Lucky Break (5 page)

‘Cheers,' she said, ‘here's to freedom,' and she filled the glasses to the top.

The food was disgusting. Oily, and a little undercooked. ‘I'm so sorry.' Charlie winced. ‘Please don't eat any more, I'm the most hopeless cook,' and she put her plate as far away as she could get it and took a huge gulp of wine as if to drown the taste. Nell ate two more mouthfuls, out of politeness, and also because she was ravenous, and then abandoned hers too.

‘You know who I do quite fancy, if I had to choose someone from college . . .' Charlie lit a cigarette. Nell lit one too and curled into her chair. This was definitely better than her old room, where, once she was home, there was no one to talk to except the gloomy landlord or his spotty teenage son.

‘Who?' she said, picturing the entire year seated in a circle.

‘Well, if I had to choose someone, just for a fling . . . I think, if I was forced . . . I'd go for Dan.'

‘Dan Linden!' Nell felt her stomach falling. ‘You're joking!' Heat rushed to her face. ‘But you know how I feel about Dan. You know I've been besotted with him since day one!'

‘Oh my God!' Charlie put her hand over her mouth. ‘Of course. I forgot. I'm so sorry. Forget I said anything. Please.' She looked at her and creased her eyes, pleading, and just in case that didn't work, she poured them both more wine.

‘Anyway,' Nell said gloomily, thinking how Charlie could get Dan with one quick look. ‘He's back with Jemma. God. Why are there no decent boys in our year?'

Her stomach still felt hollow but the blood had drained away from her face and she was cold. She wrapped her arms round her legs and stared into the fire.

Charlie stretched out on her sofa. ‘I really am sorry.' She looked over at her. ‘I suppose I've spent too much time thinking about myself.' And when Nell didn't respond she said, ‘Hey, why don't we make a plan. To seduce him. For you, I mean?'

Nell frowned. ‘But how? He's with Jemma. They're always together.'

‘Well . . . Hang on, I'm going to run a bath. I always think better in water. Come on.'

The bathroom was in the corridor beside the kitchen, and when the bath was full and the strawberry smell of the bubbles had filled the room, Charlie slipped off her vest. She had no bra on and her breasts were small and high, the same smooth colour as the rest of her. She had no knickers on either. She just stepped out of her trousers and kicked them to one side. ‘Ow, ow, ow,' she said happily as she climbed in, ‘it's hot.' And soon a deep red flush had spread across her face and chest and the damp curls of her hair clung prettily around her ears.

Nell sat on the edge of the bath and trailed her hand in the froth of bubbles. Charlie closed her eyes and lay back. ‘Hmmm,' she said, and when she opened them she caught Nell looking. ‘Get in, why don't you? It's lovely in here.' And she moved her long legs to the side as if to show her how much room there was.

Nell turned away to take off her clothes. She had on tights and a jean skirt, boots and several layers of vests and T-shirts. She struggled with them in the narrow room, the steam making the walls and floor shimmery with wet, until she was naked and uncomfortably aware of the heaviness of her thighs, and the great weight of her breasts as they released from her bra. There seemed so much of her, although she was shorter than Charlie by five inches at least. Charlie bent her knees against the bath edge and Nell slunk down into the water. It felt good. The heat and the pink sweet smell, and the shiny feel of her friend's thigh up against hers as she slid in. She leant back against the end, propped her head between the taps and smiled.

‘So.' Charlie grinned. ‘How do you get Dan into your bed?'

Nell didn't answer. She had no idea. It had never occurred to her that it was up to her. Fate, she'd always imagined, would decree.

‘How about . . .' Charlie mused. ‘We ask him back here to rehearse a scene. After college. Then we'll go to the pub to discuss, come back here for supper, I'll open wine, you can show him round the flat, and when you get to your room . . . pounce! Hang on.' Charlie rose from the water, her body gleaming, dotted with foam. ‘I'll be right back.' She stepped out of the bath, and naked, ran from the room.

Nell heard the music turned up loud from the sitting room and Charlie appeared again with a new bottle of wine. She slipped back in. ‘So?'

Nell lifted her glass and took a quick cold slug. ‘Let's do it.' She grinned, and although her head was spinning she raised the glass again and drained it.

‘You know something?' Charlie was smiling at her. ‘You're gorgeous.'

‘No!' Nell protested, disbelieving, thrilled. But she didn't repay the compliment, because she couldn't have said it without blushing, couldn't have watched Charlie while she skimmed the foam off the water and rubbed it gracefully across her neck, under her arms, and up over her chest.

 

Dan Linden was tall and lanky, with a dark tousled head of hair. He had a slow, lopsided smile – which was his charm really, and the fact he was faced with almost no competition from the other boys in their year, who were either obsessed with perfecting juggling skills or quoting Shakespeare sonnets in low, sonorous voices. Most of the girls had boyfriends in the year above, unfairly populated with heterosexual, effortlessly talented men, or like Charlie, they'd looked outside college for their love affairs. But since the first day of the first term Nell had been in love with Dan. She'd waited, smiling occasionally, brushing past him in the queue for lunch, until one afternoon she realised she'd waited too long, because there was Jemma, holding his hand, standing at the bus stop with him, wearing his scarf. Occasionally, it was true, they split up, but within days there was a stormy reconciliation and there they were again, sheepish, dishevelled, late for college.

‘Dan . . .' Nell caught him in a corridor.

‘Hello.' He gave her that wide soft grin, and shuffled slightly. He wore his trousers low on his hips and when he stretched or yawned, which he did often, he showed a glimpse of flat smooth stomach.

Nell spoke fast before she lost her nerve. She told him about the scenes she and Charlie were rehearsing, how they needed a man for the . . . she hesitated, male parts, and she suggested Tuesday. Next Tuesday. After college.

Dan shrugged. ‘OK.'

‘A friend of Charlie's might be going to film it,' she threw in, to make it more enticing. Dan nodded as if it was all the same to him. ‘See you then,' and he moved off along the corridor.

‘The deed is done!' Nell hissed to Charlie as they stood at the bar for ballet, risking the hawk eyes and vicious tongue of Olinka, the teacher, who'd once tapped Nell's stomach with her stick and loudly requested that she pull it in. Nell's cheeks still burnt when she thought of it and she would have liked to have taken that stick and beaten Olinka with it, and shouted into her ear, ‘I want to be an actress not a fucking freak of a ballerina,' but instead she'd stood at the bar with tears of humiliation in her eyes, dreading the moment when they'd have to leap diagonally across the room.

 

On Monday night Nell and Charlie lay in the bath. Nell had dotted the room with vanilla-scented candles, and Charlie added some musky essence, twice the recommended amount. ‘So what will we rehearse?' Nell asked. ‘Shouldn't we have pages or something?'

Charlie sank under the water and came up sleek as a seal. ‘Oh, we can read a few pages of . . .' she hesitated. ‘I'll find something. Don't worry.' She rubbed shampoo into her hair and sank down again, pushing her body hard up against Nell's end of the bath, her legs bent, her thigh against her shoulder. There were tiny bubbles shimmering in the tight curls of her pubic hair and it occurred to Nell she could move her hand a matter of inches and slide it between her legs. No! The thought was painful, sharp as knives, jolting such a spasm through her that she gasped.

‘Sorry,' Charlie laughed, as she came up, and Nell slid down too to wet her own thick hair and hide her scarlet face. She kept her body pressed against the bottom of the bath but there was nothing she could do to submerge her breasts, which hovered above water. To feel Charlie's hand just graze against them, she allowed herself to think, to feel her mouth cover each nipple in turn, but she came up as if nothing was different and vigorously rubbed in shampoo. Before she had time to slide down again, Charlie was standing above her, glorious, blazing, steam rising off her thighs as she stepped out. She wound her hair into a towel and left the room. Alone in the bath, Nell felt deflated. She washed under her arms and between her legs, desultory and workmanlike, and with the day looming so close, she began to dread it. The ridiculous idea of the pounce.

 

Nell and Charlie stood on the steps of college, pretending not to watch, while Dan and Jemma said goodbye. Jemma clung to Dan and Dan whispered, at unnecessary length, Nell thought, into Jemma's ear. Nell turned her back and shook her head, and wished she could think of something to say to pass the time, when eventually there he was, loping towards them, his bag hanging carelessly from one shoulder, his trousers lower than ever on his hips. Just then a bus swung round the corner. ‘Quick,' Charlie yelled, and they ran towards it, shrieking and free.

They raced up to the top deck and sat in a row at the front, where Charlie, her dark eyes glittering, began to sing in perfect imitation of Samantha, whose ambition it was to go into musical theatre. ‘I'm just a girl who can't say no. Can't seem to say it at all.'

‘Agony.' Dan was laughing. And Nell reminded them of hulking great Kevin and his rendition of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow'.

‘I thought I was going to die.' Charlie clutched her stomach, and they dissected every minute of that afternoon's music class, every flat note and clumsy move, weaving themselves tight into a net of their own superiority until they were on the corner of their road and they clattered down the stairs. ‘Stop, wait!' They leapt off the end of the bus as it slowed.

‘A drink first? Or rehearse?' Charlie asked, and without waiting for an answer she pushed open the door of the pub. They started with lager, a pint each for Charlie and Dan and a half for Nell, who sat between them at a corner table and explained about the scene they would rehearse and how when they were ready, a film school director would film it, and show it, probably, to anyone and everyone who was important in the business, so that basically, the three of them, before they'd even finished college, would be stars! As Nell talked, Charlie pressed her arm against hers, and then as they drank, drink after drink, moving from lager to spirits, she wove her arm around her shoulder and twined her finger in her hair as if to present her to Dan as a tender, longed-for thing of beauty, or possibly, Nell found herself hoping, to claim her as her own.

It was almost eleven when they tumbled out through the door of the pub. ‘Which way?' Dan said, unsteady, and Charlie linked his arm and snaked her other round Nell's waist. ‘Isn't she lovely,' she whispered to him loudly, ‘isn't she fucking gorgeous?' and when Dan stuttered and mumbled she pulled Nell in towards her and kissed her on the lips. Nell's mouth opened in surprise and Charlie's tongue slid in, firm and narrow, hot as whisky, her lips as soft as down. As she kissed her, she pulled Dan round to shield them, and used her free hand to slide it up under her jacket and rub it, hard, against her breast.

‘Bloody hell,' Dan muttered.

Nell was reeling. She wanted Charlie's hand against her skin, she wanted to unclasp her bra and push her breasts into her mouth, to kneel on the floor and slide her tongue along the length of her perfect thigh, but Charlie had taken control and was leading them both towards the house.

‘Bloody hell,' Dan said again, as the door slammed shut behind him and the splintered boards and broken banisters revealed themselves. He covered his nose against the smell of damp and gas, and paled a little as he followed them up. At the first landing he took hold of Nell's hand, but her passion for him had faded, and the touch of his skin, so longed for, felt clammy and foreign.

‘Boys and girls,' Charlie called from the kitchen, ‘wine or beer?' and she appeared with both and led them towards the sitting room.

A pale face loomed out at them from the landing.

‘My God.' Nell started back, pressing herself against the wall.

‘Hello.' It was a man's voice, low and amused. ‘What time do you call this?'

‘Rob!' Charlie stood and stared at him. ‘What . . . I mean . . .' but with one hand Rob reached out, and taking hold of her wrist, pulled her roughly into the room. The door clanged shut behind them and Nell and Dan stood alone in the hall.

‘My room's up here,' Nell said, cold suddenly and nauseous from no supper, and she led him up the small flight of stairs to the attic.

Dan sat on the bed while she attempted to light the fire, blowing on it as Charlie had done while the flame guttered and ran and refused to catch. ‘Is that safe, do you think?' Dan asked. ‘Gas can be dangerous.' And Nell threw him a withering look before giving up. Their backs to each other, they took off their clothes, or as many of them as they dared, and climbed into bed, where they lay side by side until eventually Dan said, ‘Do you mind if we don't . . . it's just Jem . . . she'll mind.'