by Shari Low
Jess looked up, still dazed, and shrugged her shoulders as she said lamely to Carol, ‘How was I supposed to know that “George” was George Milford? You never mentioned his surname.’
‘What’s the problem with that?’ Carol persisted.
Jess whispered something. We all stooped to hear.
‘George is Basil’s wife’s brother.’
I had a feeling Jess’s life was about to get as complicated as mine.
I arrive at Mum’s flat and let myself in with the door key that’s hidden under the mat. She’s still a neighbourhood watch nightmare. It’s so strange having no ties to my mother’s home. She sold the family house when she divorced my dad and bought this two bedroom flat in the South Side of the city. She got an extra room for Michael, in case he came back after Uni, but he never did, moving in with his buddies initially, and then, when he landed a job, finding his own place in the West End. Dad lives a few miles away, but they don’t have much contact. That ship has well and truly sailed and I honestly believe it’s better for both of them – they were miserable together.
I shout a hello, but there’s no answer. There’s a note on the fridge.
Carly, darling,
Have gone to the health farm.
Will be back in a week or so. Make yourself at home.
Love, Mum
PS. Please ask Mr Roberts at number 39 to clean the stairs. He only charges £5.
So much for my welcoming party. It’s not that I expected banners in the street or anything, but a hello and a hug would have been nice. Still, at least if she’s on Ivan’s back – not an image I want in my mind – then she’s not, metaphorically, on mine.
God knows what she thinks of my latest escapade. Or what she will think when I eventually pluck up the courage to tell her. All I’ve told her was that I was coming to Glasgow and that I’d need a bed for a couple of nights. I’m still a complete wimp when it comes to Maw Walton. I even bribed Callum and Michael with Boss ties not to turn me in. I wish beyond words that they were here, even if it does make me feel totally inadequate to see how they’ve both achieved so much and got exactly the lives they aspired to.
But there’s still hope. I’ve got eight months until my target date of the millennium to sort my life out. Despite the odd moment of doubt, when I worry that I’ve completely lost the plot, I’m still absolutely sure that I’m doing the right thing. How many other women of my age have no house to clean, no kids to worry about, no job to get stressed over? I contemplate this for a moment, before the rational side of my brain adds, no money, no prospects, no future.
Anyway, for all I know I could be snogging Mr Right within the week. Nick Russo is target number one and from what I remember, he has definite potential, even if he didn’t keep his promise to track me down one day and whisk me off into the sunset. I can’t believe that was more than a decade ago. He probably doesn’t even remember being in Benidorm.
The familiar gurgle of excitement rises up from my stomach. Or it may just be a longing for a hangover bacon sandwich.
There’s not so much as a pint of milk in the fridge, so I head off to Tesco. I can’t help but be amused. Here was I setting off for the epic adventure of my life and on day one I’m in the dairy aisle at Tesco’s. I hope this isn’t an omen.
I’m so busy contemplating my predicament that I smash into a fellow shopper as I turn into frozen foods.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I bluster, ‘I wasn’t looking where I was go…’ I stop suddenly. In front of me is a woman with long brunette hair scraped back into a ponytail. She’s wearing no make-up and is standing with shoulders slumped in an almost defeated posture. Her thin frame is covered with a baggy grey sweatshirt and old jeans. She avoids eye contact. ‘Sarah?’
For the first time, she raises her gaze to meet mine and her face lights up like a sparkler.
‘Cooper! Oh my God! What are you doing here?’
14
Justify My Love – Madonna
I rush to hug Sarah, forgetting that I am holding a basket and almost amputating my legs. I’m dumbfounded! It’s only a few weeks since I was thinking about her and wondering what had happened to her. I make a mental note to wonder about next week’s lottery numbers and see if that gets the same result.
My gin-soaked brain cells start to kick in. The last time we were together was just after I went to work in Tiger Alley. That was… I struggle to count, about eight years ago. Eight years! How had I let that happen?
After I’d left for Shanghai, I’d written to her a few times. At first she replied, then the letters had dried up. I remembered speaking to Kate about it when I was in Hong Kong, but by that time Kate, Carol and Jess were all living in London and Sarah either didn’t return their calls or was offhand when she did. I’ve thought about her so many times over the years and now I wish I’d tried so much harder to track her down.
I realise I’m having a rush of blood to the head and reach out to grab the yoghurt counter to steady myself, putting three fingers through the foil of a pineapple Muller Light. Without thinking, I hastily wipe my fingers on my jeans, too shocked to care about the mess I’ve made.
‘Where have you been? What are you doing now?’ I gush. ‘I mean apart from shopping. Are you in a rush?’
She laughs, shaking her head. I don’t even give her a chance to speak. I grab her basket and deposit it on top of mine on the floor.
‘C’mon, we’re going for coffee.’ I take her hand and drag her to the café at the front of the store. We’re the only people in it under sixty – it looks like a welcome meeting on a Saga tour. I order two cappuccinos and two chocolate eclairs. She needs fattening up.
When I take them over to the table, she gives me another hug.
‘It is so good to see you, Cooper.’
‘And you. I can’t believe it’s been so long.’ I resolve to be subtle and gently probe for answers, before blowing it completely by blurting out, ‘What happened to you? Where have you been?’
She smiles wryly and I can see the sadness in her eyes. ‘It’s a long story.’
I push my chair back and get comfortable, although instinct tells me that I’m not going to like this.
‘Well, all I was planning today was a long lie-down on the couch with a double episode of Murder, She Wrote, so I’ve got all day if you have. Start at the beginning.’
I was right about not liking it.
We spend the next two hours draining the store’s coffee supplies while she tells me her story. Sometimes it’s difficult to match this woman sitting across from me to the memory of the crazy, unpredictable, hilarious Sarah that I knew. This person is drained and defeated and almost, well, old – not so much in appearance but in manner. It’s almost as if she’s already lived two lifetimes.
It transpires that after we all went our separate ways, Sarah was doing her postgrad teaching course at university, when she’d met a guy on a night out.
’You remember Bill,’ she says. ’Bill Davies. He was in school with us. I bumped into him when he was on a stag night in Edinburgh.’
I’m stunned. ‘Wait a minute. You were going out with Bill Davies?’ I remembered Bill from school: tall, attractive and a bit of a charmer, but he had a real mean streak and a quick temper. If I remember correctly, Mark Barwick once threatened him with serious injury for calling me an ugly-faced cow.
‘Why didn’t you tell any of us that you were with him?’
She shrugs, embarrassed. ‘He asked me not to. Said you all hated him and he didn’t want anyone to get between us.’
I hate him even more now and I haven’t even heard the rest of the story.
She pushes a stray lock of hair back off her face. ‘I know it sounds crazy, but I was totally besotted with him and I was pregnant within just a couple of months of meeting him. Please don’t judge me. It was one night without a condom.’
‘Trust me, I’m in no position to judge anyone about anything,’ I reassure her, just as my brain rewinds and picks up t
he other shocking revelation in this story so far.
‘And wait, you have a baby?’ Oh my goodness. I immediately felt a wave of crushing guilt. We’d made such a fuss of Kate and her gorgeous children, and yet, all this time Sarah had a child too and we hadn’t even known. We were shit friends.
She plays with her teaspoon on the table, as if focusing on that distracts her from the pain of the story. ‘Two.’ For the first time, I see a flash of joy as she says that, before going on, ‘They’re incredible and the very best thing about my life. But he wouldn’t let me tell any of you that I was pregnant either. The girls called a few times but I blew them off, because it was hopeless – he’d listen in on the call, then sulk for hours after I spoke to them. He was sure we were conspiring against him.’
I feel physically sick and I reach over and take her hand. ‘We thought you were just loved up and drifting away from us because you were so happy with your new life. I’m so sorry.’
‘Please don’t be,’ she argues. ‘I should have known then, when I still had the chance to get out, but it all happened so fast. I quit Uni, we got married and moved into his mum’s house, and my life completely changed. You were all gone, and that became my world.’
I could understand how that could happen. Hadn’t I gone from zero to fully loved up in record time with several relationships?
Sarah was still pouring her heart out. ‘At first, he was great, Carly, so loving and caring.’
‘So what happened?’ I ask, my stomach knotting in dread.
‘I don’t know. He gradually became more and more moody and controlling, snapping at me constantly, criticising everything I did. No matter what I did to please him, nothing was good enough. He worked in a warehouse, and he didn’t want me to work, so we couldn’t afford our own place. We ended up staying with the in-laws for another four years.’
A big tear rolls down her cheek and lands in her coffee.
‘Then he lost the plot altogether. He’d always been possessive,’ she grimaces ruefully. ‘At the start I quite liked it, because I was stupid enough to think it showed how much he cared. But his possessiveness became a complete obsession. He complained if I spoke to anyone or if I left the house on my own. He said that if I loved him then I didn’t need anyone else. In the end, it was easier just to go along with it.’
‘I’m so sorry, Sarah,’ I say again. ‘We should have done something to help.’
Where were we when Sarah needed us? Completely wrapped up in our own insignificant little dramas.
She shakes her head. ‘It would only have made things worse. My family tried, but eventually I asked them to leave us alone too. Anything for a peaceful life. I just didn’t want the children to see constant fighting, so I’d do anything to keep the peace.’
My blood is boiling. What a bastard!
Sarah bites her lip, then takes a breath, as if summoning her strength to carry on. ‘Over the years, his temper got really out of control. He flew into a rage if I was ever late or if he saw me speaking to another guy, no matter how innocent it was. Looking back now, I can’t believe I put up with it, Carly. I can see how it looks. I was pathetic.’
‘Other people’s shoes, Sarah. Who knows what any of us would have done in the same situation?’ I answer, quoting a phrase my gran used to berate me with if she ever caught me being judgemental. I have to ask the obvious, though. ‘Why didn’t you leave?’ I’m holding on to her hand so tightly that it’s turning blue.
‘How could I? I had two babies, no money, no home, no job. I was trapped but I couldn’t see a way out.’
‘I so wish you’d told us. We could have helped. We would have done anything.’
She shrugs her shoulders. ‘I guess I didn’t want to admit it to anyone. I didn’t want the world to know that I had made a complete fuck-up of my life.’
The tea ladies run to the aisles for a box of Kleenex for the two blubbering wrecks in the corner. Two more coffees, six tissues and a medicinal Bakewell tart later, she is still recounting what happened and it doesn’t get any better.
When they had finally managed to afford their own flat, Bill’s behaviour had become even worse. He had a lock put on the phone so that she couldn’t dial out and he called her ten times a day to check where she was. He was cold, abusive and violent.
It had all come to a head a year before when her grandmother had died. Bill had erupted when she said that she was going to the funeral and for once Sarah had fought back. It was the first time she’d seen her family in years, and she finally told them everything that had been going on. Horrified, they pooled their resources to help. Sarah and the kids were given her grandmother’s house and the whole family chipped in to redecorate it and furnish it. Bill threatened all sorts, but that stopped abruptly after a visit from Sarah’s two brothers. A mischievous grin crosses her face when it comes to that bit. I can tell she relishes the thought. As she tells it, she visibly straightens up and pushes back her shoulders, like a woman in control. Like she’s determined to put it all in the past.
‘So what now?’ I ask.
She beams as she tells me that she’s going back to teacher training college in September.
‘And Bill?’
‘I only see him when he collects the kids on a Friday and returns them on a Sunday. I hear he’s living with someone else now, poor woman.’
I notice a clock on the wall and realise we’ve been sitting there for hours.
‘Sarah, where are the kids now?’ I ask in a panic, suddenly conscious that it’s after four o’clock.
‘It’s Easter holidays. Bill took them to Butlin’s last night for two weeks. That’s why I was looking a bit miserable when I met you – I don’t know what to do with myself now they’re gone.’
We sit in comfortable silence for a few moments as I absorb what she’s told me. An idea starts to form. It’s the perfect solution! I scream with delight, making Sarah jump and splash her coffee over the remnants of her Bakewell tart.
‘I know what you can do. You’re coming to St Andrews with me.’
It makes perfect sense in Cooperland…
‘What? Carly, I can’t afford to do that. I’m a skint student again.’
‘But I’ll pay for both of us. Or, rather, American Express will.’
I fill her in on the plan and for the first time she cries with laughter instead of pain. She dries her eyes.
‘Oh, Carly, you haven’t changed. You’re still a walking disaster.’
I nod my head gleefully. ‘I know,’ I agree. ‘Does that mean you’ll come?’
She thinks about it for all of three seconds. ‘I suppose someone has to keep their eye on you.’
We go to Sarah’s house, pack a suitcase and take it to my mum’s. I call for a Chinese takeaway and open a bottle of wine. I dial Kate’s number in London. If I’m not wrong, Carol and Jess will still be there, nursing their hangovers. Strange, but for me, last night’s going away party already feels like a lifetime ago.
Kate answers almost immediately. ‘Home for Drunks and Strays.’
‘Kate, it’s me. Are the girls still there?’
‘Unfortunately, yes. I’ve had to warn Bruce not to light a match, because with the fumes in here, the house would explode. I’m in the kitchen making the tenth coffee pot of the day.’
‘Put me on loud speaker and tell them to come and listen into this call. I’ve got a surprise for you all.’
There’s a yell, then a pause, before Carol speaks first. ‘This had better be good, Cooper. I risked an aneurysm by getting off the couch.’
‘I’ve got someone who wants to speak to you.’
‘It had better be Richard Gere,’ Jess moans.
I look over at Sarah, who’s holding the cordless phone procured from my mother’s bedroom and grinning from ear to ear. I motion to her to speak.
‘I was just wondering which one of you lot borrowed my black sequinned boob tube about ten years ago. I think it’s time you returned it.’
Anot
her pause. I can almost hear the sound of their brains whirring.
Think of the noise in a stadium when the Scotland football team score a goal, then triple it. That comes close to the bedlam coming from the phone. They’re all talking and screaming at once.
‘STOP!’ I yell. Silence. ‘Now, one at a time. Jess, you go first.’
‘Sarah, this is even better than Richard Gere. Where have you been?’ There’s not a hint of a rebuke in her voice, just sheer joy.
‘In the frozen food aisle at Tesco’s.’ She laughs. ‘It’s a long story, Jess. We’ll catch up next time I see you. God, I’ve missed you lot!’ More tears are flowing.
Kate takes over. ‘I can’t believe it’s you, Sarah. We’ve missed you too, babe. When can you come visit us?’
‘Soon, I hope. But right now, I’m getting ready to go to St Andrews with our crazy friend here.’
I can hear them all simultaneously groan and clasp their hands to their foreheads.
‘Don’t let her get you into trouble, Sarah, there’s every chance she’ll end up in jail this time,’ Carol jokes.
I protest loudly.
Two hours, three bottles of wine and a beef kung po later, we eventually hang up.
When my mum gets the phone bill, she’ll hit the roof – probably with Ivan still attached.
Sarah looks completely different from the woman trudging round the supermarket this morning. Her face is glowing, her eyes are bright, she’s chuckling incessantly and she looks five years younger. She flops out on one sofa, I do the same on the other one.
She raises her glass. ‘To us, my friend. It’s been a great day.’
In two minutes, she’s fast asleep, still smiling.
Next morning, a knock on the door wakes me. I open my eyes and look around, trying to remember where I am. There are posters of monsters and robotic warriors on every wall. Michael’s room. My mother brought Michael’s teenage bedroom from our old house when she moved here. No wonder he never came back.