The Guest List(33)

‘I was on my phone,’ I say, ‘and I could see that Callum was with Ellie. She’d shared all these pics on Snapchat. There was one of her sitting on his lap. And then another one of her kissing him, while she held one middle finger up to the camera like she didn’t want anyone to take the picture … except then she went and shared it for the whole world to see, for fuck’s sake.’

Hannah takes a drink from the bottle, breathes out. ‘That must have made you feel pretty awful,’ she says. ‘Seeing that. Jeez, social media has a lot to answer for.’

‘Yeah.’ I shrug. ‘It did make me feel a bit … shit.’ In case I sound like a total stalker I don’t tell her how many times I looked at those photos, how I sat there clutching my Sainsbury’s bag and crying while I did it. ‘My mates had been saying I should have some fun,’ I say. ‘You know, like show Callum what he was missing. They kept telling me to get myself on some dating apps, but I didn’t want to do it at uni, where it was all so incestuous.’

‘What, apps like Tinder?’

I think she’s trying to show she’s down with the kids. ‘Yeah, but no one really uses Tinder any more.’

‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I’m ancient, remember. What do I know?’ She says it a bit wistfully.

‘You’re not that old,’ I tell her.

‘Well … thanks.’ Her knee bumps against mine.

I take another swig of vodka. And remember how that night in Jules’s flat I drank some of her wine, which made me realise how all the stuff we drank at uni for ￡3 a glass in the local bars tasted like absolute piss. I remember how I felt quite sophisticated walking around in my pants and bra with one of her big glasses. I imagined it was my flat, that I was going to go out and find some man and bring him back here and screw him. And that would show Callum.

Obviously I didn’t actually plan to do that. I’d only had sex with one person before, with Callum. And even that had been pretty tame.

‘I set up a profile,’ I tell Hannah. ‘I decided in London it was different. In London I could go on a date and it wouldn’t be all over the whole of campus the next morning.’

‘I’m kind of impressed,’ Hannah says. ‘I’d never have been brave enough to do something like that. But weren’t you, you know … worried about safety?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘I’m not an idiot. I didn’t use my real name. Or my age.’

‘Ah,’ Hannah nods. ‘Right.’ I get the impression she’s not convinced by that and is trying very hard not to say anything else.

I put my age as twenty-six, in fact. The profile photo I put up didn’t even look like me. I ransacked Jules’s closet, did my make-up perfectly. But it was kind of the point not to look like me.

‘I called myself Bella,’ I say. ‘You know, as in Hadid?’

I tell Hannah how I sat there on the bed and scrolled through photos of all these guys until my eyes burned. ‘Most of them were rank,’ I say. ‘In the gym, like lifting up their shirts, or wearing sunglasses that they thought made them look cool.’ I almost gave up.

‘But I did match with this one guy,’ I tell Hannah. ‘He caught my eye. He was … different.’

I made the first move. So unlike me, but I was a bit pissed from Jules’s wine.

Free to meet up? I wrote.

Yes, his reply came. I’d like that, Bella. When suits you?

How about this evening?

There was a long pause. Then: You don’t hang about.

This is my only free evening for the next few weeks. I liked how that sounded. Like I had better places to be.

Fine, he messaged back. It’s a date.

‘What was he like?’ Hannah asks, her chin in her hand. She seems fascinated, watching me closely.

‘Hotter than his photo. And a bit older than me.’

‘How much older?’

‘Um … maybe fifteen years?’

‘OK.’ Is she trying not to sound shocked? ‘And what was he like? When you actually met up?’

I think back. It’s hard for me to see him as he appeared at the beginning. ‘I guess I thought he was hot. And … he seemed like more of a man. He made Callum look like a boy in comparison.’ He had broad shoulders, like he worked out a lot, and a tan. In comparison Callum was a scrawny little pretty boy. Proper men were my new thing, I decided. ‘But,’ I shrug, even though she can’t see me. ‘I don’t know. I suppose however hot he was, at first, a part of me would have preferred him to be Callum.’

Hannah nods. ‘Yeah,’ she says sympathetically. ‘I get that. When you’ve got your heart set on someone Brad Pitt could walk in and he wouldn’t be enough—’

‘Brad Pitt is really fucking old,’ I say.

‘Um – Harry Styles?’

That almost makes me smile. ‘Yeah. Maybe. Or Timothée Chalamet.’ I always thought Callum looked a bit like him. ‘But Callum probably hadn’t thought about me for a moment, especially not while Ellie’s stupid big tits were in his face.’ I told myself I had better stop fucking thinking about him.

‘And did this guy … what was his name?’

‘Steven.’

‘Did he say anything? When you met, about you being so much younger?’