‘What do you think?’ Amy was whispering so loudly she almost seemed to be shouting.
‘About what?’
‘Oh, come on.’
‘He’s nice, he’s nice looking,’ Leela said. She felt thrilled, but put-upon.
‘Did you talk to him?’ Amy was singing out her words in aggressive exuberance. She dabbed powder on her face, stretched her mouth, reapplied lipstick. Leela looked at herself in the mirror, recoiled, wondered if the skin under her eyes could really be so dark.
‘Pub mirrors are horrible, aren’t they?’
‘Ugh.’
They began to leave the lavatory.
‘So are you going to pull him?’
‘What?’
‘Rob. Are you going to pull him?’
Leela felt rattled and became aggressive in turn. ‘What are you on about? Leave me alone.’
‘I’m just trying to help. Jesus.’ Amy marched away, and a marooned Leela watched her. Without her friend, she was helpless.
Leela and Rob had a conversation. He was tall, dark-haired, fair-skinned, a bit awkward.
‘So what do you do?’ Leela asked abruptly. She had Simon after all, or whatever, she didn’t need this. Nevertheless, Rob’s attention, what she saw as his slightly rat-like smile, unnerved her. He continued to meet her eyes.
‘I’m in gardening.’
‘Right. Do you like that?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s all right. Pretty boring.’ He grinned at her.
They were upstairs in the pub. Crowded: Christmas Eve. She and Amy had come up to Stratford the day before. That was when Leela had met Rob, the elder brother of Amy’s chirpier, but less good-looking friend Jason, and a few of Amy’s other numerous friends from home. Like Leela, perhaps like everyone, Amy had a different persona for college and for the town where she’d grown up. At home, many of her friends were the easy-going, down-to-earth young men she’d worked or drunk with: Jason and she had waited tables at the Grillhouse, a steak place in a retail park. Jason still worked there, and was now the junior manager. Amy hadn’t met Rob, but had told Jason to bring his fit brother along. Rob was reputed to be serious. He and Leela sounded ideal for each other, in the short term.
They were standing up now, wedged against a small table with a stool near it. The stool was covered in coats. The pub was smoky. Leela shrank into the passage. Rob put an arm around her, just brushing her shoulder, as three men walked by. They skirted Leela and Rob as a couple.
‘What about Simon?’ Leela had checked with Amy when they were getting ready.
‘Well, has he asked you to be his girlfriend?’
‘No, but, I mean, we see each other almost every week. Sometimes more than once a week.’
‘Has he had a conversation with you about seeing other people?’
‘No.’ Leela had felt sick.
Rob looked at her now and, as though straining a group of muscles, made a conversational foray. ‘Have you been to Stratford before?’
Leela’s heart sank. ‘Yeah, a few times, yeah. To … visit Amy and stuff.’
‘Oh, right.’ He nodded. She examined his hair, which was impeccable with gel. Jason must have told him Amy had a friend who was single. Last night they’d smiled at each other; today Amy had reported that Jason said Rob thought Leela was fit. It was on, then.
‘He’s a nice-looking boy, love,’ Amy’s mother had remarked.
There they were. She smiled at Rob. He smiled uneasily back.
‘I think I feel sick.’
‘I feel really unwell. Here, do you want some cheese? Mm, so fattening and good.’ Amy cut herself a piece of stilton and ate it. Leela removed orange peel from her sweater and lay prone on the sofa.
‘We can do the Mr Motivator video tomorrow,’ Amy said.
‘That bloke in Lycra?’
‘He’s brilliant. It really tones you up.’
‘Okay.’
They lay near the fire, and outside the lawn and garden darkened; late winter, Christmas Day. Leela was sandwiched between the softness of the sofa and the hot blast of the fire and aware, further away, of the cold beyond the French doors. It was like Jane Eyre, she thought groggily, but without the cruelty. Surely they would now start reading enormous picture books, or look at maps, then fall into a frowsy and terrifying dream. England at Christmas was always like this: a fictional place into which she, Gulliver-like, had fallen. But Amy’s family and their warmth cushioned her.
Orange peel, pips, and cheese rind sat on a plate. Leela and Amy drank tea.
‘I’m seriously going to lose some weight.’
‘Yeah, as soon as New Year’s done.’
‘So we’ll be fat for New Year?’
‘It’s inevitable, with the way it comes straight after Christmas.’ Amy pressed her stomach down and towards her groin, as though willing it to flatten.
‘I feel sick,’ Leela repeated.
‘Cheese?’
They both started to laugh.
‘Maybe just a bit.’
Leela went up to stash her presents, throw away the wrapping, and tidy up – they were later going out to the sole pub nearby that would be open, with Amy’s father and a friend of his. Just then, the telephone began to ring. Amy’s mother’s silvery voice called up.
‘Lee-la!’
‘Yes?’
‘Telephone for you, love. It’s your mother.’
She ran down the stairs, slightly embarrassed. She’d given her parents the number when she had still been in Paris. But she’d half hoped they wouldn’t call. She had a vague sense that Amy’s parents disapproved of hers, but couldn’t be sure. She felt mildly guilty about it, and shifty, as whenever different areas of her life converged.
‘Hello?’
She held the cordless phone Amy’s mother had given her, and stood looking at the dresser in the kitchen.
‘Hello darling,’ said her mother’s voice, unexpectedly melodious and soft.
‘Hi,’ Leela repeated.
‘Happy Christmas. We thought this’d be a good time to catch you. Are you having a good time?’ Her voice, dissociated from her physical presence, was flexible and slightly cracked.
‘Happy Christmas,’ Leela said.
‘So how is it?’
‘It’s nice, I’m having a really nice time.’ She was, but her voice sounded flat and resentful.
In the hall she heard Amy and her little brother squabbling.
Later that night she and Amy lay in bed together, a habit from earlier in their friendship, and talked in the darkness.
‘So has what’s-his-name been in touch?’
‘Simon?’ Leela could tell she had her friend’s attention. ‘No. I don’t really know what’s happening.’ She stretched out one bare foot and a pyjama’d leg. Amy in sleep was assertive about the covers. Leela usually tried the stealth pull: loosening the duvet from Amy’s grasp, then rolling over to cover herself. It rarely worked for long.
‘Did he speak to you before you left?’
‘Well, we saw each other a few days before that.’
‘Did he say when he’d be in touch?’
‘Uh, no.’
‘Oh, right.’
Silence.
‘So you didn’t fancy Rob?’
‘He was fit, sort of. Do you think the lower half of his face is a bit ratty?’
‘Well – no, I think he’s lovely looking.’
‘We didn’t have anything to say to each other.’
‘You didn’t have to say anything.’
‘Yeah. I dunno. I didn’t want to. What did he say? Did he say anything?’
Amy rolled over, taking much of the duvet with her. ‘Dunno. Jason said, Rob said he thought Leela fancied him, then she didn’t get off with him.’
Leela mused on this. After a minute or two she said, ‘But listen, right –’
Amy was asleep.
Leela lay with one leg under the covers, then got up and walked around. She went to the window and put her head under the heavy velvet curtain, a little away from the icy pane. Outside it was nearly dark, except for the acid-white glow of a street light. In the garden, the leaves of a small tree next to the wall appeared to be dead still.
She went back to bed, thinking wistfully for some reason of the discomfort of sleeping at Simon’s. He never stayed at her house, of course; she thought of the platform bed and didn’t miss it. She annexed part of the duvet, and rolled to the side, to avoid Amy, who was saying something indistinct and violent in sleep, and tossing from one side to the other.