by Laura Kemp
Kate picked up the mayo jar and held it up against her hot forehead, glad Vee couldn’t see her.
‘I tell you what though, he was so incredibly rude. Made it clear he wasn’t interested in catching up.’
Thank God he didn't say anything, Kate thought, feeling the tension draining from her body, taking out some basil for the garnish.
‘It was really disappointing. How much he’d changed.’
Arrogant, bullish, wild. In a black cloud.
‘To think I used to idolize him. Well, you know how I felt about him, you were there. He never did answer my letter.’
Kate’s heart stopped. The letter. She could still see it in her hand, creased from the travelling, shaking as she retrieved it from her bag. She dug a fingernail into her wrist to drown her shame with pain. Searching to make sense of it all, she needed to know why he was in Wales. That night, he’d said that he’d had enough. He was leaving and would never come back. She had made double sure she wouldn’t see him again even by accident by moving here into the sticks. And it had worked until now. Please, let it not be karma bringing them both back on the scene…
‘What was he doing? Being here?’ she asked, over her shoulder, the words like razor blades.
‘Said he was showing his girlfriend the sights. Who, by the way, was stunning. Obviously.’
Was that envy, Kate wondered, fearing Vee still held a flame for him because where would that lead? Panicking, she reasoned that no, she couldn't have, not after all this time, especially as she’d said he was up himself. Oblivious, Vee carried on.
‘Maybe he was just visiting? Who knows? Oh well, I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. The. End.’
Only now with Vee’s verbal white flag could Kate’s defences stand down.
‘Life moves on, people change. That’s the way it is.’
Kate shut her eyes with relief: it was the full stop on the subject of Mikey.
Jack arrived at the right moment, asking for his drink.
‘You ladies been talking about the wedding then? Favours and colour schemes and flowers?’ He pulled a simpering face.
‘He’s being funny,’ Kate told Vee. ‘We’d rather not have a big day, would we?’
‘I’m saying nothing,’ Jack said, looking at Kate but hissing ‘her mother’ out of the corner of his mouth to Vee.
‘When is it?’ Vee asked, sitting up, amused.
‘July the first.’
‘So how did you two meet?’ Vee was generously all ears and Kate relaxed, relieved the Mikey talk had passed.
Jack told their love story: how they’d met at an auction three years ago, he was buying furniture and she was representing a client. Their first date was afternoon tea – ‘Jack’s from the nineteenth century, even though he’s three years younger than me,’ Kate chipped in – and then twelve months later, they’d moved into a rented place in Cowbridge. But when this ivy-clad cottage came up, Kate and Jack had pounced. He’d proposed in Brighton – yes, how strange that they’d both been there– and the rest was history. Vee gave a little round of applause but Kate sighed.
‘I wish we could run away and elope. But, you know…’
Jack put his arm around her in solidarity. Kate wrapped herself in him then, loving him so very deeply, from his emotional intelligence and sense of humour to his perennial combat shorts come rain or shine and his fair eyelashes. And then she felt sorry because Vee was looking serious. It had been insensitive of them to rub her nose in their love.
But when she spoke, Kate realized she’d read her wrong.
‘Well, for what it’s worth, I reckon you should do what you want to do, the two of you. What I’ve learned from the whole mess of Jez and Brighton and all of that is that you need to be true to yourself. That’s where I went wrong. Like, losing Jez was hard but realizing I’d lost myself was harder.’
Loss. Kate knew all about that. But she felt as if she was on the brink of some kind of recovery. So as Jack rattled around finding plates and swore at the pot of cawl which seared through an old tea towel into his finger, Kate found a stillness, a serenity.
For what Vee had dared to offer was an opinion on her life which showed she cared. It represented a breakthrough: that they could forge a new kind of friendship.
And they had crossed a hurdle, surviving the tempest which had threatened with talk of Mikey.
The past was gone. Thank God for Vee for being so uncomplicated and forgiving: now they had a second roll of the dice at friendship. Now she and Vee had a future together.
Chapter Eight
V
Cardiff City Centre
Vee hadn’t even set eyes on him but she was already cross with Mikey-Murphy, whoever he was for choosing this wanky bar.
With her tragic duffle coat and bobble hat, she stuck out like a sore thumb in this painfully hipster place, which was called Work Life Balance. Yes, really.
He hadn’t even warned her that it didn’t have a sign on the door, so she’d been up and down the low-lit dingy road in the arse end of the city centre until she saw some activity halfway up and deduced this was it. Why choose this pretentious out-of-the-way place? What was wrong with a bloody local?
She surveyed the bar, which had two graffitied arrows pronouncing this area was ‘Work’ while downstairs was ‘Life’, and it sent her heckles supersonic.
The stern-looking staff were dressed in shiny grey shoulder-padded eighties suits and ties. Eye-roll. The bar was a long desk decorated with awful beige plastic telephones and synthetic pot plants and there was a water cooler in the corner. How conceptual. Swivelling office chairs were coupled with filing cabinets for tables, framed briefcases were on the walls, a screen played footage of office life through the ages and the windows were covered by ugly metal blinds. Über sigh.
Oh, it was so clever and so ironic. God, Brighton was never this try-hard. Why would anyone come here after a nine-to-five? Yet it was rammed with some too-cool-for-school characters who were checking her out like she was the freak show.
What was she doing here? Okay, Mikey had clearly had a change of heart, pinging her this week to see if she wanted a drink. It was only polite for her to agree, seeing as she’d started the whole thing off. But really, it was obvious they weren’t going to get on. His Facebook feed was full of showboating, he’d been rude on the beach and this place joined all the dots: he wasn’t who he had been. She couldn’t deny she was curious though. And she conceded she still had the tiniest hope that maybe they’d have a connection: her heart needed a reconnection out of sheer loneliness. Because she’d once shared everything with him. And it had worked out with Kate – lovely Kate, who was proving to be an anchor for her. They messaged regularly, Vee had an interview lined up at Fromage and Kate, although jaded perhaps from life, was willing to listen to her misery. What if Mikey…
Stop it, she commanded herself. Dear God, she was an optimistic fool sometimes.
More likely, she’d get some closure today: see that she was better off without him.
She’d stay for one, then go. The irony didn't escape her that the alternative of being back on the sofa with Mum for the second half of the Corrie double bill was more attractive than being in this place.
There were no seats here so she went downstairs, stomping every step, dreading whatever preposterous the cellar had in store. But when she got there, she saw, in actual fact, that ‘Life’ was beautiful.
Quiet and cosy, battered leather love seats and wing-back chairs looking inviting in the cosy glow of light which came from lamps sat on ornate iron tables A log burner glowed in one of three walls papered with black and white velvet flowers. The end wall was a sea of white bricks and swirled with a projection of the Northern Lights. Hanging baskets of shiny green leaves edged the room, while the sound of the sea accompanied the murmur of voices. Less busy and more chilled, it was such a contrast to the clinical vibe upstairs. No wonder he’d picked this place: Mikey’s life was beautiful and he wanted her to know it.
‘A what-ini?’
‘Like a Martini, but with gin. We’re famous for them.’
A cocktail wasn’t her style – she was a pint of cider or a glass of white kind of person – but it could be thrown down the hatch quickly.
‘Right, yes, go on then. Please. Thanks.’
‘I’ll bring it over to you. Where are you sit—’
‘Here,’ said a voice. ‘With me, butt. My usual table.’
The voice belonged to Mikey, still rich with an accent and unpolished with slang. He had come up from behind her. Probably with a swagger.
‘Hi,’ she said, turning round, forcing a smile, something she’d never had to do with him before.
‘All right?’ he said. His hair was just a little bit longer than when she saw him on the beach. But the regrowth had changed him, making him look less skinhead, more approachable.
Then he moved his weight from one foot to another and rubbed his hands. Christ, talk about awkward.
‘Yeah, so, this is nice…’ she said, approaching the table and taking a seat. Right on top of his coat, which had probably cost a squillion quid. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered, switching to the opposite seat and messing about with her duffle and bag.
He was looking at her in the most uncomfortable way. She panicked and started talking.
‘Lush in here, isn’t it? Makes me feel, like, all Christmassy even though it’s March and—’
Slowly, he raised both of his hands to stop her, his almost-black eyes wide. ‘I’m sorry. I was a total dick.’
‘You what?’ She felt her forehead scrumple up like a pug’s. This was not how she’d thought this rendezvous would go.
‘I said I’m sorry and I was a total dick.’ He looked pained by his admission. He clearly wasn’t used to rolling over in defeat.
‘Oh, right. Okay,’ she said, ‘I didn’t expect that.’ She gave a small laugh because she’d just made the understatement of the year. He was supposed to be an arsehole not asking her forgiveness. Her drink appeared – in a cocking jam jar – so she slugged back a very alcoholic mouthful. She needed time to process this before she spoke.
‘It was just a bit weird… to see you on Barry Island the other day,’ he said, looking to her to give him some slack.
A bit weird? It had been insane. Like, you didn’t see someone for eight years then within days of messaging him your dog covers him in wet sand. It was almost fate – not that she’d say it because he’d spit his drink all over her. She took another swig and felt her stunned rictus expression relax as the gin entered her blood stream.
‘And I wanted to apologize to you for being a bit off. You know.’ He shifted an eyebrow: she knew of old that this meant he needed some help here. They used to call it his SOS Eyebrow. Vee could only give him a stuttering nod.
‘So I’m sorry.’ He heaved a breath and added: ‘I swear on Jarvis Cocker’s life.’
And there it was: the pledge they used to make when they were sharing a bit of gossip from school. He was trying to communicate that inside the man standing before her was the boy who’d been her best friend. Then as if he needed to show he meant it, he made a sign of the cross and kissed his fingers like the Pope. It was exactly what he used to do when he did an impression of his mother. The scar from the night he tried to punch his dad, my God, it was still there, she noticed, seeing the faded jagged edge on his left hand. He wanted to make peace, she realized, and he was saying that he was still the same. How she wanted to believe it.
Lost for words, she touched his arm to convey she was on board. But that made her flap because he had a muscly bulge where there used to be a snowman’s stick. The surprise leapt out of her mouth before she’d had time to process it.
‘Don’t tell me you work out!’ she said, at once feeling a right idiot. Because it revealed she’d noticed his physique. But she had to make it clear that she hadn’t done so in a pervy way. Oh God, he was going to think she was crushing on him. And she wasn’t. That was all in the past, those feelings she thought she might’ve had. ‘What I meant was, you used to hate PE!’
‘These guns,’ he said, pointing to his biceps which peeked out from his nicely cut black V-neck T-shirt, ‘are actually from years of playing pool.’
She laughed naturally: his deadpan had always tickled her. A chink of familiarity crept in. And it was then she decided to meet him halfway because she had to be a grown-up. She was exhausted with carrying all these emotions on top of her despair about Jez. It was time not to sweep the past under the carpet but to let it go. Free herself of the questions of why he’d dropped her and accept you couldn’t lug suitcases of history around with you – what was the point of harking back all those years to when they were still kids? It wasn’t as if they would recover their friendship. This felt more like a handshake and a let’s move on.
‘Look, shall we just forget all the stuff that happened before…’ She bit her lip wondering if this would be enough for him to understand what she was referring to. ‘Because it doesn’t really matter now, does it?’
He opened his mouth, paused, gave a small neat nod and then took a long mouthful of what was left of his pint, some sort of craft beer judging by the fancy glass: he’d been here a while, she realized, probably needing a run-up and some courage.
A weight toppled off her shoulders. It was as if she’d been freed from the past: sometimes, she now realized, you didn’t need to dig over old ground. Part of being an adult was to know when to acquiesce, to settle for a ceasefire. She couldn’t picture them as close friends ever again – they lived in different worlds now. But they could finish this moment on good terms.
‘You look really well,’ he said, crossing his legs, settling back into his chair.
‘Hardly,’ she scoffed because the upheaval with Jez had brought her out in spots. ‘But I’ll be getting rid of these as soon as I can afford it,’ she said, pulling at the pink in her hair. ‘They’re a bit too Brighton.’
‘That’s where you’ve been?’
‘Yep. Not going back though. Long story.’ There was no need to elaborate: they were simply following a procedure now of pleasant small talk before they parted ways. She slurped her drink but kept a little bit at the bottom because it would be a bit premature to up and go now. But he saw and signalled to the barman for two more.
‘Oh God, no,’ she said, holding up a palm. ‘Not for me.’ She only had twenty quid to last her. The drinks were a bit pricey in here.
‘I insist. Mate, here’s my card for the tab.’
Vee watched him hand a black bit of plastic to the barman. From her years on a till, she recognized it as an exclusive one. He wasn’t going places, he was already there. But he’d caught her ‘there’s posh’ face.
‘I do loads of travelling,’ he said. ‘It’s a company card, gives me access to airport lounges and upgrades and stuff.’
‘Oh, right, yes, I saw on your Facebook that you get about a bit. What do you do?’
‘App development. I write code for apps people use on their phones.’
‘Like Angry Birds?’ She felt stupid but that was about the breadth of her knowledge.
‘Sort of. I did a game once, Smash The Suburbs. That did okay. But corporate stuff is my bag. The apps you use to shop on your phone, that kind of thing.’
‘Wow!’ Another Gintini landed before her. ‘It sounds so…’ She didn’t know what because she wasn’t up on technology. She had an old cracked iPhone which she used for calls and texts and not much else. Not knowing what to say, she went for a joke. ‘…I mean, you’ve done so well. You’ve even got your own table here!’
But his face went tight. ‘My mate owns this place. He’s been struggling a bit, there are so many places to drink in Cardiff now, so when I’m here I try to bring him a bit of business.’
‘So you don’t live here full-time?’ she asked, surprisingly deflated. ‘With your girlfriend?’ She gave an inn
er wince as she said it because she had promised herself she wouldn't ask about his love life - she didn’t care. It was just nosiness.
‘Er, no. We’ve not been together long.’ He looked uncomfortable at that, which had made the question worthwhile to wipe the smug off him. And he wasn’t gushing about her, which would’ve made her want to vom. ‘I’m based in London. But I can work anywhere really so I come here to check in on Dad. He’s still a pisshead.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. How’s your mam?’
He dipped his chin a millimetre. Shit. Something was up.
‘She died six years ago. Cancer. Wish the old man had got it instead. But…’ He blinked quickly a few times and she saw it still hurt.
‘Oh, God, that’s awful. I didn’t realize,’ she said, her hands to her heart, genuinely upset because she knew how much he’d adored her. And then she felt the sorrow of not having been in his life when he’d lost her. Then the confirmation, again, that their relationship was over. How could it recover when you’d missed a life-shattering event that once you’d have always assumed you’d be there for?
‘And Orla?’ she said, deliberately upbeat, because it felt inappropriate to try to share his grief.
‘Yeah, good. Loved up. Saving up for a flat with her fella so she’s living with me for now.’
‘Here?’ Vee’s heart leapt because she would love to see her. They’d got on like sisters: she often tagged along when Mikey and Vee were out and about or round her house. Mum had had a soft spot for her and would invite her for tea when Mikey came over. And Vee would always give her her old clothes.
‘No. In London.’
‘Oh, that’s a shame.’
‘Well, there’s nothing to stop you from getting in touch with her.’ There was a hint of spite in there: she felt accused of something somehow. But she wouldn’t chase Orla up; this had put her right off jumping out of any more cakes. She looked at her watch: if she could wrap this up in five minutes, then she’d be able to get the next bus.
‘Well, you seem to be doing well, which is good.’
‘Yep,’ he said, again drinking but not taking his eyes off her.