by Jenny Colgan
Fleur tutted. ‘You know why.’
‘And so what if I did see Adam. He was hardly serious, if I was to go and see him.’ Posy had been planning on giving up the whole thing, actually. But her mother and sister’s intransigence was driving her crazy.
‘But it’s not Adam, is it? It’s—’
‘Don’t bother.’
‘You still can’t hear his name, can you?’
‘Shut up.’
‘You’re going to see Lord Voldemort.’
‘Well, I can’t and I won’t.’
Fleur blinked. ‘Oh my God, he’s not on Facebook, is he? You can’t find him! Trust him to live off the grid. I suppose he did always follow his own rules . . .’
‘Don’t you get nostalgic about him.’
Fleur sighed. ‘He was quite something.’
‘Shut up.’
‘I never understood why he went for—’
‘Shut up, Fleur.’
Posy was trembling. Her sister had just gone too far. Again. It was unlike Posy to get so enraged and Fleur took heed for once. They walked on in silence.
‘So, uhm, you’re not going to take me out to dinner then,’ said Fleur eventually.
‘No,’ said Posy.
Fine, thought Fleur. So I won’t tell you.
And she promptly forgot all about it.
Posy is thinking that some people should mind their own beeswax.
Comment: Like.
Comment, Fleur: Fleur is thinking that some people ought to be sectioned.
‘Hey,’ said Matt, not unkindly, when she got home. ‘How’s your mum?’
Posy grunted.
‘That bad, huh? Don’t tell me, she told you she’d always truly wanted one of her children to be gay, so it has to be you?’
‘No.’
‘She wants to use you as a test case in a book?’
Posy shook her head.
‘OK. How was it? Did you tell her about us?’
‘What’s to tell, Matt?’
Matt shrugged and looked awkward. ‘I don’t know, Posy. I really don’t. I think I need some time.’
‘How about fifty years?’ said Posy. ‘Please. Come on. Let’s just work it out together. After we’re married. It’ll be fun. Come on!’
She could hear the desperation in her voice. Matt backed away.
‘I’m not . . . I’m not ready yet, Posy.’
‘Oh, crap in a bucket,’ said Posy, as Matt started folding open the sofa bed. It took up the entire sitting room. She picked up her laptop and hared off to the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
She logged on. Checked who was online. And there he was. Adam Linden, with a little green dot next to his name. Shooting the door a cross look, she typed.
Hi there!
Immediately it pinged back - Hi, babe! Long time!
- Yeah! Fancy a drink sometime?
- Sure! Shoreditch House?
It couldn’t be that easy. Bloody hell. And nobody else called her babe. Nobody called anybody babe, these days, did they?
Posy blinked. She couldn’t help it, she glanced behind her, feeling guilty. No sign of Matt. It must just be a hangover from the old days, that she was feeling her pulse race a little faster, felt a little wobbly. She was reliving being twenty-three, that was all.
And why shouldn’t she go? Her family had already given up on her as a bad job, it was only a drink, and Matt was paying her no attention at all. She bloody just might. It was perfectly innocent, and she could hardly make things worse by seeing him.
Right, she would give Matt one last chance. Just as she thought that, she heard an anguished groan come from the bathroom.
She got up. The bathroom door was, unusually, closed.
‘What’s up?’ she called.
Matt didn’t answer, so she pushed it open, feeling strange. A week ago, she wouldn’t even have asked.
Matt was lying in the bath, looking oddly strangulated. The breath coming out of his mouth was visible. As she looked closer she could see that the bath had lumps in it.
‘What are you doing? You look like the end of Titanic,’ Posy observed.
‘Go away, please.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m taking an ice bath, if you must know. Good for the muscles, aids mental focus and concentration.’
‘Is the mental focus and concentration on saying, Fuck, this is cold?’
‘No.’
‘How blue do you have to be before you can come out? Turquoise or more of a “night sky”?’
Matt grimaced at her.
‘I’m leaving! I’m getting out.’
‘Maybe,’ he grunted, ‘this not-moving-out thing isn’t actually working all that well.’
Posy slammed the door on him. ‘Fine!’ she yelled. ‘Move out whenever you like. To an igloo!’
Great, babe! See you there!
Chapter Fourteen
Posy is going shopping.
Comment: Like.
Leah likes this.
‘What do I wear to Shoreditch House?’
Posy had decided to meet Leah for an emergency lunch stop cum shopping expedition.
‘I need to, you know, totally blow Adam’s socks off and look completely cool without looking like I’m trying too hard or that I’m trying to get off with him or that I’d just go and get off with anyone, or—’
Leah rolled her eyes, but there was no doubt about it - she felt slightly responsible for this.
‘OK, OK, calm down,’ said Leah. Posy felt mollified at this until Leah added, ‘Have you thought about leopard skin? It’s back again, but this time with a twist.’
Posy blinked at her. ‘Leah. Nothing “with a twist” OK? This is me you’re talking to, not the editor of Italian Vogue.’
Leah was wearing black leggings that appeared to be made out of rubber, and a tulle top in pale green.
‘How did you get into those leggings, by the way?’
‘I get up early and refuse fluids,’ said Leah. ‘OK, try this.’ She pulled what looked like a rather pretty fresh sailor-coloured top from the rail, until Posy noticed it was actually a woollen playsuit.
‘What?’ Leah clocked Posy’s horrified expression.
‘What?! I’d look like Andy Pandy: the Prostitute Years.’
‘It’s sassy!’
‘It’s an arrestable offence. Are you going to concentrate, or am I going to Gap on my own?’
Leah shivered at the mere mention of Gap.
‘No, no, OK. But this is Shoreditch House, all right? Not grab a granny night at Tiger Tiger.’
Posy rolled her eyes. ‘It was a mistake, remember? In fact, wasn’t it you who pulled—’
‘OK, OK, let’s keep moving. How’s it going with Matt, incidentally? ’
‘I’m picking out an outfit to meet my ex-boyfriend in. How do you think it’s going?’
‘Is this just to spite him?’
Posy considered it. ‘No! Honestly, I still . . . I mean, I do . . . OK, Adam and I shared some pretty shallow times together, but I still want to know. What it might have been like, what I was like - this is all I ever wanted till it got blown out of proportion.’
‘Mmhmm.’
‘And Matt is still being a completely reasonable . . . argh. He’s being tough.’
‘For a good reason.’
‘Yes, I know that.’
Leah looked bashful. ‘I’m sorry. It’s my fault.’
‘No, I think maybe some time on our own might be useful to get this out of my system, you know?’ Posy glanced at her hand and Leah gasped.
‘He really took your ring off you?’
‘Yeah. I thought doing it might make him feel so bad he’d dash over and put it on again and we could forget all this. But he hasn’t. So. Let’s go.’
‘Oh, Posy, that is so sad.’
‘Don’t make me cry. Make me look gorgeous.’
In tribute to spring - OK, it still felt like the depths of winter, but it must surely be round the c
orner at some point - they compromised on a fresh, shorter-than-Posy-would-normally-choose little dress with a floral pattern.
‘Wear it with fishnets and big clumpy boots,’ said Leah. ‘And tear some holes in the fishnets.’
‘Won’t I look like Blossom?’ said Posy.
‘Nobody that goes to Shoreditch House is old enough to remember Blossom,’ said Leah.
‘Well, that does make me feel better,’ muttered Posy, but she did like the dress when she put it on. It made her look young and, well, ready to party.
Leah regarded her in the big mirror. ‘Ready for Adam then?’
‘Stop sounding disapproving,’ said Posy. ‘I’m not going to pull him or anything.’
‘Mmmhmm,’ said Leah.
‘I’m not.’
Leah put down the pile of skirts she’d pulled out just in case she could persuade Posy to go for something a little more adventurous.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘apart from you two going out and getting bladdered and having nookie, what did you ever really have in common? Really?’
Posy remembered. It must have been, what, six or seven weeks into her time in London. She’d found a room in a shared house with some girls from university she didn’t know very well, and a job basically running out for coffee at a low-level direct mailing company. At the time, though, that had felt like a huge success. She was earning, and living independently. She missed having a boyfriend but the newness of everything - finding her way around London; figuring out the best place to stand so she’d get on the right tube carriage; getting jostled around the West End on weekend evenings and eating cheap Chinese food in China Town - meant she didn’t miss him quite as much as she’d expected.
And although the girls hadn’t turned out to be quite the Sex and the City sophisticates she was hoping for - why, she wondered, move to London if your sole aim in life was to never miss an episode of EastEnders? Maybe to feel closer to the cast? - she’d already been out for a few drinks with people from work, had got back in closer touch with her sister, who was doing some ridiculous homeopathy course in Chelsea and had lots of cool friends who somehow looked on Posy as being madly staid for actually having to get up five days a week (Posy managed to conveniently forget that she had only recently held the same opinion herself about anyone with a real job), and, in general, was loving life in the capital.
One night in the flat, Brinny, a rather stolid quantity surveyor, had come in saying, ‘Oh, yawn. There’s a huge uni get-together next weekend in Fulham. That sounds absolutely gruesome. I can’t imagine who would want to go to that.’
Posy’s ears pricked up. In fact, ever since the night of the university ball - when she felt she was getting a glimpse of everything she’d missed for the three years she’d stayed in with Chris - she had been quite keen to meet up with some of the people she’d never really got to know. Carla, for instance. She bit her lip. She wouldn’t, of course, admit to herself that she was quite interested in, well, she had occasionally wondered what was up with that arrogant posh boy . . . not that she cared or wanted to see him, of course, it would just be nice to widen her contacts in town.
‘Oh, I might drop in, spot a few familiar faces,’ she said casually.
Which was how she found herself, a week later, in an unfamiliar part of town - west London, which was much more salubrious than the slighty dodgy suburb she was flatting in - dressed up nervously and sitting on her own. Brinny hadn’t fancied it, and Posy had hung back as late as she’d dared, only to find in the pub she was still miles too early and had to nurse an incredibly expensive glass of wine as all around hordes of screaming - and wildly attractive - young Londoners about town greeted each other confidently. She conjured with the idea of trying to keep seats for people - but then, what people? What if it was all people she no longer recognised? After all, she hadn’t even been directly invited. It was technically a free-for-all, but what if it wasn’t? What if Brinny had got the wrong end of the stick and it was someone’s totally private birthday party or something like that and everyone would turn up wearing matching party hats, and—
Posy had just about convinced herself to leave, when she heard her name being called over the roar of the pink-cheeked crowd.
‘Pose!! POSE!!’
It was Carla, looking the same as ever - enthusiastic and slightly mad. Posy doubted she’d ever been so pleased to see anyone in her life, and leapt up. Unfortunately she spilled her wine over herself in the process.
‘Uh, hi, Carla!’
‘Posy! I didn’t know you’d be here!’
‘Uhm, no, me neither . . .’ said Posy, her voice trailing off. Her heart suddenly caught and jumped a beat, as she spotted who was following Carla, carrying a bottle of champagne and two glasses - wildly flash in itself. It was him.
As Adam saw her, his mouth unfurled into a huge wolfish grin. Posy felt ridiculous, like a schoolgirl at a disco. He must have known all along, however much she tried to be standoffish.
‘Well, look at you,’ said Adam. ‘Perhaps we’d better get you out of those wet clothes.’
Posy grinned nervously. And after that, Carla was forgotten - and engulfed, into a large group of people Posy barely recognised but who turned out to have been there the whole time, all of them bragging excitedly about their new lives and careers in the smoke.
Adam, however, didn’t do any of that. He grabbed his champagne bottle and the two glasses and somehow procured a little corner booth which cut down on the peripheral noise of twenty-somethings living it up. After a while it was so stagey and funny and new to Posy she couldn’t help giggling.
‘What’s so funny?’ demanded Adam. ‘You must tell me.’
Posy couldn’t. And she couldn’t help it: it was sexy, and charming. He had such an absolute assumption that he was going to sit her in this corner, get her tipsy then pull her. And, weirdly, it made him incredibly attractive, this focus. She looked at him. He wore his very dark hair long so that he could push it back raffishly with his hand, a smart, navy-blue suit with a blue tie, loosened, and a white shirt, the clean cuffs of which showed beneath the buttons at his wrist, along with an old, expensive-looking gold watch. The black hairs on his arms crept over the band of the watch in a way that fascinated Posy for reasons she didn’t understand. He was so different from big soft sandy Chris. He was lean, and venal, and almost certainly not as nice. She liked him.
‘Nothing is funny,’ she said, suddenly chastened. He looked at her intensely.
‘Nothing? What about my hilarious work anecdotes and charming manner?’
She smiled. ‘Oh, sorry, was that you trying to be charming?’
He rolled his eyes. ‘I think I’d better get you another drink.’
Posy watched him move through the bar, confidently, smoothly, waving hello to a few aquaintances but not stopping, taking his good leather wallet out of his back pocket. He was, she decided, by some margin, the best-looking boy there. It wasn’t a question of whether she was going to sleep with him. It was only a question of when - and what he was going to teach her when she did.
‘So,’ he said as he returned, bearing two ludicrous-looking cocktails. ‘Tell me about you. Where did you grow up?’
Posy squirmed. She didn’t really like talking about it. People either got highly interested in her mother’s job, or had had the same thing happen to them and wanted to tell her about their dads. Either way, she didn’t like it very much.
‘I was raised in the mountains by wolves,’ she said.
‘Wolves, huh?’ said Adam, raising a heavy eyebrow.
‘Yeah, they were great. Though it’s hard to find the milk now. I miss it.’
Adam grinned. ‘Do you have particularly sharp teeth, or . . .’
Posy smiled. ‘Oh, yes. And a vestigial tail.’
‘A-dam!’ It was Carla, looking peeved. ‘We’re all going to eat, want to come? They can probably fit seventeen of us in at Napule.’
Posy glanced at her watch. Who were these confident p
eople who didn’t have to keep track of the last train home? Who had enough money to eat out at the last minute? Who were perfectly sure that a restaurant would be happy to seat seventeen people at ten-thirty at night? What had she missed out on while she and Chris were busy stirring lentil stew in their little terraced house?
‘Are you going to come with us?’
The invitation was quite clearly not aimed at both of them. Adam shot a quick look at Posy, who kept her face studiedly neutral. It was a long way back to Clapton.
‘Neh,’ he said, stretching lazily. Posy felt her heart leap, and told herself off for appearing too keen - heck, for being too keen. But, on the other hand, what if he vanished now and she never heard from him again? ‘I think I’ll just eat olives tonight.’
Carla looked from one to the other, her face an unhidden mass of disappointment. In a strange way, this galvanised Posy. If this gorgeous, popular girl wanted Adam, then obviously she was OK to want him too. She wasn’t accidentally getting off with a weirdo she didn’t know very well; he was indeed what he appeared. A sexy, confident man whom suddenly she wanted to kiss very much.
‘Fine,’ said Carla rudely. ‘See you around.’ And she turned on her high heels and left.
‘I have no idea who that just was,’ said Adam, and even though Posy thought that was a little cruel, she found herself laughing anyway.
They drank more, laughed more and it felt like seconds before the bar was closing and they found themselves turned out into the dark night.
‘Which way are you headed?’ asked Adam, his eyes glinting in the street lights.
‘East,’ said Posy, which was easier to explain than the distant suburb she lived in, which nobody had ever heard of - at least nobody in Fulham, she was sure.
‘Ah, shame,’ said Adam, and Posy felt her heart plummet. ‘I’m not far from here . . . but the other way.’
‘Oh,’ said Posy. They stood there. Earlier rainfall had left the road glistening and wet, and quiet, as the tubes stopped running and even the bright young things went home on a school night.
‘Of course?’