Inconclusive

by Neil James

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When Dr Rajan gave me the scan results, that wasn’t the word I was waiting for. It is, of course, better than the other word. The other word slowly killed my dad. It turned his skin grey, erased his body cell by cell, until one day last winter, pumped full of morphine, he faded away in a bed that wasn’t his own. I’m booked in at Radiology for a re-test, which means two more weeks of waiting and telling myself that nothing’s certain yet; it’s just tests. But every waking moment I’m fixated on whether Poppy, my daughter, can afford my funeral costs. I’m in limbo – not officially dying, but not really living either.

Normally, one of life’s few pleasures is leaving the office at six and walking into town for food. The Raven’s Head has the best beer garden around, the food’s great, and there’s a decent selection of ales. Today, the lasagne doesn’t taste of lasagne. It tastes of shadows on the lungs. Thirty years of smoking. The warnings I ignored on cigarette packets. Last time I was here, I wolfed that lasagne down and wanted more. Today, every mouthful is like swallowing leather.

Two girls, dressed for a night out, sit at the next table, studying menus and drinking white wine. Apparently, the one wearing a stylish white blouse is called Salma. I’m drawn to her gold pendant, an ever-decreasing swirl like the age rings of a tree. It hangs at her chest from a rope chain necklace. Also catching my attention is the tattoo in Arabic scripture just below the bangle on her wrist. I ponder the translation, but I know I’m only seeking reasons to look at her.

I like the way Salma smokes. How she purses her dark red lips around the white cigarette, the slow drags she takes, and the allure of her kohl-rimmed Cleopatra eyes as she inhales. Sultry and hypnotic. She reminds me of Princess Jasmine from Aladdin, which I watched years ago with Poppy. I recall the guilt I felt in finding a children’s cartoon character sexy. Even the way Salma holds the cigarette is enticing. It sits loosely between two fingers of her right hand, smouldering in the late summer air, adding glamour to the forbidden fruit; making me fall in love.

When I was sixteen, a first cigarette between my lips, I pretended to be Liam Gallagher. I’d practise in the mirror, mimicking the nonchalance, perfecting it. These days, I don’t look so good smoking. I’m the man they’d use on the anti-smoking ad campaign: the after. The bad shit that fags do to your face and body. Yellow eyes and stained teeth, suckling on a brown inhaler morning and night. Live Forever? Not in this state.

The pub doesn’t permit smoking in the beer garden, but Salma’s ignoring the sign. She never asked the friend opposite her or the couple on the next table whether they minded. She never asked me either. She just lit up. As she draws on the cigarette, her smoke drifts my way on the evening breeze, into my nostrils, into my shadowy lungs. Salma doesn’t care about that.

And why would she? I’m just a bald bloke, twice her age, eating alone, eavesdropping on her conversation to avoid my own thoughts. My carefree summers have long since disappeared. I only ever dress in sensible styles, always grey or black. Girls like Salma don’t see me anymore. I’ve become invisible.

It turns out that Salma returned from Vegas last week, and her mousy-haired friend in the summer dress, whatever her name is, wants the lowdown.

“What do you want to know? We did everything. The casinos, the shows…the strip joints. The night never ends in Vegas.” Salma’s voice is whispery and purrs like a midnight secret. She takes another drag. The smoke curls around her, matching the flash of grey dyed into her jet-black hair. She can’t be older than twenty-five, and she’s dying grey streaks into her hair. Salma doesn’t give a fuck.

“You went to a strip joint?” Friend’s eyes are on stalks.

A slow nod.

“To watch the girls?”

“Sure.”

“That is so wild.”

“Antony hired a private booth. The two of us, a bottle of champagne, and a girl. She was cool.” Salma’s charcoal eyes brighten at the memory. “Her name was Misty. Great stripper name, right?”

What would it be like, a never-ending night in Vegas with Salma? She’d be through the sunroof of the limo, face to the night sky, skin glowing under neon, hair blowing in the desert breeze. She’d discard her high heels outside The Bellagio to paddle in the fountains, make you get in there too, then laugh as you’re both chased off by security, unfazed about losing shoes. She’d gamble everything on red or black, impassive as the white ball spins because she, you, the croupier, everyone in there knows she’s going to win. That’s just the kind of girl she is. I long for a night out with a girl like Salma.

“Does anyone else know you went with Antony?” Friend says.

Salma takes another long, slow drag, making Friend wait for the answer. Making me wait for the answer. She gives the tiniest shake of her head, and a coy smile teases the corners of those gorgeous cherry lips. She draws them into a perfect ‘O’…and exhales. “Just you,” she whispers.

“Salma!” Friend says. “What are you like!?”

“Antony has accounts everywhere. He doesn’t pay for hotels in Vegas.”

“Yeah, but he’s, you know…how old is he exactly?”

“Forty-eight. He’s experienced.” She gives another subtle smile.

Friend laughs. They both go back to their menus.

Perhaps Salma’s into older guys? I’ve arrived here straight from work, and I’m wearing my Gucci jacket. She doesn’t know I found it in a charity shop and that I only work in the complaints department of a bank. She knows nothing about CT scans or my recent divorce. I could invent a past and a present for myself, and she’d be none the wiser. All I need is the right opening line.

If I get it right, then maybe we’ll get talking. I could share my own Vegas stories, be funny like I used to be, and when she and Friend move on to the next bar, she’ll invite me along. We’ll hang out. It could be one of those evenings with strangers where you start at A and end in a different alphabet, somewhere crazy and unexpected. Singing songs around a fire in someone’s garden, smashed in a basement club or fucking while drunk on a stranger’s floor.

And wherever we go, maybe we’ll reach that point when we can’t drink any more, unsure which pub, club or whose house we’re in. We’ll head outside to feel the night air and talk about life like we’ve somehow found answers in the stars or the cracks on the pavement. She’ll catch a look on my face that says something’s going on and makes her ask if I’m okay. That’s when I can tell her that no, I’m not. I can tell her about the scans and what Dr Rajan said. That I’m not young anymore. That I’m scared of dying. And she’ll say the kind of thing that cool, clever people say, bathing a problem in a new light and making everything seem alright again. We’ll be soulmates, even if it’s just for a night. Sometimes, that’s the best kind of soulmate.

“Where’d you stay?” Friend asks.

“Place called The Flamingo. You heard of it?”

Friend hasn’t, but I have. I lost $9000 there last year. Salma doesn’t need to know about that though. Nobody does.

I wonder whether Salma’s ever read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or seen the movie? Hunter S. Thompson stayed at The Flamingo in the sixties, off his head on acid. Would Salma be interested in that? Maybe, if she’s heard of Hunter S. Thompson or his most famous book. Salma’s cool, cultured, she knows about shit. It’s a bold opening gambit, admittedly, but I know the book, and if she knows the book, it’s an instant connection.

I clear my throat.

“Excuse me,” I say. “Did you say that you’ve stayed at The Flamingo?”

Salma looks straight at me. Our eyes meet. It’s the first time she’s noticed me. I’m no longer invisible. For the briefest of moments, as I stare into those black hole pupils, I’m with her in the hotel, the casino lights twinkling like Christmas. She’s running her fingers through the dark hair I used to have. Maybe it’s now, maybe it’s then, or maybe, somehow, it’s two eras meeting in a single, impossible moment before CT scans, divorces and jobs at the bank.

“Yeah,” she says. Her gaze flicks back to Friend, then returns to me.

“It’s a cool place. I stayed there last year.”

“Right.” She draws on her cigarette. It smells so good. The shadow is probably growing right now. A dark presence rolling across my alveoli. Fuck it. I would happily let Salma blowback a nebula of toxic tar and nicotine directly into my blackened lungs just to experience a second of her lips on mine.

“Have you heard of Hunter S. Thompson, the author?”

Salma shakes her head. She doesn’t look irritated, merely bored. This kind of thing probably happens a lot.

“Oh. Have you seen the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?”

“No.”

My heart feels heavy. The lasagne’s doing somersaults in my stomach. I look at Friend in desperation.

She returns a look of subtle pity. “No, sorry.”

“It’s alright,” I say. “It was set there, that’s all. It’s a good movie.”

“Cool,” says Salma. “Thanks.” She turns her body back towards Friend. “Yeah, so we saw the whole strip over the week. Downtown too. Fremont Street. Old Vegas.”

What was I thinking? Salma wasn’t even born when the movie was released, let alone when the book was published. I’ve blown it. The instant connection is now: “Remember when that weirdo in the pub started asking us about dead authors?” Great.

“What are you ordering?” Friend asks.

“I don’t know.” Salma pushes the menu away. “We’ll wait for Will and Nadir. They should be here soon.”

That’ll explain the two empty seats at their table. I feel so fucking stupid. If it wasn’t so awkward, I’d get up and leave right now.

There’s a familiar buzz in my pocket. I’m thankful to take out my phone and read the WhatsApp message.

Hey Dad, how was ur day?

My daughter is a similar age to Salma. Right now, she’s two hundred miles away at university studying medicine. Poppy’s a sensible girl who doesn’t drink and doesn’t smoke. Pretty, but a pale English rose, not mysterious or a rule breaker. I send her money every month, and ask if she’s eating well whenever I call her. She assures me she is and promises to come over and see me when she’s next home for the holidays. She can’t stay over though because I live in a one-bedroom flat, well, a bedsit if I’m being honest, and there’s a spare room, her old room, at her mother’s. I never realised how much I’d miss her.

For a second, I almost tell her where I’ve been this morning, but I don’t want to burden her with the worry. She has enough to think about, and it won’t change anything.

Fine. Usual office crap. Just in the Raven’s. Lasagne top quality, as always. 🙂

There’s a murmur of male voices behind me. Will and Nadir have turned up clutching bottled beers. The one who’s probably Will is pudgy, and his shirt’s too tight. He’s an XL-wearing-L, a spiky-haired dumpling on a night out. Nadir is olive-skinned and looks like the boys whose pictures Poppy used to pin to her bedroom wall. He’s model handsome with short dark hair and a camera-ready beard. A tan blazer fits perfectly around his wide shoulders.

“Where’ve you been?” Friend asks.

“Uber was late,” says Will. He sits next to Friend, placing his beer on the table.

“Yeah, sorry,” adds Nadir. “You ordered yet?” He sits next to Salma, drawing his chair closer to hers with a scrape across the flagstones.

“Not yet.” Salma stubs her cigarette out on the metal table and tosses it onto the floor between our tables. I stare at the lipstick mark on the stub.

Nadir checks something on his phone. From the way he moves his head, I’m guessing he’s in selfie mode. Even from here, he smells fantastic.

The evening’s drawing in, and someone inside the restaurant must have switched the music on. Deep House suddenly washes out of the speakers of the beer garden to tempt the evening drinkers in. It creates a different atmosphere: pre-club rather than chips and a pint outside.

The music makes it harder to hear conversation. Will cracks a one-liner and they all laugh. Fat lads need to be funny in this kind of company. Nadir must have asked Salma for a cigarette. She takes the packet from her bag and flicks the top open so that he can take one. She’s trying, or pretending, to listen to something Friend is saying. Nadir lights up and closes his eyes as he takes that first hit of nicotine. He also looks great smoking. Like a film star.

Is Nadir fucking Salma? Will isn’t – even with Friend he’d be punching. Salma wouldn’t look twice at him. Nadir has it all going for him, but maybe he’s not rich like Antony. He has Salma’s attention again though. He’s drawn her closer to him, talking into her ear. It seems intimate. She’s smiling and nodding, returning eye contact. Electricity fills the shrinking space between them.

And this is what it’s come down to. Salma and Nadir are the stars of the movie, their youth and beauty captured on celluloid. I’m just watching them from a darkened theatre, so distant I might as well be on the other side of the world. They’re the cover stars of the magazine I’m reading, hanging on every detail of a life I don’t lead. And if we’re talking Vegas, they’re on the high rollers’ table, celebrating a jackpot, their night forever young. I’m not even in the casino anymore. I’m the guy at five a.m. who blew all his chips, then his reserve, then his life savings; the guy slumped at the bar, head in hands and red-eyed because everything’s fucked and his wife’s left him.

What could I possibly say that Salma would want to hear? Nothing.

I finish my lasagne and stand up. Neither Salma nor Nadir notice as I walk around the back of them. Nadir’s cigarette rests between two fingers of his right hand, wisps of smoke rising from the glowing ash.

I place my hand on his shoulder, not shouting but speaking loudly enough to be heard over the music. “Excuse me. Sorry to interrupt, but you do know it’s no smoking out here?”

He looks at me directly, his eyes a deep, chocolate brown. Every strand of hair is immaculate, skin smooth and flawless. “Sorry, mate,” he says. “I’ll put it out.”

No argument, he flicks it to the floor and extinguishes it under the sole of his shoe.

Salma looks at me for the second time this evening. Immediately, she averts her gaze and returns to her conversation with Nadir, their eyes only on each other.

I walk out of the beer garden, through the French doors at the back of the pub, through the main building, where every table is full of people eating, drinking, laughing.

“Goodnight,” says the barman as I pass the bar.

“Goodnight.”

Soon, I’m out of the pub. The street has the look and sound of evening. Lads in shirts walk to the next pub in fours and fives, shouting at each other, at other groups or nothing in particular. Girls wearing short dresses clip-clop their way along the pavement in uncomfortable-looking heels. It’s still light, just about, but the streetlights are on. At this time in the evening, a good night is always possible.

I take the fags out of my jacket pocket. It’s been weeks since I smoked one, but the urge is stronger than ever.

Fuck it. I take a cigarette from the packet and place the filter between my lips. Even that feels good. I think of Salma, exhaling smoke through those red lips, smouldering and seductive. Young and wild and carefree. The images flash through my mind. Liam Gallagher in the bedroom mirror, the summer evenings of my student days, pills and designer shirts and girls in low-cut tops, Born Slippy and The Beach and Gail Porter’s naked behind.

But then there’s Dad. The final late-night phone call telling me to go straight to the hospice, the tiny blue spots on his hospital gown under the harsh strip lights, his skeletal arms sticking out from under the starched sheets, the ventilator mask giving him the last oxygen he’d ever breathe. I hear Poppy saying how disappointed she is that I’m still poisoning myself, that my willpower isn’t what I promised it would be. I see Dr Rajan’s computer screen and the black and grey image of my sick lungs.

Reluctantly, I take the cigarette from my mouth, unlit. I place it back with the others, then toss the packet into a nearby rubbish bin.

The evening’s mild. I’ll walk home tonight. My bedsit isn’t far. A mile or so across the bridge, by the river where the air smells fresh, past the trendy bars next to the theatre, turn right at the off-licence, then it’s three or four streets from there. I’ll message Poppy again when I’m home. Ask what she’s up to this weekend. Take more of an interest in her life.

“Inconclusive,” Dr Rajan said.

Nothing’s certain yet; it’s just tests.