by Sara Barnard
She looks me up and down. ‘What is it? You’re being all twitchy? Don’t worry about your father and I. I’ve already gone and said hello to him and the slut. We’re all being so very mature.’
I wince at her use of the word ‘slut’. What can I say? I’m a changed man.
‘I’m all right. I’m just . . .’ I look at my watch. ‘It’s just the boat is setting off soon, and not everyone is here yet.’
‘Worried that little gang of yours won’t make it?’ she asks. ‘They’ll be here. When else will they get the chance to do something like this?’ She drains her glass and clops off across the deck towards a waiter, leaving me alone.
I check my watch again. Ten minutes until anchors up. I hear whoops from across the deck, and see David has lifted Poppy on to his shoulders for no discernible reason. They’re all cackling and clinking their glasses of champagne, and I think about how I just described them to Joan.
Old school friends.
I realize that’s all they’re ever going to be, really. A group of people who represent a certain time and place in my life, a Hugo I once was. One I’m not particularly proud of. It’s been five years since Steven Jeffords died in the lift. I don’t know if that’s what started the change in me, or if I’d have changed anyway. It’s impossible to know. Life happens. Whatever was supposed to happen is what did happen, because there aren’t alternative universes called ‘What If’ you can go and live in. Being in that lift that day changed me. You know what? It made me. Every good thing I’ve done can be traced back to that day, and that’s why I’m holding this fundraiser tonight. To mark it. To mark Steven. But it’s going to be downright ghastly if the others don’t come.
They’ll come.
I mean, we are friends now. It’s fine. They’ve forgiven me.
And just when my heart is about to jump out through my designer suit, I spot them dashing towards the boat. Velvet can hardly walk in the ridiculous shoes she’s trotting in, and Joe keeps putting his hand on her back to steady her as she wobbles along the jetty. Kaitlyn and Dawson are a bit behind, with Remy leading the way. A grin breaks across my face, relief flooding into my stomach.
I cup my hands around my mouth and call, ‘They’ll let any muck on to boat parties these days.’
They all walk up the gangplank, Kaitlyn needing a bit of extra help stepping on to the boat, though she bats Dawson off when he tries to take her shoulder and snaps, ‘I’m good.’ But they’re all grinning at me in their variety of makeshift cocktail wear.
‘You made it.’ I’m hardly able to keep the relief out of my voice.
Joe gives me an awkward man hug. He looks good, in his skinny tie and tight trouser suit. And the fact he looks good doesn’t mean I suddenly want to puff out my chest and be all alpha and make some quip so I can be in control. I’m just pleased my friend looks nice.
‘And miss you, of all people, giving a speech about charity?’ he says. ‘I’m still not sure this boat is going to be able to sail through all the ice created by hell freezing over.’
‘You’re hilarious, Joe.’
I walk them through to the deck, steering them as far away from my school friends as I can. I’ve kind of made an allocated area for them, with a chair for Kaitlyn to sit on, and a water bowl for her dog. I have no idea if that’s patronizing or not, but I know she’ll bloody well tell me if it is.
A bell sounds, the boat lets out a giant honk, and we all cheer as the floor wobbles beneath us and we float out into the river. The sun is still blazing, making the edge of the London skyline glow like it’s bordered in gold.
The plan is to get everyone a bit sozzled as we steer past all the big tourist places like the Houses of Parliament and Tower Bridge. Then I have to do my speech about Steven and hopefully encourage all the rich people on the boat to part with their inherited money. I’m completely bricking it – so many things could go wrong. I could mess up my words, or not get enough donations to break even, let alone earn any cash for charity . . . not forgetting my old life colliding with my new friends and all the horrors that could ensue if that happens. I’ll just keep them separate. How hard can that be on a rather small boat that nobody is able to leave for the next two hours?
I look around at my friends, subconsciously checking they’re still there. Everyone has been plied with a glass of champers and is starting to relax into it.
‘It’s so pretty,’ Velvet says, pointing out Big Ben.
‘Yeah, it is,’ Joe replies, gazing over at her rather than the view.
A smile tugs at my lips. Old Hugo would’ve made a quip here – would’ve highlighted the bleeding obvious about Joe’s feelings, and would have revelled in the awkwardness it caused before the guilt hit much later. But New Hugo just allows himself to smile and gives them the oxygen to just be and see how it turns out.
I look around fondly at them. Feeling this still-unfamiliar tug of affection. And that’s when I realize . . .
‘Hey, guys?’ I say, jolting them out of their trance-like admiration. ‘Where the hell is Sasha?’
KAITLYN
There’s a confused moment when we all look at each other, and then around, as if we expect Sasha to jump out from behind Joe and shout ‘Aha!’, which would be the least Sasha-esque thing ever.
‘Oh no,’ Joe says, looking suddenly like he wants to vomit with worry. ‘Did we leave her behind? Oh no.’
‘We obviously didn’t leave her behind,’ I say, and because I’m Kaitlyn Thomas, my worry comes out as an impatient snap. ‘She never arrived. That’s different.’
‘Oh no,’ Joe says again. ‘We should’ve waited. We definitely should have waited.’ He pulls out his phone and begins tapping anxiously at it. ‘Oh God,’ he mutters to himself. ‘Three missed calls?!’
And suddenly everyone’s talking at once. Velvet is insisting that we go right back to the dock to get her. Joe is tugging at his collar and demanding to know why none of us noticed earlier. Dawson, his voice dry and so painfully familiar, is telling them both to calm down. And Hugo just keeps saying, ‘You can’t turn the boat around; it’s a fundraiser!’
I’m left standing there with Remy at my side, contributing nothing. I can’t help thinking that Sasha’s just bunked off this whole escapade, and quite frankly I’m admiring her foresight. That’s what I would have done too, if I’d had any sense. What on earth was I thinking, getting on this boat with my ex? Maybe we should turn the boat around. At least then I’d have a chance to get off.
‘Didn’t you have a guest list, Hugo?’ Velvet is demanding. ‘Wasn’t someone checking it? How could you leave without her?’
‘Me?!’ Hugo sounds so offended, his voice has gone up two octaves. ‘I’ve planned this whole bloody fundraiser, Velvet. I had quite a lot of things to think about, you know.’ He’s changed in a lot of ways since we first met, but his voice, pompous and posh and bloody loud, is the same.
And then there’s Velvet, hands on hips, shoulders back. Not at all pompous, not even slightly posh, but more than a match for him. When did she get so grown up? When did we all get so grown up?
‘Sasha!’ Joe bellows suddenly, and I assume at first that she’s somehow appeared, but he’s talking into his phone. ‘Where are you? Oh no. God, of course not – don’t worry. Listen, stay where you are. We’ll pick you up.’
Hugo’s eyebrows rise in alarm. ‘Now, hang on—’
‘We’ll figure it out, don’t worry,’ Joe says, ignoring him. ‘No, Sasha, don’t say that. We all want you here. What? Of course we do! Don’t go home. Please—’
He takes the phone from his ear and looks at it.
‘She hung up,’ he says quietly.
There’s a silence.
‘We can’t just go back,’ Hugo says eventually. ‘It’s a boat on the Thames; you can’t turn it around like a bicycle.’
‘It’s Sasha,’ Joe says. ‘Find a way.’
‘Listen, mate—’ Hugo begins in that patronizing tone posh people use when they think they
’re being patient.
Joe interrupts. ‘She ran from the train to get here in time to watch us sailing off, Hugo. She feels like we just abandoned her. Do you have any idea what that’s like?’
I look over at Hugo, trying to read from the silence that follows these words what face he must be making. Because he does know, doesn’t he? We all do. I look over at Dawson. He’s looking at me.
‘What do you think, Kait?’ Joe asks, and I jolt in horror.
Oh God, why is he asking me? Why would my opinion matter? It’s not like I’m in any position to commandeer the boat and go and rescue Sasha, even if I wanted to.
‘Can you stop the boat?’ I ask Hugo hesitantly. ‘Maybe a couple of us could get off and run to get her?’
‘It’s a boat,’ Hugo says. He’s starting to sound very stressed. ‘It doesn’t make stops. And this is a fundraiser.’ He looks around. ‘Christ, I’m the host! I’m meant to be talking to people! I have to give a speech!’
‘You’re right,’ Dawson says calmly. ‘You’re the host, and you’ve got other stuff to think about. But there’s a captain, right? Why don’t we speak to him? He’ll know what to do. Because Joe’s right too: Sasha’s important.’
‘Good idea,’ Joe says, sounding relieved. ‘Come on, Hugo. It’ll only take a few minutes.’
Hugo tries to protest, flustered and increasingly high-pitched, but he’s no match for a determined Joe. In less than a minute, Joe and Dawson are corralling Hugo back towards the bow of the boat, leaving Velvet, Remy and me standing on the deck, watching them go.
‘Poor Sasha,’ Velvet says.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘She wouldn’t really get on a train home, would she?’
Velvet doesn’t reply, letting out a nervous ‘mmmm’ instead.
We sit on a long wooden bench, watching London drift slowly by. Well, I assume Velvet’s watching. I’m feeling the breeze on my face and thinking about Dawson . . . Dawson leaning in for a hug when we met at the station; Dawson murmuring to Remy, ‘I missed you, handsome,’ so quietly, I wasn’t meant to hear.
There are stages after a big break-up. There’s the immediate aftermath, where it’s all tears and anger and regret. Then it’s pain and wine and grief. And then things calm down a bit, like all the big emotions are out of your system, and what’s left is more quiet, like a sadness that settles in for a while.
Usually that’s the end of it for most people. They just wait the sadness out or distract themselves from it. But me? No. I had to see Dawson again, thanks to the Lift Lot. We don’t get a chance to all meet up together much – this is the first time we’ve all been together for a year – but when someone tries to arrange something, I can never bring myself to say no. And so I have to hold myself upright and smile at Dawson and try not to make everyone else feel uncomfortable. Every time I see him, it’s like I miss him even more. Which makes no sense.
‘How are you doing?’ Velvet asks me, and I don’t know if the sympathy in her voice is about my sight or my ex.
‘Better,’ I say. It’s true in its own way.
More and more, I’m realizing that what I miss is our closeness. I don’t even mean the physical closeness – just the us-ness of us. Dawson and Kait. We used to be so close, he could make jokes about my sight. That seems impossible now. But I want to remember – I need to remember – because all of that came before kissing and sex and love and heartbreak. We were friends first, and I loved him then. I want that back. Could we ever have it back?
‘How’s the new job?’ Velvet asks.
Someone comes past with a tray of champagne flutes, and she takes one for each of us with a joyful, ‘Thanks!’
‘Really great, actually,’ I say, smiling. It feels good to have something positive to talk about. ‘We just hit five hundred subscribers.’
‘Oh, ace!’ Velvet says. ‘Cheers to that.’
She touches her flute to mine, and even the clink of the glasses sounds expensive. I take a sip, and the champagne is delicious, the best I’ve ever tasted. At the launch of Sendsation in January, we’d had sparkling wine instead of real champagne – one precious bottle shared between me, Jax and Penny to celebrate what had started as a conversation in a pub, and what had now become, somehow, a reality.
After Dawson, I’d wallowed until I could wallow no more, then picked myself up and forced myself out of my personal lovelorn exile. I did it by going along to a guide dog fun run with Remy, thinking – correctly, as it turned out – that what I needed was to do something completely new, with new people, in a new place. There, I met Jax and Penny (and Petey and Clover, their guide dogs) and we’d bonded. We’d bonded so much, we ended up starting a business together, because sometimes – sometimes – life throws you the kind of curveball that lights up the dark.
Sendsation is a subscription box designed specifically for people with sensory impairments. The whole idea came from me complaining to them both that people only cared about how flowers look, when so much of their beauty and general awesomeness comes from how they feel and smell. We’d joked about setting up a flower delivery service, which somehow turned into a perfume, soap and flower delivery service. And then Jax said, ‘Why stop at scent?’
And so Sendsation was born.
We got a grant from the Prince’s Trust, and everything. You never know, one day we might even turn a profit.
It’s like the opposite way round of how stories like this are meant to go. The happiness bit is meant to come with falling in love, not falling out of it. But yet, this year has been happier. Losing Dawson felt at the time like losing the only happiness I had, and that was awful, but it also meant I had no choice but to get myself out there and find some more.
And you know what? I fucking did.
‘I hope they hurry up,’ Velvet says nervously. ‘Hugo’ll need to do his speech soon. It’d be nice if we could get Sasha in time.’
‘Do you think they’ll really stop the boat?’ I ask.
‘Well, I guess we’re about to find out,’ Velvet says, standing. ‘Here they come.’
The boys – though I guess they’re men now – are coming through the door out on to the deck. Joe reaches us first, triumphant.
‘The captain’s going to turn the boat around!’ he says. ‘That’s all he could do, but at least it means we can go and get Sasha. She can be here for the later bit, but it does mean she’ll miss Hugo’s speech.’
‘That’s great,’ Velvet says. ‘Have you spoken to her?’
‘I’m going to now,’ Joe says, already holding his phone to his ear. He puts one finger up in the air and turns away from us, walking slightly away to make the call.
‘I have to mingle,’ Hugo says, sounding no less stressed than he was when they’d first gone to speak to the captain. ‘I’m meant to be hosting this bloody thing.’
He disappears before anyone can protest.
Velvet stands there for a moment between me and Dawson, clears her throat as if to speak, and then turns and walks briskly after Hugo.
Great.
Just great.
‘I hope Sasha’s not already on a train, after all that,’ Dawson says. ‘The captain took a bit of convincing.’
‘Convincing how?’ I hope he means talking convincing, and not that he’s paid him or something.
‘It got sorted,’ is all he says.
Well, fine. ‘How’s Jasper?’ I ask. Subtlety is overrated.
There’s a pause. ‘Kait . . .’ he says.
‘Just asking.’
‘He’s good,’ he says finally. ‘Really good.’
‘And the two of you?’
Another pause. ‘Also good.’
‘Good.’ Ugh, this is painful. We used to tease and joke and touch.
‘It’s good to see you,’ Dawson says.
How many times can two people say the word ‘good’ in one awkward conversation?
‘Really, Kait. I miss you, you know?’
‘I miss you too,’ I say. I feel overwhelmed by how m
uch I want us to be back where we used to be, so relaxed and easy. Is that the kind of thing you can wish into being? I reach my hand down and touch Remy’s head. ‘Hey, remember Hugo in Ibiza?’
‘How could I forget?’ Dawson lets out a small chuckle. ‘Who would have thought that night would be the making of him?’
‘I wonder if he’ll mention it in his speech.’
‘I doubt it. We might get a shout-out though.’
I smile. ‘That would be nice.’
Maybe if we try, really try, we could find our closeness again. Maybe we could be Dawson and Kait, best mates, again. If we both want it, and we both try, why not? I’m not angry about the break-up any more (the occasional Jasper jibe permitted). I understand that he had to end it when he did, that there was no other option for him. So what’s stopping us?
Joe is on his way back, and I see him pause when he realizes that it’s just Dawson and me left.
‘Did you speak to her?’ I call so Joe knows it’s fine to come over.
‘Yeah,’ he says, sitting down beside me on the bench. ‘She—’
‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ a voice suddenly booms from the doorway to the cabin. ‘Please make your way inside. Our host, Mr Hugo Delaney, is ready for his speech . . .’
VELVET
‘What I’m trying to say is – that day in the lift, it changed me. Made me realize what’s important in life. It was the beginning of a long journey, and that’s what tonight is all about. Trying to give something back.
‘So, I guess all that’s left to say is thanks for listening, and thanks in advance for the shedloads of cash you’re all going to pledge in the silent auction later. Most of all, thank you to my friends who’ve come a long way to be here tonight for a cause that’s close to all of our hearts. You know who you are, and I appreciate it more than you realize.’
Hugo looks out into the audience until he finds us, our little group lurking to one side, towards the back. He makes eye contact with me for a split second and smiles. Silently, I take half a sideways step closer to Joe and lean fondly against his arm. I can sense all the others kind of doing some version of the same. Solidarity.