Solitaire

This confirms my suspicion that Michael Holden is not the sort of person with whom I would like to be friends. Ever.

Charlie looks up at Nick. “He’s gay, isn’t he? I heard he’s gay.”

Nick shrugs. “Well, I heard that he figure skates, so it’s not entirely impossible.”

“Hm.” Charlie frowns. “I thought we knew all the Truham gays.”

They pause and both look at me.

“Look,” says Nick, gesturing sincerely to me with one hand, “Lucas Ryan’s a cool guy. But there’s something wrong with Michael Holden. I mean, it wouldn’t surprise me if he was behind that prank.”

The thing is, I don’t think that Nick is right. I don’t have any evidence to support this. I’m not even sure why I think this. Maybe it was something about the way Michael Holden spoke – like he believed everything he said. Maybe it was how sad he was when I showed him the empty Solitaire blog. Or maybe it was something else, something that doesn’t make sense, like the colours of his eyes, or his ridiculous side parting, or how he managed to get that Post-it note into my hand when I can’t even remember our skin touching. Maybe it’s just because he’s too wrong.

As I’m thinking this, Oliver enters the tractor and sits down in my lap. I pat him affectionately on the head and give him what’s left of my diet lemonade because Mum doesn’t let him drink it.

“I don’t know,” I say. “To be honest, I bet it was just some twat with a blog.”

FOUR

I’M LATE BECAUSE Mum thought I said eight. I said seven thirty. How can you confuse eight with seven thirty?

“Whose birthday is it?” she asks while we’re in the car.

“No one’s. We’re just meeting up.”

“Do you have enough money? I can sub you.”

“I’ve got fifteen pounds.”

“Will Becky be there?”

“Yep.”

“And Lauren and Evelyn?”

“Probably.”

When I speak to my parents, I don’t actually sound very grumpy. I’m usually quite cheerful-sounding when I talk. I’m good at that.

It’s Tuesday. Evelyn organised some ‘start of term’ thing at Pizza Express. I don’t really want to go, but I think it’s important to make the effort. Social convention and all.

I say hello to the people who notice my entrance and sit at the end of the table. I nearly die when I realise that Lucas is here. I know, already, that I’m going to find it difficult to think of things to say to him. I successfully avoided him for the rest of yesterday and all of today for this exact reason. Obviously, Evelyn, Lauren and Becky took the opportunity to make him the ‘boy’ of our group. Having a boy in your social group is the equivalent of having a house with a pool, or a designer shirt with the logo on it, or a Ferrari. It just makes you more important.

A waiter hurries over to me so I order a diet lemonade and stare down the long table. All the people are chatting and laughing and smiling and it sort of makes me feel a bit sad, like I’m watching them through a dirty window.

“Yeah, but most of the girls who move to Truham only move because they want to be around boys all the time.” Becky, seated next to me, is talking at Lucas who is seated across from us. “So many attention whores.”

“To be fair,” he says, “Truham girls are basically worshipped.”

Lucas catches my eye and smiles his awkward smile. He’s got this hilarious Hawaiian shirt on: the tight-fit kind with the collar done right up and the sleeves slightly rolled. He doesn’t look as embarrassed as yesterday – in fact, he looks fashionable. I didn’t think he would be that sort of guy. The sort of guy who wears Hawaiian shirts. A hipster sort of guy. I make the deduction that he definitely has a blog.

“Only because boys at all-boys’ schools are sexually deprived,” says Evelyn, who is next to Lucas, waving her arms around to emphasise her point. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Single-sex schools damage humanity. The number of girls in our school that are socially clueless because they haven’t spoken to any boys …”

“… It’s way out of control, man,” concludes Lauren, who is on the other side of Evelyn.

“I love the Truham girls’ uniform,” sighs Becky. “They all look so good in that tie.” She gestures abstractly to her neck. “Like, thin stripes look way nicer than thick stripes.”

“It’s not real life,” says Lucas, nodding earnestly. “In real life, there are boys and there are girls. Not just one or the other.”

“But that tie,” says Becky. “I mean, I can’t even.”

They all nod and then start talking about something else. I continue to do what I do best. Watch.

There’s a boy sitting next to Lauren, talking to the girls at the opposite end of the table. His name is Ben Hope. Ben Hope is the guy at Higgs. And, by the guy, I mean that one boy in the sixth form that every single girl in the entire school has a crush on. There’s always one. Tall and slim-built. Skinny trousers and tight shirts. He usually straightens his dark brown hair and, I swear to God, it defies gravity because it swishes in a kind of organised vortex, but, when he doesn’t straighten it, it’s all curly and he just looks so cute you want to die. He always appears to be serene. He skateboards.

I, personally, do not ‘fancy’ him. I’m just trying to express his perfection. I actually think that a lot of people are very beautiful, and maybe even more beautiful when they’re not aware of it themselves. In the end, though, being beautiful doesn’t do much for you as a person apart from raise your ego and give you an increased sense of vanity.

Ben Hope notices me staring. I need to control my staring.

Lucas is talking at me. I think that he’s trying to involve me in this conversation, which is kind of nice, but also irritating and unnecessary. “Tori, do you like Bruno Mars?”

“What?”

He hesitates, so Becky steps in. “Tori. Bruno Mars. Come on. He’s fabulous, right?”

“What?”

“The. Song. That. Is. Playing. Do. You. Like. It?”

I hadn’t even registered that music was playing in this restaurant. It’s ‘Grenade’ by Bruno Mars.

I quickly analyse the song.

“I think … it’s unlikely anyone would want to catch a grenade for anyone else. Or jump in front of a train for someone else. That’s very counter-productive.” Then, quieter, so no one hears: “If you wanted to do either of those things, it would be for yourself.”

Lauren smacks her hand on the table. “Exactly what I said.”

Becky laughs at me and says, “You just don’t like it because it’s Top 40.”

Evelyn steps up. Dissing anything mainstream is her personal area of expertise. “Chart music,” she says, “is filled with auto-tuned girls who only get famous because they wear tight shorts and bandeau tops, and rappers who can’t do anything except talk quickly.”

If I’m completely honest, I don’t even like music that much. I just like individual songs. I find one song that I really love and then I listen to it about twenty billion times until I hate it and have ruined it for myself. At the moment, it’s ‘Message in a Bottle’ by the Police, and by Sunday I will never want to listen to it again. I’m an idiot.

“If it’s so crap, then why does it make it into the charts?” asks Becky.

Evelyn runs a hand through her hair. “Because we live in a commercialised world where everyone buys music just because someone else has.”

It’s right after she finishes saying this that I realise silence has swept over our table. I turn round and experience minor heart failure.

Michael Holden has swooped into the restaurant.

I know immediately that he is coming for me. He’s grinning like a maniac, eyes locked on this end of the table. All heads turn as he pulls over a chair and makes himself comfortable at the head of the table between me and Lucas.

Everyone sort of stares, then murmurs, then shrugs and then gets on with eating, assuming that he must have been invited by someone else. Everyone except me, Becky, Lucas, Lauren and Evelyn.

“I need to tell you something,” he says to me, eyes on fire. “I absolutely need to tell you something.”

Lauren speaks up. “You go to our school!”

Michael actually holds out a hand for Lauren to shake. I find myself genuinely unable to tell whether he’s being sarcastic or not. “Michael Holden, Year 13. Nice to meet you …?”

“Lauren Romilly. Year 12.” Lauren, bemused, takes the hand and shakes it. “Er – nice to meet you too.”

“No offence,” says Evelyn, “but, like, why are you here?”

Michael stares at her intensely until she realises that she needs to introduce herself.

“I’m … Evelyn Foley?” she says.

Michael shrugs. “Are you? You sound uncertain.”

Evelyn does not like to be teased.

He winks at her. “I needed to talk to Tori.”

There is a long and grating silence before Becky says, “And … er … how do you know Tori?”

“Tori and I happened to meet in the midst of our Solitaire investigations.”

Her head tilts to one side. She looks at me. “You’ve been investigating?”

“Erm, no,” I say.

“Then …?”

“I just followed this trail of Post-it notes.”

“What?”

“I followed a trail of Post-it notes. They led to the Solitaire blog.”

“Ah … that’s cool …”

I love Becky, but sometimes she acts like such a bimbo. It really pisses me off because she got into grammar school for Christ’s sake. She got ten A grades at GCSE.

Meanwhile, Michael is helping himself to our leftover starters. With his free hand, he points ambiguously towards Becky. “Are you Becky Allen?”

Becky slowly turns to Michael. “Are you psychic?”

“Just a fairly capable Facebook stalker. You’re all lucky I’m not a serial killer.” His finger, still flexed, gravitates towards Lucas. “And Lucas Ryan. We’ve met already.” He smiles at him so forcefully that it comes across as patronising. “I should thank you. You’re the one who led me to this girl.”

Lucas nods.

“I like your shirt,” says Michael, eyes glazing slightly.

“Thanks,” says Lucas, definitely not meaning it.

I start to wonder whether Lucas knew Michael at Truham. Judging by Nick and Charlie’s reaction, he probably did. Maybe he doesn’t really want to associate with Michael Holden. It’s almost making me feel sorry for Michael Holden. For the second time.

Michael looks past Becky. “And what’s your name?”

For a moment, I don’t quite realise who he’s talking to. Then I see Rita. She pokes her head round from Becky’s other side.

“Er, Rita. Rita Sengupta.” She laughs. I’m not sure why she laughs, but she does anyway. Rita is probably the only other girl with whom I am civil, besides Becky and Lauren and Evelyn. She hangs around with Lauren, but you tend not to notice her. She’s the only girl I know who can pull off a pixie crop.

Michael lights up like it’s Christmas morning. “Rita! That is a fantastic name. Lovely Rita!”

By the time I realise that he’s referring to the Beatles’ song, the conversation has already moved on. It’s surprising I even recognise it. I hate the Beatles.

“So, you and Tori just … met? And started talking?” asks Becky. “That seems sort of unlikely.”

It’s funny because it’s true.

“Yes,” says Michael. “Unlikely, yes. But that is what happened.”

Once again, he looks into my face, casually blanking the entire group. I cannot articulate how uncomfortable I feel right now. This is worse than drama GCSE.

“Anyway, Tori, there’s something I want to tell you.”

I blink, sitting on my hands.

Lauren and Becky and Evelyn and Lucas and Rita are listening intently. Michael glances at each face over his large glasses.

“But … I, erm, can’t remember what it was.”

Lucas sneers. “You tracked her all the way down to this restaurant to tell her something and now you can’t even remember what it is?”

This time Michael picks up on Lucas’s tone. “Excuse me for having a memory like a sieve. I feel I deserve credit for making the effort to come here.”

“Why couldn’t you just send her a message on Facebook?”

“Facebook is for trivialities such as what takeaways people are having and how many ‘lols’ they had the night before with their ‘gals’.”

Lucas shakes his head. “I just don’t get why you’d actually come down here and then forget. You wouldn’t forget if it was something important.”

“On the contrary, you’d probably be more likely to forget the most important things of all.”

Becky interjects: “So are you and Tori friends now?”

Michael continues to contemplate Lucas before addressing Becky. “That is a fantastic question.” Then he faces me. “What do you think? Are we friends now?”

I genuinely can’t think of an answer, because the answer, in my opinion, is definitely not yes, but it’s definitely not no either.

“How can we be friends if you don’t know anything about me?” I say.

He taps his chin thoughtfully. “Let’s see. I know that your name is Victoria Spring. You’re in Year 12. Your Facebook indicates that you were born on April 5th. You are an introvert with a pessimist complex. You’re wearing pretty plain clothes – jumper, jeans – you don’t like embellishments and fuss. You don’t care about dressing up for people. You’ll have ordered a margherita pizza – you’re a picky eater. You rarely update your Facebook – you don’t care for social activities. But you followed the Post-it trail yesterday, just like I did. You’re curious.” He leans in. “You like to act as if you care about nothing and if you carry on like that then you’re going to drown in the abyss you have imagined for yourself.”

He stops. His smile vanishes, leaving only its ghost.

“Jesus, mate, you are a stalker!” Lauren attempts a laugh, but no one else joins in.

“No,” Michael says. “I just pay attention.”

“It’s like you’re in love with her or something,” says Evelyn.

Michael smiles a knowing smile. “I suppose it is a bit like that.”

“You’re gay though, aren’t you?” says Lauren, forever unafraid to say what other people are thinking. “Like, I heard that you’re gay.”

“Oooh, you’ve heard about me?” He leans in. “Intriguing.”

“Are you though?” asks Lucas, trying unsuccessfully to sound casual.

Michael waves a hand about. “Some people say that.” Then he grins and points a finger at him. “You never know, it might be you I’m in love with.”

Lucas immediately colours.

“You’re gay!” squeaks Becky. “Tori has a gay best friend! I. Am. Jealous.”

Sometimes I’m embarrassed to be friends with Becky.

“I need to pee,” I say, even though I don’t, and I leave the table and find myself in the restaurant bathroom staring at myself in the mirror while P!nk is telling me to “raise my glass”. I stay there for too long. Older ladies shoot me discerning looks as they waddle in and out of cubicles. I don’t know what I’m doing really. I just keep thinking about what Michael said. Drowning in my abyss. I don’t know. Why does that matter? Why does that bother me?

Jesus Christ, why did I bother coming out tonight?

I continue to stare at myself in this mirror and I imagine a voice reminding me to be funny and chatty and happy, like normal people. As the voice reminds me, I start to feel a bit more positive about stuff, even though any residual enthusiasm for seeing Lucas again has drained away. I think it’s because of that Hawaiian shirt. I go back into the restaurant.

FIVE

“THAT WAS ONE hell of a pee,” says Michael as I sit down. He’s still here. Part of me was hoping he wouldn’t be.

“You sound impressed,” I say.

“I am actually.”

Becky, Evelyn and Lauren are now talking across the table to some other girls from our year who I don’t really know. Lucas smiles briefly at me. Rita’s laughing and smiling, mainly at Lauren. They’re discussing a girl we used to know who moved to Truham for sixth form because she said that she “preferred boys to girls” and now she’s organising parties where everyone takes acid and rolls around on the floor.

“So you’re gay?” I ask.

He blinks. “Wow. This is quite a big deal to you guys.”

It’s not a big deal. I don’t really care at all.

“Do you find boys attractive?” I ask, with a shrug. “Or girls? That’s one way to check. If you’re not sure.”

He raises his eyebrows. “You think I’m not sure?”

I shrug again. I don’t care. I do not care.

“Everyone’s attractive, to be honest,” he continues. “Even if it’s just something small, like some people have really beautiful hands. I don’t know. I’m a little bit in love with everyone I meet, but I think that’s normal.”

“So you’re bisexual.”

He smiles and leans forward. “You love all these words, don’t you? Gay, bisexual, attractive, unattractive—”

“No,” I interrupt. “No, I hate them.”

“Then why label people?”

I tilt my head. “Because that’s life. Without organisation, we descend into chaos.”

Staring amusedly, he stretches back again into the chair. I can’t believe I just used the word ‘descend’.

“Well, if you care so much, what are you?” he asks.

“What?”

“What are you? Gay, straight, all-around horny, what?”

“Er, straight?”

“And are you sure that you’re straight? Have you liked a boy before?”

I actually haven’t. Ever. This is because I have a very low opinion of most people.

I look down. “All right then. I’ll let you know if I fall in love with a girl any time soon.”

Michael’s eyes twinkle, but he doesn’t comment. I hope I haven’t come across as a homophobe.

“Are you going to remember what you came to tell me?” I ask.

He strokes his sharply parted hair. “Maybe. Maybe tomorrow. We’ll see.”

Soon after that everyone declares that they’re leaving. I accidentally spent £16, so Lucas insists on giving me the extra pound, which I guess is pretty nice of him. Once we’re all standing outside the restaurant, he starts chatting earnestly with Evelyn. Most of the people here are heading to Lauren’s house for a big sleepover thing or whatever. They’re all going to get drunk and stuff even though it’s a Tuesday. Becky explains that she didn’t invite me because she knew that I definitely wouldn’t want to come (it’s funny because it’s true), and Ben Hope overhears her and gives me this kind of pitying look. Becky smiles at him, the pair momentarily united in feeling sorry for me. I decide that I’m going to walk home. Michael decides that he’s coming with me and I don’t really know how to stop him so I guess this is happening.

We have been moving in silence through the high street. It’s all Victorian and brown and the cobblestone road is sort of curved like we’re in the bottom of a trench. A man in a suit hurries past, and he’s asking someone on the phone, “Do you feel anything yet?”

I ask Michael why he’s walking home with me.

“Because I live this way. The world does not revolve around you, Victoria Spring.” He’s being sarcastic, but I still feel kind of put out.

“Victoria.” I shudder.

“Huh?”

“Please don’t call me Victoria.”

“Why’s that?”

“It makes me think of Queen Victoria. The one who wore black all her life because her husband died. And ‘Victoria Spring’ sounds like a brand of bottled water.”

Wind is picking up around us.

“I don’t like my name either,” he says.

I instantly think of all the people I dislike named Michael. Michael Bublé, Michael McIntyre, Michael Jackson.

“Michael means ‘who resembles God’,” he says, “and I think that if God could choose to resemble any human being …”

He stops then, right in the street, looking at me, just looking, through the pane of his glasses, through the blue and green, through depths and expanses, bleeding one billion incomprehensible thoughts.

“… he wouldn’t choose me.”

We continue to walk.

Imagine if I had been given some Biblical name like Abigail or Charity or, I don’t know, Eve, for God’s sake. I’m very critical of religion and it probably means that I’m going to hell, if it even exists, which, let’s be honest, it probably doesn’t. That doesn’t bother me very much because whatever happens in hell can’t be much worse than what happens here.

“Well,” I say, “I support the Labour Party, but people call me Tori. Like the Tories. If that makes you feel any better.”

He doesn’t say anything, but I’m too busy looking at the pale brown cobblestones to see if he’s looking at me. After a few moments: “You support the Labour Party?”

I realise then that I’m freezing. I’d forgotten it was the middle of winter and raining and all I’ve got is this shirt and jumper and thin jeans. I regret not calling Mum, but I hate bothering her because she always does this sighing thing where she’s all like “no, no, it’s perfectly fine, I’m not bothered”, but I can tell that she is most definitely bothered.

Silence and a faint smell of Indian takeaway continue all the way up the high street and then we take a right on to the main town road where the three-storey houses are. My house is one of these. Two girls walk past in gargantuan heels and dresses so tight that their skin is spilling out, and one of them says to the other, “Wait, who the fuck is Lewis Carroll?” and in my imagination I pull a gun out of my pocket, shoot them both and then shoot myself.

I stop when I get to my house. It’s darker than the others because the lamp post closest to it is not working.

“This is where I live,” I say and start to walk off.

“Wait, wait, wait,” he says. I turn back round. “Can I ask you something?”

I cannot resist a sarcastic comment. “You just did, but please continue.”

“Can we really not be friends?”

He sounds like an eight-year-old girl trying to win back her best friend after she accidentally insulted her new school shoes and got herself disinvited from her birthday party.

He’s wearing only a T-shirt and jeans too.

“How are you not freezing?” I say.

“Please, Tori. Why don’t you want to be friends with me?” It’s like he’s desperate.

“Why do you want to be friends with me?” I shake my head. “We’re not in the same year. We’re not similar in any way whatsoever. I literally do not understand why you even care about—” I stop then, because I was about to say “me”, but I realised midway through that that would be a truly horrific sentence.

He looks down. “I don’t think that … I understand … either …”

I’m just standing there, staring.

“You know, it’s said that extreme communism and extreme capitalism are actually very similar,” he says.

“Are you high?” I say.

He shakes his head and laughs. “I remember what I was going to tell you, you know,” he says.

“You do?”

“I remembered it the whole time. I just didn’t want everyone to hear it because it’s not their business.”

“Then why did you come and find me at a busy restaurant? Why not just find me at school?”

For a second, he genuinely seems to be offended. “Don’t you think I’ve tried?” He laughs. “You’re like a ghost!”

It takes a lot of willpower not to just turn round and leave.

“I just wanted to tell you that I’d seen you before.”

Jesus Christ. He already told me that.

“You told me that yesterd—”

“No, not at Higgs. I saw you when you came to look round Truham. Last year. It was me who took you round the school.”

The revelation blossoms. I remember exactly now. Michael Holden had shown me attentively round Truham when I was deciding whether to go there for sixth form. He’d asked me what A levels I wanted to do, and whether I liked Higgs very much, and whether I had any hobbies, and whether I cared much about sports. In fact, everything he’d said had been utterly unremarkable.