I didn’t want to be kept waiting at the bar, so I lurked in the car park until I was ten minutes late, obsessing about that time we’d met here before, nine years ago.
There was nothing sleek about me then. I stood at the bar with Mrs Wragg’s cousin’s daughter, Minna, drinking Vimto through a straw, wearing a vintagey daisy-patterned dress and a crochet cardigan that made my arms droop.
‘Seriously, you haven’t been here before?’ Minna had spent all day making fun of me and the fact that I’d been eighteen for three months and still hadn’t had an alcoholic drink or a speeding ticket or a kiss. It was starting to get really annoying.
‘No, except in the garden, to play on the swings. A long time ago, of course. Not, like, last week or anything.’
She laughed, spluttering on her Malibu and coke.
‘You want to live a bit, Luce. Back at home, I’d be getting ready to hit the clubs. Couple of Breezers in the bedroom with my girls, music on, makeover time.’
Irritated, I had a go at trying to shock her. ‘I usually spend my Saturday nights skinning up in the van with the local biker crew,’ I said.
It was blatantly untrue. I’d had one toke of a joint, once, a few months back, and disliked the aftertaste so much that I never did it again. Besides, what it did to mum and her friends bored me. Why would I want to spend hours staring vacantly into space or giggling at the cartoon on a fucking crisp packet? No, thanks.
‘What, you’re on drugs?’ she said, wide-eyed, then, ‘Know where we can get some?’
I did, as it happened, but I shrugged and said, ‘Nobody’s holding this week.’
I could tell she was impressed by my knowledge of the terminology, though, and she was appropriately respectful when she asked if I’d mind her going and playing the slots for a bit.
I gave her my permission and watched her making the lights flash and the jingle-jangle until something terrible happened and I nearly ran out of the bar and into the lounge.
Joss Lethbridge walked in, with a contingent of preppy floppy-haired fools. His friends took a table while he came in to order the round. He didn’t seem to notice me at first, and I’d turned my back on him, but half a minute after he pitched up, I heard his voice at my shoulder.
‘Lucy, isn’t it?’
I couldn’t exactly ignore him, much as I wanted to, so I turned around and gave him a stony look.
He’d been twelve the last time I’d seen him. Of course, mum had filled me in, quite unnecessarily, with the saga of his doings and his goings-on and his Eton triumphs and polo-playing prowess, but I had never actually caught a glimpse of him in the eight years that had passed.
He had changed. As a boy, he’d been heavier-set with chubby cheeks and hair that wouldn’t sit neatly on his head. Now, at twenty, he had been chiselled and straightened and stood in front of me sickeningly tall and handsome. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t representative of the vileness within, and I felt sorry for all the girls who would be taken in by it. His eyes were the same, though, huge and dark brown and far too intense for comfort. At any minute, the sadistic smile I remembered would break through the wall of effortless aristo bonhomie and the real Joss would be out of his civilised box.
Worst of all, I knew I was blushing because of the way my skin prickled, and I was blushing because I couldn’t stop thinking about all the times I’d fantasised about him. God, what if he could read minds? What if he could see?
‘Well, I suppose I don’t deserve a smile,’ he said, and there was something in his eyes I’d never seen before. It reminded me of sadness. Perhaps it was.
‘No,’ I agreed.
‘I was a complete shit to you. You should slap my face. Go on.’
He brought his cheek close to mine, so that I had to jerk back to avoid his breath on my skin.
‘And get myself barred? Yeah, right.’
He straightened up.
‘At least let me buy you a drink. As a token of apology, though I owe you much more. What are you drinking?’
I didn’t want to tell him but something about him compelled me, even now.
‘Vimto,’ I admitted, and he burst out laughing.
‘I’m not sure I even know what that is,’ he said. ‘It sounds quite dangerous. Lucy-in-the-Sky-with-Vimto.’
‘It’s a secret blend of fruit juices, herbs and spices,’ I told him, hating myself for getting lured into conversation like this but somehow unable to shut my stupid mouth.
‘How exotic. No alcohol?’
‘Nope.’
‘I can slip a vodka in there if you’d like.’
‘I wouldn’t like.’
‘Fine. As Madam wishes.’ The barman approached and Joss gave his rather extensive order. ‘Anyway,’ Joss resumed, turning back to me while the barman pulled the pints, ‘how are you?’
I shrugged. From the corner of my eye I could see, to my considerable chagrin, that Minna was flirting with the table full of toffs.
‘Left school, I take it?’ He was dogged in his pursuit.
‘Just finished A levels.’
‘Going to university?’
‘Yeah.’
He looked at me with this ‘I need a fuller answer than that’ look. Again, I was compelled.
‘London. English.’
‘Damn. I was hoping you’d say Oxford. I could show you around.’
‘I couldn’t be bothered with all the Oxbridge crap.’ Because I knew you were there.
‘Well, I’m sure you had better things to do. Come over to our table. Is she a friend of yours?’
He glanced at Minna as he put his legion of pint glasses on a tray to carry across the room.
‘Not really. Somebody’s visiting niece, that’s all.’
I narrowed my eyes at her. She was leaning over some Hooray Henry, giving him a faceful of her cleavage in its tight, skimpy vest top. It was plain that Joss’s friends had about as much respect for her as they had for the pub dog stretched out by the fireplace, but she was an amusement for them, so they tolerated her.
‘Minna, we should go,’ I said, avoiding taking my place beside Joss on the oak settle.
‘What the fuck?’ she whined. ‘Don’t be such a killjoy, Luce. Sit down and have a drink. You might even enjoy yourself.’
She looked around the group, lapping up their approval and their nodding heads and eager grins.
I wanted to kill the lot of them.
But I sat down.
It was one of the most excruciating half-hours of my life. Minna and I were exhibits in a zoo – look at the Local Girls in their Natural Habitat. They asked us questions and laughed at our answers, no matter how dull or ordinary they might be. Within five minutes, one guy had his hand on Minna’s thigh. We were just there to provide a bit of entertainment, like tavern wenches in ages gone by when the men of quality deigned to refresh themselves.
Joss, though, didn’t seem to be joining in with the heavily veiled barbs and slights. He tried to temper his friends’ increasingly drunken enthusiasm, remonstrating with them when they approached the verge of Going Too Far, and he defended me from all questioning with a flat ‘Lucy’s got more sense than to talk to the likes of you oiks. Leave her alone.’
The pint glasses emptied, one by one.