SING (Like No One's Listening) by Vanessa Jones

Author:Vanessa Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK

CHAPTER 15

I wake up to the sound of the kettle boiling and Alec riffing his way nicely through an Ariana Grande song.

OK. I feel OK. Although sound seems to be hurting my ears.

I open my eyes. I’m on the sofa. The room is swimming sideways at me, drifting from left to right. Or maybe I am; I can’t be sure. I close my eyes again but I still seem to be moving. My head feels like someone’s dropped The Complete Works of William Shakespeare on it and there’s a sharp pain in the cheek I’m lying on. Feeling around, I realize my earring has embedded itself in my face.

The effort of removing it makes my stomach lurch. I sit up quickly in dreaded anticipation of what’s to come.

‘The bucket! I have a bucket!’ shrieks Alec, jeté-ing over to me like Carlos Acosta and thrusting a basin under my trembling chin. I barf obediently into it while he holds my hair back.

‘Good girl. You’ll feel better after,’ he says soothingly.

I eye him suspiciously mid-spew, but he looks sincere.

‘Omigod,’ I gasp after the thirteenth retch. ‘What have I done to myself?’

‘You need carbs.’

‘Ugh. You’re kidding. I need a shower. If I can walk that far.’

‘I’ll make you a bacon sarnie while you’re in there.’

I shuffle to the bathroom, bucket of spew dangling in my limp hand.

Alec’s right; I do feel better after a good ralph. I emerge from the shower ten minutes later, clean, devoid of make-up, but with a rather large octagon-shaped indentation in my right cheek.

‘Good look.’ Alec’s busying himself over a pan of bacon. ‘Better than the sight I came into this morning, which was a cross between Sweeney Todd and Bette Davis in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?’

‘Such a specific and well-referenced insult from one so young.’ I hand him the clean bucket.

‘We try.’ Alec watches slyly while I gip my way through breakfast.

‘What?’ I say, paranoid.

‘Do you remember last night?’ he says.

‘I remember humiliating myself outside Bar Italia. Did we come home after that?’

‘Not exactly.’ Alec reaches for his phone. ‘We made a movie.’

‘What are you talking about?’ This is too much on a hangover.

‘Just watch this.’

He scrolls through his phone until he comes to a series of videos. It looks as if I’m in all of them, a blurred thing with black hair and a sequinned dress in various states of motion. I hope I didn’t ruin another dress. I got that one from Beyond Retro.

The first video’s outside a club.

‘Okayyy. So, apparently we’re going to a karaoke bar. Ka-r-a-oke. Alec’s going to sing and I’m going to daaance.’

‘I’m so pissed!’ I say. ‘I don’t remember that.’

‘I’d have thought you’d remember giving your finest Kate Bush around the lamp post.’

I’m swaying from side to side in what seems to be some sort of interpretive dance, using a lamp post and a bin to steady myself. Alec narrates from behind the camera.

‘And then we’re going to swap, aren’t we, Nettie? I’m going to dance, and you’re going to sing.

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