Page 100 of Dead to Me

One of them, then,Patrick thought.He’s looking out for one of them.Is it a celebrity?

‘You like him, don’t you?’the girl said next.

There was a pause before Ned said, ‘He’s my responsibility, but he’s also easy to like.Which is nice.’

Patrick studied the group on the dodgems.There werethree boys, one watching and two riding around who were clearly part of the same group.Patrick found it hard to make their faces out, but he didn’t immediately recognise any of them.Maybe he should take a photo.Ask some people later.

There should be a Shazam for celebrities,he thought.Tap on their face and it tells you what they’ve been in.

He found himself jumping slightly when the girl said, in a suddenly really intense tone, ‘I’m scared something’s going to happen tonight.Nothing feels right.Don’t let him get hurt.’

Patrick could feel his heart in his neck.Was there really some threat?Was this guy Ned here because something might happen?

The dodgems were stopping now, and the girl moved off towards the friends piling out of them.Patrick saw the security guy, Ned, watching her intently.

Three of the other students from the dodgems approached the van, and Patrick realised he needed to straighten up and start serving them.But he could feel sweat on his skin as he filled their orders.

Are the rest of us safe?he thought, looking at the wide-eyed, inebriated faces below him.Should I be telling someone?

But when he tried to spot Ned or the girl again there was no sign of them.They’d moved off somewhere and his queue of customers built steadily after that to the point where he had no time to worry about anything.

By the time he thought of the girl again it was almost dawn and no threat had emerged.None that Patrick had seen, at least.

A while later, there was Nicola.

She was a thirty-year-old oncologist who’d come with a group of former student friends who she wasn’t sure shereally liked all that much any more.It was an uncomfortable realisation.

While she felt as though her life had been thrown into stark relief by her work, her priorities winnowed down to the big ones, these former friends seemed impossibly frivolous and melodramatic.They still talked about the same things they had as undergrads: about shagging and drinking and holidays, and when they weren’t doing that they’d make glancing, judgemental remarks on other women’s outfits or sex lives that were, frankly, just spiteful.

Nicola had escaped them all with the excuse of needing a soft drink and was now standing in the queue for the bar closest to the music tent.She’d decided she’d string the experience out for as long as she could stomach it and then maybe just feign an emergency and run away home.

It was a shame, though.The place was beautiful, and there were music acts she wanted to see.She’d hoped it would feel freeing, this night away from work and her small background worries about what her sister was doing with her life.

Maybe she’d just lose the friends.Try experiencing the ball on her own.It wouldn’t be the first thing she’d managed alone.

Turning to watch the Ferris wheel, she saw a tall girl in a black-and-silver dress escorting her clearly very drunk friend in her direction.

‘I don’t want to,’ the smaller, dark-haired girl was saying, pushing her friend away.

‘Well, we need to hydrate so we can keep going,’ the taller one was saying as she brought them both to a stop close to Nicola.They were clearly joining the queue.

Nicola gave the taller one a sympathetic grin.She’d always been the sober one at parties.Somehow always the mum.

In that strange way of very drunk people the other girlsuddenly went from angry to affectionate, putting her arms up round her friend and pulling her close.

‘You need to stay here,’ she mumbled.

‘Of course I will,’ the tall one said.‘Are you having fun?’

‘No,’ the smaller one replied, truculently.‘Everyone I like turns out to be a fucking arsehole.’

She lurched away, almost colliding with a couple trying to join the queue behind her.

The tall one started to apologise to the other couple, but her friend hadn’t seemed to notice.She was readying herself for a tirade.

‘You’re not my friend, are you?’she said, her eyes glittering in the fairground lights.‘The others think you’re just lying about your rowing stuff, but it’s not that, is it?You’re a fake.A total fake.’

Nicola found herself staring at the two of them, realising it was socially unacceptable but absolutely unable to look away.

---