‘I’ve got really into Foals recently,’ Ryan says, turning the conversation back to music.
Nimesh nods drunkenly. ‘It hurts like a bitch when they kick you, though.’ He hiccups. He only gets one weekend off a month, and is drinking two to everyone else’s one.
Ryan’s girlfriend scans the smoking area, sees Seb rolling a cigarette for one of the bouncers. He seems to know everyone here, and everyone here seems to like him. On his way back, he pats someone’s shoulder, fist-bumps someone else. He hands Ryan a proper cigarette pilfered from the bouncer, and Ryan kisses Seb on his bearded cheek in gratitude. Seb puts his arm around Nimesh, asks him about his night. Clara looks impatient for him to get to her. She wants him all to herself.
‘Hello, trouble,’ he says, greeting her with a kiss.
She smiles, her eyes remaining closed. He takes his place behind her, lets his heavy arms hang over her shoulders. She holds on to his forearms, sways from side to side.
‘What are we talking about?’ Seb says.
‘Baby horses,’ Nimesh says.
‘Clara was just telling me about your film,’ Ryan’s girlfriend says.
Seb rolls his eyes, says that no one wants to hear about that. He goes to roll a cigarette for himself, but he’s used his last filter, so he tears a strip off an old train ticket in his wallet and twists it into a tight little cylinder.
‘What are you working on at the moment, Clara?’ Ryan asks.
Clara shakes her head, as if there’s too much within it to put into words. ‘This new short,’ she says. ‘It’s early days, yet. I still need to finish writing the thing.’ She watches Seb pinch his cigarette together, tuck it between his lips. ‘Then there’s the day job. I’m actually helping to produce the film that this guy is in.’
Seb blows out a cloud of smoke.
Clara turns to Ryan’s girlfriend, speaks excitedly. ‘He’s so good,’ she says. ‘He wasn’t at first, but he is now. I’m so proud of him.’ She squeezes Seb by the arms. ‘My big project.’
Nimesh laughs. Ryan asks another question. Only Ryan’s girlfriend notices Seb’s expression, the manner in which he clenches his jaw, narrows his eyes. The way he shakes his head, stubs out his cigarette before it’s finished. When they return to the bar, Seb presses on ahead. He’s nowhere to be seen after they’ve downed their Jägerbombs, or even when they’re once more in the thick of it, a new band seamlessly replacing theold one, Smudge struggling through the crowd to get to them, blinking dazily through the plastic bars of his glasses.
‘Ben Morris surfacing,’ Ryan yells.
Nimesh embraces Smudge like they haven’t seen each other in years. Ryan takes his girlfriend by the waist, nods towards the crowd. Nearby, Clara spins on her axis, spots Seb near the exit, beckons for him to join them. He doesn’t come. She goes to him. The music plays out, and it’s love, and it’s noise, it’s art and it’s friendship. It’s something altogether more primal, more profound. It’s all here, and it all swirls under the sweaty lights, becomes muddled, gets confused. She can see Seb and Clara, distant and indistinct, heads pressed together in the corner of the room. Clara’s face is contorted, her words coming quickly. Seb runs his fingers through his hair in frustration.
‘Are they arguing?’ she asks Ryan.
‘Seb never argues with anyone,’ Ryan shouts, not even looking. ‘It would be like fighting with a fridge-freezer.’
But she knows what she’s seeing. And she knows that something is shifting, when Seb storms out and Clara follows.
a passer-by
When you’re four-pints drunk, and you’re stumbling towards Liverpool Street Station, and the sky is so big and the buildings are so tall, you’d be forgiven for thinking of such things. Of the privilege of being alive and in the middle of it, among the ice rinks and the strung-too-early Christmas lights, so much life and so much noise and so many people. Of knowing that deep beneath you, little tube carriages filled with strangers are being shot through tunnels beneath excavated earth, zipping back and forth like sparks across power lines. Or that in that tower block, over there, each window denotes a flat, and each flat denotes a bedroom and a bed, a multitude of tiny people floating flat and horizontal and asleep, a concentric column of human beings stacked on top of one another, rising into the night sky.
He scuffs his shoe against the edge of the pavement, trips a little. There are voices, getting closer. He can’t see them, but he can hear them. A man and a woman, arguing beneath the arches, their words echoing louder and louder as they become more irate.
‘You don’t have to get so defensive,’ the man is saying. ‘It was just a question.’
‘It was a loaded question,’ the woman replies. ‘And a cruel one.’
‘It was a valid one,’ the man says. ‘Did you used to do it with him? Did youtrainhim, too?’
The woman’s voice is wounded. ‘He never wanted my help.’
‘Oh, right,’ the man says. ‘He’s RADA.’
‘That’s not what I—’ she begins.
‘And I’m what?’ he cuts in. ‘Your “big project”?’
Her voice goes up an octave. ‘That was a joke!’
