Chapter 6
‘I assure you there is quite as much of that going on in the country as in town.’
In true maternal outrage, Mum banned Dom from taking me to any more parties after Audrey’s post-mortem report. Apparently ‘being sick on a boy’s jumper’ constituted a family shame.
From then on, I only got access to Dom’s world when he brought friends home, which he did with decreasing frequency.
Jamie came a few times, always with a new girlfriend on his arm.
They were never the same girl twice, but all of them shared certain traits: pretty, effortlessly cool.
They were the sort of girls who could smoke and speak French at the same time, and never failed to talk to me in a patronising tone like I was a sweet little girl.
Jamie was still charming. He’d ask me how school was going, whether I was ‘mastering the art of existential despair through exams.’ I’d start telling a funny story, working my way up to the punchline, only to be interrupted by his current girlfriend sliding in to whisper something in his ear, stealing his attention, before dragging him away.
I stared at his photo often. It lived hidden behind the front cover of my English lever arch file, so I could sneak glances during revision. In the margins of my essays on Dickens’ Hard Times, I imagined us running away together, escaping on horseback, our futures unwritten.
But when I looked at him in real life, or thought about it properly, it was like he lived behind a thick, frosted pane of glass. I could see him, hear the echo of his laugh, imagine the heat of his world… but I’d never be allowed inside it.
He belonged to a different realm, that of the society pages. It was a place where people had villas in Marbella and threw big parties. I, meanwhile, was holed up in the attic, at my desk with mug after mug of instant coffee and a stack of essays to finish.
Dom had departed for university in London, and I was left behind, marooned in revision, navigating King Lear and Keats while rain trickled endlessly down the windowpanes. Winter bled into spring…
By the time exams were over, summer had arrived – an actual, record-breaking one. Alice and I were stretched out in the garden, pretending the back lawn was a private villa in the South of France.
‘Dom’s on the phone for you!’ Mum called, standing barefoot in the doorway, sun glaring off her glasses.
I set down my Jilly Cooper paperback – Rupert Campbell-Black was about to seduce someone in a stable and I was taking notes.
I retied the strings of my bikini top and wandered up to the kitchen, which was its usual hive of summer inertia.
Spike, who had been sunbathing with us earlier, had moved inside and lay flopped, his basset hound ears fanned out on the cool stone tiles.
Mum stood ironing while The Archers murmured from the radio.
The phone, with its tangled cord, hung next to the oven – the least private place in the entire world.
‘Hi, Dom,’ I said, hoisting myself onto the worktop. Mum looked over, eyeing the sun cream streak I was smearing across her sanitised surface.
‘Hey. I’m coming up this weekend. Luke’s parents are away, he’s having a party. You and Alice want to come?’
Not even a pause. ‘Yes. Friday or Saturday?’
‘Both. Pack your sleeping bags. I’ll pick you up at six thirty. Be ready.’
That was Dom. All information, no conversation.
‘What are you up to?’ Mum asked when I hung up.
‘Party at Luke’s.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Which night?’
‘Both… it’s kind of a weekend thing.’
‘Are his parents there?’
I went breezy. ‘No, just a small group hanging out. Nothing major.’ It could’ve been a Roman bacchanalia for all I knew, but Mum needed reassurances. ‘Alice’s coming too,’ I added, knowing this would help.
‘Oh,’ she said, visibly relaxing. ‘Well, at least you’ll have someone there your own age.’ She was remembering the incident. The Vomit Debacle of the Hay Barn.
I made us both fizzy drinks with the SodaStream – Cola syrup and two chilled glass bottles I lined up like a scientist. While I busied myself injecting gas, Mum gave me the Party Behaviour Talk: no kissing, no going upstairs unless it was to sleep (and even then, preferably alone, in an iron chastity belt).
I nodded and escaped back outside.
Alice and I ditched our books and launched into full party prep mode. Luke’s house. A sleepover. A weekend. It sounded like the beginning of a proper chapter.
Two hours later we were upstairs in the attic, where a fashion tornado had struck. Every item I owned had been tried on, modelled, rejected, repurposed. Clothes lay in three piles:
ONE: Absolutely not
TWO: Maybe, if altered or disguised
THREE: Viable options
The ‘three’ pile had two items. The ‘one’ pile loomed like Everest. The ‘two’ pile was a sea of possibility and safety pins.
‘I need to go shopping,’ I said, collapsing onto my bed.
‘Small problem there,’ said Alice, ‘we have no money.’
I sighed. Next week I’d start my summer job – indentured servitude to the family business, which Dad framed as ‘character-building’.
I stared at the wall. ‘We’ll have to get creative.’
Alice grinned. ‘Has your mum still got that leftover dye she used on the curtains?’
A plan formed. A vision.
‘Let’s pack up and head to mine,’ she said.
And with that, we were off – our teenage version of a pre-party transformation, armed with clothes dye, scissors, and Mum’s old sewing basket.