Clapham Lights (29 page)

‘Are we going on anywhere?’ Adam asks Craig.

‘I’m not sure. I’ll see what Mark says.’

Adam loses and pours himself a double shot. ‘We should head to a nightclub. Tony’s up for it.’

‘Yeah, yeah. Well up for it,’ he says, leaning on Craig. ‘Is that
Hannah
girl here yet?’

‘She just got here.’

‘Is she wearing a short leather jacket? Dark hair,’ Adam asks.

‘Yes, why?’

‘She just walked out here mate. Don’t turn round too quickly or it’ll be obvious we’ve been talking about her.’

Craig leaves it a couple of seconds and turns, taking a couple of steps away from his friends. Hannah waves and walks towards him. She’s wearing heels with jeans and holding a glass of white wine. They smile at each other but don’t hug.

‘You’re here,’ he says.

‘I said I was coming. Sorry I took ages getting ready.’ Her diamond earrings twinkle in the candlelight.

‘You look amazing.’

‘You’re not drunk already are you?’ Hannah says, smiling.

‘No.’

‘Well aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends?’

Matthew, a university friend of Mark and Craig’s, taps Mark on the shoulder. He has curly hair, glasses and a mature, confident demeanour. He tells Mark he loves the flat and says it’s good to see him doing well. Then the subject of MenDax crops up and Mark says luckily he left just in time.

‘Where are you working now then?’ Matthew asks.

‘Another place in the City, doing pretty much the same thing. Are you still with Emma?’

‘Yes, we’ve just bought a flat together, in Fulham.’

‘You’ll be getting married soon, won’t you?’ Mark moves out of the way to let Tony get some water from the tap.

‘She’s putting the pressure on, but I haven’t buckled yet. Are you coming to Simon’s?’

‘Simon’s getting married?’

‘Yes. In a few weeks,’ Matthew says, looking surprised that Mark doesn’t know.

‘Who to?’

‘Sophie, the tall blonde girl he used to work with.’

‘I’ve not met her. They can’t have been going out very long.’

‘A couple of years at least. This is what happens when you fall out of the loop, mate. When did you last see him?’

‘I can’t remember to be honest. I’ll have to send him an email. When’s his stag weekend? I’d be up for that.’

Matthew drinks more beer. ‘Too late mate, it was a few weeks ago. We went to Riga. It was awesome. We got lashed for three days and shot AK-47s. I expected to see you.’

Mark goes quiet. ‘No, I didn’t get the email. Perhaps it was sent to my old address.’

‘Yes, possibly.’

‘Who went?’

‘Most of the university lot were there and some of his mates from home.’

‘Craig didn’t go, did he?’

‘No, he dropped out at the last minute. Said he didn’t have enough money. Anyway, Jim’s here somewhere as well, he said he hadn’t seen you for a while. Where’s the toilet by the way?’

Mark directs Matthew to Craig’s room, pours himself a JD and Coke and downs it. He then quarter-fills a pint glass with gin, tops it up with lemonade and stands against the sink looking sullen. A drunk girl asks him who he is.

Craig tells Christian not to smoke inside so he puts the cigarette out on the floor and asks Craig why he didn’t reply to his messages. Craig says that he had too much to organise for the party.

Christian is sweating and his nose is running. He talks over the music about the need for everyone to be committed to the company and that if he feels that anyone isn’t committed they’re no use to him. He is only an inch away from Craig’s face and tells him about how when he first sold a
house in Clapham he had the owners pay ten thousand pounds over to a holding company that would clear any money that he wanted to be kept safe for a short amount of time and that how without him doing that, the deal wouldn’t have gone through and unless everyone takes that attitude to selling houses then they’ll never make enough sales to justify having the amount of staff that are needed to run a decent agency and that makes him angry that people can’t see the potential that their office has for being one of the biggest in the country if only they had better staff and more experienced people to be taking a more aggressive approach to sales and then they’ll be able to turn things around but if people won’t listen then it will be their fault because he’s warned them. Craig asks Christian if he’s on drugs. Christian tells him that’s none of his business and warns him to stay away from Hannah as well because she’s getting over her boyfriend and the two of them have a special bond. Craig asks him if he’s on drugs again and Christian tells him to fuck off and pushes to the other side of the room and invades Danny’s conversation, leaving Craig standing in front of Lex Luger v Yokozuna at SummerSlam ’93 as Klaxons’
It’s Not Over Yet
fills the flat at wall-shuddering volume.

‘I had a chat with Anna earlier,’ Tony slurs as he leans against the wall on the terrace. He has a huge red wine stain down his shirt.

‘You mean Hannah,’ Craig says, drinking white wine from the bottle.

‘Yeah, the fit one. Adam was talking to her, so I went over there and told him that he shouldn’t be doing that because you fancy her and that you’d told him not to.’

‘Cheers mate, that’s really helpful.’ Craig rolls his eyes.

‘She seemed to think it was quite funny.’

‘What did Adam do?’

‘Nothing. She was kind of ignoring him.’ Tony burps. ‘He’s pulled someone anyway.’

‘Who?’

Tony points around the corner to where Adam, who has his back to them, is joined at the face to Ophelia. Craig creeps up beside them and tiptoes back to Tony.

‘That’s one of the neighbours. She’s quite pretty,’ Craig says.

‘Yeah, I think she bought a couple of mates along. I tried to talk to one of them but she said I was pissed.’

‘You are pissed. Why are you so wet as well?’

‘One of the girls said that white wine gets out red wine so she poured a glass of wine over me and then Adam said he thought it was beer that did that so he threw his pint over me.’

Craig smiles. ‘Mate, borrow a shirt from my wardrobe. You’ll never get in anywhere like that.’

‘I think it looks good. I look like Terry Butcher.’

Tony wanders off and Craig gazes out over south London. As he goes to drink, his wine bottle slips out of his hand and over the railings, landing in shrubbery just inches from Mark’s Audi.

It’s one forty-five and the living room is packed.
That’s Not My Name
is booming out and there’s a
ThunderCats
DVD on the TV. Amy and Mark are talking in the corner of the room and sharing a bottle of Prosecco. Craig is getting a new shirt for Tony and Hannah is talking to a friend of Ophelia’s outside Craig’s door.

Adam and Tony and some of the old UEEC football team are in the kitchen downing double shots of gin. One of them is completely naked and is pretending to fry his testicles in Mark’s pan. Three girls who are friends of Adam’s from teacher training are out on the terrace, smoking, along with Danny and the other Cinq boys.

Suddenly the music stops and people boo. Mark, happily drunk, wobbles up onto the table:

‘MY NAME IS MARK AND WE’VE MOVING THE PARTY TO FIRE BOMBS,’ he shouts. Everyone cheers. ‘I’VE BOOKED TAXIS FOR ALL OF US AND THEY’RE LEAVING IN FIVE MINUTES.’

A glass smashes on the kitchen floor and there are more cheers. He tells everyone to drink as much as possible and start moving downstairs. He switches the music back on at a lower volume and turns on the spotlights, making some people blink.

The guests down their drinks and retrieve coats from Craig’s room. Some of the boys fill their pockets with bottles for the short journey.

Mark is the last one out and checks that the doors are locked and nothing is left on. As he gets out of the lift he spots Craig and Hannah standing together in the car park.

Fire Bombs’ resident DJ is playing the theme tune to
Baywatch
and the
dance floor is heaving. Hannah leads Craig away from the masses to the red glow of a booth where there are empty bottles of VK and spilt drink all over the table and large wet patches on the plasticky seat cushions.

‘I hate this song,’ Hannah shouts over the music. She sits down and draws Craig close to her. He is drunker than her.

Craig has a couple of mouthfuls of beer and points across to Mark who’s jumping up and down in the middle of the throng, bellowing the lyrics. He shakes his head.

‘What did you want to say to me?’ Hannah leans into Craig so they are almost touching.

He tilts his head, and starts to say something before stopping
himself
. ‘Um, I’m going to resign. I’m leaving Cinq.’

‘Why? Sorry, stupid question. When?’

‘This week I think.’

‘Have you got another job?’

‘No. I’m going to move home for a while, until I sort myself out.’

‘To Norwich?’

‘Yes. I have to.’

Hannah puts her hand on his thigh. ‘You’re doing the right thing.’

Craig half-smiles. ‘Am I?’

‘Will you miss seeing me every day?’

‘You know I will.’

‘How much?’

They edge closer until their lips are touching and they kiss, gently tumbling together into the padded wall.

Hannah runs her hand down his chest and pulls away. She whispers something in his ear and he opens his eyes.

He smiles. ‘Thanks.’

Hannah laughs.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean “thanks”, I-’

‘It’s OK. It’s sweet.’ She takes his hand they get up. ‘Come on. Let’s go to the bar.’

Mark rolls out of bed and onto the floor. He crawls to the bathroom and kneels by the toilet bowl but it’s already splattered with somebody else’s sick so he turns away. There’s a large yellow spot on his left shoulder and
last night’s t-shirt is screwed up on the bathmat. He struggles to his feet, rinses his mouth with Listerine and washes his face with cold water.

Back in his room, he pulls on his boxer shorts and sneezes, waking up Amy. She flicks her hair away from her eyes and lifts her head.

‘How are you feeling?’ she asks.

‘Terrible,’ Mark says, putting on a t-shirt. He opens a window.

‘What time did we get in?’

‘I don’t know. I can’t remember anything.’

He collapses back onto the bed, holding his head.

‘Mark, can you see my underwear anywhere?’ she asks coyly.

He tries to get up, but can’t. ‘Sorry. I can’t move.’

‘I’m going to get up, OK? So don’t look.’

‘OK.’

Amy puts her arm over her breasts and tiptoes around the edge of the bed. Her knickers are on the floor next to a beer can. She picks them up and slips them on.

‘Mark, can I borrow a jumper? I’m cold.’

‘Open the right of the wardrobe. There’s a pile of them.’

The wardrobe is chaotic with clothes all over the place. Amy pulls a blue sweater from a stack and Mark watches as she slips it over her head.

‘Mark! I said don’t look.’

‘Oh shit,’ he says, breathlessly. He shoots up from the bed,
bullocks
into the en suite and throws himself at the toilet. A torrent of sick explodes from his mouth. ‘Sorry, I’m sorry. UUUUUUuuugh, UUUUUUuuugh,’ he groans as he wretches.

Amy stands behind him, rubbing his back. ‘It’s OK. You’ll feel
better
afterwards.’

‘UUUUurrrrrgh. UUUurrrrgh,’ Sweat pours from his forehead and more yellow bile gushes into the bowl.

The sun is pouring in through the living room windows and there is someone wrapped in a duvet on the floor outside Craig’s room. He steps over them, shutting the door behind him, and surveys the aftermath. Danny and one of the other Cinq boys are asleep on a bed made of sofa cushions, and beyond them three sets of feet are poking out from under a double duvet on the sofa bed which is sagging precariously.

There’s broken glass and squashed food on the floor and every
surface
is covered with discarded plastic cups and empty cans and bottles. Most of the spirits have been left with their tops off and there are only a dozen beers left in the barrels of melted ice. The doors to the terrace are open and the curtains occasionally billow.

Craig’s flip-flops stick to the floor as he steps into the kitchen. He puts the kettle on and eats a couple of custard creams as he waits for it to boil.

Hannah is awake and has put her bra back on when Craig brings in the tea. She sits up with her legs crossed under the duvet.

‘I made you a cup a tea,’ he says, giving her his Norwich City mug.

‘Thanks.’ She combs her dishevelled hair with her fingers. ‘My mouth’s really dry.’

Craig goes into his bathroom and brushes his teeth. Hannah is fully dressed and putting her heels on when he comes out.

‘You’re going?’ he says.

‘I should go home.’

‘OK.’ Craig stands, sipping his tea. ‘Do you want me to walk you back?’

‘No, I’ll be fine. Thanks though. You can sleep off your hangover.’

‘Han, are you doing anything later?’

‘I’m going for lunch with a friend and then I think we’re going to the cinema. I won’t be back until late.’

‘Oh, right.’ Craig passes her bag. ‘Shall I text you later?’

‘Yeah, sure.’

‘OK. Perhaps we could do something one night next week, if you’re not busy. Go for a drink or… if you want to.’

Hannah puts on her jacket. ‘Are you going to be at work tomorrow?’

‘Yep.’

‘Good. You can buy me a coffee,’ she says, smiling.

‘Do you know how to get home?’

‘Craig, of course I know how to get home. The office is only up the road.’

‘Oh, yes. Sorry, I’m being stupid.’

She kisses Craig on the cheek and leaves, shutting the front door with a delicate click.

Adam and Craig are sitting on his bed together watching a repeat of last
night’s
Match of the Day.

‘I couldn’t believe it,’ Adam says. ‘When we got the taxi back she dragged me to her place. I tried to leave earlier but she dived under the covers and begged me to stay.’