Beneath the Skin Read Online Free Page B

weren’t sure about the location,” Guy said breezily. “A bit on the small side as well. And they felt it needed too much work on it. Not keen, basically.”
    “The people today shouldn’t come too late. I’m having some friends around for a drink.”
    “Birthday, is it?”
    I took a deep breath.
    “Do you really want to know, Guy?”
    “Well . . .”
    “I’m having an anniversary party because it’s six months since this flat went on the market.”
    “It’s not, is it?”
    “Yes, it is.”
    “It doesn’t seem like six months.”
    He took some convincing. After the call I looked around the room rather desperately. Strangers were going to be coming in and looking at this room. When I moved to London my aunt had given me a book on Household Hints and Handy Tips. It had advice on how to tidy if you’ve only got fifteen minutes. But what if you’ve only got one minute? I made my bed, straightened the rug by the door, rinsed my coffee mug and put it neatly upside down by the sink. I found a cardboard box in a cupboard and I tipped all the letters into it and stowed it under my bed. A minute and a half and I was late at the school. Again. Sweatily late and the day was only starting to get hot.
     
     
    “So, my love, what can we do to make this more salable?”
    Louise was standing at the window with a bottle of beer, brandishing a cigarette at Holloway Road.
    “It’s very simple,” I said. “Get rid of the road. Get rid of the pub next door and the kebab house next to that. Decorate. It’s horrible, isn’t it; everything about it. I hated it from the moment I owned it and even if it means losing money I’ve got to get out. I want to rent a small cozy flat with a garden or something. We’re meant to be in the middle of a housing boom. There must be somebody mad out there.” I took a drag of my cigarette. “Granted, lots of mad people have already looked at this flat. I need the right kind of mad person.”
    Louise laughed. She had come early to help me get things ready and to have a proper talk and basically because she’s a good person.
    “But I didn’t come all the way here to talk about property. I want to know about this new man. Is he coming tonight?”
    “They’re all coming.”
    “What do you mean
all
? Have you got more than one?”
    I giggled.
    “No. He goes round with this gang of boys. I think they’ve all known each other since primary school or something ridiculous. They’re like those six-packs of beer. You know, not to be sold separately.”
    Louise frowned.
    “This isn’t some sort of strange five-in-a-bed sex thing, is it? If so, I want to hear about it in detail.”
    “No, they leave us alone some of the time.”
    “How did you meet?”
    I lit another cigarette.
    “I met them all together. A few weeks ago I went to a party at a gallery over in Shoreditch. It was one of those typical disasters. The person I knew turned out not to be there. So I wandered from room to room holding a drink and pretending to be on my way to somewhere important. You know what I mean?”
    “You’re talking to the world champion,” said Louise.
    “Anyway I went upstairs and there was a group of good-looking young men round a pinball machine, banging at it, shouting, laughing, having a better time than anyone else there. One of them—not Fred, as it happens—looked round and asked me if I wanted to play. So I did. We had a great time and the next evening I met them again in town.”
    Louise looked thoughtful.
    “So you faced the difficult choice of which one of them actually to go out with on a one-to-one basis?”
    “It wasn’t exactly like that,” I said. “The day after
that
Fred rang me at home and asked me out. I asked him if he had the permission of his gang, and he was a bit sheepish about that.” I leaned out the window a bit. “And here they are now.”
    Louise peered out. They were some way down the road and hadn’t noticed us.
    “They look like nice boys,” she said