Anne Billson - Stiff Lips

There was a difference, though, and I was constantly being made aware of it. One hot night in August, we all trooped off down the road in search of a bar with air conditioning, which ruled out the Barrio and the Bar Belle.

'There's the Rhumba Bar,' I pointed out as we approached it. Sophie had been pointedly ignoring me, but I wasn't going to let her get me down.

'I can't go in there,' said Toby.

'Yes you can,' said Carolyn.

'No I can't,' said Toby. 'They banned me.'

By now we were clustered in the open doorway of the Rhumba Bar. An unnatural breeze caressed our overheated faces as we peered inside. It was crowded, but not too crowded.

'But tell you what,' said Toby. 'That was an awful long time ago.'

He swaggered in like a gunslinger entering a saloon. We followed in a pack. A man in a collarless shirt was pouring drinks behind the bar and glanced up as we entered, but didn't look as though he had enough energy to throw anybody out. Carolyn went up to him and ordered drinks.

'What do you mean, banned?' asked Isabella as we clustered behind Carolyn.

'They banned me for playing Social Whirligigs,' said Toby.

Everybody chortled, except me. I hadn't a clue what Social Whirligigs was, or how you played it.

'Social Whirligigs is a gas,' said Grenville. 'Man, I love it.'

Charlotte giggled and punched him playfully on the arm.

'Me too,' I said impulsively, desperate to join in.

They all stopped laughing and turned to me and stared. Sophie was suddenly paying me more attention than she'd paid me all evening. 'You play Social Whirligigs, Clare?' she asked.

'Well, not very often,' I said, regretting my recklessness and trying to back down a little. 'I mean, I haven't played it for years.'

Charlotte, Grenville and Toby looked at one another and burst out laughing. Isabella looked baffled, Carolyn a bit uncomfortable. But Sophie was smiling maliciously. 'Show us.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Show us how you used to play Social Whirligigs. We'd all like to see how it's done.'

'That's enough,' said Carolyn, though she couldn't stop the edges of her mouth from curling up. 'Don't worry about it, Clare.'

Sophie pouted, playing to the gallery. 'But I was so looking forward to seeing Clare play Social Whirligigs.'

' I'll show you how to play Social Whirligigs!' shouted Toby, planting his legs apart. He unzipped his fly, took out his penis and waggled it around.

Isabella let out a spirited whoop.

'For God's sake, put it away,' Charlotte said in a been-there-seen-it voice.

There was a slow eddy of excitement as other customers saw what was going on. Not to be outdone, Grenville had unzipped his trousers and was now foraging purposefully in his boxer-shorts. 'Get your dick out, and we're finished,' hissed Carolyn. 'For ever.'

'Men are such children,' said Sophie, looking at me and smiling triumphantly. 'Don't you think so, Clare?'

'I must have got Social Whirligigs muddled up with something else,' I muttered.

'Yeah, like Trivial Pursuit,' said Charlotte.

The man in the collarless shirt came storming round the bar and tapped Toby authoritatively on the shoulder. 'Right you are. Zip it up and get the fuck out of here. You're banned.'

'Gotcha!' Toby guffawed, stuffing his penis back inside his pants. 'You can't ban me, because I'm banned already .'

'Too right, matey, banned for bloody life. Show your face in here again, and I'm calling the cops.'

'It's not his face that's the problem,' said Grenville.

'You too,' said Collarless Shirt.

'But I ordered drinks,' said Carolyn.

'You want me to call the cops right now?' asked Collarless Shirt.

We left, Toby laughing and joking with anyone who would listen, Sophie acting sniffy, the others a little more subdued but pretending not to care. I tried to look as inconspicuous as possible. It wasn't hard, though I suppose I might have attracted attention by default; onlookers might have asked themselves, 'What's that plump girl in the spectacles doing with that glittering flock of beautiful people?' But I didn't think so. With a bit of luck, I would be able to revisit the Rhumba Bar any time I liked and no one would know me from Eve.

As we reached the exit, Toby turned back and made a sweeping bow. There was a small scattered shower of applause.

We started off down the road in search of another air conditioner. 'Well,' said Charlotte, drawing abreast of Carolyn and me as we strolled. 'At least now we know whose is biggest.'

Isabella came up behind us and asked, 'And whose is that?'

Charlotte and Carolyn both looked at me and giggled.

'Lucky old Clare,' said Charlotte.

I giggled too, but died a little inside, because I thought she was just being bitchy about my earlier faux pas .

I'd taken to keeping the bathroom door closed at all times of the day and night. It wasn't the mirror I was frightened of so much as the eight-legged population, which had miraculously continued to flourish even after I had vacuumed up strands of web from every last corner. I kept the door shut because I didn't want spiders scampering all over the rest of the flat. More particularly, I didn't want them crawling into my ear as I slept and laying billions of tiny spider eggs in my brain. Not that shutting them in the bathroom would have stopped them; if they'd really wanted to make a break for it, they could have limbo-danced under the door any time they wanted.

One night I woke up at about three o'clock to an unfamiliar sound: a faint rustling. The sound reminded me of the swish of silk against skin.

Oh God , I thought, the spiders are out of control .

I wasn't in a hurry to get up and investigate. I felt around for my glasses, slipped something on to my feet, and walked softly across to the small landing outside the bathroom door.

I stood there, poised in the half-light coming through my filmy new bedroom curtains, and listened, ears straining for the faintest scurrying of spindly legs, the susurration of cobwebs being spun, the gentle scrunch of teensy jaws chomping down on crunchy insect torsos.

Silence.

Dead silence.

I placed my hand on the doorhandle, and the rustling started up again as though I'd pressed a button. It was louder now, and quite obviously had nothing to do with spiders, unless they had somehow learned amazing new communication skills. What I was listening to was the faint hum of conversation, so faint that the sound of my own breathing would probably have drowned it out.

But I was holding my breath. I had to remind myself to let it out and draw in a fresh supply of air. I did this very gradually. I didn't want to make a sound.

There were several possibilities here. Either I was dreaming and so, lurking on the other side of the door, ready to pounce, was a bloodthirsty one-legged koala bear. Or I had burglars. But what kind of burglars would shut themselves in my bathroom? There was nothing worth stealing in there, unless they were after a half-empty bottle of Chanel № 5 which I'd stopped using after Sophie had said that it made me smell as though I'd covered myself in baby powder.

No, this wasn't burglars.

This was something worse.

I pressed my ear up against the door.

There were definitely two of them, chattering quietly, a gentle whispering that went on and on, neither rising nor fading away. It was so faint that, under other circumstances, I might have dismissed it as a mild attack of tinnitus.

Part of me was tempted to run back to bed and burrow beneath the duvet till morning, when I could go about my business as though nothing had happened, as though I hadn't heard noises in the middle of the night at all.