The longer we went without talking, the more often I found myself thinking: So, this is what life would be like. I tried to call Rowan three times after Monty left but there was no answer and, as the day went on, no written replies either. He’d been on WhatsApp – curse the person who invented that feature – and I’d even gone as far as typing out a message on there, too, but I resisted the urge to hit send. He doesn’t want to talk to you, I reminded myself as I muted the handset and carried on with what was left of the afternoon. In a manner that felt like a shitty remake of Groundhog Day, I found myself repeating the same process the following morning – and the morning after that. On the third day, though, it wasn’t the thought of Rowan not wanting to talk to me that put me off; instead, it was the timestamp for when he was last online. Four hours earlier: 3.28 a.m.
I threw my phone down on the table and set about making breakfast. But the wave of gratitude I felt when the handset started to ring was embarrassing. I leapt on it like it was a gold-dusted chocolate bar, gifted to me in the midst of a rowdy bout of PMS. ‘Oh, but of course it isn’t him.’ I hit the green key. ‘Mum, you’re calling early—’
‘I saw you were online on the WhatsApp so I thought I’d call, check in.’
I smiled. Is this what everyone does now? ‘It’s just WhatsApp I think, Mum.’ I pulled bread from the bin on the work surface and dropped two slices in to toast. ‘I was just looking for whether the girls were about at all.’
‘You don’t have plans with them?’
I could hear the eager note in her voice and so help me I had to say, ‘Oh, I do, I just wasn’t sure who was up yet, whether anyone wanted breakfast before the Saturday shopping spree.’ It was a lie; a whopping one actually, given that I’d told the girls I wanted a quiet day to myself. They were on standby in case my quiet day turned into a minor meltdown though; Betty’s words, not mine. But it didn’t feel like too much of a stretch, as possibilities went.
Mum asked all the right questions after that – ‘Are you shopping for anything in particular, then?’ – and stayed away from all the tricky ones. The spectre of Rowan – the ghosting of boyfriends present – was left on the outskirts, mostly. But when I’d told her that tea and toast were ready my end, she swung around to a more loaded question. ‘You’re all right, love, aren’t you?’ she asked, but she said it in a soft voice; I imagined her head tilting to one side. I thought if I listened close enough I might even hear Dad soft-breathing into the mouthpiece, too, as though they were both craning to hear an answer.
I checked the time. We’d been on the phone long enough to tip me into a sociable hour to start calling people to make plans for the day. Balls to quiet. ‘I think so?’ I answered in a way that I thought might be too honest. But the prospect of lying, again, about my feelings, again, was … I sighed. ‘Everything is a bit much, that’s all – you know with Rowan and the engagement and, I don’t know, life, generally.’ I half-laughed. ‘I’m going to have a very kind-to-myself day, though, I promise.’
‘Double promise?’ Dad asked and I burst out in laughter. I heard what sounded like Mum slapping his arm. ‘What? We both live here. She doesn’t know I didn’t just walk into the room right then,’ he added in a voice that he obviously thought was lowered, but not quite enough.
‘Well, she bloody does now, doesn’t—’
‘I double promise both of you, okay?’
‘Okay,’ they answered in unison.
When I’d pushed them off the phone by offering a third promise, I ate the first half of my toast in dead silence. Then I did the kindest thing I could think to do …
*
The door was open when I’d got there; she’d texted me on the walk over to tell me it would be. I pushed through slowly, in case I startled her in the middle of something. Not that Fred seemed the sort to be startled by much. And no sooner had the door cracked open, I realised it would have to be a hefty loud intruder to make any noise at all over the sound of her music. Little Mix’s ‘Woman Like Me’ was playing at a nightclub volume and Fred, in a flowing pleated black dress that looked way too fancy for 9 a.m. on a Saturday, was dancing around the open-plan space. When she swept around and saw me standing at the other end of the corridor, her expression was an excited one; she looked genuinely happy I’d arrived, and I tried to remember the last time someone had looked at me like that. Probably Betty, when I got back from a wine run. But she still didn’t turn the music down. Instead, she rushed the length of the corridor, shut the door – the escape route I’d left ajar behind me – and eased my backpack off with more gentleness than the action seemed to deserve.
‘Come and dance,’ she instructed, and she grabbed my hand to tug me towards the living area where the music, I soon noted, was even louder.
Fred moved around lyrically; if she’d been speaking, she would have been reciting a love letter to her body. She jutted her hips one minute but then moved in a smooth flow the next; her arms waved around like she was conducting the musicians. And, most impressive of all, there was nothing about her that said worry; nothing like self-consciousness; nothing like she minded, even, that she was being watched. The song soon faded out but it was replaced with Jessie J’s ‘Sexy Lady’, the opening chords for which had Fred gasping in excitement.
‘Come!’ She pulled my hand again. ‘Please dance with me.’
I laughed. ‘What about your neighbours?’
‘Ah, my neighbours are cool,’ she huffed out; she was shimmying already. ‘I put up with their late-night noise and they put up with my early morning dance-a-thons. It’s a quid-pro-quo situation. Now …’ She slowed to catch her breath. ‘Will you dance with me or is this something you have to be drunk to do?’
‘Fred, I …’ I faded when I realised she was being playful; her eyebrow was cocked and she was smirking. ‘I never dance this early,’ I admitted.
‘In which case—’ she picked up speed again ‘—maybe we’ve worked out why you’re sad.’ She fumbled with her headband, pulling it free from her mess of hair to unleash curls that fell loosely around her. When her hair settled into place, Fred looked every bit the model; not just a life model, though, but a natural beauty model. The face that belonged on a campaign for joy. ‘Come, dance, then you can tell me what’s wrong.’ She pulled me to her by my hips, and I felt soft against her. Our bodies moved in a way that a male author would describe as seductive or charged or— Eurgh. But there was nothing of that. She moved my body like she were teaching it something, increasing the pace of hip shifts as the music livened around us. We were seconds away from the chorus when Fred flashed me a wide-eyed look and said, ‘Wait. If you’re going to lose yourself in a dance, I know a better song than this.’
When she moved away my worries flooded back in. I wrapped my arms across my midriff, as though she hadn’t already seen it from a much more vulnerable viewpoint.
‘Don’t you dare cover that body up.’ She was strutting back over to me, clicking along to the opening bars of a song that I didn’t recognise. I tried to laugh as I eased my arms away; I ran a hand through my hair, felt in my pocket for my phone, anything to avoid … ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ She stopped in front of me and set a hand either side of my waist.
‘I’m feeling … self-conscious.’
‘I’ve seen you naked.’ She laughed. ‘What’s actually going on?’
I pushed out a long breath. But I didn’t want to look at her. ‘Rowan slept with one of his friend’s girlfriends.’
It was the first time I’d seen her look truly taken aback. ‘What a prince.’ No sooner had she said it than she pulled me into a hug. ‘We don’t have to dance; we don’t have to talk. Walk me through what you need, okay?’
I relaxed into the hug. By then, the chorus to the song had kicked in and I found that – despite wanting to cry only seconds ago – I belched out a surprise laugh. The song was, I realised, ‘She Drives Me Crazy’ by the Fine Young Cannibals. And I remembered it from dancing around the living room at home, with Mum and Dad.
‘The song suddenly doesn’t feel quite as appropriate as it did,’ she spoke into my neck.
I started to shift myself in time with the music and eased Fred away by her waist. She was already smiling, and she matched her movements to my own. I kept hold of her hand and made an archway of our arms for her to shimmy underneath; she spun out the other side at such a speed that her dress kicked up around her. We broke away from each other, then, to do our own thing around the space. I let my hair fall wild and my face go pink and my breath go haggard. I sang to the chorus and made ‘Ooh’ noises in all the right places. Fred looked thrilled as she clicked and danced and made ‘Ooh’ noises in between my own. By the time the track was coming to a fade we were both panting like we’d done a back-to-back Zumba session with a cruel instructor. But I thought our satisfaction was likely off the scale.
The next track was another one I didn’t recognise. Fred was dancing into the kitchen where the speaker was housed, so she could turn the volume down to something that allowed a conversation. She pulled the fridge open.
‘Orange juice, apple juice, milkshake …’ She paused to check her watch. ‘Probably a tad early for wine but I’m not a hundred per cent opposed to it.’ She poked her head around the door. ‘What’ll it be?’
‘Orange juice, please.’ I was desperate for something cold. I loitered while Fred poured drinks and noticed, then, that half of the artwork I’d seen during my previous visits had changed. But Fred’s self-portrait still hung pride of place.
‘Still checking me out?’ She came to stand alongside me and handed me a drink.
I smiled and admitted, ‘Always.’
There was a comfortable and strange silence while we both stared at the outline of Fred’s body. Then she sighed; a hearty sigh that made my stomach turn, because I sensed something was coming. ‘Edi, you need more joy in your life.’
Although it hadn’t been what I was expecting. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘Stuff like that.’ She gestured to the living area where we’d been dancing, as though our silhouettes still occupied the space. ‘Waltzing around the living room to songs that make you make noises; wearing Saturday night dresses first thing in the morning because why save your best for other people? You know …’ She turned to face me. ‘Joy!’
I wasn’t sure whether I’d ever had an epiphany before but … ‘Christ, I think you’re right.’