Girls’ Night In. Jessica Adams
he was walking so fast that all he could make out was a blur of crushed velvet and shiny hair. The second time, he’d passed her slowly enough to distinguish a perfect nose and a paperback novel. The third week, he’d approached her from behind and been enchanted by the plastic claw holding her hair back from her face, its talons digging brutally into the thickness of her hair. By the fourth week he’d got up the nerve to sit on the bench with her, but had stood up again after less than a minute and continued on his way. It was last week that he’d had the brainwave about the book. It gave him something to do while he sat here, something to quell the awkwardness and embarrassment of the situation.
The girl in the Velvet Dress looks away from her book very briefly and smiles ever so slightly at Mojo, who’s eyeing her dolefully from where he’s stretched out under the bench.
Rudy smiles to himself. Nothing warms Rudy to a stranger more quickly than a flattering remark or an affectionate attitude towards his dog. This girl on the bench, she’d given Mojo a nice look the first time she’d seen him, too, that same half-smile she’d used just now when the Highland terrier had run past her. She obviously likes dogs, which is good. Which is vital, in fact. I mean, Mojo is his best friend. Now, if she liked Muddy Waters and B. B. King and could play a bit of flamenco guitar as well, then she might just turn out to be his perfect woman.
Not that he’ll ever find out. Of course not. He isn’t going to talk to her or anything. He never does. Because the woman with the Velvet Dress and the Hair Claw isn’t the first woman that Rudy has shared a bench with on Parliament Hill. Oh no. This year there’s been the woman with the Blue Nail Polish and Jaunty Hat and before that the woman with the Pink Nose Stud and the Pigskin Rucksack and then the woman with the Raffia Bag and the Diamante Hair Grips, the one with the Dangly Earrings and the Snakeskin Shoes and the one with the Ethnic Ankle Bracelet and the Big Silver Rings. Rudy likes accessories. Not for himself, but on women. He loves them. Women can hide behind clothes, behind fashion, but it’s through accessories that women give themselves away.
So – what does Rudy know about this stranger, about the girl in the Velvet Dress?
She’s single, that’s for sure. They all are, all these girls in the park. Of course they are. Why on earth would they be sitting alone in the park on a Saturday afternoon if they had someone to be with?
The velvet tells Rudy that she’s sensuous, receptive to textures, likes a bit of luxury in her life. He imagines her to be the type of woman who might stop at a posh Belgian chocolate shop on her way home from work and ask for just one Champagne Truffle, gift-wrapped in a tiny little box. No wolfed down Mars Bars for this girl, no KitKat on the way to work, Twix bar in her office drawer or gobbled Cadbury’s Wispa when she thought no one was looking. Just a brief moment of pure luxury.
He imagines her taking her chocolate home, all aquiver with excitement and then making herself a proper cup of tea, in a pot, with leaves.
He imagines her with a cat, a Persian, maybe, or a Ragdoll. Something with luxuriant fur. She probably buys him a piece of cod every now and then, or poaches a chicken breast for him, in milk.
The dress would have been a treat, too. Something she’d seen in a shop window, fallen in love with, saved up for for weeks. It would have been tissue-wrapped and handed to her in a shiny paper bag with rope handles. She still keeps the bag, in the back of her wardrobe. A souvenir of a perfect moment.
The girl in the Velvet Dress slips her finger between the next two pages of her book and chuckles almost imperceptibly under her breath at something she’s just read. She turns the page over and sighs contentedly.
Rudy clears his throat again and eyes her surreptitiously. Were you watching, you might think that he’s about to talk to her, that he’s getting up the nerve. But you’d be wrong. Rudy doesn’t need to talk to her, he doesn’t need to get to know her – he already knows so much. He’s never spoken to any of the women. That would just spoil everything. He prefers getting to know women without having to talk to them. That way he doesn’t have to find out that they’re thick, or bitchy, or boring, or silly, or shallow, or that they have a horrible accent or an ugly voice, or that they just really don’t want to talk to him. At all. Better just not to try. Better just to sit here on the bench and breathe them in, work them out from the telltale clues they subconsciously leave all over the place. The body language, the jewellery, the book, the accessories. The way they react to Mojo, the way they react to him, the way they react to the weather and to things going on around them. Bitten nails or long nails, short hair or long hair, clean shoes or scruffy shoes – you could learn more about a person’s levels of self-esteem looking at signs like that than you could in a whole year of psychotherapy. Probably.
But what about affection, you might ask, what about contact, what about sex? The thing is, you see, Rudy doesn’t actually need any physical contact with his bench women. He has Maria for that sort of thing, the barmaid at the Lady Somerset. Naughty little Maria with her uplift bra and her thick lipstick and her tiny little buttocks and lethal hipbones that protrude like shark fins from either side of her abdomen. She’s half his size all over, and at least ten years older than him. She’s on for anything, any time. She isn’t interested in chat or love or going out or anything. She just likes coming back to his flat after the pub closes and crawling all over his big long body for as long as he’ll let her. She’s great. But she’s nowhere near his ideal woman. She’s way too thin, for a start. But she gives him exactly what he needs and in a funny sort of way, he loves her for it.
The girl in the Velvet Dress looks at her watch (plain, leather strap, looks like she’s had it for years), folds down the corner of her page, closes it and slips it in to her bag (drawstring-top leather duffel). She stands up, hitches the bag on to her shoulder and turns to leave.
And then something unbelievable happens. She stops, turns around and looks at Rudy. She stares at him for what feels like at least ten minutes and then opens her lips, very slowly. Her cheeks starts reddening and she begins twisting her hands together self-consciously.
She smiles. ‘Bye,’ she says. She sticks one hand up at him, stiffly, palm-first, and begins walking away.
‘Yeah,’ mutters Rudy, sitting bolt upright, dropping his book at his feet and, a few seconds too late, ‘yeah – see you.’ She’s already halfway into the distance. ‘See you.’
He watches her amble down the hill, her hands in her pockets, her head downcast.
Jesus.
Jesus Christ.
What was that? What the fuck was that?
Rudy leans down to pick up his book, his head swimming. She spoke to him. The girl in the Velvet Dress spoke to him. She said ‘bye’. What does it mean? What does she want?
He frowns and tucks the book back into his inside pocket. Why did she speak to him?
And then a terrible realization dawns upon him. She’s been coming here on purpose just to see him! Every week, the same bench, the same time. It’s obvious. She’s … she’s … stalking him. He’s being stalked by a mad, obsessive, lonely, unloved, unhinged woman. Oh Jesus!
He stands up quickly and looks around him, making sure she’s no longer in sight. She isn’t.
‘Come on, boy.’ He slaps his thigh and Mojo joins him as he begins to walk back down the hill.
Rudy needs a drink now. His hands are shaking slightly and a light film of sweat clings to his brow. His pace quickens as he hurries down the tarmac path, towards Highgate Road, towards the Lady Somerset, looking over his shoulder every now and then as he walks.
Stella Duffy
Stella Duffy is an award-winning writer who has written thirteen novels, over fifty short stories, and ten plays published in fifteen languages. She is also a theatre-maker and the Co-Director of Fun Palaces, the grassroots campaign for communities and cultural access. She lives in London.