Bright Girls - Clare Chambers

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would only last a couple of weeks. Then her phone would start chirping at unsociable hours, a new name would keep cropping up in conversations and she would revive and blossom again. I couldn’t help envying her luck, or whatever it was. I’d never even got close to having a boyfriend and I wasn’t anything like as fussy as Rachel. He didn’t have to be tall or good-looking – just funny and nice and available, but even that, it seemed, was asking the impossible.

      If Rachel hadn’t recently split up with the latest specimen – Todd – and wanted to put some distance between them, I doubt she would have agreed to leave Oxford at all. She said she’d tried to let him down gently, but he was obviously much keener on her than she’d realised. Every time she went to the pub or a party there he’d be, moping around looking tragic and making her feel guilty for flirting with other blokes. In short, his refusal to move on was seriously spoiling her fun, to the point that our banishment to Brighton began to seem a convenient solution.

      I was secretly pleased that they’d parted because I’d never much liked Todd. Unlike the fit, confident, sporty types she usually went for, he was thin and arty and depressed. On one occasion I had walked in on him in the bathroom because he’d failed to lock the door and caught him peeing in the washbasin, even though there was a perfectly adequate toilet right beside him.

      I said, “Whoops, sorry,” and backed out, pretending I hadn’t noticed. After he’d gone, I bleached the basin and threw my flannel in the bin in case it had been within range, but I never told anyone what I’d seen. Not even Rachel. It was too weird and, besides, my critical insights about her boyfriends were seldom well-received. (Once, in a spirit of sisterly solidarity, I’d passed on the information that a boy she was seeing had been at the Penultimate Picture Palace two rows in front of me with a notorious local slapper, and she hadn’t been the least bit grateful.)

      After a while I began to wonder whether I had imagined the whole Todd/bathroom episode, or misinterpreted some entirely innocent and hygienic activity But I knew I hadn’t really.

       Seven Of Rats and Men

      My gloomy prophecies of romance between Rachel and Adam turned out to be a little premature, as she returned from their outing distinctly unimpressed.

      “Men are so competitive,” she grumbled, throwing herself down on my bed, which I had only just vacated. “I’ve hardly played tennis in my life and he’s some sort of county champion, so of course he’s going to win!” Her face was still the colour of corned beef from her exertions on court. “I thought it was going to be a nice, gentle knockabout.”

      “What about the rest of the day?”

      “Oh, that was all right. We went on the pier and walked down to the marina. I did most of the talking. The only subject that really got him going was computers.”

      “Oh. Did you tell him about—”

      “No, of course not.” She tutted at my lack of faith in her discretion. “He wouldn’t let me win one point!” she burst out, unable to leave the subject alone. That thrashing had really got to her. “I think he’s just a bit young for me.”

      “He’s older than you.”

      “Yes, but emotionally. I need a man with more experience…By the way here you are.” She produced a Sainsbury’s bag from her holdall and slung it across to where I was sitting on the window seat. On inspection I found it contained a packet of “Taste-the-difference extra-lean steak mince”.

      “What’s this?”

      “You said you wanted some mince,” she replied.

      I looked at her in disbelief. “I said mints, you stupid troll. Why would I want a lump of raw meat? I’m just getting over food poisoning!”

      “I dunno. I thought you might want to make a burger or something.”

      “I don’t even eat burgers when I’m well!” I stuffed the plastic box hastily back in the bag – the sight of the oozing, pulped flesh was too much for my delicate guts – and threw it back at Rachel.

      “I’m sorry” she laughed remorselessly. “You should speak more clearly. You mumble; that’s your trouble.”

      I glared at her.

      “Oh, well, no point in wasting it. I’ll make spaghetti Bolognese tonight. Auntie Jackie is the worst cook.” She lowered her voice, remembering just too late our proximity to the kitchen. “I think she must live on baked potatoes.”

      A baked potato sounded good to me: bland and fluffy and easily digestible, and not greasy or recently slaughtered.

      Rachel stood up and began to prowl around my room in search of diversion, opening and closing the wardrobe and poking about among Auntie Jackie’s ornaments on the mantelpiece.

      “What’s she keeping all this stuff for?” she asked, twanging the one remaining string of the double bass. “I mean what’s with the archery target? And this?” She picked up the papier-mâché pig, which was surprisingly light considering its vast girth, and stared into its painted eyes.

      “He’s called Gunter. She made him at art college.”

      “What are you going to do all day when I’m at out at work?” Rachel asked suddenly, as if I was the one who was bored and restless.

      “Have you got a job then?”

      “No, not yet. But I will have soon. And then what are you going to do?” Anyone would think she had done nothing but entertain me since we arrived.

      “I’ll be fine. I thought I might help Auntie Jackie in the shop.”

      “You could get a job of some sort. A paper round or something.”

      “I don’t need a job,” I reminded her with a smug smile. “Because I’m not in debt.”

      As I said this, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye; a small brown shape with a pink, thread-like tail suddenly shot out from under the double bass, crossed the carpet in a blur and vanished under the door. It was over before either of us could react with the proper squeals of horror: instead, we just blinked at each other in surprise.

      “Was that what I think it was?” Rachel said after a pause.

      I nodded, my heart hammering.

      “Oh, gross. There’s probably a nest under all that junk.”

      I approached the double bass tentatively. I wasn’t scared of mice – in their place, which was in cages or clinging to ears of corn on the front of birthday cards – but I didn’t fancy confronting a whole nestful. On the other hand, I wasn’t wildly enthusiastic about sharing my sleeping quarters with one – or more. I began to tweak at the pile of “junk”, bracing myself for a stampede. As well as the double bass, that corner of the room was home to a rack of ancient LPs, relics of Auntie Jackie’s past no doubt, stacked vertically like slices of toast, an Ali Baba basket full of shoes and a box of dressmaker’s patterns in paper packets.

      I picked one of these up: BUTTERICK 1949. I took this to be a reference to its year of origin. The cover showed a pen and ink drawing of a woman with bouffant hair and impossibly elongated legs wearing a tight-waisted tartan suit. She was standing with hands on hips, wrists bent back to an angle of ninety degrees and looked like no woman you would ever see. The edges of the packet had been well nibbled. On closer inspection I discovered that only the patterns closest to the top of the heap had been spared: those further down had been totally shredded.

      I left Rachel sniggering over the evidence of our ancestors’ fashion crimes and went upstairs to report my findings to Auntie Jackie, making sure that there were no clients around. Even I could see that an infestation of mice wouldn’t be great for business. I found her in the back room performing repairs to some recently returned stock. She was wearing a pair of glasses

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