Page 13 of The Way We Are Now

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Once I’d got through the door, I divested myself of outer garments and headed for the kitchen, the toaster and the kettle. By the time I’d made my way into the front room, munching a pile of toast and jam, I was beginning to warm up. Fliss, Katy and Clare were all there, the latter two wrapped in duvets, glued to an episode of Dynasty while sharing a jar of peanut butter.

‘Having a sleepover?’ I asked the two of them.

‘We live here,’ Katy said. ‘How can we be having a sleepover?’ Her eyes never left the screen. ‘Fallon Carrington’s a bitch,’ she added, pinching my toast and taking a huge bite. ‘Where’ve you been? You’ve missed the first bit.’

‘Library. With Frank,’ I added. For some reason, I didn’t want to go into who’d given me a lift home.

‘Swot,’ Clare said without any malice.

‘I want to get one of the placements in the summer,’ I said, yawning. I suddenly felt shattered. ‘Fliss, why the hell are you dressed like you’re about to take on Martina Navratilova at Wimbledon?’

‘Squash, not tennis.’ Fliss tutted. ‘What do you think?’

‘About what? Aren’t you cold sitting in a skimpy white vest and tennis skirt? It’s as cold in here as it is outside.’

‘She’s discovered the man she’s after is an ace squash player.’ Clare laughed. ‘God, she’s obsessed with him.’

‘Oh?’

‘So,’ Fliss enthused, ‘once you’d run up the steps like a frightened rabbit after you’d seen him in all his glorious manhood, he came to find you in the kitchen. I was there instead and obviously had a good chat with him. The reason he was in the bath in the middle of the morning wasn’t because he was an idle sod and had only just got out of his pit. No!’ Here Fliss’s eyes gleamed, presumably picturing the fit, glowing body of Theo Mandeville. ‘He’d been training, playing squash, but the showers down at the sports place on the main campus weren’t working. Probably frozen pipes. I bet most blokes would have just sprayed a bit of the old Brut under their armpits and in their bits and pieces, pulled on their jeans and off to lectures. But, you see, Theo Mandeville is upmarket.’

‘Or he was on for a promise,’ Clare said, her teeth and tongue working through a mouthful of peanut butter.

‘What, at nine in the morning?’ I asked.

‘Hey, he can have the pick of any woman,’ Fliss said stoutly. ‘I bet there was some girl somewhere waiting for him in her early-morning bed.’

‘If that’s the case, why didn’t he use her shower then?’ I asked. ‘I mean, why come back to his halls?’

‘I told him I was big into squash,’ Fliss went on, ignoring my question. ‘That I’d been playing for years.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ I said, staring. Here was something else I didn’t know about Felicity Sutherland.

‘Anna,’ Katy chortled, ‘Fliss thinks a racquet is the noise you make at a party when you’ve downed too much cider.’

‘Irrelevant,’ Fliss said. ‘He’ll see me in this little white skirt – anybody got any Coppertone? – and that will be that. He’ll look no further.’

‘Baby oil and iodine,’ Katy put in. ‘Best for a tan.’

‘Don’t you have to have a beach and hot sun for that?’ Fliss asked doubtfully.

‘So, you’re just going to turn up at the squash courts dressed like that?’ I asked. ‘And then what? Who are you going to play with?’

‘I’ll just say I’m there alone to practise my back hand…’

‘Drop ball or fake shot.’ Katy shook her head. ‘Do a bit more research, Fliss,’ she added, ‘or you’ll come over as a right tosser.’

‘Come on, Katy, take me through a few more moves,’ Fliss cajoled. ‘What have you done with your bat?’

‘Bat? Oh, for fuck’s sake, Fliss. Shift yourself, I can’t see Blake Carrington.’ She peered round Fliss who was doing some sort of arm movement with an imaginary squash racquet.

‘Isn’t he a bit old for you?’ I asked, nodding towards the telly.

‘I think I quite like older men,’ Clare mused. ‘I don’t seem to be having much success with anyone here. Maybe I should up my game and try a different generation.’

By the time Friday came round and with it another morning of cleaning, I was rapidly going off the whole idea. I’d so much coursework to be doing, as well as revamping my CV and searching for contacts to whom I could send an application for my year out, hopefully in Westminster. So, when I woke at 5 a.m., with the start of a headache accompanied by flashing lights, I knew I was in for a migraine. I’d not had an attack since sixth form when I was revising for A-levels but I knew the signs. I also knew that setting off with Fliss up to Bodington Hall was the last thing I should be doing and, after downing a couple of paracetamol, I propped myself up on my pillows and tried to get back to sleep.