In A Dark, Dark Wood Part 7

'Business, but point taken.' He refilled and looked around the circle. 'What, seriously? Am I drinking alone?'

'What?' Melanie looked up from her phone. 'Sorry, I had half a bar of reception then so I thought I'd try Bill, but it's gone. Was it Truth or Dare?'

'Neither, we've moved on,' Tom said. His voice was slurred. He had certainly done a lot of weird s.h.i.t in his time, and he was paying the price in this game. 'We're playing I Have Never. And I have joined the mile-high club.'

'Oh, sorry.' Melanie downed her shot absently and wiped her mouth. 'There. Listen, Flo, could I use the landline again?'

'No, no, no, no!' Clare said, wagging her finger. 'You don't get off as easily as that.'

'Certainly not!' Flo said indignantly. 'How and where, please, Mrs?'

'On honeymoon with Bill. It was a night flight. I gave him a blowie in the loos. Does that count? I've drunk now anyway.'

'Well technically he's joined the mile-high club, not you, in that case,' Tom said. He gave a slightly slow, leering wink. 'But since you drank, we'll count it. Onwards! Right. My turn. I have never ... f.u.c.k, what have I never done? Oh I know, I've never tried water sports.'

There was a burst of laughter, and no one drank and Tom groaned.

'What seriously?'

'Water sports?' Flo said uncertainly. Her gla.s.s was halfway in the air, but she looked around the circle, trying to work out what was funny. 'What, like scuba diving and stuff? I've done sailing, does that count?'

'No, sweetie,' Clare said, and she bent over and whispered in Flo's ear. As she did, Flo's expression changed to one of shock and then disgusted amus.e.m.e.nt.

'No way! How revolting!'

'Come on,' Tom said pleadingly. 'Fess up for Uncle Tom, we're all girls here, there's nothing to be ashamed of.' There was another silence, and Clare laughed.

'Sorry, that's what you get for coming away with squares like us. Come on, take it like a man.'

Tom downed his shot, refilled and then lay back on the sofa, his hand over his eyes. 'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, I'm paying for a mis-spent youth now. The room's spinning.'

'Your turn, Lee,' Clare said from the sofa. Her face was flushed, and her golden hair straggled across her shoulders. 'Spill.'

My stomach turned. This was the moment I'd been dreading. I'd spent the last round trying to grope my way past the fog of tequila and Champagne and rum and think what to say, but every memory seemed to bring me back to James. I thought of all the things I'd never done, never said. I shut my eyes and the room seemed to lurch and shift.

It was one thing to play this game with a roomful of friends, who already knew pretty much everything there was to say, but not this uneasy mix of strangers and old acquaintances. I have never ... oh G.o.d, what could I say?

I never found out why he did it.

I never forgave him.

I never got over him.

'Lee ...' Clare said in a sing-song voice. 'Come on now, don't make me embarra.s.s you in the next round.'

There was a vile taste of tequila and c.o.ke at the back of my mouth. I couldn't afford to drink again. If I did I'd be sick.

I never really knew him at all.

How could he be marrying Clare?

'I have never had a tattoo,' I blurted out. I knew I was on safe ground with that, Tom had already admitted to having one.

'c.r.a.p ...' he groaned and downed his shot.

Flo laughed, 'Come on! You don't get off that easily. Show and tell, please.'

Tom sighed and unb.u.t.toned his shirt, revealing an expanse of tanned, toned chest. He slid the sleeve down one shoulder and turned to show us. It was a heart, pierced with an arrow and crossed with the flowing letters 'Not so Dumb' in italic script. 'There.' He began b.u.t.toning up his shirt. 'Now come on you others, I can't be the only one.'

Nina said nothing, but simply pulled up the ankle of her jeans, showing a small bird of some kind on the tendon running up from her ankle.

'What is it?' Flo peered closer. 'Blackbird?'

'It's a falcon,' Nina said. She did not elaborate but simply pulled her jeans back and downed her shot. 'How about you then?'

Flo shook her head. 'Too much of a scaredy-cat! Clare does though!'

Clare grinned and heaved herself up off the sofa. She turned her back to us and pulled up her silver top. It shimmered like a fish skin. Twining up from the back of her jeans were two black Celtic designs, curving out towards her slim waist.

'a.r.s.e antlers!' Nina gave a snort.

'Youthful folly,' Clare said, a touch ruefully. 'Drunken trip to Brighton when I was twenty-two.'

'They're going to look delightful when you're an old lady,' Nina said. 'At least they'll provide a homing path for the young man slated to wipe your a.r.s.e in the nursing home.'

'It'll give him something to look at, poor sod.' Clare pulled down her top, laughing, and flung herself back on the sofa. She drained her shot. 'Mels?' she called out.

But Melanie had dragged the phone out into the hall; only the trailing wire and the sound of her low, urgent voice gave away her location. '... And he took the bottle?' we heard from the hallway. 'How many ounces?'

'Screw that,' Nina said decisively. 'Man overboard. Right. I have never ... I have never ... I have never ...' She looked from me to Clare, and there was suddenly a very wicked expression on her face. My stomach flipped. Nina, drunk, is not always a nice person to be around. 'I have never f.u.c.ked James Cooper.'

There was an uncertain laugh round the room. Clare shrugged and drank.

Then her cornflower blue eyes, and Nina's coffee brown ones turned on me. There was an absolute silence, broken only by Florence and the Machine telling us that her boy built coffins.

'f.u.c.k you, Nina.' My hand was trembling as I tossed back the drink. Then I got up and walked out into the hallway, my cheeks burning, and suddenly feeling very, very drunk.

'You can always give him half a banana for breakfast,' Melanie was saying. 'But if you give him grapes, cut them in half first or use that mesh thing.'

I pushed past her up the stairs, Flo's bemused, 'What? What happened?' following me as I fled.

On the landing I burst into the bathroom and locked the door behind me. Then I knelt in front of the toilet retching and retching until there was nothing left to throw up.

Oh Christ, I was drunk. Drunk enough to go downstairs and smack Nina for the s.h.i.t-stirring b.i.t.c.h she was. OK, she didn't know the full picture about me and James. But she knew enough to realise that she was putting me in a horrible position and Clare.

For a minute I hated them all: Nina for goading me with her horrible needling questions, Flo and Tom for gawping as I drank, Clare for forcing me to come. And most of all I hated James for asking Clare to marry him, for starting this whole chain off. I even hated poor, blameless, oblivious Melanie just for being here.

My stomach heaved again, but there was nothing left apart from a vile taste of tequila in my mouth as I stood and spat into the toilet bowl. Then I flushed, and went to the mirror to rinse out my mouth and splash water on my face. I was white, with a blotchy, hectic flush on my cheekbones and my mascara was smudged.

'Lee?' There was a knock at the door. I recognised Clare's voice and put my face in my hands.

'I n-need a minute.' Ugh, I was stammering. I hadn't stammered since I left school. Somehow I had shed it, along with the sad, awkward personality of Lee the moment I stepped out of Reading. Nora had never stammered. I was slipping back into Lee.

'Lee, I'm sorry. Nina shouldn't have-'

Oh f.u.c.k off, I thought. Please. Just leave me alone.

There was the sound of low voices outside the door, and I tried, with shaking fingers, to fix my mascara using toilet paper.

G.o.d this was pathetic. It was like being back at school b.i.t.c.h fights and sniping and everything. I had sworn never to go back. This had been a mistake. A dreadful, dreadful mistake.

'I'm sorry, Nora.' It was Nina's voice, slurred with alcohol but tinged with real concern at least it sounded so. 'I didn't think ... please, come out.'

'I need to go to bed,' I said. There was a catch in my throat, hoa.r.s.eness from throwing up.

'Le ... Nora, please,' Clare begged. 'Come on, I'm sorry. Nina's sorry.'

I took a deep breath and slid back the lock.

They were standing outside, their expressions hangdog in the bright light from the bathroom.

'Please, Lee,' Clare took my hand. 'Come back down.'

'It's fine,' I said. 'Honestly. But I really am tired, I was up at five to catch the train.'

'All right ...' Clare let go of my hand reluctantly. 'As long as you're not going off in a snit.'

I felt my teeth grit in spite of myself. Be calm. Don't make this all about you.

'No, I'm not g-going off in a "snit",' I said, trying to keep my voice light. 'I'm just tired. Now, I'm going to brush my teeth. See you in the morning.'

I elbowed past them to the bedroom to get my washbag, and when I came back they were still there, Nina tapping her foot on the parquet.

'So you really mean it?' she said. 'You're bailing out? Christ, Lee, it was just a joke. If anyone's got a right to be offended it's Clare, and she's taking it OK. Have you lost your sense of humour since school?'

For a second I thought of all the replies I could make. It wasn't a joke. She knew full well what that question meant to me, and she'd deliberately brought James up in the one place and at the one time I couldn't dodge it, or smooth it over.

But what was the point? Like an idiot I'd taken the bait, exploded on cue. It was done.

'I'm not bailing out,' I said wearily. 'It's gone midnight. I've been up since five. Please, I really just want some sleep.'

I realised, even as I said the words, that I was pleading, offering up excuses, trying to absolve myself of guilt for leaving the party. Somehow the realisation stiffened my nerve. We weren't sixteen any more. We didn't have to hang around like there was an invisible umbilical cord tethering us together. We'd gone our separate ways and all survived. Me getting some sleep wasn't going to ruin Clare's hen for ever, and I didn't have to justify the decision like a prisoner in the Star Chamber.

'I'm going to bed,' I repeated.

There was a pause. Clare and Nina looked at each other, and then Clare said, 'OK.'

For some irrational reason that single word annoyed me more than anything else I knew she was only agreeing, but the word had a ring of 'permission granted' that made my skin crawl. I am not yours to boss around any more.

'Night,' I said shortly, and pushed past them into the bathroom. Over the running water and the toothbrush's rasp I could hear them whispering outside, and I deliberately stayed in there, wiping off my mascara with unaccustomed care, until their voices disappeared and I heard their footsteps on the parquet trailing away.

I let out a breath, releasing tension I hadn't even known I was holding, and felt the muscles in my neck and shoulder unclench.

Why? Why did they still have this power over me, Clare in particular? Why did I let them?

I sighed, shoved the toothbrush and toothpaste back into my washbag, pushed open the door and padded up the hallway to the bedroom. It was cool and quiet, quite different from the overheated, over-populated living room. I could hear Jarvis c.o.c.ker in the background, his voice floating up the open hallway, but the sound muted to just a m.u.f.fled ba.s.sline when I shut the bedroom door and flopped down on the bed. The relief was indescribable. If I shut my eyes I could almost imagine myself back in my little flat in Hackney; only the sound of traffic and honking horns outside was missing.

I wished myself back there, so powerfully that I could almost feel the worn softness of my flowered duvet cover beneath my palm, see the rattan blind that flapped softly at the window on summer nights.

But then there was a knock at the door, and when I opened my eyes, the blank blackness of the forest reflected back at me from the gla.s.s wall. I sighed, gearing myself up to answer it, and then the knock came again.

'Lee?'

I got up and opened the door. It was Flo standing outside, her hands on her hips.

'Lee! I can't believe you're doing this to Clare!'

'What?' I felt immensely tired all of a sudden. 'Doing what? Going to bed?'

'I've gone to loads of effort to make this a perfect weekend for Clare I'll kill you if you ruin it on the very first night!'

'I'm not ruining anything, Flo. You're the one making this into a big deal, not me. I just want to go to bed. All right?'

'No, it's not all right. I won't have you sabotaging everything I've worked for!'

'I just want to go to bed,' I repeated, like a mantra.

'Well, I think you're being a ... a selfish b.i.t.c.h,' Flo burst out. Her face was red, and she looked as if she was on the verge of tears. 'Clare's ... Clare's the best, OK? And she deserves ... she deserves-' Her chin wobbled.

'Yeah, whatever,' I said, and before I could think better of it, I shut the door in her face.

For a minute I heard her outside, breathing heavily, and I thought, if she sobs, I'm going to have to go out there and apologise. I can't sit here and listen to her breaking down outside my door.

But she didn't. By some huge effort, she got herself together, and went downstairs, leaving me very close to crying myself.

I don't know when Nina came up, but it was late, very late. I wasn't asleep, but I was pretending to be, huddled under the duvet with my pillow over my head, as she padded heavily around the room, knocking over tubes of lotion and kicking her suitcase.

'Are you awake?' she whispered as she slid into the twin bed next to mine.

I considered ignoring her, but then I sighed and turned over. 'No. Probably because you've knocked over every bottle in the place.'

'Sorry.' She huddled down under the sheets, and I saw the glint of her eye as she yawned and blinked tiredly. 'Look, I'm sorry about earlier. I honestly didn't ...'

'It's all right,' I said wearily. 'I'm sorry too. I overreacted. I was just tired, and drunk.' I'd already made up my mind to apologise to Flo in the morning. Whoever was at fault here, it certainly wasn't her.

'No, it was me,' Nina said. She flung onto her back and put her hand over her eyes. 'I was being my usual s.h.i.t-stirring self. But, you know, it's been ten years. I think I could be forgiven for a.s.suming ...' She trailed off. But I knew what she meant. You could be forgiven for thinking a normal person would have got over whatever happened, moved on.

'I know,' I said wearily. 'D'you think I don't? It's pathetic.'