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17:06
Drums
•••
Ada Highfield
17:21
Wow it’s a good thing I’m going to Liverpool, I have so much to learn
FIFTEEN
On Tuesday night, only nine people came to the gig and Ada spent twelve of her forty-pound fee buying her and Steven bourbons afterwards, which they sipped moodily at the bar until Clem took pity on them and gave them refills for free.
‘Oh shit I almost forgot,’ Ada said, ‘I won’t be here the next two weeks.’ Steven said, ‘Are you trying to quit because of tonight? We’ve had smaller audiences!’ and Ada said, ‘I’m not quitting! I have to go to Florida.’ Clem looked up from replacing a keg to say, ‘I love Florida!’ and this was so surprising that Ada and Steven waited for an explanation that didn’t come. ‘Right, well I’ve never been but my sister is giving birth there and the whole family is going for some reason.’
Clem leaned on the bar and looked at Steven and said, ‘Wow, the sisterly love is dripping off this one.’ Steven said, ‘She’s told me her sister is kind of a drama queen,’ and he and Clem both laughed and Ada said, ‘Yes ha ha, even more of a drama queen than me, I get it, my childhood trauma is hilarious.’ Clem said, ‘So what’s wrong with this sister then?’ and Ada said, ‘Oh, Gabby just takes up so much. Like … I don’t know. Energy. My whole life it was like, will this make Gabby happy, will Gabby ruin this holiday … I don’t know, it’s just easier when we’re on different continents. And now she’s expecting me to drop everything and fly there to witness the blessed event even though I am fucking broke.’
Clem patted her hand and Steven said, ‘Maybe I should cancel the gig until you’re back,’ and Ada said, ‘Oh no, what would our thousands of fans do without us?’ Clem said, ‘You can’t cancel, you’re the only thing we have on the next two weeks,’ and Ada said, ‘Clem, honestly, that’s ridiculous. This is a great venue in the middle of London! Book more shows!’ And Clem looked actually annoyed, not Clem annoyed, and said, ‘I am running a bar, I don’t give a shit about the theatre.’ Ada said, ‘Maybe I could help?’ and Clem said, ‘Help me run the bar? You don’t even want to work here,’ and Ada felt, actually, a little told off. She was thinking about the telling-off, luxuriating in the minor shame, two days later as she jumped onto her train to Liverpool.
Mel had booked Ada a window seat and she staggered to it as the train pulled out of Euston. There was a man in a suit sitting in the aisle. She said ‘hi’ and tried to gesture with the hand holding her coffee cup but her backpack slipped down her shoulder and she spilled a little on her leg. The man stood up to let her in and she slid past him, backpack jamming her against the seat. She laughed in his direction but he gave no response. By the time she had settled down – backpack at her feet, tray table down with her coffee and her Pret Caesar chicken baguette on it, fanning her face – the man was gone. She was annoyed even though it meant she could put her bag on his seat. She hadn’t spilled the coffee on him, after all. She hoped the train would be full and he’d be forced to come back and sit next to her but he never did. She looked at her baguette and remembered that she wasn’t eating meat any more but then she figured that not eating the chicken that she had just bought would be even worse for the environment and she imagined Mel saying ‘Oh for sure’ and rolling her eyes.
When Ada had messaged Mel on Sunday panicking about losing Stuart and the price of the train, Mel had booked the ticket for her without even asking. That hadn’t exactly been Ada’s intention but she had known there was a chance Mel would do it. A likelihood, even. Ada had thanked her, over and over, and Mel had said, ‘What’s the point in doing this boring job if I can’t help my best friend get laid in every city in England,’ and Ada said, ‘Your job isn’t boring!’ then, ‘I have also been laid in at least two Scottish cities, please get your records in order.’
When she told Stuart on Sunday night how she’d got the ticket, he said he felt good, like that meant Mel was rooting for them to succeed. But as he was typing that, Mel was coming in their front door, home from her family visit, and gratefully accepting sardines on sourdough toast from Sadie.
‘We ate your falafel last night but I replaced it today,’ said Sadie and Mel said, ‘You replaced something you ate? Can you stay forever?’ and Ada called out, ‘I can hear you! I replace stuff!’ Mel popped her head around the living room door and said, ‘Sure you do. I missed you!’ and Ada asked how much jam her mother had forced on her this time. ‘Four jars, all gooseberry,’ and Sadie was excited because she’d never had a gooseberry before. Mel declared that they’d have dessert toast with jam after their main course toast with sardines and Sadie said, ‘And then we can toast each other … with our glasses,’ and Mel said, ‘And you’re a playwright?’ So Ada wasn’t sure, really, what Mel was rooting for but she didn’t tell Stuart that.
They had been messaging constantly since Sunday night, more frenzied even than those first three weeks. On Monday Stuart had sent her his number, said that Messenger was annoying him and Ada felt there was something formal about the switch to WhatsApp. Two apps both owned by the same company signifying totally different things – she wondered how she’d explain that to her parents.
They only talked about Sadie obliquely. Every night as Ada got ready for bed, Stuart would try to keep her on the line, telling her a new fact about giraffes that he’d learned from his zoology-studying coworker or asking her to describe the best brunch she’d ever eaten (she had been tempted to tell him about the shakshuka recipe she’d been perfecting but then she would be skirting around telling him that last Wednesday Sadie had woken up hungover and they’d eaten it together in the kitchen because Sadie agreed with her that only chilli could fix a hangover and— better, overall, not to mention it). They developed what they called their own personal shipping forecast, where they would predict what time the other would wake up in the morning and how they would feel and then whoever got closest won ten quid though it was unclear if the winnings would ever be collected.
The night before the train, Stuart predicted that Ada would wake up at 7 and be excited and she predicted that he’d wake up at 9 and be turned on and when they both woke up at 8:30 a little nauseous they called it a tie. Then she told him she wouldn’t message him the rest of the day. ‘It’s like seeing the bride before the wedding’, ‘it’s really not’, ‘oh come on be fun’, ‘wait are you planning on marrying me today’, ‘spoilers!’ but she’d stuck to it and now she was settled into moulded plastic, racing through grey skies in a white summer dress, legs freshly shaved, feeling every second of her run through the train station in the sweat dripping down her back. She was wearing her Cons and the little socks underneath had slipped down so her left heel was starting to feel raw. She tugged the sock back up and then tried to settle, adrenaline making every movement feel aggressive.
After Saturday, Sadie and Ada had reverted to their usual pattern of not seeing each other outside the house and neither of them suggested another day out. Sadie was busy with meetings during the day and tickets to shows at night and Ada had two gigs and an afternoon repainting a black box theatre as a favour to a friend. They had sex twice in three days and otherwise barely touched, Ada choosing to have Mel braid her hair in front of the TV while Sadie did the dishes.
On Wednesday night Sadie had got home around eleven and found Ada sitting on the kitchen bench in her stage make-up and lacy black cocktail dress, legs tucked under her. She smiled then kept eating a roast beetroot and feta salad out of their big metal salad bowl. Sadie leaned over and said, ‘Looks good,’ and Ada speared a piece of beetroot on her fork, rolled it around the bowl collecting bits and dressing and then offered it to Sadie. After a pause, Sadie dragged it off the fork with her teeth and made a ‘mmm’ sound. Ada felt a chill, like she’d done something inappropriate, gone too far, even though that morning Sadie had gagged her with her own underwear to stop her waking Mel. She quickly withdrew the fork and went back to her salad while Sadie boiled the kettle for ginger tea. She held up another tea bag to Ada and Ada nodded so she got a second mug down and it worked so smoothly, they were becoming seamless in this house. Ada thought about Sadie’s face as Ada had teased her with her wand and then Sadie’s face as Ada had pushed it inside her and then Sadie’s face as she washed the toy and dried it and put it back in its box and then Sadie’s face as she said, ‘Shit I’m late,’ and waved goodbye and slammed the door.
‘I meant to say – I can’t believe I forgot until now – I’m going away for the night tomorrow. Visiting a friend in Liverpool. Kind of last minute but, you know, I’m going to Florida on Saturday so this was my last chance to see him for a while.’ Ada wanted Sadie to ask her more about this friend and why she needed to see him at all but Sadie said, ‘That sounds nice. Liverpool is amazing. I did a two-week residency at the Everyman Theatre like five years ago and it was heaps of fun,’ and Ada said, ‘Oh cool, I’ve never been. I’m really looking forward to it,’ and why didn’t Sadie ask? Why didn’t she ask why Ada was making her first-ever trip to Liverpool on a whim on a Thursday and who was this friend anyway and wasn’t it time they were honest with each other and then they took their cups of ginger tea to their room and drank them while they undressed and moisturised and didn’t talk at all.
