Page 55 of Glitterland
He gave me one of his wide-eyed, shocked looks, but I knew he was only teasing. Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up, and there was Niall.
“I didn’t fuck it up!” Even I could hear how absurdly giddy I sounded, too bright, too happy, as though, at any moment, I would swoop away on the wings of mania. I tried to care, but I couldn’t. Darian and I would run hand in hand across the clouds together.
“Well. Congratulations.” I caught the sourness of drink upon Niall’s breath.
There was an awkward silence.
“He was so good, Niall,” said Chloe valiantly. “You would have fought he was like a pafeshunal model or summin.”
“I, um, I thought you’d left,” I said.
He scowled. “As if I could. Someone has to take care of you.”
“I can take care of myself,” I muttered, with all the dignity of a teenager.
“Essex is well safe,” said Gary, returning with a tray of drinks and passing them round. “Like there was this one time, right, when Darian fought he was being burgled.” A ripple of amusement passed over the table and Darian put his face into his hands.
“You always ’ave to tell this story.”
“Cos it’s hilarious, that’s why. So Darian ’ere was carrying on like a right ghel, totally freaking out, ringing me up, being all ‘What should I do, what should I do, I fink there’s somebody trying to get in through the patio doors.’ And I was like ‘Phone the police, you donut, what am I supposed to do abaht it?’”
Gary paused with the casual ease of an experienced raconteur, dropping down into a free chair, and extending both arms across the shoulders of his neighbours. “So there ’e goes, creeping down the stairs at three in the morning, wif me on the phone and armed wif an eyebrow pencil—”
“It was well sharp,” put in Darian.
“And, y’know what, right? It’s a duck aht there.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Darian, “but it was obvs trying to burgle me. It was a bad duck.”
“I think we should be going,” interrupted Niall. “We need to get back to London.”
“But I don’t want to go,” I said plaintively.
“It’s ahwight,” said Darian. “’E can stay wif me. Protect me from bad ducks, right, babes?”
I tucked my head against his shoulder. “See, he needs me.”
“Aww, I do.” Darian looked up at Niall and smiled. “We’ll be ahwight. I’ll take care of ’im.”
Something flickered across Niall’s face like a shadow. I sat upright, filled by a sudden, despairing premonition. It left me shivering, even in the warmth of the glardigan, and I flashed Niall a frantic look, as though, in a split-second, I could make him understand:Please don’t do this to me. Let me have this. Let me have this happiness.
“You can’t take care of him,” Niall said flatly. “He’s a type 1 bipolar depressive with clinical anxiety disorder. I don’t think you even know what that means.”
For a moment, Darian was silent. His was the only response that mattered, though I told myself it didn’t. Watching him was like waiting for an axe to fall, but I could not look away.
“I do actually,” he said, at last. “I saw a fing on the telly wif Stephen Fry.”
Niall gave a harsh, barking laugh. “Oh, you saw a thing with Stephen Fry. Well, thank God for that, we’re saved. Did you get that, Ash? You’re going to befine. He saw a thing with Stephen Fry. We’re in the presence of a fucking expert here.”
“I didn’t say I was an expert in anyfing,” said Darian slowly. “Just that I wasn’t totally clueless.”
“I remember reading somefing in a magazine,” added Chloe, “abaht Robbie Williams. Doesn’t ’e ’ave bipolar as well? It was somebody what used to be inTake Thatanyway.”
“Was it Gary?” asked one of the Laurens.
Chloe shook her head. “Naw, he was the one what was struggling wif his weight. I fink it was Robbie.”
Niall slammed his hand onto the tabletop, knocking over a couple of drinks and causing Darian’s friends to jump to their feet screaming in fear for their minidresses. Only Darian didn’t move.
