The Harder They Fall

by Debbie McGowan

  “Of course, I was too busy looking after a toddler to come to the last one, but at least this didn’t go to waste in the end,” she’d say, sweeping her hands down her sides and giving them a little spin, revelling in the resulting compliments about how beautiful she looked and repeated suggestions that perhaps having children earlier was the way to go.

  Josh leaned on the bar and watched the whole affair from a distance, fascinated by the continuities and the ease with which people were falling right back into the relative orderliness of their old friendship groups, when often they hadn’t been in touch since high school. The only notable exception, for it was clear he was still a very long way off relaxing into the flow of the evening, was George, always a couple of steps behind Kris, glad to be downstage and cutting off conversations with quick, blunt responses. Eleanor was on her way back across the room, having visited the Ladies’ yet again (her fourth trip in the hour and a half they’d been there) and it was a relief to be certain that this time around it wasn’t to induce vomiting, but to stick another plaster on the back of each heel. Give it another half an hour, Josh thought, and I’ll be carrying those shoes.

  “Enjoying yourself?” Adele interrupted his observations and waved a ten pound note in front of her so as to make clear to the bartenders that she, along with about fifteen others, was waiting to be served.

  “I am, actually. You?”

  “Yeah. It’s lovely to see everyone again, although I can’t believe I used to be such good mates with that lot.” She subtly tilted her head in the direction of a group of women in short dresses and platform heels, skin aglow with the unmistakable orange of spray tan and sunbeds. “They’re so shallow. I mean, when I was sixteen I probably bitched like that too.” She affected a squeaky, mimicking tone: “Oh. My. God! What does she look like in that dress?”

  Josh laughed. “That sounded just like—what’s her name again? That one in the cerise pink nightdress.”

  “Cherise, funnily enough.” Adele told him and they both giggled.

  “You were always better than them,” Josh said. “You know that, don’t you?”

  Adele lowered her eyes modestly. “I don’t think so.”

  “I do.”

  He was doing that mind-probing thing again and she hastily eased herself into a gap that opened between two of the people waiting at the bar, although it wasn’t far enough away to escape.

  “Shall I just shut up?” Josh suggested.

  “Oh, it’s OK. I don’t mind really,” Adele smiled, too brightly.

  “No, I’ll just shut up.” Josh sipped at his glass by way of confirming that he really was done, even though he was seriously tempted to tell her how much he admired her for challenging Jess earlier. Adele was served soon after and gave him a kiss on the cheek as she passed by.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “What for?”

  “What you said, and what you didn’t say.” He nodded his understanding. Yes, much more astute than they gave her credit for. “Anyway,” she continued, “I’d best go find Shaunna. Last time I saw her, she’d been cornered by Zak ‘freaky-stalker’ Benson. He’s not bad-looking these days, but, ugh!”

  “Good luck!” Josh called after her, as she tottered on her absurdly high heels around the perimeter of the empty dance floor. It would probably take a few drinks more before she or anyone else felt brave enough to strut their stuff in front of their once overly judgemental peers, although some were starting to look almost ready now. Cherise and her friends, for instance, were starting to move in time to the music, their usual fixation on self-image temporarily shelved in favour of criticising others. The conversation they were having was ludicrous, and Josh followed it by listening where he could and filling in the gaps with non-verbal cues. They were talking about Kris.

  “Didn’t I tell you?” Cherise was saying to the broad-shouldered, peroxide blonde to her left. “I said, that Kris Johansson isn’t gay. He just needs showing what to do with it, I said.”

  Josh took a slurp of his pint in order to stop himself from laughing. Peroxide Blonde was watching Kris and nodding meaningfully. What was her name again? Sharon? Chantelle? Something like that.

  “So you offering, Cherise?” she said and the two of them tittered loudly.

  “You must be joking, Shelle.” Ah yes, that was it, of course. Shelley Harrison: captain of the girls’ hockey team and looking like she could still do the business.

  “I heard him on the radio the other week,” Brunette Bob piped up. Josh remembered her all right, but he’d never known her name. She was one of those girls who trail along behind the in-crowd, not quite brash or common enough, but trying their hardest to gain an invite.

  “You never did,” Cherise remarked cuttingly. Brunette Bob looked indignant, but she said no more on the matter. Josh felt sorry for her, because she was probably telling the truth. What a shame she still felt the need to fit in with these dreadful people.

  All the while he had been listening to this conversation, he had been aware of the fourth individual who made up their group: someone for whom, alas, a hair-based nickname was not required. She’d been watching him for quite some time, which was why he’d continued to focus on the other three, as looking away would be as dangerous as making eye contact. He really didn’t want to talk to Suzie Tyler, his constant companion through the boy-girl seating years. She was an exceedingly nasty piece of work, and he caught that sneer as it morphed artificially into a wide, teeth-bared smile. She was coming over.

  “Hi, Josh,” she called on her approach, waving at him. He nodded.

  “Hey, Suzie. How are you?”

  “Oh, I’m great, thanks for asking. On your own?”

  “I was,” he said coolly. She affected a giggle.

  “You haven’t changed much, have you?”

  “Nor have you.”

  Back in school she had instigated so much trouble, not just for Josh and the others; she didn’t discriminate. Hence, he was overjoyed to find at the start of the fourth year, that firstly she was no longer in most of his classes, and secondly, the boy-girl seating arrangements had by and large been abandoned. Even so, she was the one who took it upon herself to tell the rest of their year about Shaunna’s pregnancy, and she was supposed to be one of her friends. The rumours were horrific, cruel lies of how she had been ‘gang-banged’ by all of the lads at the party, which was why she didn’t know who the father was. At the time, Shaunna was off school with morning sickness, so they were able to shield her from this; not so from the nickname of ‘Shaunna Whore-nessy’ that they’d come up with in her absence. What clever girls, Josh thought sardonically: well done them.

  Suzie had been standing next to him for a couple of minutes, swaying to the music and casting her vicious eye around the room for her next victim, and much as he didn’t think any of them deserved it, he was hoping she’d find someone else soon. A few seconds later his prayers were answered, although Kris probably wouldn’t be quite so grateful.

  “See you,” she said, slithering away. Kris’s face dropped as he saw her heading in his direction, but he quickly switched to performance mode and turned on his best smile.

  “Hi, Suzie. How fabulous to see you,” he said loudly, kissing the air next to each of her cheeks in turn. George glanced over at Josh and rolled his eyes.

  The dance floor was still empty, but a few people had moved closer, including a group of men, one or two of whom he instantly recognised, standing right on the corner, trying to look like they were engaged in some kind of macho discussion about football when it was nothing of the sort; this much he could tell from some of their gestures. Tagging on at the very outskirts of the group was Martin O’Brierly, no taller or less round than he had been in sixth form, although his red hair wasn’t quite so much of a ‘shock’ these days, more of a smattering of red dots, shaved close and showing off the skin roll against his shirt collar to optimum effect. He really was a funny-looking little man, but then so were the others in his selecti
ve grouping. They were the geeky, average achievers, who, by reason of acne, ginger hair, obesity or other irrelevant physical property, had struggled to make friends with either sex. It was apparent from the way they were standing that they certainly weren’t friends with each other, and their conversations consisted of bland explanations of the various boring jobs they did. Peter Parsons, it would seem, was a network manager with responsibility for ‘a very powerful, robust system’, which he’d set up singlehandedly. The rest of what he said used terms such as ‘giga-hertz’ and ‘terabytes’ and Josh lost interest. In response, Jonathan Shipley was boasting about his ‘unbelievably successful’ web design company, with ‘literally hundreds’ of clients who were too stupid to question how much he was charging them for something they could have done themselves.

  Meanwhile, a few feet away, was the group that Andy and Dan would have been part of if they’d been here tonight. In the US, they’d have been The Jocks, with their height and athletic build. Dan’s friend ‘Aitch’ was holding court, using his pint as a prop to illustrate some kind of fancy manoeuvre. This group had honed their social skills to such perfection that every smile, laugh, nudge, utterance of ‘Yeah?’ was almost choreographed. Josh stifled a yawn just in time, for Aitch had spotted his attentiveness, excused himself from the group and was coming his way.

  “Josh. Good to see you,” he smiled as he approached, vast, firm hand outstretched. Josh allowed his smaller, rather feminine hand (by comparison) to be shaken.

  “You too. It’s great to see so many people here, isn’t it?”

  “It is. No Dan though?”

  “He’s in Nepal. He’s not very well either—picked up some virus or other.”

  “I saw something about that on the news. It’s killed a good few people, they were saying. So, what’re you drinking?”

  “Oh.” Josh was a little taken aback by the sudden switch mid-sentence, but Aitch wasn’t to know how worried they’d all been. “I’ll get these,” he suggested.

  “No, I insist. I was buying one anyway.”

  “OK. Lager, thanks.”

  “Righteo.” Aitch queue-jumped about six other people and handed Josh his pint. “I take it you’ve had no more trouble from that Callaghan bloke?”

  “No, thankfully. He’s in prison now. They decided he was sane after all.”

  “Figures,” Aitch said, picking up his own pint. “See you later.” And off he went, back to his fellow meat-heads. It was at this point that Josh realised Eleanor hadn’t made it back to him, even though she’d only been just across the room, but that was a good twenty minutes ago. He scanned the crowd and eventually found her; she was talking to Shaunna and Adele and switching her weight between her feet. Their conversation was animated and serious and he could tell it was about Jess. He followed the direction of their occasional furtive glances, to a dark corner behind the DJ, where Rob and Jess were standing, their faces very close together, Jess flirting so obviously that it would be impossible to miss. She and Rob had always been this way; in fact, she was like this with any charming male company, and it didn’t necessarily need to be of the heterosexual variety, from what he’d seen over the years, with both George and Kris coming in for the occasional brush with those long legs. However, that kind of flirting was safe, or safer, and Andy certainly didn’t consider either of them a threat. Rob was a different matter and Adele was right. This was a case of Jess taking the opportunity of Andy’s absence to engage in one of her favourite pastimes, and who wouldn’t, if they were blessed with that figure and those looks? But it was a dangerous game she was playing and it could only end badly.

  “She’s going to get herself in serious trouble one of these days,” Eleanor said, stumbling towards Josh and leaning on him to steady herself so that she could remove her shoes, then looking around for a stool to put them on, but there weren’t any free. Josh tutted and held out his hand. She smiled and draped the ankle straps over his index finger.

  “I think that day might arrive sooner than we think, too,” he added.

  “Well, so long as it’s not before next Saturday,” Eleanor remarked. Her glass was empty and she looked at his almost full pint in disdain.

  “Aitch bought it.”

  “Did he? That was nice of him.”

  “Not really. He wanted to know where Dan was. I think the pint was just recompense for being a reliable informant. I take it you want a drink then?”

  “How thoughtful of you to offer,” Eleanor grinned. She was sticking to orange juice and lemonade, on account of breastfeeding, but she was going to have a couple of ‘proper’ drinks later on, if she was in the mood. At the moment, she was enjoying watching everyone else become intoxicated, and had already witnessed a couple of interchanges that probably wouldn’t have taken place in alcohol-free conditions. These kinds of occasions tapped into long-buried sentiments of wars waged and won (or lost); on her way across to Josh, for instance, she’d overhead one of the ‘lads’ apologising to one of the ‘girls’ for being so mean to her at school. For her part, she acted out a convincing acceptance, but Eleanor remembered the many times that she and this other girl had both been hiding out in the school toilets, while she engaged in her ritual oesophageal abuse and the girl stood, arms folded and angry tears streaming down her face, insisting she was never coming to school again. An apology twenty years too late was never going to cut it.

  “Shall we go and find somewhere to sit?” Eleanor suggested. “Only my feet are killing me.”

  “Me too!” Josh remarked, holding up her shoes and wrinkling his nose.

  “They don’t smell, do they?” She looked mortified.

  “Nah. No worse than usual, anyway,” he grinned and she poked him in the ribs. There weren’t many tables in the room, and most were already taken, so they squeezed up in a corner with a bunch of other people, all with that same look of ‘being too old for this kind of nonsense’. Meanwhile, the DJ was ready to start cranking out some tunes, and Adele and Shaunna were first on the dance floor, with others quickly following their lead.

  “Have you seen Kris and George recently?” Eleanor asked. She had obviously followed the same train of thought, as Josh had also been wondering why Kris wasn’t already up there giving it his all.

  “They were over there somewhere just before,” Josh shouted, pointing over towards where most of the guests were still standing in their various groups. The DJ had turned up the music. “Jesus! I know we’re all getting on a bit, but we’re not bloody deaf—yet!”

  “Pardon?” Eleanor shouted back. Josh looked at her, trying to decide whether she was joking or not. She sipped her drink and turned her attention to the dancers and he followed suit. Adele and Shaunna were having a great time, completely regressed to their teenaged days, when this was all they ever did, not a care in the world, giving themselves over completely to the music and the joy of being together, in their own little bubble of oblivion. Far behind them, mostly obscured by the brightness of the lights, Jess had her back turned and was standing in front of Rob, who was leaning against the wall. It was impossible to see more than this, and Eleanor was glad, because what she didn’t know couldn’t incriminate her. She hadn’t forgotten her offer of bailing Jess out if the need arose, but as things were it seemed that this was the last thing she wanted. For all of what had been said in the limo, she and Andy weren’t officially together. All of the friends knew of their closeness, which had grown over the past few years, but they weren’t an item, so Jess was free to flirt, or even have a fling with Rob, if that was what she wanted. With any other man, it probably wouldn’t have mattered near half as much, and she had to know that her actions could not pass without consequence.

  A mixture of boredom and woe was starting to take over, so when the next track was a Wham! number, Eleanor grabbed Josh by the arm and pulled him to his feet. He left her shoes on the seat and followed her, feigning reluctance as they nudged their way into Adele and Shaunna’s circle of two. They hardly seemed to notice. The
next song came on and Josh contemplated sneaking off and leaving Eleanor with the other two women, but then realised he was really enjoying dancing. It had been so long since he’d done it that he’d forgotten how much fun it was, not that he was particularly good at it, but it was liberating to just let the music take over, and so he danced through the next track, and the one after that, and so on, until it was Eleanor who wanted to stop.

  “I’m just going to the loo,” she explained edgily.

  “OK,” he replied. This wasn’t the same as the previous visits, he could feel it, and as he watched her meander bare-footed through the crowd and off down the hallway outside the ballroom, he cursed himself for not paying attention to her mood. He’d let the moment take over and in the time that had lapsed, something had happened. He started to worry, that worry rising to panic when he felt his phone vibrate and saw she had sent him a text message, which read:

  Please can you come to the ladies ASAP? x

  He downed the rest of his now-warm lager in one go, went straight to the Ladies’ toilets, which were directly opposite the Gents’, and waited outside the door. Women smiled quizzically or sympathetically at him as they emerged, having already passed him once on the way in. Another text:

  I’m in the second cubicle from the door. x

  Well, he thought, isn’t that just great? All these women wandering in and out and she wanted him to go in there too. He took a deep breath and pushed against the door.

  “This is the Gents’, mate,” a surly voice called from behind. He glanced back and identified the owner—one of Dan’s friends who was there at the time of ‘the unfortunate incident in the showers’. Terrific.