‘Don’t swear,’ Neve admonished, even though that always sent Celia into a defensive rage.
‘Why? Why are you going out with him? How did it happen? Why didn’t you tell me before?’ Celia demanded, her face getting as red as her hair and Neve had to take Celia’s hands and stroke them, because that always calmed her down, while she cobbled together a story about bumping into Max in Tesco’s and going for a quick drink with him and how one thing had led to another.
‘You don’t know what he’s like,’ Celia said darkly, when Neve finished. ‘There was this one time on a cover shoot and the actress was kicking off, then Max took her into the bathroom and they were in there for over an hour and when she came out, she was all sweetness and light and kept groping him even when—’
‘I don’t want to hear it!’ Neve said sharply. ‘I know Max has a past but we’re not serious. It’s just pretend-dating to get me relationship-ready.’
‘For the record, Neevy, I always thought that was a dumb idea but I never said anything because I was sure you wouldn’t have the guts to go through with it.’
‘Well, that’s hardly fair …’
‘And now you’re pretend-dating with Max? Are you fricking crazy? And what about the other guys you dated? Suicidal Tendencies didn’t seem so bad,’ Celia said, boxing Neve against the wall by placing a hand on either side of her head. ‘Your problem is that you’re way too judgemental. You could easily have given one of those blokes another try, because seriously, Max is going to break your heart just for shits and giggles. It’s what he does.’
‘He’s not going to break my heart,’ Neve told her, pushing Celia’s arms away. ‘My heart belongs to William so there’s no way Max can have any effect on it. And quite frankly, this is why I didn’t tell you. It’s none of your business, so stop talking about stuff that you don’t know anything about.’
Celia took having her arms slapped away in a really bad humour. ‘If you keep seeing that … that skank, then I’m telling Mum!’
‘Don’t even go there because there are things I could tell Mum about you that would make her brain leak out of her ears,’ Neve snapped, even though she’d intended to walk away.
‘Oh yeah, like what?’
‘Like that you and Yuri smoke cannabis and you go out and get drunk all the time, and let’s not even get on to the subject of your sex-life because it would take at least a week to fill Mum in on all those gory details.’ Neve had been all set to fill Celia in on some of those gory details just in case she’d forgotten, say, about the time she’d pulled some bloke and had woken up the next morning to find his furious mother threatening to call the police because some strange woman had seduced her fifteen-year-old son, but she was interrupted by a pointed cough and turned round to see Max standing there.
‘Don’t wander off, sweetheart,’ he said lightly. ‘I had all sorts of horrible visions of someone slipping Roofies into your lime and soda. Come back to the table, because Jeremy wants to tell you in no uncertain terms that I had nothing to do with the dodgy prawn sandwich.’
‘You do anything to hurt my sister and I don’t care how high up the masthead you are, I’m going to kill you,’ Celia growled, striding over so she could get up in Max’s face. ‘I swear.’
‘Celia! I can look after myself,’ Neve said furiously, as she tried to tug her away, but Max just smiled and kissed Celia’s creased forehead.
‘I promise when your sister’s done with breaking my heart, you can have first dibs on what’s left of me,’ he said, putting an arm round her waist.
Celia huffed and Neve could see her opening her mouth to let loose a stream of vitriol, which never happened because Max’s fingers skittered across her ribs and she burst out laughing instead.
‘Don’t do that,’ she said, wriggling in vain to get free. ‘You know I’m ticklish.’
Max held out his other hand to Neve. ‘Come on, Neve. It’ll do wonders for my rep to have a Slater sister on each arm.’
Neve had no choice but to become the other slice of bread in a Max sandwich. She smiled weakly at Celia who took advantage of the fact that Max was being greeted by someone across the room to hiss at Neve, ‘You and me are not done talking about this.’
Chapter Twelve
Celia was still talking about it two days later.
‘I can’t believe you’re going out on a Saturday night,’ she moaned from her foetal position on Neve’s bed. Not only was she crabby with PMS, but she was also mourning the loss of Yuri, who’d decided she might as well have a bash at dating the graphic designer she’d already slept with on the last five consecutive Saturday nights. ‘Everybody’s got something to do tonight except me.’
‘You have something to do,’ Neve pointed out as she took a swipe at her lashes with her mascara wand. ‘You said you were going for dim sum in Soho, then Grace from work had booked a private room at a karaoke bar and if you were still upright after that, you were going clubbing.’
Celia glared at Neve’s back. ‘I meant everyone’s going out with their boyfriends, except me. Even you!’
‘You know you’ll enjoy yourself once you’re with your friends and you have a couple of drinks inside you,’ Neve murmured, as she expertly twisted her hair up into a bun and started shoving in hairpins.
‘Pull out some strands of hair so you don’t look so virginal,’ Celia ordered from her prone position. ‘Unless there’s something you want to tell me.’
‘If I was doing something with Max, which I’m not and never, ever will, then you would be the very last person I’d tell. Actually, fourth from last,’ Neve amended.
‘Like, after Mum, Dad and Douglas? Thanks a lot!’ Celia gave Neve a serious once-over. ‘You are doing something with him, I can tell. You’re wearing a knee-length skirt. Not below the knee, but on the knee, and I can see the faintest shadow of cleavage. I rest my case.’
Neve turned back to the mirror for one last critical glance. She was bored stupid with the shapeless black dresses and had decided to branch out by wearing a black A-line skirt with red felt flowers embroidered along the hem and a black wrap top over a lace-edged camisole. There had been a moment when Neve thought she might wear the red tights that her mother had bought her, but then she remembered how they made her legs look like they belonged to Henry VIII, so she’d stuck with her trusty black opaques.
‘But I look all right, don’t I? I don’t look … large or, like, larger.’
‘You look gorgeous,’ Celia insisted hotly. ‘You don’t know how lucky you are to have an actual waist. I look like a fucking fishing rod.’
‘No, you don’t!’
‘Well, you don’t look large. Not at all.’ Celia sounded close to tears and she was paler than normal, which was a sure sign that her period was less than a day away.
‘Why don’t you stay in tonight?’ Neve asked gently.
‘I can’t stay in on Saturday night!’ Celia sounded even closer to tears as she scrambled off the bed. ‘Look, I’m up. I’m ready to go. I’ll walk to the station with you, but if you put on flats instead of heels, I’ll smack you.’
They walked hand-in-hand down Stroud Green Road, Celia dragging her feet every step of the way. ‘You know, it’s not anything serious between Max and me, Seels. I’m in love with William and Max thinks the whole thing is an amusing diversion. It’s just a game to him,’ Neve said carefully.
‘Max loves playing games,’ Celia replied. ‘I know that we all joke about what a gigantic whore he is, but he’s pretty hard to resist when he’s piling on the charm.’
‘But I can see right through his charm. Please credit me with some sense.’ Neve put a hand on Celia’s arm to still her. ‘I already know that in a couple of weeks, Max is going to be so bored that he’ll very sweetly and very suavely dump me, and that’s fine. We have nothing in common and although I thought that maybe he had hidden depths, now I’m not so sure.’
‘Then finish with him now instead of letting him drag you to all those parties,??
? Celia demanded. ‘You hate going to parties.’ She paused and looked at Neve more perceptively than Neve would have given her credit for. ‘The weird thing is, on Thursday evening, you didn’t look as if you were in a thousand agonies. Before I started screaming at you, you looked like you were having quite a good time. I mean, what’s up with that?’
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ Neve muttered, starting to walk again.
‘Try me.’
‘Do you remember Danny McGee from school?’ Neve asked, though it was a rhetorical question, because everyone had known and loved Danny McGee. Even though Neve and Celia’s older brother had been considered quite the heart-throb, compared to Danny with his dreamy blue eyes, cheeky grin and the adorable way he’d held his cigarettes between thumb and forefinger, Douglas might just as well have been Quasimodo. When Neve was fourteen, a girl in the year above had even tried to slit her wrists with a Bic safety razor because Danny had dumped her after two dates.
Celia was sighing rapturously. ‘Danny McGee. I kissed your class photo every night for a year right in the spot where I could just about see half his fringe and one eye. Whatever happened to him?’
Neve had heard that he was in prison for burglary and ABH but that was beside the point. ‘Well, do you also remember the two weeks that Mr Kent made Danny and me work together on an English project?’
‘There was no working together, you did the entire thing yourself.’
‘And for two weeks, no one picked on me, or teased me or called me that awful name all because Danny would stop and talk to me at school,’ Neve said, slightly misty-eyed, even though Danny had only wanted to know if Neve had mastered the art of copying his handwriting.
‘God, do I? I was so jealous and he never once came round to our house,’ Celia said bitterly, as if she was still sore about it. ‘So what’s that got to do with you and Max and going to parties?’
‘Well, Mum always forced me to go to those awful school discos no matter how much I cried and pretended that I had bacterial meningitis, and I’d spend the whole time I was there hiding in the school loos from Charlotte and her gang until it was time for Dad to pick me up.’ Neve swallowed hard, because even after all this time it still hurt to dredge up these memories. ‘I’d sit there for hours and imagine what it would be like to walk into the disco with Danny and how everyone would think I was cool and they’d actually come and talk to me and want to be my friend. When I walk into one of those parties with Max, it’s everything I never had when I was at school, and I just wish that Charlotte were there to see it. So stop giving me such a hard time, Seels, because being Max’s plus one makes up for a tiny, teeny bit of the utter misery that was my adolescence.’
Neve didn’t want the tears to start trickling because her mascara would run, but Celia had no such compunction. She swiped at her eyes with her jacket sleeve before gathering Neve up in a swift, fierce hug. ‘It’s impossible to stay mad at you if you’re going to say stuff like that,’ she grumbled. ‘OK, you have my blessing to carry on with this stupid arrangement with Max.’
‘Thank you,’ Neve said. ‘And it really won’t be for much longer, because all this partying is very hard work and I haven’t had time to read a book in weeks. William and I were talking about how we’d never read Tristram Shandy and we agreed to read two chapters a day, then email each other, and he’s quite cross that I’m chapters and chapters behind.’
Celia gave Neve’s hand a little squeeze. ‘If that’s what you and William get up to, then Max does actually seem like much better boyfriend material. At least he knows how to have a good time!’
‘There are so many things wrong with that statement that I don’t even know where to start,’ Neve said with a sniff.
They’d reached the station by now and Neve came to a halt by the clock and watched Celia hunt for her Oyster card through various pockets and side compartments of her bag until she produced it with a triumphant air.
‘I’d better get going,’ she said. ‘What time are you meeting Max?’
‘Five thirty,’ Neve said, glancing up at the clock. ‘But he’s always ten minutes late.’
‘And you’re not having conniptions about that?’ Celia asked slyly.
‘I understand that there has to be a certain degree of compromise involved in relationships. I reckon I won’t sweat the small stuff like shoddy timekeeping so he can’t really object tonight when I take half an hour to order dinner, then send it back because it’s dripping with cream and butter.’ Neve pinched Celia’s arm who made a big show of squealing and ducking away, even though she was wearing a leather jacket and couldn’t have felt a thing. ‘Don’t smirk at me!’
‘You are so adorable,’ Celia cooed, side-stepping away from Neve’s hand, which was poised for another attack. ‘I’m going. Now, be careful and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!’
Neve assumed her primmest face, which just made Celia giggle harder as she walked to the station entrance, stopping to look back at Neve and wave before she disappeared.
It was five forty now and, right on time, she saw Max hurrying under the bridge. Neve unfolded her arms so she didn’t look as if she was standing there impatiently as Max caught her eye and started running towards her.
‘Hello, gorgeous,’ Max panted, as he reached Neve’s side. He kissed her cheek, then the other one, his face cold against hers. ‘Sorry I’m late. I swear, I think time speeds up the second I leave my flat.’
‘I’ve only just seen Celia off,’ Neve said, eyes downcast because the first five minutes still felt awkward and it took her time to warm up. When Max arrived, Neve was always struck anew by how handsome he was. Then she had to adjust all her notions about him and try to drown out the voice in her head that wanted to know what the hell he was doing with her.
Once she was composed enough to look at him, Neve saw that Max was wearing jeans and a houndstooth coat that looked like it had seen better days, though Neve knew that when he took it off there’d be a Marc Jacobs or Prada label stitched inside. He was looking her up and down too, a slight smile on his face. Then he took her arm and started trying to move her in the direction of the station entrance.
Neve didn’t budge. ‘Where do you think we’re going?’
‘You said you were taking me bowling,’ Max said, looping his fingers round Neve’s wrist to tug at her gently. ‘We need to catch the tube.’
It had occurred to Neve after all the drama of Thursday night, that Max had planned all their dates up until then. She hadn’t had much to do but worry about what to wear then turn up at the agreed time and place.
So when Max revealed that there was nothing on the social calendar for that Saturday, Neve had taken charge. Though when she’d suggested that maybe they could both have a night off so she could catch up on Tristram Shandy, Max had been appalled. ‘I haven’t stayed in on a Saturday night since I was about twelve and I’m not going to start now,’ he’d said aghast, even more aghast than Celia had been, and for once he wasn’t hamming it up for comic effect. ‘I’ll phone a few people. There has to be something going on somewhere.’
‘We’ll go bowling early in the evening and then we’ll go out for dinner,’ Neve had said firmly, because both those activities were reasonably cheap and she didn’t get paid for another week. At the time, she was surprised that Max had agreed so quickly, but now as she watched his face crease in confusion, she realised that they had very different ideas about bowling.
‘We don’t need to get a tube,’ she said, pointing at the huge grey and red building across the road. ‘There’s a massive bowling alley five seconds away.’
Max stared at the askew pins decorating the outside of the venue with furrowed brow. ‘But I thought you meant we’d go to Bloomsbury Bowls or the All-Star Lanes, not …’
Not an ugly grey bowling alley that didn’t have any kitsch retro features or a waitress service featuring girls with pin curls and little 1950s bowling dresses. ‘It’s really all right once you get inside,’ Neve said w
eakly. ‘Look, I just thought we could do something local for once.’
‘Do they play really tinny disco music through the PA and have loads of ankle-biters getting in the way when you’re trying to bowl?’ Max asked.
‘Are you sure you’ve never been there before?’
‘I haven’t, but it sounds a lot like the place in Didsbury where I had my tenth birthday party,’ Max said. He took a deep breath. ‘OK, let’s do this. I can kick it with the common people.’
Taking Max bowling went better than Neve had dared hope. He’d winced theatrically when they’d got inside and seen hordes of kids, all hopped up on fizzy drinks, running around and shrieking. There’d also been some eye-rolling when Neve insisted the boy in charge of shoe rental sprayed foot deodorant in her bowling shoes before she could even think of putting them on. But then it had been all right because Neve was on home ground.
Bowling was a birthday tradition and a Bank Holiday tradition and also a bringing home a good school report tradition and even a ‘Christ, Barry, the kids are driving me bloody mad, get them out the house,’ tradition.
Neve knew how to input their names on to their electronic scoreboard even though the keys had rubbed off. She knew that they didn’t want to get stuck with the furthest lane to the left because the wood was slightly warped and the balls all veered to the right, and she knew that it was always best to start off with one of the heavy green balls on her first bowl then move to a lighter orange ball to try and strike down the last remaining pins.
Yes, she was worried how her back view looked as she ran up the lane with a lumbering gait, but Max was far more concerned that she kept getting strikes than how big her bum looked or how the bowling shoes made her legs seem shorter and stockier than normal.
‘Can’t we get them to put the bumpers up?’ he asked plaintively, as his balls kept rolling into the gutter. ‘Like they have.’ He gestured at the neighbouring lane.
‘They have the bumpers up because they’re tiny children,’ Neve pointed out and Max pouted, and maybe if it was a different kind of relationship, she’d have leaned up and kissed the pout right off his face.