Ana’s eyes boggled slightly, but she pulled out her purse anyway and took out a£20note. ‘Bloody hell,’ she said under her breath as she got out and walked towards the house. Twenty quid! For a cab ride. This city really was taking the piss.
As Ana regarded the little house on Latimer Road, she suddenly felt like she’d been gone for ever. And in a strange, heartwarming way, it almost felt like home. She picked up her rucksack and made her way inside. Once again, all was in darkness. She went to the kitchen and poured herself a couple of big glasses of water to thin out all the whisky she’d drunk and then found, much to her delight, a couple of plates of yummy things in the fridge – M&S party food, little sausages, terriney-salmony things, bits of battered fish. In the dishwasher were a few used champagne glasses and in the bin lots of empty crisp wrappers and houmous pots. Gill must have had some people round. And, in true Gill style, had cleared away every last crumb and wrapping. She grabbed a couple of nibbly things and took them upstairs. And, almost like adéjà vuas she grabbed the handle of her bedroom door, she could hear groaning. And grunting. And slapping. And moaning. And giggling. Lots of giggling. No, thoughtAna, no way. She couldn’t be. Not again. And surely not on aMonday night.
She let herself silently into her bedroom and breathed a huge sigh of relief as she let her rucksack fall to the floor and flopped on to her futon. She felt utterly exhausted, mentally and physically. She felt like every last drop of energy she’d ever possessed had been wrung out of her, like she’d never be able to stand up again. And she really wanted a bath – she hadn’t had a bath since last week, since Torrington. She wanted to run herself a huge, steaming, foamy bath and lock the door and read her serial-killers book and not get out until she’d turned into a prune. But she couldn’t. Because she was living in a house with a nympho, and she was too scared to open her bedroom door for fear of who she might find herself bumping into.
Slowly and painfully she started to peel off the clothes she felt like she’d been wearing for about three years, and she had her top half-way over her head when she heard a gentle knock at her door. Her heart stopped beating for a millisecond.
‘Yes,’ she said cautiously.
‘Ana – it’s Gill, can I come in?’
Oh God, thought Ana, oh no. What does she want?
‘Yeah,’ she said, slipping her top back on, ‘sure.’
The door creaked open slowly and Gill crept in.
‘Oh,’ said Ana, jumping slightly and clutching her chest. Gill was wearing nothing but a pair of purple satin knickers and a matching bra, with one strap hanging off her shoulder and the majority of her breast on display. There was gingery lipstick streaked all over her face and bits of paperstreamer in her hair. And she hadn’t, Ana couldn’t help but notice, done her bikini line.
‘Hi,’ she smiled crookedly, lurching a bit from side to side, ‘I heard you coming in and I just thought I’d see how you were.’
‘Oh,’ said Ana, covering half her face with a hand and feeling unbelievably claustrophobic, ‘oh, I’m fine. Really – fine.’
‘Good. I’ve been a wee bit worried about you.’
‘Oh. You didn’t need to worry. I’ve been …’
‘You shoulda been here earlier on, Ana – you missed ahoot.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah – I had a hen night here, for my friend Cathy. It washilarious.We had a stripper and everything. You’d have loved it.’
‘Oh. Yes. That is a shame …’
‘And how wuz Broadstairs? Did you find anything interesting?’
‘Yeah,’ began Ana, realizing immediately that this response would only lead to a full-length conversation, the prospect of which, in the current circumstances, she couldn’t quite stomach. ‘Well – sort of. Not really. No …‘She shook her head dismissively. ‘You know … ‘she petered out.
‘Oh well,’ slurred Gill, ‘it was worth trying, I guess. And how was the delicious Flint?’ she asked in an innuendo-laden voice, accompanied by a grotesque Carry-On wink.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Feisty Flint?’ she giggled. ‘Did he behave himself?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Oh come on – you know what I mean. Did he try to – you know?’
‘What?’
‘To get into your knickers, of course.’
‘No!’ snapped Ana. ‘Of course he didn’t. Look,’ she said, ‘what exactly is it with Flint? I mean, why are you and Lol so mean about him?’
‘Och – we’re no mean about him. We just like taking the piss, that’s all.’
‘Yeah – but why? He seems perfectly all right to me.’