I realized that we were heading toward people whom I didn’t know but whom I was going to have to talk to, which was my absolutely least favorite kind of people in the world. Well, except for old people who crap on about the war.
“Shouldn’t we go to the bar?”
“What? No, come and meet everybody,” he exclaimed eagerly, like . . . like . . . like . . . He was a big, friendly, shaggy dog who’d got a dead bird in his mouth that he wanted to show his master. Which made me the dead bird in that scenario and as analogies go, it felt a little too close for comfort. Especially as we tripped nearer and I could see that “everyone” was a motley collection of scenesters, who looked like they did overtime appearing in mobile phone ads lounging elegantly around grimy clubs.
“This is Isabel,” Smith said by way of greeting, and I limply waved a hand at them as he went through this collection of names that left no impression on me. There were a few nods in reply and I thought the worst of it was over, but then Smith pushed me onto an available five centimeters of seat. “Drink?”
“I’ll come with you.” I tried to get up but his hand was on my shoulder, keeping me rooted to the sticky vinyl.
“No, stay and get to know everyone. What do you want?”
I couldn’t get through this in a state of stone-cold soberdom. “Get me a vodka and Diet Coke, and make it a double,” I said decisively, as if I’d drunk enough alcohol in my time to have a preference.
To his credit Smith didn’t remind me that both our arses were on the line if one teeny sip of liquor passed my lips. He just rummaged in the back pocket of his jeans and chucked a packet of cigarettes at me. “Thanks for nicking mine last time, by the way.”
“Don’t mention it,” I said breezily, waving him away because the quicker I got a drink in me, the quicker my social ineptness would transform into something approaching scintillating. That was the plan, anyway.
I think the reason why cigarettes are a good thing—apart from speeding you off this mortal coil a few years before your time—is that they give you something to do when you’re sitting with eight close, personal friends of a guy you don’t really know.
I shuffled around on the bench so I had my back to the girl sitting next to me, and concentrated on snaking a cigarette out of the packet, tapping it against my palm, and then lighting it. Which took all of ten seconds, and then I could get on with smoking it and wishing that my hair didn’t look like it had had a collision with a hedge trimmer because my head was getting awfully hot underneath my hat.
“Where do you know Smith from?” the girl sitting opposite me suddenly asked, and I realized there were eight pairs of eyes studying me with feigned disinterest.
“From around,” I muttered.
I’m really good at closed sentences. There was nowhere to go after my reply, so I twisted my lips into a grimace-y smile that got me a blank look back and tried to telepathically communicate with Smith to get the drinks and get back to the table stat. My Jedi mind tricks were for shit because he was gone ages, and by the time he finally returned, my leg was jiggling uncontrollably against the table edge and I was halfway down my second cigarette.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so pleased to see anyone. He sat down on the table in front of me and handed me my drink. “There you are.”
“Thanks,” I said, and took an enthusiastic gulp, wincing slightly as the vodka burned on the way down.
Smith turned to the girl who was sitting next to me. “Isabel’s dad teaches American literature at the University,” he said, like it was a good thing. “What’s his name?”
“Dr. Clarke,” I said flatly, and she shuddered with this ophidian wriggle of her shoulders that made her glossy red hair shimmer underneath the lights.
“I have him for my Modern Classics module,” she gasped, and pinned me with an accusatory look, like it was all my fault. “He’s . . . well, quite sarcastic. . . .”
“He’s a tosser, you mean?” I supplied sweetly, and she gave me a tentative smile as if she didn’t know whether I was joking or not.
“You’re so lucky you’re in Cultural Studies,” she said to Smith whose knee was bumping against mine, until I moved my leg away so he couldn’t feel me shaking.
“Oh, I forgot you were a student.” It came out a tad more venomously than I’d intended.
“You do realize that you said that the way someone would say, ‘Are you a child molester?’ or ‘Do you like Girls Aloud?’ But yeah, I am. Is that a problem?”
I hated students and the way they filled up our answerphone with their academic crises. Or came over for these once-a-month suppers with Dad where they spewed all this pretentious crap out of their mouths in the hope that he’d be impressed.
I knew my face was twisted up in an expression of utter horror, but I blanked my features down and took a generous swig of my drink. “I’ll get back to you on that, shall I?”
Smith laughed and reached over so he could pull my hat down over my forehead. I forced myself not to jerk away, even though my forehead was starting to get sweaty, and he cupped my cheek with his hand. “You’re a piece of work, you really are,” he said, and he sounded dazzled by the concept.
It’s so stupid how someone touching you—just their skin on your skin—can make you feel all sorts of things that you don’t want to feel. His fingers were stroking my face, and it made me want to brush my head against his shoulder. So I stood up. “I have to go and see someone.”
The only someone I had to see was my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I looked a state. The concealer was wearing off and I was all shadows and smudges, like an out of focus photograph, the green eye shadow and the red lips garish points of color in my pale face. And that vodka on an empty stomach? Really not helping.
I locked myself in an empty cubicle and sat down with my head in my hands, because I was kidding myself if I thought I could do this. When your representative members of boykind are an emotionally crippled, forty-one-year-old academic who detests the very sight of you and a nine-year-old boy who tries to fart in your face, how the hell was I meant to know how to act around Smith?
“. . . where did he find her?”
“And, more to the point, where did she find that hat?”
I stiffened. There’s nothing like having your choice of headgear dissed to interrupt a perfectly good pity party.
“I mean, can you say rude? Didn’t say a word—just sat there with a face like a slapped arse. No surprise that she’s a blood relative of Dr. Snark.”
I had to stifle a giggle at that, hand clapped over my mouth, though really there was nothing funny about having to skulk in a toilet cubicle while two hipster girls tear you into little pieces.
“I don’t know . . .” I had to strain my ears over the sound of a running tap but I gave it my all. “. . . seems too young for Smithy. He has the worst taste in girls.”
There was a pause, and then they both said in unison, “Chloë!”
“And there was that girl in the first year . . . What’s her name? The one with that lame tribal tattoo who dropped out, though everyone knows she had to have an abortion.”
“Plus he’s got a crush on Molly, which is never going to happen, and there were rumors . . .”
“God, where to begin?”
There was another silence while I sat there paralyzed with mortification that the boy that I may or may not quite fancy seemed to have a huge amount of relationship debris piled around him.
“He was a complete slut in the first term. I mean, well, let’s just say I have intimate knowledge of that little mole. . . .”
“On his arse! Oh, yeah!”
“So you did, I always wondered.”
“It was, like, this rite of passage thing. Y’know, blow your entire student loan on alcohol in a fortnight, not go to any lectures and shag Smith.”
“So do you think he’s shagging that sulky girl?”
“Getting pelvic with Dr. Snark’s daughter? Really doesn’t bear thinking about. Mi
ght cheer her up, though. . . .”
“Maybe she’d even take her hat off and . . .”
I didn’t get to hear the exciting details about what would happen once I’d taken my hat off because the door shut behind them. I folded my arms and contemplated the almost hole in the knee of my jeans and tried to get Smith out of my head. Eradicate all mental pictures of how he bit down on his squashy bottom lip with his pointy little eyetooth when he was thinking. Or how he made these extravagant gestures with his beautiful, elegant hands and when he touched me—I wondered what it would be like if he touched me in other places. Because really when you stood us side by side, I was way out of his league. I was pretty, kind of, supersmart and popular, and he was just a lanky student with annoying friends, a big nose, and really, really, really beautiful blue eyes.
Just the thought of him and all the secret things he’d done to other girls under the covers made my head ache. Like, it should be this really complicated Venn diagram and Smith would be this huge circle in the midst of all these other overlapping circles. And my circle would be tiny, unable to be seen by the naked eye, floating untethered at the corner of the page.
I stumbled back into the club. No way was I going back to Smith and his coterie of hard-faced hangers-on, all speculating about how far he’d got with me. Instead, I liberated a pint of beer that was sitting on the ledge in front of me and pushed my way through the crowd to an isolated corner on the other side of the dance floor.
The beer was flat and warm, but I chugged it down regardless because it would take me to someplace else. It was a blur after that. Everything hazy around the edges, as I sneaked glasses off tables and drank the contents. Beer, wine, vodka and cranberry juice, even neat whiskey, and it mostly tasted foul. But I liked how it made me feel. As if I was insignificant and nothing mattered, but also as if I could rule the world and everyone would bow down before me.
I danced, which had never happened outside the four walls of my bedroom. And when I couldn’t find Dot or the others, I talked to the people hanging out by the speaker stacks—well, actually I babbled away about utter rubbish. It just seemed enough that I could force words out because my teeth had gone numb and my lips had suddenly turned to rubber. It was like water glancing off oilskin, nothing stuck. Even when I went skidding on a wet patch and toppled over, I simply lay on the floor and looked at all those legs stepping around me and the pretty lights until this girl I’d never met hauled me up.
“You’re so cool,” she kept saying as I swayed along to The Kills, with my arms spread wide for balance. “We should totally hang out more, just the two of us. What do you think?”
I smiled at her and patted her arm. “I think I’m going to be sick,” I said calmly.
“Okay, see you later,” she trilled as I tripped away. “Remember that you’re beautiful!”
I’d had this vague notion that a toilet would be a good puke venue, but my feet carried me through the club and out a side door so I could take in big gulps of salt-tinged air and decide, yes—still going to be sick.
There was this little courtyard around the back, secluded enough that I could bend over and wait for the muscles in my alimentary canal to go into spasms. Didn’t get an A in Biology GCSE for nothing.
I gripped my knees and coughed a couple of times and just as I felt a hand at the small of my back, all those drinks decided to put in a repeat performance.
A whoosh of jet-propelled ickiness sprung forth from my mouth and the whole time I was dimly aware of this hand rubbing my back soothingly. Finally, my stomach seemed to right itself, and I straightened up so I could look Smith in the eye. I was also pleased to note that I’d kept my hat on.
“Are you okay?” he asked in this concerned voice as I took a generous step back from the little puddle I’d just made.
I wiped my hand over my mouth and it came away red from my lipstick. Oh yes, my joy was now complete.
“Isabel, are you all right? Do you want me to get you some water?” he asked again.
“I’m fine,” I gasped, and then found myself doubling over again. “Well, if fine means that I’m going to be sick again in about two minutes.”
“You must be overheated,” he remarked, and then before I could stop him, he pulled my hat off and ran his fingers through my hair, holding it back from my face. “Might as well get it all out.”
“Thank you for that welcome piece of advice,” I said sourly, which was a perfect match for the bile that rose up and had me retching pitifully.
Finally I was done. Or I thought I was done. I pressed my hand to my forehead and wished that Smith would just piss off.
“Are you all right?” he asked yet again. It was getting as annoying as his fingers still winding around my sweaty strands of hair.
I snatched my hat out of his hands. “Go away,” I ordered, and pointed to the club doors. “Leave me alone.”
“Why are you always so rude?” There was absolutely no accusation, just this flat tonality that made me stare at him in amazement.
And I guess that I was still drunk despite voiding the contents of my stomach, because I told him the truth. For once. “I’m shy,” I confessed quietly so he had to bend his head to catch the words. “I’m really shy, and it makes everything come out like that because it’s hard talking to people.” I thought about it for another second. “And also I’m just . . . yeah, I’m nasty. I’m not very nice. I’m an utter bitch, if you must know.”
“Don’t say stuff like that,” he practically begged me, but I turned away. “I’m really trying here, Isabel.”
“Nobody asked you to. I’m sure you can find yourself an easier conquest if you just want a shag,” I spat at him as I started walking back down the alley.
“I don’t just want that . . . well, I want that, yeah. And I think you’re cute, but I want to get to know you, too.”
“I’ll save you the trouble,” I hissed, turning around so quickly I almost toppled over, and his hand shot out to grab hold of my arm. “There’s nothing to know, don’t you get that? You’ll get to know me and then you’ll wonder why you bothered. I’m not anything that you think I am. You’re not going to break down my defenses and find this sweet, gooey soft center.”
His face was in shadow, but I could still see the way those lips flattened out into a tight line. “Maybe you’re frightened that if someone manages to break down your defenses, then they’ll find that you do have that soft center. That you’re not as badass as you think you are.”
“Yeah, whatever. Thanks for that insightful analysis, Mr. Freud.”
“Well, see you around, then.”
I couldn’t even muster a grunt in reply, just stomped toward the door that led back into the club, ripping off my corsage en route because it was soggy with sick.
Let'sGetLost
Let's Get Lost
7
I couldn’t find the others anywhere. Normally I’d have been incandescent with rage at the mere thought of them blowing me off, but I was too busy having these really scathing conversations with Smith in my head.
“Do you think she’s going to come?” I heard someone who sounded a lot like Dot say as I staggered up the stairs that led to the balcony. “Should we call her?”
“Oh, God, do we have to?” Nancy really needed stamping on hard. “Anyway, her mobile isn’t working because she’s had all her pocket money taken away by her evil papa and aren’t I just the most pathetic little moppet in the world? Forget about Is, let’s go into the chill-out area and chat up those guys.”
For one second I contemplated going after them and giving Nancy my own special brand of hell. But my heart wasn’t really in it. So I slumped against the wall (which wasn’t doing a great job of holding me up), running my tongue over my furry teeth. It would be far more sensible to find a bathroom so I could brush my teeth and repair my makeup (which couldn’t have survived the puking intact).
With a furtive look over my shoulder, in case the Trio of Evil were lurking, I scurri
ed down the stairs and tried to think tactically. God, that really made my head hurt. Then I remembered that last time I’d come here I’d got off with this boy in a disused kitchen behind the top bar. I sidled through a likely-looking door and miracle of miracles! There was a sink so I could get the puke taste out of my mouth.
I took a cautious step forward and then stopped when I saw Smith sitting on a worktop with his head in his hands. He looked up as I shut the door and scowled at me.