I ended up going with all black because it’s meant to make you look thinner, and also I didn’t want to stand out too much or get it wrong. Sophie had a bottle hidden in the wardrobe that we swigged from as we got ready. It consisted of a variety of different drinks all mixed together that she had nicked from her mum’s drinks cabinet – gin, rum, vodka, some weird yellow stuff her mum got on holiday plus some coke to make it taste better.
Matt’s house was on that estate where all the hulking great brand-new detached houses had been made to look like oversized cottages from a bygone age. As we got closer we could hear the thudding bass of the music, and there were loads of other people obviously going there too. Lights were blazing from all the front windows as we walked down the path. Groups of boys and girls spilled out of the house into the front garden, which was already filled with cigarette ends and empty glasses and bottles. The front door was ajar and we slipped through into a large hallway with a black-and-white tiled floor. A wide staircase led upstairs to our right, and to the left of it was a corridor that obviously led to the kitchen. Boys I’d never seen before greeted Sophie as we made our way through the throng into the kitchen, which was large and very hot. Matt was sitting at the huge oak table rolling a joint, with Sam to his right.
‘Soph!’ called Matt. ‘You made it!’
‘Of course,’ she said, leaning down to hug them both. ‘Hello boys.’
I don’t know if it was my imagination but I’m sure her hand lingered longer on Sam’s shoulder than it did on Matt’s.
Matt peered uncertainly at me. ‘All right? Good to see you, um…’
‘Hi,’ I muttered, flushing. He didn’t even know my name, but it didn’t matter, I knew I was protected by Sophie, a shining titanium wall made entirely of popularity and beauty.
‘Have a drink,’ said Matt, waving towards the marble worktop, which was sticky with spilled drinks, littered with cigarette butts and covered in half-empty bottles of spirits, huge bottles of cider, lipstick-stained plastic cups and several bottles of something very bright blue. I’d never been to a party like this before and I veered between wild excitement at simply being there and the acceptance that this implied, and a nagging fear that I would somehow say the wrong thing or make a mistake and that everyone would see me for what I was.
‘Ooh, great,’ said Sophie, pulling me over to see. ‘Where did you get all this?’
‘People brought stuff, and my brother got a load of it for me,’ said Matt. ‘Have whatever you like, Soph. And —’ he gestured in my direction ‘— you too.’
‘It’s Louise, you idiot.’ Sophie laughed. ‘God, Lou, he doesn’t even know your name! Honestly, you see her every day at school!’
‘Sorry,’ muttered Matt to me.
‘Oh, it’s fine,’ Sophie said, smiling. ‘What shall we have, Louise, vodka and coke?’
My head was already swimming from the effects of the drinks-cabinet concoction, but Sophie slugged vodka into two plastic glasses and topped them up with coke.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and see who else is here.’
We left Matt in the kitchen staring longingly after Sophie, and made our way back through the hallway and turned right into the living room. This was the source of the music – someone had set up decks and a boy from school was DJing. There were a few girls I recognised dancing in the centre of the room, bodies moving effortlessly to the beat, completely absorbed in the rhythm, which thrummed like a heartbeat, insistent and demanding. I watched in fascination as Claire Barnes and a boy from the year above kissed on an armchair in the corner. Claire was sitting astride him and he had one hand on her bum and one caressing her breast through her top. They seemed totally in a world of their own, but I could see a couple of boys watching intently from the sofa on the other side of the room as Claire writhed and the movement of the boy’s hands grew ever more urgent.
‘We’ll leave her to it, shall we?’ shouted Sophie, but as she turned to leave the room, Matt came sidling up to us. The volume dropped temporarily.
‘Want a pill, Soph?’ he asked.
‘Sure, have you got something?’
‘Not at the moment but Max will be here later. He should be able to sort us out.’
He turned to me.
‘How about you?’ he asked politely. ‘Do you want anything?’
‘Oh, um, no. I’m all right, thanks.’
I cringed inwardly. All right, thanks? That’s what you say when someone asks if you want a cup of tea. As the music rose again, a wild, irresistible beat, Matt took Sophie by the hand and pulled her into the middle of the room to dance. Sophie beckoned me to join them but I can’t dance to that kind of music (or any kind) so I shook my head and took another gulp of my drink. I stood there for a while watching them, wondering how people learn to dance that way, and how they are able to do it so freely and unselfconsciously. Matt didn’t take his eyes off Sophie as she moved to the beat, taking in every perfect inch of her as her top rode up to show an inviting strip of taut, tanned skin. I drained my drink, and decided to go and get another one, more for something to do than anything else.
Back in the kitchen, Sam was still sitting at the table. I poured myself another vodka and coke from the bottles on the side, unsure what the ratio was supposed to be.
‘Blimey, like your vodka, do you?’
It was Sam’s voice. I’d obviously erred too far on the side of vodka.
‘That’s how I like it,’ I said pompously, taking a sip and trying not to wince.
‘Take a pew, Lou,’ he said, laughing softly at his own joke.
I sat down opposite him, my heart beating very fast. I could feel the swell of my stomach under the flattering black clothes I had chosen so carefully, and my clumsy hands, large and in the wrong place wherever I put them. He was wearing a white T-shirt with a small V-neck and I had a strange urge to reach out a finger and stroke the soft triangle of lightly tanned skin that was on show. Already this counted as the longest conversation I had ever had with him.
‘Soooo, Louuuu.’
He laughed again; he must have been stoned. ‘Saw you in town the other day with that new girl.’
‘Maria? Yes, she’s… she’s OK,’ I trailed off lamely, thinking of my recent phone conversation with Sophie.
‘I heard some… interesting stories about her. Matt Lewis’s cousin knows someone who goes to her old school in London.’
‘I heard there were some rumours. Do you know what they’re about?’
The effects of the vodka and my interest in Maria were making me relax to the point where this was verging on feeling like a normal conversation.
‘She’s a wild one. She likes boys, she likes girls, she likes it all ways, if you know what I mean.’
I didn’t, not really, but I got the general idea. I forced some more vodka down.
‘Apparently she went so far that there was some boy who got totally obsessed with her, wouldn’t leave her alone, stalking her and that. That’s why she had to leave her old school.’
I tend to divide the people I meet, or certainly those of my own age, into two broad categories: those who are like me, and those who aren’t. I was fascinated if a little disgusted by this new information about someone who (on my admittedly limited acquaintance with her) had seemed firmly in my category.