Читать книгу In Case You Missed It - Lindsey Kelk - Страница 10

‘To our working girl! Wait, no, that sounds terrible.’

Adrian raised a glass of sparkling wine while Lucy and Sumi cheered loudly enough to attract the attention of everyone in the bar who wasn’t wearing AirPods. Which, to be fair, wasn’t that many people.

‘If I hadn’t got this job, it would have been a very real possibility,’ I replied as we clinked our glasses together. ‘Not sure I’d have made a lot of money though.’

As soon as I’d messaged my friends to let them know the PodPad interview was a success, they insisted we all get together for a celebratory dinner that evening, just like old times. The only downside was, they also insisted we meet at Good Luck Bar, despite my protestations. The food was amazing, Lucy said. It was the most convenient place for everyone, Sumi insisted. And John always took a chunk off the bill, Adrian added. And so, there we were, installed in a baby-pink velvet booth that made me feel as though we were sitting on a particularly comfortable blancmange, but it was worth it to have the three of them together at such short notice. I hadn’t seen them all together in one place since the last time I’d been back for Christmas, almost two years ago and that was far too long to go without your best friends.

‘Tell us about the show you’re producing,’ Lucy said, full of encouragement as usual as she topped up my water.

‘I don’t actually know much about it,’ I admitted. ‘They were all so busy today they didn’t really tell me anything. I’ve got my induction tomorrow. When you work for a network like that, you could be doing a million different things, it’s so exciting.’

‘I can’t believe you found such an amazing job so quickly,’ Adrian said with a congratulatory punch in the arm. Adrian and I had known each other since we were babies. His parents had lived next door to mine until his granddad died when we were fifteen and they moved into his fancy pile of bricks twenty minutes down the road. ‘What happened with the old one, anyway?’

‘Oh, it’s just …’ I opened my mouth, looking for the words. They were my best friends, I could tell them, surely?

‘She missed us so much she had to come home,’ Sumi interjected loudly. ‘And now she’s on to bigger and better things.’

I threw her a grateful look and agreed with a nod.

‘I’m very happy for you, although I was hoping you’d slack off for a while and hang out with me,’ Adrian said, throwing his arm around my shoulders. ‘I hardly ever see these two, always too busy for me.’

‘Some of us have to work for a living,’ I replied, needling him gently. ‘Some of us don’t have houses bought for us by our parents.’

‘You kind of do,’ Sumi reasoned with a grin.

‘Show me the photos again,’ insisted Lucy, her lovely face shining. ‘I can’t believe your dad built it for you, it’s so sweet. Like a grown-up Wendy house.’

‘Do you think the Lost Boys made her a compostable toilet?’ Sumi asked sweetly.

‘Where’s the waitress?’ I asked, keen to change the subject even as Sumi rustled around in my handbag, searching for my phone. ‘I’m starving to death over here. A working woman has to eat.’

‘Got to order at the bar,’ Adrian replied as Sumi and Lucy pored over pictures of my shed. ‘Is that a framed photo of Justin Timberlake?’

‘Is that a Groovy Chick duvet cover?’ Lucy asked. ‘Oh my god, what a flashback.’

‘I’ll go,’ I offered, shuffling out of the booth, taking a menu with me. ‘Be right back.’

Pitching up at the bar, I earned a welcoming smile from the same waitress I’d met the night before.

‘You’re Sumi’s friend,’ she stated, reaching an amiable hand across the bar. ‘I’m Camille.’

‘Ros.’ I navigated my arm through the taps to return her firm handshake. ‘Hello again.’

‘I’ll let John know you’re here before you order,’ she asked, pointing at the menu in my hand. ‘Chef’s trying out some specials I know he’ll want you all to try. You lot are our official guinea pigs.’

I glanced behind her into the kitchens and saw tall, dark and angry from the night before, deep in conversation with an equally tall, very pretty blonde. ‘Don’t worry,’ I insisted, politely trying to avoid another confrontation. ‘Looks like he’s busy.’

‘With her?’ Camille turned up her tiny nose with ready indiscretion. ‘She won’t be staying long. Fingers crossed.’

‘Girlfriend?’ I asked. They were talking intently but they definitely didn’t give off a colleague vibe.

‘The wife.’ She made little air quotes with her fingers and, from the look on her face, it seemed as though there wasn’t much love lost between them. I couldn’t help but be curious.

‘Does she work here?’

‘Hmm,’ she confirmed, looking over at the two of them as the blonde laughed at something we couldn’t hear. I inched my bag up my shoulder and watched as she picked a fleck of dust from his shoulder. ‘When she feels like it.’

I kept one eye on John and his wife from a safe distance. What if he’d told her how I walked in on him in the bathroom? I was too British to live with that shame. And how was it that they were both so tall? Did they meet on a dating app for giants? Shouldn’t they both be with shorter people to try and share those genes around? Their kitchen had to be amazing, they could both reach all the cupboards. What a gift. Before I realized I was staring, John looked up and caught my eye. I switched my gaze to the menu, boring holes into the heavy paper and reading our selections out to Camille.

‘I’ll have it all out as soon as,’ she said as she tapped it all into the iPad in front of her. ‘Nice to meet you properly, Ros.’

‘Nice to meet you too,’ I said, catching her boss’s eye again and wishing I could say the same for him.

‘Remember when our idea of a dream meal was a fish finger sandwich and an entire box of potato waffles?’ I said loudly, once I was safely back at the table. ‘Oh, to be twenty-two again.’

‘You couldn’t pay me to go back to my twenties,’ Adrian declared. ‘Not for every fish finger on the face of the earth. Too many fuck-ups, too many lessons learned the hard way.’

‘Nor me, I’m so glad life is easier now,’ Sumi agreed, even though she’d taken four Nurofen Plus since she’d arrived and had dark circles under her eyes that would have had Nosferatu asking if she was feeling OK. ‘I couldn’t go through it again. All those hours studying? No one taking you seriously? The five years it took to convince my grandmother I was gay? No thank you.’

‘You work every hour god sends, you constantly complain about the other partners taking the piss out of you and your gran still thinks you’re just waiting for the right man,’ I reminded her. ‘Lucy? Back me up.’

‘I did love my twenties,’ she agreed, running her palm over her belly in soothing circles. ‘But, you know.’

I did know. We all knew. Lucy was the most pregnant pregnant woman that had ever existed.

‘If you had to relive one year over again, which one would you choose?’ I asked. They all muttered and shrugged. ‘I would be twenty-eight in a heartbeat,’ I said, answering my own question. ‘All of us living together, loving my job, not having to worry whether or not Friends is problematic …’

‘Cough, straight white privilege, cough,’ Sumi spluttered. Lucy immediately reached out to rub her back as though she really had a cough and I smothered a smile with my hand.

‘Not to mention that’s when you met Pa—’ Adrian began before he squealed and grabbed himself under the table. Someone had clearly given him a swift kick. ‘Ow, what was that for?’

‘We don’t. Mention. Him,’ said Sumi, shooting a warning look in Adrian’s direction.

‘Oh, come on,’ I said with a light laugh even as I felt myself flush. ‘It’s fine. It’s the past. I’m not going to start sobbing if someone says his name.’

‘Really?’ Lucy asked, one eye on me and my steak knife.

‘It’s been years,’ I laid it on as thick as I could. ‘Do I wonder what might have happened if I hadn’t taken the job in America? Yes. Was he the love of my life? Probably. Is this a conversation I want to have right now or ever? No.’

They all gazed back at me, the same doubtful expression on three different faces.

‘I am completely and utterly over Patrick Parker,’ I declared. ‘I am fine.’

‘Good, I’m glad to hear it,’ Sumi replied. ‘He led you up and down the garden path so many times it was ready for repaving.’

‘He was always all right with me,’ Adrian said. ‘I liked him.’

‘You mean you were totally in love with him because he got you tickets to the FA Cup Final,’ I corrected. Adrian didn’t argue.

‘I remember the first time we met him,’ Lucy said, pressing her hand on top of mine. ‘You brought him to that Christmas party and I thought, oh gosh, what a stone-cold fox. But I still think you did the right thing by leaving. You’d have regretted it if you hadn’t.’

‘You definitely did the right thing,’ Sumi agreed. ‘Imagine if you’d turned down an amazing job in America for a man.’

‘Imagine,’ I agreed, as if I didn’t imagine it all the time.

‘Everyone has a Patrick,’ Adrian reasoned. ‘Someone you’ll always wonder about, imagine what might have been. You’re contractually obliged as a human. He’s the one that got away.’

‘More like a bullet dodged,’ Sumi muttered into her drink. ‘I never saw the appeal myself.’

‘He was very clever,’ Lucy answered on my behalf. ‘And he was a writer, that’s very alluring.’

‘And he was incredibly sexy,’ Adrian added as we all gave him a look. ‘What? A straight man can’t say when another straight man is fit as? I’m secure in my masculinity, Patrick was a sexy man.’

‘It wasn’t just a physical thing,’ I said, twisting a strand of hair between my fingers. ‘His writing was beautiful and he was passionate and confident and—’

‘He was horny and arrogant and up his own arse,’ Sumi corrected. ‘But then that’s always been your type.’

‘Patrick isn’t why I’d go back to being twenty-eight, anyway,’ I said, not wanting to argue about it. She wasn’t necessarily wrong, I did have a type and that type was terrible. ‘Twenty-eight is the perfect age. People stop treating you like you’re too young to be taken seriously but you’re not too old either, there’s still so much potential to do things. Or undo things.’

‘Like terrible romantic decisions,’ Adrian suggested brightly. ‘And liver damage.’

‘It wasn’t terrible with Patrick,’ I said, my voice cracking just a little. ‘Until the end.’

‘Doesn’t matter, does it? It’s the past,’ Sumi held up her hands to wrap up that conversation. ‘You can’t go back, even if you wanted to.’

‘Who would want to? We’re all killing it,’ Adrian replied. Me and the girls exchanged a look. All of us? ‘Well bloody done on getting a new job so soon.’

‘I knew she’d find something right away, she’s brilliant,’ Sumi said proudly before she leaned across the table to smile at my oldest friend. ‘But what about you, Adrian, had any more thoughts about getting one of those job-type jobs like the rest of us?’

‘Lucy hasn’t got a job!’ he protested.

‘I’m on maternity leave,’ she exclaimed, clutching her belly to protect it from his accusations. ‘You try giving people a facial when you’ve got a belly bigger than Santa’s and you have to go for a wee every fifteen minutes.’

‘Good try, Adrian,’ I said with a smile. ‘When was the last time you had a job?’

‘I work!’ he insisted. ‘I drove for Uber last year, remember?’

A shiver ran down my spine as I imagined Adrian pulling up as my Uber driver. He was the worst driver on the face of the Earth. It would be like getting into a taxi driven by Mr Bean after he’d taken a Glastonbury’s worth of Molly.

‘And I’m working on my screenplay again.’

We all groaned as one.

‘My baby is going to be doing its GCSEs before you get that thing finished,’ Lucy predicted. ‘If not its degree.’

‘As if your kid is getting into university,’ he replied with a snippy grin.

Lucy shrugged and carried on stroking her stomach. Lucy never rose to anything. Lucy was an actual saint.

I listened as they bickered back and forth, laughing and poking and prodding at each other, just like they always did. Lucy beamed as she cradled her belly and, for a moment, I felt a glow of familiar, old happiness. A tug back to a time I thought had gone by. Starting Over, much like Sumi, said you should never go back, that your old life was the past and the past was over, but I wasn’t so sure. My old life was sitting right around this table and it looked pretty good to me.

‘Before I forget, Mum and Dad are having a wedding anniversary thing on Saturday night,’ Adrian said, inhaling deeply on a Marlboro Gold outside the bar as soon as Lucy and Sumi were out of sight. There was every chance he was the last person I knew who still smoked actual cigarettes. ‘Will you come? They’ve been asking after you.’

‘Are Lucy and Sumi coming?’ I asked.

He shook his head. ‘Lucy has a Creepy Dave thing and Sumi has a Jemima thing. She’s off to Madrid to build a cathedral or something so they’re going to visit for the weekend.’

Sumi’s girlfriend was an architect, which meant she was very clever, very rich and an endless source of exciting minibreaks. I was sure there were many wonderful things about being in a relationship but having a lifetime-long reason to get out of doing things you really didn’t want to do had to be right up there with the best of them.

‘Come on, Ros, it’ll be a laugh,’ Adrian said with a wheedling whine.

‘No offence to your parents but it absolutely will not,’ I said, rummaging around in my bag for chewing gum. The hake crepe that Lucy had demanded had left a very unpleasant aftertaste in my mouth, which wasn’t too surprising since it had tasted very unpleasant. Fish finger sandwiches were definitely better. ‘Surely you’d rather take someone who might actually have sex with you afterwards?’

‘Yes, of course I would,’ he replied without so much as blinking. ‘But I’ve turned over a new leaf. I’m the new Adrian, I don’t do that any more.’

‘Why?’ I asked, suspicious.

‘Because I’m only interested in forming a deep and meaningful relationship with someone I care about,’ he said, pouting. ‘I’m a reformed character, Ros, I haven’t had a shag in ages.’

I gave him a questioning look.

‘Fine, it’s been a slow summer and I haven’t had any offers,’ he admitted. ‘But please come, it’s their ruby wedding anniversary, it’s a big deal. There’s going to be an ungodly amount of food and drink and you know you want to.’

I really didn’t want to but I couldn’t say no. It wasn’t as if I had anything else to do and Adrian would cross hot coals for me if I asked.

‘Ros?’ he wheedled. He took one last draw on his cigarette, stamping it out as a black Prius with a glowing Uber badge pulled up beside us. I let out a very heavy sigh and nodded. ‘Fantastic,’ he said as he opened the car door and hopped inside. ‘Come any time after seven, can’t wait. See you Saturday.’

Without the money for a taxi, I wandered back down the street towards the tube station. It had been so good to see my friends but I couldn’t help but feel a little empty as I took myself off home instead of linking arms with the others and laughing all the way back to our shared house. The late-night milk runs, doing our makeup in each other’s rooms, snuggling up together on the sofa to watch a film. I couldn’t think of a time that I’d been happier. Now they had new homes to go to, new partners to snuggle up with. But not me.

Just like everyone else who happened to be walking alone down a busy city street at ten o’clock on a Tuesday night, I automatically slid my hand into my pocket and pulled out my phone. I was still getting replies to my texts: my great-aunt who hadn’t realized I’d been away, my university friend Alison who wanted to know if I’d accepted Jesus as my Lord and Saviour since the last time she’d seen me (at our ten-year reunion with me hugging one of the student union toilets after a regrettable pint of snakebite and black). I wondered what new messages might have arrived since I’d last checked.

And then I saw it.

My heart pounded, my stomach lurched and I started to sweat, a horrible conviction that I was about to see the hake pancake again washing over me. I stuttered out of the flow of people on the street and leaned against a cold stone wall, staring at my phone, quite sure I was seeing things, quite sure it would disappear. But it didn’t. It stayed right where it was, shining up at me and willing me to open it.

I held my breath.

I opened the message.

Two words.

Hello, stranger

The text was from Patrick.