Benbecula

An insane-looking, balding dwarf stuffs money into the jukebox and subjects everyone in the bar to that Evanescence song people used to think about killing themselves to in 2003.

The low drone of multilingual 9pm chat is sprinkled with the high-pitched giggles of the already half-cut, in-bed-by-twelve-with-a-stinking-kebab type. You sip your tasteless, branded lager and look from face to face to face. The bartender must be at least ten years younger than you; peroxide stains streak her hair and black eyeliner carefully shapes her eyes. Sitting hunched at the bar, you count five peanuts into your palm and pretend to be deep in thought, glancing in her direction every 30 seconds or so. She has a flirtatious manner as she drifts up and down serving pints, or maybe she doesn’t; you can never tell. Never mind. You drink your beer. A young man wearing a faded Oxford University t-shirt and an idiotic facial expression elbows you out of his way. You wait until his back is turned and mutter ‘twat’ in a manner that you assume could be passed off as a tick. Fingers tangle, sweat tickles.  The moment you leave this bar, she evaporates, this useless attraction dying unreciprocated and forever unmarked in history. You want to talk to her. She hasn’t looked at you since you arrived. Just as well, you reason.  

You look down at your crumpled suit, rented for two-hundred zloty and emanating absurdity. A wedding. Your wedding. In a public bar. You close your eyes. 

About two years ago after a drunken conversation with yourself you developed the notion that an arranged marriage has all the probability of success as one born in love.  You loitered in the peripheries of your friends’ marriages and watched as they disintegrated - never dramatically, just fading over time until their unattended wicks puffed final wisps of smoke into still daylight.  Having no relative in your life who was remotely bothered by your marital status, you had to set about arranging your own marriage. Committed to enforcing a matchmaking system that was hyperconsciously arbitrary, you avoided all women that you thought of as especially intelligent or attractive or amusing, and instead sought only women that stirred in you a profound indifference. You eventually settled on Julia, after a conversation you had with her about her hatred of capitalism induced in you such tedium that you almost slipped into a coma. Why she settled on you, you’ve never dared ask.

*

The bartender wears a black t-shirt, the phrase ‘no regrets’ emblazoned in an angular white font. You will never love Julia, but this will be the key to a peaceful marriage. Somebody mercifully changes the song to something generic. Most of the people in the bar are unfamiliar. You doubt Julia knows many either.

“Another?” asks the bartender.

‘Please’.

You press your thumb to the paypad and hear the satisfying b-beeeep of approval. She plonks a beer in front of you with an insensible smile and moves away. You console yourself; we would have ended up divorced anyway, you reason.

In the bathroom you lock yourself in a cubicle, take out your phone and open your favourite app.

 left left right right right left right left right left left right right right right right right right RIGHT

Out of likes!
Don’t want to wait? Go unlimited!

You linger by the unisex sinks.  Another nice girl.  She considers herself in the sud-splattered mirror. She runs coloured fingertips through her hair. You drag out the performance of soaping and rinsing.

As you steal a glimpse you notice the remnants of tears in her eyes. She washes her hands quickly and leaves without acknowledgement, leaving you to contemplate your reflection and spotless palms. 

You fight a current of purposelessness and wade back out towards the bar. The dwarf obstinately force-feeds the jukebox more coins. You look around for someone to talk to and then sit at a table in the corner. There are two girls on the table next to you. Nicely dressed.  It’s possible they’re here for the wedding. They take selfies and shout Instagram captions at each other over the blare of Avenged Sevenfold. Behind them the little guy struts towards the bar, trying to pass his song choice off as innocuous; you catch his eye and offer a vague facial spasm.  The atmosphere has drifted. An absent, boozey film clings to passing eyes. 

You decide that it’s time to call it a night and look for Julia. After a couple of minutes you give up, reasoning that she’s probably also grown tired and left already. On the way out you bump into a man that you recognize as her father, who confirms your suspicions. You feel a touch morose, as is to be expected in such a situation.

You walk out of the bar and into the pissy smell of Szewska. As you walk towards your tram stop, you feel weightless and suggestibility tickles you. Your legs suggest making a U-turn and lead you to a club that you’ve passed a couple of times before. You pay the extortionate entrance fee and stride without confidence towards the boom-boom and the nonsense.

You order a double rum and coke and a shot of tequila and it costs roughly £113. You turn your back on the bar and study the dark sea of madness that crashes discordantly before you. You are about to leave when you see the bartender from your wedding party, standing alone in a state of interminable scrolling. Oblivious to her surroundings, she looks neither sad nor happy, somehow focused yet distant as her brain pretends to digest a jumble of information. She glances up from her phone. Her eyes slide over you without a semblance of recognition.  

“Hey, I’m Ben”.

Her tired eyes say ‘go away’. You stay planted in front of her, the pulse of music piercing your skull and turning your brain to gunge.

“I think I love you”, you say for some reason.

She reaches into a small leather handbag that hangs from her left shoulder and pulls out a pack of gum. She offers you a piece and you accept. She pops some into her mouth and starts chewing vacantly. Her eyes return to her phone and you notice that she is swiping

left   
 Right   leftleftleft
… right         right …      left left             right.

You walk slowly away from your love, deep into shark infested waters. Strobe lights dance as creatures claw at you from every angle. Something icy seeps through the right shoulder of your rented shirt.

“Urghhhh’, a creature groans, by way of an apology.

You decide to hold your breath and see how long you can stare at the throbbing sky without coming up for air. All around you bodies swim.

15… 16… 17...

“Ben!”

18… 19… 20…

“Ben! Benny!”

21… 22… two thick, sweaty tentacles fall around your neck and over your shoulders.

“Benny, it’s been how long?”

You have no energy to lift the blankness from your face.

You heave yourself out of the brine and dry off by the bar, spitting a glob of salt water onto the floor. A shrivelled balloon. You look around at the mish-mash of swaying colours and think of your six year old nephew compulsively sorting lego bricks, leaving the obscurely dirty ones in a pile of their own.

An ancient man sits alone at the bar. He seems impervious to the unsk-unsk of the speakers above him.

“What are you doing?”, you ask him.

“Sitting”, he responds.

“Are you okay?”

He looks tired and you move away.

Julia is sleeping when you get home. You slide soundlessly into bed next to her, waking her with an accidental nudge to the leg.  Glazed eyes take a moment to place you and her far-off stare wavers towards the ceiling as she slurs indecipherable sentiments to herself, the too-tight wedding dress a boa constrictor.  Slithering towards you, an absent mouth clasps down messily on your tongue, a hand claws dispassionately at the zip of your borrowed trousers.  You feel very sober.  

\

Your forearms rest on the low stone wall as you look out across the field.  Four bay horses potter around, eating grass and defecating brown boulders. A farmer lumbers towards them with a sack full of something. You wave awkwardly and he tips his cap. He beckons to you. Thick grass and weeds clutch your red wellies but you kick your way through. A helicopter grumbles somewhere overhead.

The farmer hands you a pulpy apple, you refuse. He laughs.

“For the horses”.

In the next field sits Jenny. Matted blonde hair above a pink cardigan, her frisbee caught in a tree. House sparrows sing their appreciation of the weather; a spring day quivers. A horse bows his neck and mushes an apple between his gums. He swallows and lingers, a deferential expectation on his big face.

“Come on lad, it’s easy. Just hold your hand out like this… palm flat. He won’t bite”.

Face twitching, you proffer the apple, its gunk already sticky in your palm. The horse approaches and lifts it from your hand. He takes a precautionary bite, swirling the apple around in his saliva. Raising an eyebrow, he spits the pulp back at you in disgust and canters off to join his three friends.  You look down at your splattered t-shirt.

/

When you wake, Julia is already in the kitchen. You roll around, still attached to your rental suit, minus the jacket, which forms a sad little lump on the carpet. She squeezes round the door with a half-drunk glass of fruit juice in her hand.

“Morning, husband”, she says, as though reaching the punchline of a long-winded joke.

Your wife leaves for work and your thumbs twiddle. You sink into the sofa. The multiplex of a living room stirs into life, offering an endless selection of TV series. A rainy Danish dystopia fails to interest you. Fingernails scrape against a dandruff that dissolves like sleet into your surroundings. Something unknown builds itself in your mind. An unsettling confusion floods your thoughts. Marriage. Now there’s only…

…

Your shitty old SEAT Toledo roars into life and you rattle down the motorway;  all the while it bellows at you, insisting you slow down. With your foot to the floor, it screams its protests until you screech into the airport taxi rank. Spending almost half the balance of your current account,  you pay yourself onto the next flight to the UK, which happens to be Glasgow. The passing faces raise your suspicions; you make mental notes on potential terrorists whilst glugging pints of Żywiec.

Needless to say, the plane lands unexploded.  A great wave engulfs you, washing you up in a second class carriage onboard a ScotRail train to Oban. Your phone fizzes in your trouser pocket and you extract it, conscious for the first time since waking that you’re still in your wedding clothes. Actually not bad for £60, you think. There’s not much you can get for… your phone fizzes again; before it has chance to explode you casually slide a window open and drop it down onto the track, its landing the distant snapping of a twig.

Outside, Scottish countryside sweeps by. Green blue.

The tide turns and flips your body out of the train and slap-bang onto the deck of a boat headed for Godknowswhere. The boat is operated by Caledonian MacBrayne and is heavily subsidised by the Scottish government, a season ticket holder informs you. You twist your wedding ring around your finger, tightening it like a bottle cap. Ordering fish and chips from the canteen, you sit down and begin a letter.

Dear Mum, 

 ...

 

Sitting on the beach of an unknown island, you stare into the molten sunset and let countless grains of sand slip repeatedly through your fingers. You wonder how your phone is doing, how Jenny is doing. In the sea two children chase each other, diving into clear water and dragging each other under. Their mum watches from the shore, shouting a baffling mixture of encouragement and rebukes. You loosen your tie, take a sip of metallic lager and lay back on the sand.