“No, see, I wasn’t arrested.” He waved a can of Carling as he spoke. “It was a security guard that spotted me. He thought it were a real fox and the bloke panicked. Saying he couldn’t believe someone would be so cruel to an animal. I tried to calm him down, but he was in such a state, I had to cut it down and show him it were fake. Well, taxidermied. And then I ended up admitting I’d nicked it from the science hall. And that’s what got me in front of the dean.”
“So they expelled you?” asked the lad with the buzz cut.
“That or get arrested, and I didn’t want a record. Worst part is that the guard was so embarrassed, he spread this rumor that I’d gone and gutted a living fox and was thrashing it around like some sociopath.”
“And you want to be a guard after all that?” Buzz Cut asked.
“Nah, mate. I want to be a real policeman. Help out kids like me that get the short end of the stick. ’Cause I was one of them right? I know how they think and . . . Callum. Hey, Callum!”
Hollis caught sight of his lanky housemate skulking past the door and waved him inside.
“Oi, this is my mate Callum. He lives here, but he’s not like that wanker out there.” He nodded toward the front room. “You had a drink yet?”
“I was actually going to bed.”
“But I haven’t seen you all night. Come on then. Have a seat. It’s rough out there with that lot, aye, but we’re all right in here, aren’t we?” He handed him a can of Strongbow. “Was keeping that for you from the rest of the vultures out there.”
“Cheers.” Callum took a seat with the unopened can, looking unsure what to do next.
“Here, mate. Let me help you with that.” Hollis pulled the tab for him, then brought out a bottle of Smirnoff. “Add a bit of this. Give it a little kick.” He poured a healthy shot into the can.
Callum hesitated and took a small, tentative sip. Then another. Then he chugged the rest while the room cheered. Hollis slapped him on the back.
“There you go! Told you he was tops, didn’t I?”
Now that Callum seemed relaxed, Hollis handed him another can, and Callum drank that, too. They sat in the room swapping stories, and though Callum said very little, to Hollis he seemed content to sit there and absorb the atmosphere. He even smiled once or twice. When they ran out of alcohol in the spare room, they migrated to the kitchen, where, with their muscle, they secured a prime spot near the main drinks station. Whatever Hollis offered, Callum drank. When someone passed a joint around, Callum smoked that, too, even though in all the months they’d been living together, Callum had never shown any interest in marijuana.
When Buzz Cut went to relieve himself in the back garden, Callum wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and tried to speak. Each word seemed forced. Despite all the drinks, he hadn’t consumed enough social lubricant to speak plainly.
“Hollis, I need to talk to you about . . . about the thing.”
“The thing?” Hollis’s brain worked slowly through the alcohol, trying to figure out what Callum was referencing.
“You know. The thing. The . . . exams. And everything.” Callum shook his head, the unspoken words forming a backlog in his throat. Although unnecessary in the noise of the party, Hollis dropped his voice.
“Not really the time for it, mate.”
Callum took a swig of his beer. “What did your family say when you were expelled?”
“To be honest, they weren’t that surprised.”
“And you were able to get into another uni?”
“Yeah, but we didn’t, uhm, exactly broadcast why I left Exeter. I weren’t officially expelled, like I told them. Just asked not to return . . . But look.” He clamped a hand on Callum’s shoulder. “No one’s going to find out, okay? And it’s not like you have to keep doing it. New year, new start this September, eh?”
Callum nodded, then continued to do so, like a bobble-headed dog, until he belched. It might have been the shoddy lighting, but he seemed to turn a bit green and left the beer on the counter, slipping out of the kitchen and into the crowd. Hollis watched him disappear, wondering if he should follow, then became distracted when Buzz Cut announced the start of an American-style drinking game in the back garden, shattering the fragile tranquility that had once existed there.
One floor up, the noises from below were somewhat muted. Lorna’s room faced the front of the house, so she could not see the shenanigans taking place in the back garden. With her door locked, she knew little of what was going on downstairs either. She could only guess from the different noises and vibrations coming up through her floor. She sat crosslegged on her narrow bed in her pajamas with an open copy of Truffaut’s Hitchcock in her lap. With the small electric kettle she kept in her room, she’d made herself a nice hot cup of tea and had a pack of Fox’s custard creams open on the desk beside her. But instead of reading her book, drinking her tea, and eating her biscuits, her unfocused eyes stared at the same page as she tapped her bookmark into the spine.
She had tried tonight. She really had. This was to be the final party in Caldwell Street, and she’d wanted to make a go of it. Try to relax. Try to make friends. And it had started all right. Two of the girls from her film studies class had dropped by early, right at the start, bringing a bottle of wine and some nibbles for them to share, and the three of them had sat on the sofa by the front window with Maeve and drunk and chatted as more and more people arrived. It became clear within the second hour that the three guests per person rule wouldn’t hold, but she, her friends, and Maeve had staked their spot, chatted in their little bubble, and Lorna—to her surprise —found herself enjoying their company even as the music and smoke intensified and the bodies multiplied around them.
But then her classmates had to leave. She went to the door to see them out, and when she turned back their spot on the sofa had already been reclaimed by Oliver and a ginger girl she didn’t recognize, pawing each other and rubbing noses as Maeve sat on the opposite end trying to ignore them. Lorna wanted to hold onto that thin thread of enjoyment she had experienced earlier, so she and Maeve wandered between groups, trying to find a home within their home, but Lorna only grew more uncomfortable—and, though she didn’t want to say it, anxious. Other than her housemates, she knew no one else here. She didn’t like weed or cigarettes, and already felt sick from drinking. The music became too loud, and in every place she tried to stand, she felt awkward and in the way.
Reassuring herself that she’d given it her best shot, half an hour after her classmates left, she excused herself from Maeve’s company and went upstairs, bypassing a couple smacking on the stairs and locking herself in her room. But even though she’d removed herself from the throng downstairs, invisible tendrils of the music’s beating bass leached up through the floor, scraping against her skin as if trying to claw their way inside, the whole party an infection seeking a way into her body. On the outside, she knew she looked calm, tap-tap-tapping her bookmark, but on the inside a nervous storm raged.
A loud thump from Callum’s room made her spill tea over her lap.
“Shit!”
The tea was lukewarm, but it seeped into her thin pajamas. She looked frantically for a towel or napkin, but there was nothing save her bedsheets. The single loud thump multiplied into a series of rhythmic ones.