by Shari Low
She leant down to start a round of kissing everyone, revealing Richard Campbell behind her.
‘Hey stranger!’ I exclaimed, my delight at seeing him bubbling to the surface. ‘Long time no see.’
‘I know!’ he bellowed. ‘I finally persuaded her that she couldn’t show up at another party on her own so she had to bring me. It’s not that I like her, you understand, it’s just that I miss you lot.’
It was mutual. Since the night Chloe had brought him along to Sasha’s party, he’d become a frequent addition to our gang and we really enjoyed his company.
I was still laughing when I got up to kiss him on both cheeks, closely followed by Sasha, who murmured in a stage whisper, ‘Doctor, feel free to let your hands wander. Justin is pissed already – he’ll never notice.’
‘I would, but I’m not wearing gloves,’ he jousted back, sending her into hoots of hilarity. He was one of the few people who could absolutely handle Sasha’s in-your-face manner and dish every outrageous thing that came out of her mouth right back at her. I loved him for it. Just a shame Chloe didn’t feel the same way. She and Richard had stayed firmly in the friendship zone despite all our efforts to persuade her otherwise.
‘Not one nipple erection in his presence,’ she’d say mournfully. ‘It’s just not meant to be.’
I was fairly convinced he didn’t agree with that summation, but I’d yet to come straight out and ask him, hoping that he’d drop it into conversation with me first. We didn’t bump into each other often, but we’d shared a few coffees in the staff canteen and I’d waited for him to say something about moving things to a different level with Chloe but he never did. Sod it, next time I was just going to come right out with it and ask him. If he was attracted to my friend he should tell her and soon. She was going to need something to take her mind off the discovery that Connor was single again.
Richard sat beside Nate, and immediately got into a chat about football, while Chloe sat in between Sasha and me, then immediately zeroed in on my face.
‘What is it? What’s up?’
It really spooked me that she could read me like that.
I decided to bluff. ‘Nothing! Why would you think that?’
‘Because you’ve got an expression that is somewhere between concern and pity.’ This was why I could never play poker with her.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like your attention please!’ The announcement was accompanied by a rattling of a glass, and came from Justin’s brother Jake, who was swaying on the bar top.
‘Just as well we have a team of medical experts here, because it’ll be a miracle if he doesn’t take a header off there,’ Sasha muttered.
She loved Jake, but as with everyone, she hid it behind a veneer of sarcastic bitchiness.
‘I’d just like to say happy birthday to my brother.’
A cheer went up, then he carried on.
‘Justin, we were too cheap to buy you a present…’
Another cheer.
‘So we got you something that came free instead.’
Just at that, one of Jake’s mates (topless) and my mother, Ida (thankfully not topless), galloped in from a fire exit carrying a long pole. Nothing surprised me. Not a thing. Not since she’d appeared at my school as a parent helper on the occasion of my Primary One Halloween party, dressed in a full country and western outfit, announced that she was Calamity Jane and treated the entire collective gathering to a full rendition of ‘The Deadwood Stage’. With whip. Her arrival now with a pole didn’t even register as a blip on the Ida-ometer.
‘Strip limbo!’ Jake bellowed, as the pub went wild.
‘God, I love him,’ Chloe chuckled.
‘Good,’ Sasha said dryly. ‘You can visit him when he’s in traction.’
Right on cue, Jake wobbled, fell off the bar and was only saved from certain fracture by the super-quick reflexes of a pal who managed to grab him and break his fall.
Interruptions over, and with me trying to studiously ignore the fact that my mother was shuffling under a pole with her knees at an angle that could lead to dislocation, Chloe lost no time at all in getting back to where we’d been before Jake’s highbrow, spiritual speech.
‘So what’s going on?’ she asked, one eyebrow raised.
I wasn’t going to tell her. Not here. Not now…
Who was I kidding? One glance of her raised-eyebrow stare of intimidation and I caved. I’d be a hopeless spy.
‘Nate has been speaking to Connor a lot over the last week or so.’
Her face immediately clouded and she took a large slug of her Southern Comfort and lemonade. ‘How is he?’ she asked.
Oh bugger. The only way was to tell her straight and Nate should be the one to do it so that he got the story absolutely correct.
Unfortunately, he was still analysing the latest developments in the world of men who chased rubber balls.
‘He split with Stacey,’ I blurted, then watched as her face ran a gamut of emotions that moved through surprise, pensiveness, relief and, as predicted, finished somewhere around hope.
‘Is he coming back?’ she asked, and I could see how desperate she was for that to happen. I’d give anything to tell her what she wanted to hear, but instead, I shook my head.
‘I’m so sorry, Chlo, but he isn’t. Nate tried to convince him it would be a good idea but he didn’t want to.’
‘Who broke it off?’ she asked.
‘I think it was mutual. It’s difficult to get the full story. Nate’s rubbish at getting to the bottom of stuff.’
She processed this news for a moment.
‘Look, Chloe, I know you still have feelings for him...’
‘I don’t!’
We both knew she was bluffing, so I carried on, ‘But he doesn’t know how you feel. Maybe you should tell him. You could go there…’
She shook her head so strongly the huge pile of curls on top of her elaborate up-do quivered. ‘No. If he wanted me, he’d come back. He’d fight for me.’
I didn’t think it wise to point out that by refusing to make the first move, she wasn’t exactly putting up a fight for him either.
She was still on a roll. ‘Or at the very least he’d get in touch and sound things out. I know it was my fault that we split, but he moved on a long time ago and there’s no going back.’
‘I don’t think you believe that.’
‘I do. Or at least… I will.’
She rested her head on my shoulder for a moment and I could feel the tension in her neck. She deserved to be happy. She was the loveliest, kindest person and just because she’d made one mistake and let love go…
Would this have been me? If I’d left Nate that night, would I be sitting here now, two years later, wishing that I could get him back? Would I be devastated because he’d moved on and it was too late? I’d never know, and I was pretty sure I didn’t want to find out.
‘I think I’ve been in some kind of weird holding pattern, hoping he’d come back, Liv.’
I knew that was true. She’d been with Rob for about a year around the time of the millennium, but she didn’t shed a tear when they split. Other than that, there had been a few short-term dating situations and that was it. It said everything that the longest relationship she’d had with a member of the opposite sex since Connor left, was with Richard, and that was purely platonic.
I was glad. I’d hate to see her settle for a guy that didn’t drive her wild. And no, it didn’t escape me that I may be projecting slightly there.
‘Fuck it,’ she said, lifting her head off my shoulder and physically shaking off her gloom. ‘You know, it’s his loss.’
‘It is.’ I agreed.
‘I’m not going to sit here moping or waste any more of my life waiting for him to sweep back in and carry me off like Richard Gere in An Officer and A Bloody Gentleman.’
‘I think you’ll find that isn’t the actual title of that movie,’ I said grinning, before knocking back a couple of slugs of my vodka and toni
c. Emotionally draining discussions always made me thirsty. ‘So what are you going to do?’ I added.
Her turn to take another large slug of her Southern Comfort now. She paused after she returned it to the table, clearly pondering the words that would perfectly describe her plan of action moving forward.
‘I’m going to proposition Richard and see if he’s up for being more than just good friends.’
Chapter Four
Barbeque at Liv and Nate’s House
July 2002
The sight of my mother made me grin. There she was, resplendent in a figure-hugging red dress, her ever-present heels, hair teased to perfection, wearing an apron with a nude, male, six-pack torso on it, while holding up a grilling fork.
‘Right, love, I’ve put the Cajun chicken on the barbeque – got the recipe from that Naked Chef bloke,’ she proclaimed. ‘He could boil my eggs any time.’
I didn’t rise to it. It was best not to – it only encouraged her. ‘Thanks, Mum.’
Nate came out of the house behind me, carrying a case of beer and began to unload it into a large rubber ice bucket that was put into service whenever we had friends round.
Are you okay?’ he asked as he passed me on the way back to the kitchen for more beers.
I nodded. Then shrugged. Then shook my head. Which pretty much summed up the bubbling conflict of emotions I was feeling right now. Losing patients was an unavoidable part of my job and I accepted that. One of the reasons I went into palliative care was because I truly thought I could help people in the last days of their lives and I was positive I could deal with the emotional pressure that came with it. Mostly that was true, but every now and then I lost a patient I’d come to know and to care about on a deeper level, and Charlie Moss was one of those people. Twenty-two years old. Wrong. Unfair. Devastating. Just heart-breaking.
In all honesty, after the sadness of the last few days, I didn’t feel like the glittering hostess. I could happily spend the afternoon under a duvet on the couch, with a flask of tea and some serious comfort food.
Today had been arranged for weeks, though, and I didn’t have the heart to call it off. It was supposed to be a celebration of our house renovation finally being finished. A couple of weeks ago, we’d washed out our last paintbrush, inhaled our last lungful of dust and – after a day of near-divorce in IKEA’s soft furnishings department – added the finishing touches to the house. It was done. Weirdly, since then I’d been a bit lost. It felt like the work in the house had been the purpose of the last year or two, and now it was finished, I wasn’t sure what should occupy our free time.
Barbeques! That was the answer. Weekly doses of Ida’s Cajun chicken. Not that such a concept was possible in Scotland. We’d been lucky to have a dry, sunny day today, but the weather was so unpredictable we could have anything from torrential rain to snow by next weekend.
I shook off the gloom and told myself to stop being pathetic. Charlie would be the very person who wouldn’t be wasting his time sitting here reflecting on the sorrow. He’d be making the most of every minute and that’s exactly what I should be doing too. Besides, my mates were on the way here and if anyone could cheer me up, it was them.
I realised Nate was still standing there, his face a mask of concern.
‘I’m fine, really. I’ll just go help Mum and check everything is organised.’ I already knew it was, because I’d been up since 6 a.m. making sure we were fully prepared, but it got me out of a longer discussion with Nate, and I saw the relief on his face as I said it. In-depth, emotional conversations were up there with a trip to IKEA on his ‘Things to Avoid’ list.
Before I got very far, I heard the click of the garden gate and the voice from behind me immediately made me smile.
‘Hello there!’
‘Good afternoon, Doctor Campbell,’ I teased, as I let him wrap me in a huge hug.
It was easy to see why Dr Richard Campbell was the object of many desires at the hospital. He had that easy-going smile and contagious charm that just made him fun to be around. I’d still really hoped that he and Chloe would get together and become a couple, but they never had. I knew she’d considered it once, the year before, at Justin’s birthday party, when she’d heard that Connor was single again but not coming home. She’d made some comment about drowning her sorrows by taking things with Richard to the level that involves seeing stuff that can’t be unseen, but she’d bottled out before it happened because she said no amount of Southern Comfort could manufacture sexual chemistry between them. Thus, their friendship remained unblemished by misguided naked fumblings, leaving Chloe to keep her position as his chief friend and supplier of advice on his dating life, his work life, and any other part of his life she chose to voice an opinion on.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked Richard, then realised that sounded rude, so immediately followed up with, ‘Although I’m so glad you are! That came out completely wrong.’
Fortunately, my faux pas cracked him up. ‘Well, thanks. You know how to make a bloke feel welcome.’
‘Oh hush and stop being so sensitive,’ I chided him, laughing. It had been ages since I’d seen him. He’d definitely established a friendship with all of us and he’d fitted right in, but Chloe was the link between us all and he only hung out with us when Chloe brought him along to a gathering.
He returned to my question. ‘Chloe invited me over. Just so happened we were both off on the same day. That hasn’t happened for a while, so I jumped at the chance to come here for some of Ida’s cooking.’
‘Ah, you are such a smooth-talker. She’s over there wearing the torso of a male stripper. She’ll be delighted to see you. If she makes any inappropriate innuendos, feel free to file a complaint on the way out.’
I watched as he headed off in Ida’s direction and her face beamed as she saw him approach. She’d a real soft spot for him and every conversation she’d had with Chloe for the last year had included a plea for her to see sense and snap him up. It took a tough cookie to refuse Ida anything, but Chloe was standing her ground in the platonic zone.
Chloe arrived not long after Richard, closely followed by Sasha and Justin.
I immediately sensed Sasha’s vibe and it wasn’t a happy one. It didn’t take a genius to work out why. Justin was heading towards Ida, Nate and Richard at the barbeque, and yup, there it was. Even from here I could see that he was swaying in the manner of someone who’d had way too many beers for this time of day.
This wasn’t going to end well.
Sasha didn’t lighten up at all in the next half-hour or so, and by the time the guys headed towards us with the food, Sasha looked fit to explode. Ida had the sausages and steak. Richard was clutching a large dish of burgers. Nate had the box of beers and Justin had…
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’ he exclaimed, as he staggered to the side and somehow lost his balance. Thankfully, Richard managed to steady him before the chicken skewers went scattering across the lawn.
Sasha closed her eyes for a second and I could see that she was struggling to hold it together. Chloe spotted it too, so she immediately jumped in with a diversion.
‘Right, guys, I’ve decided we need something to look forward to, so how about a group holiday next year? I’m thinking Los Angeles. Not too hot for the ginger,’ she gestured to me and I nodded in thanks for her consideration, ‘and so much to do there for all of us. The flights are on sale this week, so I reckon we should book it and sort out accommodation later. Although, I’m thinking if we all chip in we might even be able to afford something in Santa Monica or Malibu. Please say yes, because I need to start the diet now if I’m going to get into a bikini.’
‘I’m in!’ I yelped, without any hesitation, desperate to join Chloe’s argument-avoiding bandwagon. Besides, life was so much better when we had a beach and cocktails on the horizon.
Richard was next. ‘Sounds good to me. I’ll need to check I can get the dates that suit everyone, but I’m up for it.’ I loved his sense of adventure – he w
as always game for anything.
‘I’m in,’ Sasha agreed, but with less enthusiasm.
‘Partyyyyyyyy on the beach in Mal-i-bu. Baywatch baby!’ Justin exclaimed, holding his bottle of Bud in the air and doing an impromptu dance. I made a mental note to make sure Sasha didn’t burn his return ticket and leave him in LA.
So we were all in. Chloe, Richard, Sasha, Justin, me and… My gaze went to Nate, who was strangely quiet on the subject. No immediate acceptance.
My mum was uncharacteristically schtum too. What was going on? The only time I ever saw her speechless was when Tom Jones was on the TV.
‘What am I missing?’ I asked, eying them both with suspicion. If Ida and Nate were colluding, God knows what the outcome could be.
Nate tried to brush it off. ‘Nothing. We’ll talk about it later.’
Now I was absolutely positive something was going on.
‘I don’t want to talk about it later. There’s nothing you can’t say in front of everyone here.’ It was true. There were no secrets in our group.
‘No, it’s…’
‘He wants to start a family,’ Ida blurted. ‘Soon as possible. And, for what it’s worth, I’d like a grandchild. Or two. Let’s face it, love, you’re not getting any younger.’
Sasha and Chloe slowly turned their heads to face me, both with eyebrows high, lips pursed and expressions of expectation.
Bollocks.
How many levels of wrong were in that outburst?
‘Let me get this straight. You two have been getting together to discuss future options for my ovaries? Were you intending to include me in this little plan or were you just hoping that some Rambo sperm would impregnate me next time I brush past you on the way out the door?’
‘Liv, don’t… it wasn’t like that, it was just…’
I wasn’t having it. Not today. Not any bloody day. I wasn’t prone to scenes or drama, but my womb was fucking furious and determined not to let this go. Ida first. I tried my best to keep my voice steady but firm.