‘I do,’ says a beefy guy, putting his hand up, to gales of laughter. Becky laughs too.
‘Come on then,’ says nose ring. ‘Who’s first up?’ When nobody volunteers, she shrugs. ‘Let the bottle decide!’ And with that she spins it.
People track the spinning neck like they are standing round the wheel of a roulette table. When the bottle comes to a standstill its neck points clearly to Mary. Everyone exclaims as she shields her face theatrically with closed and flattened palms.
‘Do it!’ commands nose ring. ‘Give it a proper shove.’
Mary spins her bottle. It slows and points to Brendan.
Mary smiles at Brendan.
‘Kiss, kiss,’ the teenagers in the circle chant.
‘Argh, this is so cringe!’ shouts Bento.
‘You’ll get yours, mate,’ laughs Nick.
Mary’s eyes are glazed with alcohol and nerves and the excitement of everyone’s attention. She crawls on her hands over to Brendan and leans into him. They kiss each other, tentatively at first and then, encouraged by the chants and cries, lunge at each other for a fuller performance.
‘Bloody hell,’ whispers Scott to Becky, with a nervous laugh.
Brendan and Mary confer then stand up, join hands and step out through the circle toward the door, like a married couple heading up the aisle. Mary turns briefly to address Becky: Sorry, she mouths, and then she is gone and Becky knows that she will not see her for the rest of the night.
‘Sorry, what exactly am I signing up for?’ laughs a red-headed girl.
‘Spin it!’ shouts someone. ‘I want to get laid too!’ More laughter.
Becky looks down at the rubber curve of her trainers and feels more at sea than ever. She takes a huge gulp of her drink because it is something to do other than look anxious. She wants to go now.
With no regard for order, a boy called Nick leans forward and spins the bottle, urging it on, ‘Spin, bottle of fate! Show me my sexual destiny!’
The bottle points to nose-ring girl. She shrugs good-naturedly.
Nick lies down next to her, posing and pouting. ‘Come on then. Lay it on me, baby!’
Nose-ring girl leans down and gives him a quick kiss. Three seconds at most, no tongues. Raucous cheering and laughter.
‘Marry me?’ he says to her.
‘Next!’ she shouts.
The girl sitting next to Nick reaches for it.
One by one they spin and kiss, until it comes to Scott. ‘Ah, fuck,’ says Scott, dismayed, as the bottle faces him.
‘Go on, mate,’ calls out a boy in a baseball cap opposite him. ‘Good luck. Hope you don’t get a minger.’
‘Fuck off!’ says the red-head. ‘We’re all beautiful!’
‘Only on the inside,’ retorts Nick.
When Scott spins the bottle it is with the strength of someone who wants it to ricochet across the carpet, to smash against a skirting board and disappear from the game entirely. But as it makes its final slow revolution, the group cheers and whoops as it comes to land on Becky.
Scott and Becky look at each other and then Becky looks at the boy in the baseball cap to see if she is deemed a minger.
Scott leans in and kisses her. She is surprised at how soft it is. It’s a kiss with good manners. ‘Shall we get out while we can?’ he whispers to her.
‘OK,’ she replies.
They get to their feet, to roars of delight. ‘Wardrobe, wardrobe!’
‘For God’s sake use a condom!’ shouts Nick, emulating someone’s anxious mother.
‘How come I only got a kiss? We need to look at the rules,’ laughs someone else.
‘Spin on!’ declares nose ring as Scott holds Becky’s hand firmly and leads her away to the walk-in wardrobe, while the whole room raises another cheer. His expression now is not soft, or kind – rather, he looks determined.
Becky realizes that she has agreed to leave one place, but in doing so seems to have agreed to come to this place: a space about the size of a small garage, full of orderly rails of shirts and skirts, lines of shoes and boots. What are the rules of a place like this? There is no bed to lie down on. She hasn’t agreed to that. A sliding door has bumped closed on its rails behind them. They can still hear the game being played, people hammering their hands on walls and cupboard doors and knees, like a drumroll as the bottle spins. She can’t take off any clothes in here, can she? Does she even want to? She looks at Scott, trying to decide what she wants. Is this at least an answer to the question of how to pass the night, with Adam gone and Mary somewhere with Brendan, perhaps taking her clothes off right now? Is this what she wants?
Scott steps toward her and kisses her, pushing her slightly into a soft wall of coat sleeves. His hand circles one of her wrists.
She closes her eyes and, actually, like the first time he did it, it’s sort of OK. He’s not really shaving yet and his lips are soft. Like kissing a girl almost, she thinks, and then she asks herself why she’s thinking such a weird thing. It’s not like this is her first kiss. Not my first rodeo! She wishes her mind would stop wandering. Why can’t she just concentrate on this or, better, not concentrate on anything?
He slides his other hand onto the waistband of her jeans. She remembers suddenly that she is flying low. He eases away the button above the open zip and she no longer knows what this is, in the middle of all the coats and a mother’s best high heels on racks. She feels his fingers reach for the hem of her pants. She breaks off and pulls her wrist out of his light grasp.
‘No?’ he says.
‘I’m not sure,’ she says, because the word ‘no’ on its own is just too stark, too short, too accusatory.
He steps back and she breathes easily again. She does her zip and button back up. He looks ashamed of himself.
‘Was that not
