Anais I

She was the sort of person that some would say drank too much, except you could never say this about her as she held herself well, and the only outward sign was the red spots that blossomed on her cheeks. I had first seen her walking and smoking a cigarette, one shoelace untied and her head in a book and when she would look up her face would change and she would look around in wonder, as if she was surprised to find herself in a different place to where she started. I didn’t think much of her, she was the sort of chap that would use inverted paintbrushes as chopsticks and at first I thought I didn’t care to know anyone who did that sort of thing, but I kept on running into her and after a while I thought I should talk to her if only to be polite. Anais had the sort of husky deep voice that wasn’t entirely natural, but unconscious all the same, as if there was something caught in her lungs and maybe it was the cigarettes that did it, but I always thought that maybe it was the things she wouldn’t say out loud that had settled in her throat and were doing their best to remind her to speak. I too had been smoking, as much as I had done when Nilla had died, except it was different this time – there was no pain, just a hollowness that turned to restlessness after each day that went without fully living it. The smoking made my throat hoarse but I did not let up, I had made the habits by then and I didn’t care for breaking them just yet.



She was leaning against a wall, one leg astride on a box next to her and it was if she was sharing a private joke with herself about this stance and I liked that she was alone and enjoying herself. She offered me the cigarette she had just rolled and I took it and waited and didn’t light it yet and didn’t say anything. Once she rolled a second she turned to me and I lit the rough ends of hers and mine and watched the stay embers fall away.

“I really shouldn’t be enjoying this as much as I am”, she said with her eyes closed, blowing smoke to one side but it was the side that I was on and she apologised with a small laugh like she was still enjoying her own private joke. Her cheeks were bright and I was a little drunk I thought but I wasn’t swaying yet and I wondered if she had been drinking and if she would expect me to buy her one. I never minded buying girls drinks but all the same I didn’t want them to think I was just buying them drinks because I wanted something from them, and I knew many chaps who would do that – buy a girl drinks and talk to them and then when it was time to leave take them by the hand and hope that they were drunk enough to want something back as well. I asked her why she was standing like that – with one leg up, and she asked me why not and I didn’t have an answer. We began to talk about other things and she would smile and laugh throatily and I liked that she wasn’t trying to be the loudest but that she laughed without thinking and with real happiness underneath. Some people laugh but you can tell they don’t really feel it, or that there is something they don’t want to be showing. Anais kept laughing as we talked and I found it catching and then I was laughing in the same way and it was easy to be so happy, and truly happy, around someone like that.

“Want to get a drink?” she asked, and I told her I didn’t know where we would get anything. We were standing outside on the steps of the place where we both had musician friends playing, and it was lacking a bar and I heard someone say this was because it was an underground place that the cops didn’t know about yet but I think it really had something to do with alcohol licensing. We walked outside and into a shop a few doors down, and Anais picked up two long necks of beer and I chose a bottle of red because that’s what I had started on and I’d heard that it was never good to mix drinks and although I had also heard that it was a rumour I also didn’t want to take my chances. We went to the counter and she said that she would pay but I didn’t want her to so I stood in front of her so she couldn’t and she tried to give me the money but I brushed her hand aside. The next day I found money in my pocket and I didn’t know how it had gotten there and I guessed that she had snuck it in without me noticing.



We went back to the steps and sat and drank the long necks, and began to talk about other things and her cheeks got redder and I kept on laughing and when we were joined by some of my friends I found that she knew them and so we all sat there drinking and laughing and there were no expectations and I felt happy just being there. One of the chaps I knew, whose name was Charles and who had broad shoulders and big hands and dark hair that he tied back with an elastic band but I was sure probably passed his shoulders, seemed to know Anais the best. He was sitting next to her on the step below and she began to run her fingers over his back and when they reached his neck underneath his hair he moaned a little louder than he wanted to and she began to laugh again at this inside joke, but this was one that they both shared and one that everyone else understood except me but I still laughed with them. She turned to me and explained that they were almost siblings and I thought this was a little strange and she must have seen the confusion on my face because she began to elaborate, taking her hands off Charles’ back and waving them around as she said that that he reminded he of his brother, and that she reminded him of his sister, “so we kind of became surrogate siblings and now we’re the closest thing to family we have nearby”. I nodded seriously because I thought that I understood and she laughed and we were all very drunk and her laughing was contagious.



When the musicians had packed up their gear and we were standing on the street someone offered their house to go back to, and I wanted to go but I had drunk too much of the beer and of the whiskey that someone had passed around from a flask and also from the wine I had already drunk, and I was starting to believe there was truth in the old wives tales so I had made up my mind to slip away while everyone was shouting about how they were going to get there. I still had the bottle of wine we had bought and I moved a little away so I could lean against a wall and was considering using the bottle to cool my face, which seemed to have gotten hotter after leaving although it was definitely cooler outside. I wasn’t as drunk as I could have been and I was still making sense but I didn’t want to make it worse so I stayed silent. Anais came and leant on the wall next to me and asked if I was going to be going back with everyone. Her hair was glowing red underneath the yellow street lights and I wondered how I had not noticed that yet, and I said that I didn’t think I should and she said it was a shame because we still had the bottle of wine and it would be a shame not to share it. I said that maybe we should share it another time and she said she knew a good Vietnamese place that this wine went well with, and maybe tomorrow night? Maybe it was all the drinking I had done but after I said that tomorrow night would be great I leaned over and kissed her.
“What was that for?” she asked

“I just thought you looked lovely”

And she said “oh” and kissed me on the cheek before getting in a car next to Charles.



I woke at six thirty the next morning and felt alright but when I stood to go make some coffee my head reeled and my stomach had appeared to drop out of my body and I decided that death would be nicer and went back to sleep until the sun started to shine through my window at an odd angle and I woke up enough to check the time and found it was late afternoon. I began to try and recall what had happened the previous night and I was pleased to find that I had behaved myself reasonably well and had not made myself too much of a fool. I then remembered that I had promised to meet Anais but the thought of more wine or food made my stomach roil and I decided I would make it up to her and that I would call her and offer up another evening. She didn’t answer and by the time we had decided to meet I was feeling better and in need of food so I decided to go anyway. I was late and when I entered into the restaurant I saw her sitting at a table reading and I was glad I had come. I put the bottle on the table and she looked up from her book and smiled, but she was still in another world when she greeted me with a kiss on the cheek and didn’t fully come out of her daze for another five minutes. I asked her what she was reading and she handed me her book – a thick fantasy novel with illustrated knights and dragons on the cover. Her cheeks were no longer red but she had blushed a little as she told me she has a particular obsession with fantasy novels and I said that I understood.



The food came soon after, the owners knew Anais and had brought out the same thing for us both and I was fascinated at how much chilli she could eat without feeling it. I tried a little of hers but the chilli made my head swim and I thought that maybe I was still a little drunk. We shared the wine and talked about books that we were reading, and books that we should be reading, and books that we had read and then she started to ask me about myself and I didn’t really know what to say to make myself seem interesting so I was honest, and she didn’t seem to mind. After dinner we stood outside and smoked and she smoked two cigarettes to my one and not much more was said but I thought that I understood more about her from the silences we had and it was comfortable and I enjoyed being around her. Many other days and nights happened that we ended up together, sitting on the same couch smoking out of the side of our mouths, and she would pull out a small bottle of whiskey and we would talk some more about books and films and we became better friends because of this.





Anais and I had been joking one evening months later about how we were almost the same person, her being a male version of me, and I a female version of her. That is how we became to be such great friends. And there were those nights where whole bottles of whiskey were drank and we would talk about science and books and television shows and breathe our smoke out of the sides of our mouths and I would watch the red spots bloom on her cheeks as if someone had slapped them and her eyes would crinkle when she laughed huskily and I thought that one day soon, someone would fall head over heels for her and I would have to face the possibility of losing her, bit by bit, to someone else. I had thought a few times that maybe I could love her, maybe even love her as much as she deserved to be loved, but those moments were short and passed quickly. I loved Anais, loved everything about her, but it wasn’t the sort of love that would make either of us very happy, as happy as we wanted each other to be, and that is why we were so good at being friends.