Читать книгу Left of the Bang - Claire Lowdon - Страница 12

Like all small, enclosed communities, Denham Hall – where Callum had now been working for nearly a year – had its own mores and cultural codes. At the core of the school’s identity was a nostalgia – fiercely subscribed to by most of the pupils – for the rigours of the bad old days. Many children in the top two years remembered the previous headmaster and his deputy speaking Latin together over lunch and in the corridors. Corporal punishment had ceased only when it was made illegal in 1999, a fact often repeated among the pupils with a mixture of horror and pride.

Until quite recently, Denham Hall had been boys-only; even now, boys outnumbered girls in a ratio of 2:1. This discrepancy had two effects. The first was a general feeling, cheerfully shared by both sexes, that boys were standard issue, whereas girls were an anomalous deviation from the norm. The second effect was that each year, the school’s position on puberty was determined by the relatively small number of girls in the top forms. If most of these girls had developed discernible breasts, then adulthood was in vogue. But this year, only two out of the twenty-five pupils in the incipient eighth form – boys and girls – had started puberty with any real conviction. There was Des Kapoor, who had an unreliable glitch in his voice and faint inverted commas above the corners of his upper lip; and there was Sophie Witrand, cup size 32A and growing, fast. Neither Des nor Sophie had any social heft. The cool kids in their year-group were Milly Urquhart, Ludo Hall, and little Rhiannon Jenkins – all still small and slim and smooth-skinned, their snub noses only just beginning to morph into more distinctive shapes.

These three set the tone: for now, the currency at Denham Hall was immaturity. The children seemed innately to understand that their un-sprouted bodies were approaching expiry date, and that this made them all the more valuable. Theirs was a clean, clear beauty, crystalline in comparison to the maculate adult world with its coarse dark body hair and pendulous flesh. Menstruation was regarded with particular disgust. Yet paradoxically, the accoutrements of puberty were de rigueur: bras were worn, legs were shaved, deodorant ostentatiously applied. The ideal was to display all the sophistication of adolescence, while maintaining the physical purity of childhood. Anyone who actually needed the deodorant would have been ‘minging’.

Sophie Witrand, the only person in the whole year who could have done with a bra, was one of the few girls who didn’t have one. She had shaved her legs just once, with a razor stolen from her father. The act itself had been executed in the airing cupboard (there was no lock on the Witrands’ bathroom door), without shaving foam or even water. Sophie’s leg hair was blonde and almost invisible, but once this soft nap had been harvested by the razor’s four-blade grille it formed a little heap the colour of silt, dry yet silky when she rubbed it between thumb and forefinger. Her mother, a keen gardener, used the bottom shelf of the airing cupboard to germinate the seeds of delicate plants. Sophie pushed a finger into the gateau-black soil of verbena bonariensis and planted her pinchful of evidence. A tray of white Italian sunflowers had just germinated, the tips of the little shoots still hooded by the old humbug-striped seed casings. For a silly second Sophie wondered what her leg hair would look like if it grew. A snatch of Edward Lear came into her head: ‘I answered him as I thought good / As many red herrings as grow in the wood.’

Her idea was to replace the razor and tell no one, but two hours later she was down in the kitchen wearing her longest nightie, tremulous yet ready to confess. Sophie was obsessively truthful. When she was younger her parents had imposed a rule to prevent her from tiring herself out by reading late into the night: book closed and lights out at 8 p.m. If Sophie exceeded this deadline by just five minutes, she would lie awake worrying until the guilt grew too great to bear, at which point she would have to get up and go downstairs to admit her transgression to her mother.

Now she sat on her mother’s lap and hid her face as she explained what she had done. Mrs Witrand rubbed her daughter’s back, alternating strokes with little pats as if she were burping a baby. She let the theft of the razor pass without comment. Then she took Sophie up to the bathroom and gave her some of her Body Shop moisturiser. She explained how shaving made the hairs grow back thicker, and how – look, see those little white flakes? – Sophie’s skin had already been ravaged by the razor. ‘If you like, I’ll take you to get them waxed, you only have to ask. But I think your legs are just fine. I’d give anything to have lovely soft hair like that again. You do know you can hardly see it, darling?’

Sophie thought of her mother’s legs with their squiggly veins. The backs of her big calves had dimples like sand that had been rained on. Once Sophie had poked one of these strange dents and been surprised to find it firm and unresisting. Mrs Witrand was large but not flabby; her flesh was tightly packed under her skin, as if bursting to get out. Everything about her was slightly oversized, from her size nine feet to the fat brown plait that hung down her back to her waist. Underneath her thick, straight-cut fringe, her pale blue eyes were permanently narrowed by the upward pressure of her glacé cheeks.

Both mother and daughter knew that Sophie would never ask to have her legs waxed. Although no hint of reproach had entered Mrs Witrand’s voice, a judgement had, implicitly, been passed: Sophie’s error was forgiven but not to be repeated. It had been the same when she had mentioned the possibility of a bra. Mrs Witrand was briskly implacable: ‘You don’t need one yet, sweet pea, you’re only twelve. There’ll be plenty of time for all that later.’

* * *

‘Mr Love’s wearing a bra, pass it on!’

Rhiannon Jenkins, nearly thirteen but no bigger than a nine-year-old, short dark hair, a face-full of cappuccino freckles. She was the smallest girl in the class and something of a mascot. Teachers found her faux-naïve manner infuriating; her peers found it hilarious.

Predictably, it was Sophie Witrand who had been left to sit next to Mr Dempster in the double passenger seat at the front of the bus. She squirmed round and squeezed her neck past the headrest, desperate to join in with her classmates’ banter. Callum decided not to comment on her twisted seatbelt.

Next year’s scholarship form at Denham Hall, 8S, were stuck in Friday afternoon traffic on the M25. It was the final day of a week-long summer programme designed to introduce scholarship candidates to real-world applications of subjects they were studying. Parents invariably thought it was a fantastic opportunity. Their children tended to disagree. This week had been the hottest of the year so far and they had spent most of it in a minibus. They were overheated and sticky and sunburnt and fed up.

Today’s itinerary had been Geography (Chichester Harbour) and Latin (Fishbourne Roman Palace). Mr Love the Geography master was melting in the driving seat, sweaty kiss-curls of thin brown hair clinging to his forehead. The front of his pale blue double-cuff shirt was now translucent with sweat. Through the damp cotton, Mr Love’s chest hair did look like a black lace bra.

Callum was wearing Hawaiian board shorts and a tight V-neck T-shirt with the logo ‘NBX Burnout’ – just as open to ridicule, in its way, as Mr Love’s outfit. But 8S had granted Mr Dempster immunity. There was a certain toughness about him that made them wary of taking the piss. He was also going to be their form teacher next year. It was preferable to have him as an ally.

The snickering was getting louder. Callum turned to face the class with one eyebrow raised and his head slightly cocked. Could he have seen it, Mr Love would not have thanked him for this look. But it worked. There was one more titter, and then 8S were silent.

‘Mr Love won’t play our CD, though.’

The speaker sounded aggrieved. Ludo Hall was head of choir; he had tightly waved marmalade hair and a pure treble voice reputed to have made several of the male members of staff weep. Because of this, and in spite of a staffroom mantra ‘not to let Ludo Hall think he’s special’, he was treated, ever so slightly, like a celebrity. Women of all ages responded to his fine, pale features, and Ludo had already begun to respond to this response. In class he was subtly disruptive, with a keen sense of injustice and a talent for figuring himself as the wronged party when caught.

Callum eyed him evenly then smiled before the boy could see him weighing his decision. ‘Ah, Charles?’ he said, turning back to Mr Love.

The CD was Loud by Rihanna, and it kept everyone happy all the way back to Denham Hall. Everyone except for Mr Love (Sex in the air, I don’t care I love the smell of it) and Sophie Witrand. Callum watched her with a mixture of pity and interest. She was twisted right round to face the class, trying to sing along with song lyrics she didn’t really know. After five minutes of being ignored she flopped back into her seat. But then she would pick herself up and start again.

During one of her ‘time-outs’, she asked him a question.

‘So the Romans, they didn’t believe in God, did they, sir?’

‘The Romans had lots of gods. You know that, Sophie.’ She was one of the brightest students in the class.

‘No, but not God God, like the Christian God – they didn’t even really know about him till the three hundreds ay dee, did they.’

‘Until the fourth century, that’s right. Very good. Emperor?’

‘Emperor Constantine. But, sir…’ Sophie was distracted by a chorus she evidently knew. She wriggled away from their conversation and launched herself back into Rihanna. ‘Want you to MAKE ME FEEL – like I’m the only girl in the world – like I’m the only one that you’ll ever luh-uv…’

Back at school, however, she stayed sitting in the bus long after the others had piled out. Callum held the door open for her, but she didn’t budge.

‘Sir, do you believe in God?’

‘Whew.’ Callum drummed his fingers on the top of the minibus door, looking up for inspiration. The bright flat blue sky was softer now, tinged with mauve and graduating to a clear eau de Nil at the horizon. ‘Well … let’s just say, on an evening like this, it’s hard not to feel something, eh?’

She was too intelligent to take this as a yes. Callum felt the reproach in her gaze and found himself apologising.

‘Sorry.’ He glanced at his watch. They were meeting Will for drinks at nine. Chris would be arriving at eight. ‘Sophie, I’m afraid I don’t really have time for this now. Ask me again some other day, I promise I’ll give you a better answer.’

Sophie nodded sadly and got out of the bus, ducking under his arm with a mumbled ‘Bye, sir’.

Her baggy shorts, rumpled from the long bus ride, had ridden up between her bum cheeks; unselfconsciously, she tugged the material free. The evening sun lit the downy hair of her legs in a soft halo. Callum thought of plant stems, brightly outlined by their greenly glowing fibres.

* * *

At ten o’clock that morning, Tamsin had known exactly what she’d be wearing for an evening in the pub with Callum, Will, and various of Will’s cronies: jeans and a T-shirt, minimal makeup. At midday, Callum had texted to say that Chris would be joining them. Now it was 6 p.m. and Tamsin was in her bedroom, deliberating between her two shortest dresses.

Tamsin tugged the dress up over her head and stood in her underwear for a moment, contemplating her near-naked reflection. The stretch marks encircling her breasts glinted slug-trail silver in the early evening sunlight. She forced herself to think dispassionately about Chris. He was good-looking and intelligent, but then she knew plenty of good-looking, intelligent people. Compared to Callum, he seemed unattractively young. Really, the thrill she felt at the thought of seeing him again made no sense at all.

It didn’t occur to her that just his reappearance might be enough to pique her interest in him. Tamsin prided herself on her pragmatism; unlike Chris, she had no time for fate or destiny or kismet. But coincidence is a powerful aphrodisiac. After their first encounter seven years ago, Tamsin remembered Chris chiefly because of the unusual circumstances in which they met. Then she forgot him, because he had been uninteresting to her. When she saw him again at Leo’s party, there was suddenly a pair of coincidences, mutually amplifying their significance. Then there had been that supper at Callum’s, and now here he was again, in town for the weekend, apparently, just wondering what she and Callum were up to, whether he could join them for supper, perhaps even stay the night … The effect of these repetitions was, subtly but surely, one of emphasis added, his name in italics in her mind.

As Tamsin struggled with the zip on dress number two, virtue abruptly won out. She loved Callum, very much: she had no business baring her legs for Chris, or anyone else. In the top left-hand corner of the mirror was a small sticker collection, comprising three holographic hearts in shades of puce, six fuzzy-felt teddy bears, a parakeet and a hamburger, placed there by the eight-year-old Tamsin. For years, Tamsin had barely even noticed the stickers; now, suddenly, she found herself irritated by them. She peeled them all off, crumpled them into a tacky ball, and rubbed ineffectually at their gummy ghosts with spit.

When she went down to the sitting room to say goodbye to her mother, Tamsin was wearing jeans, a plain white collared shirt and just a little more makeup than usual. She walked briskly, as in the wake of a job well done, though in fact the opposite was true: by identifying her attraction and labelling it forbidden, she had only succeeded in augmenting it. (Just as the impulsive, insignificant lie she had told Callum lent her dealings with Chris an element of the clandestine that contributed to his growing mystique.)

‘Mummy?’

Roz was absorbed in a text message. At the sound of her name, she started.

‘I’m just off. Who’s the message from?’ Tamsin tried to look but her mother whisked the phone out of sight.

‘Oh, no one, it’s nothing important.’

As they kissed goodbye, Tamsin felt a surprising heat radiating from her mother’s powdered cheek.

* * *

When Tamsin arrived at the Edgware Road flat at seven thirty, Callum wasn’t back – but Chris was there, sitting on the sofa, flicking through one of Callum’s sketchbooks. He looked up guiltily.

‘Sorry – Callum’s flatmate, she let me in – I hope it’s okay if I—’

‘No, of course, it’s fine, go ahead. You just – I’ll just go and say hi to Leah—’ They were both talking too loudly.

‘Um, I think she’s in the shower.’

‘Oh right, cool. Do you, can I get you a drink?’

Tamsin retreated to the kitchen to fetch some beers and to collect her thoughts. She hadn’t expected to find herself alone with Chris.

When she returned he held up the sketchbook to show a page featuring four little charcoal drawings of Tamsin sleeping, just a few lines in each, swiftly and skilfully done.

‘These ones of you – it is you, isn’t it? – they’re amazing. This one, here – this one’s the best.’ Chris pointed to the biggest of the four sketches. The charcoal Tamsin was on her back, her arms thrown up above her head and her eyes lightly closed as if she were resting briefly rather than actually sleeping. Tamsin liked it, too, but she loyally nominated Callum’s favourite, a less flattering rendition of her asleep on her side, her lower cheek slightly sagged by gravity.

‘And this is all Callum’s own work, right?’

‘Yup. He paints a little, too, but basically he likes pencil best.’

‘Is there anything the guy doesn’t do?’

Tamsin smiled. The conversation felt horribly stiff and formal, but Chris’s appreciation of Callum was genuine, and it endeared him to her even further.

‘I mean, he could sell these.’ Chris passed his open palm over the sketches very slowly, holding it an inch above the surface. Tamsin was surprised by his hands: they were older than they should be, with dry, split nails and dirt that lay so deep in the seams of his knuckles it looked as if it had been sewn in. Her gaze strayed up his torso to the collar of his shirt (finely woven cotton, with pink-white-blue stripes that reminded her of toothpaste). The top two buttons were undone. There were three soft hairs in the notch at the base of his throat, sweetly exposed.

To quash this alarming thought Tamsin began talking, at speed.

‘He does, actually. Sell them. At his school, he does portraits – from photographs of the children, usually just a simple head-and-shoulders thing, but sometimes he’ll do group ones with siblings, even pets. Personally I think it’s a bit of a waste. But the parents are willing to pay silly money for it, so…’

She trailed off. This wasn’t right at all. She hadn’t meant to criticise Callum to Chris; having done so, she felt guilty of a small betrayal.

They lapsed into silence again. Tamsin took the remote control from the coffee table and fiddled for a while with the black plastic cover of the battery compartment.

‘Listen, I just want to say—’

She looked up, startled by the urgency in Chris’s voice. He was sitting right forward on the edge of the sofa.

‘Last time,’ he went on, ‘when we had supper – I think I might’ve drunk a bit too much – I’m sorry about the speech.’

Tamsin smiled. ‘It’s fine, we were all quite—’

‘To tell the truth I was a bit nervous about meeting you again.’ He paused for a moment as if waiting for permission to continue. Outside in the street, someone honked a car horn once, twice, then a third time, long and loud. The sound bent and died. Tamsin avoided Chris’s gaze but he didn’t seem to notice her discomfort.

‘The thing is…’ he began again, then stopped. He didn’t even know what he was trying to say. That he had been thinking about her for seven years? That he loved her? That he was just glad to see her, and to see her happy? All absurd, Chris thought, blushing to himself as he heard and rejected each of these options.

‘Hello hello!’

Callum was at the door, red-faced from his long ride home. The tangerine sheen of his orange lycra cycling gear was darkly stained with sweat at the crotch and armpits, while a larger stain formed a peninsula tapering from his neckline down to his navel. Tamsin launched herself on him, mindless of the sweat.

* * *

The Duke’s Head was an old South London pub that had recently been subjected to a trendy makeover. Tamsin found herself sitting between Chris and Will on a reclaimed church pew, presided over by a working set of traffic lights. She was horribly conscious of her proximity to Chris. Each time she relaxed, her knee drifted over to touch his thigh. She couldn’t tell whether Chris was aware of this, too, but judging from his awkwardness in Callum’s flat, it seemed likely that he was. Her buttocks ached with the effort of avoiding contact.

Across the table, Leah was looking terrific in a navy-blue bandeau dress and a pair of gold earrings shaped like Celtic knots. Leah rarely drank alcohol; this evening she was sipping grapefruit juice through a straw, carefully preserving the pearly gloss that coated her lips. ‘Mmm, very smart,’ Tamsin had said when Leah emerged from the bedroom in her high heels and immaculate makeup. Not quite a compliment – the implication being that Leah was overdressed for an evening in the pub. Leah had replied, in her habitual tone of sullen apathy, that she was going out later. She always had somewhere else to go on to, though they never met the friends she went with.

Sitting next to Leah were Big Mac (Ollie Macfarlane) and his girlfriend Suze. Big Mac was a consultant at Deloitte. He had a fine bass voice; at Cambridge, he had been a King’s choral scholar. His intention had been to work at Deloitte for a few years to build up his savings, then make a go of it as a singer – a plan he talked about with decreasing conviction as each year went by. Big Mac identified as Scottish: despite a fruity Home Counties accent, he wore his kilt more often than Callum did. He was extremely fat and suffered from a minor addiction to cheese-and-onion crisps. Right now he was irritated because the pub only served chilli cashews and wasabi nuts; but also because Suze was making no attempt to disguise her admiration for Second Lieutenant Kimura and his daredevil tales from the Rifles’ recent training exercise in the Kenyan wilderness.

‘And there it was, right in front of us, the monster itself’ – Chris paused for effect; Suze appeared to be holding her breath – ‘a zebra, munching on some leaves!’

Apart from Big Mac, everyone laughed. Chris was the man of the moment – a fresh face with an exciting job and a large backlog of anecdotes that nobody had heard before.

‘Oh my god, it sounds so frightening!’ Suze panted, still recovering from the suspense before the punchline.

Suze was what Will unkindly referred to as a ‘stealth moose’ – gorgeous from a distance, with her catwalk figure and long blonde hair, but alarmingly ugly up close. She had a bad squint and her features were out-of-focus with the worst acne scars Chris had ever seen. Now she leaned even further across the table towards him, her smallish breasts squeezed awkwardly together by her upper arms. She evidently expected some sort of response, but Chris couldn’t think of anything to say. He blinked, uncomfortable under the blaze of her admiration. He was still getting used to the effect of his military persona on some women.

‘What about women?’ It was as if Will had read his mind. ‘Surely certain, how can I put this, needs arise?’

Chris nodded. ‘Yes, that’s a real problem, actually – we had a few days’ leave in the local town at the end of the jungle training and the guys had to be given a fairly in-depth refresher session on sexual health. I was worried that the doctor’s spiel had been a wee bit too technical for some of the younger guys, so I took a bunch of them aside to paraphrase.’ Now Chris adopted a slow, too-loud tone, as if he were talking to someone mentally impaired. ‘If you get AIDS, you will die. All the hookers have AIDS. If you don’t want AIDS, do not stick any part of your body into any part of their bodies. If you’re going to be a real retard about it, though, bag up.’

He chuckled drily. ‘One young lad invited me to join him and his friends back at their room for “some fun”. Turned out they’d taken my lesson to heart: they’d paid a girl to strip and lie there naked while they all stood round and wanked on her.’

There was a brief silence while everyone decided whether to be interested or shocked or coolly unfazed. Suze was no longer leaning over towards Chris. She glanced round at the others, trying to gauge their reactions.

‘And you – what did you do?’ demanded Big Mac.

At last Chris heard the personal hostility in Big Mac’s tone. ‘I went back to my hotel room and watched porn on my laptop,’ he said evenly.

‘How old were these guys, on average?’ Callum asked. It was the first time he’d spoken in a while.

Chris sat a little straighter in his seat, lighting up at the pleasure of talking to Callum. ‘Uh, the youngest was about seventeen, oldest mid thirties, I guess. But mostly late teens, early twenties.’

‘And how do you feel about these men, these boys, being exposed to that sort of scenario so young?’

This was something Tamsin usually admired about Callum – the interest he took in other people, the quiet, intelligent way he collected information, asking his careful questions, storing up the answers to think about later, at length. He rarely offered personal opinions during casual conversation. But just now this trait struck Tamsin as bloodless, even a little unfair – as if he were trying to catch Chris out over a subject on which he, Callum, had no real authority.

‘Obviously it’s not ideal. But to be frank, it’s better than the alternative – which is jail, for most of them. Most of these young guys, they’re illiterate, they’ve got problems with money, family problems. The army offers them a way out of all that.’

‘Some people might feel that that’s a rather defeatist position,’ Callum said neutrally. ‘Sorry. I’m playing devil’s advocate. Well, I sort of am.’

‘I disagree. I strongly disagree.’ Chris’s ardour was a sharp contrast to Callum’s coolness. He wasn’t angry, but his dark eyes were big with conviction. ‘I know what I’m saying might not be all that palatable, but at least it’s realistic.’ (Tamsin murmured in automatic approval: ‘realistic’ was something of a trigger-word for her, an uncontested good, regardless of context.) ‘Fact of the matter is that the army educates them, it provides financial guidance, pastoral care … It isn’t perfect, but it’s by far the best of a pretty shabby set of options. And in the end, when you look at the camaraderie, the sense of purpose, the brotherhood – I’m really not exaggerating when I say that joining the army is the best decision that most of these guys will ever make.’ Chris nodded fervently.

Bored, Will waved the debate away. ‘Well, that’s all very Agincourt of you, Chris. But I’m more interested in your cocks. In the jungle, when and where do you masturbate? I want specifics.’

‘Will!’ Tamsin turned on him.

Will feigned hurt. ‘These things are terribly important.’

‘It’s okay, I don’t mind,’ said Chris.

‘That’s not the point.’

Will tapped the tabletop impatiently with the flat of his hand. ‘Come on, Chris, don’t be shy, you’re among friends.’

‘I’m not shy, it’s just…’ Chris looked to Tamsin for consent.

‘Oh, don’t mind her,’ said Will, draping an arm round Tamsin’s shoulders. ‘Tam and I go way back, don’t we?’

Tamsin wriggled out from under his arm. Will was always claiming for them an intimacy that had never existed, and it irked her.

‘Basically,’ Chris began, uncertainly, ‘men will always find a way. Problem with the jungle was that we were all sleeping in hammocks, at fairly close quarters. I suppose after a while it just happens.’

‘So you were effectively jerking off in public,’ said Will.

Chris hesitated before continuing. ‘The, uh, the wanker does his best to be discreet, and everyone else does their best to ignore it. That is, depending on the guy. There was one lad who made a bit of a thing about it. Dave Gaskin – though everyone called him Gashbag. He had, er, some innovative solutions to the problem of waste disposal.’

‘As in – what exactly?’

‘He either rubbed it into his chest – said it was good for the skin – or’ – Chris’s mouth puckered in amused distaste – ‘or he ate the stuff. Sorry, ladies,’ he finished, remembering Tamsin.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Tamsin stiffly.

Chris was embarrassed. ‘Sorry, bit far.’ He stood up, looking flustered. ‘My round, isn’t it? Sorry. Same again? Three Peroni, two Pinot Grigio, and a – a grapefruit juice?’

‘Actually, I’ll just have water,’ said Leah. The background noise forced her to raise her voice. For the first time, Chris heard the gluey consonants of a Birmingham accent lurking behind her carefully clipped speech.

As he queued for drinks, Chris experienced a familiar deflation. He had been riding high on attention all evening, but now he felt sadly empty. Much as he loved performing, these days it so often felt like the only mode available to him. He was always ‘the army guy’. People’s responses were getting boringly predictable. Suze’s adoration, Big Mac’s cynicism, Will’s covert bid to prove that he, too, could be one of the boys – they were such types.

Of course he knew he encouraged it. He put himself on display, and by putting himself on display, he fairly volunteered for exclusion. The civilian world was becoming another country. He didn’t quite belong here any more – and yet he didn’t quite belong in the army, either. He was too sensitive; he could do tough, when it was required, but it was always a bit of an act. Even the cigarettes he smoked after dinner in the mess felt like props. Same as being mixed-race, Chris thought morosely: Japanese in England, English in Japan…

Two boys were blocking his way, leaning on the bar and sipping at their pints of Guinness.

‘Excuse me,’ Chris said. ‘If you wouldn’t mind, I think—’

‘No, excuse me,’ said taller boy, boldly impersonating Chris’s plummy vowels. ‘I am most terribly sorry.’ He had a tidemark of foam on his upper lip. They shuffled over to make room for Chris, the short one laughing sycophantically at his companion’s joke.

No, thought Chris as he ordered, it had not been a good night. He had a growing suspicion that he’d made himself ridiculous to Tamsin in the flat; and just now he had surely offended her with that stupid story about Dave Gaskin.

(As it happened, Tamsin wasn’t at all bothered by the talk about masturbation. Her objection to Will’s question had been entirely arbitrary, an expression of her general frustration with the evening. For no very good reason, she felt cross, with Callum, with Chris, with herself; so for no very good reason, she got angry with Will.)

‘That’ll be twenny-six-sixty,’ the barman told him.

‘Really?’ Chris was surprised; he had never been much good with numbers. ‘Hang on, I might have to give you most of that in change…’

‘London prices, eh?’ said the barman, conspiratorially. ‘It’s the Peroni what does it, that’s four pound fifty a pint.’

‘Really?’ Chris said again, contorting his torso as he strained to access the more remote corners of his jeans pockets.

‘You’re not from round here, are you?’

‘Well, not exactly.’ Chris wondered if this was going to be one of those ‘No-but-what-country-do-you-really-come-from’ conversations. ‘I’m living near Salisbury at the moment.’

‘I knew it!’ The barman was triumphant. ‘Takes one to know one, but honestly, that haircut – dead giveaway every time. You must be, what, Rifles? or is it Paras? And with a posh voice like that … Captain?’ This last speculation was made entirely without malice or resentment.

‘I wish,’ Chris grinned. ‘Still very much a crow-bag second lieutenant, though.’

Well, you should try being a crow-bag private, sir,’ joked the barman. ‘Fusiliers,’ he added, with pride.

Chris looked at the barman more closely. Early forties, certainly no older than forty-five. ‘Gulf War?’ he asked, holding out a palm-full of coins and notes.

The barman nodded. ‘That’s right. Best years of my life.’

The two men exchanged a look of perfect understanding. Chris wanted to laugh.

He took the Pinot Grigios and the water back to their table and came back for the three Peronis.

‘You know that bird with the black hair, then?’ The taller of the two boys was looking at him again.

‘What?’ It was a moment before Chris understood that he was talking about Leah. ‘Oh, yes.’

‘She’s well fit.’

‘She’s—’ Chris said, then stopped, realising he knew almost nothing about Leah. She was beautiful, certainly, but she also seemed dull and stuck-up.

‘How old is she?’

‘I don’t know. I’ll ask her,’ Chris told him, amused.

‘We were just discussing phase two of this evening’s revels,’ Will explained when Chris returned. ‘Leah knows some chap who’s DJing at the Hoxton Pony, he can get us free entry. No queuing. You up for it?’

‘Yeah, definitely, count me in.’ Chris slurped at his pint of beer, his good mood returning. ‘Oh, by the way, Leah – you’ve got an admirer over at the bar. Tall boy with the grubby T-shirt. Don’t worry, he is legal. Just.’

For a moment, Leah looked annoyed. Then she realised Chris was joking and her face softened into a brief smile. Her top lip tucked under as the smile widened, revealing a surprising amount of pale pink gum above her teeth.

Suze touched Big Mac’s hand. ‘I’m keen for a bit of dancing,’ she said. ‘That is, if you are, babes?’

Big Mac shook his head. ‘No way. Can’t stand Shoreditch.’

‘I’m coming,’ said Tamsin, brightly. ‘I haven’t been out, as in out out, in like forever.’

Callum looked surprised. ‘But you hate clubs.’

‘Who said that?’ Tamsin frowned at him. ‘I hate some clubs, not all clubs. And I love the Hoxton Pony.’ She produced a small hand mirror from her bag and set about checking her makeup, pinching her eyelashes between thumb and forefinger to get rid of any stray clumps of mascara.

‘Sorry, guys, breaking news.’ Will was reading a text message. ‘Have to take a rain check, I’m afraid. I’ve, ah, got to go see a man about a dog.’

‘Booty call?’ asked Big Mac.

Will passed the phone to Big Mac, who read the message, snickered, and passed it back.

Chris did a round-up, ticking off the names on his fingers. ‘So that’s me, Leah, Tamsin – Callum?’

Callum glanced at Tamsin uncertainly, then turned back to Chris. ‘Yeah, sure. Why not?’

‘My friends are waiting for me.’ Leah pushed her glass of water away, untouched. ‘You lot can come if you want, but I have to get going now.’

She sounded as if she were bored by all of them; and this, somehow, commanded a certain power. Everyone, even Will, hurried to finish their drinks.

Callum helped Tamsin into her fitted corduroy jacket. ‘Tam, you quite sure about this? Last time we went clubbing, remember, in Shunt? You said to remind you next time – about how much you hated it.’ He turned her round to face him. ‘So this is me reminding you.’

‘Stop being so patronising,’ Tamsin muttered, shrugging his hands away. She raised her voice. ‘I’m just going to the loo, okay? Meet you all outside in a sec.’

‘Ooh, wait for me, I’m coming too,’ called Suze, rushing to catch up with Tamsin as she picked her way through to the toilets. ‘It’s been such a nice evening, hasn’t it? It’s sooo good to see you all.’ Suze had a tendency to gush when she was nervous, which was almost always the case, especially around other women: she was very aware of her own physical inferiority. ‘And Chris, I mean, it’s just so amazing to have the opportunity to talk to someone like that. He’s just such an interesting guy, isn’t he?’

The spotlights in the bathroom were too bright. As the girls entered the two empty toilet stalls, the conversation broke off; they only knew each other slightly, and it seemed a little odd to carry on talking.

Tamsin’s skin was hot, flushed from four big glasses of wine. The toilet seat felt pleasantly cool against her thighs. She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and her hands clasped in front of her, waiting. In the other stall Suze’s long stream of piss chirruped and hissed, then shushed itself to a whisper. Rustle of toilet paper, louder rustle of the flush. Tamsin still couldn’t go. She pushed a fist into her bladder and tried to relax. Someone had written ‘I’ll be right back’ in black permanent marker on the toilet-roll dispenser and signed it ‘Godot’.

After a bit Tamsin gave up and joined Suze at the sinks.

‘God. Please tell me this is an unflattering mirror,’ Suze grimaced.

‘Yeah, it’s pretty bad,’ said Tamsin, distractedly. She was unhappy with her shirt; it looked frumpy, the fabric stretched awkwardly over her large chest. She undid a button. Now the neckline was just a little too low, exposing the black lace trim of her bra. Tamsin left it undone and reached up to re-do her ponytail. She knew she was behaving badly, but all her former resolve had vanished. Anyway, so what if she only wanted to go to the club because of Chris? That impulse wasn’t wrong in itself; it was only a crime if she acted on it. Which of course she wasn’t going to.

‘And I know I shouldn’t say this,’ Suze went on, as if they’d never stopped talking about Chris, ‘but isn’t he gorgeous?’

‘Mmmm,’ said Tamsin. ‘If you like that sort of thing.’

‘You mean Chinesey? But he’s so tall it doesn’t really count, does it?’ Suze rubbed at her eyebrows to clear them of foundation. ‘Do you reckon he and Leah will…?’

‘Probably. After all, that’s what Leah does best, isn’t it?’ Tamsin was shocked by the venom in her own voice. So that was it, she realised. She wanted to go to the club with Chris – but more than that, she didn’t want Chris and Leah going to the club without her. Tamsin pushed the thought all the way to its conclusion: she didn’t want Chris, but she didn’t want anyone else to have him, either. The unfairness of this was obvious. She felt ashamed, contrite.

‘I didn’t mean that, it came out a bit harsher than I meant it. I meant that she’s just so beautiful, any guy would be crazy not to want her.’

‘I know,’ Suze sighed. ‘She’s maybe the most beautiful person I’ve ever met. But you, you’re stunning too, Tamsin.’ Suze gave her reflection a rueful look and smiled, via the mirror, at Tamsin’s guilty face.

* * *

At Waterloo, Tamsin, Callum and Leah waited while Chris topped up his Oyster card. Callum turned his face to his shoulder to hide a yawn.

‘Actually, you know what, I think maybe I won’t come after all,’ Tamsin said suddenly.

Callum laughed. ‘I won’t say I told you so.’

‘Right, all set.’ Chris was back, brandishing his Oyster card.

‘Ah, Chris mate, change of plan,’ Callum explained. ‘Tam and me’re going to call it a night.’

‘Oh, right.’ Chris couldn’t hide his disappointment. ‘Maybe I should just come back with you guys, I won’t be able to get in—’

‘No, no, no problem, you can have Tam’s key. All right, Tam?’

Tamsin dug in her handbag for the key. ‘Here you go.’

Chris looked dubious. ‘I don’t know, I still think it’s simpler if I just come back now…’

‘Well, it’s up to you—’ Callum began.

‘No, Chris should go.’ Tamsin cut in with more force than she’d intended. ‘You go, go and have fun with Leah. Really.’ She gave Chris a significant look, vaguely imagining, in her tipsy state, that he understood the full import of her decision to go straight back to Callum’s.

‘If you’re really sure…’ Chris took the key, somewhat reluctantly, and passed through the barrier to join Leah.

Waiting on the Bakerloo line platform, Tamsin and Callum kissed like teenagers. Tamsin took Callum’s hand and pushed it up under her shirt, onto the skin of her stomach. Usually she disliked public displays of affection, but just now she was conscious of a need to test something, and was relieved when she felt her body responding to Callum’s touch.

‘Nice empty flat, no one to hear us,’ Callum crooned into her ear. ‘Though you do know … as soon as you’re ready to move in … Leah’ll go when I say, it could be just the two of us always—’

Tamsin pulled away. ‘We were having such a nice time,’ she said, preparing to mount the podium of their favourite argument; but she was interrupted by a shout from the other end of the platform.

‘Hey there! Tamsin, Callum!’

Bounding towards them with irregular, exhausted strides was a very red-faced Chris.

‘Changed my mind,’ he panted, raising his voice above the incoming train. ‘Whew. Didn’t think I’d catch you, I had to run all the way back up the escalators.’

‘You didn’t have to, we really didn’t mind you going,’ Tamsin told him as they shuffled onto the train.

‘I know, I just somehow didn’t feel like it any more,’ Chris said; and Tamsin experienced a guilty throb of triumph.

‘So what do you think of the American system?’ Callum said to Chris once the doors had closed, continuing an earlier conversation about the pros and cons of six-month deployments.

Tamsin let them talk. Too tired and tipsy to follow the arguments, she stared idly up at a poster informing her she was ‘living proof that posters get read’. She only zoned back into the conversation at Charing Cross, when Callum needed her to remember a name.

‘You know Tam, that little wine bar just above the station here – the one you took me to on our second date.’ He turned to Chris. ‘Sort of a cellar, very dark and atmospheric.’

‘Do you mean Gordon’s?’ Chris asked.

‘Gordon’s, that’s it! So you know it then. Isn’t it fantastic?’

‘Yes, a real gem,’ agreed Chris, with a quick wink at Tamsin. The secret about their long-ago meeting on the tube seemed like a private joke to him now.

Tamsin looked away, feeling sick; but once again, Chris failed to notice her discomfort. He saw only her beauty and her freshness, the satin sheen on her heavy eyelids, the simplicity of her plain white shirt (so much more appealing to him than Leah’s dressed-up look). She hadn’t noticed that one of her buttons had come undone; from his superior vantage point, Chris could see the scalloped edge of her bra. It was his turn to look away. With this girl, even a glimpse of her underwear made him feel guilty. He recalled her squeamishness during the conversation about wanking: it signalled a fundamental purity, the saint-like status she held for him. She and Callum formed the perfect couple, the bond between them inevitable, unshakeable.

Chris smiled fuzzily down at his new friends. ‘I don’t know what you guys are up to,’ he began, ‘but I’ve got a fortnight’s leave coming up, starting Tuesday. I’m with family for the second week, but next week – perhaps I could take you both out to dinner…?’

‘Sorry, we’re going on holiday,’ Tamsin said quickly.

‘Bad timing,’ agreed Callum. ‘Otherwise we’d have loved … And you know, we still haven’t had that chat about the army, I mean more formally, without assistance from Will.’

Chris and Callum both chuckled.

‘That’s a shame,’ said Chris. ‘I was really—’

‘You’re going to be in London all week – where are you staying?’ Callum interrupted him.

‘Well, Edwin has a house up in Islington, there’s a sofa there, or I might—’

‘No, listen, this is silly, my bed’s going to be empty all week – you might as well keep Tam’s key and use the flat as and when you want it.’

‘Seriously, you mean that?’ Chris stammered.

‘No problem at all,’ Callum smiled. ‘It’s good to have you around, Chris. You’re a great guy.’

Chris looked down at his feet. People often found this disconcerting in Callum: his ability to state personal affection quite candidly, without avoiding eye-contact or employing any self-protective irony. Tamsin thought it the most un-English thing about him, though she didn’t know that it was particularly Scottish, either. When they first met, she had been impressed by this directness; but lately, she had begun to find it embarrassing.

* * *

Back at the flat, Tamsin used the bathroom while Callum helped Chris with the sofa bed. Her first idea was to pretend to be asleep when Callum lay down beside her.

‘Tam?’ he said softly, then went on without waiting for a reply. ‘About earlier … I’m sorry.’

‘It’s not just that.’ Tamsin sat up in bed, unable, after all, to stay silent. ‘What about Chris?’

‘What about Chris?’

‘You’re suddenly so pally. We’ve only just met him.’

‘You knew him before, didn’t you?’ said Callum, reasonably.

‘What? What do you mean?’ Tamsin tripped on the possibility that somehow, Callum had found out the truth about her and Chris. Then she realised what he was referring to. ‘Oh, you mean from College. Well, I didn’t know him very well. You can’t just go offering your flat to people like that.’

‘Actually, I can. It being my flat,’ said Callum, injecting the last two words with uncharacteristic bitterness.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘What’s what supposed to mean?’

‘You know what.’

‘Well, only…’ Callum shrugged unhappily. ‘Only that – sometimes it seems as if you don’t actually want to live with me.’

‘Fuck that’s unfair. You know I do. You know it’s just a question of—’

‘—financial stability,’ Callum finished with her. He sounded very tired.

This was the reason Tamsin always gave: that she wanted to be able to pay her rent without accepting help from either Callum or her father.

‘You know I don’t mind if you can’t always make rent,’ Callum said now. ‘It just seems to me that it’s the perfect way for you to make the, the leap.’

‘Fuck,’ Tamsin said again. ‘I’ve heard this so many times, Cal. It’s like being stuck in a fucking feedback loop.’

‘Right.’

Callum shuffled onto his side so that he was facing away from her and reached down for a book. He took Our Man in Havana from the top of a precarious pagoda of half-read books and began to read. In this quietly devastating way, he brought the argument to a close.

Tamsin listened to three page turns before she began to cry. Callum put the book down and took her into his arms.

‘I’m sorry,’ she snuffled. ‘I’m so sorry. I know I’m being a bitch, I don’t know why … I think it’s just … my period’s on its way, that’s probably…’

‘Ssshhh, sshhh.’ Callum hooked his leg over her hip and drew her closer to him. ‘I love you.’