‘Go on, Kat,’ he said. ‘Give.’
‘Yeah, so, anyway – ’ I took a long drink and tried to gather my thoughts again – ‘I hadn’t been sitting down two minutes, I think they were asking what texts I’d been studying for A level, when I felt a tickling behind my knee and when I checked, there was this massive wasp crawling up my leg. I whooped and jumped up, and Honor dropped her glasses under the desk. The wasp buzzed off and we all watched it fly over to the window, head-butt the glass a few times, and settle. Honor goes, “I’ve told Mr Bowman the heating’s on too high, it’s ridiculous. And the Porter man goes, I believe there’s a nest in the boiler room, Hadrian was telling me last week, though I don’t expect anyone will actually
do
anything about it.” Next thing, I found myself reaching down for Honor’s glasses; I’m so used to picking stuff up for Poll it’s automatic. I passed them across the desk to her and she said thanks, and we had a little laugh, although I was fighting hysteria. So I went to sit down and – oh, God, it was awful.’
‘What?
What?
’
‘I felt something sting my side.’
Callum winced. ‘Yow.’
‘I shrieked at the top of my voice and bolted for the door, quickly followed by Honor who caught me outside and bundled me down a corridor into a toilet. Only when I undid my clothes – ’ I leaned towards him conspiratorially – ‘because when I said “side” I really meant “bottom” – there was nothing there, no red mark or anything. So I flapped about a bit, in case the wasp had got trapped inside my skirt and was getting ready to do a proper sting.’ I didn’t tell Callum but I’d also pulled my knickers down, to be on the safe side. ‘And that’s when I spotted the plastic tag. You know when you get new clothes and the labels are attached with a plastic thread that you have to cut off, otherwise you pull a big hole in the material? Well I’d had a new skirt.’ (New knickers, really.) ‘And although I’d clipped the long end of the tag off, I’d left the other stuck in, and it was that that had pricked me. Not a wasp at all.’
Callum was shaking his head at me.
‘I know, I know. Trust me. So I came out of the toilets hyperventilating, and Honor assumed I had been stung but that I was trying to be brave. I didn’t enlighten her because that would have made me look even more stupid than the fight I had with the door. She was all for sending for some antihistamine cream, or at the very least, some vinegar, but I told her I’d put a wet tissue on it and I’d be fine. She sat me in a side room, very plush, waspless, and gave me a glass of water to sip. Then she said, had I heard of the Bach Flower Remedies? I didn’t know if the question was part of the interview, so I tried to sound noncommittal. She scuttled off and came back half a minute later with her handbag. “Here you are,” she said, and brought out a tiny dark bottle with a bulb on the top, like a dropper. “It’s totally herbal,” she told me, and squirted a dose into my cup. I said, all suspicious, “How come it smells of brandy?”’
‘You’re seeing that cider off no problem, I notice,’ said Callum drily.
‘Yeah, well, it’s only like apple juice, isn’t it?’ I took another huge swig to show I wasn’t fussed. ‘Anyway, Honor maintained it was only the smell, it wasn’t alcoholic, and the stuff would help calm me if I sipped it slowly.’
‘Did it?’
‘Oh, and how. She left me on my own, which was exactly what I wanted, and said she’d be back in fifteen minutes. Then, and this part is weird as well, a little boy appeared.’
‘What, like you were hallucinating?’
‘No. I think he was somebody’s son or something. He wasn’t supposed to be there, I suspect, but then I wasn’t either, technically. He sneaked round the door and just stared at me for ages, the way kids do. White-blond hair, Spiderman sweatshirt. I reckon he’d have been about four, five. Then he goes, “Does a goat wear a coat?” The Flower Remedy must have been working because instead of ignoring him, I heard myself say, “Does a bat wear a hat?” Then he said, with a dirty laugh, “Do ants wear pants?” and I said, “Do kittens wear mittens?” ’
‘I see a pattern emerging.’
‘So we carried on like this for ages, Does a fox wear socks, Do mites wear tights.’
‘Does a fly wear a tie.’
‘Do shrews wear shoes, you’ve got it. He was sharp, I’ll give him that. I started saying silly stuff—’
‘As opposed to the sensible stuff you’d been saying before.’
‘Yeah, and when I couldn’t think of any more rhyming clothes we made up nonsense phrases, Does a hog live in a bog, Is a dove in love, Is a cheetah neater. Then Honor returned and he nipped off up some stairs. I was taken back to the interview, only by now I was high as a kite. Instead of being tongue-tied, I couldn’t stop blathering.’
‘You didn’t try the goat–coat routine on them, did you?’
‘Oh no, it all made perfect sense, what I came out with, thank God.’ I’d been inspired. I could tell they were impressed, and that had made me want to talk even more.
Callum’s lips made a little popping sound as he took his cigarette away from his mouth. ‘So they offered you a place.’
‘I got the letter three days after Christmas. Mrs Law said they’re trying these days to give people from, ahem, deprived backgrounds a leg up. So the fact no one in our family’s ever got a university degree will have counted in my favour. I’ve still got to get two As and a B, though.’
‘You’ve got to go. I mean, Oxford. You have, haven’t you?’
‘Sometimes I think, how can I not? That wasp was an omen, I’m convinced of it. You don’t get wasps in winter. It was sent to get me through the interview, because I’d never have managed it on my own. Then I see Poll, stumbling around the place, scraping chutney on her toast instead of jam, and I think, how could I even contemplate leaving her?’ I wondered what she was doing at that moment; whether Dogman was still with her or whether she was sitting on her own in the dark.
‘Mmm,’ said Callum, noncommittally. ‘Tough call. Can’t social services sort something out?’
‘Not twenty-four/seven. And there’s all kinds of rules and regs, it’s incredibly complicated to apply, which I suppose is the idea. It’s too depressing, I don’t want to talk about it.’
We sat in silence for a while. Smoke curled up between us; in the saloon next door, someone was singing ‘Lady in Red’.
‘Still,’ said Callum at last, ‘you got a place. That’s so impressive. You don’t half hide your light under a bushel. You’re funny, you’re clever . . . ’
I’m fat, I thought.
To stop myself blushing I said: ‘I’m broke too, I’m afraid. I can get one round in, that’s all. Sorry. I thought I had more in my purse.’
‘It’s OK.’ Callum got to his feet. ‘I got paid today, and money always burns a hole in my pocket.’
He took himself off to the bar and I went hunting for the ladies’. In the mirror I saw that my hair was still where I’d moulded it, and my face still matt. I touched up the lipstick and, unbelievably, undid two buttons on my blouse. I thought I looked nice, till a skinny girl showing her stomach came and stood right next to me. I could see the thought bubble over her head: Eugh, what a lump. But when I turned to go, I could see she was intent on fiddling with a contact lens, tears streaming down, and probably hadn’t even noticed me. ‘Shyness is a kind of vanity,’ I remembered Cissie saying. ‘I read that in the
Reader’s Digest
.’
When I came back to our table, someone had taken our seats so we moved over to the side door and stood in the breeze. We started talking about teachers, and the worst ones we’d ever known – Callum had quite a lot to say on the subject – and then he outlined his plans for a year off, and which university he’d like to go to when he came back from travelling the world (Newcastle). He told me about a holiday he and his mum had spent in Thailand, and how she’d once told someone’s fortune and they’d paid her with an antique necklace but his mum wouldn’t wear it because she said it had sad vibes about it. He described life on a croft, and how he’d have a state-of-the-art photographic studio constructed without ruining the character of the building, and how, at night, he’d play his music at top volume because there’d be no neighbours to complain. ‘That’s the one thing I hate about where we live now,’ he said, leaning sideways to stub his cigarette out in someone else’s ashtray. ‘It’s a terrace and it’s over a shop. That’s three separate lots of people to moan about noise. I wouldn’t mind, but the old woman on the left reckons to be deaf, so how does that work?’
‘It’s the natural state of the old, to be hacked off.’
‘Do you reckon? My grandad used to be nice. Before he died. Mum was always complaining he spoilt me.’
I heard that a lot, about grandparents spoiling grandchildren. I wondered what had gone wrong in our house.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked suddenly.
I shifted my weight from one leg to the other. ‘OK. My back’s stiff, I could do with sitting down. Shall we go into the beer garden and find a table there?’
‘Or—’ Callum grinned. ‘We could go along to that party.’
‘For God’s sake. I thought I’d said I wasn’t going.’ I couldn’t help but laugh at him. ‘Ten out of ten for persistence.’
‘I know, I’m very persuasive. I might go into politics if the croft falls through.’
‘But I haven’t got the ticket any more, so it’s academic.’
‘No, I’ve got it. You threw it out of the window; I caught it. I had to chase it right across the road.’ He reached into his pocket.
‘Well, you’ll need to go on your own because I’ve only got one ticket.’
‘Aha, Kat, but that’s where you’re wrong, because it says here, “Admits two”.’ He waved the ticket under my nose. ‘So, are you up for it?’
I grabbed the ticket off him to check although I knew he was right, held his wrist briefly. ‘Tell me why you’re so keen to go. You won’t know anyone.’
‘Those are the best sort of parties,’ he said. His face was half in shadow, his cheekbones outlined. The short hair had made his eyes look much bigger. ‘I just love clubbing.’
‘How does that square with wanting to live on a croft?’
‘I’ll be old by then, I’ll have got it out of my system. Oh, go on, Kat, now I’ve come all this way.’
I didn’t ask you to, I thought.
‘Tell you what; how about we go along, see what it’s like, then if you’re not keen we can leave.’
And go where? The pubs were ready to close.
‘Please?’ He held up an imaginary microphone. ‘
Come with me into the night, You never know what’s waiting there
.’
‘ “Stellar Days”?’
‘Angelhunter.’ He looked pleased with himself. ‘I’ve been doing my own research into Eighties music. Was it one of your dad’s favourites?’
‘Yeah, it was; I mean, he had the single. I play it sometimes when I need cheering up.’ Poll always complained the beat went straight through the floor. ‘It’s one of my favourites.’
‘So,’ said Callum, taking me by the arm, ‘in the spirit of “Stellar Days”, let’s go for it, eh?’
Donna’s face when I walked in with him by my side. ‘
And watch the ice catch fire?
’
‘That’s my girl,’ he said. I let him take me by the hand and lead me to perdition.
Five minutes later we were outside the entrance to Steem. ‘Are you cold?’ he asked.
‘No. Why?’
‘I thought you were shivering. Oh, here we go.’ He handed the ticket to one of the bouncers, who pointed wordlessly up the stairs. ‘Come on.’
The people who’d come behind us were directed down, into a sort of cellar, and we began to climb the illuminated steps towards the thudding music. On the landing, a boy I’d never seen before was leaning his head against the flock wallpaper and groaning. A blonde girl was sitting nearby, scowling. We took no notice; Callum’s eyes were fixed on the door ahead and his face was aglow. He was jerking his head already to the beat.
Then, as we walked through into the spinning lights, I heard a riff that sent a thrill down my spine. I gripped Callum’s shoulder. ‘It’s “Cars”, they’re playing Gary Numan.’ It was another sign, and my heart leapt with confidence. But the riff slid away and the tune changed to something I didn’t know, modern.
‘It’s a sample,’ he yelled over the noise. ‘Armand Van Helden. The track’s called “Koochy”. ’S good. Let’s get a drink and go up on the balcony.’
The music was so loud it was disorientating; lights flashed in my eyes without any obvious sequence. I saw faces I knew, saw plenty of double-takes, which was good, unless they were saying, ‘My God, what does she look like, silly cow.’ Callum came back from the bar then went to dance, while I leaned on the rail and watched him. My head felt blurry but I didn’t want to lose sight of him. Donna nearby, in the middle of the crowd, I waved but she didn’t see me, somebody trying to snog her, somebody letting off a party popper over her head. A black-haired girl dancing close to Callum, waving her arms around in front of his face, showing her ribs, putting her arms round his neck. Callum laughing, throwing her arms off, moving away, moving away. The girl dancing on unfazed, turning to writhe next to someone else. My limbs had gone heavy but my brain was wired.
‘What time is Mitch picking us up?’ I shouted when Callum returned, stripped to the waist and soaked with sweat.
‘Give us that glass,’ he signed, and drank so fast that half of it went down his chin. ‘Jesus. I’m fucked.’ He sat down on the floor with his back to the railings. ‘Come here.’ He tugged at my skirt, so I lowered myself next to him. Alex and Sita sloped past, nudging each other when they saw me. Callum gave them the thumbs-up and they giggled, and gave it back.
‘Why don’t you dance?’ he yelled in my ear.
I just shook my head.
‘It’s good. I’ll request that “Koochy” for you, if you want. Hey?’
‘No thanks.’
‘Come down with me, next time something you like comes on.’
‘No.’ I sighed. ‘I hardly look the part, do I?’
‘You what?’
‘Nothing. I don’t want to dance, OK?’
‘Suit yourself. You look fine, though. Really.’ He smiled and elbowed me in the ribs. ‘You should relax more. Come out more, get drunk occasionally.’ His face tickled my cheek.
I felt strange; tipsy and anxious and excited and careless.
‘Listen,’ I shouted down his ear. ‘Do you want to know another secret?’