In a Good Light (29 page)

In the sitting room, which was no less seedy than the rest of the flat, Christian and (presumably) Wart were sitting cross-legged on the world's baldest carpet, playing cards. In the corner a paraffin heater was pumping out its nauseous perfume along with a welcome measure of warmth. The room's furnishings consisted of sofa, one hardbacked chair, a wicker armchair, hi-fi, tile-topped coffee table, and a few sickly pot plants. A collection of books and records sat on an arrangement of brick and plank shelving.

When he saw me Christian leapt up and gave me a kiss. Wart stayed put. ‘We're here,' Penny said superfluously.

They both stood awkwardly: two people in the middle of a quarrel that has lost its momentum but not yet been resolved. After what seemed, to an embarrassed observer like me, a long time, Christian put out one arm and Penny went to him for a hug. A truce.

‘Hello, Wart, what are you doing here?' said Penny, when they had disengaged.

‘Hello, Princess. Just being sociable. Aren't you going to introduce me?' He nodded in my direction. Even though he was on the floor I could see that he was tall, with big shoulders and arms, like a rugby player. He had a slight gut, which hung over the top of his jeans and rested against his shirt. His hair was short – aggressively so in my view. There was nothing attractive about him. And yet.

‘This is my little sister, Esther,' Christian obliged. ‘So just watch your filthy mouth when she's around.'

Wart held out a hand which turned out to be surprisingly soft when I reluctantly shook it. ‘Welcome to our humble abode,' he said, baring his teeth at me.

‘This isn't your humble abode,' Penny reminded him. ‘How are you getting back?'

‘I thought I'd just crash here on the sofa. I can't cycle home because I haven't got any lights on my bike.'

‘Well you can't,' said Penny. ‘We need the sofa tonight. We've got a visitor.'

‘Esther can have Lynn's room. She's gone home for the weekend,' said Christian.

‘That's settled then.' Wart beamed.

‘Hmph,' said Penny, outmanoeuvred.

Christian turned to me. ‘How are you anyway, Pest? Look, make yourself at home.'

I took my coat off and sat down with a jolt. What I had taken to be a sofa was in fact a park bench with a carpet thrown over it. Christian sat beside me. ‘What have you been doing since I last saw you?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Oh. Okay. How are Mum and Dad?'

‘Mum's going frantic looking after Grandpa. He keeps
escaping. Dad's doing loads of extra stuff at church because of the interregnum. He's been doing a lot of funerals.'

‘Nice,' said Christian.

‘I didn't know your dad was a vicar,' said Wart.

‘He's not. He's a chaplain at one of Her Majesty's prisons,' Christian replied. ‘You'll probably get to meet him in his professional capacity one day.'

‘Ha ha,' said Wart.

I suddenly remembered the tenner. ‘A present from Dad,' I said, handing it over. Christian took it from me and gave it a wistful look before passing it solemnly to Wart, who put it in his back pocket.

Penny raised her eyes to heaven. ‘I think I'll go to bed if that's all right,' she said. ‘Today is the one hundred and twentieth day of my cold, if anybody's interested.' No one was. ‘Shall I show you where you're sleeping, Esther?'

I was reluctant to leave the warmth of the sitting room for the more bracing climate of the bedrooms, but the heady fumes of the paraffin heater were making me feel queasy so I followed her out.

‘Goodnight,' called Christian.

‘Goodnight Bruv,' I replied. I don't know why. I never called him Bruv at home. I suppose I was trying to claim some rights of kinship in these alien surroundings.

In the enduring chaos of the kitchen, Penny made me a hot waterbottle, which she wrapped in a pillowcase. This maternal gesture gave me the courage to ask her to leave the bathroom light on overnight. I knew the darkness here would be absolute.

Lynn's bedroom, a wedge-shaped nook under the eaves, had an uncurtained skylight and a narrow bed, which let out twangs of protest whenever I made the minutest
adjustment to my position. Someone, presumably the landlord, had attempted to redecorate the room without bothering to move the furniture: the gloss on the skirting board stopped where the bed began.

I had lagged myself for sleep in pants, socks, pyjamas, sweatshirt, and Lynn's dressing gown, and burrowed down into Christian's Snowdon survivor's sleeping-bag, clutching the hot waterbottle to my chest like a life jacket. Through the wall I could hear the murmur of Martina's radio. I lay there for what seemed like hours, afraid to go to sleep in case someone switched the bathroom light off, gazing at the cold stars through the skylight, and thinking, If this is university, thank God I'm thick. In truth I felt a little homesick, though at home I only wanted to be with Christian. At some point I remember realising that apart from my face I was actually warm, and then it was morning, and Penny was standing over me with tea and toast.

‘I've said I won't go to America,' Penny said, as we crunched across the shingle on Sidmouth beach. It only struck me later that this didn't have quite the same force as, ‘I won't go to America'. Down on the red sand, beyond which a rusty sea boiled and churned, Christian and Wart, who had somehow managed to inveigle his way into the outing, were playing Frisbee. Every so often Christian would skim it in our direction, and Penny would deflect it with a gloved hand, sending it clattering across the stones.

‘So is everything back to normal with you and Christian?' I asked. There had certainly been no repeat of the strained atmosphere on my arrival.

‘I suppose so. We've kissed and made up, if that's what you mean.'

‘Good. I knew you would.' As if Christian had heard us, he came charging up the beach, floundering over the stones, and hoisted Penny over his shoulder in a fireman's lift. He went running back towards the water's edge, ignoring her shrieks, and pretended to throw her in, urged on by Wart, before depositing her back on the sand. She rejoined me, brushing herself down and removing and pocketing one of the brass buttons from her Cossack's coat, which had come loose in the affray. She didn't enjoy horseplay of any kind. It wasn't civilised.

‘I don't like Wart,' I said, when I'd allowed her a moment or two to convalesce. I had bumped into him coming out of the bathroom that morning. He was wearing nothing but a pair of briefs – a piece of wilful exhibitionism, given the temperature – and was, in my view, unnecessarily hairy.

‘He's an acquired taste,' said Penny. ‘He grows on you.'

‘Perhaps that's why he's called Wart.'

Penny tittered at this. ‘No, it's short for John Wharton-Smith. It just happens to suit.'

‘Christian seems to like him.' The two of them were still larking about on the sand, chucking the Frisbee nearer and nearer to the incoming waves. Presently, Christian executed a fiendish throw, which curved gently out to sea at shoulder height, just out of Wart's reach. He lunged for the catch, missed, and landed ankle deep in water, swearing lavishly.

‘Oh, Christian's so easy going, he likes everybody,' said Penny, as though this was a serious flaw. ‘Mind you, he owes Wart so much money, he has to be nice to him.'

This sort of information about Christian, so casually delivered, always made me uncomfortable. It was like yesterday's allusion to hangovers. There was so much I didn't know about him. I immediately began to worry. Why did
he borrow so much? In Mum and Dad's moral universe, poverty was a virtue, but debt was definitely a vice.

‘What does he spend it all on?' I wondered aloud.

‘Food, drink, me, going out,' said Penny, unaware of the anxiety she'd caused. ‘The pool table in the Union must account for a fair few quid.'

‘Mum and Dad will be horrified.'

‘Well, don't tell them. It's not their problem; it's his. He's a big boy now. He'll have to sort it out.'

In the afternoon Penny had a craving for something sweet, so she drove us to Newton Poppleford, where there was reputed to be a tea shop serving unlimited clotted cream. We sat at a table by the window and ate warm scones and home-made jam with our bottomless crock of cream. We drank Earl Grey out of bone china, like a vicarage tea party, and Penny and I laughed at the sight of Wart holding the dainty cup and saucer in his huge hands.

When it was time to leave I whipped out my purse to stop Christian paying, but Wart insisted it was his treat, and no one offered any resistance. He's not so bad after all, I thought, though I had to revise my opinion on the way home, when he fell asleep next to me in the back and kept keeling over onto my lap. When I had pushed him off for the third time I began to suspect him of shamming, so I gave him a sharp prod in the side, and he sat up, grunting and twitching in a pantomime of rude awakening. I glared at him to let him know I wasn't fooled, and he replied with a wink.

‘What's that smell?' Penny demanded, as we neared Plymtree. We all sniffed experimentally. She was right: there was a certain pungency in the air. It was soon traced to
Wart's wet socks and shoes, now beginning to steam in the heat of the car.

‘I'll drop you home shall I, Wart?' Penny offered.

‘It's a bit out of your way.'

‘That's no problem,' said Penny, taking the Exeter turning.

‘Only I've left my bike at your place,' Wart remembered. ‘I'd better come back with you and pick it up.'

Penny swung the car round without comment. I couldn't work out whether she liked or loathed him.

Of course when we arrived at the flat Wart made no move to depart, but trooped up the fire exit behind us. Once indoors, he took off his shoes and socks and balanced them on top of the paraffin heater, then settled down in the wicker armchair with a can of Guinness and was soon asleep.

It was left to the rest of us – me, Penny, Martina and Christian – to make the place presentable for the party planned for the evening. Even the rattle of grit going up the Hoover failed to rouse Wart from his slumbers. It was only when Christian, who was trying to shift furniture from the sitting room into the bedrooms, bellowed in his ear that he got up, complaining about his cold feet, and shambled off to the bathroom.

His popularity took a further dive an hour later when Penny discovered that he had hogged all the hot water. She and Martina, tired and filthy from their recent skirmish with the kitchen, were incoherent with rage. It was decided that they would drive all the way into Exeter and use the showers on campus rather than endure the torture of cold baths, so they collected towels and washbags and flounced out of the flat, taking me with them.

MY FIRST PARTY:
the event for which I had spent years memorising the complete lyrics of Kool and the Gang, rehearsing dance routines to the Top Forty in front of Dawn's mirror, and experimenting with the eyeshadow testers in Boots.

Now, as I stood in the stripped and cheerless sitting room, looking at the relief work of ripples in the carpet, and the patches of unpainted wall revealed by the furniture removals, waiting for it to begin, I suddenly started to doubt the relevance of my preparations.

Christian and Wart were tinkering with the amplifier, which was misbehaving; Penny was distributing bowls of peanuts and dishes of gold-tipped cocktail cigarettes in shades of turquoise and pink, while Martina chopped up carrots and celery for the dip – a salty concoction of tinned cream and onion soup powder. They had originally planned a more ambitious menu, but this had become a casualty of the protracted bathing arrangements.

The dress I had brought from home, I now saw, was all wrong. It was a red velvet shift, one of Penny's unworn castoffs, which made me look as shapely as a pillar box, and was far too dressy for the occasion. Both Penny and Martina were in jeans and knee-length chunky knits. Fortunately Penny came to my rescue and lent me a long black mohair sweater, which offered me some protection from hypothermia and ridicule.

Every so often the speakers would give a loud crackle and a burst of Bruce Springsteen would erupt into the flat, making the windows tremble in their frames. It was ten o' clock and there was no sign of any guests. I wandered into the kitchen to see if I could help. Martina was warming her hands at the hob: all four gas rings blazed blue. Through the glass of the back door I could see a few grey flakes beginning to fall.

‘Snow,' Penny groaned. ‘I hope that doesn't put people off.'

As she said this there was the clubbing of feet on the fire escape and half a dozen people erupted noisily through the door, followed by a flurry of snowflakes. They deposited plastic carrier bags of drink on the table before joining Martina at the hob to thaw out. With the confidence of an established group they seemed to take command of the place, and their smoke and shouted conversation soon filled the room. No one remarked on my presence.

‘This is Christian's little sister, Esther,' Penny announced to the backs of the closed circle. A few heads turned, politely, before their attention was claimed again by the kitchen door opening to admit fresh arrivals. For the first time it occurred to me that just being Christian's sister
wasn't the guarantee of social triumph that I'd always supposed.

From the sitting room came an explosion of music: the amplifier was fixed. Martina was handing out polystyrene cups, urging people to help themselves to drink. Apart from slimline tonic, an accompaniment to the bottle of vodka donated by Wart, there wasn't much provision for non-drinkers. I tried some white wine, which smelled like the chemistry lab at school, medicinal and sour, and some red wine, which was worse. It was a mystery to me how the sweet and inoffensive grape could have been responsible. To take the taste away I had some of Martina's onion dip: it was surprisingly nice, and reminded me that I hadn't eaten since Newton Poppleford. Mealtimes here tended not to be observed. Since my arrival I'd only had that bowl of treacle pudding in the pub, toast and marmalade, and a cream scone. Craving salt, I went into the sitting room, ate a handful of peanuts, and felt much better. Bruce Springsteen was roaring, pertinently, about hungry hearts. Beneath my feet the floor throbbed in time to the bass. I felt myself gripped by the heightened self-awareness that often comes from feeling lonely in a crowd. I used to get it in the playground at Underwood. It's a sensation of separateness that, if unchecked, develops into a complete defamiliarisation with your own body. My hands were strange, awkward appendages; my legs twitched as though I'd forgotten how to stand comfortably. I had realised that I wasn't going to enjoy myself at the simple, immediate level, but I'd hoped to derive some pleasure from the detached observation of an unenjoyable experience. This strategy wasn't working either.