I waved cheerily to Nash and found Angus in a corner, finishing a whisky contemplatively.
‘I’m off,’ I announced.
‘Bye then.’
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ I said, for the second time that evening.
‘What for?’ he smiled wearily. ‘We just had a discussion, that’s all.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’ I wasn’t going to tell him about what happened in the loo …
‘You never told me about …’
‘What?’
‘You never told me about Alex.’
‘It’s a long story.’
‘So you said before. I’ve got lots of time.’
‘Some other time then. Umm, when there’s lots of it. And not tonight, when I have twenty-eight minutes and counting before I pass out wherever I am.’
I leaned in to kiss him good night. Unexpectedly, he put his arms round me and gave me a hug.
‘Do you want me to come and find you a cab?’
‘I’ll be fine,’ I said gratefully. ‘This is Holborn, for God’s sake – what are they going to do, sue me to death?’
‘Goodnight then.’
I grinned, turned and left, before I could do something clumsy and spoil the moment.
Outside I spotted a cab and was just putting up my arm when I heard my name being called, weakly, from an alley.
Discounting the obvious, I assumed it was an evil spirit coming to reclaim me for the night, and jumped six feet in the air. When I saw the arm coming out of the alley, I discerned it was at least semi-human … I hoped.
I wandered over and crouched down beside the sorry specimen.
‘Wooooooah, Alex! I came looking for you earlier – I thought you’d gone.’
‘I wasn’t feeling too well.’
‘What on earth happened to you?’
‘Um, he hit me. Then I felt a bit tired and had a sleep. Then I woke up and didn’t know what to do. And then you came.’
‘That’s because I am in fact an angel from God,’ I said severely. ‘Can you stand up?’
I wanted to work out how bad a state he was in. Still pissed, he had a gorgeous black eye coming up, but his nice patrician nose remained in a nice patrician state, and I didn’t think he’d broken anything too major. I hoisted him to his feet.
‘And also, I was sick.’
‘Aha, so you were!’ I said, noticing suddenly, but managing not to drop him like a stone.
‘Charlie?’
‘Dunno.’
‘Fran?’
‘Dunno.’
I sighed.
‘Come on, you.’
I hailed the cab. The driver slowed down, saw me half-carrying a bloody, vomity war victim and speeded up again.
‘Bastard!’ I yelled after it. ‘Poxy poxy bastard.’
One freezing November hour later, all my pleasant, muddled, drunken feelings had evaporated and I was cursing London, cursing parties, cursing cab drivers, and especially cursing the enormous stinky sack of potatoes I had been delegated to haul around just because I was in love with it.
Finally we found a minicab driver too hashed up to care about the vomit – actually, judging from the smell of the cab, it was his speciality – and made it back to Kennington for 3.30 a.m. The entire building was silent and completely black.
Alex only wanted to get to bed, but he wasn’t going anywhere near me in that state, so I dumped him fully clothed in the shower and turned the water on.
Instantly, he started to make a noise like a howling dog. I made a flying tackle through the air, which successfully cut off the howling, but not without pulling the shower curtain down. It fell with a huge clatter as I stood there, hand over his mouth, tilted at a horrible angle and getting soaking wet, with the curtain over us both like a huge ghost outfit, waiting for the entire neighbourhood to descend and throw shoes at me. Alex looked up at me, wide-eyed and lost, as I closed my eyes and tried to think where on earth I could possibly move to when I got summarily ejected from the flat.
Nothing happened. I flopped out from under the curtain and tilted my head like a fox. Not a sound. I pulled Alex out, having wiped most of the dried blood off his face. He stood there dumbly while I tried to silently fix the shower curtain then decided to ignore it and hope it went away by the morning.
Sunday was half over by the time I limped through into the kitchen desperate for fluid. I drank half a pint of milk – YUCK – which was all there was, and steeled myself to go check out the bathroom. It was immaculate, as if we’d never been in. The curtain was back up, the blood was washed away. I wondered for a second if I’d dreamt it, then shook my head to clear it.
‘Ehm, Linda?’
I timidly knocked at her door. She opened it the way women do on The Bill when their men are escaping over the back fence.
‘Yes?’ She peered at me through her thick spectacles.
‘I’m … sorry about the shower curtain.’
‘S’OK.’
‘I mean it … I’ll, buy you another one, or … ehm, I’ll buy you another one.’
‘S’OK.’
I didn’t want to get into a staring match with her, so I gradually backed away, feeling creepy, and went back to the bedroom with another glass of milk. Alex was still completely unconscious, and his eye was turning fluorescent.
‘Alex,’ I hissed, flopping down beside him. ‘Alex! Wake up! I’m frightened of my anti-social flatmate! I think she’s going to chop me up with an axe! And leave me here, and no one will find me for three weeks!’
‘Pfnat.’ Alex tried to open his eyes and realized he couldn’t, because they’d been punched. He focused on the glass of milk, and his eyes bulged and his skin turned green.
‘NO! Don’t vomit!’ I pulled the glass away. ‘Again!’
His eyes slowly closed and he passed out.
‘Great,’ I thought to myself. ‘Caught between the silent psycho and the unconscious phlegm machine.’
I
