by Rebecca Reid
‘Do they still hate you?’
‘I don’t think so. Not sure they were thinking about anything other than her.’
‘Zadie said they didn’t like you because they were snobs. Because your parents were “trade”.’
‘They didn’t like me because they were worried about her, and because I helped her hide things from them. She liked to believe it was about snobbery, but it was about trying to keep her safe. That’s all they ever tried to do.’
Chloe tried to dismiss a vision in her mind of Astrid and Bob, older, Zadie’s siblings, now adults, standing around in the hall of their enormous house, dressed in black, waiting for the cars to arrive to take them to the church. Cars which would never have needed to arrive if she had done things differently, or if Max had. They could have saved her, if it hadn’t been for everything that had happened at Max’s party. Chloe was sure of that.
‘Was it you?’
Max turned to look at her, noticed that her glass was almost empty and refilled it. ‘Was what me?’
‘The night of your birthday. I found her bleeding and bruised. Her dress was all ripped up. Someone had beaten the living hell out of her. Did you hurt her?’
He put the bottle down heavily. ‘Are we really doing this again?’
‘We were so young. You’d have been scared. I know she could be horrible to you. I know she tried to wind you up and needled you.’
Max shook his head.
‘It’s okay. You can tell me. It’s been fifteen years. But you should tell me.’ Chloe could hear her tone getting shriller. She stopped, trying to calm herself. She must not lose her temper. She must not lose her cool. This entire evening depended on her ability to keep her calm. To make Max feel safe.
‘I only feel guilty about one thing that happened that night – and you know what it was.’ Chloe tried to shake the picture from behind her eyes: Max’s white shirt, his lips tasting of red wine, her party dress around her waist.
‘I still feel guilty about that, too,’ she replied, trying to keep her voice light. At least that was true. She had felt guilty then, and every single day since. But she was here now. And she was finally going to make it right. She had given him every single chance to confess to what he had done, and he had chosen not to.
She took a gulp from her glass of wine. This was for Zadie. It didn’t matter if it was shameful, or embarrassing. For Zadie. For Zadie. For Zadie. ‘But I think about it a lot,’ she said. ‘When I’m alone.’
Max looked at her and a smug smile stole across his face. She had his interest now.
‘What’s Verity like in bed?’ she asked.
‘Coco, I’m shocked,’ said Max, sounding anything but. This was just the kind of pseudo-forbidden conversation he had always liked.
‘So?’
‘I’m not going to tell you that.’
‘I’ll tell you what Rav’s like if you tell me what Verity is like.’
Max put his arm along the back of the seat, just above Chloe’s shoulders. She could feel the warmth radiating through his linen shirt.
‘Verity is …’ He hesitated. ‘Innocent. She’d only ever slept with one boyfriend before me. She’s a little mouse. Badly wants to be good at it, but not much technique. And not a huge amount of enthusiasm for the actual deed, if I’m honest.’ He paused. ‘How honest are we being?’
‘Brutally.’
‘I don’t think she’s ever had an orgasm.’
‘I think that’s more about you than it is about her, to be fair.’
‘I’ve never had any other complaints in that department, thanks very much. Go on, then. Your turn.’
Chloe thought about it for a moment. She knew what Max would want to hear, what would make him want to prove himself. ‘Rav’s … sweet.’
Max laughed. ‘Oh dear. That bad?’
‘Not bad, just … Not very adventurous, I suppose. I’ve asked him to be a bit more … no holds barred. But he can’t seem to manage it.’
‘He can’t manage it?’ Max smiled, eyebrows raised.
‘No, no, he can do that part. But anything more exotic than “love-making” seems to freak him out. I’d occasionally like him to be a bit more … full on.’
‘Full on how?’
There was no doubt that the conversation had captivated Max. He was leaning forward and his eyes were focused on Chloe’s lips.
‘I asked if he’d knock me about a bit. Nothing awful, just a little slap. Maybe some hair-pulling. Choking. That sort of thing. Lots of people like it. It’s not a big deal.’
Max whistled. ‘It’s always the quiet ones.’
‘Lots of people like that sort of thing! Remember Fifty Shades?’
‘But Rav can’t manage the Christian Grey thing.’
‘No.’
‘And you feel hard done by?’
‘Yes. I do.’ Chloe traced her finger round the rim of her wine glass. It was now or never. ‘You remember what you said to me the other night. Before I dropped the jug?’
‘That I fancied you, back at uni?’
Chloe nodded. ‘Did you mean it, or were you just trying to wind me up?’
‘Of course I meant it.’
Chloe forced herself to smile. ‘I want to tell you something. But I’m worried it will come out the wrong way. That it will sound awful.’
Max’s smile was easy as ever. ‘Try me.’
‘I feel’ – she sipped her wine – ‘I feel like things are different. Now that she’s gone. Is that terrible? You were always hers. But now that she isn’t here any more, I don’t feel like I have to fight my feelings. Like it wouldn’t be disloyal to act on them.’
‘Feelings?’
She held his gaze, then dropped her eyes down. ‘Feelings. For you.’
Max breathed out slowly. ‘I get it. And you know what, in some strange way I think she would get it, too. She knew there was chemistry between us. And you can say a lot about Zadie, but God knows she wasn’t a prude.’
The smile on Chloe’s lips was hurting her cheeks. ‘I think you’re right,’ she whispered. And then she leaned forward, brushing her lips softly against his.
He grasped the back of her neck and pulled her against him, deepening the kiss. ‘I’ve waited a long time to do that,’ he said in a low voice.
The back of Chloe’s throat was burning. She wanted a cigarette for the first time in about a decade. ‘I don’t think I can wait any more.’
‘Me neither.’ He took her by the hand and led her inside.
17
Then
The last week of the holidays dragged, but eventually Chloe was packing up her suitcase and taking another train, this time back to university. Greg’s offer of a lift only seemed to have applied to her first day. Her mother did a tearful, performative goodbye on the doorstep of the house, Greg said something about getting out of the car quickly so he didn’t get a fine for parking in the wrong place, and a few hours later she was standing back in her cold bedroom. To her surprise, there was a note on her pillow.
‘First party of the new term – see you at 9, Z xx.’
When Chloe arrived at Archer Crescent there was no one but Zadie in the house. She answered the door in a silk dressing gown, clearly already several drinks down. ‘Where’s Max?’ Chloe asked, following Zadie up the stairs to her bedroom. Every surface was strewn with make-up and products and the floor was covered in clothing.
‘On some rugby camp until next week, which is a blessing, because he’s pre-season.’
‘Pre-season?’
‘Rugby gets super-serious this term, so he stops eating anything apart from steak and chicken breasts, and he goes off the drink, which makes him enormously grumpy.’
‘You’re having a welcome-back party without him?’
‘Just a little one.’ She knelt down, pulling things out of a suitcase. ‘I can’t find anything.’
‘Maybe if you unpacked?’
‘I know, I know, but Max’s parents don’t send anyone to c
lean unless he’s here, and I’m basically a human manifestation of chaos. How about these?’ She picked up a pair of wide-legged velvet trousers. ‘Nice?’
‘Great,’ Chloe said, bemused. ‘Does your cleaner put your clothes away?’
Zadie zipped up the trousers. ‘Yes, I know, I’m a hideous brat. I quite like these with just a bra.’
‘You’ll be freezing.’
‘You’re being very’ – she paused – ‘motherly this evening.’
‘Sorry. I’ve been at home too long. Come on, let’s have a drink.’
The party unfolded as Chloe had come to realize Zadie’s parties often did. They drank, someone cranked up the music in the living room, people lay around on sofas getting high, ran around the garden playing complicated drinking games, disappeared into bedrooms to fuck. Chloe moved from room to room, trying to decide what she was in the mood for. A nagging voice at the back of her head kept reminding her that she had exams coming up, set texts to read, notes to revise. Before she had come here, when she was doing her school exams, she had woken every day at seven, run for an hour, studied until her mother brought her a sandwich, and then studied until seven at night. Not to make herself suffer, not even because she had to, but because she wanted to. This was what was going to change her life. This was what was going to get her out.
But then, she was out now. This was the ‘out’ she had dreamed of, the world she had wanted to reach. She’d got through the door, behind the curtain – whatever metaphor you wanted to use. She’d dreamed of leaving her town, finding people who also wanted to live in a different time and to have adventures. That was what she was doing right now. So if she couldn’t wake up tomorrow to re-read Great Expectations, or her notes on Beowulf went untouched, did it really matter? Was she really missing anything?
She needed another drink to silence the nag, to let herself believe that she deserved to have some fun, to enjoy what it was she had worked so hard to achieve. The kitchen was filled with ten, twenty people, setting up a game of Beer Pong. Chloe took a bottle from the fridge and tipped it up into her glass, filling it to the lip.
‘If you ever get a bar job, tell me, so I can bring everyone I know,’ said a voice close to her ear. Without looking up, she knew who it was going to be.
‘Happy New Year,’ she said, before putting the cold glass to her lips, numbing them.
‘And to you. You didn’t text me back.’ Rav pouted.
‘I was busy.’
‘I see.’
Chloe looked him up and down. It irritated her how attractive he was. ‘You’re not on rugby camp?’
He shook his head. ‘Didn’t make the cut. Only the first six go on camp. The rest of us stay here and hope someone breaks a leg so we get to play at some point.’
Chloe must have looked horrified because he added, ‘Or sprains an ankle, at least. You look great, by the way. Different.’
‘Different?’
‘Not that you didn’t look good before. You did. You just look – I’m not sure. Is something different? Should I stop talking? Or maybe just top myself?’
‘I’m not wearing any of Zadie’s clothes, for a change. That might be it.’
‘You usually wear her stuff?’
‘She’s got the kind of wardrobe that most Hollywood starlets would kill for.’
‘Really? I’m not sure Max notices what anyone’s wearing unless it’s a rugby shirt.’
‘They’re quite different from each other. I guess that’s part of what makes them work. It’s so loud in here. Do you want to go upstairs?’ she suggested. As they climbed the stairs and opened doors, looking for an empty room, she listened to herself talking about how Zadie bought vintage and borrowed things from her grandmother and great-grandmother’s old clothing collections, and, while she had seen her own mother getting bored of the topic, waiting for a chance to change the subject, Rav seemed genuinely interested. It was as if he wanted to hear the things Chloe was thinking about and wondering about. She’d spent the last three weeks trying to steer the conversation back to Max or Zadie, without meaning to, hating herself for it, wanting to talk about them and wanting to not want to talk to them. By the time she finished her monologue she found that they were sitting either side of each other on the bed of the spare room.
‘You’re very, very pretty.’
‘Thank you.’
‘No, really. The longer I look at you, the more I see it.’
Chloe leaned forward and pressed her lips to Rav’s. It was the first time she had ever kissed someone. She’d been kissed, of course. Dry lips pressed to hers during parties, wet snogs on dance floors, games of Spin the Bottle, half-hearted attempts at deriving some kind of pleasure from intimacy. She’d even acquiesced to a kiss from a girl at her school, wondering if her lack of enjoyment might have been caused by an interest in an entirely different type of person. That hadn’t been any better. But this was the first time she had made the first move. Rav parted his lips, gently met her tongue and ran his hand along the side of her torso. She shivered slightly.
His hands were all over her body, running inside her top, unzipping her jeans, pulling them off with surprising deftness. He’d clearly done this many times before.
‘Do you have a condom?’ she asked as his crotch pushed against her, leaving her in no doubt of his desire for her.
He pulled one from his wallet. ‘You’re sure that you want to?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But I haven’t exactly done this before.’
Rav froze. ‘You’re a virgin?’
Why had she told him? What if he didn’t want to do it now? ‘Yeah,’ she said breezily. ‘But it’s okay. I’m nearly nineteen – it’s not exactly something I’m clinging to at this point.’
He looked uneasy. ‘Are you sure? I thought people liked their first time to be something special, with someone they loved, and all that.’
‘You mean … you’re not in love with me?’ Chloe’s attempt at a serious expression quickly cracked as panic flitted across Rav’s face. ‘Yes, I’m sure. I want to. I like you. I want to have sex. It’s not a big deal.’
So Rav kissed her, and after a long while he knelt between her legs and eased himself inside her. ‘You okay?’ he asked as her legs tensed around his torso.
She nodded, breathing through the initial pain.
They moved together slowly while Chloe got used to the sensation. It felt strange, foreign more than anything else. Odd to have someone else invade her body. Then Rav gave a shuddering sigh and finished. ‘That was amazing,’ he said.
‘Really?’
‘You’re one for ego boosts, are you?’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I just don’t have anything to compare it to. Obviously.’
‘You’re a natural.’ He smiled, wrapping his arm around her. ‘Let’s stay here for a bit.’
Chloe’s hair splayed over Rav’s chest and the rhythmic movement as it rose and fell rocked her. He was warm, and their bodies seemed to fit together in a way she couldn’t understand. He gently stroked her hair, twisting long strands of it around his fingers. For the first time in a long time the monologue inside her head went quiet.
When she woke up, the house was quiet. Chloe was surprised to see it was morning – and that Rav hadn’t sneaked out in the night. He left for a lecture at about eight o’clock, kissing Chloe’s forehead and grumbling about not having time to go back and get his notes.
‘Entirely your own fault,’ said Chloe, pulling the duvet up around her chest.
‘Entirely worth it,’ he said, winking before shutting the door behind him.
She lay back, a warm feeling spreading through her. She’d finally done it. She couldn’t wait to tell Zadie.
The house was, predictably, a mess. The kitchen was covered in plastic cups and cigarette butts, and freezing cold because the back door had been left open all night. Chloe made a cafetière of coffee, the kitchen now as familiar to her as her own, then went to Zadie’s bedroom.
<
br /> ‘Wake up,’ she said, knocking on the door. ‘We have to clean up before Max gets back, or he’ll murder us.’
Zadie moaned dramatically. ‘I can’t.’
‘You’re hung over.’
‘No, I know what a hangover feels like. This is something entirely different. This is something fatal. I know it. Can you ring my tutor and tell him I’ll need at least a week off?’
Chloe tugged open the curtains and handed Zadie a cup of coffee. ‘Nope. But I did bring coffee, because I am a very good person. And I have gossip.’
Zadie hitched up the strap of the negligee she was wearing and propped herself up on one of the dozens of pillows that dressed her bed. ‘Well, if there’s gossip, then I suppose I won’t exile you for waking me up before noon. What happened?’
Chloe left a dramatic pause and then said proudly, ‘I had sex.’ She jumped on to the bed.
Zadie’s face lit up. ‘You didn’t just have sex, you lost your virginity! I mean, obviously, virginity is a construct made up to subjugate women and all that, but you had sex!’
‘I did.’ Chloe sipped her coffee and looked out at the clear blue sky. Shards of sunlight were falling on the white duvet cover and the day felt exciting. New.
‘Tell me everything. What happened? Who with? How was it?’
‘It was … good. Weird? Good weird, though. I don’t know. I’d done other stuff before, of course, so I wasn’t expecting it to feel so different. But it was nice. He was nice.’
‘Who was he?’
‘Max’s friend Rav.’
The excitement drained from Zadie’s face. ‘Oh.’
‘What?’
‘No, nothing.’
‘Zadie, I can read your face like a book. Everyone can read your face like a book – you’re the worst liar in the history of the world.’
‘It’s just … Didn’t he take your number and then not text you last term?’
‘Yeah. He did.’
‘And then he only got interested when you started playing hard to get?’
‘Yeah. I guess …’ Chloe said, suddenly feeling less confident.
Zadie pursed her lips for a moment then rubbed Chloe’s knee kindly. ‘But you had fun, that’s what matters. And it’s not like you’re thinking you’re going to marry him.’
