Skylar laughed as if this was hilarious, even though she couldn’t possibly have known what they were talking about.
‘So yeah, it’s all right for the boys to be students,’ she said. ‘But when it’s me – they barely take my questions.’
Blair fixed her with that sincere look of his.
‘I’m here to tell you,’ he said, teeth glinting, ‘that everything is going to be okay.’
‘Wow,’ said Skylar, seemingly on the verge of tears. ‘Wow. I can’t tell you how good it is to hear someone say that?’
‘Oh darling, I’m sorry,’ whispered Sofia as Carmen cleared up the kitchen after dinner, having necked a lot of Champagne and wine to catch up, and Blair and Skylar stayed deep in conversation at the table, Skylar laughing dramatically every five minutes and tossing her long blonde hair over her shoulder more than seemed strictly necessary.
‘I didn’t actually like him!’ said Carmen fiercely. ‘It was you who wanted him to come over.’
‘I know,’ said Sofia. ‘I’m sorry though.’
‘I don’t want him to stay.’
‘No,’ said Sofia. ‘Totally.’
‘I should have known,’ said Carmen.
‘You shouldn’t,’ said Sofia sharply. ‘He’s clearly a rat fink.’
‘Well, I don’t think you get handsome, rich and nice. Mind you, you did.’
‘Yeah,’ said Sofia. ‘And I’ve seen him for fifteen minutes in the last month. Stop putting the pots in the dishwasher like that: they’ll never clean.’ She turned towards the table with a vast yawn. ‘Well, I think I’ll head for bed. Goodnight, Blair. It was lovely to meet you.’
Blair didn’t look very keen to go but Carmen also made a big show of looking at her watch.
‘Yup, time for bed,’ she shouted through to the children. She smiled insincerely at Blair. ‘So good to see you.’
He finally took the hint and put his coat on and, after rather a lot of hand-pressing, took his leave of Skylar.
‘Fuck me,’ he said at the door. ‘That was an excellent hand with the Champagne-pouring.’
‘It’s because Sofia can’t drink it,’ said Carmen. ‘She’s just urging it on everyone else in a kind of agonised yearning. Also, she wants to wake up tomorrow and feel absolutely brilliant and laugh at everyone else who feels terrible.’
Even as she said it, she realised, as the cold air hit her, that she was actually quite drunk. Skylar had made a massive point about drinking a huge glass of water between each tiny sip of Champagne, so Carmen had steadfastly refused to drink water, childishly, and she was feeling it now. She swayed a little and rested against the door frame, still so cross that he had spent the night chatting to somebody else.
‘God,’ said Blair suddenly. ‘Come on. Come back to my shit hotel room. Let’s just have fun. My flight is leaving at 6 a.m. Come on. Let’s go and be really badly behaved.’
‘Fuck off,’ she said. ‘You just spent the entire night talking to Skylar!’
‘She’s a fan!’ he said, genuinely surprised. ‘Come on, you know I can’t disappoint my public. But I want to be my real self with you.’
There was no doubt she was tempted. He looked so handsome in the light from the old-fashioned street lanterns, wolfish, as the snowflakes settled in his hair and on his expensive coat; a handsome man, when she hadn’t as much as kissed anyone in months …
He smiled at her and for the first time she thought, That’s your real smile. He didn’t show all his teeth, just the incisors, so it was almost more of a wolfish snarl. And yet far more attractive than his real one.