Best Served Cold, page 5
‘Are you sure, Harry?’
‘Yeah, we’ll both go in tomorrow.’ He paused and scuffed the floor with his boot. ‘I think we should go and have a drink now. I’ve got a nasty taste in my mouth.’
‘Yeah, strangely, so have I. I didn’t even get to drink my drink, and considering this is a party, we’re lagging behind.’
‘Well then,’ Harry held out his elbow, and I linked arms with him, ‘let’s go, my lady.’
‘Why, thank you, kind sir.’ As we passed the other students, laughing and mucking about, I felt as though I was walking on air. Their faces said it all. I was on the arm of the coolest guy in the group, even if it was for the oddest, no, creepiest of reasons. I didn’t care. Just for one night, I was cool, too, and I pushed Hugh Penfold from my mind.
Typical. Why on earth did Rose have to have a Harry? How bloody weird and ironic is that? I don’t want or need to remember him. I’m moving on with my life.
Chapter Four
SATURDAY, 28 NOVEMBER – POTENTIAL?
The following Saturday night, we three witches have all met again, and yes, it’s raining. It is the end of November, after all. I have invited Alice and Rose to my flat, so I had to do a deep clean. I can’t bear the thought that I should ever be caught with a grimy bathroom sink or a hob covered in splots of old food. I can be a little anal in my cleaning, so I must tell myself when enough is enough, but I’m still polishing the light bulbs when there’s a buzz from the main front door.
I live on Lewes Road, not far from The Level, which is one of the largest public open spaces in central Brighton. I own a one-bedroom, first-floor flat, so my bicycle is hung on hooks in the main hallway, much to the annoyance of the other people in the house. I’ve been here for over a year, leaving the world of rent for the so-called security of a mortgage. I know I’m lucky, as many women my age would never be able to have one, although sometimes it worries me. At least when you rent, you can move on to somewhere else. A mortgage can be a bit of an albatross around the neck, still kicking and pecking at you. There’s a smidgeon of guilt also pecking at me, as I left Alice back in that rented flat, and although she tried not to show it, I know she felt I’d let her down, as we came here together.
Opening the door, a squall of wind showers us all and Alice’s umbrella is blown inside out.
‘Quick, come in before we are swept away.’ I wave inside, and they pile through the door. We clop up the wooden stairs and into my flat. Alice hangs her coat on the rack and skips ahead, whipping out a bottle of red wine from her copious hippy-themed bag and placing it on the Moroccan mosaic table I picked up from the sizeable Moroccan shop across the street. I’d like to pretend I got it on my travels, but that’s never going to work with anyone passing the shop as they walk up my road. I have an eclectic look, though that’s due to insufficient money to get a decent style going. Most of my stuff has been picked up over time, and none of it matches. I kind of prefer it, as it’s more organic. At least, that’s what I tell myself.
Alice ducks through the doorway into my long galley kitchen. The door is conspicuously missing, and I didn’t bother to ask the original owners where it went, as it makes the place feel less closed in. I can hear clinks and rummaging sounds, so she must be looking for glasses.
‘Sorry about the mess,’ I lie, and I hear Alice snort in the kitchen. It’s what she does.
‘I bet you were polishing the lightbulbs before we came,’ she laughs. I can feel heat hurtle up my neck, and now my cheeks are burning. How did she know that? Has she got a hidden Nanny-Cam set up in here? I close my eyes. She knows me. It’s what I do, but I wonder what Rose thinks of me now? Does she think I’m terribly anal?
Alice pops her head through a strange, perfectly round hole in the kitchen wall. It reminds me of peering into a goldfish bowl and is another weird legacy of the previous owners. ‘Lily here is a bit OCD when it comes to cleaning. Mind you, I know why.’ She makes a face at me, and I can feel a second surge of embarrassment, and I hope Rose hasn’t noticed.
‘Better that,’ says Rose, ‘than a friend of mine who had things growing in her flat, and I don’t mean only on the food. The carpet was spongey, and the walls had some dangerous-looking black stuff all over them. And she never washed up. It was disgusting.’ She takes a bottle from her bag and hands it to me. We may want a lie-in tomorrow morning.
‘Eauaugh!’ Alice swings back into the room with the glasses. ‘Yuckety-yuck! I lived in a shared house like that in London with…er…’ She pauses. ‘Lily? Where’s the bottle opener?’ I realise what she was about to say. With Harry. She lived with Harry in a student house, and that’s why I’m OCD about cleaning. I’m still trying to forget!
‘It should be in the usual drawer; if not, it’s hung on the rack by the cooker.’
‘I can’t find it.’
‘It’s there. In front of you.’ I point as I push past her, go to the fridge and give her the eye. No Harry, I mouth at her. ‘I’ve just finished making guacamole and hummus, and I have loads of tortilla chips and other dips.’ I tweak the opener from the drying rack and hold it out to Alice. ‘Here we go.’ It still has the cork in it from the last bottle we opened. ‘Make yourselves comfortable.’
Bustling about in the kitchen, taking dishes from the fridge and emptying crispy things into bowls, I hear the satisfying pop of a cork being pulled. As I head back in, I see Rose has left her jacket over the back of my computer chair and has put her full glass of wine on my work desk, where there is not only my iMac but one of my latest paintings. A watercolour that has already taken me over ten hours to paint, and it still needs to be finished. It’s my own fault. I should have put it away safely, so I wrestle with myself; do I ask her to move her glass out of sheer paranoia or stamp on my fear as if it’s a deadly Brazilian wandering spider? I’ve never come across one, and quite frankly, I never want to. But if the glass gets knocked over, I will be very, very upset. I have to heave in a deep breath, and then I take the glass Alice has offered me. She always overfills, so she doesn’t have to get up so many times for a refill. This often leads to wine stains and mishaps. I’m hoping it doesn’t lead to one now, and I wonder how some people can be so heedless of what’s around them.
I fill the table with bowls of crisps and snacks and wrestle the cork out of another bottle of wine. Well, there are three of us, and it needs to breathe. I place plates and serviettes next to it all. ‘Help yourselves.’
‘Lovely flat,’ says Rose, and I sigh in relief as she takes her glass and sits on the sofa that backs onto my work area. ‘Do you own it?’
‘Yep. I am deeply ensconced in the world of the mortgage. I’m hoping it was the right decision, as I feel a little trapped now. I can’t ever afford to miss a payment, and as you know, I don’t exactly have a normal job.’
‘Still,’ says Alice, ‘a flat in Brighton is an investment no matter the economic situation.’ I mentally wince, as this is still a tender point between us. I watch her ladle dips and tortillas onto a plate. She tucks three olives into her mouth and chews, spitting the stones into a small terracotta bowl. I can’t believe she’s thirty, as she acts like a teenager. Oh, God! Was that my mother in my head?
‘And what about you, Alice?’ Rose gestures at her. ‘Owner or renter?’
Alice returns to the sofa. ‘Rent, although I hope to change that in due course, Leaky Women notwithstanding.’
I’m happy to hear this. I always felt I’d left Alice in the lurch, even after her boyfriend Matt moved in. I was never sure if it was through necessity or because they genuinely wanted to live together. I’m still trying to figure it out.
‘You, Rose?’ I’m curious.
‘Rent. I’ve always had the hankering to travel, and I’d like to be able to drop everything and go. I don’t know where yet, but I’ll know when I get there.’
‘That sounds nice. I think a part of me is jealous.’
‘Oh, come on.’ Alice crows loudly, and I think the wine is winning. ‘You’ve got a great job, a lovely flat in a blinding town. I don’t think for a minute you’d give it all up to go back-packing around Romania?’
‘I meant a stint being pampered in a posh, luxury island retreat like the Maldives.’
‘Maybe’, says Rose, ‘Lily feels she needs the whole package. Talking of which, how has OkCupid gone? Any contenders?’
I think that this is a bit obvious. How ‘needs the whole package’ can lead on from ‘back-packing around Romania’ is quite mystifying. It’s a clunky way to get me to talk about any prospective blokes, but perhaps she is taking responsibility for bulldozing me into it. Rose again leaves the wine glass cockled on the arm of the sofa while she loads up with food, and I feel a rankle of annoyance.
‘You know,’ now, pulling all this into focus, there’s definitely apprehension, or maybe it’s excitement, ‘I haven’t looked.’ I eye that glass and wonder if we will make it through the evening without a significant spill. Ah, this is familiar. I’m spotlighting side issues, so I don’t have to face the real situation, although I’m not going to be let off the hook so easily.
‘Let’s do it.’ Rose is snapping her fingers for me to give her my phone, then she must have seen the look on my face. ‘Sorry, I don’t mean to be pushy…’
I lever myself out of my armchair and retrieve it from the sideboard. ‘Listen, I’m just rusty and a little bit scared, I suppose.’
Rose and Alice again have their heads together, humming and hawing over my potential dates.
‘Ooh, here we go,’ says Rose. ‘What do you think of him, Alice?’
‘Appears to tick all the boxes…’ Alice glances at me from beneath her lashes. ‘Ale lover, hand-knitted sweaters, lives at home with mum—’ She sniggers. ‘No, really, he looks good. In person and on paper.’
My heart does a small somersault as they pass my phone back to me. I stare at the photo on my screen and then read his description.
There’s no denying he’s cute. A bit unshaven, a mop of blond hair, not so much hippie as surfer-dude style. He’s got dimples where he’s smiling, and he’s in a round-neck, long-sleeve top over jeans and boots. I spot a silver bracelet and chain, though no rings. I don’t want nylon slacks, beige loafers or V-neck tops with pockets. Yep! I am that shallow.
I read what he’s put up out loud. ‘He’s on this site because he’s looking for a meaningful relationship, and he’s not into one-night stands.’
‘That’s a tick then,’ nods Alice.
‘He’s got a degree in engineering and is working in industry—’
‘So,’ says Rose, ‘not on Benefit Street.’ She makes a face. ‘Sorry, but it can make a difference if you know you are on a more equal footing.’
‘Too true.’ Alice stuffs more olives into her mouth and then licks her fingers. ‘Although I want to experience what it’s like to be a kept woman at least once in my life.’
‘I don’t think it’s all it’s cut out to be,’ says Rose. ‘Dependent on a man? For everything? Not sure about that.’
‘Who says it has to be a man?’ Alice has a saucy smirk on her face. ‘Eh?’
‘Okay,’ I continue. ‘It seems he’s passionate about anti-hunting and Greenpeace. Now that’s a positive for a start. And’, I wave the phone at them, ‘he loves going to art galleries and walks around parks.’
‘How old is he?’ Rose grins. ‘Toy-boy or daddy figure?’
‘Thirty-two.’
‘Sounds good to me.’ Rose nods.
‘Anything about what he eats?’ Alice points at our empty plates. ‘Veggie or vegan?’
I scan through a bit more. ‘No, says here he is open to veggie influences but is a meat-eater. Anyone offended by that should not bother contacting him.’
‘Result!’ crows Alice. ‘What’s his name again?’
‘Jack. Jack Kelly.’ There’s something about him I find engaging; along with a ruggedness, there’s also a sweetness or a vulnerability. He could be a Viking, gardener, chef, or hopefully all of that.
‘Are you going for it then?’ Alice looks like a child approaching Christmas. Her face is lit up. Although, that might be the wine.
‘Oh, do…’ smiles Rose. ‘I think he’s a real contender.’
‘I just might.’ I tuck the phone away. ‘Now, I want to move to another subject. After all, our lives are not only about men, are they?’
Silence greets me until we all burst out laughing.
Jack Kelly? Yes, he has potential but am I ready to get back into the world of dating again?
My mind wanders back in time. It could have gone so many different ways.
There was a right old hoo-ha when Harry and I showed the principal the video of Hugh Penfold at the party.
‘We can’t accuse an upstanding member of this faculty of gross misconduct,’ said the principal. ‘We have to be absolutely sure.’
‘Er,’ said Harry, ‘I think we are all absolutely sure, and we’ve shown you what he did. It’s there for anyone to see—’
‘Yes, but,’ said the principal, ‘Hugh has been teaching here for over twenty years—’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’ Harry’s fists balled. ‘Are you saying you’re not going to do anything about this?’
‘No, no.’ The principal held up his hands. ‘Only that we have to proceed with utmost caution. We don’t want to ruin a young man’s life, now do we?’
‘Hold on.’ I stood up. Considering I was the injured party, I hadn’t said a word so far, and it seemed to be all about the ‘men’. ‘So it’s okay for him,’ I launched in, ‘to potentially ruin mine? He, very blatantly and in full and crisp colour, asked me for sex so I would get my grade. Are you saying teachers here can rape their students whenever they want to?’
The principal looked as if he was about to pop. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Who said anything about rape—’
‘Then what do you call this?’ I was beginning to shout. ‘Demanding sex in exchange for a grade I would have got anyway? If you ask any other tutors here, they’ll tell you I’m an excellent student.’
‘Okay,’ said Harry. ‘We’ll upload this into YouTube and ask if anyone else has experienced the same, eh? Maybe you’ll have a whole gamut of women over these last twenty years he’s been teaching here come out of the woodwork. Won’t that be a great advertisement for the school? What do you think, sir?’
‘Now, now.’ The principal was turning a deep puce. ‘Let’s not be hasty—’
‘No.’ I pointed at Harry’s phone. ‘I think Harry’s right. Let everyone else see this. It’s sexual harassment, and we can take it to the police, too.’
‘The police? There’s no need to involve the police, now is there? The man was clearly drunk—’
‘Hang on.’ I now thought I might pop. ‘So what you’re saying is all young people in your care have to take that into account? Oh, he was drunk, so I must excuse his terrible behaviour?’
Harry was practically yelling now. ‘That’s like saying someone was so drunk, they didn’t mean to kill that family while they were driving!’
‘It’s not like that at all!’ spluttered the principal.
I used the voice I adopted when talking to little kids. ‘You have a sexual predator in your faculty.’ He took a hasty step backwards, ‘So you either fire the man right now, or I go to the police right now.’
‘Well.’ The principal steepled his fingers. ‘Put like that…’
Hugh Penfold was dismissed on the spot. Harry and I waited, with trepidation for any fall-out, although we felt he’d slunk off into the shadows with his tail between his legs. Or so we thought.
There was a pub near the school where tutors and students from across the faculty hung out and discussed art and design until the sheer amount of beer turned them from discussions to arguments. There always seemed to be a lot of finger-waggling and spit. I’d been there the year before a couple of times. Harry invited me to go with him a few days later.
‘We have to celebrate our win,’ he said. ‘We got that slime bucket out, and we should feel good about that.’
‘I do feel good, although I wonder what would have happened if you hadn’t been there to film it.’
‘As I said, it would have got ugly.’
I sighed. ‘What I’m trying to say is, would I have done it? This is all I’ve ever wanted, to come to this art school and get my degree. And he was threatening to take that all away from me.’
‘I reckon you would have definitely kneed him in the balls.’
‘I’m not so sure, although I’d like to think I might have.’ I knew it was a moot point, yet it haunted me. Would I have done just about anything to get my degree? Even that? It didn’t bear thinking about.
The pub was called The Enterprise, and many Trekkie jokes abounded every time you entered.
‘Beam me up, Scotty,’ I said, and Harry rolled his eyes. ‘It’s got to be done, surely?’
‘Not every single time!’
‘Oh, I think every single time.’
The pub was packed, with far too many squashed around the tables, playing pool or darts or trying to catch the harassed bartender’s eye. There was an underlying scent of sweat and testosterone.
‘Go and sit with Alice and her lot over there, and I’ll get the drinks in. Oh, by the way, Alice is my cousin. She’s in the year above on the graphics course. Er, what would you like?’
‘A pint of cider?’
‘Any particular kind?’
‘The one made from apples?’
‘Nuff said.’
I scanned the pub. ‘Sorry, who is Alice?’
‘That Black girl over there with Amy and Lauren.’
Harry grinned and fought his way to the bar. I turned and negotiated to where Alice was sitting with Amy and Lauren, who were on my course. It wasn’t as though I didn’t know them. It was more I wasn’t one of them. They shuffled over for me and looked up expectantly.
‘Hi, I’m Lily.’ I did some sort of stupid wave.
