Don't You Forget About Me Page 39

Seven years later, and The Cut And Snark is consistently booked to the rafters. Students stop to snap the signage, it gets posted online every time there’s a new wave of autumn term arrivals.

I won’t concede the name was a smart idea, per se, but the truth is Jo is so welcoming and talented at what she does, no one cares. She does a mix of shampoo and sets and lopping the long locks from undergraduates who’ve decided to reinvent themselves, shear it off and go unicorn blue and pink.

‘It’s like the Pet Shop Boys, or corn dogs,’ Rav said, when Jo had bought a house, and it was clear that predictions of commercial suicide had been exaggerated. ‘If the product is good you forget the name. It’s just a gateway. A portal to pleasure.’

‘Corn dogs aren’t a portal to pleasure,’ Clem said.

‘You have lived but half a life,’ Rav says.

I tell both Clem and Jo what Geoffrey said to me, doing the same sidestep of the detail about Dad I did with Esther.

‘You are kidding?’ Jo says, pausing with mouth full of Kirby grips. The way she’s winding the hair back in on itself and pinning it is masterful. ‘He said your life is a mess?’

‘Oh yeah. But if I “look lively” and take a job from him, I might just turn it around. I also “roar” around town like a “teenager” and lack a “pot to piss in”. Why do parents think they can attack you for hugely personal things? Imagine if you said to anyone else, who wasn’t your offspring: “You are single and poor and have no status. Oh and surely you’ve put on some timber there?” It’s savage.’

‘That is a fucking good point,’ Clem says, using her vape stick to prod the air for emphasis. ‘If you went round saying the stuff parents say to their adult kids, you’d be pegged as a sociopath. Like, just because they had unprotected sex thirty years ago, it doesn’t give them the right.’

‘And I’m not even Geoffrey’s kid! He loves step-parenthood in the most malign way imaginable – getting to order people around he didn’t have the bother of raising.’

Ranting when looking at yourself in a reflective surface isn’t entirely comfortable. I have the hair of Daisy Buchanan and the face of Ena Sharples.

‘I tell you something for free as well, if you took the job, then it’d be “why no partner”. If you got a boyfriend it’d be why not married, why haven’t you bought a house, then kid, then second kid. They’re never satisfied,’ Clem says. ‘My aunt’s like this, with her daughters versus me. She’s pitted us in an egg and spoon race ever since it was walking and reading ages, Mum says. Best thing to do is ignore them.’

‘What are you going to do?’ Jo says to me.

‘I don’t know. Unless he apologises, which I can’t see Geoffrey ever doing, I don’t know how I’m meant to stand being around him. Esther thinks I should play nice with him to support Mum.’

‘What does your mum see in him?’ Jo says.

‘One word, his money. OK, that’s two words. Ugh. I was about to say – never let me date anyone rich but lol, hardly likely.’

‘To be fair, Robin wasn’t exactly busking for coins,’ Clem says.

‘I’m not including Robin as we were never going to be in it for long haul and I’d have been better off putting my money in a Ponzi scheme as expecting any reliability from him.’

‘You need to avoid him at all costs. George,’ Jo says.

‘No, she should meet him for this drink and tell him to leave her alone. And take someone threatening with you,’ Clem says.

‘Like you?’

‘I was thinking someone who looks like they could break his arm off and feed it to him.’

‘Still you.’

‘Full-scale crisis, coven!’ Rav says, when we pile out of a taxi and through the doorway of our meeting place. Coven is his pet name for us. ‘I’ve seen some bell end dressed like a member of Kasabian buying a round of drinks with his fucking watch. We need to find another pub, and fast.’

We’ve made that error of going to a new bar in town for a special occasion, because new = special, forgetting that new also = untested. And in this case, disappointing. There’s an inhospitable lack of seats and the music volume is necessitating shouting.

‘Fucking hipsters,’ Clem says, surveying the diner-style stools and squirrel cage lightbulb candelabra, blowing steam out of the side of her mouth, the tampon-holder of her vape stick caught between two slender fingers with blood-red nails, like a modern day Bette Davis.

To be fair, it’s not as if Clem looks unhipsterish herself.

‘We need somewhere we can hear ourselves drink, but where we’re not going to feel total arseholes for being dressy. Think homely but with some style,’ Rav says.

Rav is in his amethyst wool trousers and I agree we can’t go to a Bull & Badger type place where they’re going to shout PONCE.

‘Hang on …’ Jo says, looking at me, ‘What about The Wicker?’

‘Oh bloody hell, it’s my night off!’ I say. As the words leave my mouth, I think: I’d get to see Lucas. When I’m dolled up. Sparks in my stomach. You can tell yourself all kinds of longform lies, but split second reactions reveal the truth.

‘Waaaait, that is actually a very strong notion,’ Clem says. ‘It’s nice there and we’d be treated VIP, because Georgina.’

Rav clasps the lapels of my coat. ‘Two rounds, maximum, George. Just to achieve lift-off.’

I roll my eyes, make a performance of conceding, and Clem starts tapping at her phone for a taxi. Ten minutes later, we’re at my place of work.

‘I’ll get the drinks, go sit down,’ I say, as they clatter off.

‘I thought you weren’t working tonight?’ Lucas says, frowning, taking in my extravagant hair and make-up.

‘My mates wanted to come here,’ I say, pulling a ‘yuck, sigh’ face. I’m rewarded with an actual Lucas laugh. ‘It’s my friend Rav’s birthday, we’re going on to the Leadmill.’

‘Alright. I’ll bring your drinks over. You can have table service, unless we get a rush on.’

‘Thank you!’

I smile. Lucas smiles back. And for the merest second, his eyes flicker from my face down to my outfit. It’s a claret lace prom shape gown with a deep V at the back, the zip starting so low it almost hits the knicker line and made underwear a headache. I’m wearing a strapless boned corset that’s so constrictive it feels like it’ll have reshaped me for good.

When I shoehorned myself into this, I didn’t for a second think I’d have to parade the results in front of Lucas. It makes me self-conscious in front of him in a new way.

It reminds me of another night, another red dress.

Kitty zooms over, squealing: ‘Oh my God, Georgina, you look like a film star! Doesn’t she, Lucas?’

I writhe.

‘You looked so fit I didn’t even think it was you at first,’ Kitty concludes.

I burst out laughing. ‘Uhhhh … thanks.’

‘Nice hair,’ Lucas says, mildly, as he starts pouring Rav’s lager and I mutter that my friend is a hairdresser. Is your hair real … real colour, that’s what I meant …

‘Where are you going? Leadmill? The men are going to be on you like pigeons on chips,’ Kitty says.

Lucas and I automatically meet each other’s gaze, and I don’t know if we’re saying anything to each other with this look.

I pick my way to the table, conscious of the air, and possibly eyes, on my bare skin, sweeping from neckline down my spine, leaving a trail of tingling skin in its wake. Am I imagining it?

Jo’s phone is on the table, it goes brrrrrrrrp with WhatsApp messages from Phil.

She flips her phone over and says: ‘Don’t let me reply.’

Then adds: ‘I’m doing the right thing, right? I am ninety-nine per cent sure and then I think, “You chucked him for inviting you to a wedding.”’

‘No, you chucked him for wanting the rights and time and emotional space of a boyfriend while insisting he wasn’t ready to be a boyfriend, wasting your energy and stopping you finding someone who does want to play that role in your life,’ I say.

‘You are very articulate for one so party ready,’ Clem says.

‘That’s true,’ Jo says. ‘But … do you think someone can change?’

Clem meets my eyes with a ‘uh oh’ expression.

‘Rav, you know the answer to this sort of thing,’ Jo says.

‘Hmm, well. Professionally my answer is yes, people can address behaviours, and choose not to repeat them, if they’re willing. I’d be out of a job if they couldn’t. Personally, I’d say no one ever changes in essentials. Your character is your character.’

‘So I have to figure out if Phil’s problem is behaviour or character.’

‘You have to pull someone else and move on,’ Clem says.

‘Hi. Whose is whose?’ Lucas counts out the drinks, as everyone looks up at him with interest.

‘Clem,’ Clem says, shooting a hand out to shake his, after the last drink is set down. ‘I don’t think we met at G’s stand-up night. What do you think, Lucas? Join our philosophical conversation. Can anyone ever change?’

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