He Said/She Said(53)

‘Pretty grim,’ she said, recrossing her legs. ‘But the thing that sticks in my mind now is how it was afterwards. They gave me a pair of tracksuit bottoms to go back in, but they kept all my clothes from the waist down and they didn’t have any knickers for me. They drove me back to the festival to get my stuff from the tent – I just took my clothes and left the tent where it was – but the whole time, I didn’t have any underwear on. I was so aware of it; I felt like everyone knew.’

She screwed up her face against the tears and I understood that, actually, I would lie a second time for her. They could try Jamie Balcombe again and again, and I would lie every time to get him put away.

We drank in silence for a while, and the uncomfortable silence that always follows premature intimacy wedged itself between us. The frost was broken only when I followed her gaze to the empty pool table.

‘I don’t suppose you play?’ she asked, in much the same way someone might ask whether you had a helicopter licence or the prime minister’s telephone number.

I grinned. ‘I’ll wipe the floor with you.’

Beth got change at the bar and stacked the twenty-pence pieces on the side, then flipped the topmost one.

‘Call it,’ she said, her hand over the coin.

I blew chalk dust off the cue. ‘Heads.’

‘It’s tails.’ Beth broke, scattering reds and yellows evenly across the baize. She was shorter than me, and took on one tiptoe shots I could make with both feet flat on the ground, and between shots she walked the perimeter of the table, viewing it from every angle.

‘Where are you living now?’ she said, like she was catching up with an old friend.

‘Clapham Common.’ I bounced a red off the bumper and into the far pocket. ‘Little top-floor flat.’

‘I had to move back in with my parents for a bit. Until I get used to being on my own again.’

‘And how’s that going?’ I loved my dad, but living in his house and reverting to his rules seemed intolerable.

‘I dunno, they mean well. But I didn’t have much choice. I had to stop working, so I can’t pay my own rent.’

Was there no area of her life he hadn’t ruined? ‘What did you do, before?’

‘I’ve never had a career, as such.’ I couldn’t work out whether her glance at my clothes was admiring or pitying. ‘After college I worked as an au pair all over Europe. Before Cornwall I was working in a bar, just while I was deciding what to do when I grew up,’ she smiled ruefully. ‘I tried to go back afterwards but I couldn’t hack it. Moving through the crowds like that. Bodies everywhere.’ She shrank in on herself. ‘You forget how much bigger they are. You don’t realise they’re built differently to us, how strong they are.’

I leaned the cue upright, ready to offer a hug. ‘Oh, Beth. I’m so sorry.’

‘Not your fault.’ Her shrug wasn’t fooling either of us, but she managed to gather herself. ‘So are you still with the same boyfriend from Cornwall?’

It felt safe to return to the table. ‘Kit, yup.’ The wine in the veins loosened the cue in my hand; my game seemed the better for it.

‘It’s serious, then?’

‘Technically,’ I closed one eye to line up my next shot, ‘he’s not my boyfriend, he’s my fiancé. Although I hate that word because it makes me think of some bimbo showing everyone her sparkler.’

‘Oh, no, Laura,’ said Beth, with such disappointment I wondered if she’d misheard me. ‘Don’t be snobbish or ashamed about love. It’s the thing, isn’t it? The thing in life.’ I handed her the cue and raised my eyebrows at her. ‘You probably wouldn’t think it to look at me because I’m not a typical girly girl, but I’ve always wanted that, since I was little. It’s not weak to want sex and companionship and to be a mum and all those things.’ She was right, I realised. I had always thought that the pleasure and comfort I took from my relationship with Kit was somehow . . . not cool. Beth bounced the cue off her palm distractedly. ‘I can’t ever imagine that happening now.’ Her easy confidence of seconds before had vanished. ‘He’s robbed me of all that. I feel like . . . a porcupine.’ She made her fingers into spikes, miming their growth all over her skin. ‘How’s any man ever going to get past all this?’

‘I really hope it’ll come.’ I sounded feeble at best, patronising at worst. Beth gave a grimace that turned into wide-eyed panic as the bell rang for last orders at the bar.

‘Oh, shitting hell,’ she said. ‘It’s never eleven o’clock? I’ve got about five minutes to get to Liverpool Street.’

‘Stay at ours.’ My offer was a reflex action, my only concern that Mac had not already commandeered the futon.

The noisy striplit Tube was too crowded for conversation, our carriage still standing room only by the time we got back to Clapham Common. I hated that station at the best of times; rather than two separate platforms, there’s one narrow runway straight up the middle, the trains running in deep gullies on either side. There’s no wall to lean back against for safety in the rush hour. Its menace only intensifies on the last train and Beth linked arms with me as if for protection as we walked the platform’s length.

The flat was dark save for the string of fairylights around the sitting-room bookshelf, Kit’s way of letting me know he’d gone to sleep. The bedroom door, as ever, was ajar; the wood had warped over the summers and no longer fitted its frame.