by Rebecca Reid
‘We’re going to get it,’ said Lila. ‘So calm down.’
Georgia’s shoulders fell.
‘I am calm. But we’re not going to get that dorm, not for this term at least,’ Nancy said.
‘Why not?’ said Lila. ‘We’ll have to call our parents, it’s the only way. They’ll insist we have to be together, they’ll have to move us in there because it’s the only three-bed. Sorted.’
Nancy snorted. ‘You think they’re going to make weird Heidi and her bean-flicking friend move out of that room, when they’ve already unpacked?’
‘Maybe Lila could talk to her?’ Georgia suggested.
Nancy caught her eye, and laughed. ‘That’s true. Fancy a catch-up with your bestie, Li? Ask her to give us our room back?’
Lila’s face darkened. ‘Fuck off, both of you.’
‘Moody,’ smirked Nancy. ‘Shall we send you off to the san to get some mood stabilizers?’
Lila got to her feet. ‘Not everyone likes to take handfuls of pills every day, Nance.’ But her tone was lighter now, teasing. There wasn’t going to be a row. Georgia felt relief at the realization. She plucked the newly lit cigarette from between Nancy’s fingers and took a drag on it, then passed it to Lila.
‘Ladies?’ a voice called out from above them. Panic swelled up in Georgia’s chest. Her mind clouded. It was the new teacher. Miss Brandon. Fuck, fuck, fuck. She turned her head a fraction, to see if Lila was still holding the cigarette. She wasn’t. Nancy sprang into action, striding a few metres up the hill towards where the woman was standing, while Lila moved her heel over the cigarette butt and discreetly ground it into the floor, destroying any tendrils of smoke.
Georgia watched the back of Nancy’s long body move rapidly up the hill. She reached Miss Brandon, who had tied her shiny red hair up into a jaunty ponytail. Georgia and Lila watched as Nancy reached Miss Brandon, stuck out her hand, and initiated a handshake. God, Nancy was good. The woman looked totally wrong-footed.
‘I’m Nancy Greydon,’ she said, in her Enid Blyton voice, the voice that she wheeled out when she gave tours to prospective parents and represented their year at the student council. ‘We met briefly yesterday. You’re new, aren’t you?’
Georgia didn’t catch what Miss Brandon said in answer. She stood still next to Lila, trying to guess what Nancy would want her to do, trying to guess what the official story might be.
‘Georgia, Lila,’ called Nancy. ‘Come and meet Miss Brandon.’
It was time to mimic Nancy’s jolly hockey sticks, then. Georgia bounded forward, pulling her vest top up to cover her chest, smiling widely. ‘Oh, hello, Miss Brandon. I liked what you said in assembly yesterday. Are you all settled in? I’m Georgina Green and this is Camilla Knight.’
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I am. What are you girls doing down here?’
To her left, Georgia could see Lila was looking downcast, and she realized what the line was going to be.
‘I’m afraid Lila was feeling homesick,’ said Nancy, gesturing at Lila.
‘We came down here for a bit of privacy,’ added Georgia, watching Nancy’s face to make sure she was pitching it right. ‘Some of the other girls can be a bit unsympathetic, they think we’re too old for all that.’
Nancy gave her a tiny, almost invisible dip of the head, telling her she had done well. Lila kept her distant, shadowy face on. ‘It’s not out of bounds,’ she said softly. ‘It’s just that it’s the quietest place in the school. Are we late for the house meeting?’
Miss Brandon’s face was blank. She clearly didn’t buy it, thought Georgia. All she needed to do was ask Nancy to empty her pockets and they’d be in trouble. They’d been caught once last year, so once more would mean a suspension. Georgia’s heart was quickening. Her parents mustn’t find out. They would be furious.
‘That’s a very nice story,’ said Miss Brandon, a surprising hardness to her voice. ‘But I saw you smoking.’
Georgia looked confused, as did Lila. Nancy looked affronted. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Brandon, I hate to disagree with a member of staff, especially when you’re new, but I think you were mistaken.’
Miss Brandon was smiling. Why wasn’t she acting like a normal teacher? A normal teacher would tell them to run up to the dining hall and get there in time for supper, and save themselves the hassle of telling them off. Miss Brandon didn’t seem like the telling-off type – she was young, and she’d made a joke in assembly. She was wearing Converse, for God’s sake. She clearly wanted everyone to like her. What was she playing at?
‘I’m going to need you to empty your pockets, girls,’ said Miss Brandon, her smile still fixed on her lips, her eyes slightly squinted in the late evening sunshine.
‘For what?’ asked Lila, her voice a little too high. Nancy’s face clouded at Lila’s comment. She’d got it wrong. Nancy would be angry later.
‘Cigarettes,’ came the reply.
‘Oh, I don’t smoke,’ said Lila, calmly, pulling things back. ‘And I wouldn’t spend time with people who do. You see, my mother died of cancer a few years ago.’
Georgia tried to keep the triumph out of her face. Lila’s trump card. Her ace. She was careful about it, hardly ever using it so it didn’t lose its power. But it left the teachers, especially the ones who’d seen her tearful white face in the months afterwards, eating out of her hands.
‘I’m sorry to hear that – Camilla, was it? That’s extremely sad.’
Georgia’s head stopped swirling. Thank God. It was going to be OK.
‘So you won’t have any problem with turning out your pockets,’ said Miss Brandon.
Georgia looked at Lila, and then to Nancy and felt the sinking realization that Nancy didn’t have anything to suggest. Slowly the girls offered up the contents of their pockets – their mobile phones, a lip gloss, a packet of chewing gum, Lila’s lighter and finally Nancy’s packet of Marlboro Lights.
Miss Brandon smiled pleasantly at them. ‘I think you had better go back to the boarding house. Don’t you? I’d hate for you to miss supper.’
NOW
Georgia
‘I think we’re almost ready for the main,’ Georgia called out, to the turned backs of her friends.
No one moved. Lila sat on Roo’s lap, running her spindly fingers through his hair. She could have been a teenager from behind. Her head was swaying as if it was too heavy for her neck. They’d all given up on smoking out of the French windows and were happily smoking at the table now. The house would stink tomorrow, the curtains in the sitting room heavy with the tang of smoke.
‘Guys?’ she called again. Nothing. What the fuck was the point of making food? She should have just stuck a bottle of vodka on the table and left them to it.
‘I think Georgia wants us to eat,’ she heard Brett say gently. When he said ‘Georgia’ he somehow made the G soft and gentle. As the words left his lips, Charlie jumped up.
‘Hop to it, team,’ he barked, too loud.
‘I LOVE this song!’ exploded Lila, reaching across the table for the remote control. She pointed it at the speakers, mounted in each corner of the room and turned it up as loud as it would go. The music pulled at the speakers, making them vibrate, distorting the song.
There was a flat downstairs – the fact that they only owned four floors of their town house was a constant source of shame to Charlie. Would the people who lived there complain?
Roo at least had the good grace to look embarrassed, but said nothing to his wife. The ice in the water jug had melted. Georgia picked it up and turned away from the table, grateful for the excuse. For some stupid reason she felt like crying. She couldn’t tell Lila to turn the music down, because that would mark her out as controlling and dull and everything else that they probably already thought she was. But she was hot, and tired, and it was painfully loud. She felt more aware than ever of the chemicals pumping around her body, heavy with hormones. As she reached into the freezer, relishing the coldness of it on her hands, the music stopped. She tur
ned to look back over her shoulder.
Brett was holding the remote control. He was smiling and holding it just out of Lila’s reach. She was giggling and reaching for it, like a child.
‘Georgia said supper is ready,’ he said, his tone light and friendly. ‘So we should sit down. It smells amazing.’
She couldn’t convey her gratitude towards Brett without seeming sycophantic, so instead she merely nodded her thanks as she watched everyone take their seats.
Georgia slid the oven door open and felt the wave of hot air hit her face. She knew as soon as she looked at the pork that it was overdone. She’d been so scared that it might be raw that she’d added fifteen minutes to the cooking time.
‘Everything OK?’ asked Brett quietly. Georgia turned around. Everyone else was still sitting at the table.
‘Fine,’ she replied, her voice making it clear that things were not fine.
‘Sure?’ he asked.
Something inside Georgia shifted. There was no way of getting out of this. She might as well tell him. ‘It’s overcooked,’ she admitted.
‘So?’ asked Brett.
‘So it’ll be dry, and people won’t like it.’
‘But these are your friends,’ Brett reminded her. ‘They’re here to see you, not the food.’
He was half right, thought Georgia. They weren’t here for the food. ‘I don’t want everyone to think I’m a useless cook,’ she laughed, trying to keep her voice light.
Brett grinned. ‘The starter was the best thing I’ve eaten this year. You’ve got a sauce, right?’
Georgia nodded.
‘Then we’ll serve it up here, put a load of sauce on every plate and no one will notice if it’s dry,’ he reassured her. It took every ounce of self-control Georgia possessed not to throw her arms around him.
‘I’ll waiter for you,’ he said, picking up four plates, deftly balancing them on his forearms. ‘These look amazing.’
Gratefully she picked up the other two plates and carried them to the table.
‘You’re very good at that,’ said Charlie. ‘Almost professional.’
‘I was a waiter for a long time,’ he replied.
‘You don’t seem old enough to have done anything for a long time,’ said Roo, shovelling a mouthful of potato into his mouth. ‘Any salt, Gee?’
Georgia got up to get the salt and pepper grinders. Did he have to say that in front of everyone? Now they’d all notice, and they’d all cover their food in it. She placed the grinders down in front of Charlie with a little more force than necessary.
‘I quit my waiting job last year,’ Brett was saying to Lila. ‘When my writing started to take off.’
‘How’s the renovation going?’ Roo was asking Georgia. She wanted to shush him. They were only six – it was perfectly possible to have one conversation among six people. She didn’t want to get stuck talking about carpets and paint samples at this end of the table while Lila ladled herself all over Brett. Lila’s eyes were unfocused. A sign that she was about to lose control.
The drunker Lila got, the more of a liability she became and the harder it would be for her and Nancy to talk any sense into her. She and Nancy would have to bite the bullet and take her out alone tomorrow, to try and knock some sense into her. Why had Nancy suggested dinner in the first place? There were too many variables, too many temptations for Lila to resist. But as she pondered the question, Georgia knew the answer. This was what they did. They put on a performance. They wore costumes and said lines and they fooled everyone around them that they were normal, ordinary, childhood friends. Until recently, Lila could be relied upon to play her part.
‘What kind of writing do you do, Brett?’ she said, a little too loudly across Roo. She was being rude. Charlie would say something about it later.
‘He’s a freelance journalist,’ replied Nancy, running her hand over his arm. ‘Mostly for Slate, a couple of pieces for the Atlantic. He’s rather good, actually.’
‘Rather good,’ Brett repeated, copying Nancy’s accent. Lila laughed, far too loud.
‘That’s such a good accent,’ she rasped. ‘Do more! Say something else.’
‘What do you want me to say?’ Brett said, in the same faux-English tones. He wasn’t very good, actually.
‘He’s not a performing monkey, Lila,’ snapped Nancy. ‘You’re embarrassing him.’
‘I’m not embarrassed,’ Brett replied lightly. He had dropped the accent though.
Nancy’s head jerked. That was interesting. No one ever disagreed with Nancy. He was brave. And she was clearly cross, but she wouldn’t be cross with Brett, she’d blame Lila. And Georgia was grateful, because it would make the conversation easier, the conversation they were going to have when Lila had either passed out or gone home. Whichever happened first.
‘What do you all do?’ asked Brett to the table.
‘Roo is in venture capital,’ said Nancy.
‘I have to ask,’ Brett interrupted. ‘Roo?’
Roo gave a smile, his lips closed. ‘Short for Rupert. Like the bear.’
Brett looked blank.
‘You don’t have Rupert the Bear in America?’
Brett shook his head. ‘At least, not as far as I know.’
‘That is so sad. Don’t you guys think that’s so, so sad?’ Lila lamented as she poured herself more wine. She didn’t top up anyone else’s glass.
No one said anything. Georgia knew she should, but she wanted to see how long this silence would carry on for, how long everyone would let her comment go unanswered.
Another beat, and then Nancy carried on. ‘So, Roo is in venture capital.’
‘For my sins,’ he held his hands up.
‘And Charlie is in Westminster.’
‘That’s government, right?’
‘Trying to be,’ Charlie replied, taking the bottle from next to Lila and offering it round the rest of the table. Georgia watched Lila’s eyes follow it as Charlie poured for their guests. Don’t you dare, she thought to herself. Don’t you fucking dare pass out before I’ve even served the dessert.
‘And what about you, ladies?’
‘I’m an assistant. Part-time.’ Georgia forced out the words, her lips tight. And now he wouldn’t want to talk to her. It was the same stumbling block that came up at every dinner party. The asker would feel embarrassed at her answer, her boring embarrassing answer, and would turn to the person on their other side as soon as humanly possible to escape their initial blunder. How could anyone who went to Oxford end up as a PA, they’d whisper behind her back. No one ever bothered to ask any other questions, to find out whether her job was interesting or rewarding or fun. They just heard that she worked in admin, that she couldn’t get their niece an internship at a film studio or help their husband’s career in venture capital, and lost interest entirely.
Years ago, before she’d met Charlie, when she’d taken the job because she wasn’t landing any of the parts she was auditioning for, and because she was sick of men sticking their hands down her jeans in dressing rooms, and making twenty quid a week performing in a show that only ever drew seven people a night, she used to justify it. Slip into the conversation that she had A levels. That she’d been to Oxford. That she’d been to drama school, too. But eventually she’d realized that all those accolades only made it sadder. She’d become a dab hand at avoiding the job question, at deflecting it before anyone got a chance to ask. She’d been too distracted this evening.
‘She downplays it,’ said Charlie, cutting through her thoughts. ‘She does all their hiring, all the HR. Runs the place. Though I keep telling her that she should retrain to be an interior designer,’ said Charlie. ‘She practically did the whole of the house on her own. You should have seen it when we moved in.’ She shot him a grateful look, her ribcage suddenly full of affection for him, a desire to tangle herself around him and listen to his heart beating. He could be kind sometimes. It was easy to forget. He had once carried her halfway home from a night out because h
er strappy high-heeled shoes had cut into her foot and made it bleed.
She used to try for him. She used to dress up and whimper embarrassing sentences into his ear when he was close to climax, foregoing her own orgasm, which hinged on staying in a specific position and concentrating really hard, in favour of wriggling and writhing in a way that made it seem like she was having fun. These days, Charlie hardly bothered to ask. She never said no, but sometimes she could feel herself punishing him with her indifference. Afterwards, when the first snores came from his side of the bed, she would kiss his cheek and then slip into the bathroom, where she would clamp a hand between her thighs and bring herself hot sharp pleasure, thinking about things which would shame her the next morning.
They should start trying again. Try for sex, rather than trying for a baby. Take a holiday. Go on a date. Do something, any of the things that magazines claimed made life easier. It was such a cliché, their mechanical sex life. She’d always assumed that they would be different, that even if they were trying for a baby, things would stay light and fun. But no. They were like every other semi-barren couple in the entire world. Driven apart by ovulation sticks and temperature taking.
‘Georgia is amazing,’ said Nancy, refilling her water glass. Georgia grabbed her wine, knowing what was coming. ‘She signs over her entire salary to her parents.’
Doing her best to focus on the stem of her wine glass, Georgia consciously avoided Charlie’s face. She knew he’d be scarlet. Furious.
‘What?’ asked Lila. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘It’s not a big deal,’ Georgia replied. ‘Does anyone want more wine? Or bread? It’s a homemade focaccia.’
‘All of it?’ asked Lila. ‘Literally all of it?’
Georgia glanced up to see Nancy’s face, illuminated by the candlelight and still somehow resolutely smiling. ‘Yes, all of it,’ Georgia replied. ‘My dad can’t work and my mum has to be home to look after him.’
‘All of your money?’ slurred Lila. ‘God, you are so nice. I wouldn’t give my dad ANY money.’
