The Stranglers Honeymoon

19

Kristine Kortsmaa was annoyed.

It ought to have been a lovely evening. . well, it was of course a lovely evening — apart from that damned bloke. ‘A pain in the ass,’ as Birthe used to say. The moment she stepped onto the dance floor, he was there, forcing his attentions on her. No matter how much she ignored him and tried to move away from him, he still chased her up. Which wasn’t all that difficult of course: it wasn’t ballroom dancing, people were swaying from side to side and jumping around, and doing whatever they wanted to do. The band was called Zimmermans, and was playing almost exclusively old Dylan songs. Everybody was in high spirits, sweaty, and to say the least contented. Kristine Kortsmaa had always been a fan of Dylan, despite the fact that her dad was younger than her guru.

And she liked dancing. Prancing around artistically and uninhibitedly in time with the music — well, in time with anything you liked, to be honest. Yes indeed, it would have been a perfect evening if it hadn’t been for that berk.

Berk. . That was a good name for him, she thought. He had a crew cut, more or less; big ears and a crooked nose. Much older than she was as well — he must have been getting on for forty. Couldn’t he see that she wasn’t interested? Purple shirt. Purple! He had asked her to dance with him twice: on both occasions she had shaken her head, and looked away. But when she had a rest and sat down at her table, listening to the music — or chatting to Claude and Birthe and Sissel — she could see that he was watching her all the time.

She had come here with Claude and Birthe. Sissel and Maarten and a couple of their friends had joined them, and they had been lucky enough to find a table quite near the front. They had eaten various Mexican fancy dishes and drunk a few bottles of wine before Zimmermans got going. There had been a party mood right from the start, and it was still going swimmingly. Kristine had every reason to get a bit drunk and enjoy an evening of dancing and good music — every reason: after no end of trials and tribulations she had at last completed her training to become a physiotherapist. At last. She had been awarded her licence and diploma the previous day, and today had spent over five hours filling in forms and applying for jobs. Eight jobs. She was confident of having a job from the middle of August onwards: there was a shortage of good qualified physiotherapists. . But for now, and for another seven weeks, it was summer. Nothing but summer and summer and summer. And she was free — she had enough money to last her for a few months, and no Ditmar: he seemed to have gathered at last that it was all over between them. At long last.

So there was nothing unresolved, lurking in the background, she thought. No skeletons in the cupboard, casting a shadow over her future. Nothing at all.

Apart from that bloke. The berk. She wondered if he was high on drugs: there was something about his eyes. He seemed to be in another world, but at the same time very intense — just like junkies always did. As if they were operating on a different frequency from everybody else.

Which they were, not to put too fine a point on it. She danced away from him, and joined Birthe, Claude and the others. Sissel and Maarten seemed to have found each other, and had eyes for nothing else: but there was still a little group out there, dancing away without inhibitions. Claude looked at her approvingly, and she wondered if he fancied her. Or maybe he was a bit drunk: he tended to start flirting when he’d had too much to drink — or so Birthe maintained.

But what the hell? she thought, continuing to look at him and wiggling her hips, sufficiently innocently but attractively to confirm what his eyes had already concluded. That was her intention, at least.

‘I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight’ came to an end. Applause, shouts and whistles made clear the audience’s approval. The band acknowledged the applause and bowed, and the singer announced that there would now be something a bit softer. Three of the musicians left the stage: only the solo guitarist and one of the girl back-up team remained.

‘Tomorrow Night’ from the album Good as I Been to You, the singer announced. Oh, shit! Kristine thought. That means dancing with a partner. Sissel and Maarten were already facing each other and swaying from side to side. Birthe had her arms round Claude, and something similar was being enacted all over the dance floor. The guitarist strummed the first chord, and the Berk suddenly appeared in front of her with a new gleam in his eye. She glanced quickly around, and saw a possible escape route.

He was leaning against one of the pillars with a beer in his hand. Looked nice. Normal, at least. Black jeans and a short-sleeved white shirt. Slightly tanned. A bit on the old side, perhaps, but what the hell. . A second later she was standing in front of him.

‘Please dance with me.’

‘Eh?’ said the man, looking surprised.

‘May I have the pleasure of this dance? There’s a bloke who’s pestering me.’

She gestured back over her shoulder, and the man nodded. Caught on to the situation immediately. Put his beer glass down on a table and laughed.

‘All right. I’ll be your bodyguard tonight.’

Kristine Kortsmaa suddenly felt that she wasn’t annoyed in the slightest any more.

She realized how drunk she must be when he had to help her to fit her key into the lock.

‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘But I had good reason to celebrate tonight.’

‘Really?’ he said, holding the door open for her. ‘What reason was that?’

‘Passing my exams. I finished my physiotherapist training today. Or yesterday, to be precise. No more swotting, thank God. Would you like to come in? I don’t normally invite men into my flat, but maybe we could chat for a while. If you wanted to, that is. .’

He looked at his watch.

‘I don’t know. The conference programme is pretty intense. I have to be up and about by nine tomorrow morning.’

‘Just a few minutes.’

‘All right,’ he said. ‘A quarter of an hour.’

Half an hour later they were dancing again. Or perhaps you couldn’t really call it dancing. They were standing there, swaying from side to side — she in her bare feet, he in his stockinged feet. Dylan again, but now on her latest CD. It was dark in the room, but only a pleasant sort of summer darkness — the balcony door was open, letting in a pungent scent of blossoming jasmine and honeysuckle. She could feel his erection against her stomach, and closed her eyes.

She shouldn’t have done that. Closed her eyes.

The room started swimming, and she felt sick.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t feel well.’

She pushed him away and hurried into the bathroom.

It took some time, and when she returned to the living room she couldn’t see him. Has he left? she thought, walking out onto the balcony. I hope so.

She felt clearer in the head after being sick, washing herself and brushing her teeth. She realized to her horror that she had brought back into her home a man she didn’t know at all. Pleasant enough, and courteous: but there are limits, as Birthe used to say. Kristine hadn’t had sex with anybody after Ditmar — that was three months ago by now, and doing something about it was naturally enough high on the list of her priorities for the summer. But she hadn’t intended it to be a one-night stand like this. Somebody attending a conference that she’d picked up at Dorrit’s. Certainly not, for Christ’s sake!

She leaned over the balcony rail and breathed in the warm smells of the summer evening. Great! she thought. Free all summer, then a steady job in August! You’ve done pretty well for yourself, Kristine Kortsmaa! Very well indeed!

Then she heard him moving inside the flat. She took another deep breath, and went back inside.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘Why?’

He was lying on the sofa in the darkest corner of the room, that was why she hadn’t noticed him. He suddenly moved, only a little, but she caught sight of bare skin and realized that he was naked.

‘I think it’s time to say goodnight now,’ she said. ‘It was silly of me to invite you in. I’m sorry if I aroused your expectations, but I’d be grateful if you got dressed.’

He said nothing, and didn’t move.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I got a bit drunk, that’s why I lost the plot. I didn’t intend things to turn out like this.’

She found his clothes on one of the chairs.

‘Here you are. Put them on now. Would you like a cup of coffee before you go?’

He sat up.

‘Coffee isn’t what I want.’

He didn’t sound offended or angry. The slight trace of menace she sensed immediately was not in his voice, but in his words.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that I don’t want any coffee just now,’ he said, standing up and ignoring his clothes. He took two paces towards her and placed his hands on her shoulders. Stood there for a while as if uncertain what to do next, and she wondered if she ought to make her rejection even more clear. She felt both stupid and guilty with regard to her behaviour: she was the one who had taken the initiative at Dorrit’s, she was the one who had invited him to dance with her — not only to protect herself from the Berk, she had assured him over and over again — and she was the one who had invited him in after he had escorted her home.

So it wasn’t very surprising if he felt a little disappointed.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said again.

‘It’s a pity,’ he said. ‘May I massage your shoulders for a while? I think you need it.’

She hesitated, but before she could say yes or no he was standing behind her. Moved her hair out of the way and began exploring with his fingers over her bare shoulders. But not massaging. He followed the sharp outline of her collarbone towards her neck, and she could feel that he was trembling.

And she was holding her breath.

‘My finger tips. .’ he said. ‘My finger tips are like little seismographs. They register everything you feel in your body, and your thoughts as well — that’s pretty remarkable, don’t you think?’

She decided that things had gone far enough now, but it was too late.

Much too late for Kristine Kortsmaa.

MAARDAM

NOVEMBER 2000