Down by the river
739 Words
DOWN BY THE RIVER
“I always got to this sign in my dream, that pointed to ‘Job’ one way and ‘Cliff’ to the other.”
The clear water of the Swat River gurgled happily around the wide flat rock they sat on. Paola looked at Dan with a steady, slightly fixed and icy gaze. She was the most beautiful scarecrow he’d ever come across. Her smile was open and seductive, yet set in chrome. Hard.
They’d been watching a mule train slowly snake its way downriver, past them, heavily laden with firewood, a couple of young boys with sticks driving on the despondent animals.
Her nostrils were flaring. Her large brown eyes drew him in, out of Asia, into another world.
“So how is it, this Mondo Paola?” he grinned.
Her expression remained serious.
“Pretty good, I think. I have been travelling since I was eighteen. I lived in London for two years. But I didn’t like it. The English are too cold and too much evasive.”
She smiled, “You know the Italian temperament doesn’t really go with this Don’t-Care-Attitude that you have. I like it sometimes, because you don’t get worked up about things so much, but often it was so…”
She was searching for the right word.
“Apathetic?”
“Yes, like that.”
“You gotta boyfriend?”
Her eyes flashed aggressively.
“Hey lover, slow down. Aspeta. You are like a crossfire hurricane. We are eating each other up here on this rock, you know. I mean, it is nice but…,” she moved closer and dropped her head onto his shoulder, “is very fast, very dangerous. Especially here in Pakistan and in public,” Paola purred.
They sat together unmoving, silent for a few minutes. The sound of the water was all around them, changing, but always the same.
“But I’m tired of one-night stands anyway. Maybe we can do something together.”
Her smile reached beyond suggestion right into his pants.
“What I remember most about the studio flat in London was coming home to this empty dead place every night. The alternative was to take home some drunk guy from Soho. But they were usually a disappointment.”
He nodded and laughed to himself.
“Hey, I’ll tell you a story. Just before I left, I went to the Palais in Hammersmith to see Floyd.”
Paola pulled a face but said nothing.
“I met this girl and it was clear - we wanted only one thing. It felt good you know. Let’s go and have some fun. Anyway, we went to her place after the gig, somewhere in the suburbs, miles from Notting Hill, where I lived at the time. And it all got a bit weird. She said we’d have to do it on the floor and with the lights off.”
Paola raised an eyebrow and rolled her Rs, “Hmm, that sounds interesting.”
“I was so drunk anyway, I didn’t care, certainly didn’t stop to think. We walked through her living room and into a completely dark bedroom and started to take our clothes off. On the floor. There were some rugs and pillows, but absolutely no light. Sort of groped around a bit because I couldn’t see anything. She had her kit off too and was pulling me down. So, we were moving about quite a bit and I knocked into a shelf or table or something and a vase or bottle fell off and smashed on the floor. The lights snapped on and another girl sat up in the bed, screaming.”
“Did you move into bed?”
“No, it definitely wasn’t that sort of scene. She was the girl’s sister and we were in her bloody room, as it turned out. So, the two girls leave, arguing, marching back into the next room, and shouting at each other. I just thought, f**k, what to do? I was still so drunk, but I felt I should leave. So, I grabbed my jeans and shirt and pulled another vase off the shelf, full of flowers and water. It went all over my clothes. Everything was completely soaked, full of glass and smelled of moldy plants. In the living room the girl just said, ‘You can’t stay here. It’s my sister’s house and there’ll be someone else sleeping in the living room.’ Outside, in f*****g Croydon, it was November, three a.m., not enough money for a cab and soaking wet through. I decided then and there that I was leaving, going to India.”
“And here we are. Almost. Thank you, Dan, you tell nice stories. I like it.”
Paola looked around, quickly shed her shirt and pants and slid into the cold water.
- Writer
