The Sick Rose (19 page)

‘Nah. What about Emily?’

Daniel clicked his teeth. ‘Look, do you want to be a virgin all your life or not? More experience you have, the better time you’ll be able to show this Emily. This is
Gemma Collins
.’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘It’s no skin off my nose whether you do or not. I’ve had sex, you haven’t.’

‘Jesus, Daniel, d’you want to say that any louder?’ Paul, emboldened by punch and beer, pushed himself up off the sofa and huffed his way towards the bathroom. Gemma Collins was on the stairs. She had done something to her hair; it was twice its usual size and hung in fat curls.

‘Your hair looks nice,’ he said.

‘Thanks,’ she said, as though compliments were immeasurably boring. But five minutes later he was following her up the stairs. The only bedroom not yet occupied by at least one couple was the box room. Evidently it belonged to a little sister; the half-size bed was covered in Disney toys and a poster of Ariel from
The Little Mermaid
was peeling away from the wall. Gemma closed the door behind her; a tiny pink dressing gown swayed on its hook. Someone had covered the back of the door with stickers and then tried to peel them off again, giving the paintwork a lichened effect. She sat down on the bed and patted a space beside her. Paul joined her, feeling awestruck rather than desirous. Gemma’s kiss was perfunctory, almost professional; after ten seconds or so, she broke off in a way that made Paul feel she’d been counting down. Then she undid the top button of her jeans, pulling at his own buckle with her other hand. He barely had time to register what she looked like naked, only that she had even more bones and fewer curves than her clothes suggested.

All that time with Emily when he had fantasised about having a naked, willing female body in his arms, it hadn’t occurred to him that when it happened he would not know what to do with her. Fortunately, Gemma took the lead. She rolled the condom – her condom – onto him without even looking and, with a decisive hand, guided him in. Her head was level with his armpit and his own face was buried in a pink pillow. Once the euphoria and novelty of devirginisation had worn off, he started to get a bit of a rhythm going. It was almost meditative; he felt as though he were hovering above the bed, looking down on himself, already embarrassed on his own behalf and hurt and angry on Emily’s. Apart from the obvious sensations, he was quite uncomfortable; Gemma was stiff and unresponsive, although for all he knew that was the norm. The thought came to Paul that he might as well have thrown off the mattress of the bed and fucked the slats that supported it for all the softness and welcome Gemma’s body gave. Despite this, things seemed to be drawing to a conclusion with more than their usual rapidity. Suddenly Gemma, who was bucking underneath him in a motorised sort of way, froze with her hips in mid-air. It was like being stuck at the top of a ferris wheel that had stopped without warning.

‘Do you want to finish off up the bum?’ she said.

‘Do I . . .
what
? No!’

‘Whatever.’ Gemma shrugged, sending a zip of white lightning up his spine that signalled the point of no return. She didn’t react as he cried out. In the echoing seconds after he came, she wriggled out from under him, making him wince. He fell onto his side, wondering what to do with the condom. Gemma folded up a tissue and put it in her knickers before pulling on her jeans; she handed another tissue to him and he wiped himself and wrapped the condom in it, hiding his shrivelling penis from the Little Mermaid. The inappropriateness of the location finally hit home.

‘We’re not going out,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry?’ said Paul.

‘Just because we slept together, it doesn’t mean we’re going out.’

‘Oh. Right.’ Paul groped for the right phrase. ‘I, ah, I hope we can still be friends.’

‘Yeah,’ said Gemma. As she pulled her T-shirt down over her head there was a quick ripping sound and she let out a gasp of pain; a chunk of her hair had come loose, a toffee-coloured tendril that Paul thought must have been ripped out at the root until he saw the nylon stitching at the top of the lock that revealed it to be fake, an extension. She frowned at the inconvenience and clipped it loosely back into her hair. Now that she was clothed again, her body made sense; tight jeans hung off her linear frame and she regained that expensive look that her reputation was based on. As the event shrank into history Paul allowed himself to think, I just had sex with Gemma Collins. He could already feel it assuming the stuff of myth rather than reality. Thinking along those lines made him feel less wretched.

‘Will you tell Daniel we did it?’ she said. ‘Make sure you tell him I was good.’

Was she saying she wanted him to provide her with a
reference
? Paul tried not to consider that possibility. His thoughts were only of Emily, how different it would be when he finally got her to have sex with him, how they would find a safe place, take their time, fall asleep together afterwards. Gemma checked her bag as though Paul might have rifled through it and stolen her purse during the act. She squeezed a tube of gloss over her lips and, with Paul still naked from the waist down, stood and opened the door.

‘Give us a chance!’ he shouted, but it was too late. The landing was rammed with people, all of whom turned to laugh and whoop and slow-clap his humiliation. Only one of the faces was familiar. Emily’s expression ranged from recognition to disbelief to grief in a heartbeat.

Pulling on what clothes he could, carrying his shoes and socks and giving his pants up for lost, Paul flew down the stairs, his peripheral vision briefly registering Daniel and Gemma in conversation. Outside, Hash had set fire to an abandoned mattress and the acrid smoke temporarly blinded Paul. By the time he caught up with Emily she was unlocking her car. Her beautiful, babyish features were hard with rage.

‘I thought you
liked
me,’ she said. ‘I thought you liked me enough to wait.’

‘I do like you! I love you!’ He had rehearsed this declaration many times; never had it come out quite like this.

‘But you’ve had sex with her?’ said Emily.

‘You said you weren’t coming!’

‘And that makes it all right, does it?’ said Emily. She was crying now; a little black blob of make-up that had been lodged in her tear duct worked its way free and ran in a sooty drift down the side of her nose.

‘God, Emily, no, I’d hate you to think that . . . Oh, I don’t know what to say, I’m pissed. It’s just, you know, it was
Gemma Collins
. . . Daniel said . . .’

‘I might have known fucking Daniel would be at the bottom of this,’ said Emily. It was the first time Paul had heard her swear. ‘I don’t know why I let him talk me into coming here.’

‘
Daniel
invited you?’

‘Yes, he was there after college today. He said it would mean a lot to you if I—’ Emily’s voice broke.

‘It does mean a lot, it’s lovely to see you. Please, Emily, nothing’s more important to me than you are.’

‘You’ve got a funny way of showing it.’

‘But I love you!’ How many times did he have to say it before it cancelled what he had done?

‘Forget it. It’s over.’

‘But what about college?’

Her crying increased in volume now. He held out his arms to comfort her knowing that he had revoked his own licence to do so. She kicked his shins with a force he knew would leave a bruise. The only way to stop her getting into the driver’s seat would have been to grab her by the arm. Instead, he lay on the bonnet of her car. Emily revved the engine twice and then slowly began to drive.

‘Emily, please,’ he shouted through the glass. She braked softly and he slid off, landing on the tarmac with the bouncing grace of the truly drunk. Emily leant out of the car window to look him over, assess and then dismiss him with a coolness he would not have believed her capable of. When he staggered to his feet she reversed out of the car park and tore into the night. Paul felt like crying. His perfect day had descended into farce then tragedy in less than an hour. He was drunk – though sober enough to see that the main fault was his – but no one else’s actions seemed to make sense either. Why had Gemma Collins waited until he had a girlfriend to decide she fancied him? Why had Emily turned up at a party thrown by a girl she couldn’t stand? Why had Daniel even
gone
to college today? He had known that Paul wouldn’t be in today, he’d known it was test day—

A terrible notion sent a sobering rush of adrenaline through Paul’s veins. He dragged his bruised limbs back into the party, charging his way through sagging intoxicated bodies. He looked in every room, searched the garden and the bare rooms in the violated house next door, but there was no sign of Daniel or Gemma. His mind was spinning and his guts were churning. He staggered back to the Scatlocks’ house. It was empty.

At about three in the morning, Paul awoke to hear Daniel with some girl on the sofa. He wondered who it was. It couldn’t have been Gemma, though; he heard movement and moaning and later soft laughter bubbling up the stairs. He lay awake for hours, devising ways he could get back at Daniel for this. There was no equivalent, no reciprocal sabotage; the only relationship Daniel seemed to prize above all others was their own friendship. But in wrecking things with Emily, Daniel himself had destroyed that. How could they come back from something like this?

The next morning he tried to read but he couldn’t concentrate, his mind buzzing with the confrontation he knew he had to have when Daniel came downstairs. When footsteps were overhead he automatically went to hide his book between the sofa cushions. Lifting them up revealed a wisp of honey hair, sewn together at the top.

The knowledge that Daniel had been able to coax from Gemma the responsiveness that had eluded him stripped Paul of his remaining confidence. When Daniel came downstairs, he simply told him the bones of it. He waited for Daniel to deny or explain or apologise. It’s not too late, he thought, you can still say the right thing and we can be friends again, although he didn’t know what that right thing might be.

‘Frigid,’ said Daniel conclusively, when he had finished his story. ‘You’re better off without her.’ He looked happier than Paul had seen him for months.

Chapter 24

October 2009

Louisa was in the Portakabin office, watched over only by the couple depicted in the replica tapestry that hung behind her. The Heritage Gardens Trust letter was in a document holder before her and she had the feeling that the embroidered figures were reading it over her shoulder. She clicked a new cartridge into her fountain pen and took out another fresh sheet of Kelstice Lodge headed paper, trying not to think about the nine in the waste basket. She dated it, addressed it, and while she was thinking about the perfect opening line, she found that she had doodled little knot gardens all over the corner of the page. She crumpled it up and made a start on the eleventh draft. When she lost count of the number of drafts, she reconsidered not the request but the medium of its asking. Perhaps this was the kind of thing that had to be done on the telephone after all. If her plan did not come off she would jeopardise not only her career but the entire garden project. If her suggestion was taken the wrong way – and Ingram seemed convinced that the arbiters of the grant expected applicants to abide by a whimsical, fluctuating etiquette that was easily and fatally breached – it was important that she be able to perform damage limitation on the spot. Offending the Heritage Gardens Trust would mean losing the grant, which would mean struggling on for years with volunteer labour and borrowed equipment. They would be able to build the garden, yes, but not to afford the infrastructure that would attract visitors.

But she had no choice. She absolutely could not set foot in Warwick Gardens, even if they took her there blindfold (an option she had actually considered for a fleeting, crazy moment in the middle of the night, lying on her back and trying to find a plausible excuse). It was the place where she had lost control in the past, and she knew it would trigger a similar impulse in her now. She inhaled and exhaled deeply before dialling the number at the bottom of the Heritage Gardens Trust letter. Even knowing that the person who picked up the phone would likely be sitting in a house in Warwick Gardens made her uneasy.

‘Joanna Bower,’ said a voice as sharp as secateurs. Every upper-class lady gardener Louisa had ever met – and there had been plenty – had shared the same strident, no-nonsense tone. It made it hard to decipher the sentiment behind their words, although disapproval tended to be the default setting.

‘Joanna, my name’s Louisa Trevelyan, I’m calling from Kelstice Lodge in Warwickshire. I believe you’re in charge of—’

‘Tudor garden!’ said Joanna Bower. ‘Yes, exciting stuff, I’ve got your application in front of me now. You’re coming down to see us after Christmas, aren’t you?’

‘Well. That’s the thing. I, we, thought it might be rather nice if the Trust came up to see us here instead, to give you an idea of the way we work, to see the place three-dimensionally and—’

‘Hold it
right
there!’ boomed Joanna Bower. Louisa tried to decode the ensuing silence and concluded that she had caused offence.

‘I’m so sorry if—’

‘It’s a brilliant idea,’ she said. ‘We’ll make a day of it.’