The morning after the night before was the worst part of any night out. I slapped one hand to my aching forehead and felt around the bed with the other. Rowan wasn’t there. Ah. The memories filtered back in. He and the boys had carried on drinking well into the evening and I’d said I was done – ‘Babe, babe, I need to go home’ – so a few of us had trickled out early. Betty and Lily had … What had Betty and Lily done? I had a half-memory forming of them saying they were going to stay on – ‘We’ll kick about with the lads a bit longer’ – while Cora called a taxi for the rest of us to share. Christ. Another groan tumbled out as the pain started to shift around my head. I needed water and a shower and a follow-up lie-down, maybe even followed by … My stomach rumbled. Breakfast. A massive breakfast.
I grabbed my phone from the bedside table and took it with me into the bathroom. I was filling a tumbler with water when I spotted the message – Went home with George. Not best man material. Average man. Is that a thing? Love Bx – and it wasn’t until the water started to spill over my hand that I snapped back into the room. I hit the dial button and rested my phone on the cabinet while I dropped onto the toilet. Betty answered on the third ring.
‘You utter, utter tart.’
‘Oh, Edi, don’t. It seemed like a good idea.’
‘Famous last words.’
She laughed. ‘He was a really good dancer, though.’
‘I’m sorry.’ I wiped, flushed, and grabbed the phone. ‘What does that have to do …’
‘Come on, you know they say if a man is a good dancer then he’s a good … you know.’
‘Who, Betty, who says that?’
‘Well, whoever they are.’ She groaned, and I imagined her struggling to sit upright. ‘They’re a bloody liar. Christ on a bastard bicycle.’ She exhaled hard into the phone and I held my quiet. I’d known Betty long enough to know that sound as the prelude to … ‘No, no, I’m fine. I don’t think I’m going to chunder. I’m hungry, if anything.’
‘Me too. Shall I group-chat people, see who’s about for breakfast?’
‘Oh, but the girls are so loud,’ she moaned.
‘Think of it as penance.’
‘For what?’
‘George. I’ll text you.’
I disconnected the call before she could grumble further.
*
Lily was the last to order – ‘Can I get the fruit pancakes but, like, I don’t know, maybe with a side of bacon? But on the pancakes? Is that doable?’ – and then we fell over ourselves reaching for tea, coffee, more coffee. ‘Hold the sugar.’ Lily put her hand up to create a physical barrier between her mug and the dish. ‘The last thing I need is something to make me more jittery today.’ When everyone was settled with a drink in front of them, we took it in turns to relay our memories of the evening. The general consensus by the end of the catch-up was that it was a) a cracking night out and b) definitely not something we wanted to repeat for the hen night.
‘Didn’t someone say something about a weekend?’
‘Oh, Lily, don’t.’ I took a greedy mouthful of black coffee. ‘I can’t do a whole weekend.’
‘No,’ Betty agreed. ‘Probably best to stick to a night.’
‘In a city where Betty doesn’t know anyone,’ Cora added, ‘ergo, the walk of shame—’
‘Ah, stride of pride,’ Betty interrupted. ‘I feel no shame.’
‘Isn’t that your superpower?’ Faith rested a head on Betty’s shoulder and batted her eyelashes, as though that might soften the sting of her comment. ‘That and being able to sniff out a single man from a five-hundred-yard distance.’
‘Although …’ I checked my watch. ‘Given that Molly hasn’t turned up yet, maybe Bet wasn’t the only one who grabbed a coat last night?’
In the second summer at home from university, we’d all reunited for semi-drunken antics and a catch-up on life outside of our small and humble hometown. Betty, true to form, had managed to bag herself a man on the first night we were all back together. In a drunken stupor she’d whispered, ‘I’ve grabbed a coat, Edi, I’ve grabbed a coat,’ before disappearing into the night with an unknown bloke. The phrase had sort of stuck since then.
‘She won’t admit to it—’ Cora leaned in and lowered her voice ‘—but her and Paddy have been messing about for a bit.’
Paddy? ‘You mean Patrick Hiller?’ I couldn’t hold in my shock. Patrick was the quietest of Rowan’s friends. The discreet smooth-talker, he always managed to wine, dine, and take a girl home without making a show-and-tell of it, unlike some of the other lads. But he’d also never been seen twice with the same woman on his arm. ‘What do you mean, messing about?’
‘I mean shagging, Edi, Christ.’ Cora dropped back in her seat. ‘I was trying to be subtle.’
‘Fuck me, you don’t usually go to the trouble, Cor. Just say what you mean.’ Betty leaned out of the way of a waiter who was trying to deliver food to the table. She took on a sweeter tone and said, ‘Thank you,’ and she waited until he was out of earshot before she asked, ‘So are they a thing?’
‘I don’t think so? Not properly, anyway – they’re not status official or anything.’ Cora reached over and stole a blueberry from Betty’s plate. ‘Whatever they are, you didn’t hear about it from me.’
‘Out of idle curiosity,’ Lily asked, ‘who did we hear it from?’
‘Who did you hear what from?’
‘Molly!’ Cora leapt up like a small shock had run through her seat.
‘That you’re sleeping with Patrick.’
‘Faith!’
‘Oh, Cora,’ Molly groaned and sank into the empty seat at the head of the table. ‘You told them?’ The girls giggled and whooped like a modern-day Greek chorus, while Molly set her elbows on the table and cradled her forehead.
Cora opened her mouth once, twice, as though considering a lie. But then she said, ‘Yes.’ She slapped Faith’s outer arm with the back of her hand. ‘What did I say about not hearing it from me?’
‘Oh, not hearing it from you?’ Faith’s attention was pulled away by the buzz of her phone.
‘Faith, you’re not even sorry.’
‘Nope.’
‘Shouldn’t we be talking about Edi, anyway?’ Molly snapped. There were two pink blooms of embarrassment spreading across each cheek and I wanted to hug her, but I sensed it might make things worse. ‘Edi, please? Say something about the engagement? Anything.’
‘Molly, you worry too much.’ Betty reached over to squeeze her hand. ‘No one gives a hoot. It’s your right to sleep with whoever you want.’
‘Feminist right,’ Lily added.
‘God.’ Molly made another uncomfortable noise. ‘Edi, please, matrimonial bliss?’
There came a crunch of crisped bacon before Lily said, ‘She’s not married yet.’
I laughed. ‘Are you just here for angry asides today?’
Lily shook her head. ‘Not just today.’
‘Molly,’ I spoke softly in case what I was about to say would be a surprise for her. ‘We got engaged five minutes ago. What is there to say?’
‘Will it be a long engagement?’ she pushed.
‘I mean, we’re not running down the road of a shotgun wedding. Row’s away for work soon, and he’s seeing his folks on his travels. But we said we might try to see a few venues before he goes, you know, just in case the waiting lists are horrific.’
‘Which they will be,’ Molly said with certainty.
Faith took a break from texting to ask, ‘Why do you even know that?’
‘Educated guess.’
‘Educated my arse, Molly, don’t be that girl.’ Betty pointed at her with her fork. ‘We’ve no space at this table for desperate-to-be-married girl.’
Lily’s level of outrage on Molly’s behalf was such that she dropped her glass too soon and sent orange juice swilling across what was left of her extra bacon. ‘I tell you what we’ve no space for, Beatrice.’ I expected her to flip the table, but she held the gesture in; I could see it was there, though, fizzing away. ‘Exclusive feminism! You think that bell hooks would go ahead and—’
‘I’m sorry,’ the waiter interrupted while Lily took a breath. He looked terrified. ‘I saw the …’ He pointed. ‘The orange juice?’
Lily looked down, then, and stared hard at the plate as though she couldn’t quite understand what had happened. ‘You’re a peach.’ She glanced back at the waiter who stood still, stunned by the sheer force of Lily’s smash-the-patriarchy vibes. Molly spluttered a laugh from the end of the table and like a precariously balanced structure – which is exactly what we were – we all one by one followed. ‘Ignore them.’ Lily reached over to take the cloth that was offered and dabbed around the table. The waiter began to move away, then, but she called him back. ‘Do me a solid, would you, and bring out another side of bacon? Please and thanks.’
‘Work up an appetite there, did you?’ I leaned over to move condiments out of her way.
‘Well, come on …’ Lily kept dabbing at the carnage. ‘Bacon never made anything worse.’