I should have told Luke there and then about the day I’d had. Luke would understand, he knew what Amy meant to me. But I couldn’t, the shame building within me: what would he think?
‘Come on. Arjun’s up, two words, it’s a film. I’m frightened it’s going to be Free Willy, he has form.’
In that second I wanted to turn and head straight home. Luke’s mood was so completely at odds with mine. Why couldn’t I shake off this irritated gloom and give him the smile he wanted? I could still ring the shop tomorrow, it wasn’t completely hopeless. I should just explain my unsettled mood and—
‘Is that Lottie?’ I could hear Grandad’s voice from the living room as I wearily stepped inside the house.
‘Tall! Big! Very big!’ Howard’s voice was booming out.
‘Stop guessing for a second, Lottie’s here,’ Geoffrey was saying.
‘Very, very big!’
‘Howard!’ everyone shouted.
I couldn’t face heading into the living room. The energy and high spirits was too much. I looked down the corridor to the door of the kitchen, imagining for a second pushing it open, stepping inside to spill all my troubles on to the sympathetic shoulder of my grandma. She had always known how to bring me round, listening with her pale blue eyes trained on my face, moving in for a sympathetic cuddle before a few stern words, rallying and inspiring to put things into perspective. A photo of her taken on her sixty-fifth birthday stared down at me from the wall of the corridor, a laughing shot of her clutching a full glass of Pimm’s next to the barbecue in the garden, smoke haloed around her, Grandad looking on in admiration.
She wasn’t here any more and the pain hit me all over again, as it did sometimes at the strangest moments, taking my breath away. She simply didn’t exist. She wasn’t in the kitchen fixing up a drink, grumbling about the men not knowing a coaster if it hit them in the face, singing, badly, along to the radio that she always had turned up too loud.
‘Lottie!’ Howard called. ‘Arjun’s pausing his frankly disastrous performance for you. Two words. A film, apparently, although I’m not convinced.’
I took a breath, stepping into the living room to see Arjun, his back to the group, hands hovering over his flies as if he was genuinely planning to drop his trousers. He then turned back to the group as if he’d forgotten something, cupping one hand behind his ear. Everyone was frowning at him in confusion, staring at the hand lingering at his crotch. I wanted to loosen up, accepting the drink from Luke with a quiet, ‘Thanks.’
‘Glad you’re here,’ Luke said, squeezing my shoulder.
‘None of that, Luke. Lottie can be on our team,’ Howard said, beckoning me to sit next to him. ‘Sit on the pouffe here. It’s two words, a film apparently. I think the first word is something to do with something being tall or big.’
‘What’s he doing with his ear?’ Geoffrey muttered to Grandad.
‘Ear!’ Howard shouted. ‘Hearing aid! Face!’ As if all the words might add up to the right answer.
‘Hearing difficulties,’ Teddy threw in, sounding as confused as I felt.
‘EAR!’ Howard screeched, perhaps assuming it was missed the first time.
Come on, Lottie, say something: it’s not all about you.
‘I think he’s trying to say it sounds like,’ Luke said slowly. Arjun gave him a grateful nod.
‘No nodding!’ Howard barked, clearly determined to follow all the rules now that he had learnt them.
Arjun turned back around again and stared pleadingly at the group, both hands back over his crotch, reaching for his zip. He wiggled his bottom at everyone.
‘Sounds like . . . bottom?’ Luke hazarded a guess as Arjun turned away from them.
‘Cotton!’ Howard shouted.
‘That in no way sounds like bottom,’ Geoffrey stated.
‘Mottom!’
‘And that’s not a word, is it?’ Geoffrey added.
‘Flotsam!’
‘Wiggle!’ Grandad barked suddenly. ‘Very Tall Wiggle. Arjun, are you sure it’s a film we know?’
Arjun had undone the buckle on his belt and was starting to fiddle with the top button, all the time wiggling his bottom and staring round at them.
‘Bloody impossible,’ Howard huffed, throwing himself back in his armchair, arms folded as Arjun continued to move from side to side, one hand undoing his fly. He pulled down his trousers to reveal a conker brown bottom. It was weird that this wasn’t the first time I had seen it. It was fast becoming a habit.
‘High Noon! High Noon!’ Grandad had sprung to his feet.
Arjun turned to Grandad, grinning. ‘Exactly.’ At the same time that the rest of the room shielded their eyes.
‘Arjun!’ Geoffrey shouted. ‘You can pull them back up now.’
‘Christ,’ Howard said.
‘Oops, sorry, High Noon, I knew you’d get there in the end,’ Arjun said, fiddling with his zip again.
Luke was clutching his sides in mirth.
I wanted to take part but found I was always thirty seconds behind. I noticed that Grandad was distracted too, a strange sad smile on his face, before the noise of everyone else prompted him to join in. I tried too, my smile fixed, too bright, feeling that I was outside the group looking in. I took another sip of my drink, hoping to blend into the background of the evening, surround myself with the noise and the fun before slinking back to our flat and bed and the worries circling inside me. Then a sentence made me freeze in my tracks.
‘Lottie, your turn, show us how it’s done,’ Geoffrey said, giving me a gentle nudge.
I slopped gin over the side of the glass. ‘Oh no, I’m really not r—’
‘Yes, come on, Lottie, we’re in desperate need of a win,’ Howard said, removing the glass from my hands.
‘No, honestly, I’m—’
‘Lottie, Lottie,’ Luke had started chanting, clapping his hands twice in between saying my name. He was pissed, eyes squinting as he grinned at me. I felt disproportionately furious with him, hoping then and there that the next time he went online to buy something he wanted they only stocked it in every size that wasn’t his.
The others had joined in the chant. Even Grandad was now clapping and saying my name. The living room was alive with it and I stood up wearily, not reacting to the great cheer that followed.
‘She’s up.’
‘Give her space.’
‘Remember it’s a book or a film or a television show,’ Howard stressed, topping up his own glass, ‘but don’t make it something we won’t know, something only young people know, like Love Island. Or Tattoo Fixers.’
Geoffrey looked across at him. ‘What are they?’
Howard clapped his hands together, making me jump. ‘See! Old fogeys don’t know what these things are. It’s only because I’m such a culture vulture that I stay up on what’s hot and what’s not.’
Luke was clutching his sides again. Arjun seemed quiet next door to him, one hand on his chest as he lowered himself into an armchair. His turn seemed to have wiped him out.
‘Come on, Lottie.’
Dragging my eyes away from Arjun I stood on the rug in front of the electric fire trying to summon an original thought. Book. Film. TV Show. It was like I had never heard of these phenomena. I swallowed, my mouth dry. I was devoid of all thoughts. Only Amy.