Faking Friends

by Jane Fallon

  As it happens, when she answers, she has other fish to fry.

  ‘I’m at the key-cutting place,’ she says in a stage whisper, although I have no idea who she’s afraid of being overheard by.

  Yesterday evening, she’d headed down to Mel’s flat in Kingston, friendly bottle of wine in hand. Mel, she told me, when she got home at around nine, was looking good, if a bit thin. Acted pleased to see her, which Kat knew immediately was put on. They’d sat at the kitchen island and Mel had opened the wine. Kat told me gleefully that one of the first things she’d asked was how I was.

  ‘Good,’ Mel had said. ‘She came over the other week but only for a flying visit.’

  ‘Oh,’ Kat had said. ‘She didn’t tell me.’ She’d waited for Mel to mention the birthday party but, of course, she didn’t, because then she would have had to make some excuse as to why Kat and Greg hadn’t been invited.

  ‘Like I say, she was only here for forty-eight hours.’

  ‘It’s incredible, isn’t it?’ Kat had apparently said, twisting the knife. ‘To think of her over there, part of some big new TV show. She must be having the time of her life.’

  I snorted when she told me this bit, knowing how much Mel must have hated having to play along.

  ‘Ha! What did she say to that?’

  Kat crossed her legs and held the top of her wine glass loosely between her fingers in a very Mel-like way. ‘Mmmm … shame it’s such a small part.’

  I nearly choked on my Gavi di Gavi. ‘She really said that?’

  Kat nodded. ‘So I said, “Still, it’s an amazing experience, though,” and she was all “Oh, God, yes, incredible,” like that’s what she’d been going to say all along. Of course, she knows she won’t get anywhere bitching about you to me. It’s not as if we’ve ever bonded like that before. I’ll have to work on her.’

  ‘She’s going to let you have a go at selling it, then?’

  She reached into her bag, which was propped up next to the sofa, and pulled out a key-ring with two keys attached. Rattled them at me. ‘She is. And actually, it’s a lovely flat so – who knows? – I might even come across someone who’d want it. I’d forgotten how big it was.’

  ‘Did she say anything about where she’s moving to?’ The last conversation Mel and I had had about this, she said she hadn’t made up her mind because she had no intention of selling up and leaving. She was still intending to fight Sam tooth and nail to keep it. He could afford it, she’d snapped. And it was him who’d upped and left.

  Kat pulled a face. ‘She said maybe north. Nearer you.’

  ‘Jesus. Do you think they’re planning on carrying on after we get married? I mean, assuming we ever did get married, which, obviously, now, we won’t.’

  ‘In all honesty, yes. Her, anyway. I wouldn’t put it past her.’

  I leaned back in my chair. ‘Christ, she might be even more of a bitch than I thought.’

  ‘You’ll never guess who came over last night!’

  I’m back in my pillow nest with Mr T and the pink cushion. No PJs, though, because it’s midnight in the UK so only seven in New York. For authenticity, I have a work document of Greg’s face down on my lap that could pass for a script.

  Mel is in her own bed, at least. She’s a bit pissed – she tells me she’s had a night in the pub with people from work, including John, her boss, the one she told me she was thinking of seducing for career-enhancement opportunities. She’s looking scrubbed and shiny, her hair falling in waves around her face. Mel is always scrupulous about taking her make-up off, protecting her pale, delicate skin. I, on the other hand, have pillows that resemble a dirty protest because I can’t be arsed to do anything more than run a wet wipe over my face before I fall asleep.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Katty Mackenzie!’ She pulls a ‘yuk’ face. Even though she knows I’ve stayed friends with Kat she never bothers to temper her dislike for her in front of me.

  ‘Really? How on earth did that happen?’

  ‘I’ve decided to sell the flat. I’m sick of fighting with Sam about it.’

  ‘Right, gosh, well, it’s probably the best thing to do in the long run. Otherwise, you’ll never have a clean break.’

  ‘I just don’t see why I should lose my home because he went off with some tart, that’s all.’

  Oh, the irony. I almost laugh. ‘I know. But don’t cut off your nose to spite your face, and all that.’

  ‘I hate that expression. Who’s cutting off their nose?’

  ‘Anyway, what’s Kat got to do with it?’

  ‘She popped up out of nowhere and said she’d heard I was selling and she might have a buyer for me. You know she does that thing where she helps people find houses or something …’

  ‘Great. I assume her fee would come from them and not you, so you’d save a fortune.’

  ‘Exactly. Anyway, she clicked around here last night in her stupid little kitten heels. Who in God’s name wears kitten heels? Oh, I told her you came home last week. Sorry!’

  I shrug. ‘Doesn’t matter. I hardly ever hear from her these days, anyway.’

  ‘She reckons we could get as much as nine two five.’

  ‘Amazing. Are you looking for a new place yet?’

  She yawns and stretches. ‘Not yet. I can’t decide where to go. Besides, I need you here to look at things with me.’

  ‘Well, that might not happen for a while. Email me pictures. Or we can FaceTime when you go and look at places.’

  ‘When are you coming over again?’

  ‘No idea. Not for ages. Oh,’ I say, remembering Kat’s theory about Mel envying my life, ‘did I tell you? They’re bumping up my part. Apparently, Yvon’s proving quite popular.’

  For a split second, Mel’s expression is like the one a baby makes when it eats something unexpectedly bitter. I try to keep the smirk off mine.

  ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Right.’

  I shrug and try to look casual. ‘It’s no big deal. It just means I’ll get less time off.’ I feign a yawn, stretch luxuriously.

  ‘Great … Well done …’

  ‘I’d better go. I’m going out. Some of the cast are meeting up at the 21 Club for dinner.’

  Mel’s face is a picture. The one time she visited me – for a long weekend a couple of weeks before Sam dropped his bombshell and she no longer felt she could splash out on flights to New York – she’d been obsessed with wanting to go to ‘21’, as she’d called it, thinking it made her sound like a local. Along with the top of the Empire State, walking across Brooklyn Bridge and skating in Central Park. Basically, all the things she’d seen in movies and that tourists want to cross off their lists. I’d been no different when I’d first arrived, although my castmates had soon persuaded me that there were better, more authentic, not to mention cheaper, icons to visit. But for Mel’s sake, I’d tried – and failed – to get us a table. I’d even taken her to look at the little statues of jockeys that line the street outside.

  She can’t even bring herself to comment. ‘I’ll talk to you soon, in that case.’

  ‘Love you,’ I say, trying not to laugh as I hang up.

  16

  By the weekend, I’m ready to move in. By which I mean the whole flat has been scrubbed to within an inch of its life, had a coat of paint (woodwork cleaned but not painted. Life, I decided, is too short) and I have taken delivery of a cheap bed, microwave and fridge from Argos. My final-episode fee has come through so I’ve splashed out on a tiny two-seater oatmeal-coloured sofa (being delivered on Monday) and a Netflix subscription. There’s still nothing on the floors, or in the greasy, gaping hole in the kitchen where the cooker once was, or covering the windows. Apart from grime. But I’m very conscious that I don’t want to outstay my welcome at Kat and Greg’s.

  On Sunday morning, we pile my cases and the scavenged booty that is all I have to show for a five-year relationship into their car. On our way through chichi St John’s Wood, Kat spots a skip outside a posh house that is being ref
urbished and insists we stop for a rummage. I’d forgotten how much she loves a skip. When we lived together, she was forever dragging in some bit of mid-century modern tat that she would lovingly restore to its former glory. She still has some of it, now I come to think about it. A fifties side table, a sixties magazine rack, a seventies floor lamp.

  This one contains mostly builders’ rubble but, with her practised eye, Kat spots what turns out to be a small, battered wooden table buried among it. I only realize what it is after Kat has made Greg jump in and dig it out. From the way he throws himself straight in there, I assume this is a regular occurrence. He comes out holding it above his head like a weightlifter with a barbell, quiff askew.

  ‘Sand that back and paint it and it’ll be lovely in your kitchen,’ Kat says as we help Greg out.

  ‘Excuse me, are you throwing stuff in my skip?’ The three of us jump guiltily as a man appears – early forties, I would say, with paint-speckled hair that I identify only too well with at the moment.

  Kat gives him her best, most confident grin. ‘Taking it out. So now you’ll have more room.’

  Thankfully, the man smiles. ‘Really? That’s not very St John’s Wood.’

  ‘No, well, neither are we,’ I say. ‘This table’s going to live up by the North Circular.’

  ‘I think there were some chairs that went with it,’ the man says, looking around. ‘I mean, if you’re in the market for other stuff.’

  ‘We can’t pay you, though, that’s the thing,’ Kat says, and I feel myself blushing. Apparently, this is a perfectly acceptable statement, because the man doesn’t bat an eyelid.

  ‘God, no, that’s fine. To be honest, anything I can offload means more space in the skip. And this is our eighth skip on this job so far, so you can imagine … It’s costing a fortune.’

  ‘Is this your house?’ I can’t imagine someone who lives in a mansion like this worrying about the price of the odd skip.

  ‘No. God, no. I’m in charge of the refit. Simon Rigby.’ He sticks out a hand and shakes each of ours.

  ‘Is it for sale?’ Kat says. She probably knows five people who could afford it and would be interested in looking round. I can see the pound signs ticking up in her eyes.

  ‘Not so far as I know.’ While we’ve been talking, he’s been edging back towards the drive and we’ve been edging along behind him. We follow him through the gates and there’s another pile of cast-offs.

  ‘Help yourself. It’s only stuff out of the maid’s quarters, but you’re welcome …’

  I feel as if I’ve entered a parallel universe. ‘They have a maid? With her own flat? They don’t need a new one, do they, because I need a job.’

  Simon Rigby flashes a smile at me. It lights up his face and transforms his features into something altogether more interesting. ‘I don’t think so, but I can ask.’

  For some reason, I don’t want him to think I’m a saddo who goes around scrounging furniture off the street and begging for live-in domestic work. ‘It’s okay. I’m an actress, really. I’d be very unreliable. They’d be waiting for their breakfast and I’d be off auditioning for a toilet-roll commercial.’

  I wait for him to say that most annoying thing anyone can say to an actor but seems to be half the population’s response to finding out what I do: ‘What might I have seen you in?’ I’ve never understood it. If I hear someone’s a nanny, I don’t say, ‘What children do you look after that I might know?’ or, if someone works in IT, ‘What computers have you programmed that I might have come across?’ To give him credit, he doesn’t, he just laughs.

  ‘Can we have these?’ Kat and Greg are ferreting through the pile of cast-offs and have put two kitchen chairs and a low, tiled coffee table to one side.

  ‘Be my guest,’ Simon says.

  ‘We honestly don’t usually go rummaging through people’s shit,’ I say. I don’t know why I feel the need to apologize for our behaviour but, for some reason, I do.

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ Kat says. ‘That’s where I find all my best things. I’ll have the coffee table if you don’t want it.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ I say. I may be proud but I need a coffee table and even I have to admit this one has a kind of retro charm.

  ‘Is this a cooker?’ Greg says out of nowhere. And I mean, really out of nowhere, because I can’t see him in the midst of all the crap.

  ‘Probably,’ Simon says. ‘I think there was one in there. It’s not exactly state of the art.’

  ‘It works, though, right?’ We’ve all found Greg now, and he’s sniffing about an old free-standing cooker with four rings on top, what looks like a grill underneath and a tiny oven.

  ‘No idea, but I don’t see why not.’

  ‘I think we’ve got enough stuff for now,’ I say, eager to get out of there. God knows what Simon must think of us.

  ‘It’s clean, too, Amy, look.’ Greg holds open the oven door like one of those women displaying the prizes in an old TV game show. All he needs is a bikini and high heels.

  ‘We could take it inside and plug it in to see …’

  ‘No!’ I almost shout at Kat’s suggestion. ‘Let’s just take the other things and get out of Simon’s way.’

  Simon seems to be fairly amused by the whole thing. ‘You’re welcome to do that if you want.’

  ‘I’m not sure we’re going to be able to get everything in the car as it is. What with all your cases and the stuff that’s in there already,’ Greg says helpfully. ‘We might have to do two journeys.’

  I feel as if I want the earth to swallow me up. How did my life come to this? At the age of nearly forty, I’m scrabbling around in other people’s rubbish piles.

  ‘Let’s just get what we can in,’ I say. ‘We really don’t want to disturb Simon more than we have to.’

  Simon shrugs. ‘You can just come back and help yourselves. Like I said, anything I can get rid of is a bonus for me.’

  ‘Thanks, mate,’ Greg says. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him call anyone mate before. It’s such an un-Greg thing to say.

  We manage to cram the kitchen table into the boot – which won’t now close – by taking the legs off, and the coffee table fits in the back seat alongside me.

  ‘I really think we should come back later for the chairs,’ Kat says. ‘I mean, what’s the problem? You need them.’

  ‘Tell you what,’ Simon says. ‘If you come back for the chairs, I’ll have a couple of the guys take the cooker inside and plug it in in the meantime. See what happens. If I’m not going to be here when you get back, I’ll leave a note on it letting you know. How’s that?’

  I mumble my thanks, looking at the floor. I’m now officially a charity case.

  ‘And I’ll get them to have a scout around, see if there’s anything else interesting we were just going to throw out.’

  ‘God, that was so embarrassing,’ I say sulkily once we’re in the car.

  Kat turns around and looks at me wide-eyed, like an owl with glasses. ‘Why? He wants to get rid of that stuff, you need it, we can take it off his hands. Everyone benefits.’

  ‘Scrounging someone else’s thrown-away furniture. Not even their furniture, their maid’s furniture. I’m scrabbling about for things that aren’t even deemed good enough for the maid!’

  ‘Stop being such a snob,’ Kat says. I know she’s right. I have no idea why I’m reacting like this.

  ‘And Simon totally liked the look of you, by the way,’ she adds.

  My blush, which seems to have been hovering just underneath the surface for the past ten minutes, bursts though. I have no idea why. I’m just grateful that I’m sitting in the back, where they can’t scrutinize me too much. ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  ‘A hundred per cent. Back me up, Greg.’

  ‘Ninety-nine point eight per cent.’

  ‘Why else do you think he’s going to all the trouble of testing out the cooker for you?’

  ‘Because he’s a nice guy?’

  ‘Yeah, right. H
e’d put himself out like that for anyone.’

  ‘You don’t even know him!’

  ‘Amy and Simon sitting in a tree …’ Greg chips in, which is so childish I can’t help but laugh.

  We lug all the stuff up the two flights of stairs and then Kat disappears to get coffees from the café on the corner and comes back with some questionable looking pastries, too.

  ‘You two go back for the rest of the things, and I’ll get going on the table,’ she says.

  ‘No way. You and Greg go. I’m not having the pair of you trying to matchmake between me and some bloke I met in the street for five minutes.’

  ‘He wasn’t in the street. He was in a very posh house on Avenue Road. And he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. Just saying.’

  ‘Stop it, Kat. It’s too soon.’

  She pushes her glasses up her nose. ‘I’m only teasing you. Sorry.’

  I back down immediately. I don’t know why I’m getting so defensive in the first place.

  ‘I know. I’ve got a bit of a sense-of-humour failure at the moment.’

  ‘Nothing a quick fumble with a random man you’ve only just met wouldn’t cure,’ she says, and waggles her eyebrows in such a ridiculously exaggerated way I laugh.

  ‘Well, I can’t do it on my own,’ Greg says. He’s brandishing a piece of card on which he’s marked the size of the gap left by the old cooker.

  ‘Come on, then,’ Kat says, obviously sensing that I’m still reluctant. ‘We can take our coffees with us.’

  Once they’ve gone, I dither about a bit, not sure what to do first. There’s no point unpacking most of the contents of my cases because there’s nowhere to put anything, so I just empty the box of pans and things that I got from the flat and then make up the bed. I dig out Mr T and my pink skyline cushion and nestle them among the pillows. I’ll have to remember to hide my bird-adorned duvet cover when I FaceTime with either Jack or Mel, and I’ll just have to hope they don’t notice my bed has lost its headboard.

  I’m sanding down the top of the kitchen table (I started with a leg but the turned ridges made it too frustrating so I gave up) and am actually feeling quite content because the sun has come out and it’s streaming through the kitchen-stroke-living-room window – actually, that’s a lie. There’s one thin shaft of it that hits the window at an oblique angle, causing a thirty-centimetre-square patch of sunlight in which I’m now standing – when the bell rings, announcing that Kat and Greg are back. I run down the two flights of stairs to find them not only with the cooker and two chairs but proudly brandishing quite a nice wooden floor lamp, too.