by Frances Pye
“Minnie, you can’t eat her.” Terry came around the corner of the house, ran over, plucked Minnie off Lily’s lap, and set her down on the ground. Immediately, the dog started to sniff around the door to the kitchen. “Ah. You’ve got rats, haven’t you? She’s never wrong.”
“I have not got rats. I have not. There’s meat in the oven. She can smell that.” Lily looked over at Terry. “What’re you grinning about?”
“Gets you every time. All anyone’s got to do is say anything against your beloved house and you go mad.”
“So would you if you’d poured as much money into it as me.”
“Is it that bad?” Jules asked.
“You should hear my bank manager.” Lily scrunched up her face and put on an affected, whiny voice. “‘Time to tighten our belts, Ms. James. Time to tighten our belts.’ All I wanted was enough to redo the kids’ bathrooms while they’re away. It’s not like I’m not earning.”
“No. Just hideously overdrawn.” Terry pointed at Lily’s custom sunglasses and designer jeans. “And with a fashionable spending habit to support.” She kissed her friends hello, then reached for the bottle in the center of the table. “Yum, champagne.” She poured herself a glass, took a sip, and purred happily. “Ooh, do I love champagne.”
“I still want to know where a girl from Bootle learned such expensive tastes,” Lily asked.
“It’s all Jules’s fault.”
“No it’s not,” Jules said.
“Yes it is. If you hadn’t brought that bottle to our find-a-flatmate party, I’d have stuck with beer.”
“And if you believe that…,” Lily started.
“You’ll believe anything,” finished Jules and Mara.
It was the four girlfriends’ regular get-together. Even if jobs and families got in the way at times and stopped them seeing each other more often, they made sure they gathered on a Sunday afternoon at least once a month. They rotated homes, first one, then another. Today it was Lily’s turn.
IT HAD been almost twenty years since she’d walked into Connor’s Wine Bar and met Terry. It had been pure coincidence; she’d only gone into the bar because it had been freezing outside and she was desperate to sit down somewhere warm for a moment or two. But she hadn’t had a lot of money and couldn’t afford to be spending any on luxuries like alcohol. Connor’s had been heaving with people and she’d thought she could pass unnoticed for a few minutes amongst the hordes of men and women in dark suits celebrating the end of another day.
The wine bar was a connected series of dark, brick-vaulted cellars, lit only by candles. Lily walked through the crowded space until she spotted a small, round, empty table at the far end of one of the shadowy rooms and sat down.
She’d just arrived in London from the U.S., expecting to move in with her boyfriend, Clive. But things hadn’t exactly worked out as she’d planned. Sitting in her tiny room at Northwestern, packing up her stuff, saying good-bye to friends, and then confronting her shocked family and telling them she was dropping out of college to live in England with a man, she’d imagined she was going to a world of love and culture, of mornings in bed, of trips to the theater, of weekends spent cuddled up in front of the fire or at sophisticated dinner parties, discussing the latest play or book. Instead, she’d been greeted with an indifference that soon grew into irritation.
During their week in Edinburgh, Clive had raved about the idea of their being together. It was only once she’d turned up on his doorstep, jet-lagged but excited, assuming he’d be thrilled by her arrival, that she realized he’d never imagined she would come. She’d been forced to accept that he didn’t want her to live with him in his flat. She wasn’t even sure he wanted her to be in London.
When she met Terry, she’d just spent the day wandering the city, trying to decide what to do. And failing to work up any enthusiasm for the famous sights she was seeing for the first time. All over London, she’d run into groups of American tourists, and their happy, would-you-look-at-that excitement had depressed her even more. Of course, she could go home. Her parents loved her, they’d forgive her for messing up her life. They’d even send her the cash needed to pay for her airfare. Only it would feel like such a defeat, to be begging for help when she’d set out only a few days ago so full of hope. But what else could she do?
“What can I get you, love?”
Lily jumped. Then looked up.
A small, pretty, red-haired girl was standing in front of her table, smiling at her. She waited a moment, then repeated her question. “What do you want to drink?”
Lily stared at her, unsure of what to say. Thinking of her diminishing hoard of cash.
The girl leaned forward and put her hand on Lily’s shoulder. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“Yes. Thank you.” Lily knew she should get up and go, but her fingers and toes were only just beginning to thaw. “Perhaps…how much is a glass of water?”
“For you, love, free.”
And the girl walked away, weaving her way through the crowded tables. At the far end of the long, low, candlelit room, she went past some ancient barrels and disappeared. Twenty seconds later she was back with a large glass filled with red wine in her hand.
“Here. You look like you could do with this. It’s on the house. Only don’t tell my boss, whatever you do.”
“Thank you. You’re very kind,” Lily said, smiling.
“You’re American.”
“Yes.”
“On holiday here?”
“Sort of.” Lily took a sip of her wine and warmth spread through her from inside out. “That’s just what I needed. How did you know?”
“I’ve been cold and short of the readies myself.”
“Readies?”
“Cash. You know. Pounds, shillings, and pence.”
Lily blushed. “Oh, yes, that.”
“Don’t worry. It’s happened to all of us.” The girl held out her hand. “I’m Terry.”
Lily reached out, grasped her hand. “I’m Lily.”
“Welcome to London.”
“Thank you.” Lily felt like crying. This was the first bit of kindness she’d experienced since she’d arrived.
Terry glanced behind her. “I’d better go work. Listen, I get off in an hour or so. Do you want to go for a drink?”
TERRY HAD never been able to work out what it was that had made her take pity on Lily. She’d been in London for two months, working at the wine bar for four weeks, and had seen enough hard-luck cases in that time, but she’d never felt the urge to look after them. Somehow Lily was different. Maybe it was as simple as her being American. Maybe it was the way she had ordered a glass of water, obviously unable to afford anything else. Or maybe it was because Lily reminded Terry of herself when she’d first arrived in town: lost in the midst of a chattering, bustling, indifferent city.
Whatever it was, she’d made a good choice. Less than an hour after they’d walked out of Connor’s together, she’d told Lily all about her runaway mother, her martinet grandmother, her restricted life in Liverpool, where even chocolate was forbidden as sinful, and her decision to flee to London two months before. In return, Terry had learned all about Lily’s life in America, her ambition of being a comedy writer and actress, and her disappointment with Clive. By the time the two were sitting on cushions on the floor of Terry’s tiny studio apartment in Clapham, after retrieving Lily’s luggage from Clive’s apartment and slogging their way across the city, Terry knew she and Lily were friends for life. They were two of a kind. Both young, both on their own, and both with the ability to laugh at themselves, even in the midst of disaster.
“I’ve had a fantastic idea,” Terry said. “How about we find a house?”
“A house?”
“Yes.”
“With what?”
“With our wages, silly.”
“I can’t work. I’ve got no permit.”
“Dave’ll employ you.”
“Dave?”
“At the wi
ne bar. He’s already paying two girls I know of in cash cos they’re on benefit. He likes it. Means he can pay less. Someone’ll report him one of these days, but until they do, he’ll give you a job.”
“I don’t know anything about wine.”
“Do I look like I do? Nah, it’s strictly beer up where I come from. You’ll pick it up. Nothing to it. Open the right bottle, pour it out, collect the money. Only took me a few hours.”
“Maybe I should just go home.”
“You don’t want to do that, do you?” Terry saw her new friend disappearing before they’d even spent a day together.
Lily was silent for a moment. “I don’t think so. No. I want to stay here. And make Clive work his little buns off to get me back.” Lily grinned. “It’s Connor’s Wine Bar for me.”
“And the house?”
“Sure. Only I still don’t see how you and I are going to afford a house.”
“Not all of London’s expensive. We’ll find somewhere cheap. And we’ll advertise for a couple of others to share it. What do you think?”
“We’ll have to be careful who we choose. You should have seen the slob they made me room with my freshman year.”
“We will be. So are you in?”
Lily grinned. The day that had started like a nightmare had ended like a dream. She felt blessed. Who knew what had sent her into exactly that wine bar on exactly that day at exactly that time, but she would be forever grateful. Terry was wonderful. A lifesaver. “I’m in.”
MARA HAD seen the girls’ ad in Loot as fate. She’d been riding around and around on the Circle Line for hours, ignoring all the men who were staring at her—even then, at sixteen, Mara had been stunning looking—while her mind searched for some solution to her problems. And came up blank. She’d run away from home the previous night, fleeing an arranged marriage to a widowed man in his fifties. She’d thought that once she escaped from her authoritarian father, got away from her family’s house in Dagenham, and took the night bus into London, all her problems would be miraculously solved. But once in the city, she realized that getting there had been easy. What to do next was the hard part.
She’d never had to fend for herself before. She had a small amount of money—birthday gifts from aunts and uncles over the years—but it wasn’t going to last her very long. She needed a job. And somewhere to live. But she had no idea how to go about finding either. Instead, she’d wandered around London since she’d arrived at dawn. Hoping to see something that would give her a clue as to what to do.
At lunchtime, she’d bought herself a sandwich and taken refuge from the cold on the Underground. By four o’clock in the afternoon, she’d done three full circuits on the Circle Line. She knew she should get up, go back out into the city, and find herself somewhere to stay the night, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave the warmth and safety of the tube.
Then a young man who had been sitting next to her tore a page out of his copy of Loot and got up to go, leaving his paper behind. It was already a few days old but she picked it up and flicked through the ads for secondhand cars and stereos, fur coats and microwaves. Toward the end, she saw a number of notices for rooms to rent. They weren’t cheap, but there were a number where she could afford to pay a week’s rent. At least that would give her time to look around and find a job.
At the next stop, she got off the tube, found herself a public telephone box, and started calling. But every one she rang had either been rented already or the landlord insisted on references. And she had none.
At first she’d discarded Lily and Terry’s ad as too unusual. But then she thought again; maybe unusual was what she needed. “Young, fun-loving, tolerant girls looking for housemates. Must like bathing.” Well, she was certainly young, given a chance she might become fun-loving, and her sisters had always complained about the length of time she took in the bathroom. She dialed the number, her fingers crossed.
“I’M VERY fond of bathing,” Mara blurted out, then blushed as she saw the two girls standing in front of her glance at each other in apparent amusement.
“That’s good,” said Lily.
“Yes. I can spend ages in the bathroom. It used to drive my sisters mad.”
“Ages?”
“Oh.” Mara realized that taking a long time bathing might not be a great recommendation in a house with four girls and only one bathroom. “I’m messing this up, aren’t I?”
“No,” said Terry. “Of course not.”
“Only, I really want to live here. With you.” Mara swallowed back tears and forced herself not to beg. “I’m much more fun than this normally, I promise.”
“You’re doing fine. Calm down. Have another drink.” Lily gestured at their makeshift bar.
“Um, thank you.” Mara had never had any alcohol before but she felt she couldn’t refuse. That wouldn’t be fun-loving. She walked over to the table on the other side of the room that held the drinks and a few nibbles. She poured herself half a glass of white wine and then added some sparkling water to it when she hoped no one was watching.
Lily and Terry had chosen a late-Victorian brick town house in Kentish Town, a quietish, unremarkable part of North London that was only a few tube stops out of central London, on a direct line from the station nearest Connor’s Wine Bar. The house wasn’t large, but it had two twin bedrooms, a huge bathroom with an enormous, old-fashioned bathtub on clawed feet, and even a small garden with a holly tree, its berries still winter red. The area wasn’t exciting and the furniture looked like it had been used by generations of previous tenants, but who cared, there was room enough for four. Most important, they could afford it.
Once they’d rented the house using references from Terry’s old landlady and Dave at the wine bar, they’d put their ad in Loot and waited for the phone to ring. Determined to make the right choice, they’d invited everyone who called to a party, hoping that any prospective housemates would be more relaxed that way than they would have been in a regular interview. But it didn’t seem to be working. About fifteen people had called and been invited and only six had turned up.
One of them Terry ruled out the moment she walked through the door because she reminded her of the most sadistic nun at her old convent school. One of them was far too fun-loving; she’d consumed most of a box of wine by herself and then promptly been sick in the kitchen sink. One of them seemed to be interested only in the number of musicians she’d been to bed with. That left three. Mara, whom both Lily and Terry liked despite her nervousness. A tall, black-haired girl who seemed nice enough but appeared to believe that she was doing Lily and Terry a favor by consenting to share with them. And the latest arrival, a slim, blond, conservatively dressed girl clutching a bottle of champagne.
“Hi, I’m Lily. And this is Terry. Is that for us?”
Juliet handed the bottle over. She’d taken it from her parents’ wine rack, hoping to be gone before her father noticed it. “Yes. Thank you for inviting me. I’m Juliet.”
Terry drew back at the sound of the girl’s voice. Lily must have spoken to her when she called and of course would not have noticed the far-back, royal-family accent that denoted wealth, privilege, an expensive education—everything Terry had been brought up to resent. “Shouldn’t you be in Chelsea?” she asked.
Lily heard the distaste in Terry’s voice and couldn’t understand where it was coming from. “Wherever you should be, it’s good to see you. And thanks for the champagne.”
“You’re welcome.”
“So you need somewhere to live?”
“Yes. I’m with my parents at the moment and it’s not…I’m eighteen and I think it’s time I was out on my own.”
Juliet first realized she had to get a place of her own when her mother screamed at her for having a school friend around for supper without asking first. In front of the friend. Since then, there had been many other arguments, some niggling differences of opinion, some full-fledged rows. Juliet had known there was a good chance that her living in her parent
s’ flat in stuffy, expensive Belgravia would cause trouble. However, she had been so excited at leaving school and getting the job she wanted as a trainee in one of the country’s most successful party-planning companies that she’d agreed when her newly elected MP father, Ian Dunne, said that if she wanted to live in London, she ought to stay with them. She’d hoped that perhaps her difficult relationship with her social-climbing mother would improve now that she was grown up. But it hadn’t. If anything, Diana Dunne’s disapproval of and distaste for her middle daughter had got worse.
She’d had yet another row with her mother that morning, this time about a wild, red flouncy dress she had fallen in love with that Diana considered common. And she’d decided enough was enough. She needed to find somewhere else to live. She wasn’t being paid very much and couldn’t expect help from her parents, so she was not going to be able to afford Chelsea or Knightsbridge or Kensington. She was going to have to go out into the unknown.
She bought a copy of Loot on her way to work, scanned the list of rooms for rent, and was intrigued when she saw Lily and Terry’s advert. There was no trouble with the bathing, and after ten years at strict boarding schools, a bit of tolerance and fun seemed a very good idea.
“Terry can sympathize there. Right, Terry? Terry?”
“Yes. I suppose.”
There was silence. The girls all looked at one another. Juliet struggled to think of something to say that might please Lily and Terry. She hadn’t been sure before she got there, but now she was convinced that Lily and Terry were just the people who could help her burst out of the armor her parents, her schooling, her background had welded for her. But she wasn’t sure how to go about it. She could lay a table for ten courses, she knew all the rules of precedence, and her command of social small talk was extensive, but she had a feeling that Lily and Terry weren’t interested in discussing the weather.
“I can understand your need to get away from your mum and dad,” Terry finally said after Lily nudged her. “But why here? Why us? Why not some nice, genteel flat in Knightsbridge?”