He shook his head. “Come on in. Charlie’s not here. He’s been on a shoot all day – I guess it dragged on, they usually do. They only wanted one of us – maybe they’re on a budget and planning to clone me in in Photoshop – so we tossed a coin and he lost. Can I get you anything? Drink? Coffee? Pepsi?”
“Just a glass of water, please.” I wanted to tell him he needn’t go to any trouble, I knew where the fridge was and I could help myself, but then I thought that would probably be even more presumptuous than having him wait on me. So I followed him across the endless floor to the group of sofas and sat down (the red suede sofa appeared to have either been replaced or somehow restored to its former glory).
Gus handed me a bottle of fizzy water and a glass. “Ice?”
“This is great, thanks.”
“No worries.” He opened a beer, opened his laptop and sat opposite me, staring silently at the screen. I took out my phone too and checked my email and social media.
We sat like that for five minutes, then ten, and the silence became more and more oppressive. I wished Charlie was there. I wished I could go and wait for him in his bedroom, but I knew I couldn’t – I knew how important it was that Gus should, if not actually like me, at least unbend a tiny bit.
“You can put your music back on, if you like,” I said. “I heard it from outside. It was beautiful.”
“Mendelssohn,” Gus said. “You don’t know much about classical music, do you?”
I laughed. It sounded as stagy and awkward as it felt. “Absolutely nothing. I’m a total philistine. I can name every number one One Direction have had, though.”
“Piece of piss,” Gus said, but he was at least looking up from his screen now, and there was an expression on his face that might, eventually, become a smile. “They’ve only had five.”
“Yeah, well,” I said, “that’s five more than Mendelssohn.”
The almost-smile defrosted another degree. “True. But if you knew anything about music, you’d know what you heard back then was shit.”
“Oh,” I said. “I thought it sounded lovely. What was wrong with it?”
“That was me playing,” Gus said. “And I’m shit.”
“Shut up! There’s no way you can play the violin like that.”
“Shitly? I can, and I do.”
“Okay, we’ve established that I’m a philistine and know nothing about music,” I said. “But I do know what shit violin playing sounds like, because my friend Katie used to play – or rather, her parents made her, when she was a kid, and then she sometimes did at parties, if she was pissed enough. It sounded awful. Like a cat trying to open a tin of cat food with its teeth. Worse than that.”
Now Gus smiled properly – in fact, he almost laughed. “So why weren’t you made to learn the violin when you were a kid?”
“My Mum wasn’t bothered by stuff like that,” I said. “So long as I was happy and got a few GCSEs, she was fine. And she had other stuff going on, anyway. But the point is, Katie never sounded anything like you, even though she did exams and stuff, she said.”
“Yeah, well.” Gus grimaced. “I’m competent. Just barely. But not good enough.”
“Good enough for what?”
“To play professionally. I thought I was Mr Big Swinging Dick at school, and I went to college thinking I was going to be this incredible concert violinist, and then…” He stopped.
“Then what?”
“I realised I wasn’t. And I’m not into being mediocre at stuff, and I’m not into not making money. So teaching kids to saw their way through ‘Amazing Grace’ in some shit comprehensive wasn’t an option.”
“Is that why you started vlogging?”
“Me? Fuck no. That was Charlie’s idea. I’m just his bitch.”
“But you enjoy it, don’t you?” I said. “You must do. I was watching your videos the other day – there are so many of them. You look like you’re having a great time in them.”
“Yeah, well…” Gus said. “Do you watch much porn? People look like they’re having fun in that, too.”
I definitely didn’t want to have a conversation with Gus about porn, I decided. Not now and probably not ever. “But it’s great, isn’t it,” I said, “how passionate people are about your channel? How many subscribers you’ve got, and everything?”
Gus laughed – or it may have been a cough. It was a short, mirthless sound that started and ended somewhere in his throat and didn’t seem to reach his mouth at all. “Yes, they certainly are passionate. Hey, it’s a job. It beats stacking shelves in Poundland. You’ll see, now that you and Charles…”
Then he paused, turned and looked towards the door. “And here is Charles now, if I’m not mistaken.”
Less attuned to the sounds of the flat than Gus, it took me a moment to recognise the sound of the key in the lock, but then I heard it, and heard Charlie’s voice calling, “Hey, you!”
I jumped up and hurried to meet him, pushing aside the realisation that I’d found out more about Gus in the past five minutes than I knew about my boyfriend.
“Gemma! You’re here already.” Charlie pulled me into a hug, and I hugged him back. “Has Gus been looking after you?”
“Of course,” I said. “He gave me a glass of water. We were chatting about music.”
“All terribly civilised,” Charlie said. “We’ll have to do something about that.” He slid his hands under my top and stroked my back, and I felt something melt inside me. His hair smelled different from usual, and I noticed it was styled differently, too, presumably by whoever had done it before his photoshoot.
“So how did it go today?” I asked.
“Okay,” Charlie yawned hugely. “Tedious, having like a million stylists and art directors and make-up artists pawing at me all afternoon. They’re all great people, it’s just…”
“You look different,” I said. “What did they do to you, besides the hair? Oh my God, you’ve had your eyebrows plucked.”
“Threaded,” Charlie said. “And it hurt like fuck. Worse than when we did that vlog about waxing our backs. I don’t know how girls do it. They dyed my eyelashes too, look.” He fluttered them at me.
“You look like Bambi,” I said. It was true – and not unsexy. But then I couldn’t think of anything about Charlie that wasn’t sexy.
“So, what’s the plan?” he said. “Want to go out, have a couple of cocktails and some food? See a movie?”
“We’ve got work to do, remember?” Gus said. “We’re scheduled to post a video on the main channel tomorrow.”
“Oh, right. Yeah. I guess we do. What’s it going to be, then?”
I followed Charlie back to the other end of the room and sat next to him on the red sofa. Gus was still staring at his laptop screen.
“Condom challenge,” Gus said.
“Awesome,” Charlie said. “Guess my new barnet isn’t going to look so good after that.”
“What’s a condom challenge?” I said.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Gus said. “We can do it out in the hot tub.”
“Gemma can do it too,” Charlie said. “Two vlogs for the price of one. I hope you brought a bikini, Gemma.”
I hadn’t. I had the skirt and vest top I was wearing, a dress in my bag for work the next day, and a satin camisole and matching French knickers, which were the closest thing I possessed to seductive nightwear.
“Gemma can wear a Berry Boys T-shirt,” Gus said. He was still looking at his laptop screen, but I was sure I caught a glint of blue as he glanced at me under his eyelashes. I wondered how much Charlie had told him about our first night together.
“Every time I see you two I end up getting soaking wet,” I said.
“Fnar,” Charlie said, and he and Gus laughed. I joined in, blushing even more.
“Right,” Gus said. “I’ll do the dropping, you provide the head.”
“No fucking way!” Charlie said. “We’ll toss for it.”
“Fine.” Gus rummaged in his
pocket and produced a coin.
“Heads,” Charlie said.
Gus tossed. “Sorry, mate.”
“Come on! Best of three.”
“Tails again.”
“Best of five!”
“Jeez, what are you, six years old? Deal with it. Suck it up. Not literally, or you’ll choke. You can drop when Gemma’s the victim. Okay?”
“Okay, fine,” Charlie said. “I’m having a beer first though. You switch the hot tub on.”
Half an hour later, we were all standing around the hot tub in the warm evening sunlight. Charlie’s camera was set up on its tripod, focussed and ready to go. Charlie and Gus were wearing board shorts and flipflops. I was wearing the now-familiar yellow T-shirt and the ballet flats I’d worn to work. I wished the T-shirt was longer – it only just covered my bottom – but at least I had a bra on this time. Still, I resolved to stay out of the camera’s view for as long as possible.
“In you get, Charles,” Gus said. “Sooner we get started, the sooner it’ll be over. Remember, that’s what Mum always used to tell us before we went to the dentist?”
“I’d prefer a fucking root canal to this,” Charlie grumbled, but he got into the hot tub.
Gus tore open a pack of Durex and carefully removed the foil from one. “Right, I’ll fill this up indoors,” he said.
“Mind you use warm water,” Charlie said.
“Don’t drop it!” I said, when Gus emerged a moment later, carrying the water-filled condom.
“Shit, this is really heavy,” Gus said. He stepped on to the edge of the hot tub and held the condom over Charlie’s head. Charlie flinched. “For God’s sake keep still.”
They both started to laugh, and I found myself giggling too.
Gus addressed the camera. “Hi guys. You may or may not have seen the latest craze that’s sweeping the internet. It’s huge, it’s hilarious, and we had to try it out for you. So, brought to you by the Berry Boys, with the beautiful SparklyGems assisting, here it is: the condom challenge.”
“I’m going to count down,” Gus said. “Three, two… oh fuck.” The condom slipped out of his hand, hit Charlie’s shoulder and landed in the water. “This is harder than it looks.”
I was laughing so hard I could hardly breathe. “You should have got unlubed ones.”
“Stop swearing,” Charlie said. “Or Sloane will tell us off again. We should have thought of a different fucking idea for this week’s vlog. Go on, try again, before I bottle it.”
Gus repeated the performance, filling a second condom with water, carrying it gingerly outside, holding it poised over his brother.
“Three, two, one…” He dropped the condom. It landed on Charlie’s head then bounced off, splashing water everywhere and, soaking both of them. The empty condom floated in the hot tub.
Charlie pushed his dripping fringe out of his eyes. “Epic fail.”
“It was so close, though,” Gus said. “It nearly worked. We’ll try another – third time lucky, right?”
“Okay, but if you fuck this one up, we’re swapping over.”
“Fair do’s.”
“I’ll try a new condom. This one doesn’t work.”
My sides sore from laughing, I watched Gus go through the process again. I heard the tap running in the kitchen, then he emerged, carefully carrying the swollen water-filled condom. He positioned it above Charlie.
“Oh, man,” Charlie said, pushing back his hair and laughing. “Whose idea was this, anyway?”
“Yours, if I remember correctly,” Gus said, and released his missile.
This time, it was a perfect, direct hit. The condom landed on top of Charlie’s head, stretching and ballooning downwards. Charlie’s face was left encased in latex, the end of the condom, still swollen with water, hanging down his neck like an absurd Father Christmas beard.
“Yes!” Gus launched into a victory dance around the hot tub, laughing madly. “We did it!”
“Oh my God,” Charlie said, his voice muffled. “Someone get me out of here.”
With difficulty, he stretched the condom off over his head, the latex sticking to his wet hair.
“That tasted so rank,” he said.
“It looked immense,” Gus said.
“Come on, Gemma,” Charlie said. “It’s your turn.”
I looked at the pack of condoms and the two boys. I could think of nothing I wanted to do less than go through the ritual humiliation Charlie had just enjoyed. But I had no choice – it was that or look like a loser and a spoilsport.
“Okay,” I said reluctantly.
Then Gus said, “Hold on, that’s my phone.” He pulled it from his pocket and said, “Sloane. I’ll stick her on speakerphone. Hey, Sloane.”
Charlie climbed out of the hot tub and switched off the camera. I passed him a towel.
“Hey Gus,” Sloane’s voice said, tinny but clear. “What’s up? I just tried to call Charlie to talk about the shoot earlier, but he didn’t answer so I thought I’d check in with you.”
“We’re filming,” Gus said. “We’ve just made the most epic video, you’re going to love it.”
“Oh yeah? What video?”
“Condom challenge,” Charlie said. “It’s fucking skill.”
“What challenge?” Sloane said.
“Condom challenge,” Gus said. “We’ve just done Charlie and Gemma’s next. Google it. It’s hilarious.”
There was a pause, then Sloane said, “Hilarious? Are you crazy? Do you know how dangerous that is?”
“It’s not,” Charlie protested. “It’s fine. I could totally breathe all the way through.”
“That’s not the point,” Sloane said. “You could, but when some nine-year-old tries it and drowns, and it turns out they were copying you – it doesn’t bear thinking about. There’s no way you’re posting that video.”
“Oh, come on, Sloane,” Gus said. “It’s all over the internet. Everyone’s doing it.”
“We could do a disclaimer,” Charlie said. “You know: ‘Don’t try this at home, kids, unless you’ve got medical help at hand and adult supervision. We will not be held responsible for any drownings or damage to soft furnishings.’”
“That sort of thing isn’t worth the paper it’s not written on,” Sloane said, “as you know full well. I can’t allow you to put that video up on your channel, end of.”
“We’ve got to put something up by tomorrow,” Gus said. “It’s in the schedule.”
“Well, think of something else,” Sloane said. “You two are never short of ideas – it’s why you’re so brilliant to work with. But I’m vetoing this one, I’m afraid.”
“Oh man, you’re no fun,” Charlie said, but I could sense that they were going to capitulate.
“You’ll thank me for it when you still have an income in a year’s time,” Sloane said crisply. “Now, Mia emailed me over some contact sheets from today and they look really great. I’ll forward them for you to look at if you like, but our feelings were that the more informal shots…”
Charlie picked up the phone and turned off the speaker. Gus went inside and picked up his laptop again. I followed and stood for a moment, not sure what I was expected to do. Then I went to Charlie’s bedroom and got changed back into my work clothes.
When I returned to the living room, Charlie had finished his call. He and Gus were outside on the balcony, looking down at the canal below. I joined them.
“Look,” Charlie said. “Swans.”
“And they’ve got babies!” I said. “Cute. How many – seven?”
“There used to be eight,” Gus said. “We haven’t seen the other one for a bit. We think…”
“We think that cygnet was the rebel cygnet,” Charlie said firmly. “He’s gone off to Manchester to join a rock band.”
“He’s jamming all day and gigging all night and shagging groupie swans, just because he can. He’s living the dream,” Gus said.
“And he’ll come home for Christmas and the parent swans will b
e like, ‘When are you going to get a proper job?’”
I laughed. “So what’s the plan then? For your video, I mean.”
Charlie said, “No idea, to be honest.”
Gus said, “Fuck it, we’ll think of something tomorrow. What’s Sloane going to do, anyway – sack us? We’re their second-biggest client. She’s not the boss of us.”
“Gus wants to go out,” Charlie said. “Alto Club?”
“I’m bored of the Alto,” Gus said.
“Nightjar?” Charlie suggested. “Wishy Washy?”
“There have been fans hanging around outside Wishy Washy every night since our launch,” Gus said. “They keep asking on Twitter when we’re going there again.”
“Therefore, we aren’t,” Charlie said.
“And last time we went to Nightjar we couldn’t get a table, remember?” Gus said. “They didn’t even know who we were.”
I didn’t point out the obvious inconsistency in his argument.
“What’s that new place Glen was going on about?” Charlie said. “They make their own bitters and do Peruvian street food, and they’ve got a popcorn menu?”
“The Clam and Cactus,” Gus said. “Remember, Glen was wanking on about the ceviche martini. What if we bump into him there, though? We’d have to talk to him.”
“He’s in Singapore, remember? He posted that video about his first-class flight.”
“Git,” Charlie said. “When we went to Hong Kong in April they only flew us business.”
“Not that we’re bitter or anything,” Gus said. “Right, Crayfish and whatsit it is then.”
I said, “But Sloane said… and I’ve got nothing to wear.”
“Wear what you’re wearing now,” Gus said.
“You look gorgeous,” Charlie said. “You are gorgeous. Come on, Augustus, let’s get some clothes on and go.”
So it was settled. Charlie and Gus got dressed and I hastily slapped on a bit of make-up, and we headed out. I couldn’t help noticing that there had been no discussion – no question – about whether Gus was going to come out with us. But then, I thought, going out had been his idea, so really it was us who were tagging along with him, or me who was tagging along with the two boys.
Anyway, any misgivings I’d had about the evening were soon dispelled by the fabulousness of the Clam and Cactus. Once again, I couldn’t help thinking of Jack – how impressed he would have been by the shelves laden with jars of mysterious cocktail ingredients (as well as less mysterious ones, like olives, but there seemed to be about a dozen different kinds of those); the exotic drinks on the menu, made with things I’d never even heard of; the beautiful waitresses gliding across the room with trays held above their heads, not spilling a drop.
The Truth About Gemma Grey: A feel-good, romantic comedy you won't be able to put down Page 17
