‘Steady on,’ laughed Stephen. ‘I won’t be able to carry a big girl like you all the way home.’
‘I can look after myself,’ said Francine, irked by his physical assessment of her
‘I’m sure you can.’
A brittle edge to his voice sundered their atmosphere and stranded them in silence. Stephen looked about him, suddenly indifferent to her presence, and when an attractive girl walked by Francine was astounded to see his eyes follow her quite openly, as if attached by invisible threads to her flanks. His gaze came back to her and his face assumed an expression of amusement, as if he could see what she was thinking. In that moment she suddenly hated him, hated him almost as much as she hated Ralph. Their connection with each other made a circuit for her anger and it flowed effectively between them in her thoughts.
‘How do you know Ralph?’ she said sharply, desperate to regain his attention but unable to think of anything else to talk about. The wine was beginning to creep numbly through her veins.
‘What? Oh, Ralph. We were at school together.’
Francine knew that already, but Stephen didn’t seem to think it odd that she should say she didn’t.
‘What was he like?’
‘At school?’ Stephen barked with laughter. ‘He was a prat, if you really want to know. A right little goody two-shoes.’
She felt a vague plummeting of disappointment, but the thought that Stephen might say more bad things about Ralph — things she could repeat to him later if the necessity arose — encouraged her back to interrogation.
‘Why were you friends with him, then?’
‘Well, I wasn’t, not to begin with. But then we had a sort of — arranged marriage.’
‘What do you mean?’ She wondered why Stephen could never say anything in a normal way.
‘Oh God, it was so long ago now.’ He waited, as if he had changed his mind, but when she didn’t speak either he continued. ‘Well, I got into a spot of trouble, as it were, and as a punishment they made me look after Ralph.’ He laughed. ‘Not much of a compliment to him, I suppose.’
‘What sort of trouble?’
‘You’re a nosy little thing, aren’t you? Well, it was just a bit of, um, high spirits. Public school, you know, hothouses of impropriety. Actually, it wasn’t really my fault. We all got caught by one of the masters, but they pinned the whole thing on me.’
‘Caught doing what?’
‘Don’t ask.’ He laughed delightedly.
‘I want to know,’ said Francine irritably.
‘Well, we were — how can I put it?’ He laughed again. ‘We were engaged in an initiation ritual, I suppose. It happened to most of the new boys, sort of to break them in. It was all pretty harmless, just sticking their heads in the bog or something.’
‘Oh.’
‘Except it all got a bit silly and the poor chap ended up strung up by his ankles with his face in the pan. No wonder he’s such a miserable bastard. Scarred him for life, probably.’
‘It was Ralph!’ said Francine triumphantly.
‘Clever girl.’ Stephen refilled their glasses. ‘So there you have it. That’s how we got lumbered with each other. Quite touching.’
‘Didn’t he have any other friends, then?’
‘Not really. Scholarship boy. His parents didn’t pay for him to go to the school,’ he explained when he saw that Francine didn’t understand. ‘And all of us nascent little snobs looked down our noses at him because he emanated from a council house. He was having rather a rough time of it. Shameful, really.’
As the words reached her ears with a muffled thud, Francine understood that she was witnessing the sudden, utter reversal of everything she had thought to be true. She sat in silence, her thoughts erased.
‘His father came to the school once to see him. Looked like a bloody tramp.’ He shook his head. ‘Then he died. They found him in some god-awful hotel room up in the north, rotting away. Horrible. I never met the mother, she was gone a long time ago. Cancer, apparently.’ He drank swiftly from his glass. ‘Poor chap’s a bit of a sad case.’
As quickly as she could accommodate each blow, another rained down on her, and as the images grew in her head she felt their contamination. She imagined his house, drawing vaguely on the topography of her old town to depict a bleak box wreathed in grubby washing, and then thought of Ralph’s father, a filthy tramp, lying in a hotel room. She had been cheated! How could he have lied to her, with his books and his educated voice and his pathetic exhibitions! How dared he make her feel inferior, as if there were something wrong with her, when he was just a common kid from a council house, the sort of person she had been taught never even to associate with! ‘Might as well get another,’ said Stephen, cheerful again suddenly as he emptied the last of the bottle into her glass.
And she had actually thought that he was posh, like Stephen — Stephen’s father was a lord, Ralph had told her — but he was just a pathetic nobody, a — what had Stephen called him? — a ‘sad case’ for whom people like Stephen felt sorry.
‘Yes, let’s,’ she said. She waited while he went to the bar, her mind churning up new outrages with every passing second. ‘So how did he get into university, then?’ she asked when he got back.
‘Ralph? Because he’s clever, of course. You don’t get into university for being rich, you idiot.’
‘I was only asking,’ said Francine bitterly. An urge to keep his alliance sweetened her tone. ‘I was just interested, that’s all. He never told me any of the things you just told me.’
‘Oh, he didn’t, did he?’ Stephen’s smile broadened. ‘Well, perhaps he doesn’t like to talk about it. It’s not all that surprising, is it?’
‘No,’ said Francine. Seeing that Stephen was defending Ralph, she dropped her eyes, drawing his attention to her own victimized feelings. ‘It’s just that I feel as if he’s lied to me.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Well, he pretended that he was — you know—’ Francine writhed her hands in distress and saw a look of comprehension dawn across Stephen’s face.
‘Thought you’d landed something out of the top drawer, eh?’ He laughed loudly, throwing back his head. ‘You little bitch! If the old dingbat had known that would make you jump ship, he’d have told you himself!’ He laughed again, wiping hilarious tears from his eyes.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ said Francine furiously.
‘Oh, calm down, Francine,’ said Stephen. ‘You’re a nice girl. Just go easy on Ralph. He deserves better.’
‘What, like you?’ she spat.
‘Oh, I’m no bargain, I know. God knows why he puts up with me.’ He sat back in his chair, crossing his legs, and then all at once impaled her with hard, frightening eyes. ‘I should have had you myself, saved him the trouble.’
‘So why didn’t you?’ she threw back.
‘Couldn’t be bothered.’ He shrugged. ‘For Christ’s sake, what does it matter?’
‘It’s what I wanted anyway.’
‘Did you now?’ He laughed.
‘I still want it.’ Francine felt wild with drink and daring. She thought of Ralph, of the loathsome thing that was inside her. ‘What’s wrong? Don’t tell me you’re scared!’
‘There is the small matter of Ralph.’
‘I don’t care about Ralph,’ smiled Francine. Exhilaration sharpened her, and she felt keenly, deliciously herself. ‘Anyway, he doesn’t need to know.’
‘You’re not such a nice girl, are you?’ Stephen sat back in his seat, amused, and shook his head. ‘Sorry, Francine, can’t do it, not again. I wouldn’t get a wink of sleep. Although I have to say, we’re made for each other.’