Alice came over and started looking through my new records and bopping her head along to the music. She’d tied this spotty scarf round her hair and had big round red earrings in. She was looking really nice and Al always looked nicest when she was happy so I smiled a little smile to myself and gave her a squeeze with one arm. She grinned up at me.
‘How’s it going, love?’
I changed the song with my other hand and took the headphones off my neck. ‘Good, yeah, Al. Everything good with you?’
‘Oh, yeah.’ She winked over at her bloke and I tried for about the millionth time to remember what his name was. I’d met him loads of times and got on fine with him but his name was one of those things that never stuck in my head, which is a bit like a sieve as my mum used to tell me all the time. She looked back at me and it was like she was going to say something then changed her mind and took a sip of her beer instead. ‘Everything all right with Saffy?’ she said, as she swallowed.
I looked over at Saf. She had a big pretend daisy tucked behind her ear, and this floaty pink dress on with tiny flowers dancing about all over it. She looked gorgeous-fantastic and she was laughing at something Eddie had said. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Everything’s great.’
A bit later we were chomping on the big bag of crisps Al had brought round and talking about whether we’d rather be Richard or Judy. It turned out that on balance both had pros and cons and so it was quite a tough choice. Then there was that little break in the chat that you get sometimes when everyone’s just finished laughing and nobody says anything for a minute or two and you all kind of go aaah and look at your feet.
‘So,’ Weird Brian said after a bit, ‘what do we reckon’s going to happen with this Fate Jones thing?’
You see what I mean? He was a bit weird. Not really party chat, is it?
‘Horrible, it is,’ Al said. ‘I feel so bad for her parents.’
‘Rich though, aren’t they?’ Eddie said, like that was okay then, because Eddie was a bit like that, always thinking bad about people. ‘Must be something to it.’
‘Ransom, you mean?’ Saffy said, looking all thoughtful and clever like always.
‘Yeah, yeah, that’s the word,’ Eddie said, getting into it then. ‘I reckon someone’ll send them a note soon, you know, with all the letters cut out of newspapers and magazines and that. And if they pay up, they’ll get her back.’
We all thought about that.
‘It might be like that girl a few years ago, remember?’ Al’s bloke said. ‘You know, the one who was kept prisoner for years and years and fell in love with the bloke in the end?’
‘Stockholm syndrome,’ Weird Brian said, and I thought, I bet he watches all those true-crime programmes in the middle of the night, definitely his thing.
‘Nah,’ Lilah said. ‘Cos they’re always little girls, aren’t they, and then they don’t know any different. She’s grown-up. I reckon it’s just another normal horrible thing, some randomer off the street mugged her or whatever.’
Luckily she didn’t go into what ‘whatever’ meant because, fair enough, news and current affairs and that are party talk if you’re that way inclined but as far as I was concerned rape and murder aren’t all that suitable for a social atmosphere and I was feeling a bit shifty on my feet with the turn of events. I wanted to ask everyone whether they’d rather be Ant or Dec but now it seemed all inappropriate.
‘I mean,’ she said, ‘I don’t really get why it’s on the news all the time. It must happen, like, every day to loads of people. What’s the fuss?’
‘I’m telling you,’ Eddie said, even though he hadn’t, ‘it’s cos they’re posh and important and la-di-da!’
Lilah took another swig of her wine and nodded a bit too hard. ‘AND white.’
There’s not much you can say to that without falling into a big hole of awkward and so Al piped up and changed the subject a bit. ‘You seen those new billboards everywhere? The moving ones? Must have cost a mint.’
I went and turned up the music a bit and Lilah started dancing. The night turned back into little pockets of chat instead of one big circle, and Al started dancing too, a bottle of wine under one arm and her headscarf coming loose and falling in her eyes when she laughed.
I was halfway in the fridge getting beers out of the back and noticing how mouldy the cheese was when I heard her.
‘Dave,’ she said, which was Al’s bloke’s name and Saffy never had a problem remembering it, ‘got any bag?’
There was a bit of a pause and my breath puffed out all frosty.
‘No, mate,’ he said. ‘Meant to say – can we settle up tonight?’
‘Oh, shit, I forgot all about that! So sorry, hun – I get paid next Thursday, can I drop it round then for you?’ Her voice sounded all sweet and singsong, like little birds and bunnies might hop through the door any second and start pouring drinks and emptying ashtrays for her.
‘Yeah, sure.’
‘Thanks for reminding me – don’t let me forget again!’
With that she floated off to dance with Lilah and I came back out, bumping my head on the shelf on the way.
A while later I rolled a ciggie and went out to the front step. It was fine to smoke in the house and we did it all the time, but Lilah’s singing was getting a bit much and Weird Brian kept trying to talk to me about the girl who lived across the road from him, but mostly I went out because I thought Saffy was there because she’d disappeared. So I ducked out and found the front door open but out on the concrete no Saffy. I lit my cig and craned my neck to look up at the pavement to see where she’d gone. My heart did a little skippity-skip to the beat, but as my first drag was filling up the last pink bits of my lungs, I heard her tippytoe footsteps along the concrete and then she was at the top of the stairs like a miracle or a dream.
‘Hey, beautiful,’ she said, and her hair was all lit up from behind by the orange streetlight like an angel’s.
‘Hello, lovely,’ I said, and she skipped down the stairs and hopped off the last one to stand next to me. ‘Where you been?’
‘To get us a little something,’ she said, and she waved a baggy between her tiny fingers, catching the same orange light like it was glowing from inside or on fire.
I was about to ask her where she’d got it and how she’d paid for it and to tell her that everyone was going to make a move soon, but just as I looked down at her smiling face and opened my mouth, the door burst open and Weird Brian came strolling out, followed by Dave carrying Alice in his arms and then Lilah with her arm round Eddie’s neck.
‘Sorry, guys,’ Dave said, hitching up Al’s head where it was dangling over his elbow. ‘Ally was sick in your sink. Better get her home.’
‘No worries.’ We both nodded. ‘See you, guys.’
They bobbled off up the steps and their chit-chatter faded into the dark as they walked away.