How’s the viewing, hun?
She responds quickly.
Haven’t seen it yet. Owner late back from work :( xxx
Okay, so I need to get to West Hampstead pronto.
It takes me about forty minutes – it’s an inconvenient route on the tube. As I step off the train, I keep an eye out for Beth in case she’s waiting on the platform. I know this is a long shot, but these pockets of London aren’t huge; there are just so many of them. How far from the station is the flat she’s been looking at? I’ll wait here, on the platform – at some point, she’ll come here.
It’s almost eight o’clock, an hour since her last message.
I give it another ten minutes, then type.
So …?
And wait.
Please, Beth. I need to tell you I’m sorry.
Nah. Not worth it. Heading home. Spk tomo. xxx
Great! So she’ll be on her way to this station. Now.
I lug my suitcase up the stairs to street level and wait by the gates. It’s not that busy – the rush died down a while ago. I need to keep an eye out, although it’s unlikely I’ll get swamped. This isn’t Waterloo or Kings Cross. I should be able to spot her any minute.
But I don’t.
The thing is, Beth’s not going home, is she? And if I know Beth, I know what she’ll be doing right now.
I go through the gate and have a decision to make. Left or right.
To my left, I see a pub on the corner. Dark wood, a lengthy food menu, serves Guinness on draught. Beth wouldn’t be seen dead in a place like that on her own. So I turn right past a deli, a dry cleaners, an estate agent. Within minutes I’m surrounded by cafes, small and intimate restaurants – and bingo. A wine bar.
Beth is there, easy to find. She’s sat outside the front beneath the white canopy, smoking.
‘Since when did you start smoking?’ I ask.
Her free hand slaps against her chest as she shudders in her seat. Her smoking hand goes to the ashtray in the centre of the circular white table and she stubs the ciggie out so ferociously she might as well be murdering it.
‘I wasn’t judging,’ I say. ‘Just asking, like.’
‘You’re an actual stalker,’ she says.
‘My intentions are good. Promise.’
‘Sit down. I feel ashamed you standing over me like some sort of fucking apparition.’
She’s still in her work clothes; a fitted beige dress with square neckline, the skirt touching her knee. Only Beth can make beige look bold. Her tan hasn’t faltered despite her not having been on a big holiday this summer, and her lip gloss is fresh, as if she applied it seconds before I showed up. She’s twirled her hair into a low bun, showing off delicate gold earrings in the shape of long leaves.
‘I feel a bit underdressed for this place,’ I say, referring to my jeggings, Converse and damp denim jacket. Even my pink t-shirt is sticking to my chest. My hair is like a drowned rat left out to dry.
‘Nah. Go inside. Everyone in there’s as scruffy as you, babes. I’ve just set a new standard. As always.’ Beth allows herself to smile, closed-lip, one-sided. She’s been crying, a gloss on her eyes that isn’t due to Charlotte Tilbury.
‘I saw Fergus. He told me.’
‘I wanted to tell you meself—’
‘I know. When we went to that bloody ski slope, you wanted to talk. Beth, I’m so sorry. I’ve been the worst friend.’
Her gaze falls to the drop of white wine left in her glass. She pushes it towards me.
‘Look, life hasn’t been kind to you either, babes.’
‘No, you should’ve just grabbed me and blurted it out.’
‘It’s not that easy to admit. Remember when you couldn’t tell me about Jack?’
She’s right. Beth carries a wisdom I don’t possess.
We became friends in high school. I spotted her on day one, her purple drawstring Benetton bag gleaming new. She was the girl every boy fancied and every bully avoided. She didn’t speak to me until the Christmas disco.
‘Where’s your bodysuit from?’ she had asked, sipping a can of Coke.
I’d agonised for weeks about what to wear, trawling through the pages of Just Seventeen for inspiration and finally deciding on red jeans, a floral body suit and a black chiffon shirt which I tied in a knot at the waist. When I stepped off the bus that morning, I instantly regretted the red jeans. I’d shot up in the year between eleven and turning twelve and the jeans brought too much attention to my long legs. What had I been thinking?
But Beth from Form 7G wanted to know where my bodysuit was from. Beth from 7G liked my outfit.
‘Tammy Girl,’ I told her. My mum had taken me shopping and treated me to a whole wardrobe of Tammy stuff for my twelfth birthday. It had been one of the best days of my life.
Beth smiled, but it was partnered with raised eyebrows and a sigh.
‘Cute,’ she said. ‘I saw one almost identical in Topshop.’
‘I love Topshop,’ I blurted, although I’d never been inside.
‘It’s the only place I shop.’ Beth took another swig of her Coke.
‘Me too. Except for Tammy Girl. Obviously, duh!’ I rolled my eyes and hit myself on the head, making Beth laugh. Her dangly earrings jangled and she twiddled the silver dolphin hanging from a fine black cord around her neck. Picking up her Benetton bag from beneath the table she was leaning against, she opened it and fished around inside for something. She pulled out a black velvet hat.
‘You’re Chloe, right?’ she checked. I nodded. Then, standing on her tiptoes, she put the hat on my head, her dainty fingers positioning it as she pouted her lips. ‘This looks sooo good on you. I’ve got a right little pin head. You can have it. Merry Chrimbo.’
In a mix of shock and delight, I struck a pose, kind of John Travolta doing ‘Stayin’ Alive’. Beth grabbed my hand and hauled me to the dance floor in the centre of the sports hall. Blur’s ‘Boys and Girls’ was playing and the whole of Year Seven was jumping up and down. When the Grease Megamix came on and most of the boys decided to go and stand against the wall, I naturally took the role of Danny to Beth’s Sandy. She invited me to a sleepover at her house the following Friday and now, twenty-five years later, here we are.
‘Let’s be flatmates,’ I suggest.
‘Y’what?’ Beth responds, half of her upper lip rising, her nose wrinkled. Anyone would think I’d burped. Or puked.
‘Well, you’d rather live with me than some stranger with a spare room, wouldn’t you?’
‘Babes, I’m getting me own place.’
‘Oh. I just thought we could help each other out – you know, have a laugh.’
‘We don’t have to live together to do either of those things.’
I shift in my seat, lift Beth’s wine glass and down the last drop.
‘Same again?’ I stand, holding the glass by its stem and giving it a little wiggle. ‘Or shall I order a bottle?
‘Nope. I need to keep me head screwed on.’
I feel my shoulders slump down to my elbows. Looks like we’re not going to drink and chew the fat, then. Beth’s blown me out twice in the space of a few minutes. The wind has changed. I’m not familiar with this side of her. She’s a million miles away in her thoughts, watching the big red bus crawl past, blocking the view of the independent bookshop and the Greek bakery. She catches me staring and I offer a quick, upbeat smile. I want my friend back. I need her.
‘What you gonna do for work down here?’ Beth asks. She’s picking up her handbag, aptly made by Chloé, and about to sling it over her forearm to make an exit. ‘Your mum said you’re quit—’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, you know what me mum’s like, Beth. I’m not quitting.’
Beth rests both arms on top of her bag and with widened eyes, looks interested in what I’m saying for the first time since I sat down. She tells me to go on, but there’s nothing to go on about. I shrug.
‘But you thought about it,’ she says, ‘didn’t you?’
I give a careless laugh. It’s my turn to watch the next red bus crawl past.
‘It’s what? Two weeks before the schools go back? And you probably didn’t even think to hand in your notice or speak to your boss, did you? You were just gonna quit. Like that?’ She snaps her fingers like Mary Poppins.
‘Why are you so mad at me? I’ve still got me job! I’m going back next week.’
‘Oh, well done. Your sloppiness finally paid off.’
‘Eh?’
‘You got lucky, didn’t you?’
‘Yeah, right. So lucky, hun.’
‘You talk so much shit sometimes. Quitting, but not quitting. Worrying the hell out of your mother, treating a bloody good teaching job like it’s an inconvenience—’
‘Hold on a mo—’
‘No. This is exactly the sort of fucked-up nonsense that makes me not wanna live with you. Not because I don’t like you. I hate doing this to you, babes. I love you. But you’d move in and then, what next? Get a dog and decide you don’t like dogs? Move to France, then not wanna learn the language properly?’
My mouth is gaping open like a docile fish. I close it and try not to sulk, but God, Beth’s being a hardened bitch. She hasn’t got her fella anymore, but at least he’s alive. There’s a chance they could get back together.
‘I mean, once, you desperately wanted to go to drama school,’ Beth goes on. ‘And all those nights I sat on your bed, helping you learn fucking Shakespeare speeches and you saying it was boring, and then you’d sing fucking Annie—’
‘It wasn’t Annie, it was Miss Saigon—’
‘Same fucking thing—’
‘No it fucking isn’t—’
‘BABES. Stop. I watched you, I cheered you on, I took you to Yates’s Wine Lodge when you got rejected, I held your hair back when you puked, told you to try again. Then I sat through your uni shows, them funny sketches. Whatever became of them?’
‘Oh, they were dire.’
‘Nobody starts off perfect, Chlo. And now teaching isn’t feeling so easy, so you might jack it in. Or not. Ooh, you might. You might not. That ski lesson was a prime example—’
‘Let’s not mention the ski lesson, pal.’
‘Fine! But, babes, you just need to put the work in. Whatever it is.’
‘And what about you? Your marriage. Aren’t you gonna put the work in?’
‘I did. We did. When you’ve tried so hard at something, it’s easier to know when to call it a day.’ She lets out a long sigh, as if she’s been wearing a corset and the laces have been loosened. ‘I’m not saying marriage – relationships – should be plain sailing, but they should never be a constant battle. If anything, the right one, it should be easy; effortless. Then you deal with the hard stuff as a team. Fergus … no, we, didn’t.’
I nod. ‘You know, I’m starting to think that Jack wouldn’t’ve been so easy.’
Beth eyes fall onto mine. ‘Why?’
‘Just a feeling; that maybe we weren’t what I thought we were.’
‘You loved him, though, didn’t you?’
‘I did. God, Beth. I did. I’ve never felt that way before.’
‘You need to hold onto that, babes; store it in a special place. But you’re dragging it out and you know what? I think it’s warping what you had …’ then Beth puts her hand across her mouth to prevent a laugh escaping.
‘What’s so funny?’ I ask, wondering what’s brought this on.
‘I’ve just gone on and on about how you never try hard at anything, and when it comes to Jack, fuck me, you’ve tried so hard. You’re still trying! You’ve literally gone all over the fucking world. If you’d put half of that effort into being an actress you’d have won a fucking Oscar by now.’
‘And I’m supposed to find this funny?’
‘What else is there to do?’ Her face turns serious again. ‘I’m not sorry.’
‘I know.’
‘I want you to live your life and be happy, Chlo.’
‘I want that, too! For both of us.’
‘So don’t drag me backwards.’
Beth straightens her skirt as she stands and hooks her bag on her arm. She shakes out both hands as if she’s just washed them and the hand-dryer is broken. A shiver envelops her before she pulls herself together.
‘Enough of this,’ she says. ‘I can’t be indulging in this soft chitchat any longer, babes. I’m off. Got a ton of things to tick off me list before the morning. I’ll ring you on me lunch tomoz. Okay?’
I blow her a kiss.
A single gust of wind brushes a few stray leaves around my feet. Autumn is on the horizon. The new term is imminent. Beth turns left and disappears down a residential street of Victorian terraces, where every window has white ledges and matching wooden shutters. I check my phone and enjoy the satisfaction of seeing a reply from Si.
Aggggghhhhhh. I’m in Bruges! Back on Saturday AM. X
Fan-fucking-tastic.
There are a few more messages – afterthoughts to his response: Am I back for good? How did my mum react? Have I had a change of heart about teaching? Did I want to watch the first week of Strictly with him this Saturday night?
This is all lovely. Truly, it is.
But it doesn’t solve my current situation.
I’m going to have to take advantage of the key sitting at the bottom of my satchel.
And with an ache that could break me into jagged pieces, I head south on the tube.