A Handful of Red Earth

The next morning I woke up to a sweet, cloying smell.

And... bacon. Yes.

The world had finally realised I needed some lovin'.

We had made up a mass bed on the floor of my living room, and had fallen asleep on it, limbs so tangled that when I woke up a little before dawn with a pressing need to pee I didn't know when the arms and legs around me stopped being mine.

But now there was definitely a lack of body where Adam had been. On my other side, Gis was still doing her shallow sleepy breathing.

I decided not to get up, to not even open my eyes, but instead to drift right back off to sleep.

*

When I next woke up it was to my hair being ruffled. I glared up at Adam, who simply smiled sweetly in return.

Gis was already up, and groggily sipping a cup of tea.

"I made breakfast," Adam informed me cheerfully.

Bacon. Yes, my nose had been right, yes, there had been bacon. And waffles. Very, very good indeed.

"Adam, is it wrong that I kind of want to kiss you right now?@ I asked, turning my head to see where the smell was coming from and finding my coffee table laden with goodies.

"It's expected," he said, and I knew he was smiling although I wasn't looking at him. "Giselle's already done it. You should just get it over with it now," he said, jokingly.

I turned, however, and kissed him very heavily on the cheek.

"I know I've told you already that I love you, and that we're probably soulmates or something, but I don't think I expressed my feelings towards you well enough. You are quite possible the best thing to have happened to humanity since Radiohead," I said, turning back to the coffee table and piling a little bit of everything there onto a waffle before stuffing it whole in my mouth.

"That was incredibly attactive," Adam said with a laugh.

"Ath always eats like that," Giselle replied as I was chewing my mouthful -literally- of magic.

"Must be a joy for all who know her then," Adam said, and as I couldn't defend myself verbally I had to content myself with throwing a blueberry at him which he - irritatingly - caught in his mouth.

"You," Giselle said when I couldn't, "are too suave for your own good."

After breakfast, Gis and Adam helped me tidy up, and we wondered what we should do with the rest of the day - that we'd spend it together was taken for granted.

Adam had been home before he'd cooked, to shower and dress, so Gis and I took it in turns to keep him company while the other was getting ready.

When I came back down as the last to shower and probably - no, definitely - the longest, Gis and Adam were having a what was clearly a very serious conversation, but neither of them would say what about, which I thought was just very stupid.

We caught the W5 to Highgate tube and went down to Covent Garden.

We wandered around the shops and boutiques, spending precious money on things we definitely did not need.

We also bought our 'Gig Outfits', at Adam's insistence.

We ate lunch - steak and ale pasties - on the cobbles outside of David & Goliath and then decided to take an impromptu walk down and along Embankment.

It was almost five when Reuben called Adam and reminded him that he was meant to meet up with the band as he bailed out early yesterday.

He asked if he could bring us but apparently it was a bro's only kind of thing.

Gis snorted when she heard that.

"Cool. Have fun at the sausage fest then."

We dropped him off at Westminster station, and then walked back to Trafalgar Square to get the 91 back home.

*

My parents weren't in when I got home but there was a note on the kitchen table telling me they'd gone to some sort of Professors' Soirée.

I wondered, not for the first time, how my parents had a better social life than I.

I gave up on the day at eight thirty, and went to bed.

I spent the next couple of days stretched out on a picnic blanket in Waterlow Park, sunning myself with hopes to get a richer quality to my skin tone, and reading The Picture of Dorian Gray, one of the books on my neglected reading list.

I got pretty much constant texts and calls from both Gis and Adam, but no more propositions for a day out.

So it was a shock when, on Thursday, after another day's worth of tanning, I found Adam waiting for me on my doorstep.

"Hey Adam. You should have told me you were here, I would have come home earlier," I said lightly, sidestepping him so that I could open the door.

I sailed through to the kitchen and made up both drinks.

Adam didn't touch his, just watched as I drank mine. It was then that I noticed the expression on his face.

"Hey, Adam, are you okay?" I asked, and he shook his head. "What's the matter?" I prompted, and it was like breaking a dam.

"It's Cassandra," he growled. "Again! I met up with her today for a while, and everything was going fine until I told her about my gig and she said she couldn't come because it was her sister's birthday party the next day. When I asked her why that meant she couldn't come she just flew off the handle - went completely mental at me! Spouting all this shit about how selfish I'm being, and how the band is driving a wedge between us, and then I said it wasn't the band; it was all her and we had this huge awful argument." He wound down, and I patted his hand in what I hoped was a comforting way. He sighed. "It's just frustrating. It seems like nothing I ever do is right anymore. She finds fault with everything."

We sat in silence for a bit, then Adam asked in a jumbled rush, as if he'd been working his courage up to get the question out: "You don't think I was being unreasonable, do you Artemisia? I mean, there's nothing I'm missing, is there?"

I shook my head. "No, seems to me like it's all her. I don't see what there is for her to be angry about."

"That settles it then. She's just being a twat," he huffed. "I don't know what's changed. She used to be so nice and supportive. And now she's a psycho bitch from hell."

"Adam!" I exclaimed, more taken aback by the ferocity in his voice then the words themselves. He was always so easygoing.

"Okay, so maybe she's not that bad, but still. I feel like she is sometimes, and that isn't right."

"Maybe you two've just grown apart?" I asked, tentatively.

Adam laughed bitterly. "That's the thing though. I've not changed, and she acts the same as she used to with everyone else but me. I just don't get what her problem is."

She's cheating on you. The words popped into my head, unbidden, shocking me. I didn't know what had made me think that, and I pushed it right to the back of my mind and out of the door so we could settle down and watch Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

*

"Sorry for putting that all on your shoulders," Adam said when the film finished. "I just needed to talk."

"I know how it is. Don't worry about it."

He sighed and checked the time; eight o clock.

"Are there any decent pubs round here?" he asked, and I chuckled.

"We've got quite an abundance of them, actually."

"Good. Can we go to one?"

I replied that of course we could, just as soon as I had gotten a cardigan on.

It was still warm as we made our way down into Crouch End, but I was grateful for my cardie - it was cooling down fast.

We made our way into The Queen's, a cosy little place on Tottenham Lane. Although it's really not that small, it has that 'local pub' charm without being filled with middle aged wino's.

Adam and I sat down in a corner after getting drinks, and he asked me to tell him all about my school and the subjects I was studying.

He was clearly still a little bit upset, so I told him about how much of a sarcastic bitch my English teacher was, and how scatterbrained my history teach could be, and about how I dropped Classics - something I don't think my parents'll ever forgive me for - because my classics teacher was a pompous imbecile and intolerably dull. My parents had been particularly upset when I told them that, because he was a close friend of theirs.

"Christ, that must've been a nightmare. I would hate it if my parents had been friends with any of my teachers," Adam said, with a sympathetic nod.

"It was awful. He'd gossip about me with them, and act all chummy with me in class. Very embarassing."

And then - because I was boring myself to tears - I made Adam tell me all about the band.

"Well Reuben and I were always good friends, and I would tease him about his singing relentlessly because - well, it was what you did."

I could see that. Even after having only met him once, I could tell that Reuben was just the sort of person who got the piss taken out of him incessantly.

"We decided to start a band in year eight," he paused and took a sip of his drink. "We were godawful. We didn't get our act together till about four years ago, when Mace and Elliot joined. Des joined a year ago with his sax and after that we got signed."

I very nearly spit my beer all over him.

"You guys are signed?" I spluttered, once my drink was safely down my gullet.

"Yeah," Adam said calmly, clearly used to the idea. "And they had us writing new songs forever. They said they liked our sounds but not our songs."

"Bastards," I murmured, but Adam shook his head.

"Not really. Reuben wrote most of our old songs, and his shit with words. So they were all pretty crap."

I laughed. "Poor Reuben gets a lot of stick from you guys. If I were him, I'd have gone solo already."

"He knows we love him, really," Adam said, joining in with my laughter.

"So who writes the songs now?" I asked, leaning back in my chair.

"It's a collaborative effort, mostly. Elliot's lyrics are the best, though. That kid is secretly a child genius, I swear."

"Wow. That's so cool. I wish I had talent."

"I bet you do have some super awesome talent that you're just going to unleash on me. Come on, tell me: what do you do in your spare time?"

I shrugged. "Sod all, really. I used to... make things. Like, soft toys and clothes, and things, but I... don't really do that anymore."

"Why not?"

I was about to shrug again, but stopped myself. He had been honest with me, so I would be honest with him, no matter how embarrassing it was.

" just... to be honest, it's... er, Ben. He said one of the things I made looked like a curse doll. And this whole thing with him just drained me. I just don't really feel like actually doing anything productive anymore. That's why I'm so glad it's summer. It's such a blessing to not have to do anything."

Adam was silent for a while, and then he said with a soft sigh: "Wow. That really sucks."

"Doesn't it just?" I replied, with a sigh of my own.

"Ben is such a dick. I don't understand how anyone could treat someone else like that. Especially you. You are such a great girl."

"Thanks for thinking that," I replied, and tacked on in my head sometimes I'm not so sure.

*

We stayed till about ten before returning to our respective houses, having a deep and meaningful beer-fuelled conversation about nothing at all.

We hugged outside of my gate, and then made sure we travelled up our paths at the same pace and entered our houses at the same time.

I fell asleep the second my head hit the pillow.