by Luke Tredget
‘I didn’t think she was a virgin when we met,’ says Pete, and Toby says, ‘Shame.’ Pete ignores him, and adds: ‘Just keep it PG.’
‘All right, here goes.’ He puts down his spoon and rubs his hands together. ‘As you already know, me and Anna went to Sheffield together, and were in the same halls. I met her in the very first week, and I liked her immediately. She was quite nerdy – not obviously fashionable or cool – but she had this sharp, sarcastic wit, and always acted like she was half above it all, as if she really was the coolest but only she knew it. So we started hanging out, and I would drag her around to gay bars, club nights, house parties; grown-up stuff, not the student bullshit. But it was hard work: she was the kind of fresher that went home at midnight because she had lectures in the morning, or would refuse a drink because she was starting to “feel drunk”. And she had a boyfriend from home at uni in Nottingham that she went to see every fortnight.’
His voice is accompanied by the clatter of spoons against ceramic and the occasional slurp. Anna is enjoying the story so far, and decides to try and eat something as well. She dunks her spoon and lifts some soup up to her face; it is thick and blood-red and thins to pink water at the edges. It tastes slick and salty, and her instinct is to spit it out, but she forces herself to swallow. It slides down her throat and she grabs her drink to wash it away; the table fractures into a kaleidoscope through the glass of her upended pitcher.
‘All this goody-two-shoes nonsense felt like a waste to me,’ continues Hamza, ‘and I made it my mission to loosen her up. The boyfriend in Nottingham didn’t last until Christmas, which helped, and she soon realised that lectures were pointless and stayed up drinking with the rest of us. But the holy grail was getting her to take a pill. She resisted for months, but by halfway through the second term, she agreed to come to a rave.’
‘No,’ says Anna, realising what story this is. ‘You cannot tell this story. It’s my birthday, and I forbid it.’
Hamza folds his upper lip over his bottom one, in a childish expression of penitence, and an excited murmur spreads across the table.
‘You’ve got to tell it now,’ says Keir, and others concur.
‘It’s the best story,’ says Hamza, as if the matter is out of his hands. ‘And half of them know it already. I’ll keep it PG, promise.’ His wheedling voice is given physical form by his fingers, which knead the flesh of her forearm. Anna scowls at him, but he blows her a kiss and looks along the table again.
‘The rave was called Headcharge, in some part of Sheffield that looked like it was trying to go back to being a slum. As you can guess from the name, it wasn’t a light-hearted event, but Anna approached it like a science exam. She’d read up on all these forums about ecstasy and MDMA, and on the way to the club she decreed she would take just half a pill and only drink water, no booze. She followed this strict rule, and after a few hours, while me and the others were off our faces, she was complaining that nothing had happened. We tried several things to make her come up – dancing to spread the chemicals around her system, having intense conversations, making her drink lots of water; it was like trying to cure a kid of hiccups. Eventually she admitted defeat and agreed to take another half. This one I bought from some dude in the club, and wow. It had a little Ferrari symbol on it, and fuck me – after thirty minutes I was rinsed, and somehow lost track of Anna. I shat myself, trying to find her. Then eventually I spotted her, dancing on the stage.’ Hamza is jigging his hands above his head to mimic her dancing, and the first volley of laughter flies from all sides of the table.
‘On the stage?’
‘With, like, forty other people,’ says Anna, with a tut. ‘The stage was part of the dance floor. Come on Hamza, keep it real.’
‘I waved at her across the club and she gave me these two massive thumbs up. When I made it to her she hugged me and told me about this energy that was flowing through her, making her excited for “things to come”. I took her out for a cigarette, hoping to calm her down, but the opposite happened. She wanted to speak to every other smoker, and not just speak to them – she was like a stand-up comic, going around and working the audience, obliged to make fun of everyone. And they loved it! Soon I lost her again, and hours passed – you know how it goes – and when I next saw her she was with this guy, slightly older than her and a bit edgy-looking. They weren’t kissing or dancing, but were going around the rave trying to, like, give people things. Cigarettes, sweets, chewing gum. It was like a game they were playing. What did you call it?’
Anna looks at him with thunder in her eyes, and says: ‘Free tuck shop.’
‘That’s it! Free tuck shop. They thought it was the funniest thing. Eventually it was 6 a.m. and Anna was still with this guy. We all wanted to keep partying, and decided to go back to our halls. Anna and the guy came in our taxi, but when we got to halls they stopped to smoke outside. And – Pete, put your fingers in your ears – we didn’t see them again that night. I didn’t see her until dinner the next day, which was breakfast for us, and we went to the pub after. I asked her how it went with matey, and she said it was “fine, fine”. Then she made this hundred-mile stare, and eventually said …’
Hamza pauses, allowing the words to gather weight, while mimicking her dreamy gaze.
‘“I think he stole my iPod.”’ Another flurry of laughter, this time mixed with concerned inhalations, especially from Ingrid and Cecile and Bean, newcomers to the story.
‘He stole from you?’ says Ingrid, but Anna doesn’t look at her; she is staring darkly at Hamza, who ploughs on.
‘I was furious,’ he says. ‘I said we should call the police right away, or at least call the guy and tell him what a fucking dick he was. But Anna was weirdly reluctant; she said we couldn’t call him, because he “didn’t have a phone”, and that she didn’t want the police involved. “I just want to draw a line beneath it,” she kept saying. I pushed the issue as far as I could, but eventually I gave up and we moved on. If I ever brought it up, she’d say she didn’t want to talk about it. Eventually the whole thing was forgotten, until one day Anna and me were walking down to the city centre. To give blood, if I remember rightly. We were on West Street, when suddenly Anna gasped and turned around, grabbing my hand. She dragged me the way we had just come, and when I turned around I could see why. There was matey, sitting on the street, begging.’
No laughter this time, just a horrified gasp.
‘Begging?’
‘He was begging!’ Hamza has his hands on his slick black hair, as if to help him comprehend, even after all these years. ‘He was a homeless guy!’
‘He wasn’t homeless,’ says Anna. ‘He was probably just pretending.’
‘He had a dog on a piece of string!’ says Hamza, and now everyone is laughing, even the girls. They are all so excited they begin talking over one another, each trying to make a joke.
‘I hope you didn’t still give blood,’ says Keir.
‘I knew you were into giving to charity, but that’s a bit much.’
Pete is joining in the clowning: he has put his fingers in his ears, and now takes them out and looks around as if he hasn’t heard a thing.
‘It strikes me as ironic’, says Anna, raising her voice above the din, ‘that when I’ve walked around town with most of you fuckers, you always say that a beggar probably isn’t homeless, that he’s playing the system. But when I have sex with one, they definitely are.’
No one reacts to this, they are all clapping in the direction of Hamza, in appreciation for the story.
‘And what if he was homeless?’ continues Anna, this time directly to Hamza. ‘He’s probably less skanky than most of the guys on Grindr.’ Again no one reacts, and Hamza signals that he wants to wrap up.
‘So, I suppose the moral of the story is’, says Hamza, the words interleaved with the last splutters of laughter, ‘that in just over ten years, you’ve gone from sucking off a homeless man—’
‘Hey, keep it PG,’ snaps Pete, though he is smiling as well.
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‘Sorry. You’ve gone from fellating a homeless man, to interviewing one of the world’s leading architects. And for that fact alone, I’m proud to be your friend, and think you deserve a round of applause.’
Everyone claps and cheers, and Hamza bends down and kisses the top of her head. She sits still, smarting from the story, while around her there is a flurry of activity. Her barely touched bowl of soup is taken away, people go to the toilet and drinks are refilled; on his way to the kitchen Pete plants another kiss on her head and whispers, ‘You’re a good sport.’
A few minutes later he returns with the second course: ricotta and walnut tartlet. The pastry and cheese is more inviting than the cold soup, and she decides to eat this course, or to make a show of trying to; she can feel Pete’s eyes on her from the other end of the table as she slices and lifts a small flaky triangle to her mouth. As she slowly makes her way through the tart, the table breaks into two conversations: at her end, Toby, Keir and Zahra are talking about knocking through walls in their respective flats. At the other end, people are quizzing Bean on his plans to open his own bar. The iPad is playing something that sounds like Coldplay. Anna half listens to both conversations while she chews and sips, and Keir’s description of their open-plan kitchen/living room reminds her of how long Zahra has been wrapped up in her building projects. She challenges herself to pinpoint when Zahra was last in her flat. She can’t quite remember, but knows it was some time last summer, during Pete’s final months at the garden centre, and that strange phase when he seemed to go off sex. She is watching Zahra from the corner of her eye as she thinks this, and then sees a furtive glance along the table between her and Pete. The look is remarkable because it is so fleeting – a mere fraction of a second, as if they are strangers – and Anna experiences the old familiar jealousy. She tells herself this is a good thing, the restoration of a healthy appetite, and then this thought is halted by Hamza hitting his hand on the table next to her.
‘Knocking through,’ he says, so loud it makes Anna jump a little in her seat. ‘It’s all I hear about. In pubs, restaurants, parties. People are always talking about knocking walls down. It’s an obsession.’
Every head turns to him in surprise.
‘It creates light and space,’ says Toby. ‘Of course people like doing it.’
‘They like talking about it more,’ says Hamza. ‘Anna, why don’t you knock some walls down, now that you’re a proper grown-up? How about that one – you could have an open-plan living room/bathroom.’
‘That would be a bit too open-plan,’ she says. ‘Since the ceiling would fall down as well.’
Everyone laughs, except for Keir, who is peering at Hamza across the table.
‘You’ve never owned a flat, have you, Hamza?’ he says, making it sound like a curious abnormality.
‘Nah,’ says Hamza, not looking at Keir. ‘I don’t want to be burdened with a mortgage.’
‘So you pay off someone else’s mortgage instead?’
Zahra is pulling at her glasses, indicating her desire to speak; Anna thinks someone will have to intervene, since Hamza and Keir have a history of locking horns.
‘If people want to have mortgages, they can,’ says Hamza with a shrug. ‘I prefer to be mobile.’
Keir grins. ‘In case you need to leave some place in a hurry?’
Hamza grins back. ‘Or get some place in a hurry.’
‘I would like it, sure,’ says Anna, trying to suck attention away from the two boys. ‘But I wouldn’t want to spend nearly as much time as you guys took to do it.’
‘What do you mean?’ says Keir.
‘I mean, the best part of six months. It’s crazy, really, to let it take over your life for so long.’
‘Are you nuts?’ he says, laughing. ‘It took two weeks.’
Anna turns in confusion to Zahra, who has a frozen expression on her face, and then averts her eyes downwards. When she looks up she says: ‘Let’s have another Anna story.’
‘Yes,’ says Pete, at the other end of the table. ‘Another Anna story. We need to get through them, it’s almost nine. Who should go now? Bean, why don’t you?’
Anna is still confused by what Keir said about the building work taking two weeks, but the moment is dragged onwards as the table deliberates who should tell the next story. Zahra suggests Ingrid, who has barely said anything all meal, but she winces and shakes her head.
‘I haven’t prepared one,’ she says, and Pete interjects, his mouth full of tart, saying it is his fault – he meant to get hold of Ingrid’s contact details but forgot. Nevertheless, the whole table remains focused on Ingrid, and she is asked about working with Anna, working at the website generally, her first job at the Toronto Evening Post, her flat in Hackney Downs, her boyfriend Sam. Cecile asks about Sam’s job making nature films, and Anna senses she is trying to get a feel on what score they got; perhaps she guesses that, based on Ingrid’s looks and personality, it is something ridiculously, sickeningly high.
‘But Anna’s the better journalist,’ says Ingrid, clearly trying to shove attention back down the table.
‘That’s one hundred per cent not true,’ says Anna.
‘It is. She’s really versatile. Look at the Sahina article: it’s so punchy. So tough.’ The mention of Sahina’s name makes Anna grimace inwardly – she sees Stuart’s fat fingers and the phrase ‘takes no prisoners’ flashes through her mind.
‘It’s not so great,’ says Anna. ‘I doubt it will do very well.’
‘Course it will. Sahina is clickbait. It will top the big board.’
‘If it does or doesn’t, I don’t really mind. I mean, I don’t feel personally … invested.’
Toby asks what she means, and she tries to explain – as tactfully as possible – that it is almost more like advertising than journalism, since the message is pegged to brand values; ideally she would be writing something that is an expression of herself. The whole table is silent, and looking at her as if they don’t understand what she’s saying.
‘Like the suitcase thing?’ asks Pete, who appears as confused as the others. Once again Anna finds herself cringing, this time at the thought of her man at the baggage carousel, now forever out of reach. Toby and Bean both request explanations, and she has to tell the story from the top: the auction house in Tooting, the bags left at Heathrow, the segment of newspaper from Mozambique, the Twitter channel, the interest from someone at BAA, her idea of the person running from the carousel.
‘But I left it too late. All the records are wiped and there’s nothing else to go on.’
She looks around the table as she delivers this gloomy analysis, hoping that someone will contradict her and say there must be loads more evidence, in a whole suitcase. Her eyes settle on Pete, who is smiling affectionately along the table, as if he finds her project charming and endearing.
‘The good news is I get to keep the clothes,’ he says, and everyone laughs. ‘Some of the stuff’s not bad.’
‘And anyway,’ says Keir, smiling at Anna, ‘there’s no money in something like that, is there? It’s just a hobby.’
‘Of course there’s money in it. Not right away. You have to build a base first. Get yourself noticed. But lots of investigative journalists start with a project like this.’
‘Is that what you’re saying? That you’d like to be an investigative journalist?’ There is something dismissive about this question, and Anna stares squarely at him and says, ‘Yes, I would.’
‘Haven’t you left it a bit late?’ He says this with an amused snort, and she wonders if he’s already pissed.
‘In what sense?’
‘Late to change your career. I mean, you’re thirty.’
For a moment Anna thinks he must be joking, and releases an indignant sigh. Then she shakes her head and looks around the table, expecting to see her own incredulity reflected. But instead they are all listening with perfectly neutral expressions. Pete in particular is blank-faced, and in no way appears about to jump t
o Anna’s defence; for all she can tell he agrees with Keir.
‘What’s wrong with people in this country?’ she says, louder than she expected. ‘How can thirty be considered too old to change career? When are we supposed to make our minds up on what we want to be? When we’re straight out of university? Or maybe sooner, before we decide what to study. Or even what we do for A-levels. That sounds about right – let’s have our sixteen-year-old selves decide on our future. And what’s the worst that could happen if we did change career? Even if we went back to school or did another degree? All we’d lose is a bit of income for a few years. So what? Who cares? We live in one of the richest countries on the planet, all with families and friends backing us up. Why not take risks? I’m telling you: if dead people could hear you saying that thirty is too old to change career they’d worry for your sanity. It’s bullshit. Sorry to shout, but it is. Total bullshit.’
Anna falls silent, and sees that her hands are shaking. There is an itchy, awkward pause, until Keir clears his throat and says he was ‘only joking’. Anna sees that Pete is staring at her with a familiar concerned expression, as if her earlier unspoken reassurance had been misleading, and then he breaks the silence by asking if anyone can help him clear the table. They all seem willing to help, and there is a chorus of scraping chairs and crockery being stacked. Anna sits still as the table is transformed around her, taken aback herself by the speech she made. It felt like the words were not entirely hers, as if her body became a temporary vessel for the voice and opinions of another.
‘Maybe we should step out for some air,’ says Hamza, gripping her shoulder. ‘What do you say?’
*
It’s nice out on the street. The night air is cold but clean, with no breeze, and the streetlights are giving off more glow than the candles in the living room. Hamza peels the cellophane from a packet of Marlboro Lights and aims them at Anna.
‘Have you given up giving up?’
‘No,’ she says, sliding one out. ‘But now I don’t smoke, it’s okay to have one every now and then.’