Revelry

by Lucy Lord

  I can’t help wondering if it’s a bit too convenient, but hey. Shut up Bella, it’s just your God-awful hangover messing with your head.

  I perch uncomfortably on the Stadium sofa, the backs of my thighs sticking sweatily to the black leather.

  When Ben first moved in I was ecstatic, utterly overwhelmed after years of unrequited longing. We shagged all over the place, I cooked every evening and even got up early a couple of times to make us breakfast in bed before heading out to work. But only a month on, things aren’t quite so rosy, loath though I am to admit it.

  The sound of hysterical laughter around the corner of the L-shaped open-plan office interrupts my self-pitying internal monologue. The editorial meeting.

  ‘How about a feature on fuckable feminists?’

  ‘Hahahaha! It could be called Feminists I’d Like to Fuck! FILF!’

  ‘Can you imagine how many humourless harridans we could offend?!’

  More guffaws.

  ‘Slight problem though,’ one wag pipes up. ‘There aren’t any!’

  They can hardly contain their mirth at this.

  ‘Actually, that’s not true,’ says a lilting voice I recognize as Damian’s. ‘Poppy and her friends refer to themselves as feminists.’ Bless him.

  Much ribaldry and phwoars follow, then somebody says,

  ‘There’s that one who wrote The Beauty Myth, Naomi something; she was pretty hot …’

  ‘And Germaine Greer …’

  ‘That mad old bat? Are you off your rocker?’

  ‘Not now, you twat, back in the day. She was well fit when she did that nude cover of Oz …’

  This is how Damian earns a living? Well, it certainly beats binding, and I allow myself a grudging soupçon of envy as I look around the untidy office. The walls are papered in old shots from the magazine (practically all naked or nearly naked women, with the odd ‘iconic’ male – George Best, Bill Clinton, David Beckham, Oliver Reed, Richard Burton; you get the picture). In one corner are a table football, pool table, various PlayStations and a glass-fronted fridge stocked with cans of Stella and Red Bull. Some obscure house thuds from somebody’s iMac speakers. Think what you want of them, these boys are living the dream.

  ‘What is it, Lara?’ a voice cuts through the raucous male laughter. ‘Oh OK, thanks,’ and a minute or so later Damian appears from round the corner. It’s the first time for ages I’ve seen him not wearing shades and I’d forgotten how extraordinary his eyes are – deep pools of black, slanting slightly downwards at the corners.

  ‘Bella, great to see you!’ He gives me a hug. ‘Thanks for bringing these over. That lazy good-for-nothing boyfriend of yours has had them for months now and I’m on the decks at Hoxton Cunt tonight.’

  I laugh. ‘Hoxton Cunt?’

  ‘Yeah. Remember that satirical magazine Shoreditch Twat I worked on years ago? Hoxton Cunt is a club night en hommage. Pretty aptly named.’ And pretty knowingly self-referential, if you ask me.

  Damian came to London to study English at King’s in the late 90s (he and Ben are a couple of years younger than me and Poppy). There, I gather, he soon became part of a terrifyingly cool crowd, DJ-ing in various union bars and editing underground college music mags. It wasn’t too difficult then, post-graduation, with his contacts, easy manner and – oh yes – good way with words to get work as an unpaid intern on Shoreditch Twat, an irreverent listings mag for the East London club 333. A gig as junior writer on Stadium soon followed and, from there, his unstoppable upward trajectory.

  A vision in a long silk dressing gown prances, Noël Coward-like, around the corner. I recognize Simon Snell from his large by-line picture in the magazine. He once underwent £25,000 worth of plastic surgery and orthodontics for an article, yet still looks like a hobbit with a peculiarly fetching smile. He lives very close to Damian and Poppy. A proper Hoxton Cunt.

  ‘Who’s this lovely girl then, Damian?’ He fondles a silk lapel.

  ‘Bella, my missus’s best mate. Now shacked up with my best mate, Ben.’

  ‘Very incestuous – almost Flowers in the Attic,’ says Simon and I laugh. ‘Loving the skirt, babe. The classic knee-length pencil skirt is my favourite shape of all time.’ And he saunters off, leaving me wondering how a straight man can possibly have a ‘favourite skirt shape’ (unless it’s short and tight). Simon makes it very clear in his column that yes, he may be partial to a bit of Botox, but he is emphatically not gay.

  ‘Well, I’d better go and get something to eat before I shuffle back to my hellhole,’ I say to Damian. ‘I’m feeling like shit, to be honest.’

  ‘Still suffering from the weekend?’

  ‘Yup. Aren’t you?’

  ‘I made one of my recuperative curries last night and Pops and I are right as rain today.’

  Damian is a wonderful cook, having learnt all about spices at his Indian mother’s apron strings. He is also a strong believer in the medicinal properties of garlic, ginger and chilli, not to mention turmeric, cumin and coriander. I’m not 100 per cent convinced that reversing the effects of one’s debauchery can be that simple, but it’s a yummy way to pretend.

  ‘God, I could do with one of your fabulous curries right now,’ I say with feeling.

  ‘Oh Belles, you are feeling rough, aren’t you?’

  ‘I feel even rougher than I look, if that’s possible.’

  Damian laughs. ‘You look fine. But the weekend was worth it, surely?’

  I’m starting to wonder. Yes, it was a good weekend: drinks at Max’s bar on Friday night, a picnic on Hampstead Heath on Saturday, followed by a fancy dress pirate party on a boat on the Thames. Ben and Damian looked outrageously sexy in their long boots, tight black trousers, ruffled shirts and eye patches; Poppy ditto in tricorn hat, hot pants and over-the-knee suede boots; the stuffed parrot on my shoulder kept ending up with its beak in my cleavage. As we’d been drinking all day, we needed some coke to stop us getting too pissed at the party, which then, due to the coke, went on all night. Some stuff about vicious circles hovers on the periphery of my addled brain.

  Sunday lunch at The Cow in Notting Hill was meant to make us feel better, but in fact involved so much restorative red wine that by Monday I was completely buggered and could hardly drag myself out of bed. I still haven’t recovered and am horribly aware that the older I get, the less able I am to cope with excesses that were formerly, if not exactly a breeze, at least easier to shrug off. Even my usual ‘think Keef’ mindset when trying to deal with hangovers doesn’t seem to be working.

  What’s more, since Ben moved in, I haven’t had time to do any exercise (horizontal variety aside), which is making me feel repulsive. Always naturally lazy, I caught the fitness bug in my mid-twenties, mainly as it means I seem to be able to eat pretty much what I want and still fit into my clothes. And it’s the only guaranteed hangover cure I know. I have had my exercise phases – Pilates, yoga, weights, swimming, spinning, body sculpt, some horrible martial arts classes where I shrank from every potential blow – but now favour running and my own version of yoga in Hyde Park. I always used to feel wonderful after my yoga classes at the Life Centre in Notting Hill, but one day realized I couldn’t stand my fellow immaculate and snotty patrons a moment longer. Getting out into the great outdoors not only has the inestimable advantage of being free, but is also a perfect antidote to the seedier aspects of my life. Or it was.

  Ben, not having to waste eight hours a day in an office, has plenty of time to hone his body to perfection in the gym. This week’s modelling project, which involves having his photo taken with members of the Royal Ballet, doesn’t start till late afternoon. The dancers can’t miss their morning practice sessions, which is handy for Ben as he loves his morning lie-in. Don’t we all.

  ‘S’pose so,’ I say. I give Damian another hug and bugger off.

  ‘Fuck, fuck, FUCK,’ I shout as I trip over one of Ben’s trainers. He has an eclectic and vast collection, which, along with his CDs, T-shirts, hair products and vinyl, appe
ar to have taken over my flat. And that’s before we get to the jeans. Yeah, so he needs to look good for work, but he looks gorgeous in everything, for fuck’s sake – surely he doesn’t need thirty pairs of almost identical denim trousers? I’m not kidding – thirty pairs of jeans. I have four, two of which I never wear.

  If it was difficult to keep my flat tidy before, with Ben in situ it’s impossible. Apart from his actual stuff, the evidence of two people living a relatively debauched life is everywhere. Overflowing ashtrays on every available surface, nearly empty bottles of wine, beer cans, a lot of dirty glasses. Clearly every time we want a drink we simply get out more clean glasses instead of (God forbid) considering washing up. Oh lovely, a used condom on the bedroom floor and an empty wrap of coke on the bedside table.

  I open the windows to get rid of some of the stale smoke/sex/sweat smell and notice that several of my geraniums are dead. I take an empty wine bottle to the kitchen, fill it with water from the tap and give my poor parched babies a drink. I know how they feel, so pour myself a large glass of water too, before setting about tidying up. I really want nothing more than to collapse on the chaise longue with a trashy novel, but know I’ll feel better once the purge is completed.

  Resentment starts building slowly as I chuck yet another pair of grey marl D & G boxers into the laundry basket. There are boxers and dirty black socks strewn all over the flat – which I understand, to an extent. I leave clothes and knickers where I’ve just dropped them too. But right next to the laundry basket, when it would have been just as easy to drop them inside it? Is it some kind of Palaeolithic statement? I am man. You are woman. You put my stinky pants in basket?

  Ben had most of yesterday and today while I was at work to tidy up. Surely it’s not beyond him to make the bed or rinse a few glasses? Or at least put the used condom in the bin? The place is a fucking tip. OK, I’m not the tidiest person in the world, but if I was living in somebody else’s flat, good old-fashioned shame would force me to make the effort. And while we’re on the subject of Ben’s uselessness, I haven’t seen him offer to pay any rent yet, either. It’s not as if he can’t afford it. He was paid what I earn in a month for his last photoshoot, which can hardly have been gruelling.

  Fucking vain tosser, hanging out with loads of other fucking vain tossers, telling one another how gorgeous they are. The one morning Ben actually had to get out of bed at the same time as I did, he spent so long in the bloody bathroom (my bloody bathroom) that I didn’t even have time to wash my hair. My suggestion that we showered together was met with a ‘Not now, babe; it’s important I look my best today.’

  Just as I’m working up a full head of steam, I bend down to pick up his ‘Book’, or modelling portfolio, which falls open at a black and white ad he did for Banana Republic. He’s standing against the stern of a yacht somewhere like the Hamptons, looking up into the middle distance through his gorgeous lashes, his full, kissable lips slightly parted. His broad chest is bare, as it often is for these commercials, his shapely legs clad in a pair of baggy surf shorts. His beauty is so staggering that I sit down on the bed with a bump, just gazing at the photo for a few minutes. After a bit I kiss it, then chide myself for expecting such a god of a man to do anything as mundane as his own washing. This Adonis is my boyfriend, I remind myself, and I should count myself bloody lucky.

  On an impulse I pick up my phone and type a quick text.

  ‘Hope your day’s been better than mine. Glad it’s over and can’t wait to see you. Love you xxx’

  I press send and instantly feel the panic that I know will not be assuaged until I hear back from him. If I am not given constant reassurance that I am on Ben’s mind, my mind runs riot with images of what (or, more importantly, who) he is doing without me. His job is probably the worst thing possible for an insecure drip like me. Daily I picture him with actresses and models who are, by definition, an awful lot more gorgeous than I am. Despite what he said at Glastonbury, I’m not convinced that my less obvious qualities are enough to stop his attention wandering.

  And now … Well, the models were bad enough, but now he’s hanging out with fucking ballerinas. Jesus, what have I done to deserve this? The poise, the grace, the ability to put their legs behind their ears … I have a picture in my head of a classical beauty with large, almond-shaped eyes and hair drawn back in a tight bun that would look hideous on anybody with less than perfect bone structure. She hails from somewhere like Kiev and has a dancer’s lean, taut body. She is engaging Ben in a passionate discussion (in sexy Eastern European accent, of course) about – oh, I don’t know – Chekhov, and he is reminded that they are both, after all, classically trained performers, with so much more in common than … It’s no good, I can’t be left at the mercy of my own thoughts any longer or I’ll go mad.

  I pick up my phone again and call Poppy. She takes some time to answer, but finally, just as I’m about to hang up,

  ‘Hey gorgeous, how’s it going?’

  ‘Not that well, really. I feel like shit, my flat’s a dump and I can’t get the fucking ballerinas out of my head.’

  Poppy laughs. ‘Right, you need to tackle these things individually. First, the flat: tidy it up. You know you’ll feel better once it’s done. Second, you feeling like shit: run yourself a lovely warm bath with plenty of smelly stuff and pour yourself a nice big glass of wine – not big enough to make you feel rough again tomorrow, just big enough to take the edge off.’

  ‘Thanks lovely, that’s just what I will do. But what about the fucking ballerinas?’

  Poppy sighs. ‘That one’s more difficult. Listen, Belles, you’re just going to have to accept that hanging out with other attractive women is part and parcel of what Ben does. Models last week, ballerinas this week; it may be Hollywood actresses next. He wants to be with you, and you’re going to have to start to believe it or you’ll push him away. And if it helps, picture the ballerina with her tights and leotard around her ankles, changing a tampon.’

  I start to giggle. Wonderful Poppy.

  ‘What are you up to tonight?’ I ask. ‘It’s awfully noisy your end.’

  ‘The Savoy Bar, darling. Très posh. We’re having drinks here before heading to the ballroom for the Neptune Music Awards.’

  ‘You and your job are so bloody glamorous. Talking of which, I saw Damian in his professional habitat today. Most illuminating.’ We are both giggling about Hoxton Cunt when Poppy says, ‘Oh bugger, there’s my boss. Listen babe, I’ve really got to go, but have a nice chilled evening, yeah, and everything will seem so much better tomorrow. It is Bluesy Tuesday after all.’

  ‘Yeah, true. Have fun tonight and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!’ I hang up and instantly feel depressed again, but concentrate on making the flat look pretty. He said he wouldn’t be back till nine-ish, so I’ve got time to nip down to the fishmonger’s on the corner to pick up something simple and delicious to cook for dinner, and still have time for my recuperative bath.

  I look in the fridge for inspiration, but find little. The dregs of a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc that has been open on the floor since Sunday, a couple of cloves of garlic, around quarter of a pint of milk, some nearly rancid butter, half a packet of streaky bacon, half a lemon and a bag of baby spinach that needs to be cooked today before becoming slimy beyond redemption. And then it hits me.

  I race down to Golborne Fisheries and buy a dozen scallops, which nearly wipes me out financially, but I’ll be using up the contents of my fridge so it’s kind of an economy really. I pop into the corner shop across the road for a loaf of wholemeal bread, two bottles of mediocre and overpriced Soave and some milk for the morning. Then, on a whim, a bunch of rather sad white roses that I’ll somehow manage to perk up once I get them inside.

  Feeling quite the domestic goddess, I re-enter my now pristine flat (I’ve hidden most of Ben’s gubbins behind the bedroom door). I pour myself a very welcome glass of wine, arrange the roses in an old crystal vase I picked up in the market and plonk them on top
of my chinoiserie red chest. Then I put on a load of washing and run a bath, pouring in liberal glugs of the divine-smelling Miller Harris oil Poppy gave me for Christmas. Ella Fitzgerald croons classic Cole Porter from my old CD player, which is a relief after Ben’s constant thudding techno. I must be getting old, I reflect for the second time today.

  The food won’t take a minute: pan-fried scallops with crispy bacon on a bed of wilted garlicky spinach. Yum. And it should impress Ben, who has distinctly expensive tastes for a boy from the valleys. I check my phone for the twentieth time since I sent the last message. Nope, still no response. Oh well, he’s probably on his way home, I tell myself, trying to quash my rising panic. I take a huge swig of wine, pick up my trashy novel and make my way to the bathroom.

  By 9.30 I’ve drunk most of the first bottle of wine, rearranged the cushions on the chaise longue four times, read three chapters of my book, wilted the spinach with some chopped garlic and fried the bacon till crisp. Bugger this, I’m going to give him a ring.

  ‘Oh, hi sweetheart, I was just going to call you.’ There are female voices and laughter in the background.

  ‘Where are you?’ I ask, trying to keep my tone light.

  ‘In the pub. The photographer suggested it would be better for tomorrow’s shoot if we all got to know each other a bit better, so we’re out for a couple of drinks.’

  ‘What shall I do about your supper?’ Don’t sound like a nagging wife, you silly cow.

  ‘Oh, you didn’t say you were cooking! I’m sorry, darling, you must be starving. Oh just a sec – yeah, mine’s a pint of Stella, babe.’ He addresses me again. ‘Sorry Belles, I’ll call you back in five.’

  I stare at my phone, the evil instrument of doom, for a few seconds. I very much doubt that he’ll call me back ‘in five’. Bloody wanky expression. Five what? Years? After ten minutes of silence, I call back and he’s switched his phone off. Consumed with a terrifying jealous rage, I type out a furious text, which includes the phrases ‘half-witted fucking dancers’, ‘lazy, useless cunt’, ‘spineless moral fucking vacuum’ and, worst of all, ‘how do you think this makes ME feel?’. Then I come to my senses and hit delete.