A woman like you Stephen Smythe

Stephen Smythe

A Woman Like You

‘What would it take,’ I said, as we swayed on The Haunch of Venison’s sticky carpet, ‘for a woman like you to love a man like me?’ The music playing on the jukebox was the B-side of a B-side, but holding her made it the sweetest sound. She smelled of snide perfume and sweet perspiration. Her eyes were green and bloodshot, her auburn hair lacquered up into the beehive of her youth. She winked slowly as she pulled away and held up her forefinger to show she wouldn’t be long. She eased between tables where drinkers gawped at the muted TV showing the three-fifteen from Kempton. If anybody in the pub was winning, they weren’t celebrating. The heavy curtains were drawn, the clock above the bar stopped, and only the live horseracing said it was daytime. She stood between two drunks on bar stools. One tried to paw her, but she swatted away his hand. She shouted up three sambucas and plonked one in front of the other drunk, who was wearing a dogtooth cap. He didn’t acknowledge her. She returned with two shot glasses holding them pincer-like without spilling a drop. She necked them both, licked her lips and kissed me. She tasted of liquorice and desire. ‘Come home with me,’ I said. ‘Baby, I’m yours, but …’ she turned her head towards the bar, ‘… we need to bring him, the one with the cap.’ ‘Why?’ ‘He’s not good for much, but once he saved me.’ ‘I dunno.’ ‘It’s nowt kinky– he can kip on yer sofa.’ ‘But– ’ ‘I can’t leave him.’ ‘Um– ’ ‘Shush,’ she put her finger to my lips and smiled, pink lipstick on her front teeth. I slipped my arms around her waist. She put her head on my chest as we danced to a different song, even though somebody had unplugged the jukebox.