Chapter 3
Three
THE CITY WAS IN heat. The pub, busy. I’d forgotten it was a bank holiday weekend. Outside, the tables were full. I lurked by the railings for a few minutes, watching a couple pick through the last salty remains of their crisps and drain their pints while a poodle whined hungrily by their ankles.
The Thames lay in front of me. A lazy river, parched and unwieldly. It hadn’t rained in weeks, and the smell of hot sewage filled the air.
The couple left and I grabbed their place.
I waited ten minutes. Then another twenty. The landlord came out and circled my bench, eyeing up my drink-less hand. Finally, just when I was starting to think this whole excursion had been some sort of joke, she appeared.
The first thing you noticed about Victoria was the way she moved.
She didn’t clomp through space, a victim of gravity like the rest of us, but seemed to glide effortlessly, like reeds waving in water, changing the density of the air around her.
Every rise and footfall seemed to land exactly where it was meant to, her feet blindly confident they’d be lifted, carried – nay, exalted – by the earth.
She approached. I shielded my eyes against the sun.
She had her hands in her pockets. She was wearing creamy denim overalls with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. On anyone else the clothes would’ve looked ridiculous – shapeless, rough and dry as they were – but she filled them out with an assumed elegance that made me yearn for a pair of my own.
She spoke first.
‘I recognized you from your picture.’
Her voice surprised me. She was posh, yes, but there was something else there.
‘Thanks for meeting me.’ A deliberate slackening of her vowels, but veiled, like she was trying to hide the fact.
‘No problem,’ I said, trying to mirror the easy smile that spread across her lips.
‘I’m Victoria,’ she said, tilting her head. A rust-coloured curl slid from her shoulder.
‘Shannon,’ I replied, extending a hand.
She looked at my outstretched palm. A momentary crease formed in the freckled space between her eyebrows, but just as quickly disappeared.
It was then that I knew I’d made a mistake, that I’d broken some impenetrable social code, that I might as well have handed her a banana as have performed this outdated greeting.
But it was too late. I waited, my palm hovering in the space between us.
Mercifully, she extracted a hand from her pocket and grazed the tips of my fingers with her own.
‘A pleasure,’ she said.
I offered to buy her a drink. At the bar, the landlord eyeballed me as I fumbled for my ID. ‘What do you want?’
I looked at the row of taps, the neat shelves of bottles beyond the counter. He crossed his arms and stared past my forehead. I pointed at the pump nearest to me. Stout. I took the milky black thick-quid back to the bench and handed Victoria her slim-line vodka and tonic.
‘Thanks,’ she said, placing the drink on the table. ‘I’ll get the next one. I love your jacket by the way,’ she added, waving her fingers towards where it had fallen to the floor.
‘Thanks,’ I said, retrieving the limp garment.
‘It looks vintage?’
‘Oh no, my mum got it from the supermarket, I think.’
‘Cute.’
She unfurled herself from the bench and stretched.
A moment of eye contact. That easy smile again.
She turned her back on me and, grasping the railings, stared out at the river.
In profile I noticed her carved cheekbones, the equine structure of her jaw.
She leaned forwards. Hair fell about her face.
She turned and picked up her drink. As she did so, a dewdrop of condensation dribbled onto her wrist and escaped down the cuff of her sleeve.
She wiped her forearm on her thigh and tossed her hair behind her shoulders. Victoria liked touching her hair.
‘How long have you been in London?’ I asked.
She thought for a moment. ‘Oh, I’d say about fourteen years.’
‘Really?’ I said, surprised to learn that anyone actually got to live here for real.
‘Well, my dad has a place in north London.’ She hesitated for a moment. ‘Hampstead. I split my time between there and Mum’s. I’ve been at Dad’s all summer.’
‘What does he do?’
‘Finance.’ She leaned against the railings. ‘He’s abroad mostly, in the US. It’s just me and my brother, Rupert, in the house at the moment. Sometimes his girlfriend. We all just come and go really.’
I nodded. It all sounded so grown up.
‘How old’s your brother?’
‘Thirty-one.’
‘What does he do?’
‘Corporate PR.’
I didn’t know what that was, but made noises like I did. I sipped my pint. It was slimy, warm, too heavy for the occasion. I wiped the white moustache from my lip, hoping she wouldn’t notice.
‘Then there’s Henry, who’s a lawyer, and Lawrence who’s in advertising.
They don’t visit much though . . .’ She trailed off.
‘In fact, I’ve mostly been on my own this summer so, as you can imagine, I’m fucking bored out of my mind.
’ She laughed, revealing a perfectly formed gap between her two front teeth, and sat down again.
‘Don’t you have friends in London?’ I asked.
‘What? Oh, yeah,’ she said, taken aback.
‘Yeah, I have friends. It’s just, you know, people are travelling, some are back at uni already, people have other things on, different priorities.
’ She took another sip of her drink. The ice rattled in the glass.
‘Anyway, what about you?’ she said. ‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’
‘Erm . . .’ I hesitated, wary of how much to disclose. ‘It’s just me. And my parents, of course.’
‘Hmm.’ She took another sip of her drink.
We both stared at the river and I grasped for something to say. ‘Are you looking forward to the course?’
She thought again. ‘I guess.’ She shrugged. ‘I mean, obviously RLSDA wasn’t my first choice.’
‘It wasn’t?’
‘No. It doesn’t even compare to RADA or LAMDA. But it’s fine, I suppose.’
‘Yeah.’
‘My agent’s making me go.’
‘You have an agent?’
‘Yeah. She says if I go to drama school, I’ll get more theatre. And theatre’s the way into TV and films nowadays. I’m like, whatever. It’s only three years. And I can still do auditions and stuff.’
‘Oh, wow.’ My hands felt clammy; I wiped them on my jeans.
‘I’ve spoken to the tutors. They know about my situation. It’s fine, they’re cool with it.’ She sipped her drink. ‘To be honest, if I get a big job, I might not even finish the whole three years. We’ll see.’
‘Great,’ I said, fixing a smile in place and reaching for my glass.
I already had a dim awareness that part of the course – the grand finale, if you will – was a showcase at the end of our third year, and that it was there that we’d be premiered like debutantes, there that the entire theatre and film industry would be invited to judge, pluck and anoint us.
I knew that the holy grail was signing with a big agent.
But here was Victoria, one of my apparent equals, already signed, already dismissing the course, already on her way out of the door.
Her clear-sighted indifference suddenly made my excitement seem faintly embarrassing.
I felt like a child caught playing dress-up in my mother’s lipstick and bras, a fantasist in sagging elastic.
‘Where are you from, by the way?’ she asked.
‘Meltham.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Up North.’
‘Ooop North,’ she said, her eyes shining wickedly.
‘Yes.’
‘So near Birmingham?’
‘No, that’s the Midlands.’
‘Isn’t that the North?
‘No.’
‘But it’s north of London.’
‘I suppose.’
‘Hmm. Don’t worry.’ She crunched a shard of ice. ‘I like your accent. It’s cute.’
‘Oh, thanks.’
‘It means you’ll be fine. You’ve got a thing.’ She shifted and, reaching inside her back pocket, said to herself, ‘I wish I had a thing.’ She pulled out a crushed box of cigarettes, brought one to her lips, then paused. ‘God, I’m so fucking rude, I’m sorry – do you want one?’
‘Erm, yeah,’ I said. ‘Go on then.’ Although half my family smoked, I’d never taken it up myself. I didn’t like the smell, and the one time I tried it at a party, I coughed until I threw up.
Victoria placed two cigarettes between her lips and thumbed the purple lighter.
It wouldn’t take. She fumbled with the cog and I noticed that her nails, in contrast to the rest of her chic exterior, were bitten down to the nub, the skin around them dry and cracked.
She shook the thing and tried again. A weak flame leapt in front of her face.
She inhaled. The two ends glowed. She handed me one, and I saw her mouth had wet the thin ribbon of paper. I placed it between my lips.
‘I only do this when I drink.’ She took a drag. Smoke curled free with her words. ‘It’s a filthy habit otherwise.’
I nodded and inhaled. The space between my ears buzzed. The pads of my fingers tingled. I wanted to cough but managed to get away with just clearing my throat. She didn’t seem to notice.
Just then, a shadow fell across the table. I turned around and came face to face with a great beast of a man. He had a map of patchy stubble across his chin and yellow, watery eyes. Stinking of piss and booze, he leaned across the two of us.
‘Pretty girls,’ he slurred, slapping his hand down beside Victoria’s drink. ‘Mind if I join you?’
Victoria, flinching, seemed to shrink beneath his gaze. Gone was the blasé confidence of a few moments earlier. Noticing this, I sat up straight and answered on her behalf.
‘No. Go away, please. We’re having a private conversation.’
‘I didn’t mean you,’ the man answered, his eyes fixed on Victoria.
I rested my cigarette in the ashtray and stood up. It wasn’t much of a gesture, but the man seemed to notice my existence then at least. ‘Fuck off now or I’ll go get the landlord,’ I said, with as much dignified rage as I could muster.
Some of the other tables were starting to notice what was happening. A handful of people got up from their benches, ready to step in.
The man, slowly becoming aware of the watchful crowd, shrugged and removed his hand from the table.
‘Ugly bitches anyway,’ he grunted to himself, before disappearing inside the pub.
With my heart racing, I returned to my seat and sipped my pint. I glanced up to see Victoria looking at me curiously.
‘What?’ I asked, wiping my upper lip self-consciously.
She took another drag on her cigarette. I noted the slight tremor in her fingers. ‘So, what shall we do tomorrow?’ she asked.
‘Tomorrow? What do you mean?’
‘I mean, what shall we do? I’m bored. We’ve got a week until term starts. So?’
I felt my skin flush. I had to turn away to hide the inelegant grin that threatened to spread across my face.
‘Whatever you want,’ I said. I picked up my cigarette and took a deeper drag this time. ‘I don’t mind. I’ll do whatever you want.’