‘Course it is,’ Ella said, draping one arm around Issey’s shoulders and hugging her. ‘Ignore the sex fiends. They’re all obsessed.’
‘Are you seeing anyone?’ Issey asked Paige as they all fell into the house.
‘Not really. There’s a girl I see sometimes. Sharda. But I haven’t seen her for a while.’
‘Girlfriend?’ Lou asked. ‘Or just like a casual thing?’
‘Definitely casual,’ Paige said.
Issey was just falling asleep when Liane crawled into her bed.
‘Whatsup?’ she mumbled into her pillow, shuffling over towards the wall.
‘I’m going home this weekend,’ Liane said. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘Oh yeah,’ Issey said blearily. ‘Forgot.’
She felt the mattress dip behind her and then Liane said, ‘I don’t want to. That’s bad, isn’t it?’
Issey rolled over to look at Liane. ‘No? I mean, it’s not your fault.’
Liane sighed, one arm over her face. ‘I get jealous sometimes, you know? Of, like, Ella’s family. How they all love each other so much. And you and all your sisters.’
‘We fight like bastards.’
‘Yeah. But you love each other.’
‘Your mum loves you,’ Issey said. ‘I bet.’
‘She does,’ Liane said, dropping her arm and rolling over so she was facing Issey. ‘In her own way. It’s just that her way makes me feel like shit.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Issey said, her face serious.
Liane shook her head. ‘No, I’m sorry. Sorry to be such a fucking downer. It’s only two days.’ She rolled onto her back again and stared up at the ceiling. ‘What do you think of dick pics?’
Issey snorted, rolling onto her back too. ‘Not much. Why?’
‘This guy from my seminar sent me one. I haven’t even spoken to him.’
‘Put a Snapchat filter on it and send it back,’ Issey said. ‘Is it nice? Can I see?’
‘It’s all right, I guess,’ Liane said, passing her phone over.
Issey shuffled up against the pillows and looked down at the photo. Toned abs. And a hard dick in white Y-fronts.
‘Retro,’ Issey said.
‘I just … Am I meant to like this?’ Liane said. ‘Like, is this something I should be cool with? Cos I feel like it’s gross. And you know me, I don’t mind dicks in general.’
‘I think it’d be different if you knew him,’ Issey said. ‘Or liked him. Or asked for it!’
‘Yeah. Like, I’d never send him one back, you know?’
‘I don’t think fanny pics are a thing, are they?’ Issey frowned. ‘Maybe they are and it’s just that no one’s ever wanted one of mine. I did take a tit pic though. And, you know, I’m a prude. Sometimes.’
Liane laughed. ‘You took one? Who for?’
Issey’s face heated. ‘Not for anyone. I mean, just for me. I posted that one in the mirror on IG and took some for myself.’
‘Was that because I called you a prude?’ Liane leaned back and Issey could tell she was looking at her, but she couldn’t bring herself to look back. ‘You know I was joking, right?’
‘Yeah,’ Issey said. ‘Not cos of that, really. More cos … Paige’s photos are nice. And I wanted to see what I’d look like … like that.’
‘Lemme see!’ Liane said, shuffling up the bed.
Issey pulled the duvet over her head. ‘No!’
‘Aw, come on!’ Liane said, yanking it away again. ‘I showed you mine!’
‘That’s not the same!’ Issey said.
‘Come on, Iz,’ Liane said. ‘I wanna see! The one you put on Insta was so nice.’
‘Nooooo,’ Issey said. ‘Go back to your own bed.’
‘Let. Me. See,’ Liane said, punctuating each word with a poke to Issey’s side.
Issey curled against her friend’s fingers. She was really fucking ticklish and Liane knew all her spots.
‘OK, OK,’ Issey said, pulling her phone out. ‘But you can’t laugh.’
‘Why would I laugh?’ Liane said. ‘Show me.’
Issey unlocked her phone and clicked on the photos, then closed her eyes and just held her phone over her head for Liane to take, before pulling the duvet back over her face.
‘Oh wow,’ she heard Liane say.
She pulled the duvet closer until all she could hear and feel was the cotton fabric and her own breath. What had she been thinking? Showing Liane? What had she been thinking taking them in the first place?
‘Iz,’ Liane said.
Issey could feel her trying to pull the duvet away.
‘Let go!’
Issey relaxed her fingers a little, just enough to let Liane pull the duvet free.
‘You look so fucking gorgeous,’ Liane said.
‘Shut up,’ Issey said.
‘You do,’ Liane said. ‘Like a model.’
‘A tiny tit model,’ Issey said.
‘Shut up. You’ve got lovely tits.’
‘Oh my god,’ Issey said, rolling over and burying her face in the pillow.
Chapter 11
Liane decided to walk home – home home, as she’d started thinking of it – from the station. Usually she’d get a taxi or her mum would pick her up, but it was actually a lovely autumnal day, sunny and brisk, and walking would take fifteen minutes longer than driving so it was absolutely preferable.
She’d hadn’t really expected anything to have changed since she’d only left the previous month, but it had. New trees had been planted in front of the station. Small ones, saplings. She walked round the huge roundabout and along the main road, trying to work out how many times she’d done this walk in her life. To school, to the library, to McDonald’s to meet friends, to the station to get out of there. She couldn’t begin to imagine. And she couldn’t believe she was back so soon – she hadn’t planned to come back until Christmas, put off by the prospect of the three-hour train journey, and she hadn’t even been sure about Christmas. But her mum was having ‘a thing’ and insisted she be there.
She turned right at the dry cleaners, which had closed just before she’d left, but was actually boarded up now. Her mum wouldn’t like that, particularly not tonight with people coming round. Liane was sure she would have contacted the estate agents to try to get the boards removed. She rolled her eyes, even though there was no one to see her.
She stopped at the gate and looked up at the house. At the tiny balcony off her bedroom, where she’d spent so long sitting and looking down at the street and thinking about leaving. For as long as she could remember. Since before she even had an idea of where she might like to go, or be able to go.
Her mum’s car wasn’t on the drive, so Liane’s shoulders weren’t quite as tense as they could have been, but she still had to take a big breath before opening the front door. The hall smelled the same: furniture wax and money. She dropped her keys in the glass bowl on the round ‘telephone table’ and took her bag up to her room, dropping it on the bed before crossing to the window with the balcony. She pulled, but it didn’t open. She paused a second, thinking she’d just forgotten exactly how to open it, but no. It was locked. It had never been locked, not for as long as she could remember. She rested her head on the cool glass instead and looked at Zack’s house opposite. His balcony with its curled wrought iron, unlike the plain white wood of hers. And the tree in the garden had already grown slightly taller than it. If he was still there, he’d have to hold the branches out of the way to look across at her. But it didn’t matter. Because he wasn’t there.
She unpacked her bag and lay on her bed staring at the ceiling. She felt heavier already and she’d only been home five minutes. She took out her phone and texted the girls’ group chat.
‘Home. I’m so cold and all alone.’
‘Babe,’ Issey replied instantly. ‘Is it “Take That lyrics” bad?’
‘Always,’ Liane said.
‘You mean Sure,’ Issey replied.
‘At least you’re not Back for Good,’
Ella posted and Liane laughed out loud. That was a very good point.
Issey: ‘Ella’s right. Have a little Patience.’
Ella: ‘How’s your mum?’
Liane: ‘Not home yet. Just me here.’
Issey: ‘So you can Do What You Like?’
Liane: ‘I think it’s actually Do What U Like. But yes.’
Lou: ‘Aren’t you embarrassed to know that?’
Liane: ‘Nope. What are you all doing?’
Issey: ‘Watching Scandal.’
Liane: ‘NOT WITHOUT ME’
Lou: ‘We wouldn’t dare. Paige is making a veggie curry.’
Issey: ‘It smells fucking amazing.’
Liane: ‘I can’t believe I’m missing it.’
Issey: ‘I bet we can get her to make another.’
Paige: ‘As long as you’re all suitably impressed with this one. I’m slaving over a hot stove here!’
Issey: ‘And we love you for it!’
Ella: ‘Will you be OK?’
Liane: ‘Yeah. I’ll be fine. It’s only a couple of days, like you said. I Can Make It, I know I can.’
Issey: ‘Fuck. Deep cut.’
Lou: ‘We’re here for you. Never Forget.’
Liane: ‘Lou! Did you google Take That songs?’
Lou: ‘Might’ve.’
Liane: ‘I appreciate it.’
After letting the girls go, she scrolled Twitter for a while, before heading downstairs to make herself a drink. The kitchen was pristine as always. She made a coffee and turned the TV on in the adjoining room. They used to call it the family room until her dad left. Then her mum started calling it the snug and Liane thought of it as the TV room.
She flicked pointlessly through the channels, stopping to watch a couple of videos on the music channel and a bit of a Grand Designs repeat, before getting up again. The house was too quiet. It had always been too quiet. She wondered about texting her mum to tell her she was home, but decided against it. She made herself a sandwich, ate it on her bed, showered, and tried to sleep, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Zack.
She’d spent so long thinking she was in love with him. She’d told herself she was. She’d thought about telling him so many times. She’d acted it out in her head: what she’d say, how he’d respond, what they’d do about telling his girlfriend. His girlfriend who Liane also really liked. But they’d only ever been friends. And she wasn’t sure now if she’d ever been in love with him. But she really missed having him as a friend.
‘What time did you get back?’ Liane asked her mum at breakfast. She was sitting at the dining table with a newspaper in one hand and an apple in the other, a piece of cheese on the side plate in front of her, next to a cup of black coffee.
Her mum glanced up briefly before looking back at the paper. ‘About eleven, I think. I told you I was at Mo’s gallery opening.’
She hadn’t. Liane loved Mo; she would have remembered. She might have wanted to go, even. Maybe.
Liane ate her own toast and drank her tea while her mum finished her apple and cheese and coffee and paper and only then looked over at Liane.
‘Any news?’
‘About what?’
Her mum sighed as if Liane was being deliberately dense. ‘University? Your courses? Your friends? Your job?’
‘It’s all good,’ Liane said. ‘Not much to report. We’ve really only just got started.’
‘The house is comfortable?’
‘It’s great,’ Liane said, smiling at the thought of the girls. ‘The other girls are great. I think we’re going to have fun.’
‘Not too much fun,’ her mum said, as Liane should have known she would.
‘Perish the thought,’ Liane said.
Her mum raised one eyebrow. ‘So. This evening. I think we have about forty people coming.’
‘Here?’
‘Of course. It may be more. Jackson had a couple of investors he was talking to. But it certainly shouldn’t be more than fifty. The caterers will be here by six.’
‘Right,’ Liane said. ‘So … what’s it for?’
‘I told you,’ her mum said briskly. ‘The new gallery.’
‘You and Jackson?’
‘What about Jackson and I?’
‘You’re opening a gallery? Together?’
‘Hoping to, yes. Assuming we can get enough investment.’
‘And I’m here because …’ She tipped her head on one side.
‘Because you’re my daughter.’
Because I’m Charles Coonce’s daughter, more like, Liane thought, but didn’t say. She’d got used to these so-called parties when her dad was still at home, but it was new for her mum to be throwing one. And it would probably be all the same people, having all the same conversations. Wanting to tell her how beautiful and charming and poised her mum was. How they’d been sorry to hear about her dad, as if he was dead. Her mum had worked alongside her dad at their gallery – Liane had always thought of it as their gallery, but from the moment divorce had first been mentioned, it had become his gallery – and was now apparently desperate to establish a gallery of her own. Liane didn’t care. She didn’t care that her mum had been pushed out of the Coonce Gallery. Didn’t care that she might start a new gallery with her friend (or boyfriend, she didn’t care about that either), Jackson. Didn’t care that her dad had sent money for university, but hadn’t actually called. She didn’t care about any of it.
For years now, she’d only cared about Zack. But he was gone. And he wasn’t coming back.
‘Can you take the coats and get people drinks?’ Liane’s mum said that evening as they waited for the guests to arrive. She was standing at the kitchen counter, rearranging the canapés.
‘Seriously?’ Liane said.
‘You know what you need to do, Liane. I don’t have time for this.’
Liane stalked out of the room, almost slamming the door behind her, but catching it with her foot at the last minute. It had a glass panel and if it smashed, the evening would be ruined and her mother would never recover.
She ran upstairs, patted water on her face, stared at herself in the mirror and then sat on the loo and texted Issey. ‘I am staff tonight. It’s just like being at work, but I don’t get paid. Not even in dented tins.’
‘But you can drink, right?’ Issey replied immediately.
Liane grinned at the phone. ‘Right.’
‘And your mum buys good stuff, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Get hammered then.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ Liane replied.
She stood up and reapplied her scarlet lipstick. Her mum had suggested something more subtle, but there was no way she was tackling this evening without armour lips. She actually felt better already, just from talking to Issey, knowing that she had another life away from her mother, away from this house. That’s what Zack had been for a while – an escape. But now she actually had escaped. She needed to remember that.
She batted her eyes at herself in the mirror, pulled the neckline of her little black dress a little lower and headed downstairs.
NOVEMBER
Chapter 12
‘That boy from the bookshop was in my Soul Cycle class last night,’ Lou told Ella, as they queued for jacket potatoes in the cafe in the Design Building.
Ella stopped shuffling forward so suddenly that Lou bumped her back with her tray.
‘Seriously?’
‘Yup.’
‘Did you talk to him?’
‘Yeah. I said “My mate fancies you”.’
‘You did not.’
‘Course I fucking didn’t. He said hi; I nodded at him.’
They’d reached the front of the queue and they both requested their potatoes before shuffling onward to the till. They sat in a window seat with a view of the sculpture garden outside. Rain tapped against the floor-to-ceiling windows and wet leaves swirled over the flagstones. But inside it was warm and bright and almost cosy. Almost.
‘He said hi t
o you?’ Ella said. ‘He recognised you? From the bookshop?’
‘I assume so,’ Lou said. ‘Either that or he was just being friendly.’
‘Well, that’s that then,’ Ella said, digging her fork into her potato. Melted butter ran down and pooled on the plate.
‘What’s that then?’ Lou said, scraping out the middle of her potato with her fork.
‘He fancies you.’ Ella ate a forkful of too-hot beans and then fanned her hand in front of her mouth.
Lou laughed. ‘Because he said hi? Come on, Ella.’
Ella shook her head. ‘He fancies you. I can tell.’
‘What if he fancies you? What if he’s getting up the courage to talk to me, so he can say, “You know that girl who keeps coming in my shop and reading the books for free and staring at me creepily? Can you give me her number?”’
‘I don’t stare at him creepily,’ Ella said. Even though she’d been worrying about exactly that.
‘Just ask him out,’ Lou said. ‘If you want to go out with him. Or just, you know, say ‘I think you’re really hot … have you heard of something called a Fuck It List?’’
‘Oh my god,’ Ella said. ‘No.’
‘So you’re just going to wait? Wait and see if he’s interested?’
‘That’s the plan, yes,’ Ella said. ‘Now shut up and eat your potato.’
Out of the corner of her eye, Issey watched the boy watching her. All around the shop. She’d come into the shop – one of her favourites on Bold Street – to buy a card for her parents, but she was distracted by pretty much everything else. She picked up some novelty egg cups and laughed when she saw the little knight came with a little trident fork. She sprayed some sort of tropical (it had palm trees and pineapples on the packaging) perfume on her wrist and sniffed it. It smelled like her nan’s bathroom spray. She turned on a set of pineapple-shaped fairy lights and thought she might actually buy them for her room. Until she saw the price. All the time, he was watching her.
She’d been failing miserably at the list lately. Uni was busy – she seemed to be constantly trying to catch up. She’d known that second year was going to be more pressurised than first, but she still hadn’t expected the constant deadlines. She hadn’t gone out – or got off – with anyone for weeks. It was getting ridiculous. But now this boy was watching her. And he was cute. She didn’t know if he’d fit on the list, but she could always draw a tattoo on him, if nothing else.
My Heart Goes Bang Page 7
