The Harder They Fall (17 page)

Shaunna cleared her throat and Josh glared at her, his eyes imploring her not to say a word. They were going to have see this one through, because however well-meant or carefully chosen the intervention, it would be taken, distorted, and used to beat them by whichever got a good hold of it first. Their driver chose this moment to pull back his screen and inform them they had arrived.

“Thank merciful God,” Josh muttered. He, Eleanor, George and Kris waited, until Adele, then Shaunna, then Jess, got out, the latter storming straight across the car park after Adele, leaving Shaunna shell-shocked and standing on her own. Through force of habit, and because he cared, Kris shuffled past the others and went to her. In the distance, they could still hear Jess and Adele screaming at each other.

“I’ll go see if I can talk them down,” Eleanor said, although she didn’t envisage success. She glugged the rest of her Champagne and edged along the seat, hoisting her dress up to her knees in order to step down onto the tarmac. “Bloody skirt. Now I remember what a damned nuisance it was last time. See you in a mo.” She paused to readjust her outfit, then disappeared from view, leaving Josh and George alone in the back of the limousine.

“Well, I suppose this might mean they get it out of their system before they ruin everyone’s night,” Josh remarked.

“Um, yeah, I suppose,” George said quietly.

“You don’t think you started it, do you? Because it was going to happen, whatever any of us said.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s, err…what I mean is…I dunno, maybe I should keep my mouth shut and leave the talking to you.”

“Hey, remember what happened with Ellie? Imagine how that would’ve ended if you’d left it to me. No, what you said was right, but Jess didn’t want to neutralise the situation. She was spoiling for a fight and we all know why. Anyway, time we went inside and joined the party, don’t you think?”

Josh gave George’s hand one final squeeze and released it, then shuffled along the seat and out into the evening air, seemingly oblivious to the effect that his uncharacteristic behaviour was having. George stayed where he was: he needed a moment to try and get his head together, a confused mass of arousal and reluctance pooling like a pit of tar in his stomach. He remembered now, when it all started; that mind-numbing crush that rose up around him, drawing in on him until he could think of nothing else. Time had quelled it to a constant ache, like an untreated abscess, and more recently still, it had mutated into a wish only partly fulfilled. Had his compromise of accepting a house-share with Josh destroyed his chances of ever having a relationship with anyone else? He’d begun to think this was so and had been well on the way to convincing himself that it was enough. But now the crush was back, with a vengeance, only this time he wasn’t sure he could beat it into submission.

“Are you coming?” Josh poked his head back through the open door.

George climbed out and smoothed down his trousers, his eyes averted.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing.”

“Another one of those ‘it’s too complicated’ things, is it?”

“Something like that, yeah. I’m dreading this.” There. He’d said it.

“Why?”

“Because coming out was tough.”

“You once told me that you never stop coming out.”

“Did I? That was quite profound, and also total bollocks.”

“I disagree. However, do you really think no-one at school figured out you were gay? Anyone who matters will either have realised long ago, or decided they don’t care one way or the other. Just be yourself and have fun. All right?”

George shrugged. “That’s easy for you to say.”

“Maybe, but look.” Josh pointed to Kris, who had just paid their chauffeur and was now chatting to a couple of new arrivals and playing up his ‘gayness’ to full effect. George frowned sulkily.

“There’s no way I’m doing that,” he said.

“You don’t need to. Just be yourself,” Josh repeated. “Now come on, let’s go!” He walked away towards Eleanor, who was waiting impatiently outside the entrance, leaving George to trail behind. Kris fell in step with him and gave him a nudge.

“Have you seen?” he asked, nodding towards Jess and Adele, who were still bickering, but looked as if they might have reached enough of a truce to enjoy the evening ahead; they hugged awkwardly as they made their way back to their other friends.

“That’s something,” George grumbled. He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and huffed.

“Come on, grumpy-pants.” Kris looped his arm through George’s and pulled him inside.

The party was certainly not in full swing, and didn’t really start swinging until the majority of the guests had consumed a couple of drinks or more, most initially experiencing that same mix of nervousness and excitement at seeing their fellow sixth formers twenty years on. The slenderness of youth had long since departed for most of them, as had the hair of around half of the men, but they were still of an age where mid-life vanity had yet to lead them into embarrassing attempts to comb over shiny pates or don ill-fitting pants. In passing conversations, some confessed that the outfit they were wearing was not the original article, which was ‘thrown out ages ago’, they’d say quickly, thoughts flitting to their attempts to shoe-horn themselves into said garment during the past couple of days. Kris was proud to declare to everyone he stopped to talk to that his suit
was
the one he wore when he was eighteen, even if it had been a year of mental illness and sustained lack of appetite that had determined his ability to fit into it. Likewise, Shaunna’s mingling was made easier by the option to lead questions about her teenage pregnancy into responses incorporating the dress she was wearing, bought by her parents two decades ago.

“Of course, I was too busy looking after a toddler to come to the last one, but at least this didn’t go to waste in the end,” she’d say, sweeping her hands down her sides and giving them a little spin, revelling in the resulting compliments about how beautiful she looked and repeated suggestions that perhaps having children earlier was the way to go.

Josh leaned on the bar and watched the whole affair from a distance, fascinated by the continuities and the ease with which people were falling right back into the relative orderliness of their old friendship groups, when often they hadn’t been in touch since high school. The only notable exception, for it was clear he was still a very long way off relaxing into the flow of the evening, was George, always a couple of steps behind Kris, glad to be downstage and cutting off conversations with quick, blunt responses. Eleanor was on her way back across the room, having visited the Ladies’ yet again (her fourth trip in the hour and a half they’d been there) and it was a relief to be certain that this time around it wasn’t to induce vomiting, but to stick another plaster on the back of each heel. Give it another half an hour, Josh thought, and I’ll be carrying those shoes.

“Enjoying yourself?” Adele interrupted his observations and waved a ten pound note in front of her so as to make clear to the bartenders that she, along with about fifteen others, was waiting to be served.

“I am, actually. You?”

“Yeah. It’s lovely to see everyone again, although I can’t believe I used to be such good mates with that lot.” She subtly tilted her head in the direction of a group of women in short dresses and platform heels, skin aglow with the unmistakable orange of spray tan and sunbeds. “They’re so shallow. I mean, when I was sixteen I probably bitched like that too.” She affected a squeaky, mimicking tone: “Oh. My. God! What
does
she look like in that dress?”

Josh laughed. “That sounded just like—what’s her name again? That one in the cerise pink nightdress.”

“Cherise, funnily enough.” Adele told him and they both giggled.

“You were always better than them,” Josh said. “You know that, don’t you?”

Adele lowered her eyes modestly. “I don’t think so.”

“I do.”

He was doing that mind-probing thing again and she hastily eased herself into a gap that opened between two of the people waiting at the bar, although it wasn’t far enough away to escape.

“Shall I just shut up?” Josh suggested.

“Oh, it’s OK. I don’t mind really,” Adele smiled, too brightly.

“No, I’ll just shut up.” Josh sipped at his glass by way of confirming that he really was done, even though he was seriously tempted to tell her how much he admired her for challenging Jess earlier. Adele was served soon after and gave him a kiss on the cheek as she passed by.

“Thanks,” she said.

“What for?”

“What you said, and what you didn’t say.” He nodded his understanding. Yes, much more astute than they gave her credit for. “Anyway,” she continued, “I’d best go find Shaunna. Last time I saw her, she’d been cornered by Zak ‘freaky-stalker’ Benson. He’s not bad-looking these days, but, ugh!”

“Good luck!” Josh called after her, as she tottered on her absurdly high heels around the perimeter of the empty dance floor. It would probably take a few drinks more before she or anyone else felt brave enough to strut their stuff in front of their once overly judgemental peers, although some were starting to look almost ready now. Cherise and her friends, for instance, were starting to move in time to the music, their usual fixation on self-image temporarily shelved in favour of criticising others. The conversation they were having was ludicrous, and Josh followed it by listening where he could and filling in the gaps with non-verbal cues. They were talking about Kris.

“Didn’t I tell you?” Cherise was saying to the broad-shouldered, peroxide blonde to her left. “I said, that Kris Johansson isn’t gay. He just needs showing what to do with it, I said.”

Josh took a slurp of his pint in order to stop himself from laughing. Peroxide Blonde was watching Kris and nodding meaningfully. What was her name again? Sharon? Chantelle? Something like that.

“So you offering, Cherise?” she said and the two of them tittered loudly.

“You must be joking, Shelle.” Ah yes, that was it, of course. Shelley Harrison: captain of the girls’ hockey team and looking like she could still do the business.

“I heard him on the radio the other week,” Brunette Bob piped up. Josh remembered her all right, but he’d never known her name. She was one of those girls who trail along behind the in-crowd, not quite brash or common enough, but trying their hardest to gain an invite.

“You never did,” Cherise remarked cuttingly. Brunette Bob looked indignant, but she said no more on the matter. Josh felt sorry for her, because she was probably telling the truth. What a shame she still felt the need to fit in with these dreadful people.

All the while he had been listening to this conversation, he had been aware of the fourth individual who made up their group: someone for whom, alas, a hair-based nickname was not required. She’d been watching him for quite some time, which was why he’d continued to focus on the other three, as looking away would be as dangerous as making eye contact. He really didn’t want to talk to Suzie Tyler, his constant companion through the boy-girl seating years. She was an exceedingly nasty piece of work, and he caught that sneer as it morphed artificially into a wide, teeth-bared smile. She was coming over.

“Hi, Josh,” she called on her approach, waving at him. He nodded.

“Hey, Suzie. How are you?”

“Oh, I’m great, thanks for asking. On your own?”

“I was,” he said coolly. She affected a giggle.

“You haven’t changed much, have you?”

“Nor have you.”

Back in school she had instigated so much trouble, not just for Josh and the others; she didn’t discriminate. Hence, he was overjoyed to find at the start of the fourth year, that firstly she was no longer in most of his classes, and secondly, the boy-girl seating arrangements had by and large been abandoned. Even so, she was the one who took it upon herself to tell the rest of their year about Shaunna’s pregnancy, and she was supposed to be one of her friends. The rumours were horrific, cruel lies of how she had been ‘gang-banged’ by all of the lads at the party, which was why she didn’t know who the father was. At the time, Shaunna was off school with morning sickness, so they were able to shield her from this; not so from the nickname of ‘Shaunna Whore-nessy’ that they’d come up with in her absence. What clever girls, Josh thought sardonically: well done them.

Suzie had been standing next to him for a couple of minutes, swaying to the music and casting her vicious eye around the room for her next victim, and much as he didn’t think any of them deserved it, he was hoping she’d find someone else soon. A few seconds later his prayers were answered, although Kris probably wouldn’t be quite so grateful.

“See you,” she said, slithering away. Kris’s face dropped as he saw her heading in his direction, but he quickly switched to performance mode and turned on his best smile.

“Hi, Suzie. How fabulous to see you,” he said loudly, kissing the air next to each of her cheeks in turn. George glanced over at Josh and rolled his eyes.

The dance floor was still empty, but a few people had moved closer, including a group of men, one or two of whom he instantly recognised, standing right on the corner, trying to look like they were engaged in some kind of macho discussion about football when it was nothing of the sort; this much he could tell from some of their gestures. Tagging on at the very outskirts of the group was Martin O’Brierly, no taller or less round than he had been in sixth form, although his red hair wasn’t quite so much of a ‘shock’ these days, more of a smattering of red dots, shaved close and showing off the skin roll against his shirt collar to optimum effect. He really was a funny-looking little man, but then so were the others in his selective grouping. They were the geeky, average achievers, who, by reason of acne, ginger hair, obesity or other irrelevant physical property, had struggled to make friends with either sex. It was apparent from the way they were standing that they certainly weren’t friends with each other, and their conversations consisted of bland explanations of the various boring jobs they did. Peter Parsons, it would seem, was a network manager with responsibility for ‘a very powerful, robust system’, which he’d set up singlehandedly. The rest of what he said used terms such as ‘giga-hertz’ and ‘terabytes’ and Josh lost interest. In response, Jonathan Shipley was boasting about his ‘unbelievably successful’ web design company, with ‘literally hundreds’ of clients who were too stupid to question how much he was charging them for something they could have done themselves.