Stonemouth полностью

‘Soft things? Hard things?’

‘My things! A pillow, an alarm clock, also a lamp.’

‘On a scale of one to ten, with one representing a featherweight piece of Ikea frip with an unpronounceable name and ten an original leaded Tiffany requiring two hands just to lift, where would this lamp fall?’

‘It fell in my hall. Broke; tore the socket out of the wall, too.’

‘Hmm. Sounds like an eight or a nine. Hey, you could all have slept together, you and Grier either side of him. Might have been sweet.’

‘Yeah. Anyway, so we’re about to kick Brad out but then he breaks down and starts sobbing and talking about how he’s so sorry and he’s always been rejected, all his life, and did he mention it’s his birthday? Whatever; in the end we let him stay, but half an hour later when I’ve just fallen asleep again there’s all this noise, and the fucker has invited all his pals and what looks like every fucking random in the area to come back to mine for a party! They’re in the living room rolling up my Persian rug — I mean, not to dance or anything, to fucking nick — they’ve already emptied the drinks fridge and wine rack, and they’re tearing my designer Porsche kettle apart to make it into some sort of home-made crack bong or something.’

‘You called the rozzers?’

‘Fuck that; they were all English so I went into full-on, growling, menacing, Scottish bampot mode, Glasgow with a touch of Toun, and told them if they didn’t GTF I’d kick their arseholes so far up them they’d be able to rim themselves from the inside.’

‘High risk.’

‘Worked; cleared the place inside two minutes.’

‘And Grier?’

‘Shaken. Crying. She’d woken up to find a couple getting seriously jiggy practically on top of her. By the time she managed to wriggle out there had been, well, issue.’

‘Oh dear. Tissue issue?’

‘Yup. All over the duvet. And blood; we reckon the female half of the copulationary equation concerned had probably been having her delicate time of the lady month just then. Copiously.’

‘You see? What have I been telling you all these years? Girls are gross. Guys only leak if you pump them too hard.’

‘Thanks for that. So we cleared the place, tidied a little, double-locked the door—’

‘Brad was on the outside by this time?’

‘First one I personally kicked out.’

‘A little inhospitable, but there you are.’

‘And — weary as fuck, coming down off an incredible adrenalin high af ter facing down these twenty randoms, half guys, I tell Ellie—’

‘Ellie had turned up? Or was she one of—’

‘Grier. Grier, Grier, Grier; fuck off. I told Grier that she could have my bed and I’d take the couch, but she’s still, like, really upset and says, like, no more to it, honestly, nothing extra intended or expected or wanted … but can she sleep with me?’

‘So you did.’

‘So I did. I slept with her, but I didn’t fuck her. This is technically possible for people, Ferg, you’ll just have to take my word for it.’

‘I hear you,’ Ferg says. There’s a pause. ‘But did you really not fuck her?’

‘Really. Though there was some …’

‘Nocturnal digital wanderage? Oh-I-just-rolled-over-like-I-always-do embracingness, outright Come-on-let’s-just-fuck pleading-hoodicity?’

‘Kind of option D.’

‘Option D? All the above.’ Ferg nods knowingly. ‘Really? So you were all over her.’

‘No, it was like fucking role reversal, man. I was like some virtuous Victorian maiden fending off the squire’s unwelcome advances. At one point I got up and put on another pair of underpants. Like, on top of the first pair?’

‘You over-underpanted. The mark of a true gent.’

‘I thought you’d understand.’

‘So, why didn’t you?’

‘Why didn’t I what?’

‘Fuck her, fuckwit.’

‘Well, I don’t know! She was still … young, and still—’

‘She was legal at the wedding when you and Jel did the cubicle pogo; this would be two years later? Three?’

‘Yeah, but still sort of, you know, young? And still Ellie’s sister. And … it just didn’t feel right.’

‘Now you’ve lost me.’ Ferg sits back. ‘“It just didn’t feel right.”’ He stares into space, muttering this phrase as though trying it on for size. Beyond the now rain-dry windows, fleets of grey clouds drift across the town. ‘Nope. Never mind.’

‘Also …’ I begin, then wonder if I should say anything. Ellie told me this years ago but I honestly can’t remember if it was in confidence or not.

‘What?’ Ferg says quickly, sensing something.

‘Well, Grier kind of has form with … being in the wrong bed,’ I admit.

‘Go on.’

‘When she was a kid — about eleven or something — there was a thunderstorm and apparently she crawled into Callum’s bed.’

‘Her brother Callum?’

‘Yeah.’

‘He was our age, wasn’t he?’

‘Yeah. If she was eleven, he’d have been fifteen. Yeah. Anyway, it was, you know, just…because she was frightened by the thunder, but, thing is, they were found together in bed the next morning by Mrs Murston and there was a bit of a…Well, it was accepted it had been innocent, but …’ My voice trails off.

‘Anyway,’ I say, resuming, ‘sore point with the family. Maybe I was thinking of that, subconsciously, or something.’