THREE

       The morning after

      As Hannah and her parents trundle down the M6 in a hired van, Lou heads back upstairs, breathless and grubby from lugging a third black sack to the wheelie bin outside. ‘Oh, hi,’ she exclaims. Johnny is sitting at the kitchen table, studying Hannah’s butter bean dip into which someone has extinguished a cigarette.

      ‘That’s horrible, that.’ He looks up and smiles. ‘It’s an absolute crime against humanity. It looked so tempting as well.’

      ‘Ha. Yeah, disgusting. God knows who did that. Spike, probably. How old is he again?’ Johnny looks at her blankly. ‘Thirty-five,’ Lou reminds him. ‘I’m going out with a thirty-five-year-old man who still can’t use an ashtray because so many other things will do instead.’

      Johnny smirks. ‘Where is he anyway?’

      ‘Went back to bed for more beauty sleep.’ Lou pulls a wry smile. ‘So has Sadie, lazy sods.’ She laughs, suddenly conscious of her limp, hungover hair and shiny face flecked with the remnants of last night’s mascara. She’s still in her pyjamas too – embarrassing ancient fleecy ones, not like the posh silk ensemble Sadie wears. Thank God she’s flung a sweater over her top. ‘Thanks for the apple tart,’ she adds. ‘That was very sweet of you. I’d have saved you some but we scarfed it all down last night.’

      ‘No problem. It was my first attempt, thought you could give me your verdict. So, left you with all the clearing up, have they?’

      Lou grins. ‘Oh, Spike managed to pick up a beer bottle and rinse out my wine-strainer tights.’ She perches on the opposite chair. ‘Are you okay? Feeling a bit fragile?’

      ‘Er, guess so.’ He looks it, Lou thinks; not mildly poisoned, as Spike currently is, flat on his back in her bed with a saucer-cum-ashtray perched beside it, fag ends piled up like a mini Mount Etna. Johnny’s is a different kind of malaise altogether.

      He looks up at Lou, and it fazes her, the way he regards her so intently. She gets up and rinses out the Tupperware box. No one knows – not even Hannah or Sadie – how she really feels about Johnny. She hasn’t said anything because he’s a friend to all of them, a flatmate really, separated only by one floor. Admitting that she’s nurtured a crush on him this past year, since Spike’s less endearing qualities came to the fore, would upset the balance and change everything. Anyway, she has Spike and Johnny has Rona. Spike might be annoying but he’s lived a life that Lou still finds fascinating, and he adores her. Lou has never been so completely adored by a boy – well, a man, Spike is thirteen years older than her. She looks forward to the moment when her Johnny-crush suddenly clicks off, as if by a switch.

      ‘D’you want an Alka-Seltzer?’ she asks to break the awkward hush. ‘Or something to eat? I might be able to rustle up a bagel if you’re lucky …’

      He exhales. ‘No thanks. I’m not hung over, Lou. I hardly had anything to drink last night.’ There’s another pause, broken by Spike launching into a coughing fit in Lou’s bedroom. ‘Listen,’ Johnny adds. ‘I’m … I’m not supposed to tell anyone this. Rona’ll kill me if she finds out because she’s not ready to—’

      ‘What?’ Lou murmurs, frowning.

      ‘She … Rona’s pregnant.’

      ‘Oh God, Johnny.’ No, that’s not right. He might be delighted – perhaps they even planned it – and he’s just a bit shell-shocked and hasn’t quite taken it in. Lou sits on the chair beside him and tries to settle her face into a neutral expression. Johnny doesn’t look delighted, though. He looks like someone whose life has spun out of control.

      ‘We found out a few days ago,’ he adds dully.

      ‘So it’s still early?’

      Johnny nods.

      ‘Um … what d’you think you’ll do?’ There are soft footsteps in the hall, then extravagant splashing as Spike pees into the loo, followed by a clanking flush as the flat’s prehistoric plumbing system kicks into action. Lou wills Spike to go back to bed.

      ‘I don’t know, Lou. Fuck …’ He shakes his head. ‘It’s a mess …’

      Lou stares at her friend, a twenty-four-year-old student who loves staying up all night watching Steve McQueen films, and who’ll suddenly be propelled down that mysterious supermarket aisle that she’s only ever found herself in by mistake – the one with gigantic packs of disposable nappies and row upon row of little jars of food, every product bearing a baby’s face.

      ‘Oh, Johnny. I’m sure it’ll be okay …’

      ‘Will it, Lou? I just don’t know.’

      What he does next shocks her. Capable Johnny, creator of proper meals, incorporating vegetables – obscure vegetables sometimes, like yams and butternut squash – has his head in his hands. Then he turns to her and cries into her grubby old sweater as she holds him and says that whatever happens, he’ll be okay, she’ll help him, she’ll do anything she can. Lou’s eyes are wet too. He pulls away and looks at her, then he’s kissing her on the lips, and her head spins and she knows she should pull away, but just can’t. It’s Johnny who stops, looks at her and pulls her into an embrace. They are holding each other now, not moving or speaking and not seeing Spike who’s happened to glance into the kitchen, hoping to find a cigarette or even a decent-sized butt in the ashtray. Instead, he sees his beautiful girlfriend wrapped up with that tosser from upstairs, who has always had a thing for Lou, he bloody knew it.

      Spike turns slowly and pads back to Lou’s room where he’ll rummage through her chest of drawers in case she has a stray packet of cigarettes lying around. Then, once his nicotine levels have returned to an acceptable level, he’ll crawl back into her unmade bed and plot the slow, painful death of Johnny Lynch.