If You Knew Her

by Emily Elgar

  Cassie, nervous at dwelling on her good fortune too much, in case it tempts fate, still can’t deny that the world has at last been good to her. Really bloody good to her.

  Nicky is looking at Cassie, eyebrows raised, like she expects Cassie to cry any moment. She wraps her slim arms over Cassie’s shoulders and pulls her friend towards her.

  ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up,’ she whispers in Cassie’s ear. ‘I am happy for you, Pudge. You know that, don’t you?’

  Cassie smiles at her old nickname, and nods her head against Nicky’s shoulder. April called her Pudge since Cassie was a baby and Nicky was the only other person allowed to use it.

  Cassie thinks about reminding Nicky that it was the sale of the Brixton flat – worth over eight times what April originally paid for it in the late eighties – that paid for everything, but she doesn’t have the energy.

  April used to say that Cassie and Nicky, friends since they met at preschool, were more like sisters, which is why they could be so close but be mean to each other as well, because they knew, like sisters know, that they share an unshakeable bond. Cassie loved that idea, of having a sister, someone who she would always love, no matter how annoying they were. The sister relationship always seemed to Cassie to be one of the greatest of them all.

  ‘Oh, I just remembered.’ Nicky pulls away from Cassie. ‘I got an email from Marcus, about April’s anniversary weekend on the Isle of Wight.’

  Cassie groans inwardly, and Nicky spots it immediately.

  ‘What, Cas? You don’t like the idea?’

  ‘No, it’s not that exactly. It’s just … I … I just want to spend time here, you know, with Jack.’

  ‘Well, Jack’s invited too, isn’t he?’

  ‘Of course, but … we just can’t commit right now, you know. We were thinking about going away maybe this year in July, just the two of us.’

  ‘Uh huh.’ Nicky nods, her eyes creasing in recognition of Cassie’s bullshit. ‘What’s this really about? The drama last year?’

  Marcus had hosted the first-year anniversary of April’s death last July as well. It was the first time Jack and Marcus had met. Marcus had become uncharacteristically antagonistic with alcohol and grief and, somehow, Marcus and Jack had started arguing about an article they’d both read about how property developers contribute more to climate change than any other industry, which had led to Jack storming off in a rage and Cassie and Jack leaving earlier than planned. Marcus couldn’t remember any of it the next morning, but he’d sent an apologetic text a couple of days later.

  ‘Well, let me know, will you?’ Nicky asks. ‘I won’t go unless you do.’

  The old, dependent mantra of their youth sounds ridiculous now. Cassie wishes Nicky wouldn’t use it any more – she should understand things have changed, that the rules are different – but Cassie nods anyway. She looks around the shed, slightly shy, and, changing the subject, says, ‘You do like it?’

  Before Nicky can reply, from across the garden there’s a clatter of stainless steel as something heavy-sounding drops from the oven onto the kitchen tiles.

  ‘Bollocks!’ Jack shouts, and Cassie laughs quickly, grateful for the distraction.

  She grabs Nicky’s arm, and steers them out of the shed. ‘I love him, but he’s absolutely shit in the kitchen.’

  They decide that, with jumpers on, it’s warm enough in the spring sun to have lunch outside. Jack and Nicky set the outside table while Cassie tries to rescue the salmon fillets Jack dropped and makes a dressing for the salad.

  She turns down the radio so she can hear Jack and Nicky talk as they lay silver cutlery and fill water glasses. They’re still learning how to relax with each other, trying to figure out the subtle alchemy in the relationship between old best friend and new husband. Nicky tells Jack about a recent date she went on, an attractive biology teacher she met online whose tongue seemed too big for his mouth. He kept spraying Nicky in fine fountains of spit when he spoke. Jack laughs, careful to strike the right balance between amusement and horror. Cassie’s heard the story before, of course, but she still laughs along from inside the kitchen.

  Jonny, Jack and Cassie’s neighbour, is preceded by his half-blind Alsatian, Dennis, who trots around the corner of the red-brick cottage from the drive.

  His tail wags as Cassie strokes his shaggy head; she’d love to get a dog, but Jack, being slightly allergic, isn’t at all keen.

  Dennis turns away from Cassie at Jonny’s whistle, his eyes cloudy with cataracts, as Jonny follows Dennis around the corner of the cottage. Although they’ve only met twice before, both times in The Hare, Cassie’s never seen Jonny in anything other than shorts and a T-shirt. Today he’s in denim cut-offs.

  Jack texted Jonny yesterday, inviting him to join them for lunch. He’d said Jonny must get lonely, on his own in the farm cottage; typical, thoughtful Jack.

  Initially, Cassie was mildly irritated that Jack had extended Jonny an invite; she’d wanted the weekend to be about her best friend and husband getting to know each other a bit better. But she was pleased she’d managed to swallow her irritation. She wanted to try to be more empathetic like Jack, and, besides, she told herself, it’d be good for Jack to have a local friend, someone other than her to have a pint with after a stressful day at work.

  Jonny hands Cassie a bottle of Prosecco as he kisses her cheeks, lifting his sunglasses off his face, using them to pin his sandy-coloured hair back from his forehead. It’s grown curlier since she last saw him a couple of weeks ago. He’s been growing it since he moved to Buscombe from Hackney four months ago, just a month after Cassie sold the Brixton flat and she and Jack moved down. Jonny jokingly said in the pub that he’s growing his hair as a symbol of freedom since quitting his job as a graphic designer and going freelance. Cassie wondered if it was also a sign of freedom from his wife, Lorna, but she doesn’t know him well enough to ask about her, not yet.

  Cassie introduces Jonny and Nicky. They almost clash noses as he tries to kiss both her cheeks, while Nicky only offered one. Nicky laughs in girlish delight, and Cassie immediately recognises the way Nicky’s light-blue eyes slide over Jonny, and how Nicky starts fondling the ends of her long red hair between her slim fingers as he talks.

  Jack slaps Jonny on the back as they shake hands and Nicky follows Cassie inside to help bring out glasses for the Prosecco. Cassie pretends not to notice as Nicky’s eyes slide over her reflection, checking her slim silhouette in the mirror as Cassie rifles through drawers trying to find the bottle opener.

  ‘I know I saw it earlier …’ she mutters, opening another drawer as Nicky picks up a photo of April in a silver frame from the sideboard. It’s Cassie’s favourite, the one where April’s wearing the peacock-blue headscarf Cassie bought her for her last birthday; it’s tied at the top of her head, like she’s a present to the world. April’s smiling hard at the camera, her eyes half moons, the sea a boiling mess of white foam fifty feet below. Just five months after the photo was taken Cassie and Marcus scattered April’s ashes into the sea from those same white cliffs. Cassie opens the same wrong cupboard twice before she finds the wine glasses. Nicky isn’t looking at the photo though, she’s looking at the frame.

  ‘Didn’t this photo used to be in that frame we decorated with shells April found at the beach?’

  Sometimes, it would be nice if Nicky didn’t question everything. Cassie doesn’t respond, but she knows Nicky wants an answer.

  ‘Cas?’

  ‘Oh, yeah, it was, but we were given those ones as a wedding present.’ Cassie glances over at Nicky and shrugs. ‘It looks so much better in a proper frame, and besides the shells had started to fall off the other one.’ That was a lie; they hadn’t started to fall off. Jack binned the old frame, assuming Cassie had bought it at a charity shop or something. When Cassie told him her mum found the shells, he tried to go to the dump to look for the old frame but Cassie told him not to bother; she’d never liked it that much anyway and, besides, the shell frame
had looked ridiculous in their sleek white kitchen.

  Nicky picks up a photo of another lost parent, in an identical silver frame. Cassie knows which one it is without looking at it. It’s Jack about eight years old, on his dad’s shoulders, in his football kit, Jack’s muddy knees hovering by his dad’s ears. Mike’s holding onto his son’s ankles. They’re both grinning at the camera, dimples on their left cheeks, dark hair combed away from their faces, like nothing bad could ever happen in their world.

  ‘They look exactly the same,’ Nicky says, peering into the faded photograph. ‘You said he died from a heart attack?’

  Cassie nods slowly, putting the glasses on the oak kitchen island. She finds it hard to talk about Mike with someone other than Jack or Charlotte. Even though she’s family now, it’s still not her story; she feels she can’t tell it the way it should be told. She starts filling an ice bucket to keep the bottle cool as Nicky puts the photo carefully back in its place on the shelf.

  ‘I loved meeting Charlotte at the wedding. She’s amazing,’ Nicky says, taking the ice and bottle opener off Cassie.

  The wine glasses clash against each other as Cassie picks them up by their stems.

  ‘She is,’ Cassie answers. ‘Honestly, I don’t know how she did it, after losing Mike – coping with her own grief and still raising Jack.’

  ‘I guess that’s what your mum did as well,’ Nicky says gently.

  Cassie looks at her friend. She doesn’t know her face like she used to, as if her freckles and the familiar notes of her face have subtly moved like stars in a night sky. Nicky always seems to find a way to remind Cassie about the exotic way she grew up, never knowing her dad, the fact that she is basically an orphan now. Nicky always resented her suburban, secure childhood. She’d moan on and on about her two younger brothers, and their family holidays to Greece, while Cassie shared a bed with her mum until she was twelve and stayed in South London all summer.

  Nicky, oblivious to Cassie, is still staring at the photo of Jack and Mike.

  ‘I think we’ve got everything. Come on,’ Cassie says, turning away from Nicky and walking towards the safety of Jack’s low, gentle voice outside before Nicky can say anything else.

  They eat salmon fillets, salad and new potatoes, as if it’s summer already. After a few glasses of wine, Cassie feels herself soften as Jonny tells her about the dog-rescue centre where he adopted Dennis.

  She’s pleased she didn’t snap at Nicky before. That’s Jack’s influence, she thinks; he soothes her … calms her fire.

  As she talks to Jonny, she keeps half an ear on Nicky and Jack’s conversation. Jack’s telling Nicky how busy he’s been at Jensen and Son, the family property company founded by his grandfather and run by Mike until his death. For the last twenty years, the company had been grinding along, managed by an able but uninspiring ex-lawyer hired by the board. Jack was advised to gain experience in another company before taking a position at Jensen and Son, so Jack worked for the last ten years for huge developers in London. Soon after he met Cassie the board agreed he was ready to join the small, rural company – an opportunity that had been the deciding factor for their move from London to Buscombe.

  Now he is asking Nicky’s advice on recruiting a new project manager. She won’t have a clue, but Cassie knows she’ll pretend to be expert, and she’ll feel good that Jack asked her opinion. Cassie feels herself relax knowing the two of them are getting on; it seems silly now that she ever thought they might not.

  Jonny opens another bottle of red wine. ‘So, Jack was saying that in your spare time between getting married, doing up a house and moving to the country you’ve set up a business?’

  ‘Painting?’ Cassie frowns. She’s too much in Jack and Nicky’s conversation to know what Jonny’s talking about.

  ‘Oh, that must be another one then. No, he was saying something about jam?’

  ‘Ah, jam.’ Cassie laughs. In the autumn months after April died, Cassie found unexpected solace in making jam after Jack bought her a box of plums from his mum’s garden. She had no idea what to do with the plums, but found a recipe in between the sticky pages of one of April’s old cookery books and found the steady preparation of the fruit, the careful weighing of the sugar and the bubbling of the pans to be a sweet meditation, a break from the monotony of the uncertainty, the strangeness of her new life. She gave Jack a jar of jam to give to Charlotte before she’d met her future mother-in-law, and Charlotte and Jack told her it was so good she should sell some locally. She resisted at first, but then worried it might look like she wasn’t making an effort to fit in – that she wasn’t fully embracing the new, rural Cassie.

  Jonny raises the bottle to Cassie’s glass. He doesn’t pour wine like Jack: a precise, rich tap of wine. No, Jonny tips the bottle so it slops in a wave, creating a tiny tsunami inside her glass.

  Cassie raises her hand to get him to stop.

  ‘That’s like, half a pint!’ she says, looking at the glass. Jonny sloshes the same amount into his own glass and keeps talking.

  ‘So, Jack said you’re selling jam next weekend at a local festival?’

  ‘Oh no, I’m not doing that any more.’

  Jonny takes a long gulp from his glass, like he’s drinking water not wine.

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Oh, it’s just I’ve got a lot on and Jack has to work. I can’t drive so it’s just too much faff to sort out really.’

  Jonny holds the plump bottom of his wine glass between his middle fingers as if he’s worried someone might steal it if he left it on the table.

  ‘That’s a shame.’ He pauses for a moment, before continuing, ‘I’ve got a van and am around this weekend if that’s helpful?’

  Cassie looks up at Jonny. It’s one of Charlotte’s friends organising the small fete and she’d been putting off making the difficult phone call, telling her she was going to cancel and letting her down.

  ‘Really? You don’t have weekend plans?’ she asks.

  ‘I was going to be in London but not any more, so I’m around. It’d be good to do something wholesome for a change.’ Dennis stirs underneath Jonny’s chair as Jonny keeps talking. ‘I warn you though, I’m only good for donkey work – moving boxes, driving, that sort of thing. I can’t do any sales chat at all and I’ll only accept payment as long as it’s fruit- and sugar-based, sealed in a jar.’

  Dennis pulls himself out from under Jonny’s chair and rests his big bear head on his master’s lap.

  Cassie glances over at her husband; he’s telling Nicky about Jamie, a monosyllabic solicitor friend of his who’s single. She hears Jack suggesting an after-work drink in London when he’s next up, so he can introduce Nicky to Jamie. He’s always trying to fix things, find solutions for people. Jack feels Cassie looking at him, and turns away from Nicky to smile, his lopsided, adorable smile at his wife. Cassie feels her insides warm.

  She turns back to Jonny, and watches his Adam’s apple bob as his throat swallows more wine. Jonny’s help would be a neat solution to her little problem.

  ‘You’re sure you don’t mind?’

  ‘No, like I said, it’ll be good to be helpful. So it’s a fete, right?’

  Cassie nods. ‘Brace yourself, it’ll be all purple rinses and tea cosies.’ She picks up her wine. ‘The café in the park is doing cream teas and using my jam so they said I could have a stall, sell a few jars at the spring fete, just to see how it goes. I thought I may as well. You know, get involved in the village and all that.’ Maybe, she hopes quietly, in a few months she’ll be selling paintings as well as jams.

  Jack and Nicky’s conversation has lulled, and Jack leans forward across the table and says, ‘Did I just hear you getting an offer for help with the fete, Cas?’

  Cassie nods and smiles at her husband as he keeps talking.

  ‘Funny, I’d had the same thought.’ To Jonny, Jack says, ‘Thanks, mate, that’s good of you.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ Jonny says, shrugging and scratching Dennis beh
ind his ear.

  Cassie had been prepared for making friends to take a while. In fact, after London it was a relief to have the peace and time to paint, to enjoy being a newlywed, but she feels it’s now probably time to make some sort of an effort. She doesn’t want to piss anyone off, so it’s good she doesn’t have to cancel.

  Jack has stood up from the table and come to stand behind Cassie.

  She didn’t notice, so she flinches as she feels his hands rest on her shoulders.

  ‘Cas, it’s too sweet!’ Nicky says, smiling across the table at her friend. ‘Honestly, less than two years ago you were partying in Brixton, and now you’re selling your jams at the village fete!’

  ‘I know, who would’ve thought it?’ Cassie says, smiling back at her friend. Above her, Jack kisses the top of her head.

  ‘I’m sure Cas is secretly writing a book: From Brixton to Buscombe: An Odyssey,’ Jack jokes.

  Jonny laughs and Cassie slaps Jack’s hand.

  ‘It’s my gypsy blood,’ she says with pomp in her voice. ‘I’m very versatile. I can make a home wherever I go.’

  Jack kisses her on the head again. ‘I know you can, my lovely gypsy.’

  Cassie, emboldened by wine, bends her head back to kiss Jack full on the lips. In her peripheral vision sees Nicky’s smile fade and the same flicker in her expression Cassie saw earlier in the shed, and she pulls away from Jack, because something feels wrong. She shouldn’t kiss Jack in front of Nicky like that; it feels too much like showing off, especially as Nicky so wants to meet someone.

  Dennis starts wagging his tail, noticing the shift in the atmosphere. He barks and Jonny stands up from the table, his wine glass almost empty.

  ‘Right, I think Dennis is telling me it’s time to go home for a walk.’ He looks at Cassie. ‘Give me a call in the week and let me know what time you need me on Saturday, I’m free all day.’ Jonny gives Cassie and Nicky a kiss goodbye on their cheeks, thanking them for lunch, and he hugs Jack in the brief, slapping way men do.