Chapter 52
52
They’d ersatzed their way through Amber’s thirty-fifth party well enough but Connor loathed the lock-in, for multiple reasons.
The hostess herself was effusive as usual, clad in teal cheongsam dress and silver trainers, but as before, the number of guests meant her time was spread thinly.
Amber had her hair cut into a simple blunt bob she could tuck behind her ears, which provided Bel with a reason to coo and fuss.
‘Why have I never noticed you’re the spit of Riley Keough?’ Bel said.
‘Oh, extra Picklebacks for you!’ Amber said.
‘I would have to know who that is before I could notice it,’ Connor said, as they found a table, and Bel said: derp, she’s Elvis’s grand-daughter.
‘If I was Elvis’s grand-daughter I would one hundred per cent have kept my grandad’s surname,’ Connor said.
‘Not everyone is as status conscious as you,’ Bel said.
‘Oh, we’re back to that again, are we?’ Connor said, with an eyeroll, but no animus.
Slider burgers and trays of shots appeared, on the house. Connor had only ever been to lock-ins at his local at Christmas, where it was free rein of the jukebox and an honesty bar with cash and coins in a pint pot until 1.00 a.m.
Connor would have disliked the cokey braying noise of it all anyway, but this time he had more to worry about. Bel was truly committing to the bit.
She was throwing B-52 ‘bombs away’ shots down like there was no tomorrow. Keeping visual track of her working the room, he felt like a harried father with a kid at soft play. An analogy he’d not be using with Bel unless he wanted to be called a putrid patriarchal Finance Bro.
When someone had warned you they’d get quite pissed to look very pissed, it was extremely difficult to gauge how actually pissed they were. Eventually, she returned to his side, leaning her head on his shoulder. Connor said, brushing her hair out of her face and tilting her chin: ‘We can go home, you know.’
‘Can we?’ she said, looking up at him, as if this was news.
‘Yes,’ Connor said, not knowing which reality they were in. Then, in case it was reality, added: ‘You have nothing to prove.’
Bel looked at him as if she was assessing his meaning.
‘Know why I didn’t go to my prom?’
‘Hah … oh God. Why?’
‘Bunch of girls at school bullied me really badly. Rich girl tall poppy thing you know, because I got good grades. They turned the boys against me too, I only ever had Shilpa. If I’d gone to prom they’d have made me … what do you call it? … the “main character” but in a bad way. So I went to see my aunt in London instead.’
‘Oh man, and I said that stupid Converse trainers thing. I’m so sorry.’
‘S’OK. Loved visiting Tamara. It was the making of me,’ she said, picking up her Porn Star Martini now, having to concentrate to keep the liquid level.
Connor saw Bel in context for the first time. He’d thought: attractive, go-getter, well-shod background– and bristled the ‘outsider’ temperament was a pseud’s pose.
All of a sudden he understood that adult Bel, because she was accepted, felt like a successful imposter. That’s why she carried off the ‘Bella Niven’ assumed identity with such aplomb: Bel Macauley was one, too. Hadn’t Connor been doing the same in his last career and relationship?
Minutes later, when Connor came back from a trip to the Men’s, he found Amber in his seat, iPad in front of her. He was grateful Bel initiated this in his absence.
‘She could do week starting the fourteenth?’ Bel was saying, reading from her handset. ‘If that’s any good?’
Amber flipped the case open and Connor watched Bel watch her index finger jab rapidly at the keypad.
‘We’ve got someone in on the nineteenth, looks like … Sorry.’
‘Never mind. Another time!’ Bel said, vacating Connor’s place.
Rick deposited a glass in front of Bel and said: ‘Slainte. May you die in Ireland,’ to her.
‘Did you know Rick’s family was Irish? Are Irish?’ Bel said to Connor, over the raucous din of Chappell Roan and many conversations.
‘Can’t say I did. Bella, slow up on the Porn Stars, eh?’ Connor said, cloaking his genuine concern in Persona Concern.
Bel downed the glass’s contents, turned to him and clumsily kissed his cheek, a near enough miss that he smelled passion fruit. ‘Don’t worry about me.’
‘Easier said than done, darling.’
She laughed and hiccupped.
‘Do you have an “unbridled joy” setting? Like, do you ever abandon yourself entirely to the moment?’ Bel was staring intently at his mouth, as if she was thinking hard about Connor for the first time. He had a feeling he knew in what way, too.
‘Yes I do, thanks,’ Connor said, firmly instructing himself not to rise to this. He already knew she thought he had an excess of seriousness, and she’d had an excess of Absolut.
‘Er, your dress needs sorting,’ he said, pointing to a pink animal print bra that was on show to a greater degree than intended.
‘S’from Zara,’ Bel said. ‘My dress.’
‘Very nice,’ he said, then gestured at his neckline and nodded his head. ‘Pull it up?’
Bel didn’t respond and Connor leaned over and proprietorially tugged the fabric back into place. He was extremely glad she’d not done this alone.
‘Jus’ going to the loo,’ Bel said, in a semi-slur.
Ten minutes later, Connor registered: still no Bel/Bella.
‘Gonna see where my girlfriend’s got to …’ he muttered, but no one was listening.
‘Bel?’ he rapped his knuckles on the door of the Ladies.
Nothing. He gingerly pushed the door open and went inside. Both cubicles unoccupied. He looked nervously up at an open window, which even though the dimensions made it borderline feasible, surely to God she’d not pulled herself through?
Had she done a runner? He slipped his phone from his pocket: no messages. If she was with it enough to do a midnight flit, she’d be with it enough to alert him. It was disconcerting. What if she’d been caught red-handed … by who, though? He could see Amber and Rick in the group as he walked back down to the main room.
On an impulse, he peered over the bar as he passed it. Bel was sitting on the floor, head resting against the bottle fridge.
‘Bel– la? What the hell are you down there for?’
She looked up at him. She was hugging her bag on her lap. (Bel had told Connor previously it was a ‘squashy quilted tote that’s roomy but not out of place’– ‘squashy quilted tote’ being as new to his brain as ‘Riley Keough’.)
‘The room was spinning, so I sat down.’
‘Yeah, that’s not the most hygienic place to choose. Nurofen and water time for you, I think.’
He coaxed her to her unsteady feet, Bel smoothing her dress over her behind and making her way back into the restaurant.
‘Bella has entered the floor-sitting phase so I’m going to take her home,’ Connor said, seeking out Amber and Rick. ‘Thanks for a great evening, too great for some.’
Amber threw her arms around him.
‘Thanks for coming, you guys, so good to see you.’
Once they were clear of the sightlines of the bar, Bel stopped leaning on Connor and walked with noticeably enhanced powers of balance.
‘This is like watching Kevin Spacey lose the limp at the end of The Usual Suspects ,’ Connor said.
In the taxi, Bel nodded her head towards the bag on her lap to indicate: got it.
Connor wished this felt triumphant, but he’d been hoping she wouldn’t manage to swipe it.
‘That was some performance,’ Connor said.
‘It went Method, I’m pretty shitfaced,’ Bel said. ‘I kept the objective in mind.’
As soon as they were through the door, Bel said, handing him the iPad: ‘I put the code in my phone calculator so I couldn’t forget it. God, imagine if I’ve got it wrong and we have a useless iPad we still have to give back!’
Connor sat at the dining table, opened the cover and tapped the code as Bel read aloud. The tablet rippled into life, a page of apps.
‘BINGO,’ Bel said.
‘God, this feels disgusting.’
‘Your disgust might reroute when you see our Mayor looming up, many times over, like a badger in your bins.’
‘True,’ Connor conceded.
‘We can leave it uploading overnight while you crash here, and then you can review the footage tomorrow while I go to Didsbury?’ Bel said, running the kitchen tap into a glass. ‘You don’t need to be here, pressing buttons?’
‘Yep,’ Connor said, squinted hard at the screen.
‘Thank God, cos I need painkillers and sleep,’ Bel said.
‘Good work tonight,’ Connor said. ‘I admit, I didn’t think it could be done, but Irene Adler in Zara comes through again.’
Thanks to Shaun for the reference. I mean, she was a criminal, so … Connor was too far in to back out, but he was deeply uneasy.
‘It still might be not be done.’
‘Might be not be done?’
‘I did say I needed sleep.’
He cleared his throat.
‘Bel. I’m so sorry about the prom thing. I was out of order anyway but knowing what I know now, I’m properly ashamed.’
‘Prom thing?’ she said, frowning.
Connor saw she couldn’t remember their conversation at all.
‘Never mind.’