by Rebecca Reid
Lila had a choice. She could stay, standing where she was, and wait for Nancy to approach, which was what Nancy would want, or she could grasp the moment. She chose the latter. That was what a friend would do.
Bounding forward, she twisted her arms around Nancy’s shoulders and pulled her body towards her. Her limbs were hard – toned rather than thin. Thinness was too easy for Nancy, all it required was not to eat. Exercise took effort, it was an achievement. Nancy had wanted to be toned and strong long before it was fashionable. The others had warned her about developing Madonna arms, but she had resolutely continued doing hundreds of press-ups and sit-ups beside her bed every night.
‘Would you like a soft drink?’ Georgia asked Brett. She was doing that shy-sweet voice she always put on when she met someone new and wanted them to think that she was nice.
‘Have a beer,’ said Charlie, ice laced through his jovial tone.
Brett ignored Charlie and turned to Georgia. Lila felt a pang of jealousy for the wideness of the smile he gave her. ‘Club soda, if you have it.’
‘That’s fizzy water,’ said Nancy.
‘Is it really, Nance?’ Georgia replied, smiling. ‘I would never have known that. You know we’ve got running water over here these days, too? And central heating.’
Nancy grinned and stuck her middle finger in the air at her. Georgia returned the gesture and they both laughed. Standing by the back door, blowing cigarette smoke into the garden (though garden was perhaps too flattering a term for it; Georgia had covered the lovely lawn with a kind of fake grass, which she claimed looked real but absolutely didn’t), Roo shook his head. ‘You lot. Nothing changes, does it? You’re still like schoolboys.’
Georgia waited to see whether Nancy would correct him – tell him that their ability to tease didn’t make them any less female. It would be their first row of the night. But before anyone could light the blue touch paper and stand well back, there was an interruption.
‘You know,’ announced Brett to the room, ‘you made a little mistake when you introduced me earlier. I’m not actually Nancy’s boyfriend.’ He paused. ‘I’m her fiancé.’ He pronounced the word fee-on-say, with the emphasis on the last syllable.
No one said anything. The noise of Georgia’s vegetables frying was suddenly really, really loud. Lila jumped to her feet. Why was everyone being so awkward?
‘That’s amazing!’ she cried. ‘Nance! Rock?’
Nancy looked embarrassed, which Lila knew was completely fake because when anyone got engaged the only thing that they ever wanted to do was show off their ring. Nancy proffered her hand. The short, wine-red nails and fake tan that no one would ever know was fake had been the same for ten years. But the massive diamond glinting on her left ring finger was new. Very new.
‘Fucking hell,’ said Lila. ‘It’s enormous.’
Nancy looked embarrassed again. A more convincing embarrassed face than before. ‘They do bigger stones for engagement in the US. It’s a cultural thing.’
Georgia came skulking over. She took Nancy’s hand in hers and looked at it. ‘It’s stunning, Nance,’ she said.
‘Yeah, stunning like if you punched someone with it they would probably die,’ said Lila. Was she imagining it or did Georgia sneak a glance down at her own finger?
‘It’s cruelty-free,’ said Nancy, doing a voice. ‘Brett knew that was important to me.’
‘Bloody hell,’ said Roo, looking over at the ring and nudging Brett in his ribs. ‘Did you sell a kidney or something?’
‘Roo!’ squeaked Georgia. ‘Lila, tell your husband he can’t say things like that.’
‘It’s fine,’ said Brett. ‘Though as we’re amongst friends, I’m sure Nancy won’t mind me saying that she bought it. I’m just a lowly writer and that thing is like, a year’s rent.’
Lila couldn’t remember having seen Nancy blush before, not properly. Her chest was suddenly covered in blotches. Lila didn’t realize that a person could wear their shame on their skin like that.
‘Well, I think that’s lovely,’ said Georgia brightly. Lila snorted. Of course Georgia was going to love this. Nancy had been raised up and then smacked back down. ‘We’re all feminists here,’ she went on. ‘And that clearly shows how secure Brett is in his masculinity.’
‘If I’d known that I could save my overdraft by being more secure in my masculinity, I’d have done it!’ laughed Charlie.
Nancy smiled. Her chest was still blotchy but it was dying down now. ‘Weren’t you getting everyone drinks, Georgia? I just took a seven-hour flight, I need a glass of wine – intravenously, if you can manage it.’
Lila laughed, and turned to see Georgia filling a glass with ice and a slice of lime, painstakingly pouring the San Pellegrino to avoid it fizzing over the top of the glass. The look of concentration on her face was mad. She was clearly trying to make a good first impression, pathetically invested in giving her guest a nice glass of water.
Her mother would have been proud. Lila remembered the first time she had met Georgia’s mother. Suddenly everything had made sense: her house was the cleanest place she’d ever been, and she was wearing a full face of make-up even though she wasn’t going anywhere. Everything about her had screamed ‘striver’.
‘The thing you’ll learn about these girls,’ Charlie joined in, ‘is that they’re not girls. They take the piss out of each other constantly, like a bunch of blokes.’
‘Though unfortunately they very rarely wrestle,’ said Roo, winking at Nancy. Lila frowned. Roo hated Nancy. What was going on?
Brett had gone to stand next to the boys as they smoked out of the back door. He responded with a tight smile.
‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ Brett leaned back to ask Georgia.
‘Everyone else is!’ Lila heard herself say.
Georgia was grinning awkwardly. Was she blushing? Did she fancy Nancy’s boyfriend?
‘Of course you can. You’re sweet to ask.’
Brett took up a station by the doors, slotting in between Charlie and Roo, almost a head taller than either of them. Both men bristled at his proximity, but seemed to relax slightly as Brett started to chat. What was he saying? Charming them both, Lila supposed. She hoped Roo would be nice. Sometimes he wasn’t, especially with men. It seemed to her that, after university, Roo had decided he had already met every man he would ever have a civil conversation with. If he hadn’t met someone through school or university – or under extreme sufferance, work – then they weren’t worth his time.
She could go and smoke by the door, stand by Roo and be next to Brett. Or she could go and perch on one of the kitchen stools where Georgia was chopping vegetables. She wanted to go and stand with the boys, to ask Brett more about America and his life. But if she went over there, Georgia and Nancy would talk about her. She picked up her wine glass and examined the level. Someone else must have been drinking out of her glass.
‘Who do you have to screw to get a drink around here?’ she giggled, going to the fridge.
‘I’ll get it,’ said Georgia. ‘You sit down.’
‘How’s life as a mummy treating you?’ Nancy asked Lila. Lila had learned from her baby group that there were rules for answering this question. You had to sound miserable enough that you weren’t showing off, but not so miserable that they called social services.
‘I mean, I’ve had about four hours’ sleep in the last year. And he can be a little twat,’ she replied, ‘but he’s the nicest boy I’ve ever had in my life.’
They all laughed. Not because it was funny but because she had followed the rule, and made them feel safe. They liked her when she did that.
‘It’s so beautiful in here, Gee,’ said Lila, changing the subject. ‘It should be in a magazine.’
Georgia basked in the praise.
‘I love the flowers,’ Lila added, gesturing at the short cylindrical vases full of heavy pink blooms. ‘They’re my favourite.’
‘Peonies,’ said Georgia. ‘Mine too.’
�
��Where did you get them at this time of year?’ asked Nancy, looking up from her phone.
‘They’re silk,’ said Georgia.
‘Fake?’ asked Nancy.
‘Silk,’ Georgia repeated. ‘We found them in an amazing interiors shop in Paris.’
Lila reached over the table and picked one up. ‘Fuck, they look so real.’
Nancy was doing that wrinkled-nose thing that Lila knew made Georgia cross. ‘Look, Nance,’ Lila said, holding one out, ‘see how real it looks.’
‘You’re dripping water on the floor,’ said Georgia, dropping her knife abruptly and pulling the flower from Lila’s hand and putting it back in the vase. Lila dropped her gaze, hurt. She’d been trying to help, to make Nancy see how nice the flowers were. Georgia rearranged the vase and went back to making her salad. Lila tried not to feel upset, tried not to think about how often Georgia snapped at her these days. Falling back on her usual routine, she picked up her wine glass and looked into it. She could see her own fingers warped through the needle-thin stem of the wine glass, the chipped pink polish shining through.
‘Fake flowers just aren’t my thing,’ said Nancy. ‘Sorry,’ she added, in a voice that made her sound distinctly not sorry. ’The kitchen looks good though. I’d love to see the rest of the house. Give me the tour?’
Lila could have sworn she saw Georgia’s knuckles go white as she gripped the knife. She was clearly annoyed, but never one to say no to Nancy, Georgia let the knife go and wiped her hands on a neatly pressed tea towel. ‘Of course.’
A tour was a pretence, and not a very good one. If Nancy wasn’t even going to try to hide her desire to talk to Georgia alone, then why should Lila make it easy for them? She knew what it was going to be about, anyway. Nancy would drag Georgia upstairs, make snide comments about Lila’s drinking, as if it had anything to do with Georgia, and then tell her to fix it while she swanned back off to the States. As if Georgia could.
Georgia didn’t even know about the baby.
‘I’ll come too,’ Lila said.
‘You’ve seen the house, like, a thousand times,’ said Georgia, her face pinched.
‘It’s too dreamy, I want to see it again. And you can tell me that fascinating story about the hollow fibres in the carpets again.’ She caught Nancy’s eye, and felt gratified by Nancy’s smirk.
‘I can’t wait to hear about the carpets,’ said Nancy.
‘I only mentioned it once,’ Georgia replied. ‘I don’t know why you keep going on about it. Anyway, I need you to finish the salad. I’ll whizz Nancy around the house, and then we’ll eat.’
She held the knife out, the tiny beads of tomato seeds dripping off the shiny blade. Lila reached out her hand to take it, wondering momentarily what would happen if she gripped the blade in her hand, how much it would hurt. How much it would bleed.
She watched as her friends disappeared into the hall, and listened to them chatting as they mounted the stairs.
‘I’m just going to find my cigs,’ she called out to the boys at the other end of the kitchen, putting the knife down on the kitchen counter. They ignored her. Carefully she crept into the hall to look for her handbag. She’d thrown it down on to the floor, but someone, it would unquestionably have been Georgia, had hung it up on the coat rack. She reached up and slid her hand into the soft leather pocket. Her fingers closed quickly on the rectangle of the packet, but she continued the charade of looking for them, even throwing in a light ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ under her breath for no one’s benefit. Then she heard it. Light feet, the flick of a light switch. They were on the landing.
‘I just feel as if you brought me here under false pretences.’
‘I didn’t bring you anywhere, Nancy.’
‘You told me it was an emergency. You scared me – you said she was a mess. I thought you were scared she was going to tell.’
‘I am. Why would I bring you here if I wasn’t?’
‘Look, she seems fine. She’s drinking a lot, but she’s always drinking a lot. You could have handled it.’
‘You’ve been here less than an hour! What the fuck would you know? Give it two more glasses of wine and you’ll see.’
Their feet were on the stairs again now, so Lila went back to pretending to look for her cigarettes. She noted the moment of discomfort on her friends’ faces as they reached the foot of the stairs and saw her standing there. They’d want to know if she had heard, but they wouldn’t ask her. She pulled a smile across her face, and deliberately slurred her voice a little more.
‘Trying to find my fags.’
THEN
Nancy
‘Welcome to your penultimate autumn term, ladies. I trust you all had a productive break, and I hope that those of you I haven’t spoken to yet had a wonderful summer and were pleased with your GCSE results.’
An assembly with their headmistress, Mrs Easton, on the first evening of the first day of the year was a tradition. Each year-group would troop into the concert hall and sit on the itchy wool-cushioned chairs and be welcomed back with a speech about how well they had done the year before and how this year, whichever year it was, was the most important year of their entire school career.
Mrs Easton paused to look around the hall. Nancy had been pleased, actually. She had pretended, when she opened the brown envelope in front of her father, that she was entirely calm. And when she’d read the long column of A*s she had smiled modestly. Jumping up and down and posing for photographs was tacky and it implied an element of surprise. Naturally, Nancy had done well. Girls like Nancy did well at exams. But inside she had been triumphant. Shortly after results day, her father had written a double-page spread for one of the broadsheets about how to support your child through their exams, how to maximize their chance of success. ‘Send them to boarding school’ hadn’t been mentioned, obviously – that wasn’t exactly ‘on brand’ for Nancy’s parents. The piece had been covered with a veneer of self-deprecation, but the message was there: My daughter is perfect. Your children should be more like her. And Nancy had enjoyed it. It had been the culmination of a perfect summer.
‘Now, I like to have this little assembly with you girls before the beginning of the term because there is sometimes a sense among the lower sixth that this is a year to take your foot off the pedal and relax.’ Easton paused for dramatic effect. ‘Wouldn’t that be nice?’
The girls indulged her by laughing. This was the game they played with the teachers, this was how they kept them onside. How many times had the old bag stood at the front of the concert hall and addressed rows and rows of girls in identical navy kilts and powder-blue cardigans? Did she make the exact same joke every single time? Probably.
Behind Easton’s podium sat a row of teachers. Among the various heads of departments was someone she didn’t recognize. Could she be a teacher? She seemed far too young, far too pretty and far too well dressed. Her hair was long and red and looked like it had been blow-dried by someone who actually knew what a hot roller was. She couldn’t have been much more than twenty-six. Maybe twenty-seven at a push. Her legs were crossed and she kept running her hand through her blow-dry while she listened to Mrs Easton. She was wearing cropped trousers and a skinny black polo neck under a fitted blazer. On her feet were coral-coloured shoes with pointed toes and high heels. Against the sea of beige and tweed, she looked like she came from another world.
Behind her, Nancy heard Isabella Brown whisper, ‘Who’s the chick with the shoes?’ to whoever was sitting next to her. Nancy nudged Lila. ‘Who’s that?’ she asked. ‘Was she around before I got back last night?’
Lila shrugged. ‘No idea. Good hair though.’
‘This year is your opportunity to start work on your UCAS applications. Those of you who are applying for Oxbridge …’ she paused, as if ‘Oxbridge’ was some magical kingdom, ‘will be sending your forms off in December next year. That gives you three and a half terms to make sure that you are as rounded as you can possibly be.’
Not too rou
nded. There was a rumour that last year’s head girl had failed her interview after exam stress saw her gain fifteen pounds. Fat, everyone knew, was a sign of weakness. A lack of self-control.
‘Gee,’ Nancy whispered, trying to get Georgia’s attention from the front row. All of the scholarship girls had to sit together, wearing stupid robes.
Georgia was ignoring her. ‘Georgia,’ she whispered again, a little louder. The girls either side of Georgia turned around, and finally Georgia turned. Georgia was such a drip when it came to things like talking in assembly.
‘What?’ she hissed from behind her hymn book.
‘Who’s the redhead?’
‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘New teacher?’
Mrs Easton was still talking: ‘I would like to see you girls starting your own societies. Suggesting trips. Last year’s lower sixth organized a tennis trip to California to train at a top academy, a Geography trip to the Arctic Circle, and the Art History society completed a tour of Paris over the Easter holidays. Last year’s biggest triumph was the anti-bullying petition which was eventually read in Parliament.’
Jesus. How many times would they have to hear about that fucking petition?
‘More conventional activities are also important. I would urge all of you to recommit to your existing clubs. Those basic extracurriculars which will tick much-needed boxes. On that note, the community service sign-up sheet has been posted in the common room. We see no reason why you should not all be taking your silver level this year.’
Nancy felt Lila’s elbow in her ribs. They had been working on their excuse to avoid community service for months. There was nothing appealing about the idea of wasting precious weekends digging through bags of other people’s dirty clothing for charity shops or pouring tea for old people. They could raise ten times the amount of money over the course of a single evening. They knew every girl in the room would happily pay a hundred quid a ticket for a ‘ball’ if boys and booze were on offer.
