‘Well, I think you should be able to choose whatever name you want for yourself. For instance, Irina, if you decided to change your name to Mrs Frodo Baggins, I would support you,’ says Finch.
‘That’s not funny because it wasn’t a fucking Frodo poster, it was an Aragorn poster, so if you wanted your joke to land, Finch, which it didn’t, you’d have said I’d fucking change my name to fucking… Look, he’s not short on aliases, is he? Like, I’d be Irina Telcontar, Queen of Gondor or something, wouldn’t I? Jesus. If you’re going to fucking do this, if you’re going to fucking—’ I sniff. ‘—pull this shit with me, pull something I haven’t heard before, alright? Pull something less basic than Mrs Frodo.’
‘Telcon… what?’
‘It’s the royal house of Gondor,’ I snap. ‘Jesus.’
My loose, powdered lips have dug me a hole deeper than any lingering reference to teenaged posters, or spiteful revelations regarding Flaurence. There’s no real getting out of it. My face feels warm. Not cokey warm, just warm, and I feel squirmy. I shrink in my seat a little. I have accidentally conjured up a shorter, wider, speckier version of myself, hunched over a battered copy of Fellowship.
The feeling is like when someone sees a mark from where you’ve self-harmed, and you slap your hand over the cut, or the burn, or the bruise. You’ve tried to hide it and, in doing so, made it even more obvious that mark is not an accident.
Jesus, self-harm and Lord of the Rings. My tween years crash back to me in waves.
‘Never seen Lord of the Rings. Is it much good?’ asks the cab driver.
‘It’s alright, yeah,’ I tell him.
He drops us off outside a house with an unkempt garden, an overflowing bin, and trip-hop exhaling from the windows in a marijuana-scented fog.
I dig the coke out of my bra and take a generous bump.
‘Is that the right house?’ asks Finch.
‘Yeah just, gimme a second.’ Cocaine replaced in bra, I march up to the door, ring the bell. ‘Don’t you live round here?’
Finch nods. He’s just in the next street over. Good. I can send them home with zero faff when they inevitably become a liability.
Will answers. Nice shirt, unbuttoned, tucked into high-waisted jeans, hair wavy, flower behind left ear, joint behind right. Jewellery. Calculated. Effort clearly made, more than likely on my behalf. He says my name and gives me a kiss on the cheek. I generally wouldn’t let him touch me, but he didn’t give me enough warning, and I can’t feel the lower half of my face anymore, aside from the roof of my mouth, which aches as if all the booze and drugs are building up above my incisors, like they want to burst out of the sockets and take my front teeth with them.
‘These your friends?’ Will asks.
‘In a manner of speaking.’ I push past him. There are people talking in the corridor, mostly men, mostly baristas and bartenders and gallery invigilators and the kind of general, miscellaneous artsy people I see fucking everywhere but have never spoken to. They’re a rotation of background extras in my life, a handful of unnamed NPCs with repeating models populating the playable areas of the city.
Even with my hair askew, and the foundation rubbed off the tip of my nose, and my lipstick slightly smeared, I turn the head of every bloke in that corridor. I make my way through to the kitchen and immediately grab a plastic cup. The kitchen is disgusting, fag ends and spillages and dishes and cups piling up in the sink.
Flo will anxiety-clean at parties if given the chance. She immediately starts collecting cups and putting them in the bin. Finch starts laughing at her.
‘She’s real,’ says a voice. ‘She’s, like, actually real then.’ Scottish, but posh Scottish. A fat man, standing at six foot two, with a well-kept beard and a boyish, handsome face. Blue eyes. He’s sweating profusely, and wearing a top hat, and holding a cane. ‘No offence, I just always thought he was, like… lying. Exaggerating. I mean, look at him. My mam always says he’s a bonny lad, but still.’
‘I’m not a fashion photographer, you know. I’m not, like, shooting him for Vogue,’ I say.
‘Aye. I’ve never seen none of the photos, I just thought… Well, I didn’t think anything, because I thought he was lying.’ He shrugs. ‘I’m Henson. Well, Jack, but. Everyone calls me Henson.’
‘I told you she was fucking real, mate.’ Will removes the enormous spliff from behind his ear, and lights it up. He lost his flower, somewhere, between the kitchen and the door. ‘See?’
‘We gunna get to see some photies, then? Some sexy photies of wee Willy?’ Henson takes a step towards me and nudges me, and winks unnaturally in a way which screams, I’ve been trying to make winking at lassies my ’hing. I offer to swap a look at Will’s photos for some alcohol, and Will promptly produces a bottle of vodka from a cupboard, removing it from behind a bag of potatoes.
‘I picked you up some vodka before, so there’s no need, babe,’ Will says. He opens the bottle, and tips it into my cup, spilling a decent glug on my hand by way of marking his territory. Might as well have pissed on me. ‘Oopsy.’
‘It’s fine.’ I lick my wrist. I follow their eyes. Finch drags Flo away from her cleaning, and Will offers her the joint with a ‘Smokum peace pipe?’ as if this was ever going to be the group of people to impress with a bit of comedy archaic racism. She doesn’t take it – PC even when wrecked, she says, ‘What the fuck,’ so I introduce Finch before Flo can kick off. Finch plucks the joint from Will’s fingers, and smokes it easily, letting it dangle from the corner of his mouth while pleasantries are made.
‘So, the vibe’s like… all night seshy?’ Flo asks.
‘Oh, it’s totally the vibe, like, that is deff the vibe, yeah, like heavy, like, really seshy.’
‘Aye pal, I think she gets it,’ Henson says. He gives me this look like, look at this fucking idiot, don’t have sex with him. Cute that either of them thinks that’s on the cards. The joint has made its way to Henson’s hands. He blows a smoke ring.
‘Quick poll, as he does this all the time: does anyone find the smoke rings sexually alluring, or do you just think he looks like a tosser?’ Will asks. We ignore him. Flo, I think, is trying to convince Finch to drop another bomb. I go to lift the cup of vodka to my lips. ‘Woah! We have mixers! I have ice and loads of juices. You don’t have to drink it straight!’ Will plucks the cup from my hand. I’d normally fight more, but, alas, tequila fingers.
‘My delicate constitution couldn’t possibly handle a sip of straight vodka,’ I say. ‘I’d have some tonic water, though.’ Will bumbles around the kitchen till he returns with a vodka and tonic, with ice, a scruffy little wedge of lime, and a fucking straw. We watch him. Henson keeps looking at me, elbowing me as if we’ve formed a bond through shared disdain for our mutual idiot. Henson offers me the joint, and when I say I’m on coke, and I’d rather leave the weed till I’m winding down, he offers me a line. I ask if we can all have a line.
‘Aye. Um, aye I can sort three extra lines out. Can’t we, Will?’