Left of the Bang. Claire Lowdon

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СКАЧАТЬ own voice. So that was it, she realised. She wanted to go to the club with Chris – but more than that, she didn’t want Chris and Leah going to the club without her. Tamsin pushed the thought all the way to its conclusion: she didn’t want Chris, but she didn’t want anyone else to have him, either. The unfairness of this was obvious. She felt ashamed, contrite.

      ‘I didn’t mean that, it came out a bit harsher than I meant it. I meant that she’s just so beautiful, any guy would be crazy not to want her.’

      ‘I know,’ Suze sighed. ‘She’s maybe the most beautiful person I’ve ever met. But you, you’re stunning too, Tamsin.’ Suze gave her reflection a rueful look and smiled, via the mirror, at Tamsin’s guilty face.

      * * *

      At Waterloo, Tamsin, Callum and Leah waited while Chris topped up his Oyster card. Callum turned his face to his shoulder to hide a yawn.

      ‘Actually, you know what, I think maybe I won’t come after all,’ Tamsin said suddenly.

      Callum laughed. ‘I won’t say I told you so.’

      ‘Right, all set.’ Chris was back, brandishing his Oyster card.

      ‘Ah, Chris mate, change of plan,’ Callum explained. ‘Tam and me’re going to call it a night.’

      ‘Oh, right.’ Chris couldn’t hide his disappointment. ‘Maybe I should just come back with you guys, I won’t be able to get in—’

      ‘No, no, no problem, you can have Tam’s key. All right, Tam?’

      Tamsin dug in her handbag for the key. ‘Here you go.’

      Chris looked dubious. ‘I don’t know, I still think it’s simpler if I just come back now…’

      ‘Well, it’s up to you—’ Callum began.

      ‘No, Chris should go.’ Tamsin cut in with more force than she’d intended. ‘You go, go and have fun with Leah. Really.’ She gave Chris a significant look, vaguely imagining, in her tipsy state, that he understood the full import of her decision to go straight back to Callum’s.

      ‘If you’re really sure…’ Chris took the key, somewhat reluctantly, and passed through the barrier to join Leah.

      Waiting on the Bakerloo line platform, Tamsin and Callum kissed like teenagers. Tamsin took Callum’s hand and pushed it up under her shirt, onto the skin of her stomach. Usually she disliked public displays of affection, but just now she was conscious of a need to test something, and was relieved when she felt her body responding to Callum’s touch.

      ‘Nice empty flat, no one to hear us,’ Callum crooned into her ear. ‘Though you do know … as soon as you’re ready to move in … Leah’ll go when I say, it could be just the two of us always—’

      Tamsin pulled away. ‘We were having such a nice time,’ she said, preparing to mount the podium of their favourite argument; but she was interrupted by a shout from the other end of the platform.

      ‘Hey there! Tamsin, Callum!’

      Bounding towards them with irregular, exhausted strides was a very red-faced Chris.

      ‘Changed my mind,’ he panted, raising his voice above the incoming train. ‘Whew. Didn’t think I’d catch you, I had to run all the way back up the escalators.’

      ‘You didn’t have to, we really didn’t mind you going,’ Tamsin told him as they shuffled onto the train.

      ‘I know, I just somehow didn’t feel like it any more,’ Chris said; and Tamsin experienced a guilty throb of triumph.

      ‘So what do you think of the American system?’ Callum said to Chris once the doors had closed, continuing an earlier conversation about the pros and cons of six-month deployments.

      Tamsin let them talk. Too tired and tipsy to follow the arguments, she stared idly up at a poster informing her she was ‘living proof that posters get read’. She only zoned back into the conversation at Charing Cross, when Callum needed her to remember a name.

      ‘You know Tam, that little wine bar just above the station here – the one you took me to on our second date.’ He turned to Chris. ‘Sort of a cellar, very dark and atmospheric.’

      ‘Do you mean Gordon’s?’ Chris asked.

      ‘Gordon’s, that’s it! So you know it then. Isn’t it fantastic?’

      ‘Yes, a real gem,’ agreed Chris, with a quick wink at Tamsin. The secret about their long-ago meeting on the tube seemed like a private joke to him now.

      Tamsin looked away, feeling sick; but once again, Chris failed to notice her discomfort. He saw only her beauty and her freshness, the satin sheen on her heavy eyelids, the simplicity of her plain white shirt (so much more appealing to him than Leah’s dressed-up look). She hadn’t noticed that one of her buttons had come undone; from his superior vantage point, Chris could see the scalloped edge of her bra. It was his turn to look away. With this girl, even a glimpse of her underwear made him feel guilty. He recalled her squeamishness during the conversation about wanking: it signalled a fundamental purity, the saint-like status she held for him. She and Callum formed the perfect couple, the bond between them inevitable, unshakeable.

      Chris smiled fuzzily down at his new friends. ‘I don’t know what you guys are up to,’ he began, ‘but I’ve got a fortnight’s leave coming up, starting Tuesday. I’m with family for the second week, but next week – perhaps I could take you both out to dinner…?’

      ‘Sorry, we’re going on holiday,’ Tamsin said quickly.

      ‘Bad timing,’ agreed Callum. ‘Otherwise we’d have loved … And you know, we still haven’t had that chat about the army, I mean more formally, without assistance from Will.’

      Chris and Callum both chuckled.

      ‘That’s a shame,’ said Chris. ‘I was really—’

      ‘You’re going to be in London all week – where are you staying?’ Callum interrupted him.

      ‘Well, Edwin has a house up in Islington, there’s a sofa there, or I might—’

      ‘No, listen, this is silly, my bed’s going to be empty all week – you might as well keep Tam’s key and use the flat as and when you want it.’

      ‘Seriously, you mean that?’ Chris stammered.

      ‘No problem at all,’ Callum smiled. ‘It’s good to have you around, Chris. You’re a great guy.’

      Chris looked down at his feet. People often found this disconcerting in Callum: his ability to state personal affection quite candidly, without avoiding eye-contact or employing any self-protective irony. Tamsin thought it the most un-English thing about him, though she didn’t know that it was particularly Scottish, either. When they first met, she had been impressed by this directness; but lately, she had begun to find it embarrassing.

      * * *

      Back at the flat, Tamsin used the bathroom while Callum helped Chris with the sofa bed. СКАЧАТЬ