by Clare Lydon
“I’m not sure when you turned into a gourmet chef, but it wasn’t until after uni, was it?” Kat furrowed her brow. “You couldn’t even boil an egg when I first met you.”
“All true.” Vic grinned.
Kat remembered showing Vic how to make scrambled eggs and the amazed look on her face when she realised it was simply a case of whisking, adding to a pan and then moving it about a bit. It was amazing the difference 20 years could make.
As Kat made the tea, she took in Vic’s strong arms and hands as she worked.
Vic felt the stare and looked up, shifting her glasses back up her face with the back of her hand. “Great day today – beautiful walk.”
Kat nodded. “It was amazing. Makes you wonder why we live in London, doesn’t it?”
“Totally. But then, that’s what makes it special, I suppose. When we come here it’s something different. Maybe we’d say that about London if we visited from here.”
“I guess.”
Vic looked up again. “I’m still impressed with your restraint,” she said, indicating the two mugs of tea Kat had just picked up.
Kat shrugged. “Maybe I’m finally growing up.”
“I hope not too much because, take it from me, it’s a trap and it sucks.”
Kat grinned and gave Vic a peck on the cheek as she walked past. She stopped in the doorway and looked back.
“You want some help with any of this?”
Vic thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Nah – you can wash up.”
***
Vic stood at the lounge doorway and clapped her hands to attract the group’s attention. “Right, you lot – you want to come through? Dinner is nearly served.”
There were cheers as they got up and wandered through to the dining room clutching remaining canapés and drinks.
Laura and Tash had set the table and it looked inviting, with candles burning in the middle and eight settings ready to be filled, silver place mats complimenting the shiny cutlery.
“Who wants to be mum and dad?” Stu asked.
“Well I think you should definitely be dad for obvious reasons and Gimps can be mum,” Stevie said. “Vic and I will sit this side so we can get to the kitchen easier.”
“Oh no, I’m not being dad, I’m not nearly old enough, I’m only 37!” Stu pouted his best pout. “Besides, Vic’s way more butch than me. I’ll sit next to Gimps at this end and do as I’m told.”
Vic brought over the tagine in an orange Le Creuset dish while Stevie grabbed the couscous then returned for the flatbreads. When the wine was poured, Stevie tapped her wine glass with her fork and everybody turned towards her.
“Attention please,” she said in her best teacher voice, her soft Scouse roots evident. “Before we start our first meal, a toast. To 20 years since we all met at Bristol – the original seven anyway. A big shout-out to Michelle in New York – she said hi, by the way. Here’s to lasting friendships and laughter always.”
The group cheered and drank their wine, Kat sipping her first glass of the night.
“And thanks to Vic for doing the honours as usual,” Tash said.
More cheers, then it was down to the food.
After a few mouthfuls, Geri piped up. “Actually everyone, I have something I’d like to say.”
The group stopped mid-forkful and all heads turned to Geri who tucked her hair behind her ear and pinned her features into a taut smile.
“You’re not pregnant are you, Gimps?” Laura said.
“Yes, with triplets.” Geri gave Laura a deadpan stare. “No I’m not pregnant but I am turning 40 next year…”
“…Don’t remind me,” Laura said.
Another Geri stare.
Laura shut up.
“I’m also a police sergeant and both of those facts mean there are some things that are no longer quite as amusing as they were when we were 20. Like, say, for instance…” Geri clicked her fingers in the air and looked skywards. “Oh I don’t know, my nickname perhaps?” Geri paused to assess the reaction.
Stevie frowned. “Huh?”
“My nickname. Gimpy – you remember, what you’ve called me for the past 20 years.”
“Nineteen,” Stevie corrected her. “We didn’t start till the second year.”
Another stare.
“Now I know it’s because my initials are GMP…” Geri continued.
“Geraldine Marie Paterson – the original Gimp!” Kat crowed, as if the intervening 20 years had never happened.
“…But now that I’m nearly 40, getting ‘Gimp’ shouted at you in a bar isn’t quite so cute. Imagine what it’s going to be like when I’m 50. Or 70.” Geri’s face got more appalled as she upped the age. “What I’m saying is, can we please try to call me Geri a bit more. I know old habits die hard but I think it’s more age-appropriate, don’t you?”
She waited for the group’s reaction.
Stu was first. He burst out laughing. “Age-appropriate? Have you been reading the Daily Mail online again?”
Now the whole table was laughing.
“Thanks guys, really supportive.” Geri blew out her cheeks, trying to stifle a grin at the same time. “I’m serious – can you make an effort to call me Geri from now on, please?”
Laura looked puzzled. “Is this because you don’t want us calling you Gimpy in front of that barmaid tomorrow?”
Geri’s patience ebbed away. “No, this is because you try being called Gimpy all your life and see how you like it.”
Vic held up her hands and intervened. “Gimp…” She clamped her hand over her mouth. “I mean Geri. I think we will all absolutely try to call you Geri if that’s what you really want. But I can’t promise it won’t slip out in moments of weakness. Or extreme drunkenness. Will that do?”
Geri smiled at Vic while the table murmured agreement.
“It’s the most I can expect, I know,” Geri said. “But just try. For me.”
Kat raised her wine glass. “A toast. To Gimpy. Rest in peace, old friend. I’ll miss you.”
Everyone looked suitably solemn.
Geri shot Kat a look. “Yes, thank you Ms Drama Queen. I’m not dead yet.”
Geri loved having a nickname – it was a term of endearment after all – but she just wished it was something cool or fun, not the name of a masked sex slave.
The group settled back into conversation and Geri went back to her dinner, watching Laura to her right, who was concentrating hard on her food; she favoured the bolting method, which involved not so much eating the food but more inhaling it. Geri watched Laura pour the tagine into her mouth, her teeth patting it on the way as though cheering on a marathon runner. If eating were a sport, Laura could be a world-beater. To her left, Stu wasn’t far behind.
“Have you tasted any of that or are you just inhaling it?” Geri smirked.
Laura looked up from her food trance, lips still glistening with tagine jus. “I’m starving and this is fucking amazing. If Vic wasn’t married already, I’d marry her.” She slapped her lips around the edge of her mouth to reign in any stray tagine.
“I’m sure you could have had her for free a few months back, no questions asked,” Geri said.
Stu almost spat his food out. “Harsh,” he spluttered, before wiping his mouth with a serviette. “Anyway, don’t you start about quick eaters – you sound like Darren.”
“Maybe he has a point?” Having said that, Geri knew this was the way Laura and Stu had always eaten and they weren’t likely to change anytime soon.
“Apparently health gurus say you should eat slowly and think about what you’re eating. But I bet they’ve never had Vic’s tagine and I was thinking the whole time – I was thinking ‘Please sir, can I have some more’?” Stu mopped up the juice on his plate with some flatbread before continuing. “By the way, my mum calls you Geri – maybe you can add her to your friend list?”
Geri pursed her lips. “Knock you off and put her
on it instead, you mean?”
“Touchy. Is it your time of the month dear?”
“Slap him, Gimps,” Laura said, before clamping her hand over her mouth. “Sorry, it just slipped out.” Laura’s face spelt apology.
“I give up – attacked from both sides,” Geri said, smiling. She turned to Stu. “No news from Romeo yet?”
Stu shook his head.
“And what would he say about this dinner – fatty lamb, carby couscous and bread the enemy, too?” Geri leant her elbows on the table and looked Stu in the eye. “How much not to send him a picture of this forbidden banquet right now?”
“Ha ha,” said Stu, reaching into his jeans pocket and pulling out his phone. He pressed a few buttons, raised an eyebrow and started to type something. Then he looked up and saw Geri and Laura watching him, so put the phone back in his pocket.
“Not coming until tomorrow now – got a work thing to go to later. Plus, I think he was hoping to miss out on the walk tomorrow. You know Darren – he thinks walking’s a bit low-key. He’d rather spend the morning pumping iron in the gym and then arrive for the evening later, all buffed and ready.”
Stu nudged Abby beside him to pass the tagine down the table for seconds. He spotted the glare of her iPhone from under the table and smiled – he knew a fellow phone junkie when he saw one, but even Stu might draw the line at being on Facebook at the dinner table as Abby seemed to be.
Stu ladled some more tagine onto his plate and offered it to Laura, who took it eagerly.
As Laura spooned seconds on to her plate, Tash put her arm around her.
“You trying to fatten my girl up, Morgan?” Tash asked Stu.
Stu smiled and shook his head. “Just reinforcing our age-old university alliance – survival of the fittest where food’s concerned.”
Tash kissed Laura on the cheek. “I’ve no idea where she puts it, but she’s a hot slab of gorgeousness.”
Laura stopped eating and frowned. “A slab?”
Tash nodded. “Yep. Sturdy. Reliable. Good for paving.”
Tash, Stu and Geri all laughed loudly.
Laura rolled her eyes.
***
Across the table, Stevie watched Kat glance at Abby before refilling her glass of red wine and taking a healthy slug.
Abby wasn’t paying attention, scrolling through something on her phone with her right hand, eating dinner slowly with a lone fork in her left.
Kat deftly refilled her glass again and sat back, triumphant.
Was this how their relationship was most nights, a game of cat and mouse?
“Still having issues at work, Abby?” Stevie asked across the table.
Abby didn’t hear, so Kat nudged her.
Abby looked up. “Sorry?” she said to Stevie, her face showing a smile, her eyes showing annoyance.
“I said are you still having issues at work, being on your phone.” Stevie almost managed to keep the tone out of her voice. Almost.
Abby waved her phone slightly, too late realising that everyone could see the tell-tale Facebook branding. She styled it out with aplomb.
“Yeah – something to do with our social media campaigns so I was just checking something and amazingly I got a signal. Sorry, rude of me.” Abby smiled smoothly which made Stevie feel slightly guilty.
“Amazing tagine, by the way – the lamb is melt in your mouth,” Abby told Vic.
Kat rubbed Abby’s shoulder as Stu sat back and rubbed his full stomach.
“So what is it you do, Abby?” Stu asked, even though he knew. His shaved head was glistening with sweat, as tended to happen after food.
“HR – big corporate firm. Very boring.” Abby dismissed her job with a wave of the hand.
“HR director, honey,” Kat said.
Abby simply gave a shrug.
Kat continued. “She’s in charge of over a thousand employees worldwide, very important.”
The group slid on their impressed faces.
“Bit of a struggle getting time off this week, so sorry if I’m a nuisance checking mails and all of that. America’s just hitting their stride.”
“Well, Kat knows all about that with her job, don’t you?” Stevie smiled across the table at her friend, the banking exec. “Always on your Blackberry – have you had it surgically removed this weekend? Or are you now so important you have a PA in your suitcase upstairs answering all your mails for you?”
Abby’s body froze, then after a few seconds she glanced at Kat.
Stevie clocked it all and narrowed her eyes.
Kat, meanwhile, was still holding her grin in place and laughing at Stevie’s joke, but her calmly panicked features told Stevie something wasn’t quite right. But Kat was a consummate pro.
“The latter. My new PA’s called Helga and she’s very accommodating,” Kat said. “If there was any tagine left, I said I’d take it up for her.”
Abby shifted in her seat and frowned.
Stevie tried to work the puzzle out, but failed.
Geri simply grinned at Kat. “So this Helga – she cute?” Geri took a sip of her wine.
“It was the only criterion for the job,” Kat said.
“Remember when you kept getting emails from America when we were in Wales on the ten-year anniversary?” Laura said. “Didn’t we answer a couple through a drunken haze?”
“I think we went to but luckily we saved them as draft by mistake,” Kat smiled.
“That’s right,” Laura mumbled, looking down at her empty plate.
Stevie saw her nodding, then blushing. What Stevie remembered about last time was Kat and Laura getting very drunk and ending up in bed together, something they’d been trying to erase from their memories ever since. But Stevie knew from experience that reality was difficult to erase, painted onto your life in permanent ink just like a tattoo.
Vic & Stevie
“You want to go first?” Stevie switched on the bathroom light in their en-suite and ran her hand over her short blonde hair.
Vic had seen flickers of the old Stevie breaking through tonight, spurred on by shared memories.
“Nah, you go – I want to see if I can get reception.”
Stevie nodded and closed the bathroom door.
Vic swiped her phone from the bedside table where she’d left it with her hangover this morning and headed for the stairs. Midway, she nearly toppled over a canoodling Tash and Laura. Vic apologised and carried on, raising her eyebrows at their teenage need to begin before they were in their room – they’d been together long enough now.
It was pure jealousy of course, but she couldn’t help it.
In the lounge, Vic heard Stu still up with Geri, Kat and Abby, putting the world to rights.
Vic filled two glasses with water, drank one and refilled. The cold water slid down her throat with ease and splashed into her stomach. She wanted to check her email, but reception was sporadic all over the house. Vic padded to the far corner of the kitchen and held her phone up as high as she could. She squinted at the screen. Nothing.
Vic then moved to the hallway, opening the front door and hanging out of it. Even if she got reception, she wouldn’t be able to see a damn thing. She didn’t fancy a late-night trip outside.
Instead, she abandoned hope of gaining internet access and walked quietly back up the stairs and into their bedroom. Stevie was just pulling on a white T-shirt.
“Everything okay?”
“Yep, just getting these,” Vic said, placing Stevie’s water on her bedside table. It echoed in the glassy silence.
When Vic came out of the bathroom five minutes later, Stevie was reading her Kindle in bed.
Vic gave her wife a wary smile as she took her glasses off and joined her.
“It’s so damn quiet here, isn’t it?” Stevie whispered.
Vic looked over and nodded slowly. In London, the world never stood still. Even when Vic was doing yoga in the studio down the road, she could s
till hear the whoosh of traffic as it rumbled past, even over the whale music favoured by her instructor.
But here, if Vic lay still and tuned out the laughter coming from downstairs, she could hear nothing apart from her own breathing. That, and the sound of the wind and of the waves crashing against the wooden sand below, the beach being carved up from its flat surface to reveal welts and scars from previous tussles.
The calm was soon broken as Vic heard a crash from the next-door bedroom, then a flurry of giggles.
She and Stevie locked eyes as they realised with a slight sense of horror that the walls between the bedrooms weren’t as thick as they’d like.
Vic knew next door were Tash and Laura, who’d been pawing each other all night. She gulped – it didn’t take a genius to know what was coming next.
“Shit, I really don’t want to hear this.” Stevie pulled a face.
“And I do?”
Vic felt Stevie’s body tense up: if tonight was to be the start of something, that ship may have just sailed.
Stevie rolled over and buried her head under her freshly laundered pillow and Vic followed suit. It smelt of sunshine, the irony of which Vic grasped with both hands.
A few minutes passed. Under the pillow, the sound of Vic’s breathing was amplified. Eventually she peered under Stevie’s pillow, whose face was set to grimace mode.
“Have they stopped yet?” Vic asked, even though she knew the answer.
“They could be a while, they were pretty drunk.” Stevie pulled the pillow back down on her head.
Vic wriggled out, propped her head on her elbow and ran her left hand up and down Stevie’s slim body, feeling under her T-shirt and stroking her back. Stevie had lost weight since everything happened. Not for the first time, guilt washed over Vic. Even tonight, while everyone else had been helping themselves to seconds of dinner and cheese, Stevie had held back, her appetite not what it once was.
Stevie removed the pillow from the top of her head and twisted to look up at her wife.
Vic saw a flash of desire behind Stevie’s eyes. Vic’s body flooded with relief – it was still there. And even though Stevie’s body tensed at first, after a few seconds she began to relax.