A Handful of Red Earth

The band finally settled on the name ‘Dirty Scarlett’ around two hours later. Personally I preferred the name I had come up with; Pandora’s Fire, but I couldn’t argue when the boys had decided (after much laughter that I pretended not understand) that it didn’t really suit the tenor of the band.

Then Reuben produced a little baggy of weed and rolled up a spliff pretty deftly.

“Do you blaze?” Adam asked, worry making his way onto his face.

“Not really, no,” I’d replied.

He decided it was his duty to refuse to smoke with me, and we left pretty soon after that.

“My friend wants to meet you,” I said when we got off the 102 in East Finchley (we had realised there was a simpler route home.) “You know, Giselle? She’s coming to stay at mine, and she wants to meet you.”

“Really? Is she hot?”

I laughed, because it suddenly dawned on me how similar the two were, before slapping him playfully. “You are terrible!” I chided, half-heartedly. “What about Clarissa?”

“Cassandra,” Adam corrected, quietly. One glance at his face told me all I needed to know. His usual smile was gone; it was like his face had just shut down completely.

He didn’t say anything more till we were on the 263.

“We’re not… really on speaking terms. Right now. Umm,” he shifted uncomfortably. “She says I don’t care about her at all. Because I had to blow her off a couple of times for the band. It’s like she doesn’t see the band as anything important. It’s really annoying sometimes. She thinks it’s just a hobby,” he spat the word.

I didn’t know what to say, so I remained silent and patted the back of his hand in what I desperately hoped was a comforting gesture.

He sighed, and sagged as some of the anger left him. “It’s just frustrating, you know?” But I didn’t know so, again, I remained silent.

He begun asking questions about Giselle and paid attention to my answers so intently that I knew he was trying to distract himself, and so I told him everything he asked as minutely as I could.

I called her when we reached our houses and we parted ways briefly, Adam going into his house to tell his mum where he was going to be and to change into something ‘more comfortable’.

I popped my head into the study for my dad but it was empty, and there was no sign of either parent anywhere else in the house.

Giselle arrived at mine ten minutes after I got home, brandishing four packets of pork scratching’s’ and a large pack of bacon rasher crisps.

“Where’s this neighbour of yours then?” she asked, plonking the snacks on the coffee table.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “He was meant to be going home to get more comfortable, but he’s been a fair while. Will you help me get pillows and stuff down?”

We trailed upstairs, slowly, to get anything and it was as we were coming back down- so laden with blankets and pillows that standing up straight was an effort- that the knocking began at the door.

Adam.

“I’m coming,” I hollered, moving as quickly as I could into the living room to deposit my load. The knocking continued.

The sight I finally opened the door to was hysterical.

Adam was decked out in pastel purple flannel PJs with rabbits on them and fluffy baby blue bedsocks peeling out over his shoes. From one arm swung (of all things) a picnic hamper, suspended from the other shoulder was a huge tote. In place of a coat was a dressing gown.

I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing, so much and so hard that I couldn’t stand straight.

“So I bring you food and music and DVDs and this is all the thanks I get?” Adam said in his ‘Bree Van de Kamp’ voice, swanning past me and into the house. “I see. Honestly, I don’t know why I bother sometimes.” And of course, when he put on that voice, I could only laugh more.

Giselle came out at the hallway when Adam and I were still laughing about three minutes later- now laughing simply because the other was.

“I’m guessing you’re Adam, then,” Gis said, more to herself than to us, as we were incapable of speech.

“Can I ask what’s so funny?” she asked me, and this time she got two responses.

“Purple pyjamas… bunnies… fluffy socks!” I managed to squeeze out breathlessly as Adam, from his standpoint leaning against the banister giggled: “she laughed so much she fell on the floor and her face went red!”

Giselle chuckled a little at us both before helping me to my feet and ushering us back into the living room where we finally calmed down.

“So why do you have the bags?” I asked when I was sure my breathing was even.

“Ah!” said Adam, putting the hamper on the floor. “I figured we could give this little gathering a ‘slumber party’ feel, so I bought slippers-“ pink, fluffy slippers were produced- “DVDs-“ Legally Blonde, 10 Things I Hate About You, When Harry Met Sally, Miss Congeniality and The Holiday came out- “a few CDs so we could chill, nail varnish, for just in case, also face mask- it’s self heating- and a few magazine.”

Giselle and I stared at all the things laid out on the coffee table.

“Where did you get this stuff Adam?” I asked, incredulous.

“Well, the DVDs, the CDs and the facemask are all mine- except The Holiday, that’s my sisters. Everything else I borrowed from my sister or my mum.”

“You own Legally Blonde?” I asked in shock. “Adam, I don’t think I’ve ever really mentioned this to you, but I’m in love with you and I think we should get married. Like right now, seriously, you’re my soul mate.”

“I always thought so too,” he agreed before pulling the hamper up on his knees. “Now here we have a fine rosé to share,” a bottle of Tesco’s own brand, “quality chocolate,” Lidl, “and ingredients for a surprise that I shall put together later.”

“Adam, your brilliance astounds me,” I said, snatching the three boxes of chocolate from him and settling them into my lap.

“That’s natural my dear,” he said, winking theatrically at Giselle.

“Stop flirting with my friends and put on a film!” I said, swatting at him.

“I like how you assume that I know how to work your DVD player and TV,” he grumbled light-heartedly.

“Giselle will tell you how it’s done. I’m getting glasses.”

I placed the chocolate on a chair and left the two to overcome any problems my appliances might present while I sought out the wine glasses.

It took me a while but I finally found them in a box at the back of the cupboard over the microwave, and washed three.

When I returned to the living room, Adam was still puzzling over how to use the TV.

“Aren’t you going to tell him how to do it?” I murmured to Giselle.

“No. he’s too proud to ask for help, and it’s fun to watch him struggle with something so simple,” she whispered back.

“You two aren’t as quiet as you think,” Adam grumbled, making us laugh.

“And you’re not as technologically inclined as you think. You need to plug in the HDMI lead,” I said.

Giselle pushed me. “You told him!”

“Of course I told him! I’d quite like to watch this film!” I said, brandishing Miss Congeniality and waving it about.

“Throw it over then,” Adam said, having figured out the complex tangle of leads that lived behind my TV.

“Are you sure you want me to throw it?” I asked.

“You don’t want her to throw it,” Giselle warned, but this only served to make Adam curious about my throwing skills.

“I think you should throw it,” he said smiling.

I shrugged and chucked it.

It hit Adam square in the chest, and I laughed, before remembering that it probably hurt and therefore wasn’t funny.

“Gosh, I’m sorry,” I said, trying to stifle my giggles.

“She’s not sorry,” Giselle said, just as Adam said:

“You’re not sorry!”

There was a confused silence, in which both Giselle and Adam looked like they’d just seen ghosts.

Then I started laughing again, and the moment passed.

Adam slipped the DVD in the player then came over to me and snuggled up beneath the blanket.

I poured out three- rather generous- glasses of wine, picked up a bag of pork scratching’s’ and stretched out across Adam and Giselle.

I like Miss Congeniality at the best of times, but I’ve never liked it more than that particular rendition, with Adam saying half the lines along with the characters on screen.

By the end of the film we were buzzing in that pleasant, almost sizzled way.

Adam was a friendly drunk as well, which I was also enjoying.

He had an arm slung across my torso, one hand resting just under my breasts under the cover, his fingers running up and down my skin in such a gentle, such a caring way that I almost cried.

“Ath, do you have any more drink?” Giselle asked when the film was done.

“Erm, there’s probably a bottle of something in the cabinet over there. I don’t know,” I said, pointing to a corner of the room lazily.

“Cool,” she got up, ruffling the covers and revealing Adam’s legs, intertwined with my own, and his hand underneath my shirt.

She raised a curious eyebrow before shrugging and ambling off in the direction of the cupboard.

She came back with a bottle of bottle of Jack Daniels.

“It’s all that was all that was in there,” she explained, handing it to me.

I frowned at her. “You’ll have to get more glasses. I refuse to drink JD out of wine glasses.”

“You are far too picky for your own good,” she muttered good naturedly before pottering off to the kitchen.

There was a buzzing from one of our pockets and we both reached for it simultaneously, causing an awkward crunching of hands and phones.

“Yes!” Adam exclaimed as I replaced my phone-it had been for him.

“What is it?”

“We’ve definitely got the gig. Two weeks on Thursday at 93 Feet East on Brick Lane.”

“Oh, that’s brilliant!” I said as Giselle re-entered the room.

“What’s brilliant?” she asked, settling three glasses on the table.

“Adam’s band got a gig in two weeks!”

“It’s just support,” he murmured, deciding to act modest now that Giselle was in the room.

“Oh yeah! I forgot you were in a band,” she said, tipping a little drink in each glass. “What’s the name?”

“You won’t have heard of us,” Adam chuckled.

“Try me,” Giselle said in reply- she thinks, quite rightly, that her music knowledge is nigh on encyclopaedic.

“We’re the… err…” Adam faltered, clearly having forgotten.

“Dirty Sanchez, right?” I prompted.

“Dirty Sanchez… no, that was too grim after what Rube said. We all decided that Dirty Scarlett was better.”

“Dirty Scarlett! That was it!” I exclaimed in agreement, then explained to a confused Giselle, “they only just decided on it today.”

“Oh. Umm, okay…”

We took the simultaneous decision to pour drink down our throats, and Giselle refilled the glasses.

“So can I listen to a sample?” she asked, when she had put the glass up to her lips once again.

“Ahh, sorry, I don’t actually have any of our songs on me,” Adam apologised.

“That is complete shit, Adam, you should always be ready to do some self promotion,” I admonished sternly, hitting his arm.

“I’m sorry, it’s just that my natural modesty allows me to do nothing of the sort,” was his defence. It earned him a slap from both Giselle and myself.

“Man up and put yourself out there!” Giselle commanded.

“I don’t think that’s actually possible for him to man up right now. He’s spending the entire evening with two girls, watching chick flicks. He has a self-heating face mask. I didn’t even know they still existed.”

“Point taken. It’s possible for you to be less of a man right now, but not with out a sex change,” Giselle said, addressing her last comment to Adam.

“Hey, I can be manly!” Adam protested, sounding even more feminine.

“Sure you could doll. By the by, what colour nail varnish did you bring?”

“Tropical pink for a flirty, summery feel,” he reeled off immediately, sounding like an advert, before realising his mistake.

I chuckled, and patted his hand patronisingly.

“Okay, so I’m very in touch with my feminine side-“ Adam began, but was cut off by Giselle informing him that he was ‘probably pumping more oestrogen then Ath and I together!’ But he carried on his defence of ‘but I have three sisters, you can’t blame me!” without missing a beat.

“And besides,” he said after another sip of JD, “I’m manly when it counts.” He thrust his hips under me a little. Giselle rolled her eyes and I slapped him again, trying not to giggle.

“We should put the next film on,” he said after a while. “What do you girls want?”

I said The Holiday, and Giselle didn’t mind so Adam removed himself from beneath me- which was no mean feat- and toddled over to the TV with the DVD case in hand.

The anti-piracy as began to play- in ‘Sklep’, because I had the remote control- and Adam came back to the chair and sat behind me, positioning me between his legs and slipping his hand right back underneath my top.

“If, at any point during the night you two decide to take the next step and fuck each other senseless, please make sure you do it elsewhere,” Giselle commented dryly, indicating the bulge that Adam’s hand made under my shirt.

“Gis, I’ve barely known Adam a week!” I protested, although I knew she was joking.

“Besides,” Adam added as the piracy ad finally drew to a close. “The next step would be a couple of dates, a few clumsy kisses, sweet murmured nothings, chocolates, flowers-“ he shut up when Gis threw her pillow at him and I started the movie.

Part of the reason I liked this movie so much, I realised as I watched the screen, was that despite the fact that I wasn’t either amazingly American or irritatingly and exaggeratedly British, I understood the main characters exactly.

It gave me hope.

And settling back into Adam’s chest- well, that gave me hope too.