The Cure

Chapter 12

The pavement was pillow-soft beneath her feet as Lola bounced back to the flat, her guitar tapping against her back; the new summer air was a happy envelope on her warm skin; her sundress still stuck to her, damp beneath the arms and at her lower back.

Oh, the air roared with the city's boastful conviction and the rumble of living, and the pavement was hot and the tarmac was hot and the seven o'clock evening sky was purple, and orange, and streaked with yellowing clouds, and there was even music in the caw of the pigeons and the sound of clinking and male laughter and chatter from the pub's gardens and terraces and the smell of the sun-warmed beer.

There had been applause, hadn't there?

She had sung three songs in quick succession, making no small talk, taking only the time to throw back a cocktail on stage as if she were a famous old Blues singer; she hadn't dared look up for the whole set.

Starting had been the hardest part.

But she had found an almost immediate, surprising solace as she began to sing, as if she had risen from her body and listened afloat, even though her heart had pounded fit to split for ten minutes straight.

Yes, there had been applause, and somebody even whistled, and she hadn't dared to look about the crowd as she slid off the stage; and Jared had kissed her in front of everybody. Even her sullen boss gave her a half-hearted thumbs up from across the room.

The loft felt smaller, somehow, when she finally struggled in, and she stood silent in the centre of the room, listless, her smile still taped with disbelieving joy onto her lips.

She let herself laugh, once; and then fell to her knees, clutching the instrument's case to her chest, the embrace of an old friend, crying out half with wild, uncontrollable laughter, half with gleeful sobs, revelling in the sensation of burning relief.

So this was what it was like, when one dipped a toe into a life called to them, that was meant for them, that meant something to them?

So was this it, then, happiness?

She silently thanked the Gods for the traffic jam that had stalled the singer before her; blissfully praised the little Frieda, that little piece of work, for slipping her name into the panicked conversation before Friday's tired punters, eager for the thrum of live music to take the edge off the week.

When her knees started to ache, she made for her bedroom, and touched the omnipresent bottle of Jack, lifting it to her lips; the woody spirit smell made her throat close up, and fearing that its heady onslaught would drown the lightness that filled her up, she put it down again.

Without knowing why, she began scooping up great armfuls of dirty laundry, and scurried back and forth to the washing machine, finding her old, threadbare rug, and old Rolling Stones, and the room that shouted and clamoured and pulled at the senses finally relinquished, the mess slowly subsiding under her trembling and jubilant hands.

And the sun went down with Lola's euphoria, splaying her last rays with proud and gentle silence, and Lola leaned right out of her bedroom window, watching the river curl about as lazily as the trains and the birds tilting bored on the breeze, eating Chinese chicken noodles right out of the takeaway box as she gazed, and she lit a candle that smelled of lavender and wondered if it was possible to die of delight.

She was torn from a dreamless, and comfortable, and smiling sleep; the first time she had been in bed before 11 P.M. in years.

She blinked at her phone which told her it was three; perhaps the night-train had passed, she thought as she snuggled back into the covers, before her eyes were forced promptly open again.

Unmistakeable. Lola's heart leapt into her throat as a second appreciative moan split the silence, a feminine, warbled hum, barely muffled by the thin walls separating their rooms. She sat up quickly, fumbling for her cigarettes.

Pretty annoying.

Lola smiled bitterly as the lighter flashed an orange flicker about the black of her room; her heart was still thumping as she lay back against her pillows, ears straining despite themselves into the silence of the night. She only heard the pulse of her own blood in her lobes, and sucked in several shivering mouthfuls of smoke, breathing a shimmering grey sigh of relief when the quietness insisted, and the cigarette was smoked eagerly down to the filter in the heady and whisperless dark.

No – there it was again, a soft, girl's mewling, and now there was a lower groan, and Lola's stomach clenched.

And he was shushing her now, Lola heard as she stubbed out her now-trembling cigarette, shushing her in vain; and even if the girl had managed not to cry out, the bedsprings creaked and the headboard tapped, boastfully rhythmic, and heat flooded over Lola's body as she heard the deep moan again, and his low entreaty for quietness.

But the girl's cries were pornographic. Though, Lola thought, biting her lip, she wasn't one to talk. Hers had been, too.

Now she imagined Nathaniel's hand creeping over the girl's face to smother the cries, and the girl's hands creeping over his body, and Lola's own hand crept of its own accord beneath her sheets as the pit of her stomach squeezed desperately again, and again, as the girl finished loudly – unnecessarily loudly, Lola thought bitterly.

She waited until she heard the lower hum, the deep rumble of pleasure before she pressed two fingers between her legs, teasing herself relentlessly until she heard his stunted groan, the cry of his release, low, and stifled; she imagined the muscle jumping in his jaw, his teeth clenching as he came, the way she remembered; she found her own climax immediately, simultaneously, silent and shaking, her lips pressed together, the muscles in her legs seizing dramatically, her fingers slick.

The sleep that came after that was far less contented.

She had better call Jared.