Love, Lies and Linguine

by Hilary Spiers

  ‘All right! All right!’ Ben tears off his sodden, stinking jeans, hurls them across the kitchen towards the washing machine and thrusts his legs into Artem’s chinos. Daria, grimacing, gingerly picks up the offending clothes between thumb and forefinger and drops them into the drum, loads the drawer with a large scoop of detergent and sets the machine going, before disinfecting her hands at the sink. She turns back, towel in hand, to find Ben angrily trying to prevent the oversized trousers from falling down by bunching the spare material in one fist, Nats head in hands weeping with silent laughter and Artem, ready to go dancing in denims and a checked shirt, taking in the scene from the hall doorway.

  ‘What’s happening?’ He does a double-take and points at Ben’s lower half, frowning. ‘Are those mine?’

  There is a muffled hiccup from Nats, whose small frame is vibrating like a tuning fork. ‘Hello. Are you okay?’

  Nats, head bowed, nods furiously, incapable of speech.

  ‘This is Natalie, Ben’s friend. I tell you about her.’

  ‘Ah, Natalie, of course. Welcome!’ says Artem warmly. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you.’

  ‘Hello,’ Nats manages.

  ‘So why are you wearing my trousers?’ Artem asks Ben, but before he can explain, Daria says irritably, ‘I am having to wash his jeans. Ben! Get rid of stinky cloth!’

  ‘Oh my God, what is that smell?’ gasps Artem, setting Nats off on a fresh paroxysm.

  ‘Ben had accident,’ says Daria.

  Artem looks at the boy, over to the washing machine, then back again. His face changes from bewilderment to revulsion.

  ‘Not that kind of accident!’ shouts Ben, dropping the cloth in the bin. ‘Jesus! Sorry,’ to Daria, before she can protest. ‘I fell off my bike into some sh— . . . muck, that’s all.’

  Artem shakes his head. He’d been in two minds about this jaunt but Daria was insistent, and now the sooner they escape this house—and the smell—the better.

  ‘Go! Go!’ says Ben desperately, having just caught sight of the clock. He shuffles towards the door to usher Daria and Artem on their way, the hems of the chinos caught under his feet. Nats stuffs her sleeve into her mouth.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ says Daria, miffed. ‘But we would not be in hurry if you had not—’

  ‘All right! I’m sorry. Now go and have fun, will you,’ snaps Ben, swiftly cutting off Daria’s usual litany of childcare advice. ‘Yes, I know where the nappies are, I know he has water not milk if he wakes, I know he’s not allowed any biscuits! Now off you go!’

  Startled by Ben’s vehemence, brother and sister grab their coats and keys and leave.

  Seconds later, Nats and Ben hear Harriet’s ancient car—on loan for the duration of her absence—rattle off down the street after some inexpert gear selection on Artem’s part.

  Ben collapses onto a kitchen chair. ‘Shit, shit, shit!’

  Nats is wiping her eyes. ‘Problem, boyfriend?’

  Ben is so stressed he doesn’t even bother to argue with her sarky endearment. ‘What do you think? I’ve got a load of mates turning up at the house for a party in—’ he checks ‘—just under an hour, my bike’s busted to buggery and I’m dressed like a frigging clown. No, no problem at all.’

  Nats strolls over to the laundry basket. ‘Lucky I’m here then, isn’t it?’

  ‘Serious?’ says Ben, looking at himself in the hall mirror five minutes later.

  Nats shrugs, biting on a nail as she eyes him up and down. ‘Best I can improvise in the time available. Think of it as a sort of retro Misfits tribute.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Misfits. It was this great show about—’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ He looks at himself again. ‘You sure about this?’

  He is wearing Artem’s ripped boiler suit belted with rope, undone to the waist to display his white tee. The legs are rolled over several times to bunch over his trainers. ‘But weren’t theirs orange?’

  ‘Well, duh,’ says Nats. ‘We don’t have orange, do we? We have blue. I guess, in a poor light and from a distance, if you ignore the colour, there is a very—and I mean very—faint resemblance to Robert Sheehan.’

  ‘Yeah?’ repeats Ben, instantly feeling a whole lot more cheerful. ‘Robert Sheehan, eh . . .’ He supposes, now he comes to think of it, that his currently mussed hair—the earlier styling totally ruined by his encounter with the hedge—does look a little bit like . . .

  ‘Don’t start getting up yourself. Like I say, from a very great distance. Anyway, it’s all about attitude, clothes. Look like you feel comfortable, you can wear anything,’ says Nats. Then she remembers. ‘Except, maybe, your sister’s totally fucked cashmere sweater.’

  ‘Sorry,’ says Ben, meaning it.

  ‘Yeah, well, I’ll have to think of something, won’t I? While you’re off enjoying yourself. Talking of which, you better scoot. Wanna borrow my bike?’

  Ben, in spite of himself, is touched. ‘Nah, ta all the same. It’s only five minutes. Look, I’ll be back just before eleven, okay? Please God they don’t decide to come home any earlier.’ He takes one last look at himself in the mirror. Truth is, the get-up really doesn’t look half bad.

  Nats regards him thoughtfully. He’s a bit of a muppet sometimes, but . . .

  ‘You know what? Here’s an idea. Why don’t you not come back at all?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I’ll tell them you went to bed early with a headache or something. They won’t check, will they? Then I’ll get myself off home as per. And you creep in whatever time you like. What d’you think? Is it a plan?’

  Ben, rapidly running through the implications of her suggestion, is speechless with admiration. Not only is it a plan, it’s pure genius. No danger of getting back too late (he knows where Daria hides the spare key), no danger of getting caught if Artem decides not to go to bed the minute they get back from the dance. It’ll mean he can go and enjoy himself without busting a gut to sneak back. He won’t have to risk leaving the cottage in his friends’ unreliable care. He won’t have to hold back on the booze either. As ideas go, it rocks. It’s awesome! She’s awesome! He could kiss her. Even though she’s a total smart-arse ninety-nine per cent of the time, he could kiss her. Almost.

  ‘Ta,’ he says, restraining himself—just—from high-fiving her instead. He has a feeling she might consider that less than cool. ‘Ta very much. I owe you. Big-time.’

  By eleven pm no-one has gatecrashed, thrown up or kicked off. Ben’s outfit has been deemed well cool by several of the girls, his food vanished the moment it appeared and sufficient alcohol has been consumed to make everything and everyone pleasantly mellow. Someone’s iPod is playing a mournful Brother & Bones song, a few couples shuffling in unsteady circles in the denuded sitting room, arms looped around each other’s necks, with further pairings making out in corners and on the stairs. Ben and two of his similarly partnerless classmates, more than a little bored in truth but determined not to show it, are trading harmless insults about the merits of their respective football teams in the kitchen, with Ben vaguely wondering whether he has the makings of some pancakes in the larder. Most of the guests had brought giant bags of crisps and Wotsits—now long gone—and he has a sudden craving for something sweet. He also has something much stronger than a craving for a sight of Louisa, who, as predicted, has not turned up. He can’t bear the thought of Nats’ face when next he sees her. Or Jez’s, come to that. Assuming he ever shows.

  He reaches down the side of the fridge where he had secreted his cans to meet only air.

  ‘Oi, you lot snarfed my booze?’ He turns on his companions, suddenly furious.

  The two boys step back, muttering denials: ‘Weren’t me.’ ‘I got my own.’

  ‘Well, someone has!’

  ‘Maybe,’ says Tom unwisely, ‘you finished it.’

  ‘Oh, yeah? Or maybe some scumbag’s been helping themselves.’

  ‘Hey, don’t go off on one!’

  ‘Don’t tell me what to do!
’

  With some part of his brain, Ben is aware that this manufactured spat is not about cans of lager, nor about needing sugar: it’s about Louisa, or the lack of her. If it weren’t for her and Jez, there’d be no party; a party that, if he’s really being honest, largely sucks. He wouldn’t have to lug furniture back in from the garden all day tomorrow and replace all those shitty books and other crap—probably single-handed, as Jez’ll no doubt find some excuse not to help out. And as for Louisa Jellinek: fuck her. Fuck her blonde hair, her hot hard bod, her flirty little giggle . . .

  ‘Man!’ breathes Tom, staring over Ben’s shoulder down the hall to the front door, which has just opened. ‘Man alive! How awesome is that!’

  Three identical slender figures sashay into the hallway, coronas of bright fuchsia like enormous peonies around each immaculate face, bodies sheathed in bright green jumpsuits with spaghetti straps and cinched belts, the ensembles completed with gravity-defying heels. Ben cannot find words at all.

  ‘You like?’ Louisa pirouettes in the kitchen doorway, her two friends posing like caryatids either side of her. She points at her head. ‘Clock the wigs! Fantabuloso or what?’ Then her eyes light on Ben and his outfit. ‘Yo, Ben my man, neat gear!’ She blows the thunderstruck trio a kiss. ‘Brought you a little pressie,’ she cries, waggling a bottle of Grey Goose in Ben’s direction. ‘Let’s party, babes!’ And she and her entourage totter over to the paper cups on the counter.

  ‘Jeez,’ whispers Tom, ‘she must be loaded. That’s thirty-five quid of anyone’s money. You are one lucky fucker, Ben Fry.’

  Ben, himself more than a little bombed, can see that Louisa and her besties Kat and Els, unsteadily filling the flimsy cups with vodka, are indeed loaded, if not quite in the way Tom meant. The world is suddenly a much, much better place. ‘Hey,’ says Lou confidingly, leaning in his direction so that he can smell her sweet intoxicated breath, ‘this is like really good shit, babes. You wanna try? Yeah, ’course you do. Give the man some voddy, Els.’ The girls hoot as Els, struggling to pour while keeping her balance in her towering heels, sways dangerously trying to line up bottle and cup. Lou grabs the vodka from her and, snickering, holds it to Ben’s unresisting mouth and upends it. In his surprise he gulps a huge mouthful, the alcohol hitting the back of his throat like a wave on the way down. He swallows, chokes, coughs, feeling the fire punch his chest and stomach. His eyes fill involuntarily.

  ‘Don’t drink it all!’ shrieks Kat. The other boys look on open-mouthed as Louisa’s arm glides round Ben’s neck to cradle his head between her perfect breasts. He takes in her scent, her heat, that almost imperceptible tang of sweat that ought to be a turn-off but so isn’t. He could stay here forever. Then a damp hand is pressed to his mouth and his lips open automatically like a puppy snaffling a treat. In goes something round and small, followed immediately by the neck of the vodka bottle. Another torrent of alcohol chases the pill down his throat before he can protest. The girls explode with laughter.

  He staggers, rights himself, tries to focus on the three flowers whose heads are now bobbing to the saccharine but oddly compelling beat of Katy Perry’s ‘Last Friday Night’, which has miraculously replaced the earlier music, with Louisa, Kats and Els performing a highly rehearsed routine and singing along raucously to the chorus. He steadies himself on the counter, hooking his fingers through the handles of the drawers behind him for stability, only for one to detach itself from its mooring and clatter to the floor.

  The girls, still dancing and passing the bottle from one to the other, whoop like banshees. Kat reaches down to retrieve the handle and starts spinning it round and round on her forefinger as part of her routine. This, apparently, is the funniest thing her friends have ever seen, if their hysteria is any guide.

  Ben, desperately trying to stop the world from sliding out of true, watches Kat’s gyrating finger with its metal girdle going round and round like a fairground ride, his head trying desperately to keep pace with it. His eyes seem to be on an orbit of their own, sneaking off in all directions no matter how sternly his brain speaks to them. Something tells him he would do better to close his eyes.

  ‘Oi, wake up, babes!’

  With a superhuman effort he wrenches his lids apart to find an enormous face in his, filling the universe, the lips moving like a sea creature, sounds he can’t catch dribbling out. They’re eeling away like ribbons in the wind; he puts out a hand to catch them but they are so slippery . . .

  ‘Having fun, Benji-boy?’ breathes the flower, fronds about his face like silk.

  He wants to nod, but his head won’t move. His legs, however, decide they’ve held him up for long enough: he slides neatly down the cupboard to the floor.

  ‘Aw, bless him, that was quick!’ says Louisa to her companions. ‘He’s well gone!’

  ‘’S good shit, babes,’ Els says with a giggle. ‘Hope you still got some left.’ It’s unclear whether she’s referring to the vodka or Louisa’s little pills.

  Louisa is reaching into her bag when the doorbell rings. The noise cuts through the music, interrupts the chatter and the snogging. It rings on and on insistently, piercingly, imperiously. As though someone means business. As though someone has every intention of pressing it until the end of the world. Or someone answers it.

  Someone does.

  All the guests crowd into the hallway; those who cannot insinuate themselves into the throng peer around doorways and through banisters or stand on tiptoe at the back. Only Ben, spread-eagled on the kitchen floor, images whirling sickeningly behind his eyelids as the unaccustomed alcohol surges through him, remains oblivious as the door is flung open to reveal a mass of muscles, testosterone and machismo, fronted by a triumphant Jez, borne aloft on several beefy shoulders. ‘Hey, guys, say hi to my bros! Look who’s home!’

  And the full complement (plus subs) of the Hatchets, one of the least successful but most feared of university rugby teams, armed to the teeth with bottles and six-packs, thunders through the doorway, scattering everyone in their path, led by their captain, Henry Nairstrom. Otherwise known as Hedge.

  SATURDAY

  CHAPTER 33

  It’s just past midnight.

  The communal feast has ended, as such events usually do, with the company breaking into small groups dictated by proximity, friendships or—as time wears on—inertia. Some of those leaving tomorrow have already made for their rooms to finish their packing, get their heads down for the morrow’s travel ordeal or engage in that time-honoured finale to a foreign holiday, muffled copulation.

  Harriet is sitting by the window overlooking the moonlit garden with Regina and Charles and Bella and Guy, the last having been trying to persuade his reluctant wife for the past ten minutes that they really ought to call it a night.

  ‘You’ll be exhausted tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh, tomorrow,’ says Bella, leaning back in her armchair with eyes closed. ‘Tomorrow can look after itself.’ She opens one eye and inspects her glass. ‘Besides, I haven’t finished my drink.’ The eye shuts sleepily.

  Guy, smiling wryly in defeat, shakes his head at Harriet. Bless her heart, she thinks, she just wants to wring every last drop out of this holiday. She hopes they remain in touch, fears that life—and Jack—may make that difficult. I must make the effort; it’s up to me to ensure it happens. She adds that resolution to the list of tasks awaiting her on her return home. Track down Stephen’s mother—

  ‘Your sister’s little romance seems to be flourishing,’ says Regina, peering through the window.

  Hester and Lionel are seated close together outside on the terrace, backs to the hotel; in the half-light it’s hard to see, but they may be holding hands. Harriet has been trying not to look too closely for the past half-hour.

  ‘Getting serious, is it?’ Regina sits forward eagerly. ‘I only ask because a little bird told me that there was a very public display of affection earlier when they were cooking together. And we do like a happy ending, don’t we, Charles?’ Charles be
ams, whether in agreement or because that’s the way he always responds to his wife’s questions it’s hard to say.

  ‘Holiday romance,’ murmurs Bella from the depths of her armchair, blindly reaching out for her glass. Guy gets to it before she can knock it over and wraps her fingers around the stem, earning a lopsided smile.

  I hope so, thinks Harriet. She smiles neutrally at Regina.

  ‘Ooh, cagey, aren’t we? She must have said something.’ Honestly, in the nosiness stakes, Regina would be neck and neck with Peggy Verndale. ‘Don’t be coy, Harriet.’

  Harriet, now adding this new intelligence about her sister and Lionel to the earlier shock of his plans to stay on, manages a smile. ‘I think they’re simply good friends. Shared interests, that’s all.’

  Regina turns to Charles. ‘Come along, my love, looks like we’re not going to get another word out of the sphinx and it’s way past our bedtime.’ She gets to her feet and turns to extract her husband from his chair with the practice born of long experience. She places a steadying arm under his and, after an imperious goodnight that takes in the whole room, they make their way out of the bar, oddly dignified despite the disparity in their heights and his obvious infirmity.

  ‘Funny old world,’ says Guy, eyes coming to rest on his now-sleeping wife. He puts his arms around her unresisting body and pulls her upright. ‘Will we see you in the morning, Harriet?’

  She nods and rises to kiss his cheek, then his wife’s.

  Bella mutters, ‘Nighty night.’

  ‘Aspirin,’ says Harriet in Guy’s ear, ‘before she goes to sleep.’

  He smiles his thanks.

  ‘Sweet dreams.’

  There is a slight chill in the air, but neither Hester nor Lionel is minded to move. They sit in companionable silence for a few minutes, staring up at the stars, the bright moon spilling a path across the garden. A minute gecko darts up from beneath the table in front of them and quivers on the edge, regarding them quizzically with head inclined as if questioning their invasion of his territory. A second later, with a flick of its tail, it vanishes. Lionel clears his throat.