Exposure

by Talitha Stevenson

  The main room was not enormous, but the ceiling was incred ibly high and there was a mezzanine gallery around it with matt glass in place of a railing, so it appeared that people were standing on the edge of a drop right into the centre of the floor. The ceiling itself was covered with a vast, apparently single mirror, and the crowd beneath daubed it with a gaudy, living fresco. The bar—as if to avoid design cliché—was unadorned black granite. Beside it, the DJ stand was elevated and glowing and behind the glass a girl in a pink Gap T-shirt was mixing house tunes, oblivious to the crowd.

  There were a great many beautiful people in the room. Luke took them in. None of the girls looked older than twenty-four, though some had a fixed expression that suggested surgery or injections. They were all sleek, toned, compact, sizes eight to twelve, depending on their height. The men had all paid due homage to biceps, triceps, deltoid and latissimus dorsi, tastefully avoiding overdevelopment of the trapezius, which gave a man a thick-necked, rather useful look. Luke imagined with envy that these men all had developed pectorals, too—his were rather sadly deflated, these days. It was an incredible party to look at: a room full of narcissists, many of whom were paid to indulge their obsession.

  Again, Luke tightened his hand around the gun in his jacket pocket. As his fingers touched it, he told himself that if he wanted to, he could, at any moment, make the whole beautiful room stand still. All he had to do was take it out of his pocket! He did not have to hurt anyone, he did not have to kill anyone; it would be enough simply to raise his arm.

  He felt an inexplicable pang of sexual arousal—an image of Arianne, upright in front of him, pressed against a wall, her legs wrapped behind his. Her cheek and her hair scraped up and down the wall, up and down, up and down, her eyes were closed, her mouth slightly open; her weight was surrendered to the strength of his arms...

  'Hey, Luke,' said a voice behind him.

  He spun round. 'Caroline? How come you're here?' he said.

  'I just ... well, I came after all. Sometimes I do,' she said, shrugging, 'for work.'

  She was rather drunk. The alcohol had made her more confident and she smiled flirtatiously at him. Suddenly Luke was incredibly glad to see her. Actually, he decided, it was unbearable to imagine what might have happened if she hadn't been there. He felt himself beginning to panic. What had he been thinking? He didn't know a single person at the party! If Caroline hadn't been there, he would have been forced to stand all alone, dry-mouthed with fear, building himself up to some kind of action he had not even fully visualized. The impending moment of confrontation burned a hole in his mind.

  He attempted to smile warmly at her.

  She said, 'So, I've already had too much to drink. Dreadfully unhip. Letting a penniless hack near free booze is a very bad idea. I've been drinking champagne cocktails with the Hello! photographer, actually. Now there's a man who's seen all humanity.'

  Luke knew he ought to respond, to comment, to expand, but all he could muster was, 'Shall we go to the bar?' He was desperate for the burn of alcohol at the back of his throat and could not stomach the rise and fall of this female voice any longer. He knew he must have a drink in the next few seconds or he would lose control of himself in some fundamental way, and although he couldn't say exactly which, it was frightening, none the less.

  Caroline giggled. 'To the bar? ... Oh, my God, Luke, I may keel over shortly, but OK. You have been warned.'

  Luke knew perfectly well that she would have done anything he suggested and, as she followed him to the bar, the thought calmed him. While they waited for the drinks, he lit her cigarette and tried to remember he was good-looking and that he was the person everyone called to find out if there was a plan for Saturday night.

  Caroline said, 'So it's a bit of a weird theme, don't you think? I mean, hello, is anyone aware of the connotations of this theme, the irony?'

  The gun banged against his hip as he raised his cigarette. 'Irony?' he said.

  'Exactly,' Caroline laughed. 'I mean, that's what they must fucking be like at home— Liam and the one with the hair. Jamie, is it? Christ.'

  Luke pretended to have understood her and laughed contemptuously too. He had no problem showing contempt.

  She gasped. 'OK. Oh, my God, is that Slick over there? It fucking is. My little sister will completely hyperventilate when I tell her.'

  Luke followed her gaze. Slick was standing with his arm draped over none other than Arianne. The gold dreadlocks snaked over her bare shoulder. She was wearing a plain white vest top and some denim shorts with a pair of pale gold stilettos. She had no jewellery on at all. She was like a sexually explicit remark among a thousand coquettish evasions.

  'Oh, my God, that girl is so gorgeous. Not like your typical small-features, little-hips model, like properly fifties-screen-goddess-gorgeous. Look at those tits. How fucking long are her legs? She must be six foot.'

  Thankfully the drinks arrived before Luke was forced to reply.

  'Oh, I really, really, really shouldn't be doing this,' Caroline said, lifting the glass.

  The taste of the drink was immediately reassuring to Luke. It was a strong Cosmopolitan, both bitter and sour at once and it made a hot path down his throat. 'So, have you been drinking all day, or what?' he said.

  'No, no—just in the pub, after work. You know.'

  He knew. He imagined a colleague or two had got her tipsy on pub Chardonnay and told her to go to the party and take a chance with him. With a bit of drink inside her it must have seemed like a good idea. He was intensely grateful to her friends.

  Handling Caroline was going to be delicate, though. He would have to give her enough encouragement to make her stay, but not so much that there was a scene, he thought. How appalling if there was a scene and he had to admit he didn't fancy her and she left him on his own.

  Anxiety drove him to put his hand into his pocket again. A gun had an unmistakable shape: it felt like nothing else in the world.

  Then it struck him that he was a twenty-eight-year-old man at a party with a gun in his pocket and he wondered if he had ever been so lonely. He watched Caroline light another cigarette and blow out the smoke, playing a woman with nothing to care about but the warm air on her skin. She tossed her hair. 'So, Luke, why did you want to come to this thing so much, anyway?'

  'This? Oh, I just know someone here, that's all.'

  She waited. Then she giggled. 'Right. That's it, is it? Thanks for clearing that up. You're a man of few words, aren't you?'

  Just then several kilos of tiny gold stars were jet-piped in streams out of tubes at each corner of the ceiling. Fans at floor level whipped them up in the turbulence so that everywhere you looked there were falling stars tumbling and sparkling in the lights. Caroline got some in her mouth and Luke shook them off his hair and brushed them out of the inside of his collar. People laughed and cheered and the DJ put on a new tune so that a huge group began to dance. It was all expertly choreographed.

  'Fucking hell,' Caroline said, laughing and spitting and wiping her mouth. 'I'm deeply sorry if this is, like, your best friend's party or something, but this is the most pretentious place I've ever been to.'

  'It's not my best friend's party,' Luke said.

  'No, well, it couldn't be—or you wouldn't have needed me for an invitation,' she said, looking at him quizzically. Then her eye spotted something over his shoulder and she tugged his sleeve and pointed into the room. 'Oooh, hang on, speech. Jamie Wotsit's going to say a few words. This should be witty and incisive.'

  Jamie Turnbull stood on the nearest available chair as if this saying-a-few-words thing was unplanned, but as soon as he spoke it was apparent he had been carefully wired up with a microphone. He did a little Japanese bow, with his hands pressed together, and then he raised his arms like a marathon winner. 'This is a fantastic night for me. A fucking dream come true!' he shouted.

  The crowd cheered and many people lifted their glasses.

  'So humble, so natural,' Caroline whispered sarcastic
ally, pursing her lips. Again, Luke was relieved that she was there. She was, in fact, the only voice of reason in the room and a deeply hidden part of him was aware of it.

  Jamie went on, 'OK, so this crazy idea was born about two years ago—if my memory serves, it was over a Tequila Sunrise at Club Santo in Ibiza.' He saluted the DJ. 'Great night that, Layla. Anyway, I think my buddy Liam will agree it's been quite a ride!

  There was polite laughter as Jamie and Liam did a little pantomime of exhaustion together.

  Caroline said, 'Didn't he just use his daddy's money?'

  'So, what I need,' Jamie went on, 'is to see everyone with a wicked little cocktail in their hand because I want all of you beautiful people—and you are beautiful people, if I may say so—' There were more cheers, people raised lit matches or lighters, as if they were at a concert, hearing a real classic.'—I want all of you to drink a big fat toast with me on my—sorry, our—opening night.'

  Caroline tipped a little of Luke's drink into her own nearly empty glass. 'Don't let me do things like that, Luke,' she said. 'Really.'

  'But before we all raise our glasses, I want someone to join me up here—if her heels will allow it. Arianne?' he said.

  Involuntarily Luke darted forward, and Caroline glanced at him, surprised. Arianne reached an elegant brown arm up to the outstretched hand. The muscles in her long legs flexed as she climbed on to the chair. She kissed Jamie's cheek. He turned to the crowd and said, 'OK, so this girl right here is the love of my fucking life and I want you all to know it. 'There were more cheers. 'So, it's, like, one afternoon we're walking around a little market and she mentions lapis-lazuli is her favourite semi-precious stone.' He shrugged, 'So I buy her the little pendant she likes and the kiss she gives me to say thank you—well, I name my bar after it. But the way I see it, there's nothing semi-precious about this lady, so I thought I'd get her something a little more fitting to mark the occasion.' Casually hidden in his shirt pocket was a diamond choker. He held it out to her, live and electric, on the palm of his hand. Then he motioned for her to turn so that he could fasten it.

  It looked exquisite. Suddenly her neck was elongated and her face sat like a rare flower above it. There was more cheering and wolf-whistling from the crowd, and then the microphone grotesquely magnified the sound of their kiss all round the room. When Luke closed his eyes to block out the reality, he saw two vast mouths, two sets of giant, rubbery lips. After the kiss, one whispered something to the other and the sound was duly broadcast—the word 'love', was it? Luke's mind fluttered in terrified circles. Was that Jamie's voice or hers? Was it 'love' or could it possibly—just possibly—have been 'shouldn't have'. He was trembling.

  'Hey, are you OK, Luke?' Caroline said.

  He realized he was shaking quite violently and he tried to stop, but it made no difference.

  Caroline took the drink out of his hand and put it on the bar. He could hear her saying, 'Oh, no, you've got it on your trousers. They're such wonderful trousers, too. Look, I'm sure it'll come out if you use stain-remover.'

  Jamie shouted, 'To Lapis-Lazuli! and then there was a deafening roar from the whole ham-acting crowd and arms holding cocktail glasses were raised in every direction. The room had become a forest of waving trees, bearing strange fruit.

  'Luke, shall we sit down?' Caroline was saying. 'Hey, we can sit over there. Let's get out of this fucking mob a minute. Yeah?'

  She took his arm and he let the gun swing against her elbow as they walked. She pushed people aside. 'Excuse me? Hello? Excuse me? Mind out the bloody way.' By the time they sat down, there was a frenzy of dancing everywhere. They were in one of the miraculous oases of quiet.

  'Shit, Luke, you look a bit ill, to be honest,' Caroline said. 'Are you on something? Should I get you some water or something?'

  'I'm OK,' he said. Then a particularly violent bout of shaking took over his body.

  'D'you know what?' Caroline said. 'I really don't think you are OK. I think I'm going to go and get someone. You've gone really pale and I just ... I think you might need a doctor.'

  She stood up and he put his hand on her arm. 'Don't. Please don't. There's no need for a doctor. It's just seeing my ex-girlfriend, that's all. OK? It's just the shock.'

  'Oh,' Caroline said. She took this in, and then sat down a little despondently, the chair meeting her bottom sooner than she had expected it to. She pushed back her hair. 'Oh, right. So ... so, who's your ex-girlfriend, then?'

  He said nothing, but she caught on. 'Oh, God, it's not her, is it? The incredible girl?'

  Luke nodded. 'That's why you wanted to come? To see her?'

  He blinked for 'yes'.

  'Oh,' Caroline said, 'right.' Actually, more than any disappointment, she felt a kind of relief. It had been petrifying to contemplate taking her clothes off in front of this perfect man. She felt glad to be unburdened of her libido, to be unsexed by his focus on another woman. It was easier, after all, to be the sympathetic friend rather than to suffer all that sharp hope and physical longing. She put her hand on his knee. 'So, how long ago did it end?'

  'I'm not sure,' Luke told her. 'I've lost track.'

  Caroline watched him for a moment. At her most bitter, when her acne had been at its worst, she had often wished one of the beautiful, popular set at university would suffer like this. Emily, Alex, Richard, Ludo, Georgie—she had hated them all for their effortless beauty, their perfect skin and their huge clothing allowances. Did they actually feel pain in clothes like that?

  She had never been able to understand how her friend Jessica had existed so calmly, so normally, in the midst of it all, sharing a house with Ludo and Luke. Caroline had always been torn up with love and hatred of them. She remembered hanging round in Jessica's kitchen, tortured with self-disgust, hoping for a sexy glimpse of Luke after a football match or tennis or rowing.

  Over the years since university, she had frequently enjoyed rerunning a delicious bit of mental footage. Once, Luke had come into the kitchen in very short cotton shorts. He did not bother to say hello, but pulled off his grass-stained T-shirt and, with a mesmerizing ripple of his abdominal muscles, threw it into the washing-machine. Then he walked over to the fridge and gulped down a half-litre of strawberry milk before he said, 'Beat the wankers, three—nil.' Then he grinned and wiped his mouth on his arm. Caroline had thought she might faint, and after he left, she spilt hot chocolate on her Schopenhauer essay.

  Now she took in his pale, sweating face. 'Oh, you look so ill, Luke. Normally it's your picture they have in the dictionary beside the word "health".'

  'I just haven't been sleeping that well. I think I've been a bit depressed.'

  'Hey, I know what it feels like,' Caroline said, nodding. 'I mean the whole nightmare of getting over someone and all that.'

  Luke made eye-contact with her, his eyes searching her face. 'Do you?'

  She was oddly moved by his interest in her feelings. 'Yes, of course. Fuck, I've had to get through it before. It's horrible. It's the worst pain in the world. You're all, like, "Does nobody know I'm in this terrible anguish? How can God let this happen?'" She shook her fist at the mirrored ceiling. "'Is there anybody out there at all?" You question everything, don't you? No, it's awful.'

  Luke stared at her, sickened and afraid. To hear his private emotions parodied as if they were common to everyone—to people with acne! What did this unpopular girl know about the way he and Arianne loved? 'No,' he said, 'no, it's not like that.'

  She recoiled. 'Oh. Well, look, I'm sorry. Obviously I have no idea what happened. Maybe you hate her. It's really none of my business.'

  She looked away and Luke realized then and there that genuine loneliness was worse than humiliation. He said, 'No, I don't hate her. It is like you said. The only person I hate is him.'

  'Him? What?' She crossed her eyes and prodded Luke's arm. 'jamie-with-the-hair?'

  'Yes.'

  'Why the hell's she going out with him, anyway? Other than the diamonds and so on, I mean.'<
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  'No, no, she's really not like that,' Luke said. But as he spoke, he realized he wasn't sure if that was true.

  'So maybe they're a real couple, then? Look, I don't want to rub it in—believe me, I sympathize—but maybe you just have to let go or whatever. You know what I'm saying?'

  'No.'

  'But if she's not in it for the wrong reasons, there must be something...'

  He struggled to speak. He regretted placing his faith in Caroline, opening himself to this onslaught. 'No. All I wish is that he could just ... just die.'

  Caroline smiled gently. 'Oh, Luke,' she said, 'but you know you've got to forgive and forget, really. Though I have no idea if there is anyone mature enough to actually wish their ex well. Actually, if there is I really don't think we'd get on.' She frowned in sympathy. 'God, life's tough, isn't it?'

  Luke said, 'I've got a gun.'

  She scrunched up her face as if he had told a disgusting joke. 'Sorry?'

  He lifted the butt a little way out of his pocket.

  'Yes, but it's not real though?' she blurted out without thinking. When she went over it later, she realized that even if it had been a replica it would still have been bizarre of him to bring it to a party.

  'It's real,' he told her.

  She glanced around nervously and spoke in a level, quiet voice, with a false smile on her face. 'Come on. Not really, though. Really, Luke?'

  'I said it is. It's real.'

  She was plainly frightened. He noticed the way her pallor made all the spots stand out. He felt terribly sorry for her. How could he have been so viciously superior about someone like Caroline? Who the hell did he think he was? He took a sip of his drink to give his mouth a little moisture. He could see her eyes flicking round the room. 'You're scaring me,' she said. 'Is that what you want to do? I don't understand.'