Читать книгу The Other Us: the RONA winning perfect second chance romance to curl up with - Фиона Харпер - Страница 8

CHAPTER TWO

One week earlier

I arrive at Bluewater, the huge triangular shopping centre sitting in the middle of a disused quarry just near the Dartford crossing. Becca and I have been meeting for a monthly shopping trip here for a couple of years now. We could take it in turns to go to each other’s houses, I suppose, but she says, as much as she loves me, the coffee here is way better. And then there’s the shopping. Becca loves shopping.

I head for our usual cafe and order a coffee. I could wait for Becca before I order, but I don’t. Ever since I’ve known her, if we’ve arranged to get together, I’m always ten minutes early and she’s always twenty minutes late. I know I should just adjust my arrival time and turn up late as well, but somehow I can’t make myself do it.

I’ve just reached the silky froth at the bottom of my cup when Becca arrives – an uncharacteristic ten minutes before her usual time – and collapses into the chair opposite me. She has a collection of shopping bags with her: things she needs to return to Coast and Karen Millen that she picked up on our last shopping outing and has decided don’t suit her. I also have something to return, but it’s a shower curtain that needs to go back to John Lewis.

‘Shall we get a table outside?’ she asks, after scanning the restaurant. ‘The weather’s glorious.’

I sigh inwardly, reach for my bags and stand up. Becca always does this. It doesn’t matter where I choose to sit, she always wants to move to a better spot. I wouldn’t mind so much but I specifically chose this table because it’s the one she wanted to move to last time.

Becca is practically glowing. I haven’t been able to take my eyes off her since she walked through the door, and since a few male heads turn as we move tables, I guess I’m not the only one.

She’s the same sort of size as me: slightly overweight, with the usual forty-something bulges and curves, but somehow she wears it better. I bought some long boots like hers in the sales last year, but every time I try them on I just end up peeling them off again. I wanted to see a stylish, mature woman staring back at me in the mirror, but all I could see was pantomime pirate. They’ve sat in their box at the back of my wardrobe since January.

‘You look nice today,’ I tell her once we’ve relocated. I usually greet people with a compliment, but today it isn’t an automatic response pulled from my mental library at random.

Becca grins back at me. ‘Thanks! I’m feeling great, too.’

I can’t help smiling with her. If happiness is a disease, it’s about time Becca caught it. For a long time I thought her lousy ex had inoculated her against it. ‘I take it things are going well with the new man?’

‘Pretty good,’ she says, and orders a coffee from a passing waiter. It’s very odd. Becca used to gush endlessly about her latest squeeze when we were younger, but she’s being a bit cagey about this one. The only thing I can think of is that it’s because this is the first proper romance since her divorce. ‘We might get away for a weekend soon. If he can work out getting time away from … I mean, getting time off.’ She looks down at the table again, but I see her secret smile.

‘It sounds as if it’s getting serious.’

Becca flushes. ‘I know. Ridiculous, really. I mean, it’s early days and we’ve only been seeing each other a couple of months and I really should be dating and having fun, but he’s just so amazing.’

I want to jump in and tell her that, while I understand how wonderful this is for her, how I’m truly pleased she’s happy again, maybe she shouldn’t leap into this relationship quite as hard and quite as fast as she has done all her others – but the words keep tumbling out of her in a breathless stream, as if, instead of filing up neatly behind one another to make sensible sentences, they’re all racing each other to see who can get out first, and I can’t get a word in edgewise.

The gushing carries on as we leave the cafe. She instinctively heads in the direction of her favourite shops and I trail along with her while my shower curtain gets heavier and heavier. I mention this after we’ve dropped off both her returns.

‘Of course,’ she responds, but then, when we’ve turned tail and are heading back towards John Lewis, we pass Hobbs. She gives me a sugary smile. ‘You don’t mind if we pop in here, do you? It’ll only take a minute, and they had this gorgeous blouse that’d be perfect for work now the weather’s finally turned warmer …’

I shake my head, but after Hobbs it’s Laura Ashley and then it’s Massimo Dutti.

I honestly don’t know if she does this on purpose, or whether her memory is really goldfish-short. There are times at the end of our shopping trips where Becca has had to dash off again and I’ve had to stay behind to do the essential errand she promised we’d get round to an hour earlier.

This makes her sound like a horrible friend, but really she isn’t. She’s had a tough time in the last couple of years. Her ex, Grant, turned out to be a manipulative, controlling creep. I always worried he hit her, but she always denied it. Even so, it took her far too long to muster up the courage to leave him, which she did eighteen months ago.

He hardly let her out his sight, our shopping trips being one of the few exceptions, and the least I could do then was to let her have some power and control over what she did for a few hours. I suppose we’ve just fallen into a pattern now, one that’s hard for me to change without bringing it up and sounding whiney.

Becca is a theatre manager now and as we shop she gives me an in-depth report on the antics of a well-known soap star who was appearing in the play that was on last week. My shoulder develops a nagging little niggle from the weight of my John Lewis carrier bag.

At first I’m nodding and smiling at her blow-by-blow account of his excessive vodka-drinking to get over his opening-night nerves but, funny as it is, after a while, I start to tune out. I mean, we’ve been talking about her stuff since we sat down for cappuccinos and it hasn’t even occurred to her to ask if anything much is going on in my life, even if I do usually just wave the question away and say, ‘Oh, just the same old same old …’

But today I do have something to say. Something big. Or at least I think I might. I really can’t work out if I’m just being silly, and I could do with a friend to help me sift through the facts and sort out the truth from the muddy paranoia.

But Becca is too full of ‘glow’ to notice the worry in my eyes. She just barrels on. It’s only after I’ve hauled my shower curtain onto the sales desk in John Lewis’s homeware department (and almost kissed the sales lady for taking it off my hands), and completed the transaction, that she finds a new topic.

‘Did you see that thing on Facebook?

I’m tucking my returns receipt back into my purse. When I finish I look at her, frowning slightly. ‘What thing?’

‘The reunion. Oaklands College. Some of the guys are planning a get-together, seeing as it’s twenty-five years since we graduated.’

Even though, logically, I know this is how long it’s been since I left university, the fact slaps me in the face, waking me up. Twenty-five years … a rapid slideshow of my life starts to play inside my head. I’m horrified to see how many slots are filled with black and white images of my routine suburban life or – even worse – empty.

‘Where is it? Who’s going?’ I ask, feeling slightly dazed.

‘On campus, I think someone said, and only a few people have responded so far. The post only went up yesterday.’

I nod. There’s not much else I’ve got to say on the subject.

Becca leads the way back out of the shop and turns in the direction of the food court. I’m pretty sure that’s where she’s heading, even though she hasn’t said anything. Shopping always makes her hungry.

As we walk she turns to look at me carefully. ‘Do you think you’ll go?’

I shrug. ‘Probably not.’

‘Really? I thought it’d be fun to see the old crowd.’

Of course you would, I say in my head. You’re happy. You look great. You’re glowing. Even if I’m curious about what everyone looks like and what they are doing now, I’m not sure I want that same inquisitiveness directed back at me.

What will they see? I haven’t become anything interesting or ‘grown into’ myself with age. If anything, I feel all that potential and passion I’d had in my twenties has been slowly diluted until I’m now a watery version of who I once was. I don’t want to turn up, have to chat to people with a plastic goblet full of warm sauvignon, and see the look of vague recognition in my university mates’ eyes before they smile nicely and move on to someone more interesting.

I shake my head. ‘Oh, I don’t know. It seems like such a lot of effort for something that was such a long time ago.’

‘You’re not even curious about Jude Hansen?’

At the mention of that name my pulse jumps. I make very sure it doesn’t show on my face. I pretend I’m too busy navigating round a young mum dawdling with a pushchair to answer.

Becca, however, doesn’t seem to want to let it go, which is odd, as she never really liked Jude. ‘Word is he’s done very well for himself.’

I straighten my spine and keep looking straight ahead. ‘I really wouldn’t know.’

There’s a part of me that wants to turn and scream at her to shut up, but there’s also another contrary part that is willing her to keep talking. It’s like a scab that’s not quite ripe for picking. I know I should leave it alone, that it’ll only sting and bleed, but part of me wants both the pain and the satisfaction of pulling it off and knowing what’s really underneath.

I deliberately haven’t thought of Jude Hansen for more than twenty-four years. I looked at myself in the mirror the morning of my wedding day and told myself that door was closed.

‘So what do you think? Shall we go?’ She nudges me as we start to peruse the chiller cabinets of the sushi place. I make a show of looking, even though I know I’m going to pick the salmon bento box. I always do.

She joins the queue, leaving me to file in behind her. ‘It’ll be a right laugh. You’ll see …’

I’m really irritated that she’s acting as if I’ve already agreed, as if my role in life is just to trail around behind her and do whatever she wants. I realise that as much as I moan about having a husband who’s so laid-back he just ‘goes with the flow’ about everything, I’ve chosen a best friend who is the complete opposite and I don’t always like this end of the spectrum much either.

‘Come on, aren’t you even curious?’ she asks once we’ve found some seats. ‘You and Jude were quite a hot item at one time, if I remember rightly …’

The penny drops then. For some reason she really wants to go to this stupid reunion and she’s using Jude as leverage because she wants me to go with her.

Maybe it’s because my shoulder is still twanging from carrying that shower curtain round for an hour longer than I’d wanted but I find I don’t want to be nice, accommodating, doormat Maggie any more. ‘Not really …’ I say, feigning indifference just as well as Becca has been doing. ‘It’s ancient history and I honestly don’t care in the slightest what Jude Hansen is doing now.’

Becca eats her chicken katsu curry sulkily after that. Normally, I’d stay silent for a couple of minutes then start to chat to her, win her round, but today I stay quiet. Let her offer the olive branch for once.

I know this spells the end of our shopping trip. When we finish we throw our rubbish away and head outside, and when we pause to say our goodbyes before heading off to our respective cars, Becca looks sheepishly at me. ‘Sorry if I was being pushy … I just got a bit excited about the idea, that’s all.’ She looks hopefully at me. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to go?’

I shake my head.

‘You won’t even think about it?’

I laugh. Even when Becca is trying not to be so … Becca … she can’t help herself. ‘OK, OK, I’ll think about it.’ Usually, I employ this tactic to shut her up. I just say yes to whatever she’s pushing for to keep the peace then wriggle out of it later, but I discover as I drive home back to Swanham that I was telling the truth. I can’t think about anything else – anyone else – all afternoon.