CHRISTMAS STORY & MIX PT. 1 BY GREENA
To provide you with seasonal entertainment I am posting a story & mix series. I am writing short stories to go with some mixes, so that you can read the stories while enjoying the music. (Although obviously there is no obligation to enjoy either of them without the other!)
The first mix is by Greena. The story is underneath the picture. Happy Christmas!
They were sitting at a table in a club whose punters were incongruously comprised from the festive season. Suits who had strayed in drunk from Christmas parties jostled around them. There were people in vintage sportswear and girls in high street glamour. There were also several nerdy looking men in purely practical outfits. The two barmen worked efficiently, sidestepping each other among the bottles. People elbowed their way to the bar and eyed each other competively. Sal was staring at the high heels of a girl in a pink satin dress.
‘It was very obliging of her to help Santa out’, Harry winked to the boys. The men at the table laughed. ‘And didn’t you see Geoffrey’s face when she bent over his table to give him his presents?’ roared Bill. ‘His glasses nearly popped off.’ The men looked at each other still laughing, and tipped their beer bottles up into their mouths.
‘Yes I suppose,’ said Helen. ‘Not every forty-something year old woman would be so happy about dressing up in an elf outfit.’ There was a pause. Helen smiled at the group around the table. Bill looked down at the table. ‘Who wants another drink?’, she said, standing.
Sal listened to the muffled babel of voices. The boyfriend of the girl in the pink dress wore baggy jeans and a hoodie of mud colour. They were talking together. With one hand on her shoulder, the boy steered his girlfriend out of the way of young men shoving their way to and from the bar. She tottered as he steered. Behind them the darker haired barman put ice into a glass. Sal saw Helen squeeze her way towards the bar, past two men. They followed her with their eyes, and then nodded at each other. Others congregated in small groups, talking, and occasionally scratching themselves and slapping each other.
The dancefloor had become busier since a new DJ had begun. She didn’t know who he was. The music felt both more mystical and funnier than before. The dancers liked it, she thought, and she did too. They had come here to escape their occupations and their routines. But she thought of monkeys in a jungle.
Harry leaned in towards her. ‘I know you have rhythm.’ They were alone at the table because the other men had gone to dance. When Harry smiled his top lip, covered in a dark stubble, curled up slightly on the left hand side. He looked at Sal and stroked the table near her with his right hand. ‘You mean, unlike them?’, Sal gestured towards Bill and two of the other men, who were jerking around on the near side of the dance floor, with full drinks in their hands. Their movements lacked something. Harry laughed and his lip curl lingered. He was still looking at her. She looked at his hand. His fingers were short and wide and covered in longer dark hair. ‘I’d like to see you dance’, he said. His fingers stroked the surface of the table. He was leaning forward, looking closely and imploringly at her. ‘Oh won’t you dance for me?’
A pint of lager came down on the table and it spilled onto Harry’s hand. He wiped it on the trousers of his suit. Helen sat on the stool between them. ‘Here’s a vodka tonic for you’, she said to Sal. ‘I was just thinking, darling, isn’t the music here a bit odd tonight?’, she said to Harry. ‘Sal likes it’, Harry said, ‘don’t you?’ ‘It sounds like the DJ is having a new wave workout’, Sal said, to amuse herself. Helen frowned. Then she looked at Sal, smiling.
‘Come on,’ Helen said, standing up and pulling at Harry’s arm, ‘the boss has to dance at the office party!’ ‘In a minute’, smiled Harry. Helen paused then let go of Harry’s arm. She turned and went to the dancefloor.
The girl in the pink dress was standing alone. The darker haired barman filled a glass with cola. A pretty, dark woman wearing a dress who was standing with her friend was looking in their direction. Then Sal noticed a strange man who reminded her of someone. She thought a moment and realised it was The Simpsons’ Principle Skinner. But he was wearing makeup. He was visibly anxious. He stood still, scanning the club as if he was looking for somebody.
‘Well they’re having fun,’ Harry said, indicating their colleagues on the dancefloor. ‘I guess they don’t get out so much anymore.’ ‘I guess not’. They carried on drinking their drinks. Harry started talking. What do you have at Christmas lunch. Where are you going on New Years’ Eve. Sal answered with as few words as possible. The rhythm was hypnotic now and mechanical. On the dancefloor, Helen danced with the men but facing in their direction. She wore a low-cut sequined top. Sometimes Bill would close up to her and Helen would turn towards him in mock humour. She twisted her shoulders and her hips. The men stomped.
The men in the bar area stomped too, and the women smoothed their hair. The girl in the pink dress was with her muddy boyfriend now, and she held his hand. There were empty shot glasses on the bar. A man with his friends bent over laughing. Behind the bar, the barman paused for a rest and leaned on the counter beneath the rack of spirits. The man who looked like Principle Skinner in drag had gone. The woman who had been looking in their direction brushed against Harry as she passed their table, and tried to give him a meaningful look.
‘Was that man who came to pick you up from work your boyfriend?’, Harry’s left lip curled. Sal looked at him. ‘Oh come on and dance with me’, he said. And, lowering his voice, ‘I’ve heard about your dancing’.
Sal stood up. ‘I have to go to the toilet’.
She stumbled around the table and pushed her way through the bar area. The pink dress girl and the mud boy were kissing. A boy stood not listening to his friends. In the back area towards the toilets, the music faded. In the corner, the man in makeup was arguing with a clean cut man in a crisp, light blue shirt. She walked past them and she heard that the man in makeup’s voice was angry. She made out ‘to be myself’ and ‘ugly’.
When she came out of the toilets, he had gone. She looked across the bar area to the dancefloor. Someone who hadn’t come with them was trying to dance with Helen. He was unstable on his feet and kept knocking into people. Harry had joined the group. Sal stood for a moment in the bar area. The music was lighter now. She saw Harry had seen her and she turned and went out the exit.
She stood for a while in the street, ignoring the smiles of a smoker who approached her for a lighter. There was still a small queue to get into the club. She gazed a while. The remains of a downpour slid down buildings and sprayed off the wheels of a bus. Against the dark grey of the pavements and the murky, inky sky, pale orange reflections of the lights from windows and shop signs broke and reformed as pedestrians disturbed the puddles. In the front of the off-license opposite the club, a giant plastic Santa smiled and waved. There were people hurrying home with half full bags. Cheap tinsel gleamed in all the windows; the pub, the shop, the restaurant. Smokers convened around doors and a drunken group were shouting. She saw a woman bent over by the corner of a building diagonally opposite. A friend held their arm to her back.
She looked at the groups of people going about their nightlife, and the puddles with their recycled luminescent reflections. Then her eyes fell back on the plastic Santa. His face was lit. He waved and smiled his fake smile.
Sal went back in the club. She pushed her way through the bar area to the dancefloor, and stood in front of Harry.
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