Read Online The Bird Room by Chris Killen - Free Book Online Page A

loose-wristed wave. They’re both drunk off the 6 o’clock cocktail happy hour.
    It’s just gone seven, so I buy a pint and swig it quickly, trying to catch up.
    I’m introduced. William, this is Lauren. Lauren also works at the optician’s. Lauren thinks working at the optician’s is rubbish, too. Lauren wonders what you do for a living.
    â€˜I work from home,’ I tell her.
    â€˜Oh yeah?’ Lauren says, raising her eyebrow. ‘What do you do?’
    â€˜It’s really dull,’ I say. ‘You wouldn’t want to know.’
    â€˜Try me,’ Lauren says.
    So I say that I do something with ‘systems’ – trying to drop in vague technical words like ‘protocol’ and ‘analysis’ and ‘statistics’.
    Lauren furrows her brow. Something doesn’t sound quite right about this. Something doesn’t add up, and Lauren can’t put her finger on it.
    â€˜How was your day?’ I ask Alice, trying to change the subject, putting my hand on her knee and rubbing it, feeling the static-y friction of my thumb against her tights, trying to act normal but feeling way too conscious that everything I’m doing is an act.
    Lauren’s still looking.
    Lauren will not stop looking at me.
    Lauren thinks I’m a liar, a dirty perv.
    It’s written all over my face. It’s obvious what I did all day.
    And Lauren will tell Alice this the next time they’re alone – the next time they go off to the toilets, maybe – she’ll tell Alice what I really did with my afternoon and Alice will freak out and leave me.
    At eight the bar starts filling up. Big blokes in Ted Baker shirts. Shaved heads. Ibiza tans.
    Alice kisses me, forcing her tongue into my mouth. She tastes of Seabreeze. Her teeth are as cold as crushed ice.
    I open my eyes for a second and Lauren’s staring at us. She looks uncomfortable.
    Once we’ve finished, Lauren makes a show of looking at the clock, at her mobile and suddenly remembering something.
    â€˜Oh god,’ she says, ‘I’d better shoot …’ standing up with half her cocktail still on the table.
    â€˜Alright,’ Alice says, smiling. ‘See you tomorrow.’
    Before Lauren’s even out the door, Alice has taken my hand and put it under her top. She’s not wearing a bra. She buries her head in the crook of my neck and mumbles something.
    She gets like this, usually once she’s had a few. She gets turned on, I think, by the idea of people watching.
    I accidentally gaze into the black piss-hole eyes of a bloke at the bar.
    He doesn’t blink.
    I look away, but I can still feel him there, staring at me.
    It feels like everyone in the bar – everyone in the world – is looking.
    I feel sick and cold.
    She’s almost sitting on my lap.
    She’s winding herself around me, kissing my neck and tonguing my Adam’s apple.
    â€˜Get a room!’ the bloke at the bar shouts and a few people cheer in agreement.
    So, after one last vodka shot, we do. We take a taxi home and I have to help her out of it. She slings her arm across my shoulder and leans in heavily.
    I walk her to the bathroom.
    She locks herself in.
    â€˜You alright?’ I call through the door after a while.
    Inside I can hear crying.
    I switch on the telly.
    I turn it up.
    She comes out and sits next to me on the sofa. I turn down the telly. She leans her head against my shoulder, smelling of soap, her eyes red and raw. I put my arm around her. We watch a news story about Third World debt. My hand is near her boob. She sniffs. I reach down and cup it in my palm, feeling its sad quiet weight.
    â€˜Don’t,’ she says, so I drop it.

It isn’t her, but it’s close. She smiles at you. Her teeth are neat. They are bleached a high-contrast white. She shakes the hair out of her eyes. She is moving slowly, sliding a bra strap delicately off her shoulder. Her eyes are wide