it that he’s gasping for air. “Help me, Lana — my sister is a maniac. She beats on me all the time. That’s how I got my black eyes last week. She said if I told anyone she’d kill me.”

  Sasha laughs. “Poor Robert, bested by a girl.”

  “Forgive me if I’m against hitting women. Isn’t it obvious that I let you beat me?”

  I can’t help giggling when he gives me an exhausted look and sticks out his tongue like a tired dog.

  “Oh, put the poor bastard out of his misery, Sash. Come on, Eastenders is starting in a minute.”

  “I suppose.” She grins and hops off Robert, but not before giving him a hard wallop on the arse.

  “Ah, you bitch!” he half whines, half chuckles. “I’ll get you back.”

  “Yeah, yeah, sure you will,” Sasha calls as she saunters from the room and heads downstairs.

  I stay standing there, my arms folded in amusement. “I have to say, that was pretty pathetic, Rob.”

  He rolls over onto his back, and I can’t help noticing how good he looks lying in bed, his hair all messed up. “What could I have done? It goes against societal rules to fight women, even strong bitches like my sister.”

  “Sasha is freakishly strong, isn’t she?” I glance out the door she just exited.

  “Oh, Lana, I’m all sore now. Come here and rub me better, will you?”

  I give him a cynical look. “Do you honestly think there’s a chance in hell of that happening?”

  “God loves a chancer,” he grins.

  “So does the devil,” I counter.

  “Ah, yes, my old friend. I think we’re scheduled for a dinner date this week.”

  “You’re so funny.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I was being sarcastic.”

  “Are you going to Alistair’s day out on Brighton beach?” he asks, ignoring my previous statement.

  “Yeah, if Sasha’s going, then I suppose I will be, too.” I pause, and there’s a moment of silence before I ask hesitantly, “Are you?”

  I don’t know why I’m asking him this. I guess I li
ke having him around, in a self-destructive, self-torture kind of a way. Without even realising it, I’ve already forgiven him for what he said to me earlier.

  He rubs his hands together. “Of course I am. I can’t wait to see you in a bikini.”

  “I don’t wear bikinis.” It’s true. I don’t enjoy having my stomach out, since it’s scattered with needle marks.

  “Oh, so you’re a nudist. Even better.”

  I roll my eyes just as I hear the theme tune for Eastenders streaming from the telly downstairs. “The soaps are calling. That’s my cue to leave.”

  I turn and go down the stairs, with Robert shouting after me, “But the conversation had just gotten interesting!”

  I don’t have any shifts at the restaurant the next day, as I only have to work on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. I plan to go and get one of those public-access bikes and cycle around the city. I also want to pay a visit to the British Museum for a couple of hours.

  Sasha gives me her credit card before she leaves for work, because apparently you need a permanent U.K. address to get one of the bikes. It’s a good thing she told me, or I would have been in for a big disappointment. I work out my route beforehand, planning on stopping in Covent Garden for lunch after the museum and then going for a cycle around Hyde Park.

  I pack everything I need for the day in a small rucksack and then head off.

  I fit in as many works as I can at the museum. It’s a strange, lonely sort of experience. Nobody comes and talks to me directly, but there are people and tourists everywhere. I feel surrounded, but alone. It’s not necessarily a bad feeling, just an unusual one.

  I go to a hip little café for lunch, where I have a sandwich and some herbal tea. At Hyde Park I visit the ducks for a while, having brought some stale bread in my bag to throw to them. One gets out of the water and steps right up to me. I can’t decide whether he’s being brave or just brazen. I name him Jeremy (after Jeremy Kyle, of course), and I give him the last scrap of bread in my bag.

  When I get back on the bike, I see a big group of people in the distance, maybe a hundred, all gathered in one area. The closer I get, the louder their voices become, all of them talking boisterously to one another. It’s like they’re debating or something, only instead of allowing one person to speak, they’re all going at it at once.

  I get off the bike and wheel it over, noticing that there are dozens of smaller groups having individual discussions. I’ve never seen anything like it before. The group I’m standing nearest to sound like they’re debating about something that’s written in the Bible. They all seem very, uh, enthusiastic. One guy is getting a bit over-excited and looks like he might punch the man he’s arguing with in the face.

  There’s an old black guy with a long grey beard standing to the other side of me. He’s not taking part in a discussion, just listening.

  “What is this place?” I ask him, leaning against the handlebars of the bike.

  He glances at me a moment. “It’s Speakers’ Corner, love. You’ve never been before?”

  His accent sounds half Caribbean, half London.

  “Nope. It’s crazy here. What’s a speakers’ corner?”

  He does a nonchalant shoulder shrug. “People come for open-air debate and such. You can speak on any subject. A lot of fools and louts around, though. They tend to drown out the intelligent ones.” He pauses and nods over to the far side of the park fencing, where there’s a homeless-looking guy holding a bottle of cider. “Take this joker, for example.”

  I can’t hear what the guy is saying, but the people standing around him are basically just laughing at him. He’s getting angrier (and drunker) by the minute. I feel sorry for him. He’s trying to get some kind of point across, but the people are looking at him like he’s a pile of shit they just stood on.

  “I don’t think he’s trying to be a joker. I think he just wants somebody to hear him, but nobody’s really listening,” I blurt out before thinking.

  The bearded man glances at me. “Ah, you look on the world with a sympathetic eye, girl. My name’s Fareed.” He holds his hand out to me, and I shake it.

  “I’m Lana. It’s nice to meet you, Fareed.”

  “So, what brings you here?” he asks, hands gesturing about the park.

  “Oh, I was just cycling around. I’m staying in London for the summer with a friend. I’m from Ireland.”

  He looks at me as if I just told him I have red hair.

  “Pfft, I can hear that. She tells me she’s Irish like I don’t know me an accent when I hear one.” He shakes his head and turns back to listen to the group arguing close to us. I’m thinking I’ve stumbled upon a bit of an eccentric.

  I fall silent again, listening to the chattering of voices around me, rising and falling in volume by turns. I’m envious of those who have the confidence to do this kind of thing, just show up at a place and start having a debate with a random stranger. It’s the one part of being a professor that I still haven’t gotten my head around yet. I know how to research and I know how to write, but I don’t know how to speak coherently and confidently on a topic in front of a room full of people, even when I know all the facts like the back of my hand.

  Stand me up on any sort of a stage, and my mind goes blank. I guess that’s why I want to sing for an audience, at least once, because not only do I love to sing, but I also feel like singing would be easier than talking. Perhaps because the music drowns out the unbearable silence in between words.

  I stay another while, chatting a little more with Fareed, before I hop back on the bike. I leave it at a station in the park, deciding to take the Tube home since I’m too tired to cycle all the way. As I’m walking down the street to Sasha’s house, I notice somebody pulling up out front in a silver Mercedes.

  When I get closer, I see it’s Robert. He slams the driver’s-side door shut and presses a button on his key chain to set the alarm.

  “Hey, you didn’t take the Tube to work today?” I ask casually, walking toward the front door.

  “I did this morning,” he replies, “but I had to go and collect my car from the apartment.”

  “Oh, right. Was Kara around?”

  He shakes his head. “She was at work.”

  “What does she do?”

  “Window dresser at Selfridges.”

  “Mm-hmm,” I mumble, opening the door and stepping inside in front of him. His mood is strangely subdued this evening. He’s carrying a large gym bag, which probably contains the last of his things from his apartment. Well, it’s Kara’s apartment now.

  He dumps the bag at the bottom of the stairs and uses his keys to scratch at his neck. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” he asks.

  “Sure, what about?”

  He leads me into the kitchen, and I sit down on a stool as he leans back against the counter, arms folded.

  “So I’ve got a new place all lined up to move into,” he begins.

  His statement takes me by surprise. “Oh, yeah? That’s good.”

  “It’s gorgeous. Perfect for me. Practically brand new, right by the Thames and everything.”

  “Sounds fancy,” I say, nodding, not really knowing why he’s telling me this.

  “The only catch is that the current tenants aren’t going to be moving out until early September.”

  “That’s a good way off.”

  “It is.”

  “So…” All of a sudden, I get where he’s going with this.

  “So I was thinking I’d stay here with you and Sasha for the rest of the summer. But I wanted to run the idea by you first.” He shoves his hands in his pockets.

  “Is this you being considerate, Robert?” I ask, shocked. Under normal circumstances he’d just announce he was staying and that would be that.

  “Look, I know you’re not exactly comfortable living under the same roof as me, and I know you think I’m evil incarnate, which isn’t true, but we won’t get into that now. I promise you I’m not doing this to be cruel. Even though we
fight all the time, I like living with my sister, and I want to stay here until I can move into my own place. But obviously you’d have agree to it, because we both know Sasha will do whatever you say anyway.”

  I bite on my lip, considering his proposal. He’s right, though. If I told Sasha I didn’t want Robert here, she’d tell him he couldn’t stay without a second thought.

  There’s some kind of sadness in his eyes. He doesn’t want to live alone, at least not at this moment in time. Perhaps it would be too lonely for him, since he and Kara just broke up. I’ve never really seen him act like this before. Not very often, anyway.

  “What you said to me last night made me very uncomfortable,” I tell him, straightforward, my voice quiet.

  He scratches at his neck again. “I know…I just…well –” He pauses with a slight grin. “In my experience, women generally enjoy it when I say things like that to them. I didn’t expect you to react so…negatively.”

  I scrunch up my nose, my tone disbelieving when I ask, “They do?”

  He laughs. “Uh, yeah. Some women have even filthier minds than men.”

  I flick a strand of hair back from my face. Robert clearly thought I’d be on a par with those women. He really has no clue about my extreme lack of experience, and I take a certain level of comfort from that. I know what he means, too. I imagine that once you’ve been having sex for years and years, being spoken to so explicitly wouldn’t be that shocking anymore; you’d become desensitised to it.

  Glancing up at him, I say, “Why don’t we make a truce, then, a proper one? We can be friends, but you’ll have to stop doing the whole ‘freak Lana out by pretending to come onto her’ thing. If you agree to that and to be generally decent, then I’ll agree to you staying here. What do you think?”

  “I didn’t realise I was doing a ‘thing,’” he replies, chuckling.

  “Yeah, well, you were.”

  “Okay, I’ll behave.” He pauses and smiles, walking over and holding out his hand to me. Oh, God, what am I getting myself into? A couple of days is one thing, but a whole summer with Robert is going to be the biggest test I’ve ever faced. If he really does behave, then maybe, just maybe, we can become friends. Proper friends.