‘How exotic. No alcohol?’
‘Nope.’
‘I can slip a vodka in there if you’d like.’
‘I wouldn’t like.’
‘Fine. As Madam wishes.’ The barman approached and Joss gave his rather extensive order. ‘Anyway,’ Joss resumed, turning back to me while the barman pulled the pints, ‘how are you?’
I shrugged. From the corner of my eye I could see, to my considerable chagrin, that Minna was flirting with the table full of toffs.
‘Left school, I take it?’ He was dogged in his pursuit.
‘Just finished A levels.’
‘Going to university?’
‘Yeah.’
He looked at me with this ‘I need a fuller answer than that’ look. Again, I was compelled.
‘London. English.’
‘Damn. I was hoping you’d say Oxford. I could show you around.’
‘I couldn’t be bothered with all the Oxbridge crap.’ Because I knew you were there.
‘Well, I’m sure you had better things to do. Come over to our table. Is she a friend of yours?’
He glanced at Minna as he put his legion of pint glasses on a tray to carry across the room.
‘Not really. Somebody’s visiting niece, that’s all.’
I narrowed my eyes at her. She was leaning over some Hooray Henry, giving him a faceful of her cleavage in its tight, skimpy vest top. It was plain that Joss’s friends had about as much respect for her as they had for the pub dog stretched out by the fireplace, but she was an amusement for them, so they tolerated her.
‘Minna, we should go,’ I said, avoiding taking my place beside Joss on the oak settle.
‘What the fuck?’ she whined. ‘Don’t be such a killjoy, Luce. Sit down and have a drink. You might even enjoy yourself.’
She looked around the group, lapping up their approval and their nodding heads and eager grins.
I wanted to kill the lot of them.
But I sat down.
> It was one of the most excruciating half-hours of my life. Minna and I were exhibits in a zoo – look at the Local Girls in their Natural Habitat. They asked us questions and laughed at our answers, no matter how dull or ordinary they might be. Within five minutes, one guy had his hand on Minna’s thigh. We were just there to provide a bit of entertainment, like tavern wenches in ages gone by when the men of quality deigned to refresh themselves.
Joss, though, didn’t seem to be joining in with the heavily veiled barbs and slights. He tried to temper his friends’ increasingly drunken enthusiasm, remonstrating with them when they approached the verge of Going Too Far, and he defended me from all questioning with a flat ‘Lucy’s got more sense than to talk to the likes of you oiks. Leave her alone.’
The pint glasses emptied, one by one.
‘Would you ladies care to accompany us back to the Hall? We’ve got more beer and wine than you could imagine in your wildest dreams, and the lord and lady are on a yacht somewhere, so the place is ours?’
‘Yeah?’ Minna was wide-eyed and breathless. ‘Like, for real?’
‘No, thanks,’ I said.
Joss and his friends spent the next ten minutes trying to persuade me but I held out.