Low Expectations (23 page)

‘What do you send them in response?'

‘Nothing,' Sarah says with some surprise.

‘Guys, are we ever going to move? It's nearly two! Beardy should be on soon and I should make some sort of appearance, even if I doubt we'll ever find each other.'

Generally, when we buy coke, it is with the intention of
dancing, but we end up maniacally chatting in a huddle complaining about how difficult it is to hear each other and viewing anyone who approaches us as an intrusive line-snatcher. Why it is considered a social drug is a bit of a mystery. Still, I am feeling sharper, shinier, happier – buzzing and now capable of walking in a straight line. Or close enough, now that the fault lies with the height of my stilettos and not my level of inebriation.

‘I still don't approve. He plays mind-games. Men like that are scared of women and fuck them over to keep them in their place. To be perfectly frank, Georgie, since you've started seeing him you seem diminished. If he wasn't handsome and hairy would you even want to spend thirty minutes in his presence?' Sarah's direct summation of all my doubts takes me aback. I stop in my tracks, wounded.

‘You think I seem diminished?' It goes without saying that if he weren't handsome and hairy I would not have been drawn in by his personality. I guess being made to feel small is the price you pay for being so superficial.

‘You have been a bit down on yourself lately,' Rose says. ‘Let's go back to the smoking room, I want to smoke and do more coke and talk about what an arse Beardy is.'

‘Look, guys, thanks for your concern,' I say as we totter back to the stairwell. I knew that one way or another we would end up spending the majority of the night here. ‘I know he's not ideal – but it's not serious between us. And recently I've been
kind of having second thoughts – well, I think I'm interested in someone else.'

‘Scott?' Sarah shrewdly deduces.

‘I knew it!' Rose says. ‘You mention him constantly and you are insanely jealous of Alice and Joy, which is not like you at all. Plus, every time I see you two talking to each other you look just like a smitten kitten.'

‘Jesus Christ, a smitten kitten? But, yes, I think I've got a wee, itty-bitty, miniscule infatuation with him. I hate it, it's such a cliché to fancy your boss!'

It has recently become undeniable to me that I am labouring under a hideous crush of epic proportions. I was working a lot leading up to NYE and Scott was, unusually, in the pub almost constantly. I'm not sure I've been able to hide my secret love for him very convincingly. Though I am well practised in the subtle art of staring-while-not-staring, I have started behaving strangely, alternating between outrageous drunk-uncle flirting and sulky bouts of awkward silence. Basically I spend half my time acting like an over-enthusiastic reject from a
Carry On
film and the other half like Harold before Maude. It's not an attractive combination.

‘I doubt my ardour is returned.'

‘You don't know that!'

‘Bless you, Rose, but you have never met Alice and therefore have no idea what my competition looks like. At this point I'm grateful to have Beardy as a distraction, even if he
is a consolation prize. The likelihood of anything happening between me and Scott is painfully slim.'

‘Oh, fuck off, you're obsessed with Alice! He said the other day she was with his dead best mate, I think she's off limits.' Sarah is rolling her eyes and openly racking a line on a filthy windowsill, all pretence at subtlety and hygiene abandoned.

‘That doesn't mean he doesn't love her, just that he might feel he doesn't have the right, which makes it even more tragic. Fuck, I'd fall for her. She's gorgeous. And nice. They've known each other since they were kids, they have this shared pain – I'm sure it's one of those things where it's just a matter of time,' I conclude glumly.

‘You're crazy. I don't deny that she is beautiful – she's like Vanessa Paradis in her jailbait years. But if it hasn't happened already I doubt it will. Not everyone goes for the most beautiful, you know! They're childhood friends, so maybe they're like brother and sister and sexual relations are repulsive.'

‘Do you think?' I say eagerly, ‘That could be true. Though I feel pathetic clinging to the notion that the only way he could conceivably prefer me over her is that their love would be tinged by incest.'

‘You're hardly an ogre, Georgie. Plus there's more to it than looks, chemistry counts for a lot. You two really seem to spark off each other, I seriously don't understand why you are so pathologically insecure,' Rose accuses.

‘Much as I'd like to believe you, what you probably saw was
a sparkle in my eyes and friendliness on his part. We're sort of flirty in a really lame ho-ho-ho matey double-entendre way, usually when Gary is around, but recently when we've been alone together I totally bottle it and start talking about the weather.'

‘The weather? Seriously?'

‘If I talk at all.'

‘What? Usually you're like a one-woman bad pun machine with an encyclopaedic knowledge of dick jokes,' Sarah says.

‘Then maybe it's for the best I've been shocked into silence.'

‘How well do you really know him, at this point?' Rose asks.

‘Well enough to fuel the flames of love unrequited, not well enough to reeeally know him, see his faults and get over it.' At this moment, whether due to love or drugs, I do not see a single flaw in him.

‘That is a dangerous combination. Intimate knowledge of character is the enemy of passion.' Rose always gets all intellectual on us when she's fucked.

‘So, what, you're just going to carry on with Beardy regardless? A guy who tells you that you would be beautiful if only you were a size eight?' I forgot he even said that, but Sarah's mind is a steel trap when it comes to slights against her or her friends.

‘I don't know. You know me; I have no balls! It's a matter of availability. Scott's never tried anything with me, ever. Beardy has, to some degree, chosen me and he's not that bad. We
have some good times and I could do, have done, worse. For the moment I've made my choice,' I say with finality.

‘God, that's depressing. I may be cheating on my boyfriend but at least I know I love him, too.'

‘That's awful, Sarah! You're cheating on Henry?' Rose is shocked.

‘Shit. You don't know? I thought Georgie would have told you.'

‘You swore me to secrecy!' I protest.

‘I didn't expect you to adhere to it. It's a long story, but in short, I've been shagging an old flame and he's coming to the after party …'

Sarah and Rose dissect the sordid details of her lover as I cut some lines for us to take before we leave the stairwell. We are all in agreement that if we don't go now, we never will and will essentially have paid £35 for an evening sat on some squalid steps, avoiding everyone.

Rose leads the way as we push our way through the main room, which features DJs, into a smaller one with the stage set up for bands. I sway to the music of the current group, whose electro-rockabilly via Morrissey-style crooning is working for me. I feel perfect – drunk and high, but not to the point of fatigue or mania. Just great, present, alive. The erratic beat of my heart and my body feel in tune. The music momentarily transports me, though in the back of my mind the awareness of the transience of this feeling lurks, constantly assessing
my level. Feeling so excellent now spells the beginning of the end; I will never quite sustain this cloud of charged contentment, I will be grasping after it increasingly desperately through the night to come, never quite to my satisfaction. Still, whatever happens, I am pretty sure I will not reach the desperate lows of last New Year's Eve, which saw me spilling half a gram on the floor of a foul public toilet and racking grubby lines off it with the residue. I may even have rubbed some on my gums.

The crowd around us thins as the set ends. The sound of balloons being filled in a corner perks up Rose, who runs off to find the source. I can see Beardy and Co. setting up on stage and feel a burst of affection for him, though I'm not sure if this is due to genuine fondness or my chemical rush. Sarah pulls out the extra flask she had hidden between the back of her skinny jeans and her pants, waving it with a mischievous smile. As the first thrums sound from Beardy's guitar, Rose returns with three balloons, ends clutched carefully between her fingers. Reaching us, she turns towards Tin Can Bang, stops and gasps. Thudding her hand on her chest dramatically, she lets half the precious air escape from a yellow balloon, now tragically half-deflated. She appears not to notice, which is highly unusual.

‘What a hunk of absolute burning love!'

‘Rose, I know we were just listening to rockabilly but “hunk of burning love”?' Sarah takes a sip from the flask and nary
a twitch betrays the fact that it is straight vodka. When she passes it to me, I take a glug and gag.

‘I know but … but … he is seriously dreamy. I want to wear his pin.'

I look towards the stage. Beardy is looking in fine fettle tonight, his curly black hair, longer than usual, tied up in a little bun on his head; he has trimmed his beard to reveal more of his handsome face. I hate his jacket – an aggressively eighties brown leather monstrosity, with absurdly huge shoulders, lapels and fringing. Still, paired with a white wife-beater, ragged jeans and Cuban heels, it is passable. Tim is looking very handsome, too, as well as surprisingly ripped – he is shirtless, in black jeans and desert boots.

‘Do you know him? The lanky one with the soulful eyes on drums? God, look at those arms. I bet he has throwdown in droves.'

‘That's Tim, Alice's brother! Beautiful but a bit of a dick, I find. Or at any rate he doesn't seem to care for me, so it makes me not care for him, if you know what I mean. You know what I mean? Still, look at those guns; I was not expecting that. Can I have one of those balloons, or are they all for you,' I babble, gesticulating wildly. I am more coked up than I thought.

‘He will be mine. Oh yes, he will be mine,' Rose says with a frightening gleam in her eye, her stare unwavering from the object of her desire as she hands me the balloon.

Laughing, I see Beardy looking in my direction and blow him a kiss. He half-smiles in response, before the too-cool-for-school mask he has been wearing reasserts itself.

‘God, I have to say, that is one hell of an ugly jacket.'

I nod, but am prevented from answering as we all suck in the laughing gas, careful to inhale and exhale directly into the plastic. Sarah and Rose look transported, but I fuck mine up when a sudden coughing fit hits me. I content myself with watching them go cross-eyed and blissed-out with exertion, their heads bobbing as if neckless before their faces break into jack-o'-lanterns split with silent hilarity.

They slowly come back to reality, shaking their heads at themselves, trying to explain what they saw – the beat – the vibrations – you were doing that! – it all made perfect sense – I can't explain it! – then are silent for a minute.

‘More Charlie?' I pipe up, as they return to normal.

‘Yes!'

‘God, that is one hell of an ugly jacket.'

‘Sarah, you just said that.'

‘Did I? Clearly it bears repeating. I think I tripped out over it.'

‘I know, every time I go to meet him I pray he won't be wearing it. He seems to have gone off it recently, thank God. Hopefully this will be its last chance to dance before it is interred into the pit of his wardrobe. Part of me is tempted
to say something but why relieve him of the women repeller? It's so bad that it functions as a groupie-shield.'

My jaw is feeling a bit achy and I am overcome with the familiar moreishness of cocaine, an urgent restlessness in my chest. As Tin Can Bang start up, opening with what I now assume is their calling card and not, as I hoped, a one off – ‘Ladies, this is for you! Everyone else can fuck off!' – I take several bumps, my eyes scanning the crowd for security, like an over-stimulated owl.

‘Hey, isn't that—'

‘Alistair!' Sarah cries gleefully, her eyes brilliant, one reddish nostril proudly displaying a lump of congealed powder.

‘My dearest heart,' Alistair murmurs, bowing low over her hand with an aristocratic elegance. ‘You look ravishing even with a rock hanging out of your nose.'

Sarah laughs without embarrassment and brushes the offending article away, then twirls kittenishly before him. Her slim waist and small perky breasts are cupped by a fifties-style brassiere-top in black silk, her dark brown curls set off by a flash of blood-red lipstick. Though she has paired this with silver foil-printed jeans and orange platform boots, Alistair is even more of a draw to the eye. He is decked out in skin-tight leather trousers, velvet brocade slippers and a transparent chiffon blouse open to the navel. A rather fantastic mink stole is draped on his shoulders. With his slicked back blond hair, he is channelling a ‘Modern Love' meets
Labyrinth
Bowie, with
a dash of Clara Bow. On anyone else it would be absurd, but outré suits him.

‘Ladies, what a pleasure to meet you. I deduce from your russet locks that you, the Rossetti, must be Rose.' Alistair's voice projects well over the din. He has the perfect articulation and well-practised flattery of the failed-actor-turned-hairdresser I know him to be.

Rose, her expression disapproving, still pinks with pleasure at the compliment.

‘Georgie, you look every bit the vixen tonight,' Alistair manages to purr while simultaneously shouting over the sound-system. Irish accents really are delicious, though his foppish airs are a bit disingenuous.

‘Oh gosh, I knew this outfit was too much. I've got so fat over the holidays that my only choices were burka or whore. I chose whore,' I say with embarrassment, tugging down the leather of my skirt. It normally fits like a glove but now is riding up my chubby thighs.