"Aw, rats," the other guy says, as William stands back, relaxing. They take off their masks and William conies over to us, mask under his arm, sabre hanging from his hand, his face red and sheened with sweat, glistening in the sports hall's brilliant lights. I introduce him and Andy.
Andy with his short hair and his blazer and neatly creased jeans, face handsome but a little spotty, expression slightly disdainful and wary. He's twenty-one; two years older than us, but William looks the more confident and assured.
"Hi," William says, tossing back some blond hair fallen over his forehead. "So you're Cam's soldier boy."
Andy smiles thinly. "You must be… Willy, is it?"
I sigh. I'd hoped these two would get on.
Yvonne taps William on the shoulder with her mask. She's been fencing too, her long black hair tied back from her face, her face bright with sweat. I think she looks like some Italian princess, daughter of an ancient minor house with no real pretensions but still casually opulent; huge faded villas in Rome and on the Grand Canal and in the Tuscan hills. "Shower," she tells him. "We have to get stuff ready for tonight." She smiles at me. "Quick drink in the bar, ten minutes?"
"Great," I say. Andy is silent; Yvonne turns to him.
"Coming to the party?"
"Yes," he says. "If that's all right."
"Of course." She smiles.
"Ah! Hot hot hot!"
"What?"
"Took the hot chilli… crunched on a whole fucking green chilli… ha…" Yvonne says, fanning her mouth and hanging onto my arm. "Woof; thanks." She reaches into my vodka and lemonade and hoiks out an ice cube. "Here," she says thickly, handing a joint while she rolls the ice cube round in her mouth and tries to breathe through it at the same time. I'm grinning widely at her; she's frowning hurtfully at me. Andy is at my side but then ducks away into the throng. The music is loud, the campus flat packed with people. It's a warm May evening, the exams are over and everybody's partying. The windows are open to the night, spilling the sound of the Pretenders" first album out over the slope of grass towards the small loch and the lights of the library and Admin buildings on the far side.
"Ah, my mouth!" Yvonne says. She slaps me on the shoulder. "Look more sympathetic, you pig," she tells me. Her eyes are watering
"Sorry."
Andy comes back with a glass of milk. "Here," he says, offeri it to Yvonne. She looks at him. He nods at her mouth. "Ice won't work," he tells her. "The… the stuff that causes the heat in chillis" and I smile, because I just know from the way he phrased that that he knows the technical term but doesn't want to appear too smart-alec "isn't soluble in water, but it is soluble in fat. Try it; it'll work."
Yvonne looks round. I offer my hand and she slips the remains the ice cube delicately into my palm, then sips the milk. I shrug and put the lozenge of ice back into my drink.
Yvonne finishes the milk. She nods. "That is better. Thanks."
Andy gives a small smile, takes the empty glass from her and heads back through the crowds to the kitchen.
"Hoo," Yvonne says, dabbing at her cheeks with a tissue. She glances after Andy. "So boy scouts have their uses after all."
"Ask him to show you his Swiss Army knife later," I laugh, feeling a little treacherous. Yvonne's wearing a black scoop-necked T-shirt and a simple, black ankle-length wrap skirt. Her hair is tied back from her face and held by a long white lacy ribbon, but tumbles down loose behind. Her arms look firm and muscled and her tanned breasts are full and high, nipples producing little bumps on the black cotton of the T-shirt. The final effect is perversely exotic and I feel my usual pang of jealousy.
I glance into my glass and hand her back the J; her eyes close as she draws on it and I put my lips to my glass, slipping that sucked-on sliver of ice into my own mouth and rolling it around there, pretending it's her tongue.
"But it was true, Labour wasn't working."
"Wasn't producing the profits the capitalists want to see, you mean. The implication of the ad was that Labour had produced mass unemployment and the Tories would cure it. Not only have they made it worse, they knew they would; even if they genuinely thought their policies were somehow better for Britain as a whole, they knew damn well they'd put hundreds of thousands of people out of work, and Saatchi & Saatchi must have known that, too, if they'd bothered to think. It was a lie."
"It was an election," William says, looking tired.
"What's that got to do with it?" I exclaim. "It was still a lie!"
"It doesn't matter, and anyway it's just a short-term thing; they will produce more jobs eventually. They're just getting rid of the dead wood at the moment; there'll be new jobs in new growth industries."
"Bullshit! Even you don't believe that!"
William laughs. "You don't know what I believe. But if that ad helped win the election for Maggie, that's fine by me. Ah, come on; all's fair in love and war, Cameron. You should stop whingeing and start trying to make things work."
"All is not fair in love and war! Haven't you heard of the Geneva Convention? If Yvonne fell in love with somebody else, would you kill both of them?"
"Fucking right," William says matter-of-factly as Andy appears at our sides holding a can of lager. Somebody passes him a J but he just hands it on to me. William shakes his head. "You get this all the time, too?" he asks Andy.
"What?"
"Oh, this continual ear-bending about the Tories and what beastly cheats they are."
"All the time," Andy smiles.
"They lied to get in," I say. "They'll lie to try and stay in. How can you trust them?"
"I trust them to try and sort out the unions," William says.
"It was time for a change," Andy says.
"Country needs a kick up the fucking bum," William agrees, defiantly.
I'm horrified. "I am surrounded by selfish bastards I thought were my friends," I say, slapping my forehead with the hand holding the J and almost setting my hair alight. "This is awful."
Andy nods. He drinks from his can and looks at me over the top of it. "I voted Tory," he says quietly.
"Andy!" I say, appalled, almost despairing.
"Shock therapy." He grins, more at William than me.
"How could you?" I shake my head and pass the number to William.
Andy looks exaggeratedly thoughtful. "It was that advert that did it, I think. Don't know if you know the one: "Labour Isn't Working," it said. Great political advert; succinct, memorable, effective, even mildly witty. I've got a poster copy of that in my room back at St Andy's. Did you ever see that advert at all, William?"
William nods, watching me and grinning. I am trying not to over-react but it's difficult.
"Very fucking funny, Andy," I say.
Andy looks at me. "Oh, Cameron, come on." His voice pitched somewhere between sympathy and exasperation. "It happened. Accept it. It might all end up better than you hoped."
"Tell that to the fucking unemployed," I say, moving away towards the kitchen. I hesitate. "Either of you two Tory bastards need a drink?"
I'm lying awake in my room in the flat I share a floor down from William and Yvonne's. Took some speed a friend turned up with so I can't get to sleep. Stomach a bit churny too; too many voddies and lemonades probably, and the punch at the party was evil. The flat I share looks in the opposite direction to theirs, across the access road and the lawns to the old estate wall and the tall old trees rising on the ridge beyond. The window is open and I can hear the sound of the wind in the branches. It will be dawn soon. I hear the front door of the flat open and close, then a few seconds later the door to my room opens. My heart beats hard. A dark figure kneels at my bedside and I can smell perfume.