the bar – hadn’t been that promising. His tongue had been a muscular slug that poked and jabbed at the inside of her mouth as though on a mission to find something.
Now Neve fumbles for her bra and, once on, reaches for the gold silky top she’d bought especially for the night out. She’d been delighted with it at the time because it was half price, but wearing it she’d discovered that it made her sweat under the arms. She’d spilled red wine down it earlier too. She wrinkles her nose as she rolls the top over her head and down her body.
‘You leaving?’
The voice makes her jump. She turns to see Whatsisname looking up at her from the rumpled bed, propping himself up on pale, muscular arms.
‘Yeah,’ she says, ‘Um … I’d better get going.’ She smiles as though they’d just had a casual coffee together instead of a joyless, drunken shag. ‘I’ll just …’ she hooks a thumb in the direction of the bathroom and then goes in, closing the door behind her as she pees.
She quickly washes her hands and avoids her reflection, aware it will only make her feel worse in the circumstances. Maybe she is faster than he expected, because when she comes back into the room a minute later, he’s leaning out of the bed, vigorously checking the pockets of his trousers that are pooled next to it.
He stops and regards her with a sheepish shrug.
Realization burns. ‘What the actual fuck?’ she says. ‘Did you think I was going to take your wallet?’
Her head is far too sore to be speaking this loud. But it’s better than smashing him in the face with the travel kettle, which she might do otherwise.
‘I don’t really know you, do I?’ he says, defiantly raising his chin.
‘No you don’t,’ she hisses, hunting for her bag and shrugging on her coat. It feels as though these actions take far longer than they should.
Finally, she is able to take the few paces to the hotel door.
‘By the way, you’re shit in bed,’ she says as she wrenches it open. ‘Merry Christmas, arsehole!’
She wants to slam the door behind her but it’s on one of those safety hinges and, instead, it gently closes with a disappointing sigh.
The word ‘Bitch’ is lobbed through before it shuts.
Outside on the street, she pulls her fake fur coat together at the throat. Fury pumps through her. She half thinks about going back and giving him a further piece of her mind.
But instead, she walks away, her high heels ringing out against a pavement that’s glossy with recent rain. She swallows down a surge of self-pity and blinks hard, trying to concentrate on which way to go.
Neve has a terrible sense of direction. Several boyfriends, and Lou, have claimed not to believe quite how poor it is, as if getting lost often is some sort of affectation. As if it is a choice, to experience the freefall sensation of panic when you don’t really know where the hell you’re going.
At the end of the street she stops and considers which way to turn.
There’s some sort of factory on the opposite corner and she’s sure now that they passed it. So she heads off that way, praying that she will find herself somewhere near Waterloo. If she can get over the water to the Embankment, she can probably find a night bus.
Her shoes chafe the backs of her heels and her teeth are gently chattering with the bitter cold. Whatsisface had a fashionable beard and it feels now as if a cheese grater has been taken to her chin. She’ll have to slather it with E45 when she gets home or she’ll look like she’s been sunburned. And Lou will be all over that in the morning.
It’s like being seventeen again, and not in any good way.
Neve takes another turning and begins to feel the usual thrum of worry that she’s going in the entirely wrong direction to where she wants to be. But she keeps moving and soon finds herself on a promisingly major road. Tall brown buildings soar on either side, glass-fronted windows lifeless, and a long row of bikes for hire seem to be resting like a tired herd.
Before long, she can see the distinctive glass sphere of the IMAX building by Waterloo and she lets out a breath of relief that curls in the frigid night air.
She’s grateful for the few other people around now, either party-goers draped in tinsel, laughing and shouting to each other, or London’s invisible army of workers dressed in cheap, sensible coats; heads down, hurrying from one service job to another.
Neve isn’t nervous about walking alone in London at night. It’s the sort of thing her parents would have fretted about but now … well, there’s only Lou and hopefully she’s asleep. She has only once been the victim of a crime, when her phone was stolen from her bag in a nightclub. The thief had clearly decided it wasn’t new enough to keep anyway, because it had been dropped in the beer and dirt and found by the doorman.
She hurries on, wondering whether Miri will find this a funny story tomorrow or give her friend the new look, the one that is just ever-so-slightly disapproving.
Neve tries to remember exactly where she can get the night bus to Kentish Town. Then, with a cold plop of realization in her stomach, she remembers taking her keys out of her bag that morning because a pen had leaked in the front pocket. She can picture them, still lying on the big kitchen table. Frantically, she begins feeling around inside her bag now, but knows by the lack of heft in the pocket that they’re not there. She closes her eyes for a moment and says, ‘Shit-shit-shit-shit-shit.’
Lou will have a field day with this. The whole house will get woken up.
She can hear her now, with her martyr face on: ‘It’s about time you took control of your life.’
Neve has been staying with her sister, brother-in-law and their two children since breaking up with Daniel, six weeks before. It feels so very much longer.
If she could go and sleep under her desk, she would, but she’d need a key for that too. It’s too cold to hang about, and anyway, it will probably take forever to get home. Maybe her sister will be up with the baby by then.
She hurries on towards Waterloo Bridge.
It’s surprisingly quiet. Apart from the occasional vehicle hissing past on the damp road, she has the bridge to herself. She stomps onward, ignoring the bright blue corona of the London Eye to her left and the comforting glowing face of Big Ben across the water. Normally she gets a thrill from these sights; loves the reassurance that she no longer lives in a tiny village near Leeds. But it’s too cold and too late for that.
Here, exposed on the bridge, the knifing wind feels mean and personal so she tries to tuck herself down into her coat, tortoise-like.
When she sees the figure ahead of her, she has the disorientating sensation that it is a hallucination, or even something ghostly. It’s partly because of the paleness of the woman’s skin and hair, combined with the clingy, bone-coloured dress. Maybe it’s the sheer incredulity she feels on registering that the woman wears no coat in the small hours of this December night.
The
