regretted arranging with Melanie to meet the following night. Not just because Life had kept me awake all night with his snoring but because the night out with her was one giant bullet that I had been trying to dodge for a long time. In order to make up for leaving dinner early the previous week I’d promised I’d go to Melanie’s next set in Dublin. It happened to be Friday in the coolest club in the city, for that month at least. It was so cool it didn’t even have a name, which meant that everybody called it the Club on Henrietta Street with No Name, which was ironic. It was a private club, or at least it had been renovated and marketed with the intention of being a private club, but with its extortionate charges – most likely stemming from the bill for the hundreds of gas heaters placed outside to fool Irish people into thinking and feeling like they were not in inner-city Dublin but in fact West Hollywood – mixed with the times we were living in it meant that it was letting anybody in. Anybody they considered pretty and fabulous during the weekend, that was, and then mid-week just any ugly person at all to cover paying staff wages. Tonight was Friday, which meant they were going for pretty and fabulous which didn’t hold much luck for my life. I’d heard the grumbles that it wasn’t as busy as it used to be – one hundred fewer people on a Friday – which the grumblers surmised was a sign of the times. I thought that was ironic because it was more a sign of the times that a club with no name, situated in what used to be one of the worst slums in Europe – where people were housed in tenements in Georgian buildings that the rich had moved out of to live in the suburbs, where up to fifteen people shared one room, with up to one hundred people with all kinds of diseases living in one building with one toilet in the back garden where livestock lived – was more accurately the sign of the times.

I rang the buzzer on the large red door and waited for a small section of it to open and a dwarf to step outside. That didn’t happen. The entire door was opened by a bald man dressed in black who resembled a bowling ball, and treated entries as though he were Prince Charming and the female arrivals were simply for him alone to pluck his princess before his evil father married him off to an ogre. He might have been happy with my appearance but unfortunately he didn’t like the look of my life, which was ironic because that was the nature of club life; you weren’t supposed to bring your lives with you. You were supposed to leave them at home in the cluttered bathroom beside the hairspray and the fake tan and all the other condiments that went into making you feel like someone else.

The bowling ball stared at my life with a face like he’d just eaten shit. Life reached for his inside pocket again for the piece of paper that gave him access to all areas in my life.

‘Don’t,’ I said, holding my hand up to stop him.

‘Why not?’

‘Not here.’ I looked at the security guy. ‘Could you please get Melanie Sahakyan for us?’

‘Who?’

‘DJ Darkness. We’re guests of hers.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Lucy Silchester.’

‘And what’s his name?’

‘Cosmo Brown,’ Life said loudly and I didn’t need to turn around to know that he felt this was hilarious.

‘His name isn’t on the list. It should be a plus-one.’

‘It’s not a plus-one here.’ He spoke as if the clipboard alone revealed the mysteries of the world. I wondered what the clipboard would say about the Mayan 2012 beliefs, or if it wasn’t on the list it didn’t count. He studied my life. Life didn’t much care, he leaned on the glossy black railings where impoverished children with dirty faces had once climbed, and seemed to enjoy the spectacle that was taking place.

‘There must be a misunderstanding. Could you please get Melanie?’

‘I have to close the door. You can wait in here, he has to wait outside.’

I sighed. ‘I’ll wait here.’

On looks, I could get into the club. With my life, I couldn’t. It was a cruel, cruel world. As groups passed us by and I heard snippets of their conversations before they entered the club I wondered whether, if everyone was to be judged in that way, the club would be completely empty. And that would be a sign of the times. Five minutes later the door swung open and Melanie stood there in a black handkerchief dress with bangles all the way up her tanned arms to her elbows; her hair was swept back in a high pony-tail and her cheekbones were ebony and shiny as though she were an Egyptian princess.

‘Lucy!’ She held her arms open to hug me. I turned so that when we hugged she was facing sideways and not over my shoulder and staring at my life. ‘Who else is with you?’ I pushed past her into the entrance, revealing my life to her. Life followed me inside. Melanie gave him the quick once-over, so quick only I would notice her thick lashes move up and down. Life didn’t notice, he was busy taking off his crumpled suit jacket to hand to the woman at the cloakroom, which was a line of golden muscular arms sticking out of a wall. She hooked his coat over the protruding middle finger of the arm. What a statement. He rolled his sleeves up to his elbows and he looked much better but nothing like the golden muscular arms.

‘You’re a secretive little thing,’ Melanie said to me.

‘It’s not like that, really, at all,’ I shuddered.

‘Oh,’ she said, disappointed. ‘Hello, I’m Melanie,’ and she held out her bangled arm.

Life gave her a megawatt smile. ‘Hi, Melanie, nice to meet you in the flesh, I’ve heard so much about you. I’m Cosmo Brown.’

‘Cool name,’ she laughed. ‘Isn’t that …?’

‘Yes, from the film. He’s never been here before and he’s really excited so come on already, show us around!’ I pretended to be excited and Melanie got excited by my excitement and hotfooted it out of there. Everywhere we went all the men stopped and stared at Melanie, which was a shame for them because they were barking up the wrong tree. This had been a blessing for me because ever since she had come out at the age of sixteen and men discovered she wasn’t only not interested but not even open to negotiation, they turned to me, which I didn’t mind as I had a minimal amount of pride, and even less as a teen.

The club so far had been designed in the theme of the four elements of life; finally we reached a closed door, which had the number five on it. Life looked at me questioningly.

‘The fifth element,’ I explained.

‘Which is … love?’

‘Romantic,’ Melanie said. ‘But no.’ She pushed open the door and gave him a cheeky wink. ‘It’s alcohol.’ And in a giant champagne glass posed a burlesque dancer with nipple tassles and no other clothes that I could see, unless the fabric in question had disappeared into the cracks. I expected Melanie to start DJing immediately so that no more questions could be asked, or if they were it could be the usual mouthing and lip-read one-word answers to shoot-the-breeze questions, but it was early yet and her set didn’t begin until after twelve so we sat around a table and Melanie examined my life.

‘So how do you two know each other?’

‘We work together,’ I answered.

He looked at me and I could hear him say, Remember our deal.

‘Well, we kind of do.’

‘You work at Mantic?’ Melanie asked him.

‘Nope.’ He stared at me. You lie, I tell a truth.

‘No,’ I laughed. ‘He doesn’t work there. He … he’s eh, he’s … from out of town,’ I said, looking to Life for approval. Not technically a lie. I could see him mulling it over.

He gave me a nod of approval, but a you’re skating on thin ice look.

‘Groovy,’ Melanie said, looking at him for the answer. ‘But how do you two know each other?’

‘He’s my cousin,’ I blurted out. ‘He’s sick. Terminally ill. He’s spending the day with me to write an article on modern women. It’s his dying wish.’ I couldn’t help it.

‘You’re cousins?’ she said, surprised.

Life started laughing. ‘Of all of those things, the fact that we’re cousins surprises you?’

‘Well, I thought I’d met them all.’ Then she softened her tone. ‘So that’s sad news. You’re a journalist. Are you okay?’

Life and Melanie laughed.

‘Come on, I’ve been friends with Lucy all of my life, I know her well enough to know when she’s lying.’

If only she knew.

‘You just can’t help yourself, can you?’ Life said to me. ‘Okay, now it’s my turn.’ He leaned in towards Melanie and I braced myself. She smiled and leaned in flirtatiously. ‘Lucy doesn’t like your music,’ he said and sat back.

Melanie’s smile faded, she sat back too. I buried my head in my hands.

Life looked at me. ‘I think I’ll get some drinks now. Lucy?’

‘Mojito,’ I said from behind my hands.

‘The same.’

‘Great.’

‘Tell them to put it on my tab,’ Melanie said, not looking at him.

‘It’s okay, I’ll claim it back on expenses,’ he said and wandered off.

‘Who is that horrible little man?’ she asked.

I cringed. I just simply couldn’t tell her now. ‘Melanie, I never said that I didn’t like your music. I said that I didn’t get your music, which is not the same as saying I don’t like it. It has beats, rhythmic kind of things that I just don’t recognise.’

She looked at me, blinked once and said as if I had never spoken at all, ‘Lucy, who is that man?’

I buried my face in my hands again. It was my new thing. If I couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see me. I came back up for air. Then I put my phone on the table and looked at Don’s eyes for back-up. ‘Okay fine, here’s the truth. That man is my life.’

Her eyes widened. ‘That is so romantic.’

‘No, I mean, he is my actual life. I received a letter to meet with him from the actual Life Agency a while ago and this is it. This is him.’

Melanie’s mouth hung open. ‘You are shitting me. That’s your life?’

We both turned to watch him. He was standing at the bar on tiptoe, trying to get served. I cringed again.

‘He’s … wow, well, he’s …’

‘Miserable,’ I finished for her. ‘You called my life a horrible little man.’

Her Bambi eyes were full of concern. ‘Are you miserable, Lucy?’ she asked.

‘Me? No. I’m not miserable.’ It wasn’t a lie. I didn’t feel miserable, just slightly unhappy ever since Life had made himself and my flaws known to me. ‘He is bloody miserable.’

‘Tell me how it works.’

‘He’s like the Pinky and I’m the Brain,’ I said. ‘Or I’m the X-ray and he’s the broken foot.’ I tried to explain but got confused. ‘He’s the nose and I’m the Pinocchio. Yes,’ I smiled, ‘I got the last one right.’

‘What are you talking about?’

I sighed. ‘He just accompanies me. Like this.’

‘Why?’

‘To observe and then to try to make things better.’

‘For who? For you?’

‘And for him.’

‘What kinds of things, what’s wrong?’

I searched my brain for an answer that wasn’t a lie. There were very few thoughts in my head. Melanie never read the papers or listened to the news so she wouldn’t know about the office incident. ‘For example. There was a thing at work the other day. A man I work with was fired then came back to the office with a gun – don’t worry, it was a water pistol though we didn’t know it at the time, but he shook everybody up and a couple of things happened so now Life is here for a while.’ It was as vague as I could possibly make it.

I thought a fire alarm went off and was momentarily thankful that we’d have to evacuate and the conversation could be dropped, but then realised it was the sound of an American police car going whoop whoop. I looked around for the action and saw a waitress walking towards us with a police-car light flashing on the tray along with our drinks.

‘Well, that’s subtle,’ I said.

‘Hi, guys,’ the waitress sang. ‘The man says he’ll have his at the bar.’

‘Thanks.’ Melanie looked her up and down, gave her the biggest flirtiest smile she could. When the girl walked away Melanie leaned in. ‘She’s new. She’s cute.’

I checked her out. ‘Nice legs.’

When Melanie told me she was gay when we were teenagers I was immediately unnerved though I tried not to show it. It wasn’t because I was homophobic, it was more because we had spent all our lives being extremely close, sharing a lot of things together such as changing rooms, showers, toilets on nights out, that kind of thing. I didn’t know how to move forward with continuing those habits after she’d informed me she liked women. I didn’t do a good job of trying to hide it so one night while I’d run to barricade myself into a toilet cubicle by myself, she firmly informed me – and the rest of the queue behind her – that she was under no circumstances, nor would she ever ever be, remotely interested in me. This resulted in my feeling worse, particularly by the use of the double ‘ever’, I mean, would she ever even consider giving me a chance? It was quite possible that I could change in the future, and her closemindedness bothered me. We sipped our drinks. I was hoping we could now change the subject though I knew there wasn’t a chance of that happening.

‘So what kinds of things happened?’ She picked up where we left off.

‘Oh, nothing, I just got into a bit of trouble, that’s all.’

Her eyes widened. ‘What kind of trouble?’

‘I told a little fib on my resumé.’ I waved a hand dismissively.

Melanie threw her head back and laughed. ‘What did you say?’ She was enjoying this but I knew she wouldn’t for much longer, it was leading to somewhere I didn’t want to go. I was planning on telling a juicy big lie when Life must have sensed it and rejoined us at the table.

Melanie looked at him with new admiration. ‘Lucy was just telling me that you’re her life.’

Life looked at me, happy I’d told a truth. ‘That’s great, Lucy.’

‘This is so cool, can I give you a hug?’ She didn’t wait for an answer, and went straight for the kill, wrapping her long limbs around him and squeezing. Life seemed to melt at the attention. He closed his eyes. ‘Wait a minute.’ She pulled away. ‘I have to get a photo.’ She rooted in her bag for her phone and held it up to herself and Life. He smiled, his teeth a mustard colour next to Melanie’s white gnashers. ‘That’s one for Facebook. So, Lucy was telling me she fibbed on her CV.’ She smiled and hunkered down for the gossip, her big glossy lips permanently planted on the straw in her drink, like the man in the tank sucking on oxygen.

‘Really?’ Life looked at me, impressed again. I was getting Brownie points.

‘Yeah.’ I scratched my head. ‘I just said I could speak a language, but I can’t.’ I threw it away, hoped that we could laugh over it and it would be gone but I knew I couldn’t be so lucky.

Melanie threw her head back and laughed again. ‘What was it? Swahili or something?’

‘No,’ I laughed awkwardly.

‘Why, what language did you say? Honestly, Cosmo, I have to squeeze information about herself out from her all the time.’

‘Spanish.’

Her dark eyes darkened a little but she smiled, though not as ecstatically. ‘You’re even worse at Spanish than me.’

‘Yeah,’ I smiled. I wanted to change the subject, but I couldn’t think of anything to say that wasn’t forced and unnatural.

‘But what if they’d asked you to use it?’ she said, and I was sure she was testing me.

‘They did.’ I took a sip of my drink. ‘They did all the time. Our main manual languages are English, French, Dutch and Italian.’

‘And Spanish,’ she said, studying me.

‘And Spanish,’ I confirmed.

She sucked on her straw, her eyes not moving from mine. ‘So what did you do?’ She was slowly getting it, or she’d already got it. Or I was paranoid but I already knew my paranoia was instinct so either way I was in trouble.

‘I got a little help.’

Life was looking from her to me and me to her, sensing something was up but not knowing exactly what. I waited for him to take his computer out to search for the answer but he didn’t. He politely sat it out.

‘From who?’ she asked. She was still now. Tense. Expectant. Waiting for confirmation.

‘Melanie, I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry, just answer the question,’ she said coldly.

‘The answer is yes and I’m sorry.’

‘You went to Mariza.’

‘Yes.’

She stared at me, shocked. Even knowing it was coming, she couldn’t believe it. I thought she was going to throw her drink over me but the anger subsided and she just looked hurt. ‘You’ve been in contact with Mariza?’

Mariza was the love of her life who’d broken her heart very badly and we were all destined to hate her for the rest of our lives. And I did, until she emailed me one day asking after Melanie’s well-being. I’d done the proper friend thing at first, being coldly distant and distantly cold, telling lies about how Melanie was doing great, but then it changed and I needed her.

‘Only a little contact. It was just for translations, nothing personal.’

‘Nothing personal?’

‘Okay maybe a little. She was always asking about you, I told her you were travelling the world, really successful, meeting other people, I never ever told her anything about you that you wouldn’t have wanted me to say. I promise. She was worried about you.’

‘Sure she was.’ Then another thought. ‘You’ve been in that job for how long?’

‘Two and a half years,’ I mumbled. I was so embarrassed, partly because it was happening in front of my life but mostly because it was happening at all.

‘So for two and a half years you’ve been contacting her. Lucy, I can’t believe this.’ She stood up, took a few random steps in different directions but ultimately didn’t want to go anywhere. She returned to the table but remained standing. ‘How would you feel if I had spent the last two and a half years contacting an ex of yours without your knowledge, while you haven’t heard a thing directly from them since the moment they broke up with you? The amount of times I wondered what she was doing, or where she was, and you knew all that time and didn’t say anything. How would you feel if I did that to you?’

Life looked at me. I felt he was urging me to say something, something about Blake. I couldn’t risk him telling a truth at this time. Not now, it was the wrong time, but I couldn’t lie.

‘I understand. I’d be incredibly hurt too.’ I swallowed. ‘But you do speak to Blake all the time,’ I said in my defence.

She looked at me as though I were stupid. ‘Blake is different. Blake didn’t just decide one day for no clear reason to step on your heart and crush it into a million little pieces. You left Blake. You have no idea how I feel.’

Life’s eyes were bearing into me. Speak now or forever hold your peace. I held my peace.

She stopped herself before she said too much, though she already had. ‘I need to take a minute, I just need to get some air.’ She grabbed her cigarettes from the table and went outside.

I looked at my life. ‘Happy now?’

‘I’m feeling a little better.’

‘The better I do for you, the more I alienate other people. What good is that for me?’

‘Right now, not much, but down the line it’ll pay off. They just need to get to know you.’

‘They know me.’

‘You don’t even know you, how can you expect them to?’

‘Very philosophical.’ I grabbed my bag.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Home.’

‘But we just got here.’

‘She doesn’t want me here.’

‘She never said that.’

‘She didn’t have to.’

‘So make it up to her.’

‘How?’

‘By staying. You’ve never done that before.’

‘And do what?’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Dance.’

‘I am not dancing with you.’

‘Come on.’ He stood up and grabbed my hands and pulled me up. I fought him but he was strong.

‘I don’t dance,’ I said, trying to pull myself away from him.

‘You used to. You and Blake were Dirty Dancing competition winners two years in a row.’

‘Well, I don’t dance any more. There’s no one even on the dance floor, we’ll look like tools. And I’m not dirty dancing with you.’

‘Dance like they’re not watching.’

Which they were, including Melanie who had come back inside and was currently watching us from the darkness, even though she was mad at me. I felt a weight I didn’t even know was there lift from my shoulders at having revealed a truth. Life was like a drunken uncle at a bad wedding, attempting to dance like John Travolta in a bizarre mix between Pulp Fiction and Stayin’ Alive, but he was happy and he made me smile. So I did a little Uma Thurman and danced with Life like no one was watching until we were the last on the floor and last out the door. He was persuasive; life has a way of getting what it wants when it really knows what it wants.