"Aw, man," Ash said, sitting back slackly in her seat. The candlelight reflected in her glasses. "Why, Prentice?" The Anarkali was dark and quiet and a lot of the light was coming from the candle between us. She looked sad; concerned for me, I thought.
I rather liked it. I liked the idea of other people feeling sorry for me, even though I also despised them for it, because I wasn't worth their sympathy and that made them fools.
Of course, I despised myself for despising them for showing such genuine and unselfish emotions, but that's just one of the things you have to get used to when you're in a serious self-destruction spiral. Mine was feeling rather like a power-dive right now. I shrugged. "Why not? I needed the money."
"But your family's rich!"
"No, they're… Well, they might be fairly well… " I smiled, sat closer, took up my brandy and cradled it in front of the candle flame. "Actually, there's quite a good exchange on those lines in Catch-22, the movie — much underrated film — which isn't in the book, so Buck Henry must have written it, where Nately's been killed and Yossarian's been to Milo's whorehouse to see Nately s whore and Milo's picked him up in the half-track and he's saying Nately died a rich man; he had such-and-such a number of shares in M&M enterprises, and Yossarian says —»
Ashley was glaring at me over the candle flame the way a hawk must glare at a field mouse the instant before it parts mouse from field forever. I saw this predatory, outraged expression building on Ash's face like a line of dark clouds on the horizon, and stopped talking, though entirely out of inquisitiveness, not trepidation.
"Shut the fuck up about Catch-22, ya cretin;" Ash said, storming forward and planting both fore-arms on the table cloth. "What the fucking hell are you doin stealing books for money when you've no need to, eh? Just what sort of dick-head are you, Prentice? I mean, what the fuck are your parents going to think if they hear? How are they goin to feel? Or is that it? Are they supposed to feel bad? Are you tryin to get back at your dad because of this stupit religious thing? Well, come on; are you?"
I sat back, amused.
I played with the dumpy stem of the brandy glass, smirking at Ashley through the candle flame. Ashley's long hair was tied back and she looked rather attractive, now I thought about it. I wondered what the chances were of bedding the girl. A little recreational fornication would go down quite well just now. I wondered if Ash was into rough sex. I had no idea whether I was into it myself, but for some reason just then the idea seemed rather intriguing. I smiled at her, gave a small laugh. "Really, Ashley, I didn't think you'd take it all so melodramatically. It's only shoplifting, after all. Just one silly book, too; worse things happen at C&A s." I sat back, still smiling; legs crossed, arms crossed.
Ash's face was close to the flame, its yellow oval glowing like some magical caste-mark on her forehead. Much closer and she'll melt her glasses, I thought. She appeared to be trying to out-stare me but actually I'm rather good at that sort of thing when I want to be, and I didn't let my eyes flicker.
A waiter was approaching from behind her, I noticed, without taking my eyes off hers; I felt the grin broaden on my lips. The waiter would distract her, especially as she had ordered the meal and was obviously paying, and anyway she almost certainly hadn't heard the waiter approaching.
Ash reached one hand out across the table and spilled my brandy into my lap.
Just as I was reacting, going "Wha —!" and jerking forward, Ash turned smoothly to the waiter and with a broad smile said,
"The bill, please."
"It does look like I've pissed myself!" I protested as we walked back to the flat. "Those people were definitely laughing at me."
"Oh, shut up, Prentice."
"You're telling me to shut up!" I laughed. The July night was warm and muggy and the traffic rumbled like thunder down Great Western Road. "You throw drink all over me, expect to sleep in my flat tonight and you tell me to shut up!"
Ash paced purposefully on, long flinging strides I was having difficulty in keeping up with. She was still glaring, though straight ahead now. I noticed people coming towards us weren't getting in her way.
"I didn't throw the drink, I tipped it," she told me. "And I'm only coming back to the flat to get my bag, if that's the way you feel. I'll sleep in the car. Or find a hotel."
"I didn't!" I protested, waving my arms and running after her as I saw the possibility of getting into Ashley's increasingly attractive body slipping away from me. "I didn't say that! I just don't like being told to shut up! I'm sorry! I mean, I'm really sorry I'm annoyed that you spilled — or tipped — drink all over me!"
Ash stopped so suddenly I wondered where she'd gone for a moment. I turned, looked, and went back to her, standing looking furious in the light of a Spud-U-Like,
"Prentice," she said calmly. "You've practically exiled yourself from your family and your home and your friends, you think you've failed your finals but you say you've no intention of sitting your re-sits even if you have; you've no money and you haven't even been looking for a job; you're getting done for shop-lifting and you're acting like such a fucking dick-head you seem determined to get shot of the last few pals you do have left… and all you can do is make smart-ass remarks."
I looked through her bright red glasses into her light grey eyes and said, "Well, so far so good, certainly, but let's not count our —»
She stamped on my right big toe, forcing me to produce an involuntary and appallingly undignified yelp. She stormed off; I half limped, half hopped after her.
"Let's not count our vultures before they're hatched, eh?" I laughed. She powered on, ignoring me. I hopped after her. "Spare a shekel for a healthy beggar?" I cackled. "Able was I ere I saw Michael; where can you land a Palin? And in what?"
Ash kicked my other shin. Wonderful girl; didn't even seem to break stride.
She disappeared into an off-licence. I waited outside, rubbing my shin and inspecting the damage to my Docs; luckily the scuff on the right toe didn't show up the way it would have with polished boots.
Ash reappeared with a bag; she swept past me, briefly showing me the bottle of Grouse it contained. I skipped after her down the street. "After trying the fluid on a small unnoticeable area, you now wish to wash all of my trousers the spirited way, am I right, madam? Now; will you swap these two bottles of warm urine for that one bottle of our product?"
She shook her head, not looking at me. "You and I are going to get filthily drunk, Prentice, and if by the time we get to the bottom or this bottle I haven't got some sort of sense out of you I'm going to break it over your thick fucking skull." She turned, beamed a toothy non-smile at me for about a micro-second, then strode determinedly on.
I tried to keep up. I looked at the bottle in the bag. "Couldn't you just leave the whisky, I'll drink it all, wake up in the morning — no, make that the afternoon — with a head that feels like you hit me over the skull with the bottle, and you sleep in the car ready for that long and demanding journey down the notoriously dangerous A74 tomorrow?"
Ash shook her head.
We got back to Grant Street. I looked up, saw some lights on in the flat. Maybe, I thought, Ash would be so turned on by the sounds of frantic coupling emanating from Gav and Aunt Janice in the bedroom that she'd tear my clothes off. Or maybe Norris and his pals would distract her from this crazed idea of getting air-locked drunk by suggesting a friendly game of cards.
Ash followed my gaze. She held the bottle up in front of my eyes. "Ready for this, Prentice?"
"Drink doesn't solve anything, you know," I told her. "Just dissolves brain cells."