Bookends

by Jane Green

  ‘You’ve got to sit down because you’re never going to believe this!’ Lucy is bursting, bursting to tell us something, and I’m assuming it’s good news, because if she’d found out about Josh there’s no way she’d have this mischievous look on her face.

  ‘Pour some wine, quick. Okay. Listen. I can’t believe this myself. This weekend is the weekend that, as you know, Ingrid’s away with the mystery lover.’

  ‘Yes?’ Si and I both say simultaneously.

  ‘Do you want the short version or the long version?’

  ‘Short,’ I say, as Si says, ‘Long.’

  ‘Oh God. Well, the middle version is that Ingrid had said the mystery lover was picking her up this evening and I was supposed to be at work and we’d got Laura to babysit, but I got home earlier than I’d planned, and you’re never going to believe what I walked in on…’

  Si and I shoot each other worried glances, but no, it couldn’t possibly be Josh.

  Lucy sits back and grins like the cat that got the cream. ‘I walked in on Ingrid and the mystery lover locked in a passionate embrace in the kitchen.’

  ‘And?’ Si’s now starting to look bored. ‘Some swarthy Italian? Playboy type? Medallion and hairy chest?’

  Lucy shakes her head, her smile growing wider. ‘Nope,’ and she pauses dramatically until even Si starts to look interested. ‘It’s Portia!’

  ‘WHAT?’ Si knocks his wine glass over, my mouth falls open and my chin hits the floor.

  ‘You are joking?’ I leave it to Si to speak, as I am, for possibly the first time in my life, completely speechless.

  ‘Nope.’ Lucy shakes her head. ‘I know! Portia! Isn’t it extraordinary!’

  ‘Extraordinary. Are you sure?’ Si’s now looking doubtful.

  ‘Sure? Si, they pulled apart looking terribly embarrassed, and then Portia shrugged and said we had to find out sometime, and they both grinned and left the house holding hands.’

  ‘Nooooooooo,’ I manage to breathe out eventually, my eyes as wide as saucers, because this is the very last thing I ever expected. I mean, Portia? Ingrid? How? When? Oh Christ. This is just too much for me. I sit down, mouth still agape.

  ‘I know. Portia and Ingrid! In lurrve!’ Lucy’s loving every second of this.

  ‘Actually,’ Si says, ‘I always thought Portia had a leaning towards her Sapphic sisters.’

  ‘Did you bollocks!’ I respond, because it’s the first I’ve heard of it.

  ‘What?’ He looks at me, innocence personified. ‘Just because I may not have mentioned it to you doesn’t mean I didn’t think it.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ I say, grinning, because I know, and he knows I know, that this is absolutely rubbish. ‘But Christ, how did this happen?’

  Lucy shrugs. ‘Ingrid’s hardly likely to tell me the whole story, is she?’

  ‘Didn’t Portia drop any hint at all when you were over there the other night?’ I turn to Si.

  ‘No. We didn’t even mention Ingrid. And anyway, what’s she going to say, oh by the way, Si, I know we’ve known one another for thirteen years, but I’m now a lesbian and I’m in love with Ingrid?’

  ‘Si, wouldn’t she be bisexual rather than a lesbian?’ Lucy, ever politically correct, interrupts.

  Si shrugs.

  ‘But Portia!’ It hits me again. ‘It’s just unbelievable.’

  ‘You should have seen Josh’s face!’ Lucy starts to laugh.

  ‘Josh?’ Si and I together, and I suddenly think, God, were we wrong again? And a deep shame engulfs me as I realize that yet again Si and I have jumped to conclusions and punished Josh for something he evidently hasn’t done, and I shoot Si a worried glance, only to see him shooting exactly the same back to me.

  ‘I thought Josh was away?’ Si manages to sound breezily nonchalant as Lucy’s busy concentrating on unwrapping the Dairy Milk.

  ‘He was supposed to be, but it got cancelled at the last minute.’

  ‘So where is he now?’

  ‘Still trying to pull off this big deal. He’s upstairs in his study, working, and I know I should have told you he’d be around but quite honestly he’ll probably be stuck up there all night and I haven’t seen the two of you like this for ages, and I didn’t want you not to come because you thought Josh would be around.’

  I for one, am completely speechless, and I can see that Si is also lost for words, but thankfully Max chooses that moment to disrupt the shamed atmosphere in the kitchen by zooming around the kitchen table with Pokémon in hand, screeching into chairs and making a huge amount of noise, until Si scoops him up and asks whether he’d like a story.

  Lucy looks at him gratefully, and as Si carries Max out of the room he turns to me and says, ‘Come on, Cath, it’ll be good practice. Come and help me.’

  Lucy starts to laugh. ‘Good practice? Good practice? My darling Cath, you cannot mean to tell me you’re already talking sproglets, are you? Although heaven knows it’s about time.’

  ‘Don’t even go there,’ I whisper furiously, because,-okay, okay, I confess. Lucy does know about James – I had to tell someone – and I don’t want her saying anything, but luckily Si is standing at the foot of the stairs, just out of earshot, making big eyes at me and frantically waving me over.

  ‘Okay, I’m coming.’ I get up and as soon as we’re safely upstairs Si sends Max off to find last year’s Furby, telling him that the Pokémon wants to destroy it, and then whispers, ‘Christ, we’ve got to apologize to Josh. I feel awful.’

  ‘I know. But what are we supposed to say?’

  ‘Oh, God knows, but I think we just have to do it.’ He shoots a glance at Max, who’s on his hands and knees rifling through the toy chest and muttering to himself as he pulls the toys out.

  ‘Will he be all right?’

  ‘He’ll be hours,’ Si says, pulling his sweater up to reveal a small brown and white Furby nestling in his waistband. ‘I had to pull the bloody batteries out to stop it speaking Furbish.’ He rolls his eyes as I start to laugh. ‘Come on, let’s go and find Josh.’

  As we walk up to the study door we can hear the sounds of typing, and Si makes the sign of the cross, pretends to pray, then knocks on the door. The typing stops.

  ‘Yup?’

  ‘Josh? It’s Si. And Cath. Can we come in?’ Si is already opening the door as he asks this, making it a purely rhetorical question, and Josh swivels round from his desk.

  ‘Hi, guys,’ he says nonchalantly, which, if you didn’t know any better, you might think was a sign that there was nothing wrong, but there is a warmth missing in his voice, and I suddenly realize how awful this must have been for Josh. We are, after all, two of his best friends, and for weeks now we’ve been giving him the cold shoulder without letting him know the reason why, and poor, poor Josh, with all his insecurities, must have felt terrible. Why did I not think of this before?

  ‘Josh, we need to talk to you,’ I start, then stop, because how on earth do you explain, or justify, or apologize for what we’ve done?

  ‘The thing is,’ Si says, moving across the room to the futon pushed against the wall and sitting down. ‘We feel ridiculous and we feel ashamed because we thought you were having an affair with Portia – ’

  ‘Well, actually that was my fault, because I saw you in Barnes one night with Portia and I immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion, but then we discovered you weren’t,’ I interrupt.

  Si continues, ‘But only because we then thought you were having an affair with Ingrid.’

  Josh just sits there and looks at us, not saying a word, his face giving nothing away.

  ‘And now we know that you didn’t, you hadn’t, and we feel terrible because we’ve been so awful to you, but we were only trying to protect Lucy,’ I say lamely.

  There’s a long silence.

  ‘What made you think I would be unfaithful to Lucy?’ Josh says after a while.

  ‘Well, you were hardly ever here, and you kept having these late meetings and then, when you were here
, you weren’t interested in sex…’ Whoops. I think I’ve just gone too far, and I see Josh clench his teeth, which means he is seriously pissed off, but, repressed as he is, he won’t be letting it out, which is something of a relief.

  I shrug apologetically. ‘I’m sorry, Josh. We both are. We were just so angry and upset at the thought of you hurting Lucy.’ Si and I hang our heads in shame.

  And Josh shakes his head, looks at the floor, then up at the ceiling, then at the floor again. ‘I didn’t know what it was,’ he says eventually. ‘I couldn’t figure out why the pair of you had just switched off. At least now I know.’

  ‘Oh, Josh, please forgive us?’ I can feel my eyes welling up, and I feel terrible, and I know I won’t feel good again until I have his forgiveness.

  ‘What can I say?’ Josh looks first at me, then at Si. ‘You’re my oldest friends, and I suppose, at least, you’ve been honest with me. But why didn’t you say something before? I mean, if you thought I was having an affair, why didn’t you confront me with it instead of just cutting me dead? Christ, we’re not children any more.’

  ‘But we’ve never had to deal with this kind of situation before,’ Si says. ‘And I agree, with hindsight we were absolutely wrong in what we did, and we would never do that again, and if we ever have a problem in the future I swear to you we’ll sit down and talk about it.’

  ‘You mean, if you ever think I’m having an affair again?’ but Josh’s voice is soft and I can see he’s forgiven us.

  But before Si has a chance to answer, the study door is pushed open and Max stands there, eyes bright and alert, the war between Pokémon and Furby completely forgotten.

  ‘Daddy?’ he says, climbing on to Josh’s lap. ‘Can I go to affair too? And can I have a toffee apple and a candy floss?’ The three of us start to laugh, and it is the first time I have ever wanted to kiss Max.

  Chapter thirty-one

  ‘Not… SEX!’ Si squeals, when I finally admit everything, having successfully managed to keep it from him, and now realizing that I have to give him something to look forward to when he gets back from Tenerife, and what would be better than gossip?

  ‘Yes,’ I admit reluctantly, after much sighing. ‘I did it. We actually had sex.’

  Si screams down the phone, and we both start laughing. ‘And what’s more,’ I say gleefully, ‘you were absolutely right about it being like a bicycle, and it was lovely.’

  ‘You witch! You complete witch! I can’t believe you waited a week to tell me. I knew it. I knew you looked different! So how do you feel?’

  ‘Amazing.’

  ‘And you spent the rest of the weekend with him?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘And you’ve seen him how many times since?’

  ‘Almost every night,’ I admit sheepishly.

  ‘OH MY GOD!’ and this time he shouts so loudly my eardrums practically pop, but then he recovers and says very seriously, ‘Now, Cath. Don’t do what I’ve always done. Don’t jump in feet first looking for a big relationship. You must take it slowly, play it cool.’

  ‘Oh fuck off,’ I snort, and he laughs, because this is, of course, what I have always said to Si.

  ‘Details, details,’ Si says, ‘I want details. Oh no. Oh bugger. I’ve got to go.’

  ‘I know,’ I chuckle maniacally. ‘That’s why I left it until now to call. Oh well,’ I say, letting out a dramatic sigh. ‘You’ll just have to wait for the details until you get back from Tenerife. Have a lovely time. Bye.’

  ‘CATH!’ he shrieks. ‘Don’t you dare. Oh God, oh God, I can’t bear this. I have to wait a whole week. Just tell me one thing, when are you seeing him again?’

  ‘Wednesday night,’ I say. ‘He’s taking me to the theatre.’

  I can hear the awe in Si’s voice. ‘The theatre, indeed? Now that sounds serious.’

  ‘Look, you. You’re going to miss your flight. And I’m going to miss you. Will you take really good care?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Fuss, fuss.’

  ‘No, I’m serious. Look after yourself, and I’ll see you the weekend after next and I love you.’

  ‘I know, sweets.’ He blows me a kiss down the phone. ‘I love you too.’

  For someone who has spent years erecting barriers around her love life, I’m doing a remarkably good job of letting them down.

  But perhaps the strangest thing of all is that it simply doesn’t feel scary. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it felt right, but of course I do know better, so instead I’ll say it feels easy.

  So, so easy. Although it’s been years, I well remember the men who didn’t call, who’d phone to cancel ten minutes before I was due to see them, who’d say they would phone and then never would.

  And maybe it’s different because I’ve known James for a while now, or maybe it’s because he has more integrity than anyone I’ve ever met (and that’s saying something for an estate agent), but he does exactly what he says he’s going to do.

  When he says he’s going to phone, he phones. If he says he’ll pick me up at seven thirty, he’s on the doorstep at seven twenty-nine. There is no messing about with James, and I always, always know exactly where I stand.

  God. I could get used to this.

  For the first time in my life I can see what successful partnerships are made of. Not that I was completely blind to them before, but I’d never actually experienced it for myself, and now, since James, I can absolutely see what it is that makes it work.

  Because we just get on so well. I feel totally, completely, one hundred per cent relaxed in his company. There are no games, no insecurities, and I have never felt quite so comfortable being myself with anyone other than Si, Josh and Lucy.

  Yes, yes, I know it hasn’t been long, but when you’re seeing someone all night, almost every night, it’s remarkable how quickly a relationship can progress.

  And as for my fear of relationships, of exposing myself, even that seems to have disappeared pretty damn quickly. In fact, since the morning after the first night we spent together, I haven’t even felt a flicker of fear, but then again I suppose I haven’t had to.

  James calls me in the shop every day, at least twice a day, and we’ve been, as I already said, together every night. I know it’s slightly early to say this, but it does seem that already we’re settling into a pattern. Lucy, of course, is over the moon; she was almost bursting with excitement when I first told her, and now I can’t wait for Si to get back so I can fill him in.

  I wouldn’t normally drive to Heathrow to pick anyone up, not even Si, but he happened accidentally-on-purpose to leave a copy of his itinerary at my house before he left, and at the time I’d planned to ignore it, although that was before my big adventure with James.

  So here I am, and the bloody flight’s delayed, and there are hundreds of people milling around, and it’s far too early in the morning for me to be doing this.

  I grab a coffee from a stand and buy a paper, and when I’ve finished ploughing through I realize that the flight has now landed, and I rush to Arrivals to surprise Si.

  He is almost the first one through, which doesn’t surprise me, as he’s such an incredibly neat and orderly packer that he usually manages to get away with hand luggage only. I push my way to the front so he can see me.

  He’s sharing his trolley with another man, around the same age, and they’re both laughing and talking animatedly as they walk through, so animatedly they don’t see me until I’m practically on top of the trolley.

  ‘CATH!’ Si throws his arms around me and lifts me up, which is no mean feat, I can tell you, and when he puts me down again, a split second later, his grin is ear to ear. ‘I can’t believe you’re here!’ He turns to the man with him, ‘And there we were, about to jump on the train to Paddington. Thank heavens for large mercies.’

  ‘Not that large.’ I smack him, and he winces in mock pain.

  ‘Cath, this is Paul,’ he says, standing aside for me to have a good look at his companion, who grins at me, sho
wing rather gorgeous dimples in his cheeks, and warmly shakes my hand. ‘I suppose you won’t believe me if I tell you I’ve heard all about you and all of it’s good?’ he says, smiling.

  ‘You were doing so well until the last bit,’ I say, grining back, thinking how attractive this man is, and wondering how on earth they met.

  ‘Paul was staying in the apartment next to mine,’ Si explains, reading my mind. ‘We met on the first day…’

  ‘And haven’t been apart since.’ Paul squeezes Si’s arm as he looks at him affectionately, and I feel a jolt of excitement.

  Si catches my eye, gives me a half shrug, a big grin and an unsubtle wink, and it’s all I can do not to grab him and twirl him around the Arrivals lounge, so thrilled and proud am I.

  And Si looks fantastic. Not that I was expecting anything less, but he looks tanned, healthy, positively glowing, and I know that sun, sea and sand alone haven’t given him this glow, even if the sun was amazingly hot for December.

  I grab the trolley and the three of us walk to the car park, leaving Paul in charge of the bags because Si insists on accompanying me to the car park pay machine.

  ‘Well?’ he hisses, just as soon as we’re out of earshot. ‘Isn’t he gorgeous?’

  ‘Gorgeous,’ I echo, laughing. ‘I can’t believe you. I mean, I expected you to come back looking all lovely and tanned, but I certainly didn’t expect you to have some beefcake on your arm.’

  ‘Well, sweets. Neither did I!’ I look at him slyly as I feed the coins into the machine. ‘I swear! I really wasn’t, and wouldn’t you know it, just when I’ve reached the point where a relationship is absolutely, one hundred per cent not what I want or need, I go and meet someone lovely.’

  I turn to him slowly. ‘Did I just hear you use the word relationship? Is it time for the onion rings yet?’

  ‘No,’ Si laughs. ‘It’s not a relationship, but we’ve had an incredible time, and he’s sweet, and bright, and funny, and for the first time in years I haven’t fallen head over heels.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  ‘No, I’m serious, Cath. If anything he’s been the one doing all the chasing. Meanwhile, speaking of chasing. You’re still having sex, aren’t you? It’s written all over your face.’