‘I’m thinking more of the, er, emotional side of things.’
‘What, ’cos I shagged Lawrence? It was nothing. He gave me an E and it made me horny. Don’t look so shocked. Girls get horny too, you know.’
‘I … know. I know that.’ But Ross still looked at her as if she’d just confessed her alien heritage. ‘So you’re OK?’
‘Fine. Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘Good. Just didn’t want you getting in too deep with him, that’s all.’
Kayley struggled to her feet and looked around her.
‘You seen my handbag?’
‘Sorry …’
‘It’s OK, it’ll be around somewhere. Just wanted to look in a mirror, that’s all.’
She settled for staring into the chrome kettle, tweaking her hair and rubbing stray make-up off with a wetted thumb.
‘God, the state of me,’ she muttered. ‘Do you know where the tea bags are?’
She flicked the kettle switch on and started organising mugs and milk.
‘Loz isn’t a tea drinker,’ said Ross. ‘It’ll be coffee.’
‘Black coffee,’ said Kayley hollowly, sniffing at an ancient looking milk carton located in the fridge. ‘Honestly, for a posh boy, he lives like a pig.’
‘He’s been looked after all his life,’ said Ross. ‘He’s never had to fend for himself till now.’
‘What, he had a nanny until the age of twenty-one? Is that what you’re saying?’
Ross laughed.
‘No, but he was living with a girl at university and she might as well have been his nanny. They split up over the summer. He’s gone a bit … off the rails.’
‘Yeah?’ Kayley fl
icked off the kettle. ‘I don’t want coffee. I think I’m just going to get my handbag and leave. You?’
‘I’ll drive you home.’
‘You safe to drive?’
‘I didn’t have much to drink – couple of glasses of wine and the rest was all spliffs. Perfectly clear-headed now, though.’
Kayley roamed through vast room after vast room, picking her way over lifeless bodies in skinny jeans as she went. She trod on the hair of the girl who had sneered at her dress.
No matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t find her handbag though, and there was no sign of Lawrence either.
Perhaps she’d taken it upstairs? Though she didn’t think she’d been upstairs … but it wasn’t impossible.
She made her way up the grand staircase, noting a number of broken banister posts. Nothing drew her in any particular direction – it was all totally unfamiliar – but one of the doors was half-open and low voices issued through the gap, so she decided to start there.
‘Just looking for—’
She stopped, frozen in her tracks, at the sight beyond.
The eyeliner girl, Tiggy or whatever she was called, was bent over a footstool, fully naked, while some partygoer she didn’t recognise thrust into her from behind.