by Sara Barnard
Sounds naff, but Velvet laughs. ‘Oh my God, Joe, you’re so adorable.’
His ears turn pink. Joe might have moved on, but there are some things about a crush that never fade.
There’s a shout from over by the chapel. Picking up the flowers, I tug a single gerbera from the bouquet and lay it across Steven’s plaque before hurrying back over to my dad, Joe and Velvet trailing in my wake.
I can tell by the way he very deliberately doesn’t say anything about it that Dad’s annoyed with me for disappearing. Fortunately I’ve got the flowers as a diversion, and I walk right up to the coffin and place them beside it, trying not to think of what’s inside. Wherever my nan is, it’s not there. Not really. The bench – pew? – at the front has been left free for the family, and I squash in, me and the cousins bookended by Auntie Chris and Dad.
There isn’t much I remember about Steven Jeffords’ service other than the emptiness of the chapel and the ring of the officiant’s words bouncing off the brick walls and wooden benches. I thought that was because I didn’t know the deceased, but even here, now, the funeral seems less real than my memories. Making cakes in her kitchen, learning to knead dough, roll out pastry. Flour under my fingernails and smudged across her apron. Helping her in the garden – Nan pointing a finger that never quite made it to straight, asking me to bend over for this, or pass her that – the pair of us picking strawberries from the fruit patch and tomatoes from the greenhouse. Later, when I was that much older, catching the bus back to hers after school because Dad was working late, sitting in her front room gossiping about her neighbours, eating biscuits bought from the shop because baking had become too much of a faff . . .
My lovely nan. My only other family. Gone. I wonder if I’ll ever not miss her.
Back out front, the service over and the coffin removed ready for cremation, I’m surrounded by a chorus of sniffing, the susurration of elderly gentlemen digging for handkerchiefs in their suit pockets, and women producing plastic packs of tissues from their bags.
I nod and I smile and I thank people for coming and I say, ‘Will I see you at the social club?’ so many times that it’s like I’ve forgotten all the other words in the world.
‘Sash!’ Michela launches herself at me and wraps her arms round my neck so that I can barely draw breath. ‘Oh my God, you poor thing. That was hideous.’
Which isn’t the word I would have used – I thought it was all perfectly nice. For a funeral.
‘That guy who did the reading . . .’
‘You mean Albert?’
‘You’d have thought he could have kept it together.’
Albert was one of Nan’s oldest friends. They’d been to school together. It took him six hours to drive here from Cornwall, and he’s nearly eighty. When he heard she’d died, he sent us a letter so sweet and heartfelt that I can’t even think about it without wanting to cry.
‘Oh, hello. Who’s that specimen?’ Michela lets me go, smooths her skirt, and subtly flicks open the top button of her blouse.
I don’t even need to look to know who it’ll be.
‘That’s Joe. He’s got a girlfriend.’ I pause a moment. ‘And you have a boyfriend, Mic. Remember?’
And right on cue, there he is. Michela’s boyfriend.
He’s wearing a suit. Dark grey. Navy shirt. Auburn hair bleaching to ginger at the sideburns, to match his eyebrows.
‘Sasha,’ he starts to say, but before he can lean in and hug me, before we can find out what I’d do if he did, I step away to pull in the friends that I actually want with me.
‘Velvet!’ If she’s alarmed at how high my voice is, she doesn’t show it. I grab Joe too, sandwiching myself between them for safety. ‘And Joe. This is my best mate, Michela . . .’
They both wave at Michela, who’s giving Velvet a wary glare.
‘. . . and this is Bil— I mean Will. This is Will.’
Who can say which is weirder, the fact that after ten years of calling him Billy we all now call him Will, or the fact that the guy I lost my virginity to is now dating my best friend?
Tough call. Right?
HUGO
‘This is fucking ridiculous.’
Well, that’s what I say in my head. It comes out a bit different. Slurry and fluffy and, still, that’s beside the point. This little power hungry TWAT won’t let me into his pathetic little club, and it is unacceptable.
‘Sorry, mate, but you’re too drunk,’ the twat says, loving every single second. He crosses his arms and smiles and I hate him and I hate his face and I hate how even he probably knows who I am and has probably read about my dad in the news, even though he’s an uneducated oxygen-sucking nobody BOUNCER on the shit part of the Ibiza strip and I bet he cannot believe his luck that he’s getting to enjoy a moment, just a moment, of feeling bigger than me.
Enjoy while it lasts, arsehole.
Then I call him the c-word. And then I feel my face hurting, and then I’m on the pavement, and I can’t see very well because there’s blood coming out of my eye for some reason. And, oh, fuck it. I’m being sick. I’m leaning over on the pavement and being sick on to the street.
I chunder it all out, and it hurts, but it’s OK and funny and not pathetic if you use the word ‘chunder’. David is here and I yell, ‘AND THEN I CHUNDERED EVERYWHERE!’ But he doesn’t seem to get the joke, because he’s always had a shit sense of humour.
He’s dragging me on to my feet. ‘Mate, you need to go back to the hotel and sober up.’
‘Since when do we call each other mate?’ I laugh, then I feel sick again. But there’s nothing else to sick up. David looks somewhat disgusted. He’s copying my most common facial expression.
It’s so noisy and it’s so hot and everywhere I look I can see a sunburned torso hanging out over some nasty shorts. We’re causing very little fuss – David and I – sat here next to my puddle of vom right in the middle of Ibiza. At least five drunk idiots have walked through it already in flip-flops, not noticing. It’s too busy and everyone’s too wasted and the music from all the competing bars is too loud, and I really need to have a line or two, actually, because I do feel quite wankered.
David is saying something. ‘Sleep it off . . . Come to the foam party later . . .I can’t believe that twat punched you . . . Everyone’s in there already . . . Come on . . . take one for the team.’
I stumble to my feet. ‘I don’t want to sleep it off; I want to get into the foam party.’
‘Well, they’re not letting you in, mate!’ He’s talking all common again.
‘Stop calling me mate. I’m not your fucking mate.’
I’m not sure why, but I’ve tried to punch David, and now he’s stormed off, calling me pathetic. And I sit back down on the pavement again, stretching my feet out into my vomit.
‘Fuck it,’ I say, and then I feel dripping and look down and see there’s blood all over my shirt. How did that happen? This is my best shirt. My best shirt! Why the hell is there blood on it? Who the fuck BLED on me? What is WRONG with this place?
I lurch up and for some stupid reason my legs aren’t working very well and I start walking. I’m not sure where, but I think this is the way back to the hotel. I’ll change my shirt and work out who to charge it to and then I’m going to go report that bouncer and tell my father and they won’t get away with this . . . they won’t . . . I’m so fed up of people thinking this is their moment to pop one at me . . . it isn’t . . . My family and I, we’re going to come back like a phoenix from the ashes and . . . Where am I? Where the actual hell am I? I need some drugs. I need some drugs to get me sober enough to get back to the hotel.
I push through the throngs of sweaty bodies swirling around, spilling out on to the sandy beach. Everyone’s in fancy dress that involves having as little clothes on as possible and neon paint on their faces. Loads of fit but classless girls in hot pants come up to me and try and entice me to go into the bars they’re promoting, or to buy a Jägershot off the belt they have hoisted around
their tiny, tattooed waists.
I tell them to fuck off, which doesn’t go down well, but it makes me laugh.
I manage to find some shitty place that doesn’t charge entry. The bar is half empty, with a light-up dance floor. A group of not very pretty girls are dancing on it, and they all stare at me as I push into the bar. I sneer at them and manage to find my way to the toilet.
My reflection is a surprise, I have to admit.
My eye is already almost closed, and there’s blood everywhere – all down one side of my face – and my shirt is ruined. I try to wash the worst of it off, though there’s only one tap working in this disgusting toilet, and the water is only coming out as a trickle.
Maybe I’m a bit drunk, all right?
But I’m in Ibiza! That’s the point, right? The big holiday after the A levels that I’m quite sure I’ve messed up, which really isn’t my fault if you take everything into account. A big blowout is what I need. Just to escape my head and my life and try and not be that boy from the news whose dad fucked some twenty-four-year-old Labour MP and it was his own fucking mother who leaked it to the press. There’s been photographers everywhere, and Mum trying to get into professional photo shoots about how she’s ‘somehow managed to find the strength to finally leave her psychopath husband’. And Dad ringing me and sobbing down the phone and begging me to beg her to stop, and the whole thing is such a mess, and look at me – I’m a complete mess too . . .
I dry my hands and fumble in my wallet for the drugs. God knows what it is. David got it off ‘some guy’ he knew who ‘was good for it’. To tell you the truth, I don’t even care. I make direct eye contact with myself as I hold a pinch to my nostrils and take a sniff.
It hits instantly, and it was the right thing to do.
I feel clearer and sharper and not as drunk.
I just need to go and change my shirt, find the other lads, sweet-talk my way back into the foam party, and carry on having it large.
It’s fine. It’s fine. Come on, Hugo, this isn’t you. It’s all grand. Sort it out . . .
Oww, my head. It’s buzzing. It’s buzzing with too many things. Why is everything coming at me like I’m in some fucking 4D experience?
Where the hell am I?
I’m trying to find the hotel, but everyone is in my way, and my heart – my heart, it’s beating too much. Why is it beating so fast? Am I going to die? Oh God, I’m going to die! I’m going to have a heart attack and die. Alone. Even though I’m not alone. I’m pushing through throngs of drunken twats somewhere in Ibiza because I don’t know where I am and I can’t believe I’m going to die in a shirt that’s covered in blood.
The press are going to have a field day.
There.
There’s a quiet corner. I need a quiet corner. To die in. To breathe. Why can’t I breathe?
WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? WHY AM I LIKE THIS? I’M NOT USUALLY LIKE THIS?
Oh God, what if I’m always like this?
What the hell have I taken? What if it makes me like this forever? I’m stuck. I’m stuck in this head and I hate it, and, I’ll have you know, I wasn’t that happy with my old head, but it was so much better than this new one.
This new one that’s going to die.
My lungs.
Ouch.
My heart.
Beating too fast.
I’m crouched in this alleyway and I try to call for help but the music coming out of all the bars is too loud.
I can’t . . .
Can’t . . .
How did life get like this? What did I fucking do to deserve this?
‘Help.’ It comes out like a squeak. I can’t die. I can’t die here in this alleyway. I hold my chest, like the act might make my heart calm down. I force myself up, back into the music and the noise, and I walk and walk through the sand, past the people, towards I don’t know where, towards anyone, anyone who might realize I’m dying and try to help me. But nobody is taking any notice.
I’m so alone . . .
So . . . so . . .
alone.
And I’ve reached the end of the strip because the music has died down and there’s fewer drunk people and I collapse into the sand and can’t do this any more.
I’m going to die and I’m a horrid person and so is everyone I know.
That’s the thought.
The thought I have, so clearly, as my heart speeds faster and faster and my lungs aren’t able to take in oxygen and it’s all about to go black until . . .
until . . .
‘Holy mother of fuck. Is that you, Hugo?’
I look up. I can’t believe that he – he of all people – is going to be here when I die.
JOE
‘Sasha! Come on!’
Sasha’s dad is built like a nightclub bouncer, a ‘don’t fuck with me’ expression on his face to match. As he glares at us, his hand resting on the open passenger door of his navy blue car, it’s hard to believe our sweet, gentle Sasha shares half his DNA.
‘I’d better get going,’ Sasha says, her olive cheeks tinged pink.
‘Are you guys all right getting to the club?’ she asks me and Velvet. ‘It’s not far.’
‘They can come with us if they want,’ Will says. ‘I’ve got my car.’
Michela transfers the dirty look on her face from Velvet over to Will.
‘That all right with you, Sash?’ he continues, spinning his car keys on his index finger, oblivious (or not) to the venom in his girlfriend’s eyes.
‘Er, yeah. Course,’ Sasha says, licking her lips the way I’ve noticed she does when she’s nervous. ‘Thanks.’
Sasha’s dad beeps the car horn, making her flinch.
‘See you there then, I guess,’ she says, hesitating for a moment before scurrying over to the waiting car.
‘You’ve got enough space back there, haven’t you, mate?’ Will asks.
The truthful answer is no (his seat is pushed so far back, my knees are almost level with my chin), but I get the feeling it was more of a rhetorical question.
He revs the engine entirely unnecessarily, drawing disapproving looks from the other mourners returning to their cars.
‘Stick Kiss on, will ya, Mic?’ he says.
Michela does as she’s told, then twists round in her seat to face Velvet and me.
‘So, Joel, Velour, you together or what?’
‘It’s Joe and Velvet, actually,’ Velvet says. ‘And no, we’re not together.’
‘Oh,’ Michela says, frowning. ‘Sash said Joe was seeing someone –’ she jerks her head in my direction – ‘And I assumed it was you.’
‘No,’ Velvet says.
‘Where’s your girlfriend then?’ Michela asks, turning her attention to me.
As if on cue, my phone buzzes against my chest.
‘She’s in Cardiff,’ I say.
‘How come?’
‘That’s where she’s from. She’s a student at Manchester Met.’
‘An older woman, eh?’ Michela says.
‘Only by a year,’ I reply, my cheeks getting increasingly hot.
Even though Velvet knows about Carly, I still feel funny talking about my new relationship in front of her. I made that quip about romcoms earlier, but I felt weird doing it, like I was reciting lines in a play, almost.
I met Carly in the spring, volunteering on a student film. I was a runner, and she was heading up the art department. We bonded at the refreshments table over our mutual love of bourbon biscuits (we both like biting the chocolate cream off first). We ended up snogging at the wrap party and have been together ever since.
‘How about you guys?’ Velvet asks politely. ‘How did you meet?’
‘Through Sash, I suppose,’ Will says, cruising through a zebra crossing despite the fact there’s a woman with a pushchair waiting on the edge of the kerb.
As Velvet continues to quiz Michela and Will, I ease my phone from the inside pocket of my suit jacket and open Carly’s message. Blue Steel.
> I press the camera icon and select selfie mode before adopting a pout and snapping five photos in quick succession.
‘What are you doing?’ Velvet asks.
I drop my phone into my lap.
‘Nothing.’
She folds her arms across her chest. ‘Were you taking a cheeky selfie, Mr Joseph “I never take selfies” Lindsay?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Yeah you do! Let me see.’
‘No!’
Velvet grabs the phone from where it’s slipped off my lap and fallen into the footwell. I try to snatch it from her, but she’s too fast.
‘What’s going on back there?’ Michela barks. ‘Lovers’ tiff?’
‘No,’ Velvet and I say in unison.
Michela makes a ‘pfffft’ sound and whacks up the volume on the radio.
My vain hope that the screen on my phone might have locked itself by now is dashed when Velvet bursts out laughing. She turns it towards me. My ridiculous face pouts right back. I look like a complete and utter twat.
‘You practising for Britain and Ireland’s Next Top Model?’ she asks.
I grab the phone and return it to my pocket.
‘It’s just a game I play with Carly,’ I mutter, my face on fire.
‘What kind of game?’
‘A sex game?’ Michela asks over her shoulder.
I hadn’t realized she was still listening.
‘It’s just this thing I do with my girlfriend,’ I explain. ‘We take it in turns to come up with a look or emotion or something, and then the other one has to capture it in a selfie . . .’
‘Sounds thrilling,’ Michela says, rolling her eyes before joining in with Will who is rapping in a faux-American-gangster accent along to the radio, complete with hand gestures.
‘So what was that supposed to be just now?’ Velvet asks.
‘Sorry?’
‘The look you were doing in your selfie.’
‘Oh. Er, Blue Steel.’
‘OK, well, that explains it. The duck face, I mean. Good effort.’
I smile weakly.
‘Give me one to do,’ she says.
I hesitate. The thing is, this is my and Carly’s game, and I don’t want to confuse things by playing it with Velvet. I feel weird enough just talking to her about it. I’m relieved when Will pulls into a small car park next to a grey concrete building that looks a bit like a scout hut, and announces we’ve reached our destination.