Charlie Adedayo-Martin was the most beautiful girl in their year. There were other girls, some more obvious, more perfect – the French girl, Marvella, with her sultry, bee-stung mouth, Jemma with her tangle of blonde curls – but Charlie had glamour. She was tall and angular, with toffee-coloured skin and peroxide hair cropped short against her head. There was a rumour she was the daughter of an Abyssinian princess but Nell had discovered she was in fact the child of a legal secretary from Cheltenham and the Nigerian businessman she’d married.
‘That bastard, Rob.’ Charlie’s dark eyes welled up with tears. ‘He’s in love with someone else.’
‘No!’ Nell took her hand and led her out on to the blustery steps of the college, where Charlie told her in gulping tones of outrage that she’d been flicking through her boyfriend’s diary when she’d found a poem – a love poem – in several tortured drafts.
‘No!’ Nell said again, although what she really wanted to ask was whether Rob wrote poems often, and if he’d ever written one for her. But under the circumstances she knew these questions would sound heartless. ‘The bastard,’ she said instead, ‘how could he?’ And she put her arms around Charlie and breathed in the cool, flowery smell of her skin.
‘He’s moving out. He’s borrowing a car this weekend and taking his things.’ Her nose grew red and her eyes, already swollen, spilt over with new tears. ‘I’ll be living on my own.’
Nell looked away. It gave her an unexpected flash of pleasure to see that even Charlie, the enviable Charlie, could look unattractive when crying. When Nell cried her whole face puffed up, her neck turned blotchy, her ears grew red, and she’d do whatever it took to hide herself. Unless, of course, she was acting, when her tears, unreal, were made of lighter stuff and would trickle, just one or two, down the side of her face. This wasn’t always what was wanted. ‘You’re a milkmaid,’ Patrick had bawled. ‘Not a Lady. Get a hanky out. Let’s see some snot!’ Nell had blushed deep red, right down to her cleavage, which was shown to great effect in yet another square-cut bodice trimmed with white. Among the many beauties in their year Nell felt small and plump as a pony, and so far, six months into the course, she’d been given nothing but wenches, children and servants to play, although once when she’d complained, she’d been cast as someone’s aged mother.
‘Nell?’ Charlie had hold of her arm. ‘Listen, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you move in?’
‘Me?’
‘Please! It will be fun. You can move in on Sunday, right after Rob takes his things. Or before. Or anytime. You can have the spare room.’
Nell bit her lip. She’d have to give notice where she was. Although not much, and at Charlie’s she wouldn’t have to endure those late-night talks outside the bathroom with her landlord, always inexplicably wandering round the house in his open dressing gown whatever time she came home.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘I will. I’ll do it. The week after next.’
‘Thank you.’ Charlie wiped the tears from her face and Nell watched as with one small smile her beauty was restored.
Charlie lived on the top floor of a house in Willesden. From the outside the house looked unexceptional, the window frames peeling a little more than most, the glass in one panel of the front door boarded up, but once you were inside, the full scale of the dereliction hit you. Damp, decay, and a deep heady stench of rotting wood. Charlie ignored it. She kicked shut the front door, swept up the two flights, past the abandoned flats on each landing and on to her own floor, where the radio was playing low, the battered sofa was draped in creamy shrouds of cotton, and bunches of dried flowers stood on low tables among scattered photographs and abandoned mugs and the occasional beautiful object – a blue glass bottle or a carving of a Nigerian god.
Nell had visited several times. Had gone back with Charlie after college to go over lines, had sat on the foam comfort of the armchair, encased in its white throw, with the gas fire blasting and Charlie, even in midwinter, slouching in a pair of combat trousers, her bare feet tucked under her, her smooth brown arms and prominent shoulder bones shown off to their best advantage in a boy’s school vest. Until now she’d never really noticed the spare room – had only seen the room Charlie shared with Rob – its low white bed, always unmade, the layers of antique lace at the windows, the clothes – flea-market dresses and a dun-coloured trench coat, hanging from pegs on the wall. But today Charlie continued up the stairs to a small room in the attic. It had a window that looked out to one side with a view over the garden, and a gas fire built into the chimney breast, cracked across the middle. There was a bed and a cupboard and the raised pattern of the wallpaper just visible through a coat of magnolia paint.
Nell dropped her bag and sat down on the edge of the bed. Charlie crouched on the floor and lit a match and the fire fluttered and flickered and attempted to catch. ‘Are you sure it’s safe?’ Nell asked, remembering vaguely some warning of her mother’s about the dangers of gas, but Charlie blew on it a little to spread the flame and said she’d slept in here often after rows with Rob and she always left the fire on all night.
‘Bastard. Bastard.’ She crawled across the bed and lay stretched out. ‘Thank God he’s gone. You wouldn’t believe what a wanker he was. You know, he was so vain? He was obsessed with his ears. Said they stuck out too much. He was always holding them back and asking what I thought.’
Nell pictured Rob and laughed. She’d met him three or four times but he never remembered her. He was one of those men who only noticed women who were beautiful. ‘Fuckable’ is what he’d probably have said. ‘Now you mention it I did notice his ears,’ Nell said, revenging herself. ‘Has he considered surgery? You could offer to re-set them yourself,’ and they lay on the bed, laughing up at the ceiling, their fingers entwined.
‘So . . .’ Nell added after a while, ‘what now? You’re free and single. It’s been two long weeks. Anyone you’ve got your eye on?’
Charlie sighed and rolled towards her. The flames from the fire threw shadows over her still face and then suddenly she was crying. Her face creased up, her fists against her eyes as if to stop the tears. ‘Bastard,’ she said. ‘How could he? I thought we were so in . . .’ She choked and flicked the tears angrily away, while Nell watched her, intrigued, thinking all the time, if I was a man I’d never leave her. What’s the point of anything if men leave girls as beautiful as that?
‘He’s an idiot,’ Nell said gently. ‘He’ll regret it, that’s for sure.’ And impulsively she put her arms round her friend and kissed her cheek. Charlie, sniffing, pushed herself against her. Her face, still damp, nuzzled into Nell’s neck, her shoulder pressed hard against her breasts, and they lay like that, breathing shallowly, until the room was almost dark. Eventually they got up and moved into the kitchen, where wordlessly Charlie set a pan of water on to boil.
‘Can I do anything?’ Nell looked around.
‘No, no.’ Charlie was chopping an onion. ‘This is your welcome dinner, go and sit down.’
Nell went into the sitting room and waited, listening to the radio, which spun out drifty, catchy tunes, interspersed with a murmur of chatter, too low to catch. The fire was on in here too, hissing soporifically, and Nell sat down in the soft foam of the swathed white armchair and closed her eyes.
After twenty minutes or so Charlie came in with two plates of rice. The rice had been fried with slices of bacon and green pepper and a few scratchy sprigs of parsley. She put the plates on the floor and came back with a bottle of white wine and two glasses.
‘Cheers,’ she said, ‘here’s to freedom,’ and she filled the glasses to the top.
The food was disgusting. Oily, and a little undercooked. ‘I’m so sorry.’ Charlie winced. ‘Please don’t eat any more, I’m the most hopeless cook,’ and she put her plate as far away as she could get it and took a huge gulp of wine as if to drown the taste. Nell ate two more mouthfuls, out of politeness, and also because she was ravenous, and then abandoned hers too.
‘You know who I do quite fancy, if I had to choose someone from college . . .’ Charlie lit a cigarette. Nell lit one too and curled into her chair. This was definitely better than her old room, where, once she was home, there was no one to talk to except the gloomy landlord or his spotty teenage son.
‘Who?’ she said, picturing the entire year seated in a circle.
‘Well, if I had to choose someone, just for a fling . . . I think, if I was forced . . . I’d go for Dan.’
‘Dan Linden!’ Nell felt her stomach falling. ‘You’re joking!’ Heat rushed to her face. ‘But you know how I feel about Dan. You know I’ve been besotted with him since day one!’
‘Oh my God!’ Charlie put her hand over her mouth. ‘Of course. I forgot. I’m so sorry. Forget I said anything. Please.’ She looked at her and creased her eyes, pleading, and just in case that didn’t work, she poured them both more wine.
‘Anyway,’ Nell said gloomily, thinking how Charlie could get Dan with one quick look. ‘He’s back with Jemma. God. Why are there no decent boys in our year?’
Her stomach still felt hollow but the blood had drained away from her face and she was cold. She wrapped her arms round her legs and stared into the fire.
Charlie stretched out on her sofa. ‘I really am sorry.’ She looked over at her. ‘I suppose I’ve spent too much time thinking about myself.’ And when Nell didn’t respond she said, ‘Hey, why don’t we make a plan. To seduce him. For you, I mean?’
Nell frowned. ‘But how? He’s with Jemma. They’re always together.’
‘Well . . . Hang on, I’m going to run a bath. I always think better in water. Come on.’
The bathroom was in the corridor beside the kitchen, and when the bath was full and the strawberry smell of the bubbles had filled the room, Charlie slipped off her vest. She had no bra on and her breasts were small and high, the same smooth colour as the rest of her. She had no knickers on either. She just stepped out of her trousers and kicked them to one side. ‘Ow, ow, ow,’ she said happily as she climbed in, ‘it’s hot.’ And soon a deep red flush had spread across her face and chest and the damp curls of her hair clung prettily around her ears.
Nell sat on the edge of the bath and trailed her hand in the froth of bubbles. Charlie closed her eyes and lay back. ‘Hmmm,’ she said, and when she opened them she caught Nell looking. ‘Get in, why don’t you? It’s lovely in here.’ And she moved her long legs to the side as if to show her how much room there was.
Nell turned away to take off her clothes. She had on tights and a jean skirt, boots and several layers of vests and T-shirts. She struggled with them in the narrow room, the steam making the walls and floor shimmery with wet, until she was naked and uncomfortably aware of the heaviness of her thighs, and the great weight of her breasts as they released from her bra. There seemed so much of her, although she was shorter than Charlie by five inches at least. Charlie bent her knees against the bath edge and Nell slunk down into the water. It felt good. The heat and the pink sweet smell, and the shiny feel of her friend’s thigh up against hers as she slid in. She leant back against the end, propped her head between the taps and smiled.
‘So.’ Charlie grinned. ‘How do you get Dan into your bed?’
Nell didn’t answer. She had no idea. It had never occurred to her that it was up to her. Fate, she’d always imagined, would decree.
‘How about . . .’ Charlie mused. ‘We ask him back here to rehearse a scene. After college. Then we’ll go to the pub to discuss, come back here for supper, I’ll open wine, you can show him round the flat, and when you get to your room . . . pounce! Hang on.’ Charlie rose from the water, her body gleaming, dotted with foam. ‘I’ll be right back.’ She stepped out of the bath, and naked, ran from the room.
Nell heard the music turned up loud from the sitting room and Charlie appeared again with a new bottle of wine. She slipped back in. ‘So?’
Nell lifted her glass and took a quick cold slug. ‘Let’s do it.’ She grinned, and although her head was spinning she raised the glass again and drained it.
‘You know something?’ Charlie was smiling at her. ‘You’re gorgeous.’
‘No!’ Nell protested, disbelieving, thrilled. But she didn’t repay the compliment, because she couldn’t have said it without blushing, couldn’t have watched Charlie while she skimmed the foam off the water and rubbed it gracefully across her neck, under her arms, and up over her chest.
Dan Linden was tall and lanky, with a dark tousled head of hair. He had a slow, lopsided smile – which was his charm really, and the fact he was faced with almost no competition from the other boys in their year, who were either obsessed with perfecting juggling skills or quoting Shakespeare sonnets in low, sonorous voices. Most of the girls had boyfriends in the year above, unfairly populated with heterosexual, effortlessly talented men, or like Charlie, they’d looked outside college for their love affairs. But since the first day of the first term Nell had been in love with Dan. She’d waited, smiling occasionally, brushing past him in the queue for lunch, until one afternoon she realised she’d waited too long, because there was Jemma, holding his hand, standing at the bus stop with him, wearing his scarf. Occasionally, it was true, they split up, but within days there was a stormy reconciliation and there they were again, sheepish, dishevelled, late for college.
‘Dan . . .’ Nell caught him in a corridor.
‘Hello.’ He gave her that wide soft grin, and shuffled slightly. He wore his trousers low on his hips and when he stretched or yawned, which he did often, he showed a glimpse of flat smooth stomach.
Nell spoke fast before she lost her nerve. She told him about the scenes she and Charlie were rehearsing, how they needed a man for the . . . she hesitated, male parts, and she suggested Tuesday. Next Tuesday. After college.
Dan shrugged. ‘OK.’
‘A friend of Charlie’s might be going to film it,’ she threw in, to make it more enticing. Dan nodded as if it was all the same to him. ‘See you then,’ and he moved off along the corridor.
‘The deed is done!’ Nell hissed to Charlie as they stood at the bar for ballet, risking the hawk eyes and vicious tongue of Olinka, the teacher, who’d once tapped Nell’s stomach with her stick and loudly requested that she pull it in. Nell’s cheeks still burnt when she thought of it and she would have liked to have taken that stick and beaten Olinka with it, and shouted into her ear, ‘I want to be an actress not a fucking freak of a ballerina,’ but instead she’d stood at the bar with tears of humiliation in her eyes, dreading the moment when they’d have to leap diagonally across the room.
On Monday night Nell and Charlie lay in the bath. Nell had dotted the room with vanilla-scented candles, and Charlie added some musky essence, twice the recommended amount. ‘So what will we rehearse?’ Nell asked. ‘Shouldn’t we have pages or something?’
Charlie sank under the water and came up sleek as a seal. ‘Oh, we can read a few pages of . . .’ she hesitated. ‘I’ll find something. Don’t worry.’ She rubbed shampoo into her hair and sank down again, pushing her body hard up against Nell’s end of the bath, her legs bent, her thigh against her shoulder. There were tiny bubbles shimmering in the tight curls of her pubic hair and it occurred to Nell she could move her hand a matter of inches and slide it between her legs. No! The thought was painful, sharp as knives, jolting such a spasm through her that she gasped.
‘Sorry,’ Charlie laughed, as she came up, and Nell slid down too to wet her own thick hair and hide her scarlet face. She kept her body pressed against the bottom of the bath but there was nothing she could do to submerge her breasts, which hovered above water. To feel Charlie’s hand just graze against them, she allowed herself to think, to feel her mouth cover each nipple in turn, but she came up as if nothing was different and vigorously rubbed in shampoo. Before she had time to slide down again, Charlie was standing above her, glorious, blazing, steam rising off her thighs as she stepped out. She wound her hair into a towel and left the room. Alone in the bath, Nell felt deflated. She washed under her arms and between her legs, desultory and workmanlike, and with the day looming so close, she began to dread it. The ridiculous idea of the pounce.
Nell and Charlie stood on the steps of college, pretending not to watch, while Dan and Jemma said goodbye. Jemma clung to Dan and Dan whispered, at unnecessary length, Nell thought, into Jemma’s ear. Nell turned her back and shook her head, and wished she could think of something to say to pass the time, when eventually there he was, loping towards them, his bag hanging carelessly from one shoulder, his trousers lower than ever on his hips. Just then a bus swung round the corner. ‘Quick,’ Charlie yelled, and they ran towards it, shrieking and free.
They raced up to the top deck and sat in a row at the front, where Charlie, her dark eyes glittering, began to sing in perfect imitation of Samantha, whose ambition it was to go into musical theatre. ‘I’m just a girl who can’t say no. Can’t seem to say it at all.’
‘Agony.’ Dan was laughing. And Nell reminded them of hulking great Kevin and his rendition of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’.
‘I thought I was going to die.’ Charlie clutched her stomach, and they dissected every minute of that afternoon’s music class, every flat note and clumsy move, weaving themselves tight into a net of their own superiority until they were on the corner of their road and they clattered down the stairs. ‘Stop, wait!’ They leapt off the end of the bus as it slowed.
‘A drink first? Or rehearse?’ Charlie asked, and without waiting for an answer she pushed open the door of the pub. They started with lager, a pint each for Charlie and Dan and a half for Nell, who sat between them at a corner table and explained about the scene they would rehearse and how when they were ready, a film school director would film it, and show it, probably, to anyone and everyone who was important in the business, so that basically, the three of them, before they’d even finished college, would be stars! As Nell talked, Charlie pressed her arm against hers, and then as they drank, drink after drink, moving from lager to spirits, she wove her arm around her shoulder and twined her finger in her hair as if to present her to Dan as a tender, longed-for thing of beauty, or possibly, Nell found herself hoping, to claim her as her own.
It was almost eleven when they tumbled out through the door of the pub. ‘Which way?’ Dan said, unsteady, and Charlie linked his arm and snaked her other round Nell’s waist. ‘Isn’t she lovely,’ she whispered to him loudly, ‘isn’t she fucking gorgeous?’ and when Dan stuttered and mumbled she pulled Nell in towards her and kissed her on the lips. Nell’s mouth opened in surprise and Charlie’s tongue slid in, firm and narrow, hot as whisky, her lips as soft as down. As she kissed her, she pulled Dan round to shield them, and used her free hand to slide it up under her jacket and rub it, hard, against her breast.
‘Bloody hell,’ Dan muttered.
Nell was reeling. She wanted Charlie’s hand against her skin, she wanted to unclasp her bra and push her breasts into her mouth, to kneel on the floor and slide her tongue along the length of her perfect thigh, but Charlie had taken control and was leading them both towards the house.
‘Bloody hell,’ Dan said again, as the door slammed shut behind him and the splintered boards and broken banisters revealed themselves. He covered his nose against the smell of damp and gas, and paled a little as he followed them up. At the first landing he took hold of Nell’s hand, but her passion for him had faded, and the touch of his skin, so longed for, felt clammy and foreign.
‘Boys and girls,’ Charlie called from the kitchen, ‘wine or beer?’ and she appeared with both and led them towards the sitting room.
A pale face loomed out at them from the landing.
‘My God.’ Nell started back, pressing herself against the wall.
‘Hello.’ It was a man’s voice, low and amused. ‘What time do you call this?’
‘Rob!’ Charlie stood and stared at him. ‘What . . . I mean . . .’ but with one hand Rob reached out, and taking hold of her wrist, pulled her roughly into the room. The door clanged shut behind them and Nell and Dan stood alone in the hall.
‘My room’s up here,’ Nell said, cold suddenly and nauseous from no supper, and she led him up the small flight of stairs to the attic.
Dan sat on the bed while she attempted to light the fire, blowing on it as Charlie had done while the flame guttered and ran and refused to catch. ‘Is that safe, do you think?’ Dan asked. ‘Gas can be dangerous.’ And Nell threw him a withering look before giving up. Their backs to each other, they took off their clothes, or as many of them as they dared, and climbed into bed, where they lay side by side until eventually Dan said, ‘Do you mind if we don’t . . . it’s just Jem . . . she’ll mind.’
‘No, it’s fine. Sorry.’ And they turned away from each other and tried to block out the moans and cries of Charlie and Rob as they crashed about in the room below.
The next day Charlie’s door was firmly closed when Nell and Dan got up for college, and later when she arrived home – having endured a day of searing headaches and accusing looks from Jemma, and Jemma’s closest friends – Charlie was lounging, smoking, on the sofa. ‘Can you believe it?’ She tossed over her pack of cigarettes. ‘He’s back for good! I hope you don’t mind, I mean you can stay till the weekend, of course, but then, you’re going to have to find somewhere else.’
Nell stared at her. ‘But . . .’
Charlie crawled across the carpet to her. ‘He’s dumped her. Isn’t that great? He’s said he’s sorry.’ She grinned. ‘Said it about ten times in fact. But anyway, how was last night?’
‘Last night?’
‘Dan? How was it?’ Her face was starry with expectation.
‘Great.’ Nell gathered herself. She even smiled. ‘Really good.’
‘So aren’t you going to thank me?’ She put her head on one side. ‘For getting you two together?’
‘Oh yes. Of course. Thanks.’ Hurriedly, Nell got up and went into her room, where, unsure what else to do, she kicked her foot so hard against the fire that the cracked pieces fell out on to the floor, leaving nothing but the gas pipe and two camel humps of wire.