doing extraordinary things with sarongs, ‘our obsession with little rituals?’
‘It makes sense to have a communal outing to the hairdressers,’ Abi shrugs, analysing her housemates’ hair: Gemma’s ebony ringlets, Fen’s dark blonde long-top-crop. She twists pinches of her own hair, bleached and razor-cut short into pixie-like perfection. ‘It’s all about synchronization. What’s the point of spending time apart on the mundanities, when we can actually make them something of an institution?’
‘What, even the dentist?’ Gemma asks, turning away from the television, the sight of cooking in a bright studio kitchen making her decidedly queasy. ‘And leg waxing?’
‘Which reminds me,’ Abi says, stroking her calves.
‘Not yet!’ protests Gemma, for whom the pain of a leg wax is on a par with her fear of the dentist.
‘How did we manage to coincide our periods?’ Fen wonders, dabbing at toast crumbs and thinking she could do with another slice, were there another slice left to toast.
‘That’ll be the Moon Goddess,’ Abi says, very earnestly. ‘We’ll dance in her honour next time we’re on Primrose Hill.’
‘Abi,’ says Gemma, ‘you need help.’
‘I’m not going to bother to wash mine this morning then,’ says Fen.
‘Wash what?’ the other two shriek.
‘My hair – if we’re going to Snips.’ Fen fingers her locks gingerly. ‘Anyway,’ she reasons, ‘who’s going to see me in my little archive? Just a bunch of dead artists and benefactors.’
‘Are you excited?’ Abi asks, excited for her friend.
‘Nervous?’ Gemma asks, nervous for her friend.
Fen upends her right palm. ‘Nervous? Yes,’ she says. Then she upends her left palm. ‘Excited? Yes,’ she says. Then she clicks her fingers and punches the air: ‘But I get to have Julius all to myself!’
‘Bloody Julius,’ mutters Abi, when Fen has shut the front door behind her.
‘Bloody Julius,’ murmurs Gemma. ‘Fancy fancying a dead sculptor.’
Abi sighs. ‘It’s not the dead sculptor she’s obsessed with but some lump of marble he made in the shape of two people having a shag.’
‘Our Fen is way overdue a bonk,’ Gemma reasons.
‘So am I,’ Abi rues.
Gemma counts the months off on her fingers. ‘Er, and me.’
‘Maybe we should set aside some time and synchronize,’ says Abi.
THREE
Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart, ’Tis woman’s whole existence.
Byron
Oh God. Oh Gawd. Oh Jesus. Matthew Holden has just woken up. The start to the day, to the week, could not be much worse. He has a hangover. He has a bad taste in his mouth. He’s late for work. And his ex-girlfriend is lying in bed next to him. With a contented smile on her sleeping face. He has a very bad taste in his mouth indeed. He tries closing his eyes but realizes that to stare at the ceiling, at the blooms of new paint on top of old, is far preferable to confronting all the current hassles of his life which parade around his mind’s eye as soon as his eyelids touch. Wake up. But he’s so damn tired. Wake up. Stay awake. Force eyes open. Monday. Monday. April Fool’s Day. Only this is no joke. No prank. He’s been a fool, full stop. It would be easier to just go back to sleep, slip into nothingness, to will it all to be a bad dream. However, while sleep might be a good antidote to his raging hangover, it won’t actually remedy the situation in hand or make it any less real. In fact, he’d have to wake again and do the whole oh God oh Gawd oh Jesus thing once more.
He daren’t move. Memory tells him that if he does, she’ll reach for him, claim him with encircling arms and clamping legs. Never let him go.
I wanted to get away.
The severity of his sigh is pronounced enough for her to turn to him, wrapping her limbs around him. She sighs herself. Triumphant.
Oh God. Oh Gawd. Oh Jesus no.
And then the phone starts to ring and Matt has an escape route though he knows in an instant that it is Jake’s mobile phone. He slithers from his bed and hurries through the flat, very naked.
Jake had, of course, answered his mobile phone. Jake was also late for work. But at least he was dressed. Jake just had a hangover, no ex-girlfriend in his bed. Not today. He had, in fact, bedded Matt’s ex-girlfriend. Quite recently. But never again. And not that Matt was to know. Certainly not today. Matt slumped into the armchair, placed a cushion over his dick and stuck two fingers up at Jake’s superciliously raised eyebrow. He couldn’t remember whether the clock on the mantelpiece was five minutes slow or five minutes fast. Whichever, he was categorically late. Jake had finished on the phone. He let his eyebrows soften though he refused to erase the vestiges of a smirk from his face. He sat down on the sofa. Though dressed, he placed a cushion across his crotch in a gesture of camaraderie.
‘Julia’s in my bed,’ Matt groaned, head in hands.
‘April Fool?’ Jake asked, in a vaguely hopeful way. Matt shook his head and cast his eyes to the ceiling. Only, unlike that in his bedroom, it had been replastered and repainted fairly recently and there were no hairline cracks or nuances of old against new paint to provide any welcome distraction.
Neutral nothingness.
It was realizing that I felt neutral nothingness that saw me finish a five-year relationship two months ago.
‘I could say,’ Jake mused, looking out of the window and deciding that it appeared to be spring-like enough to roll up shirtsleeves, ‘you’ve made your bed, now you must sleep in it.’
‘And my only reply would be, “I can’t, my ex-girlfriend is sprawled all over it”,’ Matt groaned.
‘How on earth did it happen?’ asked Jake.
Matt looked at him and couldn’t resist giving an elaborate, if quite medical, description of the sex act.
‘Really?’ Jake marvelled, playing along. ‘You put your weenie where?’
‘In a lady’s front bottom,’ Matt joshed.
‘How the hell did it happen?’ Jake asked again, seriously, stroking his goatee contemplatively.
Matt shook his head, shrugged and made a knocking-back-of-glasses motion before scratching his tufty cropped hair. ‘Oh God,’ he groaned, ‘oh Gawd. I’m late for work. Jesus.’
Clean, dry, if crumpled clothing in the washer-dryer provided Matt with no reason to go back to his bedroom. He dressed in the kitchen, hopping around trying to wriggle crumb-soled feet into odd socks. Shoes. Shoes? Matt had a rather sizeable shoe collection.
