Phobia

Dodging the hastening trajectory of an oncoming pedestrian, left hand stretched out and spread, I pushed spun through the glass door of the hotel bar, the rapid twist to my vision jerking it to the right until it settled into a white white blur. I paused for a moment to adjust; the glass door squeezing hydraulics behind me as it smoothed shut to block out the first rain brushed air of Parisian winter. I moved in through the centre, stepping on black tiles that spread out beneath empty chrome tables and chairs towards flat shimmering white parallel walls where raised blocks of coloured backlit glass paced along with me to the colours of red green yellow and blue. I straightened with mock confidence, nearing an S-shaped bar at the end of the room. Only one customer sat there, hanging forward from a stool within the concave curve of the bar. His eyes faced down; studying and thumbing the screen of an I-Phone from which he didn’t bother to politely glance up as I approached. I tried to stare open the black eye lashes that imprisoned his eyes; trying to break his attention, break into conversation. Instead paranoia began beating its drum: was I really that awful - horrible - worthless? Ugly? I stood a metre away becoming the apex of a triangle of suppressed links between him, myself and a lonely chrome cradled stool topped with black leather hide. Still no acknowledgement. I decided to feign interest in the bar itself, the mathematically precise positioning of bottles lined up on opaque glass bricks; rising against a wall of lime-green glass lit from above by miniature chrome spotlights. Still no reaction. The bar’s surface, black and marbled, fronted in lime-green Perspex, or maybe glass, with an unlikely traditional brass pipe that streamed round the bar propped up by struts from the floor, but not high enough. Not high enough for short legs like mine. Nothing. I sat on the vacant stool, twisted my feet around it: studied him.

          My counterpart sat like me without a drink: no barman to be seen. His suit, shimmering blue with the crisp cut edges of two thin lapels fastened cramped and rumpled together by two blue buttons at his waist, made me wonder why he could not, as I had done, undo his jacket, smooth it down - relax. His tie, like him, was thin, making him appear a little broader, tied in a tight knot that pointed towards me from where it rested on a polished gold tiepin; piercing through a solid white collar. From this a slender almost feminine inclined neck grew out with the slightest role of soft skin hiding an Adam’s apple. Moving up this slowly gave way to a designer goatee beard, cut meticulously to about three millimetres and matching in length and colour his cropped silver hair above. The central focus of this frame drew attention to unblemished cheeks; boasting none of time’s creases and a youthful olive complexion, though I guessed that this man was on the evidence of his hair alone past forty. His nose was neutral, being neither too large or too small, too rounded or too square: it gave nothing away. I rocked back on the cradle of my stool, defeated but still watching when I noticed, with no warning from his face or posture, his lips open into a deep red circle; immaculate teeth emerging and opening to show the underside of a tongue arching back towards the top of his mouth; glistening with salivated veins to produce a sound that I missed at first as his tongue began to manipulate the air into a subtle mist of Spanish intonation. Distracted, I heard only the last few words, ‘… like a drink, sir?’

An arrogant bloody barman.

I said nothing; my watching becoming a fixed stare upon his hidden eyes; his head heavy and still. The affronted rumble of adrenalin pulsed within me; rippling through muscles; a nervous shock undulating across a stubbled cheek; twitching the corner of my mouth; interpreting the rudeness as a prerequisite to aggression.

          Not being a stranger to fights in bars, I stayed with his eyes, looking to predict his action, but in the lowest periphery of my sight I noticed his thumbs were not typing but pressing firmly on the screen. I allowed my focus to fall slightly while still watching his eyes and was able to determine a small blurred green balloon of a chat room message. His hand quickly covered it and I pulled back; watching his face rising, his black lashes parting to reveal a thread of translucent clear fluid welling across eyelids; refracting sparks of white light that trickled through it beneath the warmth of deep brown irises which thinned to the smooth expansion of black black pupils as his face fell into my shadow.

His eyes levelled with mine and a stream of sadness flowed into my mind flooding out anger with guilt and compassion. His upper lip lifted; faltered; failed; folded in. I placed a hand on his shoulder; pressing lightly.

‘Are you ok? You… You look very distressed?’

‘It’s … my partner… My partner.’

‘You look very upset? You should maybe… Maybe you should…’

‘Dead.’

That was it. There had never been any intended rudeness, just an attempt to function: carry on. I pressed my fingers into his shoulder again, this time drawing his passive body towards me; his head on my chest; both arms reaching round his back. Everybody needs that sometime.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said; echoing what everybody says.

‘He was only twenty-five.’

My fingers tensed, straightened and I could taste a little vomit at the back of my throat. I didn’t push him away. I opened my arms, moving back as he simultaneously retreated from the broken harbour; erect, straight; eyes locked into mine; creasing at the sides; drying.

I looked down, said nothing, watched myself untying my feet from behind the stem of the stool; stepping down; legs striding towards the front door and marching out into the grey of winter.

Mark Sutton 2011