Left of the Bang. Claire Lowdon
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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. Her first idea was to pretend to be asleep when Callum lay down beside her.
‘Tam?’ he said softly, then went on without waiting for a reply. ‘About earlier … I’m sorry.’
‘It’s not just that.’ Tamsin sat up in bed, unable, after all, to stay silent. ‘What about Chris?’
‘What about Chris?’
‘You’re suddenly so pally. We’ve only just met him.’
‘You knew him before, didn’t you?’ said Callum, reasonably.
‘What? What do you mean?’ Tamsin tripped on the possibility that somehow, Callum had found out the truth about her and Chris. Then she realised what he was referring to. ‘Oh, you mean from College. Well, I didn’t know him very well. You can’t just go offering your flat to people like that.’
‘Actually, I can. It being my flat,’ said Callum, injecting the last two words with uncharacteristic bitterness.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘What’s what supposed to mean?’
‘You know what.’
‘Well, only…’ Callum shrugged unhappily. ‘Only that – sometimes it seems as if you don’t actually want to live with me.’
‘Fuck that’s unfair. You know I do. You know it’s just a question of—’
‘—financial stability,’ Callum finished with her. He sounded very tired.
This was the reason Tamsin always gave: that she wanted to be able to pay her rent without accepting help from either Callum or her father.
‘You know I don’t mind if you can’t always make rent,’ Callum said now. ‘It just seems to me that it’s the perfect way for you to make the, the leap.’
‘Fuck,’ Tamsin said again. ‘I’ve heard this so many times, Cal. It’s like being stuck in a fucking feedback loop.’
‘Right.’
Callum shuffled onto his side so that he was facing away from her and reached down for a book. He took Our Man in Havana from the top of a precarious pagoda of half-read books and began to read. In this quietly devastating way, he brought the argument to a close.
Tamsin listened to three page turns before she began to cry. Callum put the book down and took her into his arms.
‘I’m sorry,’ she snuffled. ‘I’m so sorry. I know I’m being a bitch, I don’t know why … I think it’s just … my period’s on its way, that’s probably…’
‘Ssshhh, sshhh.’ Callum hooked his leg over her hip and drew her closer to him. ‘I love you.’
Sophie Witrand was squashed into the back seat of the Fiat Bravo with her brother James and her sister Harriet. Her swollen chest jounced painfully over the potholes of the Cornish back roads. The Witrands were on their way to Penderick Manor, a dilapidated country house about a mile from Padstow where they holidayed every year.
‘Soph? So-oph.’ Six-year-old Harriet waved her chubby hand in front of Sophie’s blank face, just like she’d seen their mother do. ‘Soph, let’s say the car’s a chocolate factory. Here’s where the chocolate gets mixed.’ She reached down between her legs and mimed vigorous stirring. ‘And this is the pipe’ – she made two loose tunnels from her fingers and thumbs and sketched out a pipe leading up to the headrest in front of Sophie – ‘and here’s