‘Sweetie, are you ready?’ Her voice was getting an edge. Early July, a Sunday evening. She had not gone to the gym; he had spent part of the afternoon on the telephone, just as they’d been about to go out to the flea market together, and she had begun to read but not been able to; a small argument, a make up, a stint in bed, and she was wondering with irritation where the time had gone.
Richard was ironing a shirt.
‘I’ll just be a couple of minutes,’ he said, grinning at her.
Leela went and looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was growing out, and she had put some stuff in it. She’d put on eyeliner, and a dress she liked.
She turned again. Richard was painstakingly ironing the back of the left sleeve.
‘You’re only going to put a jumper over it anyway,’ she said.
‘But I might take the jumper off inside.’
The figure in the mirror turned away from itself in exasperation. It folded its arms; the shoulders went up, towards the ears.
An hour later, out of the tube, they walked for a long time around a small area, repeatedly consulting the A–Z.
‘Shit, we should have brought something,’ Leela said. She was feeling uneasy. ‘We’re really late.’
They were near a dark square. She was suddenly filled with rage, and tears. ‘Why couldn’t you iron your fucking shirt earlier?’ Her hands balled up; she began to cry.
Forty-five minutes later, they got to Ellen’s door. It was open, the party had spilled into the corridor. Richard was smiling; he held a bottle of wine. Leela felt shaken. She was smiling too – she didn’t know what she was feeling: hatred, fear, or merely the hope of release.
‘Leela!’ Amy grabbed them as soon as they came in. Leela got caught, to her surprise, saying hello to smiling, diffident Doug, an ex-boyfriend of Amy’s: they’d been in a play together in their first year at college. Amy grabbed Richard’s arm and began to have an intent conversation with him, still holding his arm, which irritated Leela, who remembered Amy pinning her to the wall of a women’s toilet and hissing ‘Stop flirting with Doug!’ Leela had been baffled; she hadn’t even been attracted to Doug, who equally certainly wasn’t interested in her.
Doug was saying something: he brought over a blonde Canadian girl who was his girlfriend, and Leela, thinking the other woman was sweet, talked to her for a while.
Amy grabbed Leela’s arm and dragged her outside. ‘Stop being so fucking disloyal!’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Stop talking to that bitch!’
‘Why’s she a bitch?’
‘Fucking blonde, blondie, blonde bitch!’ said Amy.
‘You’re ratted.’
‘Yeah yeah, whatever. The point is, you shouldn’t have been talking to her.’
‘But why? You don’t still care about Doug.’
‘That’s not the point. He rejected me, he rejected me.’
‘I’m going inside.’
‘No!’
‘What about Andrew?’ Leela tried.
‘Andrew’s obviously much better than Doug. Obviously. He’s like a nine or ten, and Doug’s a six. But,’ and Amy’s voice rose, ‘he’s married, right, so whassthepoint? Whassthepoint of it all? And anyway, you’re my best friend.’ Her hand tightened around Leela’s arm. Some of the girls on the balcony looked at them and grinned.
‘Look, another thing,’ Leela said. ‘Why were you flirting with Richard?’ She had to repeat herself.
‘Oh, don’t be absurd,’ Amy said.
Leela shivered. It wasn’t warm. ‘You kept touching his arm. You wouldn’t have liked it if I’d done that. Remember the time you accused me of flirting with Doug?’ Boring Doug, she appended silently.
Amy bent close and spoke loudly. ‘Leela, I’m not interested in Richard.’
‘All right!’
‘I’d never flirt with your boyfriend.’
‘All right, all right,’ said Leela, now wondering where he was. ‘Let’s go back in.’
‘Give me a hug!’
Leela allowed herself to be tightly held. Amy nearly unbalanced her. ‘Let’s go back inside. Let’s get a drink.’
Leela watched her head towards the kitchen; on the way she was stopped by three different people who cried her name and whom she hugged and paused to talk to.
The party was full of yellow light, of chatter heard around a corner, of laughter, of music turned on and off, up and down, vaguely familiar faces, and girls who were well dressed, potential enemies: sometimes she felt there was an army of attractive women, agents of which kept appearing in her field of vision when she was out with Richard. The apparently unattractive, uninteresting girl was also to be feared, because she might be a double bluff. There was only one of Leela but many of the others. Sometimes she longed to acknowledge defeat. Richard was across the room now, smiling and talking to a pretty girl. She would give it a few minutes, then go over and say hello.
A long time later, when Richard was drunk enough, he agreed to go home. Leela had, by superhuman effort, reappeared only once in a while to find out who he was talking to – assorted girls, then, for a brief respite, a man, but who turned out to have a beautiful girlfriend who came to talk to Richard at length. Leela had said she wanted to go; Richard had smiled and said calmly, ‘Maybe one more drink.’ Forty minutes later, he was done. It struck Leela that she’d spent the last five hours feeling under threat; and this was a party she’d wanted to go to.
Amy reappeared. ‘Leela, are you leaving? I want to leave too.’
Richard telephoned a cab and they went down to wait. When it appeared, Amy sat in the middle. She burst into tears.
‘What’s the matter?’ Leela asked. She felt sorry for Amy, but also exasperated, and fearful too: Richard would judge her for how well she responded to this crisis. Worse, he might find Amy attractive amid it. What if he fantasised about her?
‘Oh, it’s just, oh, oh,’ Amy cried. She put her hands to her face and sobbed. The taxi drove through dark east London streets. She continued to cry loudly, smeared her hands across her face, and sniffed. ‘Oh, it was just seeing Doug.’
‘Doug?’
‘I liked him so much, and he doesn’t like me at all, and – oh, it was just awful.’
They arrived at Amy’s flat. Leela gave the driver instructions about where to stop. Suddenly Amy turned to her. ‘Come and stay at mine. Please,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Please, please.’ She begged with her whole body.
Leela’s imagination briefly saw her doing the right thing. ‘But I want to go back to Richard’s,’ she said.
‘Please Leela.’
Richard said politely, ‘Amy, you’re more than welcome to come to mine.’
‘No, I don’t want to, thank you, it’s really kind of you. Leela, please stay,’ she implored.
‘Come to Richard’s,’ said Leela, hoping Amy wouldn’t.
‘No, it’s fine. Thank you, thank you both. Can I give you some money for the cab?’
‘Don’t be silly, we were going this way anyway.’
‘Goodnight.’ She hurried out, her bag half open, towards the door, and they watched her find the key and wrench it open.
‘I hope she’s going to be all right,’ Richard said.
‘I wanted to stay with you,’ Leela said. She had spent the evening preventing herself from guarding him, and she wanted to retreat into his hermetic world, where she would be unhappy but not under threat of loss.
‘Maybe you should have gone with her. She seemed really upset.’
Leela was silent. Later, they discussed Amy, and she explained that her friend could be inconsistent, selfish, and on occasion untrustworthy.