Free You, Me and Him by Alice Peterson

with it.’
    Both his hands on my shoulders now, he’d looked me straight in the eye. ‘I’m not. I’m going to Cambridge with you.’
    Clarky and I had stayed up talking late into that night. We were outside on the terrace. It was a summer’s evening and the sky was clear and scattered with stars. ‘I’m going to miss this place,’ I’d said. ‘Nothing will ever be the same once we leave home, it’s the end of an era.’
    ‘I can’t wait for the next stage.’ Clarky smiled. ‘Dad said he hadn’t taught me music just so I could “arse” around Europe with you.’
    ‘Charming.’
    ‘I’ve never heard my father say the word “arse”.’ We both laughed then. ‘To us,’ Clarky said as we held up our shot glasses of neat vodka. ‘To you and me, our friendship, and last but not least, to
arsing around
.’
    *
    ‘What are you doing tonight?’ he asked as I walked in my towelling dressing gown down the creaky corridor back to my bedroom.
    ‘It’s the first night of Finn’s club.’ I shut the bedroom door.
    A few seconds later I grabbed a towel to cover myself. ‘Clarky! Knock before you barge in.’
    ‘I’ve seen you naked before.’ There was almost a smile on his face.
    ‘When we were about five in the paddling pool, that’s different.’
    ‘You’re spending a lot of time with Finn,’ he said, almost as an accusation. ‘I thought he had a girlfriend.’
    He was dampening my mood. ‘Maybe he has, we’re not doing anything wrong. Just having fun, that’s all.’ I looked into his face and couldn’t help adding, ‘You should try it.’ I closed the door on him.
    ‘Believe me, I know how men think,’ he called.
    I knew he was still waiting outside, brooding. ‘By the way,’ I opened the door just wide enough to pass him a large handful of leftover fliers, ‘can you circulate these round the museum? Tell people it starts tonight. Thanks.’
    *
    It was the end of the day and I had just finished laying out the tables for supper and was hanging up my apron at the back of the kitchen when I heard, ‘Josie!’ Oh, God, what hadn’t I done? I stepped out into the main part of the restaurant. ‘Yes, Momo?’
    ‘Come here,’ he instructed and I followed him to a table in the corner. ‘What do you see?’
    I went straight to the coasters to make sure they weren’t upside down. Everything was in place. ‘I can’t see anything wrong, Momo.’
    ‘Nor can I.’ He patted my shoulder with one large hand. ‘Well done.’ He dug into his apron pocket and handed me my wages in a brown envelope. There was always a message written on the back of the envelope. The last had been, ‘Please tie your hair back so it doesn’t get into the soup.’ But this time it said, ‘Thank you, Josie, you’re a good worker.’
    I cycled home high on his praise and full of anticipation for the night ahead.
    *
    I ran a bath and turned on some Madonna. Before getting dressed something made me walk into Clarky’s room. It was dark, the floral curtains still drawn. His music stand stood in the corner by the window and lots of sheets were scattered across the floor. The black violin case was on the bed, along with the old leather bag which held his music and books, now worn and frayed at the edges. I still loved its smell.
    ‘What are you doing?’
    I turned round, my face caked with a mask that looked like a compost heap. I was dressed only in knickers and my black bra. ‘Clarky!’
    He blinked.
    ‘What are you doing?’ I screeched.
    ‘What are
you
doing, more like?’
    He was wearing a dark jacket, a white shirt underneath it and jeans that I hadn’t seen before, held up by a dark brown leather belt. He looked different.
    ‘Are you snooping?’
    ‘No, I thought I heard a bat. They like old houses.’
    ‘A bat? You’re crazy, J.’
    I tried to cover myself, wrapping bare arms around me. ‘What are you doing all dressed up?’
    ‘I’m coming with you,’ he declared. ‘I want to meet Finn and see