A Funny Thing About Love

by Rebecca Farnworth

  ‘Knock yourself out,’ Carmen replied gloomily. ‘He probably hates me now. And you’re prettier than me anyway. My eyelashes could never compete with yours.’

  ‘It’s a thin line,’ Sadie agreed. ‘But I’m sure you could turn him round in that Vivienne Westwood dress.’

  ‘I may well have to sell it,’ Carmen said sadly, looking down at the red drape dress that she adored.

  ‘Oh no! You could never sell Vivienne! That would be like selling one of your children.’ Carmen raised her eyebrows. Sadie had the grace to look ashamed. ‘Sorry, Carmen, wrong comparison.’

  ‘Lucky for you I really like you,’ Carmen said, but she instantly forgave Sadie her slip. Humour and friendship were always needed and never more so than now.

  ‘So will you come and see me in Brighton?’ Carmen demanded. ‘At least once a week – it’s only forty-nine minutes on a fast train. And that’s practically the same as going from North to South London.’ She fixed Sadie with a beady eye, as she had an appalling reputation for never leaving the capital.

  ‘Of course!’ Sadie said brightly. ‘I love the seaside, especially Brighton. It’s so sexy and brash, like a Jean Paul Gaultier perfume ad. I always expect to see sailors in tight Breton vests and white bell-bottoms strolling along the promenade, arm in arm. And there were those marvellously surreal marshmallow penises for sale everywhere last time I was down, and men in tiny gold hot pants dancing on floats.’

  Parallel universe, Carmen thought, I rest my case. ‘You’re thinking of Pride, sweetie, it’s not always like that.’

  ‘Oh, isn’t it?’ Sadie was disappointed. For her, a sailor came a close second to a comic. Ironic, really, as they at least would appreciate her gale warnings for their content and not just as a sex aid.

  ‘There are lovely shops, though,’ Carmen wheedled. ‘Space NK, Mac and various designer boutiques.’ God, what was she? A representative from Brighton tourist board?

  ‘Chanel?’ Sadie said hopefully. She didn’t recognise anywhere as being civilised without those iconic two ccs of approval.

  ‘I’m not sure, I’ll find out.’

  ‘It’s just that you know I wither if I’m not within ten miles of a designer store.’ It wasn’t that Sadie could afford to buy designer, she couldn’t; she just liked to go into such stores and try things on, just for the thrill of it, much to the annoyance of the über snooty assistants. Sadie stroked her pillar-box red quilted Chanel bag protectively. She also had one in black, which was why she could only afford one chair in her living room and had a very large credit card bill, but ‘Who needs furniture when you can be fabulous?’ was her motto. It was not one Carmen shared after enduring one-too-many bum-numbing nights at Sadie’s, sitting on an ancient bean bag that had spilled most of its beans.

  ‘I’ll come and see you lots and lots, Carmen, I promise.’ Marcus was being extra nice now; he realised he had gone too far with his threat to seduce Will. ‘And you’ll have Jess down the road.’

  ‘Does she still hate me?’ Sadie asked, looking at her gnocchi and trying to seem casual.

  ‘Pretty much,’ Carmen replied. The three of them had been great friends when they’d shared a flat in Tufnell Park. Carmen knew Jess from uni, and Jess had been at school with Sadie. Three had been the magic number until one fateful week nine years ago when Jess and her boyfriend Sean had been on a break. In a night of drunken, never-to-be-repeated abandon Sadie and Sean had ended up sleeping together. A month later Jess and Sean had made up, but when Sean fessed up about Sadie all hell broke loose. Jess refused to speak to Sadie, who ended up moving out. Nor would Jess ask Sadie to her wedding or invite her to see her baby son Harry. They’d met over the years at various friends of friends’ but had never patched things up – Jess’s nickname for Sadie was ‘the bitch whore from hell’. Indeed, Carmen often felt as if she was torn between two lovers as each of the two former friends was fiercely possessive of her and always monitored how much time she spent with the other.

  Talk then turned to Marcus’s latest stand-up tour, which was due to kick off the following year, to Leo being a workaholic and how rarely Marcus got to see him, and to Sadie’s burgeoning relationship with Dom. In spite of Carmen’s warning, Sadie had gone out with him again. She had paid for the cinema as he was skint again, and afterwards he had lasted until South East Iceland, which at least was an improvement. Sadie persisted in thinking he was sweet as he had given her the complimentary Twinings tea bags from the hotel he’d been staying at in Doncaster while doing a gig.

  ‘But they were free!’ Carmen told her.

  ‘Yeah, but it’s nice that he was thinking of me,’ Sadie replied, a tad defensive.

  She was a moth to the comedy flame. Carmen and Marcus just looked at each other, too despairing of Sadie’s addiction to tossers to expend energy on an eye roll or arch of a brow. And then it was time to say goodbye and for Carmen to return to her flat for the last time.

  As everything was in storage she had to kip down on a lilo in a sleeping bag, with only Basil for company. She found herself humming ‘Papa was a Rolling Stone’ as she tried to get comfortable. Goodbye Hornsey/Crouch End borders, Goodbye sexy firemen. Hello, Brighton.

  7

  Carmen had not been to Marcus’s seaside pad before, as he’d always rented it out. So when she walked in she was stunned by the size of the living room, the neck-cricking high ceilings, the huge bay window giving a fantastic view of the sea. Today, this was admittedly not looking its best as it was a relentless steely grey, the colour of old-lady curls, but still impressive compared to Carmen’s old view of the fire station, even if the firemen were cuties. But she was also struck by the terrifying minimalism of the flat – just a fireplace, an elegant Venetian glass mirror above it, glass shelves, a single glass coffee table, an Arctic white leather sofa, a chandelier. The only splash of colour was a bottle-green velvet armchair. That would have to be her seat, she couldn’t imagine chilling out on a white sofa. Carmen loved clutter and bohemian touches. In fact, she could feel panic setting in as she viewed the vast expanse of highly polished dark wooden floorboards and the large white rug occupying the middle of the room like some kind of designer cloud. What kind of person had a white rug? She was bound to spill red wine over it. She needed to be surrounded by clutter and colour right now.

  Quickly she set Basil down on the coffee table and got out her snow globe collection and arranged all twenty of them on one of the shelves. Then she got out the photographs of her friends and family, displayed in a variety of silver or crystal-encrusted frames, and plonked her branch of cherry-tree lights in a vase on the mantelpiece. She plugged them in and was immediately reassured when they gave off their friendly pink glow. Finally she sat in the armchair and surveyed her new home, calmed by the infusion of colour and stuff.

  It was a first-floor flat in the highly desirable Sussex Square – a stunning Regency crescent of elegant white stuccoed houses built around a beautiful private garden. Marcus had given her three facts – one that Sir Laurence Olivier once had a house here; two that Lewis Carroll was inspired to write Alice in Wonderland by the secret tunnel that led from the garden to the sea, and three that the beach directly opposite her was reserved for nudists. Carmen got up and peered out of the window, wondering if she would catch a glimpse of a bare arse bobbing around on the pebbles. The steely sea and banks of orangey-brown pebbles and chilly October air certainly did not invite one to take one’s kit off. Even in blazing sunshine it was hard to imagine wanting to strip off on such an exposed beach. Surely nudism should only be entered into on some exotic island paradise, with white sand and a turquoise sea that would be warm to the skin?

  There was something deeply soothing about looking out to sea, the feeling of space uninterrupted by people, buildings and traffic. This was her new start. She could almost feel some of the tension of the past weeks leave her. Almost. She still felt terrible about Will. She hadn’t followed up her apology, in spite of Marcus and Sadie nagging her. But
it was pointless thinking about him now; she really had burned all her bridges and it was futile to wish things were different. Things were as they were. The harsh, insistent cry of a passing seagull interrupted her reverie. God, they were noisy! Almost as intrusive as the beep-beep of the fire station doors opening. The noise reminded her of the time; she was due at Jess’s for dinner in twenty minutes.

  Jess lived in a residential area of Brighton, which she had assured Carmen was within walking distance. Carmen enjoyed the stroll along Marine Drive, which ran by the sea. It was lined with Regency-style houses and flats, many fetchingly accessorised with wrought-iron balconies and pillars. A short distance away the brassy Palace Pier squatted in the waves, shadowed by the ghostly iron skeleton of the ruined West Pier. Ha, the iron structure seemed to say, this is what you could end up as one day. In the meantime the Palace Pier was going for it with its flashing neon lights, booths selling doughnuts and chips and fortune telling, an assortment of scary rides, and candy-striped helter-skelter. However, Carmen did not enjoy the uphill climb to Jess’s house and her shoe boots had definitely been a mistake. It was a chilly evening, but by the time she had climbed up the one-in-ten gradient hill, (okay, it probably wasn’t as steep as that but it felt it) she was red-faced and out of breath.

  ‘Oh my God, Jess!’ she exclaimed as her friend opened the front door to her terraced house. ‘You could have warned me about the hill.’

  ‘You’ve been here before!’ Jess replied, giving her a hug.

  ‘Yes, but I always got a taxi! And now I’m in the grip of credit-crunch-no-salary scenario I had to walk and my feet are killing me!’

  They both looked down at Carmen’s killer heels. ‘It’s UGGs for you, baby. Brighton has hills. UGGs in winter, Birkenstocks in summer. That is the rule,’ Jess told her. Ah well, Carmen thought, it could have been worse, Jess could have said Crocs.

  Carmen followed Jess along the hall and downstairs to the basement kitchen/diner, carefully avoiding the detritus that seven-year-old Harry had left in his wake, the assorted pieces of Lego that Carmen knew from bitter past experience really hurt when you trod on them barefoot, the skateboard, football and folded-up scooter. Jess poured Carmen a more than generous glass of red wine.

  ‘Easy, Jess,’ Carmen joked, ‘I’ve got to write tomorrow, and whereas I could always bluff my way as an agent, I’ve found out the hard way that I absolutely cannot write with a hangover.’

  ‘Oh, get it down you,’ Jess insisted, plonking the glass on the worn oak table which was covered with Harry’s elaborate drawings of space ships and spindly aliens patrolling their planets.

  ‘Where is Harry?’ Carmen asked, carefully clearing a space for her wine. She didn’t want to be the bad grown-up who ruined Harry’s precious artwork with a red wine stain.

  ‘He’s away with Sean for the weekend – they’ve gone to see Sean’s sister in London.’

  ‘Didn’t you want to go?’

  Jess shook her head. ‘Nope, I’ve got a mountain of marking to do and I wanted to see you. I could do with a break from both of them, if you must know.’ She held up her glass. ‘Anyway, cheers, Carmen.’

  Carmen held up her glass. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘I know you’ve been through it, but you look good, girlfriend,’ Jess told her.

  ‘Thanks,’ Carmen replied, ‘I guess misery must be good for the cheekbones and stomach. I’ve been feeling so stressed I’ve hardly eaten anything, apart from Oreos and Hula Hoops.’

  ‘God, I hate you!’ Jess shot back. ‘If I’m stressed I always end up eating even more, it’s like my body goes into survival mode and has to stock up.’ Jess was a very attractive woman with long chestnut-brown hair. Her most striking feature was her beautiful hazel-coloured eyes framed by well-shaped dark eyebrows. Carmen had frequently suffered eyebrow envy when looking at Jess. Jess also had a pale complexion, which she had loathed for years until everyone realised that baking your English rose skin in the burning sun was not such a good idea. And a lovely, voluptuous figure that she was always hiding under jeans and smock tops. Carmen had given up telling her to define her waist.

  ‘I’m bloody starving now, though, what’s for dinner?’ Carmen asked expectantly. Jess was a great cook who usually could be relied upon to lay on a feast. Carmen had been looking forward to it all afternoon, having no food in the house save the aforementioned Oreos and Hula Hoops.

  Jess looked slightly guilty. ‘Sorry, Carmen, I haven’t cooked. D’you mind if we order pizza?’

  They moved from the kitchen, upstairs to the living room. Carmen flopped on the sofa next to Kitty Kitty, a fat, bordering on obese ginger cat, while Jess expertly lit a fire. Over a bottle of red wine, and a large American hot, the two caught up on what had been happening with their lives. Carmen couldn’t help noticing that Jess was knocking back the wine, getting through two glasses for every one of hers. But fair enough, she reasoned, Jess probably didn’t get many nights off as Sean worked as a lawyer in London and didn’t get back till late, which meant the bulk of childcare, running of the house and everything else fell to Jess on top of her own career.

  During a lull in conversation, as Jess put more logs on the fire, Carmen idly surveyed the room. Jess was the polar opposite to Marcus in interior design and the living room was an explosion of different colours, red velvet sofas, fuchsia cushions, a multi-coloured rug, burgundy curtains. Every available inch of wall was covered in pictures. There were photographs of Harry, from tiny scrunched-up-faced newborn to chubby-faced toddler, to winsome-faced seven-year-old. There were pictures of Jess and Sean from their many travels BH (before Harry), mixed with Harry’s early artistic endeavours to draw people, who all resembled giant eggs with enormous stick hands and no legs. The mantelpiece was crowded with bronze candlesticks, pebbles and shells. The bookshelves were bulging with novels, everything from Dickens through to chick lit, and more pebbles.

  ‘I love your house, Jess,’ Carmen declared dreamily. ‘It’s like a proper grown-up’s, you know, with the fire and the cat and the child and the husband.’ It was intended as a compliment, which made Jess’s reaction all the more shocking.

  ‘I’m not Doris fucking Day! What about the mortgage and the damp wall upstairs that needs fixing and the leaking shower and the husband who’s never here, and on the rare occasions he is, is a moody git? What about being trapped in a loveless, sexless marriage?’ Jess sounded so bitter.

  ‘Is he? Are you?’ Carmen sat up, her fantasy dashed. She was used to Jess talking about life with a dry sense of humour making anything seem bearable. But funny Jess seemed to have gone on vacation.

  Jess poked rather aggressively at the fire, and stared at the greedy yellow flames as they curled round the logs. ‘Yeah – it’s been no bed of roses lately. Frankly I envy you being single quite a lot of the time. You can do exactly what you want and you haven’t got someone on your back nagging you, saying you’re a bad person and a lousy wife.’

  Carmen had never seen her friend like this before. Usually they laughed and gossiped their way through a night, but then, since Jess had moved to Brighton three years ago, Carmen supposed she had seen less of her. But she couldn’t imagine Jess not getting on with Sean. They had been a couple since their second year at university, falling in love in a student production of The Importance of Being Earnest. Jess played Lady Bracknell, Sean, Algernon, and he always joked that she had him at ‘A handbag!’ Admittedly there had been that blip when they were on a break and Sean ended up in bed with Sadie, but they’d got through that and married a year later. A year after that they had Harry. That made them the longest married couple Carmen knew after her parents. But maybe there were things going on that she had no idea about.

  ‘Sorry,’ Jess seemed to snap out of it, ‘I sound like some embittered crone, it’s just Sean and I had a bit of a row before he left and I hate parting on a quarrel. So go on, make me jealous, tell me all about your fabulous single life.’

  Carmen gave a wry smile. ‘Well, I
managed to totally alienate the man I fancied at work by insulting him in front of his close friends, and I also managed to be horrible to a pregnant woman at the same time. So, fabulous single life? Or total shite?’

  Even mentioning the Will scenario caused a fresh wave of mortification. Jess wanted all the gory details and Carmen duly obliged, though she glossed over how very much she had liked Will and how much she missed him.

  ‘Forget about Will – I know an absolutely gorgeous single man who would be perfect for you.’ Jess’s face took on a dreamy expression. ‘Daniel Garner, officially the most beautiful man I have ever seen.’ Now dreamy turned businesslike. ‘I’ll have to orchestrate a meeting for you. Maybe I’ll have you both round for dinner. You won’t be disappointed.’

  ‘Who are you? My pimp?’ Carmen joked back; however gorgeous Jess’s single man was, she wasn’t interested.

  ‘If I got you two together, you would get down on your knees every day in prayer to thank me. You’d probably have to set up a shrine for me.’

  ‘Whatevah!’

  ‘Oh God, don’t say that! It’s what I get from my students, it drives me mad! Anyway, you haven’t mentioned the bitch whore from hell. Every time I switch on Radio Four she seems to be on it. I’ve had to go over to Radio Two about ten years before I should, and I swear I’m in the wrong demographic for it.’

  ‘Don’t you think enough water has gone under enough bridges and you could actually forgive Sadie?’ Carmen asked cautiously. ‘It would be so good if we could all get on again.’

  Jess shrugged. ‘Sometimes I think it would be better if she had gone off with Sean.’

  ‘I’m sure you don’t mean that,’ Carmen replied, but Jess didn’t answer.

  By now it was after midnight. Carmen suddenly felt exhausted. ‘D’you want a cup of tea?’ she asked. Jess shook her head and poured herself another glass of wine. Carmen couldn’t help thinking that tea might have been a better option. She was only gone a few minutes making her peppermint tea, but when she returned Jess was fast asleep on the sofa. Carmen leaned over her. ‘Jess, don’t you want to go to bed?’