Ashleigh and Remy Brett 1982 Aged 20 #3
‘I think the trouble is, any potential suitors might think we’re a couple,’ Tony offered without irony.
Turning her head to study her friend, she took in his perfect make-up, his well-tended do, his practised pout, and didn’t mention his affection for Princess Diana or the discreet tattoo on his collarbone that was a homage to his greatest love, Barbra Streisand, her face in profile.
‘Tony, I adore you, but I literally do not think anyone who has met us has ever thought we were a couple!’
‘None taken.’ He sucked his teeth.
The trumpet toot introduction to ‘Geno’ filled the car and she felt her gut swell with excitement at no more than the sound.
‘Love this! Classic!’ She beat her feet on the rubber mat in anticipation.
‘Turn it up!’ Tony yelled. ‘Turn it up!’
She obliged and turned the knob to full volume, until the speakers rattled and threatened to blow.
This is how they travelled, singing and drumming on the steering wheel and dashboard, high on life! High on ‘Geno’!
Ashleigh
Ashleigh felt a little light-headed, but there was no way she was going to eat, not with the waistband of her black taffeta frock sitting so snugly.
She loved this dress, and as it hung on her wardrobe door, had run her fingers over the shiny fabric every night before climbing into bed.
Excitement kept her awake as she waited desperately to step into the skirt, lift the bodice and zip it right up, counting down the days, knowing Archie was going to practically swoon when he saw her.
Changing her body shape was easy: a couple of days of eating little and she felt the sharp bite of her hip bones and her cheekbones seemed to pop.
Archibald Oxton Fitch . . . That was the name of the boy she loved.
For despite knowing him for mere weeks, love him she did.
She loved saying his name, loved telling people all about him, loved the way he looked, the way he spoke and, more than anything, she loved having sex with him.
It was a strong and powerful glue that she couldn’t have imagined existed.
Archie wasn’t her first lover, nor her second, third or fourth.
The sixth form at St. Jude’s and the first couple of years at Exeter had been a time of discovery.
She would always remember those boys fondly, the Davids, the Johns, the Peters and Michaels of the world, who had been fun, and with whom she’d shared experimental flings of the sweetest nature.
But if these boys were grey, then Archie was golden!
The last few months had taught her that what she had felt for her previous conquests was inconsequential, in no way comparable to the mighty arrow of complete and utter adoration that had skewered her the moment she’d clapped eyes on Archibald Oxton Fitch.
He was blond and smiley with very neat teeth and a gravel to his voice that was almost as intoxicating as the whisky sours they liked to concoct in his tiny student kitchen after a night out.
All the boys that had gone before were now nothing more than smoke in her thoughts, and she could quite confidently say, had anyone asked, that she would be entirely happy if he were her last lover.
The last ever. It was a drug. The scent of him, the touch of him, the memory of their fabulous and numerous trysts enough for her to want him all over again.
She was impatient to learn every inch of him, hungry for his touch.
Beyond excited, as they knitted themselves together, building a connection, a union, the prospect of which brought her more joy than anything she had or ever could have imagined.
It was impossible to see him, spend time with him, be close to him without sex being their destination, their ending. Impossible . . .
The question that kept her awake, when she wasn’t staring at her ball gown or having sex with Archie, was whether he loved her too. She hadn’t said it out loud, and he hadn’t mentioned the word at all. But if he did, when he did, she knew it would be the icing on the rather moreish cake.
They had met through Guy, who had casually mentioned over a pint in the Students’ Union that his old school friend from Clifton College had made the transfer from Durham and was joining next term.
She had barely given it a second thought, but would forever, with hindsight, be thankful to him.
Guy was the boy who had started as no more than someone in her tutor group, a funny, handsome klutz who had seen her name on the registration sheet, written as Brett Ashleigh, and had understandably assumed she was a boy called Brett, and had called her Brett ever since.
Guy was everything she might have looked for in a boyfriend, apart from one crucial ingredient: the magic X factor that made her want to rip his clothes off.
She had never and could never feel that way about him.
He was like a brother, definitely just a mate, someone she could hang out with, spend time with, rely on, and he was fun!
A bit like Tony was for Remy, not that she and Guy were that close.
After only a few weeks of joining St. Jude’s – while she was still trying to build a solid friendship group, testing the water with girls like Jacinta, who she thought she might like to hang out with, and chatting to boys who seemed nice, boys like Harry – Remy and Tony had become joined at the hip, as if her twin couldn’t bear to be alone, and just like that Tony filled the spot Ashleigh used to occupy.
It had hurt her, to be so excluded, replaced.
To come home and find the two of them giggling about things of which she had no knowledge made her feel isolated, lonelier than she would have thought possible in her own home.
It made her regret leaving their shared bedroom, remembering with a stab of nostalgia the warm, safe feeling of waking with her twin within reach, snoring.
They were still like it now, a little clique of two.
Tony would say one word to Remy, just one word, like conjoined!
And they would fall about laughing. It had irked her for years.
Ashleigh had never managed to work out if it was a dig at her, something to do with being twins, but she was damned if she was going to ask.
It was one of the reasons she didn’t always go back to Salisbury in the holidays, finding the gruesome twosome with their in-jokes and shared make-up bag a little too hard to fathom.
And the way they dressed! Ashleigh did her best to adopt the Sloane Ranger look, with Peter Pan collars peeking from under her jersey collar, padded velvet headbands, pearls at her neck and in her ears and a Barbour thrown on with smart jeans, while Remy’s clothes were slouchy.
She looked like she was auditioning for Dexys Midnight Runners.
And not that she would ever say it out loud, but her sister’s fashion sense embarrassed her a little, showed the world they were not really Sloane Ranger stock, another thing that marked Ashleigh as an imposter.
She tried not to let it bother her, the closeness between her sister and Tony. He was her friend too, after all. Besides, she now had Guy. Guy who was her study buddy, her drinking partner, her wingman and protector, her great friend.
She had gone to meet him at the red-brick four-storey house on Pennsylvania Road where eight boys lived the student dream.
If that dream was a sink full of dirty dishes and an old grill pan full of soft bacon fat the scent of which lingered.
A place where mismatched pint glasses, stolen from various establishments in the city, cluttered up the countertops.
Empty tequila and champagne bottles were lined up like trophies on top of the kitchen cupboards, and there was a dartboard on the wall of the living room.
And for some reason, which she was yet to fathom, a life-size cut-out of Clint Eastwood in the bathroom which, she had been reliably informed, was taken during his Dirty Harry era.
It was while she sat on the sunken sofa, surrounded by the detritus of a night well spent, careful not to step in the sticky remnants of Chinese food upended on the carpet, to nudge the overflowing ashtrays on to the already stained upholstery, or kick over the abandoned bottle of Bolly on the floor, that in walked the boy who would change absolutely everything.
At no more than the sight of him, her heart jumped in a cartoon-like fashion, booming in her chest, as her legs trembled, and a warm feeling of self-consciousness crept over her.
There was something about him, the X factor for sure.
‘I’m Archie.’
‘Ashleigh.’ She’d smiled, demurely, yet holding eye contact. His grin had been broad, knowing, suggesting he too had felt the visceral leap of attraction.
‘I was at Clifton with Gigi.’
‘Gigi?’ She was confused.
‘Guy Gallow, GG, which quickly became Gigi!’ he explained.
‘Makes sense.’
‘So are you two . . . ?’
‘No, we’re not!’ Her tone emphatic. ‘I mean, we’re friends, but not . . .’ She let this trail, conscious of her posture, holding her stomach in, shoulders back, head tilted to one side, looking up at him through her lashes à la Diana. They all did it.
‘Archie?’ a female voice called from the hallway and then a leggy brunette walked into the lounge. Ashleigh folded her hands into her lap, doing her best to look a little more demure. She had seen the girl on campus a couple of times and smiled as she stopped fluttering her lashes.
‘Ah, yes!’ He clapped. ‘This is Tamara.’ He blinked and she felt her cartoon booming heart sink down to the bottom of her navy loafers.
‘Hi, Tamara.’ Ashleigh waved.