Undeniable (5 page)

I find she’s replied, Hoo. I think she meant to write Hmm. She texts with one finger, looking over the top of her glasses and doesn’t understand predictive text.

It reminds me of the time she was a bit drunk and called it ‘protective dicks’ by mistake and then cackled for about an hour. It makes me snort-laugh loudly into my tea.

Spencer puts his phone away, and won’t let me get away with not explaining.

‘It won’t be funny if I retell it!’

He leans over. So close that his curls brush against my forehead. ‘Come on! You can’t giggle like a lunatic and not tell me why.’

We both keep slipping into little laughing fits as I tell the story. He lies back again when I finish and laughs properly, but he’s closer now and our arms are touching. I can feel him
shaking. When it finally subsides we both turn our heads at the same time and look at each other.

I still can’t get my breathing under control.

He walks me to the station and stops outside the entrance. ‘So,’ he says, holding his hands in the air. ‘First day with your guide. Are you pleased with the
service?’

‘Apart from the tiny cups,’ I say.

He nods. ‘I can only apologise. And promise you that next time the cups will be of an acceptable size.’

A next time would be nice. Only in a strictly friendly tour guide way, obviously.

‘Good. Well, I better go. Thanks for the tour.’

I wait for him to move out of my way so I can go through the ticket barrier.

‘Don’t I get a goodbye hug?’ He raises his eyebrows at me and holds his hands out. This feels more than strictly friendly.

‘Um, okay. But keep your hands to yourself.’ I narrow my eyes at him and he laughs, which makes me smile.

We hug and for a moment I am pressed against him. He smells good – sweet and fresh. A bit like apples, or something.

He moves back a bit and pauses. Our faces are centimetres apart. He turns his head slightly and arches one eyebrow. ‘Goodbye kiss?’

I swallow. It couldn’t hurt to have a kiss, could it? It could just be a one-off, random thing. After all, I’m supposed to be single and I can go round kissing people if I like.

But I don’t feel like I’m single.

‘You promised – nothing untoward!’ I say.

I see his cheek twitch into a grin and he moves away. ‘Ah, you can’t blame a guy for trying.’

The next day I’m told I will be sent to work with the location team, who are finishing up getting the university buildings ready for filming at the weekend. This is
where it all happens
. Well, the scenes that are set on campus. They use the real student bar and club and some of the lecture theatres, because they can film here in the holidays. I’ll
be doing stuff like sweeping the floor, but at the same time I can scout out for places where I might be able to accidentally wander into shot.

When I am sorting through all the paperwork they’ve given me – lists, props to check for and these forms I have to go and ask members of the public to sign if they end up getting
filmed – Spencer appears at the door of the room I have started calling My Office, but is really just a cupboard I found.

He appeared just as I was singing to myself. I am singing the song from
Les Mis
that’s about hearing the people sing, but I flinch in surprise when I realise he’s there and
whack my head on a shelf, so the line comes out ‘
Singing the song of angry—
bollocks!’

I wait for him to stop laughing.

‘So, Gabi, how does a party sound to you? I’m guessing you don’t have many in your sleepy village.’

I’ve told him I live in quite a big town with its own nightclub and kebab shop, but he won’t listen.

‘We have loads of cool parties, actually,’ I say, not very convincingly.

‘Are they in the church hall?’

‘No!’

‘Okay, well, I’ll see you tomorrow, then. I’ll text you my address. Drop by around nine?’

That does sound like fun. And it’s the night Nish and Rosie are visiting. ‘My friends are coming up tomorrow.’

He shrugs. ‘Bring them. You can all crash if you want – plenty of room in my bed.’ He gives a big grin, but for a moment our eyes meet and something flashes between us. A brief
image.

They’ll be so excited to go to a properly cool house party, but that image has made me feel funny about it. Like they might think I’ve got over Max too quickly and I’m chasing
after some random guy. I can’t even imagine being with someone else. Not for a second. That moment just now doesn’t count. What’s a good excuse?

‘We can’t. We have dinner plans.’

‘Do you go to bed straight after dinner?’ Spencer has an arched eyebrow and is leaning forward like he’s trying to win me over.

‘Sometimes, when I’ve eaten a lot.’ It’s true – once Max had to call a taxi to take me home from Wagamamas because I ate so much I thought I was going to slip into
a coma.

He reaches over and pokes me on the arm with his finger. ‘Come on.’ He’s looking at me through his curly hair. I’m burning all over. And at the same time I want to run
away. Then he pokes me again. ‘I’ll keep doing this until you agree to come to my party.’

‘Fine! If you’re that desperate!’

He smiles mischievously. It looks good on him. ‘Great, because I was thinking I really need someone to serve the drinks . . .’

On the announcement board it just says
Delayed
. That’s helpful. They were already held up getting into London Waterloo and then Rosie went all the way to the
barriers at London before she realised she’d lost Nish, who was waiting on the platform because she had assumed there were ‘people who take your bags for you’. They got on the
Underground and last I heard from them they’d changed on to the Overground to get to Hampstead Heath. Maybe they’ve lost signal.

Then the expected arrival changes to two minutes’ time. I text them all saying
2
minutes
and they both reply separately with
YES !

Two minutes later a train hoves into view and the announcement lady does her announcement and I do a few jumps up and down with a small squeal. A woman sitting on a bench gives me a weird look,
as if to imply that I am a weirdo. I just assume that she isn’t waiting for her
two best friends in the world
(apart from Mia) to visit her.

When I see Nish step off the train I run at her and scream. My lone scream is quickly joined by hers and I am sure even Rosie gives a faint yelp, but that could have been caused by my forceful
hug. My run and scream make the woman on the bench jump. She makes a noise that sounds a bit like ‘Blap!’ and hits herself in the face with her book. I feel a bit bad, but not that
bad.

After a session of hugging and jumping up and down, we finally start talking in words.

‘So we are actually going to a party with famous people?’ says Rosie.

‘Well . . .’ I consider. I may have bigged up Spencer’s party to make them more excited about the visit. ‘The guy whose party it is has a small part.’

‘Gross,’ says Nish.

‘Oh dear,’ says Rosie.

‘In the show, you perverts! But he’s invited everyone. So all the cast could be there. Or none. Or some.’

‘I don’t mind,’ says Nish.

‘We’re here to see you!’ says Rosie.

When we get back to her house, Granny has got out a fondue set and a whole load of posh cheese that she says is from Borough Market. She’s laid out bits of French bread,
grapes and carrots and red wine and whiskey, which is for her ‘because it’s Friday’, even though she drinks it on every other day as well.

The mention of Friday leads into talking about Crazy Friday, which obviously Granny wants to know all about. Luckily we stick to stories of me falling into a bin, Nish ending up sleeping in a
barn and being woken by pigs, and Rosie vomiting in a stranger’s bag and not telling them. No mention is made of
anyone
mooning at the window of Pizza Express.

Granny is telling us all these stories about when she worked in the theatre. There was this actor called Geoffrey who took himself really seriously and Granny and the other cast members played
pranks on him, including Granny bringing a pig on stage and then just carrying on with her scene as normal.

Everyone is hooting with laughter, especially Granny, who has the loudest laugh known to sound. Rosie says that we laugh in a really similar way. People are always saying how alike Granny and I
are.

I can see what they mean. Granny says that her outspokenness skipped a generation in Dad, who is a worrier and what Granny calls a ‘sensitive soul’, and went straight to me. Granny
calls it ‘being forthright’, but at school most teachers called it ‘not thinking before speaking’. I think they spotted it in my first week at secondary school when I told
my form tutor Mr Malone that I was laughing at his bald-spot instead of making up a lie.

Granny tells the story of how she met Grandpa. It’s another one I’ve heard a million times, but I love it. Granny went on a cast outing to a bar in London to celebrate the opening
night of her first play – she was a fairy in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
. Grandpa was dragged there by his friend, who offered to buy Granny a bottle of champagne in return for a
dance. Granny saw a ‘short, odd-looking man standing there’ and turned to ask him who he was. Before she could, Grandpa said, ‘Mine’s a pint. You look like you can afford
it.’ She turned down the dance with the friend and asked Grandpa if he’d like to dance instead, but he said he’d rather have a conversation.

‘Big mistake,’ he said to me once. ‘Couldn’t get her to shut up after that.’

‘And what we learn from that,’ says Granny, ‘is to always go for the one who makes you laugh.’

We make our way steadily through the cheese. Rosie is saying something about not eating too much so we aren’t bloated at the party, but I pretend not to hear her. She will say stupid
things from time to time.

Later, it turns out she may have had a point. When dinner is finished, the eating has made me sleepy and I try to persuade them that going to bed now might be more fun than the party. They are
not having any of it and they drag me kicking and screaming – not literally . . . Well, a bit. I do like to make a fuss – back down to the station.

On the train Nish says, ‘Are all the places they go to on
Made in Chelsea
around here?’

Rosie says, ‘No, those are probably in Chelsea.’

Because we had a bottle of wine with dinner, the conversation inevitably soon turns to willies.

‘So,’ I say sadly, ‘I will most likely never see another willy again. I’ve decided to be celibate for five years. After that I’ll be old so there probably
won’t be any point.’

Nish raises an eyebrow and Rosie says, ‘Don’t be silly!’

‘Surely they’re all pretty much the same.’ Nish shrugs. Nish is going out with a girl called Effie and they’ve been together two years, so she doesn’t have much
interest in willies.

‘Are you forgetting about the
oblong
willy?’ I remind her. That was a story involving Sandra from college who is a few years older than us and shares a lot if you ever sit
next to her in Media Studies.

‘They differ wildly,’ says Rosie and we start to nod along, before realising what she’s said and turning to look at her.

‘WHAT?’ I say.

‘Wildly?’ says Nish.

‘Where have you seen these wild willies, Rosie?’ I say, asking the real question for both of us.

Rosie goes red and she raises her voice above our cackling. ‘I just meant . . . everyone’s different, aren’t they? Anyway, what’s this guy like? The one whose house
we’re going to?’

‘Fine! Just normal.’ I frown and fumble in my bag for my phone. When I find it and check the time I see there’s a text from my sister Millie on there. I click to open it and
see the word
Dad
and my stomach drops for a second. Surely something hasn’t happened – he’d seemed so much happier recently.

But when I read it properly, it says,
Look at Dad’s Facebook.

So I click onto Facebook and Dad’s profile. He’s apparently posted a status.

I hate my sister.

I start to write a text to Spencer and get as far as Hello and then Nish, already giddy on wine, leans over and hits
Send
. I give her a glare and write Hello again. Her hand darts over
and again she sends the message. Now I have sent Spencer two messages just saying Hello. So I get Rosie to restrain her – she can do a sleeper hold and we’re not sure where she learnt
it – while I start a new message.

We are chatting as the train pulls into Clapham and we almost miss the stop. After a panicky leap through the closing doors we are on the platform catching our breath. I feel my phone vibrate in
my bag. He’s replied already. Keen. That gives me a happy buzz.

My heart drops. I sent the message to Max.

A cheer goes up as we walk into Spencer’s party, which brings me out of my guilt over texting Max. It’s a three-storey, old-looking house which he shares with five
other people. As we go in, there are people chatting on the stairs and in the corridor. There’s music pounding out of a doorway under the stairs and a lot of noise coming from the living
room. This is an actual, proper party! Not like the ones we used to have at home, where we’d wait for Fat Steve to buy us cider and then end up dancing round to music playing from
someone’s laptop until someone (usually Rosie) was sick in their own hair.

The two guys that cheered us could be Spencer’s housemates, although I don’t think they know who we are and they look a bit like they would cheer anything. This is proved right when
they cheer Rosie for hanging up her coat. They usher us in and introduce themselves as Ravi and Sam. Ravi looks normal enough until I notice he is wearing a onesie and Sam has that haircut where
it’s shaved at the sides and long on top and massive black-rimmed glasses, which I don’t think have any glass in them.