Digby shrugs. “It’s okay. One of you can go and call Niall, while Iris and I finish off this lovely bit of smoke.” He pulls me over to his unmade bed, where he sits down and takes a deep drag. When he offers it to me, I snatch it eagerly from his hands, desperate for the calmness I know the drug will bring. I feel so out of place and unsophisticated I almost want to cry.
It’s going to be a long night.
9
When we walk into the pub it feels as though we’re arriving late for a party. The bar is full, almost heaving, and the noise levels are high, people having to almost shout to make themselves heard. There’s an atmosphere of amiable intoxication, that end-of-the week feeling raising everybody’s spirits until they’ve forgotten what a grind their work has been.
We are interlopers. Sober, wet and bedraggled, we push our way to the counter. There’s a crowd three deep, and it takes a few minutes for us to reach the front, even longer for us to finally get served. Eventually I wrap my fingers around a much-fought-for glass of Coke and lift it to my lips, taking deep gulps of the cool, sugary drink.
“God, I needed that.”
We end up leaning against a wall at the far end of the room, squeezed in between a fireplace and a concrete column. There’s just enough space for the two of us.
“You should take off your wet coat.” Niall reaches out to touch the collar. “Give yourself a chance to dry out.”
“I’m cold, though.” I shiver. There must be a hundred people in here, warming up the room with their ambient temperature, but I’m still frozen solid. I wrap my arms around my waist.
“That’s why you need to take your coat off. Give your body a chance to warm up. Look, give it to me.” He reaches out to take it, and I shrug the jacket from my shoulders. Niall hangs it from the corner of the mantelpiece. “That’s better.”
“For you, maybe.” I shiver again. “I swear the cold reaches through to my bones.”
“You want me to warm you up?”
Oh yes. “I’m fine.”
“Shame.” He says it softly, but I hear it all the same.
A loud shout carries across the air. We both turn to work out where it has come from. A man walks through the door wearing only a cut-off pair of jeans, with a white veil attached to his head. Stuck to it are an assortment of condoms, both packaged and open. I hope to God none of them are used.
“Stag party,” I say to Niall. I don’t know why I bother stating the obvious, it’s not as if the half-naked man has popped into the pub with his in-laws.
“So I see.” Niall takes a gulp of his beer. “The poor guy must be colder than you.”
“The only difference is, he’s got a night at the police station to look forward to. I’ve done my time.”
Niall smirks. “What’s with Cameron, anyway? What the hell was he planning to do with an etched paperweight of the Tate Modern?”
“I asked him that but he didn’t have an answer. Not one that made sense.”
He’d mumbled something about it being worth a few quid. It wasn’t quite believable.
“You spend a lot of time with those kids, don’t you? Visiting them at weekends, sitting with them at police stations. I’m pretty sure none of that is in your job description.”
“I don’t have a job description. I do what’s needed.”
“Why?” He tips his head to one side, staring at me. His eyebrows dip, as if he’s thinking hard about something. The tip of his tongue pokes out to moisten his lips. I find myself gawking at them. His bottom lip is fuller than the top by a couple of millimetres. I remember the way it tasted when I used to suck it between my own. Sometimes that seems a heartbeat ago.
“Why what?”
“Why do you work there, get so involved with the kids?”
“I don’t know. I fell into it by accident, really. I wanted to help, to do something good, especially as I was unemployed. Then they offered me a job and we created the after-school club and I felt like...” My voice trails off. How did it feel? I know that place changed something inside me. “As if I’d found my way home.” I laugh. “I know that sounds stupid and clichéd, but that’s how it felt. I know I can help those kids. They’ve been dealt rotten hands, much worse than most of us. I was a good girl from Southend whose parents thought the world shone out of her arse and still I messed up. What chance do they have?”
Niall looks taken aback. “That’s fucking amazing. Really. Those kids are so lucky to have you.”
“I’m lucky to have them.” I’m almost shocked by how true this is. Those kids have given my life meaning, trite as it sounds. They can be infuriating and annoying as hell, but all it takes is one tiny breakthrough. A soft smile from Allegra, a cheeky grin from Cameron. They mean everything. The thought I might have to give it all up, to turn my back on them, makes me want to scream. If Simon insists, I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive him. Or myself.
“Everybody’s lucky,” Niall murmurs.