Left of the Bang

‘Booty call?’ asked Big Mac.

Will passed the phone to Big Mac, who read the message, snickered, and passed it back.

Chris did a round-up, ticking off the names on his fingers. ‘So that’s me, Leah, Tamsin – Callum?’

Callum glanced at Tamsin uncertainly, then turned back to Chris. ‘Yeah, sure. Why not?’

‘My friends are waiting for me.’ Leah pushed her glass of water away, untouched. ‘You lot can come if you want, but I have to get going now.’

She sounded as if she were bored by all of them; and this, somehow, commanded a certain power. Everyone, even Will, hurried to finish their drinks.

Callum helped Tamsin into her fitted corduroy jacket. ‘Tam, you quite sure about this? Last time we went clubbing, remember, in Shunt? You said to remind you next time – about how much you hated it.’ He turned her round to face him. ‘So this is me reminding you.’

‘Stop being so patronising,’ Tamsin muttered, shrugging his hands away. She raised her voice. ‘I’m just going to the loo, okay? Meet you all outside in a sec.’

‘Ooh, wait for me, I’m coming too,’ called Suze, rushing to catch up with Tamsin as she picked her way through to the toilets. ‘It’s been such a nice evening, hasn’t it? It’s sooo good to see you all.’ Suze had a tendency to gush when she was nervous, which was almost always the case, especially around other women: she was very aware of her own physical inferiority. ‘And Chris, I mean, it’s just so amazing to have the opportunity to talk to someone like that. He’s just such an interesting guy, isn’t he?’

The spotlights in the bathroom were too bright. As the girls entered the two empty toilet stalls, the conversation broke off; they only knew each other slightly, and it seemed a little odd to carry on talking.

Tamsin’s skin was hot, flushed from four big glasses of wine. The toilet seat felt pleasantly cool against her thighs. She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and her hands clasped in front of her, waiting. In the other stall Suze’s long stream of piss chirruped and hissed, then shushed itself to a whisper. Rustle of toilet paper, louder rustle of the flush. Tamsin still couldn’t go. She pushed a fist into her bladder and tried to relax. Someone had written ‘I’ll be right back’ in black permanent marker on the toilet-roll dispenser and signed it ‘Godot’.

After a bit Tamsin gave up and joined Suze at the sinks.

‘God. Please tell me this is an unflattering mirror,’ Suze grimaced.

‘Yeah, it’s pretty bad,’ said Tamsin, distractedly. She was unhappy with her shirt; it looked frumpy, the fabric stretched awkwardly over her large chest. She undid a button. Now the neckline was just a little too low, exposing the black lace trim of her bra. Tamsin left it undone and reached up to re-do her ponytail. She knew she was behaving badly, but all her former resolve had vanished. Anyway, so what if she only wanted to go to the club because of Chris? That impulse wasn’t wrong in itself; it was only a crime if she acted on it. Which of course she wasn’t going to.

‘And I know I shouldn’t say this,’ Suze went on, as if they’d never stopped talking about Chris, ‘but isn’t he gorgeous?’

‘Mmmm,’ said Tamsin. ‘If you like that sort of thing.’

‘You mean Chinesey? But he’s so tall it doesn’t really count, does it?’ Suze rubbed at her eyebrows to clear them of foundation. ‘Do you reckon he and Leah will…?’

‘Probably. After all, that’s what Leah does best, isn’t it?’ Tamsin was shocked by the venom in her own voice. So that was it, she realised. She wanted to go to the club with Chris – but more than that, she didn’t want Chris and Leah going to the club without her. Tamsin pushed the thought all the way to its conclusion: she didn’t want Chris, but she didn’t want anyone else to have him, either. The unfairness of this was obvious. She felt ashamed, contrite.

‘I didn’t mean that, it came out a bit harsher than I meant it. I meant that she’s just so beautiful, any guy would be crazy not to want her.’

‘I know,’ Suze sighed. ‘She’s maybe the most beautiful person I’ve ever met. But you, you’re stunning too, Tamsin.’ Suze gave her reflection a rueful look and smiled, via the mirror, at Tamsin’s guilty face.

* * *

At Waterloo, Tamsin, Callum and Leah waited while Chris topped up his Oyster card. Callum turned his face to his shoulder to hide a yawn.

‘Actually, you know what, I think maybe I won’t come after all,’ Tamsin said suddenly.

Callum laughed. ‘I won’t say I told you so.’

‘Right, all set.’ Chris was back, brandishing his Oyster card.

‘Ah, Chris mate, change of plan,’ Callum explained. ‘Tam and me’re going to call it a night.’

‘Oh, right.’ Chris couldn’t hide his disappointment. ‘Maybe I should just come back with you guys, I won’t be able to get in—’

‘No, no, no problem, you can have Tam’s key. All right, Tam?’

Tamsin dug in her handbag for the key. ‘Here you go.’

Chris looked dubious. ‘I don’t know, I still think it’s simpler if I just come back now…’

‘Well, it’s up to you—’ Callum began.

‘No, Chris should go.’ Tamsin cut in with more force than she’d intended. ‘You go, go and have fun with Leah. Really.’ She gave Chris a significant look, vaguely imagining, in her tipsy state, that he understood the full import of her decision to go straight back to Callum’s.

‘If you’re really sure…’ Chris took the key, somewhat reluctantly, and passed through the barrier to join Leah.

Waiting on the Bakerloo line platform, Tamsin and Callum kissed like teenagers. Tamsin took Callum’s hand and pushed it up under her shirt, onto the skin of her stomach. Usually she disliked public displays of affection, but just now she was conscious of a need to test something, and was relieved when she felt her body responding to Callum’s touch.

‘Nice empty flat, no one to hear us,’ Callum crooned into her ear. ‘Though you do know … as soon as you’re ready to move in … Leah’ll go when I say, it could be just the two of us always—’

Tamsin pulled away. ‘We were having such a nice time,’ she said, preparing to mount the podium of their favourite argument; but she was interrupted by a shout from the other end of the platform.

‘Hey there! Tamsin, Callum!’

Bounding towards them with irregular, exhausted strides was a very red-faced Chris.

‘Changed my mind,’ he panted, raising his voice above the incoming train. ‘Whew. Didn’t think I’d catch you, I had to run all the way back up the escalators.’

‘You didn’t have to, we really didn’t mind you going,’ Tamsin told him as they shuffled onto the train.

‘I know, I just somehow didn’t feel like it any more,’ Chris said; and Tamsin experienced a guilty throb of triumph.

‘So what do you think of the American system?’ Callum said to Chris once the doors had closed, continuing an earlier conversation about the pros and cons of six-month deployments.

Tamsin let them talk. Too tired and tipsy to follow the arguments, she stared idly up at a poster informing her she was ‘living proof that posters get read’. She only zoned back into the conversation at Charing Cross, when Callum needed her to remember a name.

‘You know Tam, that little wine bar just above the station here – the one you took me to on our second date.’ He turned to Chris. ‘Sort of a cellar, very dark and atmospheric.’

‘Do you mean Gordon’s?’ Chris asked.

‘Gordon’s, that’s it! So you know it then. Isn’t it fantastic?’

‘Yes, a real gem,’ agreed Chris, with a quick wink at Tamsin. The secret about their long-ago meeting on the tube seemed like a private joke to him now.

Tamsin looked away, feeling sick; but once again, Chris failed to notice her discomfort. He saw only her beauty and her freshness, the satin sheen on her heavy eyelids, the simplicity of her plain white shirt (so much more appealing to him than Leah’s dressed-up look). She hadn’t noticed that one of her buttons had come undone; from his superior vantage point, Chris could see the scalloped edge of her bra. It was his turn to look away. With this girl, even a glimpse of her underwear made him feel guilty. He recalled her squeamishness during the conversation about wanking: it signalled a fundamental purity, the saint-like status she held for him. She and Callum formed the perfect couple, the bond between them inevitable, unshakeable.

Chris smiled fuzzily down at his new friends. ‘I don’t know what you guys are up to,’ he began, ‘but I’ve got a fortnight’s leave coming up, starting Tuesday. I’m with family for the second week, but next week – perhaps I could take you both out to dinner…?’

‘Sorry, we’re going on holiday,’ Tamsin said quickly.

‘Bad timing,’ agreed Callum. ‘Otherwise we’d have loved … And you know, we still haven’t had that chat about the army, I mean more formally, without assistance from Will.’

Chris and Callum both chuckled.

‘That’s a shame,’ said Chris. ‘I was really—’

‘You’re going to be in London all week – where are you staying?’ Callum interrupted him.

‘Well, Edwin has a house up in Islington, there’s a sofa there, or I might—’

‘No, listen, this is silly, my bed’s going to be empty all week – you might as well keep Tam’s key and use the flat as and when you want it.’

‘Seriously, you mean that?’ Chris stammered.

‘No problem at all,’ Callum smiled. ‘It’s good to have you around, Chris. You’re a great guy.’

Chris looked down at his feet. People often found this disconcerting in Callum: his ability to state personal affection quite candidly, without avoiding eye-contact or employing any self-protective irony. Tamsin thought it the most un-English thing about him, though she didn’t know that it was particularly Scottish, either. When they first met, she had been impressed by this directness; but lately, she had begun to find it embarrassing.

* * *

Back at the flat, Tamsin used the bathroom while Callum helped Chris with the sofa bed. Her first idea was to pretend to be asleep when Callum lay down beside her.

‘Tam?’ he said softly, then went on without waiting for a reply. ‘About earlier … I’m sorry.’

‘It’s not just that.’ Tamsin sat up in bed, unable, after all, to stay silent. ‘What about Chris?’

‘What about Chris?’

‘You’re suddenly so pally. We’ve only just met him.’

‘You knew him before, didn’t you?’ said Callum, reasonably.

‘What? What do you mean?’ Tamsin tripped on the possibility that somehow, Callum had found out the truth about her and Chris. Then she realised what he was referring to. ‘Oh, you mean from College. Well, I didn’t know him very well. You can’t just go offering your flat to people like that.’

‘Actually, I can. It being my flat,’ said Callum, injecting the last two words with uncharacteristic bitterness.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘What’s what supposed to mean?’

‘You know what.’

‘Well, only…’ Callum shrugged unhappily. ‘Only that – sometimes it seems as if you don’t actually want to live with me.’

‘Fuck that’s unfair. You know I do. You know it’s just a question of—’

‘—financial stability,’ Callum finished with her. He sounded very tired.

This was the reason Tamsin always gave: that she wanted to be able to pay her rent without accepting help from either Callum or her father.

‘You know I don’t mind if you can’t always make rent,’ Callum said now. ‘It just seems to me that it’s the perfect way for you to make the, the leap.’

‘Fuck,’ Tamsin said again. ‘I’ve heard this so many times, Cal. It’s like being stuck in a fucking feedback loop.’

‘Right.’

Callum shuffled onto his side so that he was facing away from her and reached down for a book. He took Our Man in Havana from the top of a precarious pagoda of half-read books and began to read. In this quietly devastating way, he brought the argument to a close.

Tamsin listened to three page turns before she began to cry. Callum put the book down and took her into his arms.

‘I’m sorry,’ she snuffled. ‘I’m so sorry. I know I’m being a bitch, I don’t know why … I think it’s just … my period’s on its way, that’s probably…’

‘Ssshhh, sshhh.’ Callum hooked his leg over her hip and drew her closer to him. ‘I love you.’

Six

Sophie Witrand was squashed into the back seat of the Fiat Bravo with her brother James and her sister Harriet. Her swollen chest jounced painfully over the potholes of the Cornish back roads. The Witrands were on their way to Penderick Manor, a dilapidated country house about a mile from Padstow where they holidayed every year.

‘Soph? So-oph.’ Six-year-old Harriet waved her chubby hand in front of Sophie’s blank face, just like she’d seen their mother do. ‘Soph, let’s say the car’s a chocolate factory. Here’s where the chocolate gets mixed.’ She reached down between her legs and mimed vigorous stirring. ‘And this is the pipe’ – she made two loose tunnels from her fingers and thumbs and sketched out a pipe leading up to the headrest in front of Sophie – ‘and here’s the tap where it comes running out. Mmmm, mmmm, it’s sooo good.’ Harriet turned on an imaginary tap and leaned forward to lap at the chocolate.

Sophie pulled down on her seatbelt, which was digging into the new hard bit underneath her left nipple, and wriggled away from her sister. ‘Mum, Harry won’t sit still. She’s being really annoying.’

‘Darling, she just wants to play with you.’

‘Harriet, quick, there’s a fire at the chocolate factory!’ James yelled, waving his hands to signify flames. ‘Nee-naw nee-naw nee-naw!’

‘Shut your gob, James,’ said Sophie.

‘Sophie!’ Mrs Witrand raised her voice. ‘I’ve told you before, I won’t have you using that unkind expression.’

Harriet started to cry; James’s flailing elbow had caught her on the side of her head.

‘Right!’ shouted Mr Witrand. ‘Sleeping Lions, the lot of you!’

For a moment, Sophie considered objecting to the childishness of this, but the idea of closing her eyes and disappearing from the chaos of siblings and parents was very appealing. She leaned her head against her seatbelt strap and tried to get comfortable.

Next thing she knew, she was being gently shaken awake by her father.

‘Sophie, Sophie, we’re here.’

He was squatting in the gravel driveway outside the West Wing, his face just level with hers. Francis Witrand was tall and lanky with prominent knees. He favoured brown deck shoes without socks, and Aertex polo shirts in navy blue and racing green. His perfectly round, tortoiseshell spectacles never came off, even when he was in the sea.

‘Well, I reckon you won that round,’ he smiled. ‘You didn’t even hear us taking the bags in, did you?’ He helped her gently to her feet. ‘James and Harriet are in the kitchen – I think they’re waiting for you.’

‘Why?’ Sophie was confused. Then she remembered. ‘Oh, that.’ Usually, Sophie led her siblings in an inventory of their favourite things: the big bed in the girls’ room, with the enormous scrolled footboard that made it feel like a ship; a chipped rocking horse with real horse hair in its tail; the old bread oven in the kitchen wall, where James had once hidden during their most epic game of hide-and-seek; the picnic tree, a hollow oak in the garden big enough for all three of them to fit inside.

‘Actually, I think I’d rather just go and unpack,’ Sophie told her father. ‘Tell the others they can do it without me this time.’ She scrunched across the gravel to the house, her puffy nipples chafing from the friction of her T-shirt. It felt hot between her legs, and a little bit itchy.

In the bedroom, she lay down on the big ship-bed and took out her mp3 player. Sophie’s parents disapproved of all pop music expect those bands with ‘real musical merit’, which amounted to Sting, Dory Previn and the Beatles. Sophie selected track 09 on The Best of the Beatles

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