There was a universal exhalation of breath. Each of them put their crisps and Cokes together on the tarmac, as if making a pyre, as if they had become infected with some plague. Jim made way for Shauna and she sat on the step of the van, trying to suppress the trembling.
‘Fuck me,’ said Max. ‘What is going on with this country?’
‘You’re not surprised, mate, are you?’ said Shahid.
‘I would have called the police,’ said Jim, ‘if I could.’
‘The police couldn’t have got through the traffic,’ said Mo.
‘Hard shoulder,’ said Jim. ‘But those blokes could come back any time. We’d better watch ourselves.’
‘The emergency phones down there are dead too, by the way,’ said Kabir.
‘The whole system’s down, innit?’ said Shahid morbidly.
Shauna was sitting with her head in her hands, massaging her temples. Max glanced at Ursula; still asleep. He removed his jacket and slipped it over Shauna’s shoulders.
‘I’m fine, I’m fine,’ she said. ‘It’s only a packet of crisps.’ She drew the jacket around her.
‘We’d have had a good chance,’ said Shahid. ‘That fat bastard wasn’t worth nothing. And there’s more of us than them.’
‘It was only a packet of crisps,’ said Shauna.
‘You’re all mouth now,’ remarked Max. ‘After the event.’
‘Christ sake,’ said Shauna. ‘I keep saying, it was only a packet of crisps. That other one was all right, anyway. The tall one.’
‘You’re joking,’ said Jim. ‘He was worse. Sinister, like.’
‘Oh,’ said Max, ‘looks like my wife’s stirring. I’d better go.’ He looked at the people around him, as if unsure of what to say; then, with awkward apologies, he removed his jacket from Shauna’s shoulders and hurried back to his car.
Shauna
Half an hour earlier, before plucking up the courage to approach the little group by the Waitrose van, Shauna was sitting in her Smart car, in the middle lane of the endless lines of traffic, prodding out an email on an iPhone. She was still getting the hang of it; she was used to her old BlackBerry, which she would hold up to her face like a goblet, thumbs racing; but when she tried the same technique with the iPhone, the result was unintelligible. Even now, working slowly and methodically, her shoulders gibbous with tension, she was inputting error after error. It was like typing on a mirror.
‘Dear Chloe and Seedie,’ she typed, ‘congratuoariojd on your wedding, which was Li dog. Have a super iknetmokn. I do hope to see you so on, when you get bCk to blights. I’ll biby you both a oint. With all my liver, S x.’ With all my liver? Biby you both a oint? Despite herself, she smiled. With all my bile, more like. For a moment she sat, the screen glowing in her palm like that piece of radioactive material in the opening sequence of The Simpsons that ends up in the collar of Homer’s shirt by mistake, classic. She should just send it as it was, she thought, without correcting the typos. That would be true to form. Absurd. From now on, she thought, all of her actions would inevitably be seen as absurd. What a fool she had made of herself at the wedding. What a fucking fool.
Nevertheless, she went through the typos laboriously. And when finally it said, ‘Dear Chloe and Seedie, congratulations on your wedding, which was lovely. Have a super honeymoon. I do hope to see you soon, when you get back to blighty. I’ll buy you both a pint. With all my love, S x’ she sent it. A mock aeroplane sound-effect accompanied it into the darkness. Or at least, into her Outbox. There was not a glimmer of signal to be had.
The worst thing was a hangover after a wasted night. Understatement. And she was cold. She removed her seatbelt – it sprang back with the enthusiasm of a puppy – and wrapped her caramel-coloured jumper around her body, snuggling into its folds. She had bought it on the King’s Road last week, and it had become an indispensable companion. Generally, when other people felt hot, she was merely warm; when they were warm, she would be cold; and when they were cold, she was downright hypothermic. Her mother, her sister, certain of her friends, were always telling her to eat more, to ‘pad out’ and then she wouldn’t be so cold all the time. But her friends didn’t count. Her mother didn’t count either.
Who did count though? Him. He counted, and his opinions. Who? Him. Hubster. She knew not what he would look like exactly, but she knew very well the feel of him. He would wear good quality shirts with crisp creases, shirts that smelled of a traditional cologne, not too musky, not too sweet; his chest would be hairy, but not his back, and the hair would form dark crescents along the contours of his muscles. His personality, she knew that too: he would be quick to laughter, quick to anger, quick to forgive and forget; he would be impulsive, the sort of man who on a dull Saturday morning would whisk you off to Venice; yet he would be dependable, the foundation stone on which a family could be built. He would be into cars but not too deeply, into his job but not too deeply. He would be a small-c conservative (she was willing to negotiate on this). He would be a lover of the great outdoors, and nights at home on the sofa with a bottle of wine, and non-fiction. He would be a reasonable dancer, not a babe-magnet. His voice would be booming and well-trained. This was Hubster. She could see his silhouette in her mind, though his face was always dark. He had to be out there somewhere. When he made his appearance finally, she would recognise him. There would be an instant connection. And his opinion on her figure would count.
And now this traffic! This was all she needed, a reminder of life in this accursed city. If she lived in a nice village in the countryside, or even a town or something, this traffic would be a thing of the past, only to be negotiated on her own terms, whenever she chose to take a trip to the Big Smoke to see friends or a play or a concert. The truth was, she was split down the middle, black and white, like an Othello counter. Could you still get Othello? Could you play it online now? Was there an app? She took out her iPhone but, not being able to face that fucking skiddy keyboard yet again, she put it back in her pocket.
Yes, she was split. Half of her wanted the life she had, and the other half wanted something altogether different. It was time for her life to enter the next phase, she felt that deeply. She was on the cusp; but unlike ‘normal’ people she had been on the cusp for years. Here lies Shauna Williams, she thought, who lived and died on the cusp. She was thirty-six, still living the same life as when she was twenty-four. She was even at the same law firm, fuck’s sake, even that hadn’t changed. Every day the same slog down to the City. Every day the same slog back to Fulham. Sure, she had more money now; she owned her own property, went on holiday at least twice a year, shopped on the King’s Road most weekends, went out two, three times a week, would drink two hundred pounds of Krug in one fell swoop. One fell swoop: what was the etymology of that? She didn’t pull her iPhone out of her pocket. She didn’t even consider it. As it was she had a migraine. And there was no signal.
She rested her forehead against the steering wheel. It was the same temperature as flesh.
Life, she feared, was leapfrogging her. For years she had not questioned the way she lived. She had assumed that Hubster would make his appearance when he was good and ready, and when that happened she could flip the Othello counter once and for all; they would marry, she would get preggers, they would move out to the country; her former existence would be present only on Facebook, like some online ghost. Until then, she did in London what she had always done at Durham, at Bedales. Work, booze, dancing, casual flings, bacon breakfasts on hangover Sundays, shopping, the theatre, long novels read in hammocks in the garden in East Sussex, skiing trips plus sex with muscular Germans, villas in Morocco with friends. Horse riding. Yoga. The Apprentice. Lie-ins. In the summer, croquet and Pimm’s (lots of). But now she was increasingly feeling that Hubster could do with making an appearance now, please. Yes, now would be nice. So that they could get on and move out to the country, and do what people are supposed to do. Pro-bloody-create.
To some extent, she blamed it on her schooling. Be
dales was an ultra-progressive place, where students called teachers by their first names, were allowed to wear whatever clothes they wanted, and were encouraged to regularly bake bread; all the students and all the teachers would shake hands twice a week, which would take quite a while. It was fun, an optimistic and free-spirited time. But now she wondered whether perhaps it hadn’t made her into an outsider. Whether, perhaps, happiness could only lie in empty-headed conformity. A horrible thought.
Or perhaps it was the fault of her parents, who had chosen to bring her up at arm’s length rather than have her live at home, every day, with them. Who were concerned with her wellbeing enough to shell out extravagant school fees, but not to shell out much of themselves.
Her head was splitting, and she had no paracetamol. Her mouth was horribly dry, and she had no water. When would this traffic move? Hoping against hope she took out her phone, but then, without warning, the screen went completely black. She pumped the button, but to no avail. Stupid bloody phone. She sat up straight, looked around. Nothing but herself, her Smart car, and this crowd of machines pressing in on all sides, stretching out into the distance like some vast mechanical beach. Now she had no connection to the outside world. A frisson of panic rose in her, but then passed as quickly as it had arisen, leaving a fresh calmness, like the first light of morning. For the first time in ages – her yoga habit had died a quick and painless death – she became aware of the sound of her breathing, the rhythm of it. She felt still.
Shauna turned off the stereo – Frank Ocean had been playing at a barely perceptible level – there. If you’re going to do quietude, you might as well do it properly. She was sitting in a car that now showed no sign of life. It might have died permanently for all she knew. A snippet of information swam into her mind: in a sandstorm one can survive by hollowing out the corpse of a camel and taking shelter inside. She had got it from TV, she thought, from some rugged survivalist type. It was absurd, but this car, cramped as it was, immobile as it was, yes, silent as it was, was her own hollowed-out camel. Yes, she was permanently absurd. She’d better get used to it. She had been trying not to think about it, but now she couldn’t stop herself. The wedding.
It had been a lavish affair (she and Hubster would prefer something more discreet), held in the grounds of Chloe’s father’s house in Hampshire, following a ceremony at the village church. Vast marquees had been erected with drapes ballooning from a central point in the ceiling: one for the dinner, another for the bar, a third for a cloakroom. There were luxury portaloos too, which looked like they were made out of solid mahogany, and swarms of waiters and waitresses who seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at once.
The church was a beautiful old crumbling affair dating back to 1070, scarfed by a skewiff graveyard. When asked, she had been stumped for a moment, and had then answered ‘bride’; she was (literally) ushered to a pew several rows from the front. By rights, she should have said ‘groom’. After all, that was more accurate. But somehow she felt it would be inappropriate, even after all this time. After lengthy deliberation, she had decided to wear an off-the-shoulder cocktail dress in turquoise, with a fuchsia fascinator, clutch and Manolo Blahnik shoes. She had immediately regretted it. The colour contrast, which had seemed perfectly reasonable at the time, in these ancient surroundings felt gaudy, even obscene. She could feel people looking at her, and the song ‘Raspberry Beret’ was going round maniacally in her head, which was a bit of a disaster. When she fell prey to an earworm, there would be no escape for days. She smoothed her dress, made polite conversation, turned her phone off, breathed, breathed, tried to compose herself.
Just before the service started, she caught Seedie’s mother looking at her. They exchanged nervous smiles; did hers appear as forced as it was? The mother – what the hell was her name? – looked older. Her hair, which had retained some of its blondeness ten years ago, was now pure white and cut in a shimmering bob. Her dress was gold, gold! Shauna laughed to herself nervously. Some of the old emotions were returning, as if they’d never left. There was Seedie, bathed in sunlight from the high windows, looking larger than life, sharply etched; his face was shading into an expression she had only ever seen when he was having an orgasm. He was scanning the congregation, but he didn’t meet her gaze.
Suddenly the light left the church, as if somebody had sucked it out with a hoover. Shauna looked up at the stained-glass window; a glowering, black cloud had slipped in front of the sun, and it felt as if the whole of England had been cast into shadow. The air thickened. And, after all this time, she remembered the curse.
How could her hangover be worsening? This fucking traffic. A few cars along, she caught sight of an Oriental woman in a Prius. There was something horribly lonely about the woman, about this whole thing really. All along the line she could see men – not women, men – popping up like meerkats, half-in and half-out of their vehicles, hair ruffled as if just out of bed, gazing pointlessly into the blackness. Then she saw the Waitrose van, and a small group of people clustering around the open door of the driver’s cab. And she decided it would be a good idea to join them.
Piece of meat
‘Well, that was a great success and shit,’ said Stevie, dropping back into the driver’s seat and slamming the door. ‘Operation Munchie. Way to go.’
‘It was your idea,’ said Dave.
‘Bollocks it was,’ said Stevie, laughing. ‘Get some munchies from that van? Bollocks it was.’
‘Whatever.’ Dave began to scroll vacantly through Facebook on his HTC, and Natalie struck a lighter and applied the flame to the spliff. The tip glowed orange, then dimmed, then glowed again.
‘After you, madam,’ said Stevie, ‘wouldn’t mind a puff.’
‘You’re supposed to be driving,’ said Natalie, coughing, ‘you can’t.’
‘Just one toke,’ said Stevie. ‘We’re not going to move for ages.’
‘You don’t know that,’ said Natalie.
‘You just want to keep it all for yourself,’ said Stevie. ‘Selfish sket.’
‘Relax,’ said Dave, pocketing his phone and taking the spliff from the girl. He was in an awkward position, twisted round in the front seat. His eyes were stinging. ‘There’s more than enough to go round.’
‘I’m feeling quite sort of lean already,’ said Natalie, flopping back in her seat. ‘That’s good blow. Where did you get it, Stevie?’
‘Good blow, eh?’ said Stevie, and laughed his wild laugh.
‘It’s different to the stuff we’ve been having so far, isn’t it?’ said Natalie. ‘Tastes more tangy.’
‘It’s skunk, that’s why,’ said Stevie. ‘We’ve been breaking you in slow. This stuff’s strong as fuck. Off the scale. There’s this bloke who comes round halls every couple of weeks and shit. Josie’s mate, you know.’
‘The little bloke?’ said Dave. ‘The black one? With the hair?’
‘He has got hair,’ said Stevie. ‘If he’s the one you’re talking about.’ He laughed again.
The car, an arthritic Ford estate splattered with mud, creaked with every movement like an old suitcase straining at the seams. It was full to the roof with backpacks, duvets, a rolled-up tent in a brightly coloured fabric tube and crates of beer.
‘I can see the road and everything here,’ said Natalie, bending over in a strange way, as if her head had become too heavy for her body. ‘Through the floor.’ She was shining a torch downwards. The others craned to see; sure enough, in a nook just under one of the front seats the rust had opened a hole the size of a thumbnail. She pressed her fingers into it and some fragments of metal flaked away. Now it was the size of a whole thumb, and the tarmac was clearly exposed.
‘Hey, stop trashing my fucking car, bitch,’ said Stevie in a high-pitched American accent. ‘You’re trashing my fucking car.’
More laughter. The spliff did another round or two before smouldering and going out. But the smoke remained in the vehicle, gathering around the ceiling in peaceful clouds. From the outside,
wisps could be seen filtering through the cracks where the doors were not properly aligned with the roof, disappearing into the blackness.
‘This traffic, Jesus,’ said Stevie. ‘It’s actually not moving at all. I wonder what’s happened?’
‘Probably a smash-up or something,’ said Dave. He pulled out his phone and opened up Facebook again. He wasn’t online, but there was nothing else to do.
‘A smash-up would suck,’ said Stevie, still in a faux American accent. ‘A smash-up would totally suck.’
Natalie, in the back seat, lifted her hand and placed it gently on the glass of the window. Then she removed it; a ghostly imprint remained, then faded. She did it again, watching as the condensation echoed her hand, dissolved. She did it again, and again. Then she sat back and gazed out of the window through half-open eyes.
‘I hope she’s not going to pull a whitey again,’ said Stevie. ‘I hate it when she does that. Natalie? Natalie?’
‘What?’
‘Don’t pull a whitey. Don’t leave us. Don’t leave us alone. Don’t leave us.’
‘Leave you?’ said Natalie slowly.
‘Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re our only hope,’ said Stevie. ‘You, Princess Leia. I can see it.’ He laughed and sat back.
It was complicated. They were friends from uni. Part of the same group of friends, anyway. All doing media studies. They had gone to the festival together. There were supposed to be more of them but everyone else pulled out, leaving just her, Stevie and Dave. And it had been fun, at least to begin with. No, no: it had all been fun, from beginning to end. They had seen some bands, drunk a lot, got stoned, watched the days haze by like a sepia film. As for the nights, there were parts she couldn’t remember. But in the tent that the three of them shared, as the apple-green canvas shone in the torchlight like a lantern, white hands had slipped into her sleeping bag, followed by white arms, white legs, mouths. She had pretended to be asleep for some of it. For some of it she was unable to pretend. But she might as well have been; in the morning, when they awoke with sleeping bags twisted like silkworms around them, nobody mentioned it.
Jam Page 6