whether she means to brandish it, but she moves her hands a lot when she speaks.
The third girl – Phoenix has forgotten her name – sips out of Polish pottery. Expensive. Like the Mini Convertible she swept up in. Phoenix has kicked off her trainers to pad around the kitchen in woolly socks; this girl is in classy sandals.
When are they going to sit down instead of acting like it’s a cocktail party? Phoenix has the urge to move from the cooking area to the easy chairs in the dining end of the kitchen. She shifts her weight and listens to Amber.
“I’m doing Theatre Studies. I’ll probably go into directing and writing.” Amber’s bangles and friendship bracelets cascade down her wrist as she drags a hand through her bleached crop. “We need more women in pivotal roles. Smash through the glass ceiling of the existing patriarchy.”
The rich girl suppresses a yawn. Ignoring Amber, she looks at Phoenix. “Where are you from?”
Phoenix hesitates. She’s worked out her backstory but toys with the truth. These girls are her flatmates. Why pretend? Why: because the rich girl might judge and find her wanting. But before she can decide how much to say, Amber’s off and running with her own answer.
“I’m from Chadcombe in Surrey. My dad works for a top accountancy firm in Town. That’s London Town. We call it Town.”
The rich girl’s face doesn’t move, but Phoenix smiles. Amber must be a Home Counties kid, away from home for the first time. Wholesome, but naïve. Doe eyes in kohl and sweetheart mouth behind purple lipstick. Perhaps she’ll work hard and do her parents proud. Yet Phoenix wonders about her; something desperate in the rapid way she speaks.
Another girl steps into the kitchen.
“Hi, welcome.” Amber turns to greet her. “What’s your name?” She steps forward and hugs her, holding her half-drunk coffee behind the girl’s back.
“Imogen … Imo.” The girl swallows. Despite hunching her shoulders inside her Jack Wills sweatshirt and looking down, she’s striking. Her blonde hair looks natural like Phoenix’s own, but this girl can grow it long. It’s well on the way to her waist and she wears it loose.
Amber steers her in front of the others as if she’s the hostess. “This is Imogen, but we can say Imo. I’m Amber and this is Phoenix, named after the actor.”
Phoenix winces. Why do people always assume that about her name? Phoenix is the mythical bird that rises from the ashes. Fire – that’s why her parents chose it. Almost an obsession. She winces again as she remembers watching one of their obsessions turn deadly.
Imogen holds out her arms for a light hug and Phoenix understands why she wears her hair over her face: her cheeks are raging with acne. She looks anxious and there are dark shadows under her eyes.
“I think I saw you in the car park, getting out of a blue ice-cream van,” Imo says.
Phoenix smiles nervously, wondering how many others noticed it.
“I saw a big van as I drove in,” the rich girl says. “Are your parents caterers?”
Phoenix hesitates. “That’s right,” she lies.
Amber completes the introductions for Imo. “And this is Tegan. Have I got that right? A Welsh name?”
Tegan – so that’s the rich girl’s name and explains her mellifluous accent – doesn’t step forward but waits for Imo to reach her. Even in her designer sandals, Tegan’s the shortest of the four of them, but there’s something ten-feet-tall about her. Phoenix doesn’t expect to be having many kitchen chats with her after today. Their social circles won’t intersect.
“What are you studying?” Amber asks Imo.
“German and Business.”
“I can’t do languages. Except BSL – British Sign Language – which I learnt in a day.” Amber leans in close to the newcomer. “But I know Epic Theatre. You must have heard about that if you’re doing German.”
“A little …” Imo pauses and gives a weak smile.
Phoenix feels for her. It must be daunting that someone knows more about her subject than she does.
“In Year Twelve, I acted in a Swiss play.” Imo’s hands are clenched by her sides and she sounds nervous. “About an old woman seeking revenge on the man who got her in trouble when they were teenagers. Is that the sort of thing?”
For a moment Amber hesitates, a flicker of something behind her eyes. Then she shrieks, “That’s it. What was the set like?” In her eagerness to talk drama with Imo, she steps in front of Tegan.
“What are you studying, Phoenix?” Tegan asks in a voice loud enough to make Amber move aside.
“Mechanical Engineering.”
“Interesting,” replies Tegan, sounding like she thinks it’s anything but.
Amber runs with the conversation again. “We’ll try to keep the drama talk to a minimum, won’t we, Imo?” She links arms with the girl she’s known for all of five minutes.
Tegan puts her Polish mug on the kitchen top. “I’m into the arts if they make money. Business is my thing.”
“So are you studying Business like me?” Imo asks.
“For the moment,” Tegan replies. “I left school a year ago and I’ve been building my product range since then.” She bends down to the handbag at her feet and takes out a pouch. In a deft movement, she reconfigures it as a bomber jacket and puts it over her shoulders. Her dark hair is stunning against the ice pink. “Ideal to keep the rain off on a night out and it fits in your bag or …” she lays it on the kitchen top, folds in the sleeves and draws the sides together in previously unseen zips “… have it as the handbag itself.”
“You’re selling these?” Amber takes hold of the newly formed holdall.
“Fourteen ninety-nine, because of the craftsmanship. But I’m offering them on campus for ten pounds, two for eighteen.”
Amber pauses for a moment, turns the bag over in her hands. “I’ll get my purse.”
Imo follows her out. Tegan looks at Phoenix expectantly.
Phoenix makes her best poker face. What craftsmanship? These plastic macs are most likely churned out in a Third-World sweatshop. She weighs up her options. Choose your battles. She’s going to be sharing a flat with this girl. Why make it awkward? She pulls a tenner from her jeans pocket.
“Thank you so much,” Tegan says. But the brightness is false. Phoenix knows conceit when she hears it. Tegan’s used to getting what she wants. Phoenix’s dad, Sonny, thinks university is a holding pen between bouts of real life. Tegan the businesswoman might be the kind of student he’d admire.
“What made you choose the Abbey?” Phoenix asks.
“This was as far away from home as possible on a tank of petrol.” Tegan snorts. “What about you?”
The truth? Her head’s full of designs for show equipment innovations, some worth patenting. Mech Eng is the way she’s going to stay in the world she knows, doing what she’s good at but without the risks. She shrugs. “Same as you, I suppose.”
The other girls come back with their money. Amber’s still holding Imo’s arm. Firm friends already.
“What do you all think of this flat?” Amber asks. “I could do with more wardrobe space.”
Imo and Tegan agree. Again Phoenix stays silent. Until she moved in with Carla and Antonio, her desk converted to her bed.
“So do you think it’s just the four of us in this flat?” Amber points at each of them. “Let’s see if I can remember: Imo doing German and Business, Tegan Business, Phoenix