by Jenny Colgan
I was woken by a heavy banging on the door.
‘Sophie! Sophie?’
‘Unf?’ I grumped. It was the boys, all roaring like elephants.
‘What is it?’
‘Look, look!’
I blearily focused. Eck was holding up a copy of the Daily Post. Emblazoned above the headline (something about immigrants affecting house prices) was a gruesomely hideous picture of me, all lank hair and treble chin, like Britney Spears at a custody hearing.
POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL! ran the strapline. FROM IT GIRL TO BEDSIT GIRL.
I rubbed my eyes. That was quick. ‘What the hell?’
‘Why didn’t you tell us you were famous?’ said James. ‘Gosh!’
‘I’m not famous,’ I said, my heart pounding.
‘You are now,’ drawled Cal. ‘Here you are, darling, I’ve made you some tea.’
‘Do you want some tea?’ Eck said at the same time. ‘Oh.’
Without waiting for an invitation they all came into my room and sat down on my bed as, hands shaking, I turned to the middle pages. There I was - on the left a picture of me at some charity ball last year, wearing a red Gharani Strok number. I was so slim! I’d completely forgotten; I must have got used to the new me. That girl didn’t look like me at all. I was flashing lovely white teeth and looked like I was having a fabulous time, wherever I was.
On the right was me yesterday. You wouldn’t have known it was the same person. My hair was a complete disgrace, my skin covered in a rash - a snogging rash, though it could have been anything. I was clearly at least a stone heavier, and wearing the daggiest clothes imaginable.
Once the toast of Mayfair’s super-set, ran the introduction, Sophie Chesterton now scavenges a living from the fringes of porn, and squats in a derelict flat.
‘That’s a bit harsh,’ said James. ‘I mean, we pay rent.’
‘That makes it worse,’ I murmured, my heart pounding.
Her father was implicated in the great banking runs of 2008 and, after his untimely death several months ago, it is reported that he has left the family with huge debts. So what now for the poor little rich girl who once had the world at her feet? Her former best friend, Carena
Sutherland, is now set to marry one of London’s most eligible bachelors, the Right Hon Rufus Foxwell-Brown in society’s wedding of the year. But Sophie has been cast out of her fast-living set . . .’
‘No wonder you didn’t want to bring any girls to the party,’ said Cal.
‘No, that was still because you were disgusting about it,’ I said faintly.
‘I feel sorry for her really,’ said erstwhile friend Philly Thompson (twenty-six). ‘Ha,’ I said. ‘That’ll get her to stop telling everyone she’s twenty-two’. ‘She always wanted to fit in. But now we know it was all a sham.’ Hang on, I thought. That was YOU.
Sophie was a familiar face on Bond Street, flashing Daddy’s black American Express card and attending lavish product launches and parties. Now her highlighted hair is dull and matted and her . . .
That was it. That was enough. They could slag me off to the high heavens, but when they got started on my hair . . . I got up, went through to the bathroom and threw up. It took a while.
When I finally came back, the others were staring at me like I’d just beamed down from another planet.
‘You’re a celebrity,’ said James, using the same tone of voice in which he might have said, ‘You’re a hermaphrodite.’
‘Now she is,’ said Cal.
I bowed my head. ‘Some bad stuff happened to me.’
Eck came over. ‘What?’
‘Things . . .’
‘So are you rich?’ said James.
‘No, that’s the point,’ said Eck. ‘She used to be and now she isn’t. Right?’ He leant over and said, ‘You’ll get it back. Don’t worry. Those bastards.’ Which made me feel a teeny, teeny bit better.
‘What’s it like being rich?’ said James.
‘James,’ said Cal. ‘Shut up.’
‘Just asking.’
We all sat around in silence. I could tell they were a bit stunned.
‘I mean, you’re obviously posh,’ said Eck.
‘Yes, but there’s posh and fake posh,’ said Cal. ‘I thought you might be that.’
‘Thanks very much,’ I said. ‘Anyway, I wasn’t posh, I was rich. There’s a difference.’
‘The fact that you know there’s a difference makes you a bit posh,’ he shot back. ‘God. Did you think you were just going to be slumming it with us, then you’d find some rich guy and head off again?’
I looked down. ‘I thought I’d get the money back.’
Cal shrugged. ‘Typical bourgeois scum behaviour. It makes me feel really dirty and used. And normally I like feeling like that. A little real-world vacation from the -’ he read from out the paper - ‘glamorous Kensington town house and luxury holiday villa in Majorca.’
‘The villa isn’t that nice,’ I said reflectively.
‘No,’ said James. ‘I’ve heard that about luxury holiday villas.’
We lapsed back into silence. I knew it. This was why I’d never said. It was as if a barrier had opened up between us. Now I wasn’t Sophie their flatmate. It was as if I’d perpetrated some sort of fraud, pretending to be something I wasn’t - i.e. a normal person - but now, with everything that had happened to me I was a normal person who was somehow looking down my nose at them. Which I wasn’t. Well, maybe at Wolverine, a bit.
‘I’d better get to work,’ I mumbled. Nobody said anything. They were all still looking at me like I came from Mars. Then, when I was at the door, Eck said, ‘So, when you cleaned our toilet . . . was that the first time you’d ever cleaned a toilet, ever?’
I stared him straight in the face. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, it was.’
‘Well, that’s something,’ said Cal encouragingly. ‘We all just thought you were a lunatic.’
I knew within ten seconds that Julius had seen the paper. Then I heard the twins squeal and realised that they’d seen it too.
‘That’s you??’ said Grace. She was wearing lime green feathers.
‘What are you wearing?’
‘It’s Burlesque. Like Dita Von Teese, innit?’
I absolutely would never had said how much she didn’t look like Dita Von Teese.
‘So you’re rich and that?’ went on Grace. ‘I’d never have guessed.’
‘That’s because you don’t pay attention,’ said Kelly. ‘Delilah told us about all her clothes, remember? So you’re an idiot.’
‘Oh, stop being immature,’ said Grace.
‘Just because I’m younger than you.’
‘Uh, yes, well, it doesn’t matter,’ I said. I was back in my tracksuit bottoms. After dressing up on Saturday night it felt like all I deserved. Saturday felt like a long time ago, even though it was still making me yawn.
Julius looked at me for a long time. ‘You didn’t tell them about me, did you?’
‘You’ve read the piece. Does it mention you?’
‘No. Well, only that you used to hang around top photographic studios.’
‘Oh Jules,’ I said, sadly, wondering if he was going to sack me again. ‘Let’s pretend I still do.’
Julius looked at me for a long time. Then he handed me a camera. ‘On you go then.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, if you’re grafting for a living, you might as well make a start. Why don’t you take the twin’s first set? I’ll take a set too, and we’ll see how they do.’
He started snapping. Kelly started rubbing the feathers between her legs like she was vigorously towelling herself dry. And I, highly excited, started lining up shots.
‘Is that what Dita Von Teese does?’ Kelly asked.
‘Kind of,’ I said. ‘But bend down a little . . . and smile. A bit cheeky. That’s it. You’ve got it.’
And I let the camera click.
When I went to the caff at lunchtime, I could see the well-th
umbed paper lying open on one of the tables, they slipped an extra slice of bacon in my roll and the friendly server said, ‘I am very sorry for you to lose everything.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, genuinely grateful for a bit of well-meant sympathy.
‘In my country I was an engineer, and taught at the university. I had a big house, many nice things. Then they decide they no longer like universities. Here I cook greasy sausage for fifteen hours a day. Lots of people have hard things in their lives.’
I looked, for the first time really, at the man who served me every day.
‘Thank you,’ I said, holding out my hand, which he took and shook vigorously. ‘Thank you very much. I do feel better.’
Chapter Twelve
I went through the rest of the day in a dream. The shoot went well, and Julius reckoned some of my shots would be fine for Zoo, no problem.
But this tiny shred of optimism was quickly replaced when I found myself cleaning up. Back to sweeping the floor and picking up little pieces of cloth covered in spangles. Today was different. Today was cleaning up for good. For ever. It wasn’t a theme-park ride. It wasn’t slumming it for a bit. This was the end.
Mopping took longer than usual. Partly because of the feathers, partly because I could see the future stretching out drearily in front of me. The girls had tarted themselves up super-posh, i.e. they looked like baby drag queens, because they were going to ‘pull a suit’, i.e. they were headed to All Bar One.
‘You must have, like, gone there all the time,’ said Kelly, slightly awe-struck. I didn’t correct her.
‘Or maybe Tiger Tiger,’ said Grace.
They invited me, which was really sweet of them, and Grace had even said she’d buy me a drink if I talked really posh. But I just wasn’t in the mood. Julius left me to lock up, so I took my time as the shadows climbed the walls of the studio, with its abandoned, slightly greasy mirrored bulbs, the little tubs of opened sparkly lipgloss, the talc on the floor. I put some mournful French music on the stereo and meandered about, straightening up the array of clothes we kept there - tiger-print sarongs; mini kilts, boas and love-heart sunglasses. It looked so tawdry in the half-light. I finished with the mop, pulled on my coat and headed for the door.
‘Uh, hi,’ said Eck.
I jumped out of my skin. ‘Fuck!’
‘Uh, sorry, I was just looking for the doorbell.’
‘There isn’t a doorbell. I think everyone who comes here has a really loud voice.’
‘Oh,’ said Eck.
‘And all the girls have gone home, so you’re dead out of luck.’
‘I didn’t come to see the girls,’ said Eck, going very pink. ‘I came to see you. I thought you might want some company.’
I looked at him. He was absolutely right.
‘Uh, thanks,’ I said. ‘You did give me a fright though.’
‘I try not to be too frightening,’ said Eck. ‘As a rule.’
‘Well, I think that’s a very good way to be,’ I said. I was half in my coat and half out of it. Eck made a really complex and difficult attempt to help me on with the rest of it, which was doomed to failure, and between us we wriggled our way out of the door with lots of ‘sorrys’ and ‘whoops, just theres’ and ‘oh, never minds’ until we were giggling so much we gave it up as a bad job.
Outside it was nearly dark; I hadn’t realised how quickly the nights were setting in. But it was a mild night, the kind that, say I’d been at someone’s house in the country, would have seen lots of brown leaves blowing across the path, and a vibrant pink sunset illuminating the corn fields. Here it just made the dog poo harder to see.
‘It’s a nice night,’ said Eck. ‘And the buses all smell. Shall we walk?’
‘OK,’ I said.
We strolled along in silence for a little while. It looked like Eck was trying to tell me something. Finally, after crossing the road to avoid a pack of feral hoodies who - surely not - looked like they were trying to set a dog on fire, Eck took a breath.
‘I’m sorry you’re an orphan,’ he said.
As he did I realised I’d never quite thought of it that way, even though it was technically the case. My mother had died so very long ago that I’d got used to it. For me, having one parent you loved very much was just kind of the way of things.
‘My mother died a long time ago,’ I said. ‘I don’t remember her. You don’t really miss what you never had.’
That was a barefaced lie I’d developed over the years to stop people feeling sorry for me and, occasionally at parties, playing me drippy songs on the guitar. I had a complete fantasy of what my mother must have been like in my head and thought about her all the time.
‘My . . .’ He swallowed hard, as if this were difficult to say. ‘Um. I lost my dad too,’ he said. ‘When I was eleven.’ He kicked at the pavement with his dirty old trainers.
‘Oh yeah?’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. What happened?’
Nothing, I’ve learned over the years, is worse than people asking about it then shying away from the topic like they’ve just been handed a poisonous snake. ‘Cancer,’ he said, looking down. ‘It was horrid. So, I just wanted you to know that I’m here if you need me.’
I looked at his big brown eyes. His tufty hair had fallen forward. For a split second I wondered what it would be like to tuck it back behind his ears. He peered up at me, giving me an apologetic half-smile in the half-light.
‘Must be quite a shock, coming down to all this,’ he said. ‘I thought there was something different about you the first time you came to the door . . .’
‘Did you?’ I said, with a tiny amount of tease in my voice. ‘Did you think, There’s a girl worth a couple of million quid?’ I couldn’t keep the quaver out of my voice.
‘Shit,’ said Eck. ‘Shit.’
‘Looking after myself was meant to be good for me,’ I said. ‘Character building. You know, for a while.’ I looked down at my dirty hands.
‘Well, I’m impressed you’ve managed not to call us all plebs and demand that we bring you champagne cocktails every evening.’
‘Ooh, that never even occurred to me. Would you?’ I said.
There was a long pause. ‘I’d do anything you asked,’ said Eck simply. I glanced at his tall, dark profile silhouetted in the streetlights.
I glanced up at him. What I’d thought was a mild flirtation suddenly seemed to take on a deeper, more serious hue in the autumnal twilight.
‘Hey, Cinders,’ came a voice. ‘If we bought some cider and got Wolverine to fart in it, could we call it champagne?’
And Cal loped over to join us from the shadow of the dodgy bookies.
‘What are you doing here?’ said Eck. He didn’t look in the least bit pleased to see him. Cal gave him a furrowed look.
‘Well, nasty stuff about Sophie in the papers, dark, cold, wet night . . . I thought I’d just check she hadn’t thrown herself on the railway line.’
‘Well she’s fine,’ said Eck crossly.
‘And actually here,’ I volunteered. ‘Only, with you guys talking about me being suicidal and stuff . . .’
‘I never thought you were suicidal,’ said Eck. ‘Though after a night with Cal, most girls are slightly sadder than they were before . . .’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ said Cal. They stood there, not saying anything. The tension between them was palpable. I piped up.
‘Shall we go eat?’ As I said it, I wondered if maybe I was too sad to eat. I did want this famed misery weight loss to start kicking in. ‘Or, maybe not. I’m just not hungry.’
‘Yeah, let’s get you home.’ Eck made as if to put his hand out to me, and I nearly took it.
‘Come with me then,’ said Cal, ignoring Eck. ‘I’m starving. You can watch me eat.’
Eck glanced from Cal to me. Then, ‘Let’s all go eat,’ said Eck, looking a bit pissed off. Cal raised his eyebrows as if he wasn’t bothered one way or the other.
‘Right, I know where. Follow me,’ Cal said, disappearing do
wn a dark alley next to the bookies. Eck and I looked at each other. Then I thought, what could possibly be worse for me than what had already happened. So I followed after him, Eck bringing up the rear, looking around dubiously.
‘Here we go,’ said Cal. We were in a street where at least half the street lamps were missing, and the shops had been boarded up. I didn’t like the look of this at all. It looked like a scene from a video game set in a post-apocalyptic world where zombies jump out at us. I had a sudden flashback - once upon a time, I’d been to the launch of a game like that - God knows why, something to do with Philly. Yes, the drinks were lavish and expensive but we were surrounded by geeks the whole night, practically humping our legs like little dogs. We were quite mind-blowingly rude to them, but I don’t think they noticed. Happy days.