Tallulah nods. ‘Yup,’ she says, ‘it’s me, from the bus.’
They’d acknowledged each other a couple of times after their interaction at the bus stop that day a few weeks earlier, but that was as far as it had gone.
‘You look nice.’ She tips her beer bottle towards Tallulah’s face, a reference to her make-up, Tallulah assumes.
‘Thanks.’ She almost says,So do you, but then thinks better of it.
The guy serving behind the bar looks at her inquisitively and she orders her drinks. She expects, as she turns away from the bar, that Scarlett will have left to join her friends on the dance floor, but she’s waiting for her. Tallulah tries to hide her surprise.
‘Cheers,’ says Scarlett, knocking her plastic beer bottle against Tallulah’s.
‘Cheers,’ says Tallulah.
‘Who are you here with?’ Scarlett glances around the room.
‘Chloe Minter.’ She points at her friend, who is sitting scrolling through something on her phone. ‘She’s in my year. She lives in the village. Near me. You know. And she was driving. So …’She shrugs, a suggestion that her reasons for being here with Chloe Minter are purely practical. Which, in a way, they are.
The DJ puts on ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ by Mariah Carey and there is a huge swell of excitement, arms in the air, a dash to the dance floor.
‘Oh! Oh, oh!’ says Scarlett. ‘Come on. We’ve gotta dance!’
Tallulah blinks. She doesn’t like dancing at the best of times. But she doesn’t want to sound miserable so she laughs and says, ‘I’m not drunk enough yet.’
Scarlett delves into one of the pockets on her huge fake-fur coat and pulls out a copper hip flask. ‘Quick,’ she says, ‘neck it.’
‘What is it?’
‘Rum,’ she says. ‘Really, really good rum. My dad brought it back from Barbados. It’s like’ – she makes a circle out of her thumb and index finger – ‘the best.’
Tallulah sniffs the rim of the flask.
‘Can you smell the spice?’ says Scarlett.
Tallulah nods, although really she can only smell the alcohol. She takes a sip and hands it back.
‘No, no, no,’ says Scarlett. ‘That won’t get you dancing! More!’
Tallulah tips the flask to her lips again and takes four huge slugs.
‘Drunk enough to dance now?’
She nods and Scarlett pulls her on to the dance floor. They dance towards her friends and she twirls Tallulah in front of her and Tallulah is conscious of her new top riding up as she lifts her arms and she tries to lower them but Scarlett keeps pulling them up.
Everyone is singing along and Tallulah can see some tutors joining in now, and people she wouldn’t expect to be on a dancefloor, and the alcohol pumps its way through her blood supply and into her brain and suddenly she doesn’t care about her porridge belly or Chloe sitting on the bench, she just wants to dance, dance like she’s eighteen years old and doesn’t have a care in the world and there’s no baby at home, no put-upon mother who should be out at a party herself tonight, no ex-boyfriend loitering in the wings trying to woo her back, just her, eighteen years old, in her first term at college, her whole life ahead of her and the coolest girl in the world holding her hands above her head and grinning at her: Mariah, rum, glitter descending from the ceiling and landing at her feet and in her hair.
The song comes to an end and Scarlett finally lets her hands go.
‘Now,’ she says, ‘Christmas has officially begun!’ She makes a whooping noise and high fives her friends and then, just as Tallulah assumes she will fade away from her and back into the protective bubble of her little gang, Scarlett turns to her and says, ‘Come outside with me.’
Tallulah looks over her shoulder anxiously at Chloe.
‘She’ll be fine,’ says Scarlett. ‘Come on.’ She pulls her by the hand, out of the double doors and into the entrance hall, then to the car park. The air is immediately icy cold and while Scarlett is still wearing her huge fur coat, Tallulah is in only her short-sleeved cotton top. ‘Here,’ says Scarlett, opening up her coat. ‘Room in here for two.’
Tallulah looks at her uncertainly, before shrugging and smiling and nestling herself against Scarlett’s bony frame and pulling the other side of her coat around her shoulders.
‘Where are we going?’
‘A little place I know.’