Bookends

by Jane Green

  ‘What’s he like?’ Portia asks.

  ‘Gorgeous,’ Si says. ‘Young sexy Farmer Giles type. All dimples, floppy hair and big white smile.’

  ‘Rather like him?’ she says, gesturing to the door, as I sink back into the sofa, feeling sick at having thought there might have been a different outcome.

  ‘Yes.’ I watch in a deep dark gloom as James guides Ingrid out the door, her face lighting up in a most uncharacteristic way as she turns her head to laugh at something he has said. ‘Exactly like him.’

  I didn’t mean to get drunk last night. In fact I think I was doing incredibly well. Lucy stopped me going hell for leather, and then I’d been knocked sideways by Portia turning up, which definitely sobered me up, and then, after all that, I had to deal with my admirer not actually admiring me in the slightest.

  But once the guests had gone, once Portia had left with strict instructions to be at Lucy and Josh’s house on Saturday the eighteenth (instructions from Lucy, needless to say, Josh having gone back home to pay the babysitter), once it was just Lucy, Si and I, I really let my hair down.

  Bill and Rachel attempted to clear up, but Lucy and I shooed them home with a bottle of champagne each, only regretting it afterwards when we saw the state of the bookshop.

  Our newly polished oak floors were covered in cigarette butts and pools of liquid, and our sparkling coffee tables, strategically dotted close to the old, beaten-up leather sofas, now looked distinctly second hand. Books had been taken off the shelves and randomly shoved back where they clearly didn’t belong, and the air smelt of musty smoke and too many people crammed into too small a space. But I have to say, it was worth it.

  We took one look and decided to leave the clearing up until tomorrow, thanking God that we had had the foresight to leave the actual opening of the shop until Monday.

  I was ready to drop, but Si and Lucy were so high on the success of the party, turning the volume of the CD up loud, dancing on top of the bar, that it was impossible not to join in. And Lucy, wisely (or perhaps unwisely, depending on how you look at things), had stashed a few bottles of champagne in the office for exactly this reason.

  So we cracked it open, we danced, and we started drinking again. Properly. Before the champagne appeared, I was desperate to do the Portia post-mortem with Si, but I could see that it would have to wait until the next day, so I pushed all my questions aside, and Lucy and I toasted one another. Over and over and over again.

  My memories of Si trying to teach us to salsa are reasonably clear. Si and I got the giggles at Lucy’s complete lack of coordination, and when she stepped on his feet for the fourth time we lost it completely in the way that you only lose it completely when you are well and truly pissed, or well and truly stoned, and we hung over the back of the sofa, crying with laughter.

  Si then decided it was time for a change of pace, and Abba went on the stereo, and Si and I did very poor impersonations of the two girls from Muriel’s Wedding impersonating Frida and Agnetha. And, just in case you’re wondering, Si was the blonde. Like you had to ask.

  Josh walked in at some point. I think he was fairly shocked to find Lucy and I lying head to head on the bar, while Si attempted to pour hazelnut syrup into our mouths. Si said it was supposed to be done with tequila, but, since we didn’t have any, the syrups used to flavour the coffees would have to be the next best thing.

  He didn’t seem to be very happy to find Lucy with sugar syrup smeared all over her face and hair.

  ‘Now that,’ he said disapprovingly, ‘is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen. Look at the pair of you. You’re covered in a sticky mess.’

  Lucy hoisted herself up, climbed down from the bar and staggered into the loo to clean up, while I joined Si on the sofa and shouted at Josh.

  ‘You’re an old killjoy,’ I shouted.

  ‘Yeah. An old fart,’ Lucy shouted disloyally from the depths of the loo.

  ‘Why don’t you just let your hair down and have some fun?’ Si said, swigging from the last bottle of champagne and handing it to Josh to finish. Josh took it and tipped the rest of the champagne down the sink.

  ‘Not that I like being called a killjoy,’ he said, ‘but one of us has to act their age, and you’re going to have a hell of a job clearing this up tomorrow. I would suggest that unless you plan to spend the whole day in bed with the largest hangovers you’ve ever had, it’s time to go home.’

  ‘I think, troops,’ said Lucy, as we all struggled up to say goodbye, ‘that much as I hate to admit my boring old husband is right, we should all call it a night.’ And although we all moaned and groaned, today I could kiss Josh for being so stern. I feel bad enough as it is, particularly getting up at the crack of dawn to be in the shop by seven, but if Josh had let us carry on drinking all night, I think my liver might well have collapsed this morning.

  As it was, Si chaperoned me home, which was slightly ridiculous, really, given that he could barely stand. He then came in so we could both drink three bottles of water each, as he had read that if you consume the same amount of water as alcohol drunk that evening, you will wake up hangover-free.

  Unfortunately we could only manage a glass and a half each, and, after his minicab arrived, I stumbled out of my clothes, leaving them lying in heaps on the bedroom floor, and climbed into bed.

  I wake up the next morning to the doorbell ringing, except initially I think it must be the doorbell in my dreams, then it becomes the phone, and finally I realize it’s the door. What the hell do they want at this godforsaken hour on a Sunday, and why the hell don’t they shut up?

  I stumble out of bed, groan as my head pounds like a drum, and walk as quickly as I can to the hallway.

  ‘Hang on,’ I shriek, cringing at the loudness of my own voice. ‘I’m coming.’ And mercifully, the doorbell stops.

  I make my way gingerly back to the bedroom and grab the towelling robe from behind the door, making a mental note to wash it because in the absence of a clean towel I’ve been using it daily for God knows how long, and what was once white is now an interesting spectrum of greys.

  ‘Who is it?’ My voice is back to normal now, I just wish that I were back to normal. My eyes feel like pinheads, my throat is dry and scratchy, and, as if the headache weren’t bad enough, waves of nausea are threatening every few seconds, and I’m not sure whether to answer the front door or head for the bathroom just in case.

  ‘Flower delivery,’ a voice says, and through the frosted glass I can just make out a huge bouquet of flowers. Strange. Who the hell’s sending me flowers? It doesn’t occur to me that no one sends flowers on a Sunday. Ever.

  I open the door quickly, hoping that no one’s around to see me because I don’t even have to look in the mirror to know I look like shit, although frankly with the way that I’m feeling I don’t very much care.

  ‘Thanks,’ I mumble, reaching out to take the flowers, and as I take them they reveal the face of the delivery man. I stand on the spot, paralysed with horror.

  ‘Hi!’ James’s smile fades as he gets his first good look at me. ‘Umm, I didn’t wake you, did I?’

  ‘What? What do you want?’ I don’t mean to be rude, but what the hell is his game? He left last night with Ingrid, doubtless took her back to his amazing studio, probably shagged her senseless, leaving me to spend the evening doing Abba impersonations. And I’m supposed to be pleased to see him?

  ‘Just leave me alone.’ I ignore the bewildered expression on his face, shove the flowers back into his hand and slam the door, groaning as the bang reverberates through my poor thumping head.

  Oh shit. I make my way slowly to the bathroom, sink to my knees on the floor and – to hell with it – stick my fingers down my throat. As soon as I’ve thrown up I start to feel better, if only because the nausea’s subsided, so I go to the medicine cabinet. To Nurofen Plus. To redemption. I take three pills just to be on the safe side, consider drinking a lot more water but can’t quite manage it, drop the towelling robe on the floo
r and stumble back into the bedroom, turning down the volume on the phone on the way. I draw the duvet over my head.

  What is going on? And more to the point, why is it bothering me so much? Why should I care if James and Ingrid got it together? Why do I actually feel upset about this? Enough. I’m not going to do this any more.

  This time I refuse to wake up until my head, my heart and my life have all returned to normal.

  Chapter fourteen

  ‘I can’t move,’ I groan, eyes still closed, phone lying on the pillow beside my head. ‘Leave me alone. I’ve already been disturbed by that bloody James coming over this morning, and now you. Can’t you just go away?’

  ‘Nope.’ Si’s voice is as dodgy as mine. ‘I feel like hell too, but we’ve got to do the post-mortem, and we’ve got to do it before we clean the shop. I mean, what the hell’s the point in bothering to even talk to someone like Portia after ten years if we can’t then get together and talk about her once she’s disappeared again?

  ‘Plus,’ he continues with relish, his voice becoming stronger by the second, ‘I need to know what’s going on with Farmer James the Estate Agent Artist. And, the best way of curing a hangover is a fry-up. We need fried eggs, chips, sausages swimming in grease and baked bea…’ Before he finishes his sentence I’ve jumped out of bed, run to the bathroom and shoved my head back down the bowl of the loo.

  I lean my hands on the sink and look at my reflection, marvelling at the face that stares back. I haven’t had a hangover this bad for years, and I’m sure I never used to look this awful the morning after. I smudge my fingers under my eyes to try to remove the mascara that’s halfway down my cheeks, then splash my face, groaning with relief at the cold water.

  And as I walk back to the bedroom I hear muffled shouts coming from the telephone. I pick it up in amazement.

  ‘You’re still here?’

  ‘I refuse to put the phone down until you agree to meet me for breakfast. And I got the message about the fry-up, so we can just go for a cup of coffee, but I’ve told Lucy you’ll meet her at the shop this afternoon, so you haven’t got an excuse. You have to come.’

  What can I do? I give in and we arrange to meet in an hour’s time.

  An hour later I’m sitting by the window of a cosy café off the high street in Hampstead, nursing a large black coffee and a head that’s not thumping quite as badly as it was, but is nevertheless still thumping.

  I hear a commotion coming down the street, and I peer out of the window to see Si being dragged towards a Yorkshire terrier that’s straining at the leash by none other than Mouse. ‘No!’ he shouts at Mouse, who has managed to get himself wound around a lamppost. ‘Naughty boy!’ He eventually manages to unravel him before looping his lead through a railing just outside the shop and instructing him to sit. Mouse obviously decides to curb his natural exuberance for once, and sinks slowly to the pavement, his eyes looking rather pathetically up at Si as he walks inside and comes to sit down at the table.

  He scrapes the chair away from the table, as I grimace and lift my hands to my tender temples.

  ‘Sorry,’ he whispers, leaning over to give me a kiss.

  ‘What’s Mouse doing here?’

  ‘I forgot I’d promised to babysit. You don’t mind, do you? I’m meeting Will a bit later on and we’re going to take him for a walk.’

  ‘Is Will coming here?’ I try to make the question as nonchalant as possible.

  ‘Don’t worry, you won’t have to see him.’ Si can see straight through me. ‘I’m meeting him at the tube. Now, we both need to order Cokes.’ He goes off into this long explanation of why Coke is the best cure for a hangover, and, even though Coke is the last thing I want right now, once it arrives and I start sipping it slowly, it’s extraordinary how much better I feel.

  In fact, within half an hour I’m feeling so good that suddenly the thought of a fry-up doesn’t sound too bad after all, and we both order exactly the same thing: scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon and fried tomato with copious amounts of white toast. Si debates going for wholemeal, as it’s ‘so much healthier’, but in the end we decide that there really isn’t any point, and that if white bread and brown bread were exactly the same in terms of nutritional content, you’d choose white every time, so what the hell.

  ‘It’s like those times you go into restaurants and see these rather large women ordering garlic bread, spaghetti carbonara with extra Parmesan, and a Diet Coke,’ he snorts, as a rather large woman on the table next to us puts down her almond croissant, picks up her Diet Coke and shoots Si an extremely dirty look.

  ‘First, James,’ Si says, and I tell him what happened last night, up to the point I saw him leave with Ingrid.

  ‘But I thought you weren’t interested,’ Si smirks, as I jump on the defensive.

  ‘I wasn’t. I mean, I’m not. It’s just that everyone was so convinced he was interested in me, and to be honest it was hugely flattering. And he is a nice guy. At least I thought so until last night, and I suppose I just feel let down.’ Something in me stops me from telling Si that I actually feel more than let down.

  ‘But you don’t know that anything happened,’ Si said.

  ‘You saw Ingrid last night. Do you really think he was just walking her home?’

  Si thinks for a minute, then shrugs apologetically. ‘I’m probably not the best person to ask. I’m gay, for God’s sake, I can’t judge Ingrid’s attraction.’

  ‘Bollocks, Si. She looked up for anything last night, and no man can resist that.’

  ‘True, but if he’s as nice a guy as you think he is, then he’s not the type to jump into bed with her on the first night.’

  ‘Not “think he is”. Thought he was. The only thing I think right now is that I was wrong.’

  Si shakes his head and laughs. ‘I can’t even believe we’re having this conversation. This is Cath-the-celibate-one I’m talking to, isn’t it? The one who hasn’t had the slightest bit of interest in men since Martin?’

  ‘I’m still celibate,’ I grunt. ‘Just in case you hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘I had noticed actually, but I still think it’s strange,’ he says pensively. ‘Portia only re-entered our lives last night, but already I feel unsettled, that the dynamic suddenly seems to be changing.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, that we should be having this conversation, for starters. I don’t remember talking to you like this about men since we were third years. I feel as if I’ve regressed ten years, as if we all have. And then did you see Josh’s face last night? If I didn’t know better I’d say he was a lovestruck undergraduate. I almost expected Portia to wind herself round him like a snake and put her tongue in his ear.’

  ‘Jesus!’ My mouth drops open. ‘I can’t believe you just said that. That’s exactly what I was thinking about last night. I hadn’t thought about that for years.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Si says sourly, ‘but isn’t it interesting that that’s the first memory that should come flooding back once Portia turns up. And, pissed as I was last night, I noticed Josh was not a happy bunny by the time he came back. I can’t help but wonder what else is going to change?’

  ‘Si, you’re being a touch overdramatic, don’t you think? She turned up because we were the ones who got in touch with her. Talking to you anyone would think she’s spent the last ten years plotting her revenge and she’s come back to steal all our husbands.

  ‘Well, Lucy’s husband, because obviously you and I are husbandless,’ I continue. ‘But still, Si, I do think that’s slightly ridiculous.’

  ‘So you’re saying that you don’t think she’s come back to set her sights on Josh once again?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Whatever for? The only time she’s ever been interested in Josh was one night, ten years ago. She could have had him permanently then, but if you remember correctly she didn’t want him, and I don’t for a second believe she wants him now.’

  ‘Not even because he’s the only one out of all o
f us who’s actually happily married to a divine wife with a gorgeous child? You don’t think she might be jealous?’

  ‘Did I just hear you use the word “gorgeous” in relation to Max Damien Devilspawn?’

  Si grins.

  ‘Look, if we hadn’t phoned her that day, we wouldn’t have seen her last night. This is all our doing, and you’re just reading far too much into it. Josh was pissed off last night because we were all completely whacked.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Si shakes his head. ‘It’s just a feeling, but I hope I’m wrong. Anyway, I suppose we’ll have to watch this space when she comes to Josh and Lucy for dinner next week. So, back to Farmer James the gorgeous Estate Agent. What was he doing coming over this morning, or is there something you haven’t been telling me?’

  Half an hour later Si manages to persuade me to walk him up to the tube to meet Will.

  ‘You don’t have to stay,’ he begs. ‘Pleeeeaaaase,’ he pleads. ‘I’ll be your best friend for ever and ever, and I’ll invite you to my party.’

  How can I resist? I do, however, clearly state that I will be staying just long enough to say hello, and then I will be off.

  The gorgeous warm sunshine of yesterday has well and truly disappeared, leaving the weather cold and windy, and truly autumnal. I’m grateful I brought my scarf to keep the wind away from bones that are fragile enough already. We stride slowly up the hill, apologizing as Mouse becomes entangled with people or runs across them, tripping them up with his lead.

  My breath is visible in the crisp air, and Si clamps his hands under his armpits to keep them warm, as I dig mine deep down into the pockets of my coat.

  ‘I love this weather,’ Si says, taking a deep breath and exhaling with a look of intense satisfaction on his face.

  ‘Are you serious? Give me the summer anytime. People in short sleeves, carefree, everyone smiling and milling round outside.’

  ‘Nope.’ Si shakes his head. ‘Give me cold, windy winters. Or, even better, this time of year. Autumn. Anything where it’s cold and you have to wrap up warmly. Kicking through the leaves across the heath, then going home to snuggle up under thick blankets with a roaring fire to keep you warm.’ He sighs with pleasure.