‘Time for my bed.’ Nina yawns, getting up from the table.
‘Me too. Don’t be late,’ Scottie calls out to his brother.
Ian also says he and Laurie need to get home, back before their midnight curfew.
‘Lightweights,’ Angus calls back, before returning his attention to me. ‘We don’t need to go yet, do we?’ he asks, like a child not wanting to leave the party.
‘No,’ I decide, reasoning my bed can wait.
Angus and I dance until the early hours of the morning. We dance our hearts out to Madonna, David Bowie, Blondie and George Michael. With Angus, just as I did with Jamie, we dance as if no one’s watching us, because no one is. I look around, people throwing their heads back, singing, flinging their arms, forgetting all about their problems, for one night. And it feels great. I feel alive.
Angus and I walk home, hand in hand. It doesn’t feel weird. It feels right.
‘That was one of the best nights I’ve had in ages,’ I tell him, still hearing the music playing in my ears. Still feeling our bodies pressed close to one another. Angus’s breath on mine. Seeing his smile. Hearing his laugh. Feeling young again. Watching him make a fool out of himself. I realise, in this moment, that I love everything about him.
‘Think how many calories we burned. Angel would be proud,’ Angus replies.
‘I wasn’t thinking about that,’ I say quietly.
‘Nor was I.’ We reach my front door. Angus doesn’t let go of my hand.
‘Angus,’ I say, looking at him as if he needs to go home, but at the same time, not wanting him to.Do you want to come in?is playing on my lips as his grip tightens. Neither one of us asks the question. Angus simply follows me inside, kicking the door shut, before he takes my face in his hands, and we kiss, urgently, as if this is our only chance to be together. There is no hesitation in my mind or body. I’m too tired to wonder if it’s right or wrong, or if it will ruin our friendship. The truth is, our friendship crossed a line some time ago. The only thing my body tells me, right now, is how much I crave Angus’s touch, and that I don’t want to wake up tomorrow, alone.
27
‘You know what?’ Angus says, as we approach a table by the window. We’re in a café in Hammersmith, located on the corner of the Goldhawk and Chiswick High Road. It’s busy at this time of morning, people drinking coffee and working on their laptops. ‘We deserve a day off the diet.’
‘We deserve a mega fry-up. After all, itisChristmas,’ says Laurie, sitting down opposite him, ‘and I’ve just been paid.’ Laurie means she has received her benefits.
‘Well in that case,’ I say, picking up the menu, ‘I’m ordering everything.’ Though I’m not hungry. I haven’t eaten properly for days.
‘I’m not paying then,’ Laurie says with a small smile.
The three of us have been on one of our morning runs. Laurie recently asked Angus and me if she could join in, she wanted to get fitter, faster. Angus and I picked her up from the night-shelter at ten to eight, before getting a telling-off for being five minutes late. Rich, we felt, given we used to have to drag her out of bed and into a tracksuit.
As I order at the bar, I glance over my shoulder and see Angus talking to Laurie. I sense he’s trying as hard as I am to appear normal in front of her. But at some point, we need to talk about the other night. Clear the air. Though the idea fills me with dread.
‘Thinking of Christmas,’ Angus says to Laurie, as I return to the table, ‘any plans?’
‘Chocolate,’ Laurie replies. ‘Me and Mr Cadbury will be hanging out a lot.’
‘Does the night-shelter do Christmas?’ I ask Laurie.
‘Oh yeah, turkey and all the trimmings, but I can’t eat turkey, it gives me wind.’ Laurie’s deadpan tone always makes things sound funnier than they should be. ‘I prefer gammon. And we do presents and everything.’
‘What do you want, Laurie?’ Angus asks. ‘If you could have anything?’
‘The boys said they were going to club together and get me something nice. Maybe my own place?’ she whispers, as if she shouldn’t dare ask for it. ‘I had a meeting with my support worker yesterday. They want to move me into independent living soon.’
‘That sounds good,’ I say, noticing Laurie tap her foot against the floor, ‘but scary?’
‘Dead scary. I’ve never lived by myself. Even when I was homeless there were always other people about. It was lonely, but I had no responsibilities except feeding myself. And I’ll miss Ian.’
‘Your bodyguard,’ Angus says.
‘Yeah, my bodyguard. He’s moving out too. He wants us to move in together some day. Mind you that’s probably ’cos I do all his washing and mend the holes in his jumpers. He had a job interview the other day, and guess what fool was ironing his shirt?’ She points to herself. ‘Moi. “Laurie, can you do this, Laurie, can you mend that?” Anyone would think I was his bloody mother, not his girlfriend.’
‘He loves you, Laurie,’ Angus says.
