By the time it ends, he’s almost enjoying himself, and he and Karen decide to go for a drink to celebrate. Drinking, Fraser is finding, is the key to his relationship at the moment. As long as there is booze, he can just about manage to put any doubts to the back of his mind. It’s only at 3 p.m. on a rainy Sunday, the two of them stuck for conversation, that he really starts to panic.
They go to Las Iguanas on Dean Street, have three – Fraser has four – Coronas, so that by the time they emerge out into the cool evening and make towards Oxford Street for their bus, he’s feeling much better, much more carpe diem and que será and other foreign phrases he often vows, when he’s drunk, to live his life by.
He takes her hand in his. Soho is quiet, almost deserted at this time on a Tuesday evening, and he knows it’s probably because he’s a bit pissed, but he feels a bloom of affection for Karen. This is OK, he thinks, this is enough. It’s not Liv, it’ll never be Liv, but I’ve got someone.
He thinks of arriving at Karen’s, getting into bed with her and nestling his head into her pillow-soft breasts. Then he thinks of the alternative: going home alone, opening the door to that God-awful silence, broken only by the beep of the smoke alarm that needs its battery replacing, and he thinks, Thank fuck, basically. Thank fuck.
She squeezes his hand. ‘I’ve had such a good time tonight,’ she says.
‘Me too,’ says Fraser, and he means it, he really does.
They walk to the end of Dean Street and around Soho Square, where two wasted homeless people are having a row.
They continue along Oxford Street in a tired silence to the bus stop, and have only been there a few minutes, huddled on the red plastic bench, when a drunken figure seems to loom out of nowhere.
‘Karen?’ The man is staggering he’s so gone. ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’
He’s got a hard face with a lazy eye – a face Fraser knows instinctively he would do well not to get on the wrong side of.
‘Darren.’ Karen lets go of Fraser’s hand and, even in that small gesture, Fraser knows this situation has the potential for disaster and bloodshed. That doesn’t stop him giggling, however. Fraser has a tendency to laugh at inopportune moments and this is one of them. The ‘Darren–Karen’ thing has tickled him for some reason, and there’s not much he can do about it.
‘Is he laughing at me? Why is he laughing at me?’
The smirk is wiped clean off his face, however, when Darren starts jabbing a finger in his direction.
‘Sorry, Darren, this is Fraser, Fraser this is Darren,’ says Karen.
It doesn’t really answer the question and Fraser suspects he and Darren aren’t ever going to be on first-name terms, but he holds his hand out anyway. But Darren rejects it so he is left with it sticking out, feeling absurd. He eventually scratches his head for something to do.
‘Is this your new boyfriend then?’
Karen sighs and looks the other way.
‘Darren, pack it in.’
‘What? All I asked was if this was your new boyfriend. Nice trainers anyway, mate,’ he says to Fraser. ‘I see you really made an effort for a night out in town.’
‘Actually we’ve been to a dance class,’ says Fraser, flatly. He’s getting a little weary of this pissed, shaggy-haired imbecile intimidating him at a bus stop.
Darren laughs out loud. ‘A dance class, eh?’
‘Yes,’ says Karen, ‘a dance class, OK? Fraser and I go to salsa lessons. Now will you leave us alone.’
There it goes again, that shiver of anxiety. It’s the way she says, ‘Fraser and I …’ Like she’s boasting. It makes him feel pressurized.
‘Go on then,’ says Darren. ‘Show us yer moves.’
Karen sighs again. ‘Sorry about him,’ and she gets hold of Fraser’s arm. ‘Let’s move along.’
But Darren’s not having any of it.
‘Where you going, you wanker?’ he shouts after them. ‘Where are you going with my fucking girlfriend?’
Fraser sighs and looks skyward. He’s knackered; he’s used up all the concentration he possesses in the dance class, and now he’s a bit drunk and all he wants to do is to get on the bus and to get home and go to sleep, his head resting on those soft, pillowy boobs. But Darren has other ideas.
‘Oi. I said, where are you going, dickhead?’
Karen’s grip tightens on Fraser. ‘Just ignore him,’ she whispers, hurrying him along. ‘He just can’t handle it, he really, really can’t.
‘You just can’t handle it, Daz, can you?’ and she turns round and shouts at him. ‘I’m with Fraser now, OK? You thought I’d never get a boyfriend again, didn’t you? You thought you’d ruined me, scarred me for life, but you were wrong!’
I should be saying something now, thinks Fraser – what should I be saying? He becomes queasily, acutely aware he is saying nothing.
‘Whatever, you’re still fat!’ Darren shouts back. ‘You’re welcome to her, mate.’ And inwardly, Fraser winces, because now he knows he really should be saying something, that there’s no call at all for that sort of behaviour.
‘I don’t think there’s any call for that,’ he says, turning around. ‘You’re pissed, mate. Now go home.’
But it seems this is perfect ammunition for Darren, who is not pissed, no he fucking well is not, and he is certainly not going to be told to go home by some Northern wiener in crap trainers.
Fraser isn’t prepared for what happens next; all he knows is that he hears the sudden, quickening sound of shoes on the ground and then is wrenched – him letting out a sudden and involuntary sound like he’s being choked – by the hood of his top and pulled to the ground. Then he feels a dull ache in the head – no, actually a really, really sharp pain in the head, and can hear Karen screaming, ‘Darren get off him! Get off him now!’
Fraser has never been the fighting type – the odd scrap as a teenager but he could never be bothered and, anyway, deep down he knew he had a pathetically low pain threshold, and would he – this is the question – would he be able to stop his eyes watering if it really hurt? But this time, from somewhere deep inside of him, the adrenaline kicks in, the male instinct that he is supposed to make an effort here. He can’t shout: ‘Ah, you’re fucking hurting me and please don’t break my nose! It’s buggered enough as it is!’ So he at least has a go at pushing him off, tries to summon every manly, fearless cell in his body to dodge a punch, even throw a couple back, but he loses out and suddenly his back is against a wall and he hears something crack and feels a stab of pain that gets him right in the throat. There’s the familiar trickle at the back of his nose and then splosh, splosh. Fat splashes of vibrant red on the floor.
‘Oh, my God, Fraser! Oh, God. You fucking bastard, Daz!’
Then Karen has rushed over to him and is kneeling down beside him, a look of pure horror on her face, but Fraser is seeing stars, far too dazed to say anything, except eventually, ‘Ow. I don’t think there was any need for that.’
‘No, there was not. There was NOT, Darren. You total fuck-head!’
Karen screams at Darren who is walking off now, swaggering, coolly, not even breaking into a jog, thinks Fraser. That’s how menacing I am.
‘Fraser, baby, are you all right?’ Karen kneels right down beside him and the look on her face just kills him.
‘Are you OK, sweetie?’ She’s brushing the hair from his face.
‘Yeah, yeah, just a bit of blood,’ says Fraser,