Floored

by Sara Barnard

  ‘No, Sasha, these are not real.’ Then she leaned in to whisper, ‘But mine are not either, and no one can tell.’

  I pick up one of Hugo’s mum’s earrings to inspect, twisting it so that it glitters in the light. The ones Mum had bought me were real silver – it said so on the packet – and I’d always felt special about that, but I guess the ones belonging to Hugo’s mum are something else. White gold or platinum perhaps.

  Weird how people must spend hundreds (thousands?) of pounds on a metal that looks exactly like one you can buy for a fraction of the price.

  Cautiously, feeling like I shouldn’t, I hold one up in front of my ear.

  ‘Just a little something my boyfriend surprised me with,’ I murmur at my reflection and roll my eyes. ‘Tiffany’s, you know.’

  The idea of anyone ever wanting to spend that much money on me is incomprehensible – rich boys can afford to be fussy about who they sleep with. Although let’s be real, I’d peel the fingernails from my own fingers before I’d sleep with Hugo. No money doesn’t mean no standards.

  Replacing the earring on its cotton-wool cushion, I turn to look at the bath. Even empty, it looks so inviting I can’t resist clambering in.

  Our bathroom at home was designed in Hobbiton, and it’s a straight-up choice between knees or boobs whenever I get a chance to bathe, but this tub is so deep I could sit here entirely submerged in hot water and Razzle Dazzle bath oil.

  My phone goes off. Although it’s muted, the vibration’s amplified by the bath, and in this massive empty bedroom it’s deafening.

  Dad.

  I don’t want to answer, but he’d take it personally. You can hear it in his voicemails. I get out of the bath and move into the bedroom, where it echoes less.

  ‘Hi, Dad.’

  ‘I thought you were home tonight,’ he says.

  ‘Not tonight.’ I press my lips together to stop myself from trying to say too much. Elaborate lies are the easiest to spot.

  ‘You could have said.’

  I did, over breakfast at the weekend, and in a message this afternoon telling him that I’d taken something out of the freezer for his tea.

  ‘Sorry, Dad. I thought I had. There’s Bolognese defrosting by the sink.’

  ‘Where are you?’ He’s not distracted by my dinner chat. ‘Out with Michela again?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ I let Dad’s dislike of Michela do the deceiving for me.

  ‘Don’t stay out late. Just because you’ve done your exams, doesn’t mean you can party twenty-four seven.’

  I close my eyes for a moment. That is so not fair. Like I ever party. I mean, I’m at a party right now and look at me, stone-cold sober and hiding in the bathroom. If Michela were here, she’d have taken Hugo’s bottle of Veuve, poured it down her throat, and turned up the music to grind him like a pepper mill. If not Hugo, then Joe, who might be a try-hard, but is legitimately cute. Not Dawson though, whose features have all grown at a different pace. He has the kind of face my nan would look at, before nodding and saying, ‘Give it twenty years . . .’ Michela wouldn’t give it twenty seconds.

  ‘Sasha? Did you hear me?’

  I open my eyes and stare at my reflection. ‘Sorry, it went a bit crackly.’

  ‘Nan wants to know which day to expect us over for lunch – is it Saturdays you’re working, or Sunday?’

  ‘Saturday.’ There’s a couple of clients who want their cleaning done then. Klean Sweap were delighted when I asked about working weekends – no one else wants to.

  ‘I’ll let her know. Get back to your friends then.’ He doesn’t sound like he means it, but the call’s ended.

  My friends. No one in this flat cares who I am. They don’t know anything more about me than they do about poor dead Steven Jeffords.

  And if I spend the night hiding in the bathroom, they never will.

  I need to go back out there and at least try to talk to someone. Velvet, maybe. She seems friendly. And normal. I’ll talk to her.

  There’s voices in the corridor, and I clap the lights off, not wanting anyone to know where I am, but the voices get louder . . . no, no, no . . .

  I look for an escape, but the balcony’s too far away, and there’s no wardrobes or anything. There’s a thump on the door before it bursts open, two people spilling into the darkness inside.

  But it’s fine, all fine. Hugo’s mum’s enormous flat has an enormous bedroom with an enormous bath. And I am hiding inside it.

  JOE

  So, I finally get Velvet to myself out on the balcony, and everything is perfect – the sun is setting a gorgeous pinky orange in front of us, Velvet has laughed at four out of my last five jokes and touched my arm twice, and, best of all, Hugo is nowhere to be seen.

  My phone vibrates in the back pocket of my jeans. I ignore it. It’ll only be Ivy giving me yet more shit about being here tonight. I just don’t get what her problem is. The other weekend, she went into Manchester to meet up with a bunch of her home-school friends without me, and I didn’t make a fuss about that.

  ‘But I thought you said they were knobheads,’ she’d pointed out when we met up at the park yesterday and I’d told her about the party.

  ‘They’re not all knobheads,’ I’d replied.

  Which is true. The only official knobhead is Hugo, who has been acting like a complete prat since the moment I arrived, uncorking bottles of wine while pretending to be some sort of hip-hop connoisseur. I’m still on the fence about Dawson, figuring if I’d undergone the biggest Reverse Longbottom in history, I might be a bit stand-offish around strangers too. Kaitlyn and Sasha seem nice enough, albeit a bit quiet. To be honest though, I’m a bit too dazzled by Velvet to pay anyone else much attention.

  I watch as she takes photos of the view on her phone. She’s even lovelier than I remember. The picture on her WhatsApp profile, the one I’ve been gazing at daily for the past year, doesn’t even come close to doing the real-life version justice.

  ‘Here, let me get one with you in it,’ she says, turning to face me.

  I open my mouth to tell her I look rubbish in photos, but she’s already pointing the phone in my direction.

  ‘Smile,’ she instructs.

  Even though I hate having my picture taken, I do as she tells me, grinning so hard my cheeks hurt. The fact is, I would probably fling myself off the side of this balcony if she asked me to.

  I don’t ask to see the photo, worrying I might look a bit vain if I do, and Velvet doesn’t offer to show me, sliding her phone into the little handbag looped over her shoulder. I don’t mind though. There’s actually something quite nice and a bit intimate about knowing I’m on her camera roll now, even if the photo itself might be awful. She leans forward and rests her elbows on the railings. I join her, my left shoulder only centimetres from her right one. I can smell her perfume. It’s sort of fruity and flowery all at once. I love it.

  I dare to edge a tiny bit closer, noticing the blonde hairs on her bare arms are standing on end.

  ‘You’re cold,’ I say, straightening up and shrugging out of my blazer. ‘Here, take this.’

  ‘Don’t you want it?’

  ‘Nah, my shirt’s plenty warm enough.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Course,’ I say, helping her put it on.

  ‘Thanks,’ she says, doing up a couple of buttons.

  ‘No problem.’

  I love the way it looks on her: the sleeves too long; just her fingertips peeping out. I imagine her wearing other items from my wardrobe – my favourite hoody, my tartan pyjama bottoms, my boxers . . .

  Oh God.

  She returns to the railings. I glance down to my left at the bright pink cool bag (a fixture at Lindsay family picnics for over four decades) that I’ve been hauling round with me for the entire party.

  It’s time.

  I take a deep breath, bend down and unzip the cool bag. Nestled on top of the bags of frozen peas and packets of fish fingers (which I shoved in there to keep it chilled) is my gol
den ticket – a thirty-eight-year-old bottle of champagne.

  When my parents got married, back in the very early eighties, they splashed out on a case of champagne to serve at the wedding breakfast. They purposefully kept two bottles aside to pass on to their future children to drink at their own weddings. There’s a framed photograph on the mantelpiece at home of my brother Craig popping the cork on his bottle, his wife, Faye, beaming at his side.

  My bottle lives in the cupboard under the stairs in a polystyrene-filled cardboard box with ‘WEDDING’ scrawled on the side in faded black marker pen. At least it did until earlier this evening. Thank God Mum and Dad were still out when I left with it. Even though the champagne is technically mine, they’d lose it if they knew I was planning on drinking it tonight, very much not at my wedding. Velvet is worth it though, I’m certain.

  I pick up the bottle of champagne, reassuringly heavy in my hands, and contemplate how exactly to play this. I don’t want to scare her off with the whole wedding story, but equally I want her to know how special this bottle of champagne is, and how much I want to share it with her. Perhaps I can tell her a half-truth – the bottle is left over from my parents’ wedding, but it’s actually one of several. Yeah, that might work – still romantic, but a bit less full on.

  I’m removing the foil with trembling fingers and wishing I’d YouTubed ‘how to open a bottle of champagne’ when my stomach lets out a massive gurgle.

  I freeze, waiting for Velvet to register it and look at me in horror – but luckily she appears to be too engrossed in the view to have heard, gazing out over the water, her expression soft and thoughtful.

  I resume my task, discarding the foil and slowly untwisting the wire cage. My stomach gurgles again, only louder and about ten times more insistent.

  I put the bottle down on the metal table behind me.

  ‘You OK, Joe?’ Velvet asks, glancing over.

  ‘Me? Yeah, fine.’

  ‘You sure? It’s just your face has gone a really funny colour.’

  Another gurgle – even noisier than the first two put together, and accompanied by some pretty definite movement.

  I take a side step away from Velvet and cling on to the railings, silently willing my bowels to let me off the hook and make this a false alarm. I can’t leave her now, not when she’s wearing my jacket, her hair rippling in the breeze like a goddamn Disney Princess.

  But my bowels are clearly not in a cooperative mood, and as horrific as leaving Velvet at this crucial moment is, the possible consequences if I stay are far, far worse. Because, the thing is, and I don’t mean to be graphic, but when I need to go, I really need to go. And every single second I remain on this balcony is laced with a level of danger I can’t even contemplate.

  ‘If you’ll excuse m-me for a second,’ I stammer. ‘I have an, er, important phone call to make.’

  Because, even from my very limited experience, no girl ever wants to hear about the massive dump you’re about to take.

  ‘OK,’ Velvet says, looking slightly confused.

  ‘I’ll be right back,’ I promise. ‘What I mean is, “Don’t go anywhere.”’

  I just about resist sticking a desperate ‘please’ on the end of my sentence.

  I manage to make it through the glass doors and back into the living room like a normal person, before breaking into a panicked run, hurdling over the sofa (my left foot clearing Dawson’s head by maybe a centimetre at the most) and skidding down the hallway towards the main bathroom.

  Ten minutes later, I flush the toilet for about the twentieth time. And for about the twentieth time, my poo, which I swear is at least a foot long and made of cement, doesn’t budge.

  I’ve tried everything – breaking it up with the toilet brush, pouring in hot water from the sink, attempting to hide it with wads of toilet paper, pressing the flush button about a dozen times in quick succession – but nothing is working.

  Sweaty and exhausted, I sink down on to the floor, my back against the bathtub, and wait for the cistern to fill up again.

  When I emerge from the bathroom another ten minutes later, the balcony is empty.

  My blazer is draped over the back of one of the metal chairs.

  The bottle of champagne is gone.

  I return to the living room. The only people in here are Dawson and Kaitlyn, huddled at one end of the sofa having what looks like a proper deep and meaningful, their faces only inches apart. I cough loudly. They look up in wary unison.

  ‘You all right, mate?’ Dawson asks, clearly annoyed at the interruption.

  ‘Er, have either of you seen Velvet?’ I ask, trying my best to sound casual.

  ‘No, sorry,’ they say, their voices overlapping.

  ‘OK, thanks . . . Sorry to disturb you.’

  I wander into the kitchen, but that’s empty too, then stick my head in the bathroom I only recently vacated, relieved to discover it smells OK, before venturing down the corridor towards the bedrooms.

  I’m almost level with the door to the master bedroom when Sasha emerges from it, slamming it shut behind her, her face bright red.

  When she sees me, she visibly flinches.

  ‘You OK?’ I ask.

  ‘Yeah, fine,’ she says, unconvincingly, tugging at a clump of her hair as if willing it to grow.

  ‘Look, I don’t suppose you’ve seen Velvet?’

  She grimaces. ‘Um, you could say that.’

  I frown. What’s that supposed to mean?

  ‘She’s in there,’ she says, jerking her head at the door behind her.

  ‘Oh, OK,’ I say, reaching for the door handle.

  ‘With Hugo,’ she adds.

  I freeze. ‘With Hugo? As in with Hugo?’

  Sasha nods and pulls another face. ‘Gross, right?’

  ‘Right,’ I murmur, stumbling back a few steps so I’m leaning against the opposite wall, my hands splayed against the paintwork.

  ‘Wait,’ Sasha says, her face crumpling. ‘You don’t like Velvet . . . do you?’

  I hesitate before nodding miserably.

  ‘Shit,’ she says, covering her mouth with her hand. ‘Fuck, I’m so sorry, Joe. I never would have said anything if I knew.’

  ‘No, no, it’s fine,’ I say. ‘I mean, I would have figured it out sooner or later . . .’

  She lowers her hand and cocks her head to one side. ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’

  ‘Positive,’ I say, plastering on a smile not dissimilar to the one I did for Velvet when she took my photo.

  My phone buzzes – Ivy, I bet. I know she’ll say when I tell her all of this: I told you so.

  ‘I should probably get that,’ I tell Sasha, patting my pocket.

  ‘Oh, OK.’

  I turn on my heel and stride back towards the living room and out on to the balcony, where I pull out my phone, expecting to see Ivy’s name on the screen. Instead it’s filled with missed calls from home.

  Frowning, I dial the landline. Dad answers after just one ring.

  ‘Hello, it’s me,’ I say.

  ‘Joe. Where are you? We’ve been trying to get hold of you for hours.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m just at Ivy’s. My phone was on silent. Is everything OK?’

  He sighs.

  ‘What is it, Dad?’

  ‘We went to the hospital today.’

  ‘The hospital? What for?’

  ‘For your mum. The GP referred us.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’

  ‘We didn’t want to worry you. Not until we had a diagnosis.’

  ‘A diagnosis? What kind of diagnosis, Dad?’

  He chokes out a sob, which, considering the only time I’ve ever seen Dad cry was at his mum’s funeral earlier this year, is just about the most terrifying sound in the world.

  ‘What kind of diagnosis, Dad?’ I repeat, my heart hammering in my chest.

  ‘Al-zheim-er’s,’ he says in three jerky syllables.

  ‘But that’s something old people get,’ I
say. ‘Mum’s only sixty.’

  ‘It’s early-onset Alzheimer’s. People as young as in their forties can get it.’

  ‘But are they sure?’

  ‘They’re going to do some more tests, but yes, they’re pretty sure.’

  I think of the Post-it notes all over the house, the countless forgotten messages and appointments, the lost pairs of glasses and sets of keys, the way Mum gropes for words and gets irritable when we beat her to them.

  ‘Joe? You still there?’ Dad says.

  ‘Yeah, I’m here.’

  I’m not sure I am though. I feel like I’m floating, but not in a good way.

  ‘Look, we’ll talk about it properly tomorrow,’ Dad says. ‘You, me, Craig and your mum. OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘OK. Have a good night, son. Get home safe.’

  There’s a pause, then a click as he puts the phone down.

  I count to ten, then pick up the pink cool bag and hurl it over the side of the balcony.

  HUGO

  God, it’s been such a night of cock blocks.

  I mean, I don’t mind. There’s nothing I can’t hurdle, and it all makes for an even better story to tell the lads later. But still. I’m more pissed off than horny when I finally manage to get Velvet alone on the balcony.

  ‘Well, aren’t you just someone who improves a view?’ I say, stepping out into the cold air and putting my arm around her like it’s a totally normal thing to do. She stiffens initially, surprised by the contact, then softens. Like they always do. I’m handsome and I’m rich; I’m charming and I smell good. It’s boring, really, how easy it is. I’ve rather enjoyed tonight’s knobstacle course.

  ‘This flat is amazing,’ she gushes, unable to keep a cool edge on things. ‘I can’t believe you live here.’

  I shrug, like it’s nothing. To be perfectly honest with you, it is nothing. None of us really call this home, it’s just Mum’s weekly bolthole before she comes back to Putney.

  ‘Hang on,’ I say, staring at her intensely. ‘You’ve got an eyelash on your cheek.’

  Her hand moves to her face self-consciously.

  ‘It’s OK, I’ve got it.’ I reach out gently. ‘Close your eyes.’