Chapter 14
Fourteen
‘I DON’T KNOW.’ Jolly tilted his head to one side and looked me up and down. ‘You just seem different. What do you think, V?’
Victoria was in the conservatory, hunched over a book.
She’d taken Jolly as her plus-one to a gallery opening in Shoreditch the evening before and stayed the night on the sofa.
Her hair was still in a towel from the shower, and she was gripping a mug of tea between her feet like a monkey.
She glanced in my direction before returning to the page. ‘Definitely.’
‘Did you get a tan or do something with your hair?’
‘I don’t tan.’ I scraped burnt pancake from the rim of the frying pan. ‘Sorry about this.’
‘Don’t worry. The first one’s always shit.’
It was Sunday morning We were both still in our dressing gowns.
Me: fluffy Dalmatian polka-dots. Jolly: a pale blue kimono.
My parents had helped move me in two days before.
Second year. New digs and a fresh start, that’s what I told myself anyway.
I was living with Jolly now. Abigail had moved out and Stefano had found somewhere cheaper.
I was in Abi’s room. It was light and airy and still smelled of Impulse and Versace Red Jeans.
A third-year lighting technician had moved into Stefano’s room.
Whenever I walked past the door, I held my breath. It still smelled of him.
I slid the crispy batter onto Jolly’s plate. He tore off a piece.
‘Careful,’ I said.
‘Shit, that’s hot.’ He fanned his mouth and tipped his head back. ‘Oh wait, of course,’ he said, his mouth still full. ‘It’s so obvious. Our darling little Shannon finally got laid! That’s it, isn’t it? Stefano finally sealed the deal!’
I felt darkness press at the edges of my vision.
Someone else, someone else’s scene.
I shook the feeling away and dribbled more batter into the pan. ‘Can we not?’
‘Oh come on, you’ve not told me a single thing about Rome. Did it happen there? Was it romantic? Were there cherubs? Or rose petals?’ Jolly turned and called over his shoulder. ‘Or what about you, V? Were you witness to the act?’
‘Not that I recall,’ she replied, not looking up.
‘So what happened?’ Jolly continued, prodding my side.
‘We broke up,’ I mumbled.
‘You broke up?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh. Shit.’ Jolly patted my shoulder. ‘Well, never mind then.’
I could feel Victoria’s questioning eyes on me. Fuck her, I thought. Let her stew. She was the one who’d humiliated him, whipped him up into a frenzy.
‘Although, now you’ve broken up with him, you won’t mind telling me all the filthy details.’
I sighed. ‘Jolly—’
‘Come on, Shannon,’ he pleaded. ‘I’ve been in fucking Southampton all summer, literally starved of gossip. You’ve got to give me something.’
I poured more batter into the pan and focused on the action of tilting the liquid, of coating the black metal in sweetness.
How do you tell someone their friend is a rapist?
I tipped the frying pan away from the flame.
‘What time’s Terrence getting here, by the way?
’ I said, attempting to change the subject.
‘Oh no, you’re not getting out of this that easily.’
‘Can you please just drop it, Jol.’
‘Are we talking Peperami’ – Jolly widened his hands – ‘or mortadella?’
‘For fuck’s sake, it’s going to be awkward enough on the first day back without you going on about the size of his dick.’
‘Fine.’ Jolly pulled another piece of pancake off and popped it in his mouth. ‘As you are still quite obviously heartbroken over our Italian friend, I will be quiet, for now. But mark my words, you will tell me all the gory details at some point in the near future. Capiche?’
‘Fine. Whatever.’
Victoria slammed the book shut, startling the both of us. ‘I can’t read another fucking word.’
‘Lecoq?’ Jolly said.
‘Yes.’ She crawled the length of the sofa and stretched her limbs like a cat. ‘Did you honestly get through the entire reading list over the summer?’
‘Yes,’ Jolly and I replied at the same time.
‘Ugh, nerds. Well, they better not test us.’
‘They won’t.’
‘They might,’ he said. ‘Remember An Actor Prepares?’
‘Yeah, but that’s, like, the acting bible.
This is just extras.’ Victoria got up. ‘Like, I seriously feel I learned all I really needed to last year, you know? Actioning, objectives, the useful stuff’ – she tapped the side of her head – ‘it’s all in there.
But then this’ – she shook the book at us – ‘this is just them stretching out our tuition fees.’
‘Maybe you should’ve just done a one-year somewhere then,’ Jolly said, pulling a questionable tin of golden syrup from the back of the cupboard.
‘Yeah, except my agent wanted me to do the whole shebang.’
‘Still, we get to do comedy this term,’ Jolly replied, licking a rogue sticky patch from the back of his hand. ‘That should be fun.’
‘I guess.’ Victoria padded over to the counter. ‘It’s all a waste of time though, really, isn’t it.’
‘What do you mean?’ I said, sliding the second pancake, perfect this time, onto Victoria’s plate.
‘Well, it’s kind of like, if you’re funny, then you’re funny, you know? And if you can act, you can act. It’s like, at what point are they just taking folks for a ride and milking us for profit. I mean, take Hettie, for example—’
‘Oh, here we go,’ Jolly said, rolling his eyes.
‘No, no, I’m not being bitchy, I’m just being honest. Like, really? Is she actually going to get any work when she’s out in the industry?’
‘I’m not sure that’s your decision, V,’ Jolly said.
‘No, I’m not saying it is, but like, isn’t it just a bit cruel making her think she’s actually in with a chance? I mean, I actually feel embarrassed for her when she’s talking about all the roles she’s going to get. It’s so fucking tragic.’
‘I thought she was good in Macbeth,’ I said, adding more batter.
‘She was fine. She was adequate. But she’s not, like, getting an Olivier any time soon, is she?’
‘Maybe not,’ Jolly agreed.
‘I don’t know. Maybe she’ll surprise us,’ I said.
Victoria snorted. ‘No, no. There won’t be any more surprises from now on.’
‘What do you mean?’ I said, pressing the spatula down so hard oil spat from the pan.
I flinched as Victoria came up behind me and wrapped her freckled arms around my waist. I didn’t want to, but ever since that night, Stefano’s hands .
. . Anyway, I don’t know if she even noticed.
If she did, she didn’t say anything. She rested her chin on my shoulder.
‘Well, Shanny-boo, we’re all on our set paths now.
You are you and I am me. We grew up where we grew up, we know who we know, and we are who we are.
’ She squeezed my middle and I suddenly felt like I was in the grip of a snake.
‘And throwing out a few lines in a play or learning a new accent isn’t going to change that. ’
‘Ooh, she’s a philosopher now,’ Jolly joked. ‘So the basic nature versus nurture argument then, yeah, V?’
She let go of me and raised her hands. ‘Whatever – you can make fun of me all you want but believe me, I know how things work.’ She went up to Jolly and stroked his fringe away from his forehead.
‘Like you, for example, my dear. From the day you were born, Jolly McAndrew, you were destined to be a fabulous queen with a tasty little butt and hair the colour of sunshine.’
‘Aaaw, V.’ He prised the lid from the tin of syrup. ‘Can I spread you on my pancakes instead?’
‘And what about me?’ I said.
‘Well, you were destined to be . . . to be . . .’ She thought for a moment, scrunching up her nose in a way that made me want to scream, to kiss her, to dash the searing-hot pan against the side of her face. ‘You, baby, were destined to be Shannon Bell.’