by Tom Ellen
But there was also this weird, nagging sense of unreality about it all. Like we both knew deep down that this was an odd sort of flashback that couldn’t possibly sustain itself in the long run. At some point, we had to talk about the future.
When we’d finished eating, I went and washed up, and checked the pictures of Phoebe and the rest of them in Brown’s. I told myself I could think about all that later. I just had to get through whatever was going to happen with Abbey, and then I could make the world’s biggest apology to Phoebe tomorrow. I went back into the room and said: ‘So, what do you fancy doing?’
She shrugged. ‘Well, I was sat on a train for three hours, so it’d be nice to go out for a bit. You could show me York.’
‘There’s not much to show.’
‘Erm, excuse me. I’m sure your mum told us York was the UK’s second most popular tourist destination?’
‘Yes, I think she only mentioned that 700 times over the summer.’
She laughed. ‘Well, then.’
We walked off campus and followed the little leafy back streets into town. Even though I was purposely aiming us at the exact opposite side of the city to where Brown’s was, I still felt a constant thrum of terror as I imagined Phoebe or Frankie or Negin stepping around every corner.
We’d just turned on to the main road, which was lined with identical red-brick terraced houses, when I heard a sudden burst of music and shouting.
‘Oi! Taylor!’ I looked up to see Trev leaning casually out of a top-floor window, waving a can of lager at me. The room behind him was packed with people, dancing and shouting and drinking.
‘Yes, Trev,’ I shouted up at him. ‘Is this where you live?’
He shook his head. ‘No idea whose house this is. But I’m sure everyone’s welcome. You coming in?’
I looked at Abbey. ‘Er, no, I don’t think so.’
Abbey shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t mind. It’d be nice to meet some of your friends.’
‘No, I really think—’
‘Luke Taylor! Get the fuck inside!’ Drunk Toby had materialized next to Trev at the window, brandishing a half-empty bottle of vodka.
‘We could just say hello.’ Abbey smiled.
‘I’ll let you in!’ Trev yelled, disappearing back into the room.
Feeling the panic in my chest step up a few gears, I pushed the broken gate open. Trev ushered us into the living room and I realized I recognized nearly every single person inside it. Misty and Brandon and the quidditch lot were all here. Hot Mary was chatting to Scouse Paul on the sofa. Even Caribbean Jeremy was sat on the carpet, inexpertly rolling a stupidly big spliff.
Drunk Toby came galloping down the stairs and whacked me on the back. He handed me a can of Stella, and then started introducing himself to Abbey. Trev turned to me: ‘What’s going on with Will, then? Do you think he’s actually gone for good?’
‘Dunno,’ I said. ‘I haven’t heard anything.’
‘I heard he had to see the Provost. They might disband the team.’
‘Shit, really?’
He took a swig of beer. ‘I was thinking, you know, if they do, we should just start our own thing next term. No initiations, no dickheads, no Dempers. Just playing football and having a laugh.’
‘That’s actually a really good idea,’ I said.
‘I’ve already told Toby,’ Trev said proudly. ‘He’s on board.’
‘I reckon Ed would be into it, too.’
We clinked cans and he staggered off towards Jeremy, who was now attempting to light his precarious spliff. I looked past them, over at the doorway, to see that Negin and Frankie had appeared, and their eyes were shooting daggers at me.
And next to them, Abbey was talking to Phoebe.
PHOEBE
Abbey Baker looked as neat and perfectly groomed as she always had.
She has that Kate Middleton-type hair that no one really has in real life; long and bouncy and perfectly blow-dried. She was wearing an impossibly white cotton vest top with little purple strawberries embroidered on it, tucked into her jeans. Her white Converse didn’t have a single mark on them. Her nails were painted pale lilac to match the strawberries. She had hugged me like we had been mates at school. Not a cold, I-don’t-really-give-a-shit hug, but a warm, genuine one.
‘Phoebe, I want to know everything,’ she said. ‘It’s so rubbish being on a gap year. I keep seeing photos of people going out every night and I’m just sat with my mum and dad watching Countryfile.’ She laughed gently. Everything she did was sort of reserved.
I was trying so hard to keep smiling that it was difficult to concentrate on what she was saying. I felt like if I pretended it was just me and her in the room I might be able to get through.
I couldn’t look at Flora next to me, or over at Frankie and Negin. Flora was deliberately not looking at one corner of the room, so I knew that’s where Luke was. The nerves in my tummy were mostly because of Flora. Because she is an unknown quantity. She could say anything at any moment.
‘I love your trousers. We match.’ Abbey took a sip of her drink and smiled at Flora. ‘I want to be able to wear vintage stuff but I just don’t know where to start. You always look amazing. You need to give me some tips.’
Abbey was nice. I had never heard a bad word about her. She had always been in the popular group but she was one of the ones that everyone knew was actually OK. She was sweet to everyone. She ran homework club with Year Seven in the Sixth Form. She was the full package, really. Girlfriend material.
Flora looked down at her seventies flares, which were covered in psychedelic pineapples and strawberries. It wasn’t Abbey’s fault. I looked at Flora. She must feel it. That Abbey didn’t deserve to be hurt. That she hadn’t done anything. I willed her to be nice.
‘Strawberries are clearly the thing. Phoebs, here . . .’ Flora unpinned her strawberry brooch and leant over and jabbed it into my vest. It dug into me.
‘Ouch.’
‘Oops, sorry.’ She fastened it. ‘Strawberry crew.’
Abbey got out her phone. I smiled as she took the picture.
She showed it to us. I didn’t look like myself. Or maybe I did but I just felt so weird that nothing seemed normal. Flora was half smiling. A kind of non-committal smile. Like she didn’t want to give anything away one way or another. Abbey was doing a perfect off-duty model smile. Warm and accessible and polished.
I looked across the room by accident and saw Frankie and Negin. Frankie’s face looked different, too. She was usually so animated that I had never really stopped and realized that she was actually quite beautiful in a statuesque, almost old-fashioned way. When she wasn’t scoffing and gurning she looked like a woman from a Victorian painting. The kind of face people used to call handsome. She was expressionless almost. She looked grown-up.
‘I need the loo,’ I said, and didn’t look at Flora but just crossed the room. In my side gaze I thought I saw Luke’s shape but I made myself keep moving forward.
There was someone in the bathroom. I could hear footsteps behind me. Neither Frankie or Negin spoke. We just stood outside the toilet, all waiting together. Hot Quidditch Marco walked out carrying a pint of blue liquid. None of us said anything.
He smiled. ‘You look serious.’ The way his Italian accent said the word ‘serious’ would usually have made Frankie burst into an impression. But she didn’t. He held the blue drink out. We all shook our heads in a way that said ‘not now’.
We crammed in, and locked the door. You could tell boys lived here. It was functional with a grimy edge. I sat on the toilet and Frankie and Negin sat on the edge of the bath. None of us spoke. And the longer none of us said anything the harder it got to break the silence. I felt like it should be me. Like they were waiting for my cue. To see whether I was angry or sad or confused. They didn’t want to jump in any direction until I had.
‘I just . . . I don’t know . . . I hope Flora is OK.’ It was empty. Of course it was. Flora would be OK on Mars, psychedelic flares and all
.
‘She’ll be fine. She knows her . . . kind of.’ Frankie was serious.
‘I don’t want her to feel like I’ve left her.’
Negin shook her head. ‘She won’t.’
‘I don’t want her to make anything . . . weird.’ This was closer to the truth. I couldn’t bear for her to make me endure some public scene.
‘I don’t think she’ll say anything to Abbey,’ Negin said gently. ‘If she was going to she would have done it by now.’
I nodded. I wasn’t going to cry. I wasn’t angry. I just wanted to evaporate. To not have to live through what was coming. There was a knock on the door. My stomach lurched intensely. It must be Luke.
‘You all right, ladies?’ It was Josh’s voice.
‘Phoebe isn’t very well,’ Frankie said to the door.
‘I’ll get you some water,’ he called back and we heard his feet thud down the stairs.
The silence continued until he knocked on the door again. Negin opened it and he handed her a pint of water. ‘Classic Bennet, peaking too early.’ None of us responded and he seemed to catch that something was going on. ‘Hope you’re OK.’ He leant over and touched me really gently on the shoulder and then left, shutting the door behind him.
‘Shall we just go?’ Frankie said. ‘There’s no point sitting in here for hours.’
‘I’ll go. Flora will come with me. You two should definitely stay. I mean, Ed might be coming . . . I don’t want you guys to . . .’
‘To be honest I think this evening is a bit cursed,’ Frankie said. ‘I don’t think I want tonight to be me and Ed’s night anyway. I think tomorrow will be a better day for . . . everything.’
I just needed to get from the bathroom to the front door. It was, like, fifteen steps. As soon as I was out I would be OK.
‘I don’t want to say goodbye to anyone,’ I said.
‘We’ll just say you are really ill.’ Negin put her arm around my shoulder. It was so unlike her that for a split second I felt tears prick. ‘Ten seconds and we’ll be out of here.’
‘I’ll go and tell Flora,’ Frankie said.
Negin held my hand as she unlocked the door. She squeezed it. We walked out. I could hear everyone in the living room and in the kitchen. A couple I had never seen before were getting off with each other in the hall.
‘My coat’s in the living room,’ I whispered to Negin.
She nodded. ‘OK, wait here, I’ll get it.’ She walked in just as Flora walked out. She was shaking her head like she was slightly pissed off. She looked up and saw me. She threw her arms around me. ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here.’
Negin came out holding my coat. I put it on and shuffled towards the front door. As we passed the living room I heard my name.
‘Phoebe?’ I looked up. It was Abbey. ‘Are you leaving?’ She looked so earnest.
I nodded. ‘I don’t feel very well.’
‘Luke!’ Abbey shouted. ‘Phoebe Bennet is leaving.’
Flora shook her head. ‘Fuck’s sake.’ She said it under her breath and Abbey’s face flickered momentarily.
Luke appeared beside Abbey. I made myself not look at him.
‘I don’t have my bag,’ I said to no one in particular.
‘I’ll get it.’ Abbey turned and went back into the living room.
‘Hope you feel better.’ Luke’s voice sounded tiny.
‘You’re a fucking arsehole,’ Flora said it plainly and clearly but low enough that only we could hear it.
‘Flora, please.’ I reached down for her hand but she shook it away from me.
‘No, Phoebs. Don’t try and make it better for him.’
‘Stop. I don’t want—’
‘Fine.’ She looked at Luke. ‘Go and enjoy the party, Luke. It’s Phoebe’s birthday after all, so it’s important we all really go for it.’ She handed him her glass of punch and smiled a huge fake smile. ‘Enjoy.’
Abbey was standing behind Luke holding my bag. She reached over and handed it to me. I knew she had heard. And I knew that she knew. She looked the same as she had twenty minutes ago, perfectly coiffed, but her face couldn’t hide it. She was broken. She looked at me and something in her eyes triggered something in me. I knew I was going to cry and that there was nothing I could do to stop it.
‘Thank you,’ I said, and put the bag over my shoulder.
‘Fuck. My stuff is in the bedroom.’ Flora turned and bounded upstairs. And I ran out of the door.
The cold felt so good. I ran to the top of the street and turned the corner. I was right in front of the city walls that me and Flora had touched only a few hours ago. It felt so weird. So much had changed. How could it all have changed so quickly?
I let myself start crying.
‘Phoebe.’ I turned around. Josh was there. I let him hold me. And then I was physically shaking.
It was weirdly violent. Like my whole body was part of it, these long convulsions that I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t control myself. It was so loud. Not tears, but huge gasping wails. Every time I tried to stop they sounded more strangled and desperate.
The force of his hold steadied me. I let him hold me so tight that all the sounds were buried in him. It went on and on until the gulps slowed to every ten seconds or so. He just held me and held me. Rocked me gently in a kind of rhythm that matched how I was crying until it was soothing. I didn’t want him to let me go. I couldn’t speak and he didn’t speak. I stepped away and the cold air hit me and I gulped an aftershock of a cry. Josh didn’t seem to need to say anything. It was like he would have stood next to me endlessly not needing any kind of explanation or movement. I opened my mouth to speak and breathed in but I didn’t know what I wanted to come out. I wiped my nose with my sleeve.
Finally, I said: ‘I feel sick.’ I didn’t know if I did. I didn’t even feel like I was connected to myself, like I was in my own body. I just said it because I felt like maybe it could be true.
He nodded. ‘Do you have a hair tie?’
I took mine off my wrist and he took it off me and tied my hair into a ponytail. ‘You’ll be fine now. Nothing worse than sick in hair. Just feel free to really chunder your guts out now if you need to.’
A rasped laugh came out of me. ‘OK. Thanks.’ I stared at the pavement. ‘What a shit birthday.’
‘Well . . .’ He took his rucksack off his back. ‘OK, Bennet, it hasn’t been ideal, I get that. I mean, I’m sure other birthdays have been better. But, you haven’t had my birthday present on other birthdays.’
He pulled out an extremely crumpled package with Thomas the Tank Engine wrapping paper.
I smiled weakly as he handed it to me and unwrapped it slowly. They were cookie cutters. A cupcake, a ladybird, a cactus and a train. I held them all cupped in my hands. ‘Thank you. I love them. Especially the train.’
He nodded. ‘I told you, I knew you were a train person.’
‘It’s really weird.’ I held it up and looked at him through the middle of the train outline. ‘I told Flora today, and I was going to tell you.’
‘Tell me what?’
‘I decided what I want to do with my twentieth year.’
‘Indeed, Miss Bennet?’ He picked the cactus up and looked at me through it. ‘Well, what is it then?’
‘I want to go travelling. Like round Europe. Inter-railing. You know –’ I held up the train – ‘on trains.’
We looked at each other through our cookie cutters.
‘Well,’ he said, casually looking to the side. ‘Are you going on your own, you know, just training it about on your own or—’
‘Well, I might ask some people, you know, I don’t know. I’ll have to see, if anyone . . . wants to come.’
He looped his arm through mine and pulled me in towards him. ‘Let’s get you home.’
But I didn’t want to go home. I wanted to be close to him. I pulled back and looked at him and took a step forward. And then I kissed him on the cheek, gently, near his mouth,
and then moved across and kissed him again, closer this time. He cupped my face in his hands and made a sort of quiet, frustrated moan.
‘Phoebe . . .’ He took a step away and put his hands in his pockets. ‘Let’s get you home.’ He sounded upset. Almost angry. I had never seen him even vaguely angry before.
I could feel myself going red. I got my phone out and ordered a cab. He walked away a bit and stood with his back to me.
‘Phoebe—’
‘Don’t say anything. Like, please. I just can’t face any more tonight.’
‘Phoebe, I just . . . Listen. You know what I want in my twenty-first year?’
‘What?’ I almost shouted it.
‘To know that I will know you for the rest of my life. For forever.’
‘Yup.’ I shook my head as I said it and turned and started to walk up the road. ‘Whatever.’ I could hear his paces behind me. ‘Will you at least leave me to feel humiliated alone?’
His paces stopped. We had only walked about five metres. The cab slowed down and I got into it, keeping my eyes fixed on the floor.
‘Are you getting in?’ the driver asked, and Josh must have shaken his head because he shrugged and wound the window up.
He glanced in the mirror and it made me do the same. He had clearly assessed the situation in one bored flick of the eye: drunk student. My mascara had run all down my face and my eyes were still red and swollen. Neither of us spoke. I looked at my phone just in time to see I had seventeen messages before it died. So I just peered into the darkness and tried to block everything out.
Finally, we slowed to a stop. ‘Mind how you go, love. They’re never worth it.’