Skulk

by Rosie Best

  I realised I was staring and turned my glance to Warren. In contrast to Hipster Dick, Warren was short and stocky. He was wearing jeans and a yellow Paul Smith shirt. I noticed Mum didn’t seem to be utterly humiliated by the denim as long as it was on one of her guests.

  “Call me Rich,” said Hipster Dick, with a sweet half smile.

  “Meg,” I said, in a nice loud clear voice so Mum could hear me.

  Warren replied by smiling at my boobs. I only hoped they were enough to keep him entertained for the rest of the evening, because God knew I had no idea what to say to him.

  Mum was looking at me. I was supposed to be doing something. Oh, right.

  “Can I, um, can I get you something to drink?” Mum rolled her eyes at me before she walked away. Obviously I was already a total disaster. I turned to wave over one of the waiters with a little tray. Warren and Hipster Dick both took glasses of red wine. So that was that part done.

  The three of us hovered by the window sipping our drinks in silence, smiling awkwardly.

  This was excruciating.

  “So, er, Mum said you go to Cambridge?” I asked.

  “We’re in first year at Trinity,” said Hipster Dick. “Are you applying?”

  “Well, Mum wants me to.”

  “I’d be happy to introduce you to a couple of the right people,” he said. “You should come up for a couple of days.”

  “That’s what Mum said,” I agreed, without much enthusiasm.

  “You don’t sound very sure.”

  “Oh, I mean, thank you, really, it’s just...” It’s just that I don’t want to go anywhere that’ll take me just because my mother introduced me to all the important people. It even sounded rude in my head, so I just trailed off.

  Hipster Dick’s pretty amber-brown eyes narrowed. “It sucks that who I introduce you to might be what gets you in.”

  I blinked at him. “Yeah, it really does.”

  I felt my face warming under his gaze. I guess I’d misjudged him. I guess not everyone Mum knows has to be completely morally bankrupt.

  Warren made a deeply unattractive spitting sound in the back of his throat. “Ugh, Richard, don’t be such a fag. Hey, you were at Conference this year, tell me Jenkins didn’t do his usual two hours on NHS reforms.”

  I blinked at him. I instinctively tried to formulate a reply, despite the fact I’d rather die than attend a Party Conference.

  But Hipster Dick laughed, and just like that, I realised my five seconds of being relevant to the conversation were over. Warren had very deliberately changed the subject. He kept smiling at my boobs as if they were making a contribution, but after the third time he’d made Hipster Dick laugh and I had no idea how, I drew my own conclusions.

  “I was helping out at the EDYC last week, surgery was full of crackpots as per, then Glenn and Alex took Barrows and Robinson out to lunch to grease them up for the IDK and sprung prescription allowances on them over the milk-fed veal, they nearly crapped themselves but the GNE is solid,” said Warren, without apparently stopping to breathe.

  I tried to smile when it seemed appropriate and laugh whenever Hipster Dick did, but I could feel my eyes glazing over. I traced patterns in the condensation on the side of my glass until my fingers were dripping wet and I had to surreptitiously wipe them on a discarded napkin.

  I’m not stupid. I’m politically engaged. It’d be hard not to be, when I live with the MP for Kensington and Chelsea. She named me after Margaret Thatcher, and I’ve been searching for a suitable revenge for that ever since. I can follow real politics. It’s just the backroom insider talk that makes my brain try to crawl away and hide under the sofa.

  “Glenn says we’re going to screw them on copyright reform,” Warren said. He followed up with a vivid description of just how hard and against their will they were going to get screwed that made me glare at him and grip onto my glass for fear I might accidentally chuck my lemonade in his face. Hipster Dick caught my eye and gave a tiny eyebrow-twitch.

  An apology, for his friend’s douchebaggery? He wasn’t sorry enough to try and make Warren shut up, though.

  Warren carried on speaking and I tried to tune him out again.

  A dark scuttling shape moved across the windowsill and I bit back a yelp.

  Another bloody spider.

  I don’t like spiders. Nobody likes spiders. It’s the legs, they’re just wrong. But I didn’t want to run away or squish it this time. Maybe I was getting hardened to the creep-factor, or maybe I’d just lost all feeling in my brain after listening to Warren for – I glanced at the clock – oh God, almost half an hour.

  Warren was saying something about someone called John getting lynched by a select committee, and Hipster Dick was smirking knowingly. I could hear the tone of Mum’s voice rising and falling silkily on the other side of the room as she sucked up to Sir Douglas Ross, the Chief Whip. He was a thin, scary man who always wore a thin blood red tie – according to the Westminster legend he threatened to strangle people with it on a regular basis.

  The spider climbed to the top of one of the pointy white ornaments, on the side that meant only I could see it, and sat there. Its two front legs rubbed together, but it didn’t move.

  Did that mean something? Was it looking at me? Did the spider want me to see it?

  OK, now you’re just being mental.

  Still...

  “Hey,” I whispered, no louder than a breath, trying not to move my jaw. “If you can hear me...”

  “Er, did you...?” Hipster Dick interrupted Warren in mid-crow. He stared at me. “Did you just say something?”

  “I was just...” I stupidly let my eyes flicker to the spider. Hipster Dick and Warren both clocked the spider and then stared at me.

  “Did you say something to that spider?” Rich’s golden eyebrows drew down together. I didn’t dare look at Warren – he was smirking, I knew it, and probably formulating a joke involving Prozac and Disability Living Allowance. But looking at Rich was almost worse. He looked... worried.

  I’ve only known him half an hour and now he thinks I’m crazy, as well as a stupid girl, wearing a stupid horrible dress that doesn’t fit and laughing along with Warren’s awful jokes just because I don’t know what else to do.

  “It’s, er, been hanging around here, you know, when you keep seeing a bug it’s like, it’s kind of like become a bit of a, like, a nemesis–”

  Smack!

  I jumped about a foot in the air and only narrowly avoided throwing my lemonade over Warren after all. Something had hit the window, right beside me. Heads turned all around the room and conversation died. Warren, Rich and I stared out at the flapping shape on the outside windowsill.

  “Just a pigeon,” Warren said. “God, they’re stupid.” He rapped his knuckles on the window right in front of the pigeon’s face. It cringed back, then tapped on the window with its beak as if it could bite his fingers right through the glass. Warren laughed.

  “If I never see another pigeon it’ll be too soon,” said one of Dad’s men in suits. “Window cleaning on the Shard is like painting the Forth Bridge. Only worse! I don’t care how amazing the view is, I wouldn’t live up there with only those mangy birds for company.”

  The woman in the peacock dress laughed. “Peter did offer me special anti-pigeon window protection, but I said no. I rather like them.”

  Usually, I quite liked pigeons too. But something about this one was giving me the creeps. It was particularly mangy. Most of its feathers were ruffled up, several were missing altogether. Plus, it had red eyes – they must’ve really been deep orange, but they looked red. It twisted its head weirdly up and down, as if it was searching the inside sill.

  “Maybe it’s after your nemesis,” Warren said. Rich laughed, and I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. I looked down at my shoes. I smiled a cute, modest little apologetic smile. I hated myself.

  Dinner was pretty awkward, but at least there was something I was supposed to be doing with my hands and my mo
uth so I couldn’t say or do anything too ridiculously humiliating. I ate my noisettes of pan-glazed lamb in miniscule bites and took tiny sips of cranberry cordial.

  It was nearly enough distraction, but Rich leaned over to me as the waiters were clearing the main course and lining up with their plates of artfully-arranged desserts.

  “Hey, I’m sorry if I embarrassed you,” he said.

  “Er... when?” I tried to bluff.

  “You know. With your arachnid nemesis.” He smiled at me.

  “It’s funny, you don’t look like you’re mocking me,” I said. “But how could you not be? I’d be mocking me if I were you.”

  “I’m not,” Rich said.

  There was a weird, semi-uncomfortable silence between the two of us. The rest of the guests chattered and laughed across the table. A waiter slipped a plate of pomegranate parfaits in front of me.

  “I am sorry if you were embarrassed,” Rich said. He lowered his voice. “Warren really is a massive wanker. I didn’t mean to let him ramble. I really would like to take you round Trinity if you’re still interested.”

  I was saved from having to say yes or no as Mum stood up and started to make a speech. I tuned it out, focusing instead on the reflection of light through my drink dancing in little circles on the tablecloth.

  Finally she finished, we all ate up our desserts and people started filing back out into the drawing room. They were all laughing a bit louder, walking slightly less straight than before.

  I stood up. Only another hour or two and then I could vanish upstairs and this whole horrible evening would be over.

  There was a soft rrrrrr sound and a cool sensation on my right hip.

  I looked down and saw a smooth blob of flesh about the width of my hand poking out through the ripped seam of my dress. It was right at Rich’s eye level. His nose was practically touching it.

  Oh. My. God.

  Pinpricks of freezing sweat broke out all over my back and the room seemed to drift in and out of focus. I felt like I might faint. I took half a step backwards and nearly fell over my chair, bracing my feet on the floor and clutching at a passing waiter. There was a pinging feeling as another one of the stitches gave way.

  Warren burst out laughing.

  “Oof, had a few too many canapés, Maggie?” he said, incredibly loudly. Heads turned. People stared. Everything went blurry and tears stung in my eyes. I slapped my hand over the tear in my dress and made a dash for the door.

  The cool air flowing off the tiles in the hall was a relief for a few seconds. I leaned against the table and nearly knocked over the vase of flowers. I grabbed for it and set it down, only slopping a little bit of cold, mucky water onto the varnished table-top.

  Goosebumps started to pop up on my bare sausagey arms and the patch of exposed skin where I’d burst the seams of my dress, but my face and shoulders still felt like the blood underneath was slowly coming to the boil.

  “Meg,” said a soft voice.

  “Oh God.”

  It was Richard, and I couldn’t look at him. I shifted against the wall, so the table was between me and him, hiding the rip in my dress.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Ugh. Other than the fact that I look like an idiot, sure, I’m fine.”

  “Listen, seriously, don’t worry about it.” He was coming closer.

  He was coming really, really close. He put his hands on my arms. They were hot and very slightly clammy against my goosebumps.

  “It’s OK. We can still make out. I like chubby girls.”

  For a second, the party seemed to go silent and all I heard was white noise in my head.

  “I’m sorry... what?”

  I couldn’t have heard him right. Make out? Now, with me? Now?

  “Come on, like you weren’t thinking it too.”

  “I, I wasn’t...”

  Was I? I hadn’t totally dismissed the possibility of seeing him again, some time when I wasn’t squeezed into this dress, when I wasn’t on my least-bad-behaviour on pain of wardrobing, when we could talk, like normal people.

  “Well, you weren’t listening to Warren. I know I wasn’t. I was thinking about you.”

  I felt like I was floating somewhere just behind my head, watching all this, just not sure what the hell was going on. The words, themselves, were kind of flattering. So how come they felt so thoroughly icky?

  My heart thundered in my chest, my mouth went dry. I licked my lips to try and fix it, to say something, and he just grinned at me. I tried to shrink back into myself, but he pressed his skinny pelvis up against mine.

  “OK, no, Rich... I think...”

  “Come on, let’s go upstairs,” he said, leaning in. His hands were moving. One of them slid down to my waist, tracing little circles on the dress, pulling the fabric with it.

  Wait, was he–

  The dress was creeping up my legs. I moved to pull it down and he laughed and held my hand in his, which is when I realised my hands were shaking.

  It was the stupidest, most illogical thought I think I’ve ever had, but just for a second I told myself I’d better not try to pull my hand away because I don’t want to find out what he’d do next.

  “That’s enough, this is… Hey, stop it.” I didn’t recognise my own voice. It was like a child’s. I sounded pathetic! How could I not even find the words to tell him to sod off and stop groping me in my own hallway, not five metres from where my mother was standing drinking champagne cocktails with the Chief Whip?

  There was something I could do. I felt my ears prickle and my spine begin to move...

  I stopped it, forcing the change back. I couldn’t do it. If I turned into a fox with him watching, with Mum and half the Cabinet in the next room, I’d probably be abducted by government scientists and live out my life in a cage or something.

  Anyway, there was no way – no effing way – I was going to let Hipster Dick know my secret.

  He raised a hand to cup my left breast and squeezed.

  I reached out and grabbed the vase, shoved him away hard and chucked the stagnant flower water over his crotch.

  He staggered back, righted himself and stood still for a moment, staring down at himself. The greenish-yellow water stained his light grey trousers as it trickled to the ground. There was a limp pink daffodil caught on one of his suspenders.

  I brandished the vase like a club.

  “Get out of my house.”

  “What the hell?”

  “You heard me.”

  He swiped down his trousers with his hands, which did nothing to improve the look, tore the daffodil off and threw it to the floor like a kid chucking a toy out of its buggy.

  “Well, you certainly don’t have to worry about me getting you into Trinity. You stupid cow,” he spat, turning and heading for the front door. “If you think your dumb, fat arse is getting any help from me–”

  “Shut up,” I snapped, still clutching the vase. “Shut up and get out.”

  He was on the front doorstep when he turned back.

  “And tell your mother next time she wants to set you up she should warn the potential victim you’re such a frigid bitch.”

  I slammed the door in his face.

  CHAPTER SIX

  She set me up.

  I put the vase back on the table with great care, because I was afraid if I didn’t I’d hurl it against the wall.

  She set me up with that.

  I stepped lightly over the scattered flowers and crossed the hall to the cleaning cupboard. I unpacked one of the new rolls of paper towels from its neat row and spread the paper liberally over the floor.

  She obviously didn’t know that he’d – what he’d – what he’d try to – that he’d be…

  I knelt and scrunched up soggy paper towels in both hands, squeezing them so hard the water leaked out again, which sort of defeated the point.

  I couldn’t even find the words for it in my own head, and I didn’t want to anyway. I wanted to clear this up, change into so
me proper clothes and then hide in my room until either Mum sent Gail to drag me out again or I turned eighteen and could move out.

  The nearest bin in the house was back past the drawing room and I didn’t want to risk Mum or her guests spotting me. But there was a street bin on the pavement just in front of our door, despite Mum’s increasingly frantic attempts to get the council to move it down the road.

  I scraped up the paper towels and wet daffodils in my arms, managed to open the front door with my elbow, descended the front steps and dumped the rubbish into the bin.

  When I turned back, there was a fox on the steps in front of the door, not more than a couple of feet from me. I froze, in case it startled, but it just sat still on its haunches and stared dead at me.

  Normal foxes don’t get that close. And they don’t stare – they’ll stop to make sure you’re not a threat, but they’ve got things to do, bins to raid. They’re busy. They don’t sit and stare, certainly not for this long.

  It looked smaller than the one I’d seen yesterday. It was definitely scruffier, its fur standing up on its back and a bit of mud caked around its paws.

  “You’re not James Farringdon,” I said. The fox huffed air out of its nose. A snort? A laugh? “Are you from the Skulk?”

  The fox nodded.

  A sound slapped through the air and a gust of wind whipped my hair around my face. The fox gave a screech and reared up as a pigeon fell on it, claws first, beak pecking viciously. It was the one from earlier, its mangy wings leaving trails of dust and bits of feather in the air as they flapped madly to keep it hovering over the fox’s head. The fox tried to snap at the pigeon and bat it away, its fangs shining yellow in the street light, but it had to keep turning away, squeezing its eyes shut to protect them from the pigeon’s raking claws.

  I seized the closest liftable object, a thin clay plant pot about the length and shape of a baseball bat, and swiped at the pigeon. It swooped out of the way, almost tumbling to the ground before shooting back up into the air. It flapped around my head, and I caught a glimpse of a sharp grey beak and mad red eyes, and then felt a needle-thin lance of pain just over my ear. I could taste blood. That was weird – had I bitten my tongue?