by Jenny Colgan
‘Could we just get out of here?’
Cal glanced around. ‘You mean, move to the undiscovered west wing?’
‘What about your room?’ I said.
He stopped teasing me and looked straight at me then. ‘Are you sure?’
I took his arm. I wasn’t sure of anything, I just had to get out of there and try and stop all these questions running round my head. ‘Yes,’ I said.
I followed him as he swept towards the kitchen door, the noise of the party outside ominously loud. Just as we got there I heard a voice say my name and turned round. It was Eck. He was standing there, holding my drink and looking perturbed.
‘Sophie. Are you OK?’
Cal gave him a quick, annoyed glance.
‘I’m fine,’ I said, trying to sound like I knew what I was doing.
‘Are you sure?’ he said.
Cal’s lips twitched in annoyance and he continued on. Eck’s expression looked pained.
Cal’s bedroom must have been the largest in the house, at the front. The bare wooden floorboards in here didn’t look quite as bad as they did on the stairs. On every available surface were bits and pieces of twisted metal and clay.
‘Is this what you’re working on?’ I said.
Cal grunted. ‘Something along those lines.’
Then he threw himself back onto his bed. I sat down on a stuffed armchair in the corner of the room. It made me feel oddly formal.
‘I found that on a skip,’ he said.
‘Where’s your snake?’ I asked, suddenly nervous.
‘There’s really no snake,’ said Cal, laughing. ‘You do have to get over believing that. OK. I gave it five pounds and told it to take itself to the cinema tonight so it didn’t spoil the party.’
‘What’s it going to see, The Adder Boleyn Girl?’
‘Actually, it’s got more art house tastes. I think it’s seeing Snaking the Waves.’
I smiled and relaxed, even as I felt Cal’s eyes upon me.
‘You’re a mystery woman, Cinders,’ said Cal, softly. ‘I don’t know what to make of you, I really don’t.’
Even the sound of his voice sent shivers down my spine. Enough talking. His dark eyes were completely inscrutable. But for now, seeking oblivion, seeking something new, something to make me feel good, feel better, I didn’t care. This was what I wanted. I gave him a look that conveyed exactly that. The noise of the party was loud below us, but I didn’t give a toss.
Cal sighed. ‘I knew having a female flatmate was going to mean big trouble,’ he said. Then he got up, his wiry height blocking out the light from the lamp, strode across the room and suddenly, brutally, kissed me.
Chapter Eleven
It was just like I’d hoped it would be. Fierce. Not particularly gentle. God it felt good to be with a man who knew exactly what he was about and what he wanted; even if - maybe especially if - he’d honed his skills through an insane amount of practice with different girls. Nonetheless it didn’t feel as if he was going through the motions; Philly once slept with an ex-boy-band member and said he was completely lazy, as if he was doing it because he felt obliged to share himself with the world, just because so many women fancied him. Oh, and he was unbelievably, insultingly concerned about the condom going on properly, implying she was riddled with disease and desperate to steal his spunk at the same time. (Not completely unwise on his part when dealing with Philly though.)
I took in the smell and sense of Cal’s long, lean body. He wasn’t muscly, but skinny and smooth. Weirdly, he wasn’t entirely unlike a very sexy snake himself. I finally fell into an exhausted sleep around five, watching the shadows brighten across his concave cheeks, his eyelashes nearly brushing the cheekbones. It was the first dreamless sleep I’d had in weeks.
Of course, and I’d known he would all along, when I woke up in the morning, he had gone. Vanished. At least he’d had the manners not to disappear the second it was over, and go and see if there were any more pickings to be had at the party. He’d hardly got warmed up, I reflected, by the time I’d hauled him upstairs.
I brushed away my disappointment. I’d known this would happen, of course. This was what boys did to me. Rufus had done it, and Cal would do it too. And I’d wanted a quick fix. And it had worked, for a while, even if I wasn’t particularly proud of myself. I’d used him far more than he’d used me. Still.
Oh God. I suddenly realised I was going to have to do the walk of shame in my own bloody flat. Surely not. I glanced over at the window. No, we were three storeys off the ground. Climbing out wasn’t an option.
I looked around. The room looked a lot less romantic in the harsh light of the morning. There were no curtains on the windows. How could people live like that? Had it genuinely just never crossed his mind to get some curtains? I guessed not. I suppose when all your concentration was focused on sculpting and shagging, maybe you somehow skipped the other stuff.
Well, I had to do something. I was desperate for the toilet for starters. I looked around for clothes. Oh God, of course there was only the dress I’d been wearing the night before. I could grab one of his shirts, but, one, it would look totally, embarrassingly presumptuous and, two, I’d seen too many girls arrive shyly in our kitchen having done exactly that. I didn’t want him to think for a moment that I was one of those, desperately hanging around for too long; calling long after he’d stopped answering. I mean, we had to see each other. I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea. Plus, I wasn’t sure I’d look better than them in it.
Holding my dress around me, trying to get it to cover everything, I put my foot on the cold floorboards. They squeaked immediately. Bugger this cheap and decrepit and tacky house and everything in it. As I went vertical, I could feel my head starting to spin. Normally I reckoned I didn’t get hangovers but now I wondered if it was because I’d been more used to drinking nice, clean, expensive champagne, and not the gut rot I’d partaken of last night with such gusto. Now my head felt like a cement mixer and my stomach was full of acid and an emotion I really didn’t like. Shame.
Really, it probably wasn’t the best idea to crap on your own doorstep, no matter how sexy the doorstep . . . well, that analogy wasn’t working terribly well. Despite a distinctly dizzy, sicky, yuck sensation and a taste in my mouth to suggest that at some point I’d dug a tunnel in the woods with my teeth, swallowing all the worms along the way, I was just going to have to get on with it.
Taking a deep breath, I launched myself through the door. Nobody in the corridor, good. Oh, whoops, I had overlooked that there was someone in the corridor - Wolverine, stretched out and having a nap. Carefully, I tiptoed past and made it to the stairwell. Then I tiptoed down the stairs, creaking on each one. Halfway down I decided I didn’t care and made a flying leap down the rest towards my bedroom door, my dress floating out behind me. ‘Yaaaargh!’ I yelled, as I came face to face with Eck, and he came face to face with me. And one of my boobs, which was hanging straight out.
Normally I’d have expected a friendly quip or something, but he merely glanced at me, said, ‘Hi, Sophie,’ in a very flat voice and skirted past me to head up the stairs. I backed myself against the wall.
‘Hi, Eck,’ I said quietly. He had been flirting with me. And then I just waltzed off with his flatmate. It must have felt like a kick in the teeth. But Eck . . . I couldn’t just have copped off with him. At least I knew Cal was a thick-skinned crocodile who got through women like packets of crisps. I’d never even seen Eck with a girl. Who knows what a one night stand would mean to him? Still, I hadn’t wanted to make him feel bad. Not for anything. At the very least I’d hoped we were friends.
‘Got a bit drunk last night,’ I said, staring at my feet.
‘Really?’ he said. ‘You didn’t seem that far gone to me.’
‘No, no,’ I said. ‘I was. I can hardly remember a thing. My head is about to fall off. I feel . . . really stupid.’
Which I did, standing butt naked on a freezing cold stairwell explaining to on
e flatmate why I’d just shagged another flatmate.
Eck looked a bit mollified. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry about it. A lot of girls . . .’ He seemed about to say more then stopped himself. ‘I mean, don’t be too hard on yourself.’
And that made me feel guiltier than ever.
Reaching the safety of my bedroom, I threw on a pair of jeans and two jumpers and stared in the tiny mirror. Last night’s make-up had congealed all the way down my face. My cheeks had green stains on them. I looked a terrible, terrible, horrifying fright. Which didn’t really matter, as I was now going to stay in my bedroom for ever.
Oh God. Let me see. I supposed I should be as businesslike and as unfussed as possible. I remembered Meiko, a gloriously pretty Japanese girl with whom Cal had enjoyed a particularly athletic weekend. She left him little origami gifts at the front door every day for a fortnight. He had to know I wasn’t one of those.
So, mind set, I limped nervously into the kitchen. Whereupon my resolve crumbled instantly. Cal’s long lean pale body was leaning against the fridge, and he appeared to be in the middle of recounting some hilarious anecdote to James, which stopped the second I emerged, leaving me instantly suspicious that they’d been talking about me.
‘What ho!’ hollered James, all but confirming my suspicions.
‘Morning,’ I said, as breezily as I could manage, which wasn’t very.
‘MOR - ning,’ said James in a cheeky, wink wink, how’s-your-father type tone. How he ever got here from the 1950s I’d never know.
‘Hey,’ said Cal.
I tried to analyse his ‘hey’. Was it a ‘Hey, how you doin’?’ sexy kind of hey? Or a ‘Hey, who are you again, never mind I’m not that fussed’ kind of a hey? Or was it a ‘I am literally completely shagged out and did things to you last night that can see you in prison in several Southern American states and thus will keep conversation to a minimum until we’ve at least had the chance to have a cup of coffee together’ hey?
‘Hey,’ I said back. I looked hopelessly at the kettle. Everyone paused for a while.
‘Uh. Tea?’ I said. The others nodded.
We hovered in silence as the kettle boiled. It took nine-and-three-quarter hours.
‘So,’ said James finally. ‘Uh, what are you two up to today? Uh, maybe don’t answer that!’
Cal looked awkward. ‘Uh, well, I have to . . . uh, do a few things.’
Oh, for crying out loud. Actually, Cal, I got the message when you slunk out of the room without waking me. But, you know, thanks.
‘Me too!’ I announced. I certainly did. Call my lawyer for a start. I may be feeling like a disinterred zombie, but this was something I couldn’t put off for one second. Lawyers don’t mind working on Sundays anyway; if they go near a church the water starts to burn them.
Cal looked incredibly sheepish suddenly, almost shifty. I stood up again, tea in my very shaky hand.
‘Em, Sophie . . .’ he started. Oh God, here it came. The talk. Next he would say, ‘Can I have a quick word?’ And then he would politely say that he didn’t really think it was a good idea blah, blah, blah, and I’d agree, obviously, but it would still be annoying because he got it in first.
‘I’d love to chat, Cal, but I’m really dead busy . . . could you drop me an email or something?’
This was a trick response; he didn’t have my email address, living as we do in the same house, and I didn’t have a computer any more. He looked startled and momentarily confused.
‘Well, best get on,’ I said, in a silly voice that made me sound like a cheerful lady vicar.
Cal opened his mouth, then closed it again. Then said, quite meekly, ‘Uh, OK . . . speak later.’
‘Sure thing,’ I said breezily.
I know I am a selfish person. My stepmother always liked to mention it, Carena used to say it if I ever asked to borrow her lipgloss, and my dad even wrote it up in my will for the world to read.
So I decided just for once to use it to my advantage, and I stole all the hot water, every last drop. I stayed in the shower till I felt the layers of sweat and sex and dancing and grime finally wash off. In this house, however hard I tried, I never felt truly clean. There was too much limescale deep in the bones of the pipes; too much old newspaper stuffed in gaps in the walls. Plus, I’m not that good a cleaner.
Once outside, I phoned Gail again. And the house. Nothing. Where were they? What were they doing? Where was Esperanza? If Gail was going somewhere bigger - had cashed in my dad’s shares or something - why wouldn’t she let me know? If she was stealing stuff - well, that didn’t make sense. I may have been mean to Gail, but I know my dad loved her. Why? Why?
I decide to go see Uncle Leonard, my dad’s old lawyer. He could advise me. He was my dad’s best friend. He could tell me what to do. Though why hadn’t he rung me already? No, I couldn’t think like that. I imagined it in my head. I’d go in and tell him all my worries and fears that the worst had happened, and he’d calm me down and say, ‘Well, there’s nothing going on, Sophie. Your stepmother has bought a lovely penthouse in Malibu and decided to vacate the house ready for when you come home. It was meant to be a surprise. We made a mistake; it wasn’t six months in the will, it was six weeks your dad meant. We’re so sorry. Please come back.’
And I’ll say, ‘Great, that’s fine, accidents happen. Could you help me find a great interior decorator for the house?’ and he’ll say, ‘Absolutely, that’s just what your father would have wanted. He’d have been so proud of you.’
‘Ugh, look, that slut’s got chin rash!’ comes a harsh teenage voice behind me. ‘Chin rash!’
And I will never, ever take the bus again.
St John’s Street is really lovely, where Leonard lives. His house is brown brick with some closed up windows, and it’s narrow and rickety like it’s auditioning to be in a Dickens’ adaptation. I knocked hard and hoped they were in.
Nothing happened for ages, and I was wondering what on earth to do next when the door creaked open. It was Leonard. He’d clearly been having a nap; instead of wearing his immaculate three-piece with fob watch, he was wearing an old shirt and trousers with a dressing gown over the top. His hair was all tufted up at the back of his head like fluff, rather than smoothed down impeccably with rather too much wax as it usually was. He was trying to poke on a small pair of spectacles and focus on me at the same time.
‘Hello?’ I said.
‘Who are you?’ said Leonard, not at all in his normal kindly voice. ‘Westminster Abbey is that way.’
‘Leonard . . . Leonard, it’s me.’
Leonard squinted and finally got his glasses on properly. ‘Sophie?’ he said, sounding shocked. My hangover must have been worse than I thought. And my roots problem.
‘What on earth happened to you? Were you kidnapped? I haven’t heard from you in months.’
‘Uh, no,’ I said. ‘Uh, Leonard, I need to know about Daddy . . . I need to know about his will and what’s happening. ’
Leonard’s face fell. This wasn’t good. Leonard’s face should not fall at this point. It should light up and he should say something like, ‘Well, I should jolly well hope so too,’ and light a big fat cigar. Or something like that.
‘You’d better come in,’ Leonard said.
Leonard’s wife June made tea and I sat down on an uncomfortably slippery, leather-buttoned armchair in their lovely library.
‘Now, Sophie,’ he started, looking nervous. He’d gone upstairs and put a checked shirt and a green cashmere jumper on, but he still didn’t look right without the fob watch.
‘Firstly, as you know, your stepmother hired Mr Fortescue. It appears, ah, that she thought she would benefit from someone . . . more dynamic.’
‘Mmm-hmm,’ I said. ‘But you must know what’s going on . . . I heard a rumour that Gail’s not living in the house any more, and I can’t get anyone on the telephone.’
Leonard looked grave. ‘I heard that rumour too. Mind you, I wouldn’t believe everything you hear .
. . I mean, I heard you were living in a squat down the Old Kent Road.’
I didn’t say anything.
Leonard squinted at me. ‘You’re not, are you?’
I shrugged, as if actually living in a dive on the Old Kent Road was actually wryly interesting and colourful.
Leonard took off his glasses and wiped them on his sleeve. Then he let out a great sigh.
‘Why didn’t you come to us?’ said Leonard. ‘I’ve known you since you were a little girl. We’d have taken you in. June misses having young people round the house since the girls have grown. Why didn’t you, Sophie? Didn’t you want to come here?’
I felt terrible. The truth was, in my shallow, nasty spoiled way, I’d always just thought of Leonard as being like hired staff, not much up on Esperanza. Carena and I never played with his stolid, thick-eyebrowed daughters. It had just never occurred to me.