‘I have never had a tattoo,’ I blurted out. I knew I was on safe ground with that, Tom had already admitted to having one.
‘Crap …’ he groaned and downed his shot.
Flo laughed, ‘Come on! You don’t get off that easily. Show and tell, please.’
Tom sighed and unbuttoned his shirt, revealing an expanse of tanned, toned chest. He slid the sleeve down one shoulder and turned to show us. It was a heart, pierced with an arrow and crossed with the flowing letters ‘Not so Dumb’ in italic script. ‘There.’ He began buttoning up his shirt. ‘Now come on you others, I can’t be the only one.’
Nina said nothing, but simply pulled up the ankle of her jeans, showing a small bird of some kind on the tendon running up from her ankle.
‘What is it?’ Flo peered closer. ‘Blackbird?’
‘It’s a falcon,’ Nina said. She did not elaborate but simply pulled her jeans back and downed her shot. ‘How about you then?’
Flo shook her head. ‘Too much of a scaredy-cat! Clare does though!’
Clare grinned and heaved herself up off the sofa. She turned her back to us and pulled up her silver top. It shimmered like a fish skin. Twining up from the back of her jeans were two black Celtic designs, curving out towards her slim waist.
‘Arse antlers!’ Nina gave a snort.
‘Youthful folly,’ Clare said, a touch ruefully. ‘Drunken trip to Brighton when I was twenty-two.’
‘They’re going to look delightful when you’re an old lady,’ Nina said. ‘At least they’ll provide a homing path for the young man slated to wipe your arse in the nursing home.’
‘It’ll give him something to look at, poor sod.’ Clare pulled down her top, laughing, and flung herself back on the sofa. She drained her shot. ‘Mels?’ she called out.
But Melanie had dragged the phone out into the hall; only the trailing wire and the sound of her low, urgent voice gave away her location. ‘… And he took the bottle?’ we heard from the hallway. ‘How many ounces?’
‘Screw that,’ Nina said decisively. ‘Man overboard. Right. I have never … I have never … I have never …’ She looked from me to Clare, and there was suddenly a very wicked expression on her face. My stomach flipped. Nina, drunk, is not always a nice person to be around. ‘I have never fucked James Cooper.’
There was an uncertain laugh round the room. Clare shrugged and drank.
Then her cornflower blue eyes, and Nina’s coffee brown ones turned on me. There was an absolute silence, broken only by Florence and the Machine telling us that her boy built coffins.
‘Fuck you, Nina.’ My hand was trembling as I tossed back the drink. Then I got up and walked out into the hallway, my cheeks burning, and suddenly feeling very, very drunk.
‘You can always give him half a banana for breakfast,’ Melanie was saying. ‘But if you give him grapes, cut them in half first or use that mesh thing.’
I pushed past her up the stairs, Flo’s bemused, ‘What? What happened?’ following me as I fled.
On the landing I burst into the bathroom and locked the door behind me. Then I knelt in front of the toilet retching and retching until there was nothing left to throw up.
Oh Christ, I was drunk. Drunk enough to go downstairs and smack Nina for the shit-stirring bitch she was. OK, she didn’t know the full picture about me and James. But she knew enough to realise that she was putting me in a horrible position – and Clare.
For a minute I hated them all: Nina for goading me with her horrible needling questions, Flo and Tom for gawping as I drank, Clare for forcing me to come. And most of all I hated James – for asking Clare to marry him, for starting this whole chain off. I even hated poor, blameless, oblivious Melanie just for being here.
My stomach heaved again, but there was nothing left apart from a vile taste of tequila in my mouth as I stood and spat into the toilet bowl. Then I flushed, and went to the mirror to rinse out my mouth and splash water on my face. I was white, with a blotchy, hectic flush on my cheekbones and my mascara was smudged.
‘Lee?’ There was a knock at the door. I recognised Clare’s voice and put my face in my hands.
‘I n-need a minute.’ Ugh, I was stammering. I hadn’t stammered since I left school. Somehow I had shed it, along with the sad, awkward personality of Lee the moment I stepped out of Reading. Nora had never stammered. I was slipping back into Lee.
‘Lee, I’m sorry. Nina shouldn’t have—’
Oh fuck off, I thought. Please. Just leave me alone.
There was the sound of low voices outside the door, and I tried, with shaking fingers, to fix my mascara using toilet paper.
God this was pathetic. It was like being back at school – bitch fights and sniping and everything. I had sworn never to go back. This had been a mistake. A dreadful, dreadful mistake.
‘I’m sorry, Nora.’ It was Nina’s voice, slurred with alcohol but tinged with real concern – at least it sounded so. ‘I didn’t think … please, come out.’
‘I need to go to bed,’ I said. There was a catch in my throat, hoarseness from throwing up.
‘Le … Nora, please,’ Clare begged. ‘Come on, I’m sorry. Nina’s sorry.’
I took a deep breath and slid back the lock.
They were standing outside, their expressions hangdog in the bright light from the bathroom.
‘Please, Lee,’ Clare took my hand. ‘Come back down.’
‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘Honestly. But I really am tired, I was up at five to catch the train.’
‘All right …’ Clare let go of my hand reluctantly. ‘As long as you’re not going off in a snit.’
I felt my teeth grit in spite of myself. Be calm. Don’t make this all about you.
‘No, I’m not g-going off in a “snit”,’ I said, trying to keep my voice light. ‘I’m just tired. Now, I’m going to brush my teeth. See you in the morning.’
I elbowed past them to the bedroom to get my washbag, and when I came back they were still there, Nina tapping her foot on the parquet.
‘So you really mean it?’ she said. ‘You’re bailing out? Christ, Lee, it was just a joke. If anyone’s got a right to be offended it’s Clare, and she’s taking it OK. Have you lost your sense of humour since school?’
For a second I thought of all the replies I could make. It wasn’t a joke. She knew full well what that question meant to me, and she’d deliberately brought James up in the one place and at the one time I couldn’t dodge it, or smooth it over.
But what was the point? Like an idiot I’d taken the bait, exploded on cue. It was done.
‘I’m not bailing out,’ I said wearily. ‘It’s gone midnight. I’ve been up since five. Please, I really just want some sleep.’
I realised, even as I said the words, that I was pleading, offering up excuses, trying to absolve myself of guilt for leaving the party. Somehow the realisation stiffened my nerve. We weren’t sixteen any more. We didn’t have to hang around like there was an invisible umbilical cord tethering us together. We’d gone our separate ways and all survived. Me getting some sleep wasn’t going to ruin Clare’s hen for ever, and I didn’t have to justify the decision like a prisoner in the Star Chamber.
‘I’m going to bed,’ I repeated.
There was a pause. Clare and Nina looked at each other, and then Clare said, ‘OK.’
For some irrational reason that single word annoyed me more than anything else – I knew she was only agreeing, but the word had a ring of ‘permission granted’ that made my skin crawl. I am not yours to boss around any more.
‘Night,’ I said shortly, and pushed past them into the bathroom. Over the running water and the toothbrush’s rasp I could hear them whispering outside, and I deliberately stayed in there, wiping off my mascara with unaccustomed care, until their voices disappeared and I heard their footsteps on the parquet trailing away.
I let out a breath, releasing tension I hadn’t even known I was holding, and felt the muscles in my neck and shoulder unclench.