The Things We Do to Our Friends(54)

“Anyway, I’m probably just knackered from Perfect Pieces. Fucking exhausting, to be honest.” He threw back his water, grimacing as if the glass was filled with whisky.

Tabitha peered over at us. “I hope that’s not booze, Samuel,” she cried out.

I’d never heard her reference his drinking in public before, and he turned white as a sheet, presumably at the betrayal. Tabitha picking up his past like a rock and throwing it at him like that with abandon. He composed himself, ignored her, and she turned back to her conversation.

“I owe her a lot. Owing people something’s the worst,” he said to me quietly as a means of explanation.

“I’m sure you can sort it out with her—it is Tabitha, after all!” I said. I couldn’t help but jump to her defense, jump to fuse us back together as a group.

He looked at me very levelly, like he was assessing his options, then in a flash he was up, and he left without even a goodbye to the other two.

I went back to the table where Tabitha and Ava were sitting. Tabitha didn’t seem to care at all that he’d gone.

“Clare,” she called out, “you should have seen Ava when we were at school. She was nothing like she is now. Now she’s a goddess.” And for some reason, this was very funny to Tabitha and her laughter was infectious, and Ava seemed so happy. I think that was one of the only times I saw, without distraction, the joy that existed sometimes between them, which they seemed to extract from each other, and I don’t think I was even particularly jealous, because they weren’t shutting me out. The Shiver, or at least what was left of them, were generous with me that night.

I don’t remember exactly what we talked about, but there were so many stories. Tabitha told us them, ones we’d heard before mixed with new tales, and I listened. She talked about the gymkhana where she’d nearly fallen off—imagine me on a pony!—and the prom night when she’d lost her virginity—so disappointing it’s hardly even worth bringing up—and the stories came to life when I thought back to the photos I’d seen of her that night: the chunky little pony, the frothy prom-night ball gown.

I made the conscious decision to hold back.

Don’t be wild.

Don’t be loud.

Don’t be too much.

No one likes that. It can scare them.

We sat there, empty plates around us and our glasses drained. Shiny wrappers from our fortune cookies glittered on the table like jagged pools. Tabitha put one hand on mine and one on Ava’s.

I could tell the evening was on a knife edge where the whole thing could die down and fade out; we could all go home and go to bed, or it could keep going, getting bigger and wilder, and I wasn’t surprised when she said it.

“There’s somewhere we should go tonight,” Tabitha announced.

“Where?” I asked.

“I have tickets for a ceilidh.”

“A ceilidh?” I vaguely knew what this was from hearing about a reeling society.

“You know. Scottish dancing,” she said. “It will be good practice for the next job, I think.” She handed me a ticket with a flourish. An old-fashioned ticket with the perforated line to rip down the side.

“I’m not sure I’m dressed for it?” I gestured to my clothes, which were nothing like what Tabitha and Ava were wearing. I wasn’t sure what they were wearing was suitable either. Ava was striking in a black satin dress nipped at the waist with rusted silver chains.

“It will be fine.” Tabitha’s eternal closing remark, because, in her world, it always would be.





44


The hall was bigger even than our lecture theatres, and it struck me that we were doing what other people did while we were usually plotting in the flat. Going to a ceilidh was how you celebrated things like Christmas, if you were rich and you liked color and light and music and everything that makes the world feel like there is no darkness. The venue was an explosion of green and red; garlands, tinsel, and foliage without restraint.

As soon as we entered, we were in a mass of people and chatter, and it was almost too much to take in. There was a real reindeer looking slightly sweaty, eyes darting nervously as it stood, confined to a fenced-off Winter Wonderland on stage.

There was a miniature ice rink to one side and a huge bar lined with tiny Christmas trees, so the bartenders had to peer through the pine needles to serve the attendees.

I asked Ava how much the tickets had been.

“Expensive. She must have got them for free from someone,” Ava replied a little dreamily, staring at the reindeer. “I bet they brought it down from the Cairngorms. I wonder if we’ll get to stroke him?”

I looked out of place in a simple pair of trousers and a plain shirt, whereas the crowd around us wore kilts and full-skirted dresses. I hadn’t expected the night to be so extravagant, but there was no time to dwell on that, because the floor cleared and there was an expectant pause before the next song began.

“?‘The Dashing White Sergeant,’?” boomed a man standing at the front.

The lady next to me was kind. “You look lost, come on!” She pulled me into a group, and then I was in a circle—a tight band of six of us.

Everyone was smiling and laughing. I stood there awkwardly. It was odd; I couldn’t believe people danced like this for fun. My discomfort must have shown because the man to the right of me, who held my hand, gave me an encouraging smile and I smiled back. He was in a full kilt and sporran. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep you right,” he said.