‘Are you sure?’ said Amy. ‘It’s all incredibly last-minute, so I just wanted to make sure you’re fine with it.’ For a moment, as she looked at Josie, all she could see was Karen’s face as she’d arrived in Oxford, her eyes full of awe and wonder and excitement.
‘Fine with it? Are you kidding? I’d love to come with you.’
‘There we go. The perfect solution,’ said David, turning to the coffee machine.
Amy nodded, hoping that her husband was right.
Chapter 6
Oxford, 1995
Karen reached out and slammed her hand onto the clock, cutting off the DJ mid-gush.
Nine o’clock. Jesus. She couldn’t remember the last time she had slept in so late. She snuggled down under the duvet and smiled to herself. God, she could so handle being a student. Cheap booze, fit boys and lying about all day; and they paid you for it too. She considered trying to slip back into the dream she’d been having before the alarm woke her. For once, it had been a good one. She couldn’t quite remember the details: something about a big boat like a cruise liner, and there had been music. She frowned. Had she been singing? Maybe she’d been auditioning for one of those talent shows her mum used to like when she was a kid. No, it was drifting away from her, the images plinking out like soap bubbles, but the feeling of warmth and well-being stayed with her.
She opened one eye, then the other. The Artex ceiling, the paper ball lightshade: they were unfamiliar, but that was definitely her dress draped over the chair. A smile spread across her face as the sight of the sequins brought the night back. The pub, all that wine – fancy wine, mind you – and that boy, the one who’d said he liked the shape of her neck. The one who’d tried to kiss her in the doorway.
‘Hey,’ she murmured, turning over and stretching a foot to her left. The other side of the mattress was unoccupied. She frowned, smoothing her hand across the sheet. Wasn’t even warm. She sat up, trying to ignore the sudden flare in her temple. ‘Amy?’ she said. Or rather, that was the intention; what came out was more of a croak. ‘Amy?’ she tried again, feeling foolish the second time around. She glanced around the tiny room. Bed, wardrobe, desk piled high with scary-looking textbooks, but no one else was in it.
Reluctantly, she swung her legs out of bed and stood up. She remembered Amy’s dressing gown being hooked on the back of the door, but it was no longer there, which meant she’d either have to venture out of the room in her Snoopy nightie, or go to the bathroom, have a shower and get dressed.
She opened the door, crept out onto the landing and peered over the banister. Music was coming from below, and the tempting smell of frying bacon. She padded downstairs feeling slightly awkward. This was a shared house and she barely knew any of the others; she didn’t want to bump into them half dressed, but her hangover was so bad that only a bacon sandwich could get rid of it.
‘Morning, sleepyhead.’ Amy was sitting at the kitchen table reading a newspaper, hands curled around a cup of tea. ‘Did the alarm wake you? Sorry, forgot to turn it off.’
‘’S’all right. Needed my beauty sleep,’ said Karen, yawning.
‘James didn’t seem to think so last night,’ said Amy. ‘He kept saying you were perfect.’
‘James? Was that his name? All right if I make a cuppa?’
‘If you can find a cup. And we’ve only got Earl Grey.’
Karen pulled a pained face and bent down to open the fridge, looking for milk. ‘No way. Has someone really labelled his sausages?’
Amy raised her eyebrows. ‘Shared houses, it can get very political.’
‘Yeah, I saw the washing-up rota.’ It had been neatly drawn up in felt-tip pen – multiple colours, so Karen knew it wasn’t the boys’ work – and Blu-tacked to the kitchen cupboard, right above the overflowing sink.
‘So when are you coming back to Westmead?’ she added. Amy had mentioned it was the last week of term and Karen couldn’t wait to have her best mate back in Bristol.
‘I’m not.’
‘It’s not so bad, you know.’ Karen switched on the kettle so she didn’t have to look her friend in the eye.
‘No, I don’t mean that. It’s just that now I’m out, I want to keep going, you know? There’s a big wide world out there and I want to see it. David and Max are going to Goa for two weeks and they’ve asked me to join them, so maybe I’ll do that if I can get a bit more money together. But I’ll probably just head to London. You know you can earn six quid an hour doing corporate waitressing shifts. And Juliet reckons she can get me some work experience at the magazine house that publishes Mode.’
‘Sounds amazing,’ Karen said wistfully.
‘Got to play catch-up with you, haven’t I?’ Amy said. ‘You’ve got your own money and your own place, a car . . .’
‘You mean a shitty flat and a rusty Fiat Panda. It’s not exactly glam, Ames.’
Amy grinned back and Karen wondered if she was just being kind. She wasn’t stupid; she knew that her friend’s life was on a different path. She had noticed it immediately that first term when Amy had started at Oxford Brookes and she had come up from Bristol to gatecrash the freshers’ bop. She had never seen or heard anything like it: she’d met people dressed in wetsuits drinking yards of ale, spoken to girls who’d taken their ponies to boarding school, and learned about alien things like seminars and wine societies. But over the past few months, since Amy had moved in with a group of students from Oxford University, she had orbited in an even more remote parallel universe. Her new friends didn’t just sound posh; they were practically royal. As for the student house, it might have woodchip on the ceiling, but perched in the town centre, surrounded by the colleges’ golden domes and secret doorways, it was like something out of a fairy tale.
Karen made herself a tea, although she didn’t like the floral smell rising from her mug.
‘So how’s Lee?’ said Amy.
Karen sat down at the table, sighing.
‘That good, huh?’
‘Ah, he’s . . . I dunno, Ames. He’s all right, I suppose. There are plenty of girls who’d give their right arm to be going out with him, but he’s . . .’
What? What was he? Karen thought. Violent? Sometimes, after he’d had eight or ten pints, but then who wasn’t after a skinful? And it wasn’t even that anyway. He was disappointing. That was it. He was good-looking, he had a Golf GTI and Patrick Cox shoes. But that was all. And she had the sense that this was all he’d ever have, because it was all he wanted. Westmead suited Lee; it was his world. Karen had always thought it would be enough for her too. She dropped her hands helplessly onto the table.
‘I dunno, I just thought he’d be something. And he isn’t.’
Amy looked at her, nodding, and Karen could tell she understood. Like, actually, really understood. She didn’t have to tell her the details: that Lee had once threatened to push her out of a taxi for talking to the driver, or that he would go into a rage if she wore heels that he said made her look like a slag. She didn’t need to tell Amy anything because she just knew. That was best friends for you. When you’d grown up together, sharing crushes and dramas, you didn’t need to explain.
For a moment, Karen felt like they were sixteen again, sitting in McDonald’s sharing a milkshake, bitching about teachers and boys, talking about their dreams. They were going to hitch down to London and go to one of those clubs they’d read about in Amy’s magazines, i-D or The Face. They’d meet a rich bloke and he’d offer them modelling contracts. Or they’d go to America and open a shop selling jewellery or perfume. But Amy had done something about those dreams: got a place at Oxford Brookes, worked for the student paper, met all these interesting and exciting people. Karen had done nothing.
‘When do you have to get back?’ asked Amy, glancing up at the clock above the fridge.
‘Trying to get rid of me?’ Karen smiled.
Amy blushed guiltil
y. ‘Not at all. It’s just that it’s the ball tonight and Juliet’s got me in with the caterers. I’ve got to be there at three.’
‘Can’t I stay?’
She looked doubtful. ‘I’ll be working till gone midnight and everyone else has got tickets.’
‘Maybe I could get one.’
‘Kaz, they sold out weeks ago, and it might be a bit weird seeing as you don’t really know anyone . . .’
Karen felt her heart sink, realising for the first time how much she wanted to stay. Or rather, how little she wanted to go back. To what? A job that started at five in the bloody morning? Her mum, always putting her down? Lee?
‘Hey, hey, hey!’
The door burst open and a tall, dark man struggled inside, his arms full of rustling plastic. David. Karen felt herself flushing and tugged her nightdress down.
‘Oh, hi, Karen,’ said David, and she was pleased to see his own cheeks redden a little at the sight of her.
‘Where’ve you been?’ said Amy, standing up to help him.
‘Picking up our suits for tonight.’
There was more rustling behind him as Juliet pushed inside. ‘Bloody men and their stupid white tie,’ she huffed, dropping two large bags next to the fridge. ‘All the way to Walters and back. Why do their clumping shoes have to weigh so much? My arms must be three feet longer.’
David gave her the benefit of his hundred-watt smile. ‘If your arms were three feet longer, you’d be an orang-utan,’ he said. ‘Max and I are very grateful.’ He bent and grabbed her hand, kissing the back of it like a lovelorn knight. Juliet slapped him away, giggling.
‘I don’t know what possessed me to agree to help you losers. A lot of thanks I get.’
‘I’ll get Max to buy you a drink tonight.’
‘Well, let’s have a look then,’ said Amy, nodding towards the bags.
‘Later,’ said David. ‘I shall appear like Aphrodite emerging from the shell.’
‘Wasn’t she naked?’ said Amy.
‘Hmm. Maybe I’ll just wear the bow tie then. If it’s good enough for the Chippendales . . .’
Karen’s heart fluttered a little as she imagined David in just cuffs and shiny briefs. He was gorgeous, after all – and he had gone to Harrow, which meant he was rich. A proper Prince Charming, not that she would ever get anywhere with him; he seemed too much of a gentleman, unlike the lads in Westmead.
‘I’ll leave Max’s here,’ said David, hooking a bag over the kitchen door. ‘If he ever comes home, tell him I want the money before he even touches it.’
‘You can also remind him he owes me a bottle of Bolly,’ added Juliet.
They left, heading off to their respective rooms. Karen had never really understood the co-habiting thing, never having done it herself, unless you counted the endless men her mother would allow to sleep over, padding about in the dark hours. It seemed weird, girls and boys just sharing a space as friends. Maybe it was because she had never had any male friends who hadn’t wanted to shag her.
She took another sip of her tea – did people really like this stuff? – and watched, amused, as Amy started reading her paper again. The Telegraph. The Amy from Westmead would never have read the Telegraph. Neither would she have drunk Earl Grey or eaten olives. But then that Amy was gone, wasn’t she? thought Karen with a sharp stab of bitterness. That was the truth. When Amy had first come to Oxford, stuck in halls on the outskirts of town, it had been easy to pretend that nothing had changed. They’d gone drinking in the Oxford Brookes Union still dressed like twins; the letters had kept coming every few days, even when Amy had made friends on her English course. But then she’d got her job at the pub in the town centre and fallen in with this posh crowd.
And now? Karen reflected on her friend’s bobbed hair, her white shirt, the jazz on the CD player. Amy might think of Karen as a grown-up with all the trappings of adulthood, but it was she who looked grown up. She wasn’t the same Amy who’d bunked off school and giggled over a milkshake.
She looked up at a series of thumps from the direction of the stairs, followed by a crash and a blur of arms and hair.
‘Pog!’ cried Amy, jumping up. ‘I didn’t know you were back.’
‘Sorry, been in my room. Got in about three this morning. Do I look awful?’
He was a giant of a man, and as he shook his red curly hair, something – dust, dirt, twigs? – cascaded to the floor. ‘Shower’s out again. Been hitting it with a spanner, but not sure I’m not making it worse.’
‘Pog, this is Karen, my oldest, dearest friend from back home. Karen, this is my housemate Pog. Where is it you’ve been?’ she asked, turning to him. ‘Egypt?’
‘Scotland, last-minute change. Was supposed to be diving in the Red Sea, but Charlie’s parents have split and his ma’s in the villa, so we went up to Skye, spot of cragging. Much rather be in a bothy than some marble-encrusted monument to Mammon anyway.’
Karen smiled weakly, having no idea what he was talking about.
‘Right, who wants a bacon sandwich?’ he said, opening the fridge and having a ferret around inside.
‘If you’re making, I’ll have one for the road,’ said Karen, hearing her stomach rumble.
‘One for the road?’ said Pog, brandishing a rasher. ‘Not leaving yet, are you? It’s the big night tonight. The ball.’
Karen shrugged, looking across at Amy.
‘I have to work,’ said Amy.
Pog frowned. ‘But don’t you get to join in the fun when you’ve finished? I thought that was the deal?’
‘Apparently I don’t get off until about midnight. And anyway, Karen hasn’t got a ticket.’
Pog’s face lit up and he clicked his fingers. ‘I think Max has a spare. He was taking Belinda Grey, but . . . well, I think there was an incident at the boat club.’
Karen’s heart jumped. Last night, when all the housemates had gone to the pub, all anyone could talk about was the Commem Ball at New College, which apparently was going to be the biggest and craziest night out in history. She had felt like she always did in Oxford: the gatecrashing pleb. Everyone was cleverer, wittier, wearing more expensive clothes. God, they even smelled better than her, all the girls wafting around in a cloud of fifty-quid perfume. Scent. She had to remember to call it scent; ‘perfume’ was a dead giveaway. Still, after Posh James had tried to stick his tongue down her throat and his hand up her top, she had felt accepted enough then. And she knew she wanted a bit of that again.
‘I’ll bet Max has already found some busty blonde from Teddy Hall to take,’ said Amy.
Karen narrowed her eyes. Last night, she had felt that old solidarity with Amy again, thinking that neither of them was going to the stupid ball. But Amy had lied about that, hadn’t she? And now it was obvious that her so-called friend was trying to get rid of her. She turned to Pog.
‘We can at least ask him,’ she said, giving him her sweetest smile.
Pog laughed. ‘Oh, I know exactly where he is.’ He beckoned with one crooked finger. Amy and Karen exchanged bemused glances before Karen followed him down the corridor. He stopped at the door of the small downstairs bathroom. ‘I should warn you, it’s not pretty in there.’
He pushed the door inwards with one finger and it creaked open, revealing the bath, a mildewed curtain half pulled across. Karen gasped. A leg was sticking out.
‘Is . . . is that him?’
Pog strode in and whipped back the curtain. Max was sprawled in the bath, fully dressed, one arm hooked lovingly around a green bottle.
‘I can only apologise,’ said Pog. He leaned forward and twisted the shower tap, sending a torrent of cold water cascading down on Max. The reaction was immediate and extreme.
‘Shit!’ He leapt upwards, his legs pedalling in the air, hands scrabbling at the tiles, then twisted sideways and landed with a clatter on the floor, causing both
Pog and Karen to jump back.
‘Pog, you bloody sadist!’ he yelled, trying to get to his feet and slipping back to his knees. ‘You cretin, I’m wringing!’
‘Language, Maximilian,’ scolded Pog. ‘Ladies present.’
Max looked up through his dripping fringe. ‘Hello, Karen,’ he said, pulling uselessly at his sodden collar. ‘Didn’t, ah, see you there.’
Pog threw him a towel. ‘Pull yourself together. Bacon sandwich?’
By the time Max ambled into the kitchen, he had dried his hair and clearly recovered a little of his customary swagger.
‘Sorry about that,’ he said, pouring the dregs of the champagne bottle into a dirty glass and raising it in a toast. ‘Got back late after the Oriel shindig. Didn’t seem much point in tackling the stairs at that point.’
Pog nodded as if that was a perfectly reasonable explanation.
Max sat down opposite Karen, who tried not to look at his bare chest.
‘On to more pressing business. I hear Lindy Grey has chucked you,’ said Pog, handing him a bacon roll.
Max frowned as he bit into it, ketchup dripping down his chin. ‘I chucked her, mate. She’s a liar for starters. Been making out that her old man’s landed when he’s actually some sort of shopkeeper.’
‘He’s on the board of Waitrose,’ said Amy, without looking up from her paper. ‘She’s always down the Bear on a Friday night. She’s really nice. And pretty, too.’
Max waved his glass dismissively. ‘Point is, she deceived me over her prospects.’
‘Isn’t her grandad like the fiftieth richest man in England or something?’
‘Exactly,’ said Max, pointing an accusatory finger. ‘Fiftieth. I mean, I have to think about my future, don’t I?’
Karen gaped at him. Max was clearly serious. Amy had already filled her in on his background: he too had been to Harrow, and his father was a lawyer, but by Oxford standards, where every second student seemed to be a European princess or a viscount with a family seat, he wasn’t exactly a huge catch. Dripping wet, his dark eyes just a little too close together, he had a weaselly look about him, but one thing he didn’t lack was self-esteem.
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