Faking Friends

by Jane Fallon

  ‘Perfect. I mean … if you enjoy cooking, that is …’

  I’m gratified that he sounds as nervous as I do.

  ‘I do! I love it. And I’m good at it. At least, people tell me I am …’

  ‘We can admire the rug while we eat.’

  ‘Exactly. And if you drop food on it, you won’t even be able to tell, because, you know, that pattern …’

  He laughs. ‘Is it giving you nightmares?’

  ‘I’ve started therapy, let’s just say that.’

  ‘I can always get Martin round to take it away again.’

  ‘I love the rug. Especially now I’ve run the Vax on it. It’s actually cream under all the dirt.’

  ‘It’s not?’

  ‘Ha! No, of course it’s not!’

  ‘Shit. I told you I was rubbish with jokes. Not only can I not make them, I don’t get them half the time. I’m a lost cause.’

  I flop down on the sofa in the sun sliver. ‘Okay, well, I promise I won’t make any more. Ever. We can have serious conversations about quantum physics.’

  ‘Actually, quantum physics is fascinating.’

  I drape my hand over my eyes to block out the rays. It’s a beautiful day and I’m sweltering in my curtainless living room, windows firmly closed because of Oscar. Heaven forbid I would be the one who really let him escape, and he’s been spending his days staring out at the street, fascinated by the traffic, ever since I brought him here, as if he’s thinking it might be fun to explore. ‘Did I mention I’m actually busy on Thursday?’

  ‘Oh no, are you? … That was a joke, by the way. That was me joking.’

  ‘I know. You don’t need to announce it every time. Unlike you, I do get jokes. Do you think this means we’re horribly incompatible?’

  He sighs dramatically. ‘Probably. Shall we just give up now?’

  ‘Eat first, give up later. That’s my motto.’

  ‘That’s very inspirational. So what time do you want me and what should I bring?’

  ‘Half seven? And nothing.’

  ‘Fantastic,’ he says. ‘I’ll see you then.’

  ‘What was that?’

  Jack and I are FaceTiming, thankfully audio only, because the light would give away immediately that I’m not in the right time zone. I’ve barely talked to him since I decided I didn’t care about him any more and, consequently, I’ve become complacent. I forgot to shut Oscar in the bedroom before I called and he’s now yowling in my face because he wants my attention.

  I grab him up, but he just makes even more noise so I drop him down again, on to the sofa. I decide I’m going to have to style it out.

  ‘That noise? Oh, I forgot to tell you. I’m looking after Mary’s cat, Frank, for a few days while she’s gone away. I don’t suppose … Oscar …’

  I might as well guilt-trip him as a distraction.

  ‘Nothing. I’m sure someone must have taken him in. If he’d hurt himself, someone would have taken him to the vet and they’d have scanned him –’

  ‘Poor baby,’ I say, scratching Oscar under the chin. He stares up at me with his vivid green eyes and purrs contentedly.

  ‘I still feel awful,’ Jack says, and I know he’s expecting me to say something soothing, but I don’t.

  Rather than nothing, Simon arrives on Thursday with a small but beautiful dark wood bedside cabinet in tow.

  ‘It’s gorgeous,’ I say, examining it. ‘But this is getting ridiculous now.’

  The flat is looking its (still shoddy) best because Kat came over earlier and we spent the morning prettifying, both visually and – possibly more importantly – in the olfactory sense. She came armed with four throw cushions she claimed were only £5 each at George at Asda – although what Kat was doing trawling round the homeware department of Asda is beyond me, given the fact she won’t consider anything going into her home that was made later than 1975 – and a bag full of diffusers, the kind that have sticks coming out the top.

  The cushions are cute, two with a kitsch pattern of flamingos and the others a retro geometric design. They clash horribly with the rug but they liven up the sofa and the overall effect isn’t too bad, so long as you try not to look at both at once. We unpacked the diffusers and put them in places like under the kitchen sink, and in the darkest corner of the bedroom, where the damp problem is worst. I insisted on paying her back and I was pleased when she let me, because I’m starting to get a complex about being a charity case.

  I had finally unpacked the last of the things out of my New York suitcases – which are now stashed one on top of another in a corner of the bedroom – and uncovered some flea-market finds that I’d forgotten I’d even brought home. A dark wooden ornate panel the size of a box file that I managed to hammer to the wall between the two front windows (but which will almost certainly fall off again if touched), a set of three carved heads, also dark wood, which I lined up on the windowsill, and a flat, stern-looking silver crocodile, which I put on the coffee table. They all remind me of Sunday mornings browsing happily in Hell’s Kitchen or the West Seventies before meeting friends for brunch in my fabulous former life that I can barely even relate to any more.

  I’ve temporarily taken the grey throw down from where I’d fixed it over the curtainless bedroom window and draped it, folded, across the end of the bed. There’s no launderette in walking distance so I’ve been hand-washing everything in the kitchen sink and hanging it over a wooden frame in the bathroom for the most part, including my sheets, which took so long to dry it necessitated a trip to buy spares. Earlier, Kat and I had loaded up her car and found somewhere that would do a service wash, so now the flat smells pleasantly of laundry under the slightly chemical diffuser smell.

  ‘Well, it looks better than it did,’ she said when we finally flopped on to the sofa, coffees in hand.

  ‘It looks like a student lives here who hasn’t got round to putting their posters up yet.’

  ‘But at least they’re a clean student,’ she said, which made me laugh. ‘Anyway, it’s a vast improvement on the way it looked the last time he came round, and that didn’t put him off, so I don’t know what you’re worried about.’

  ‘I need to start cooking.’ I stood up and stretched.

  ‘Oh God, I’m getting out of here before you mess the whole place up again.’

  I grabbed her in a hug. The top of her head barely grazed my chin. ‘You’re a really good mate. You know that, don’t you?’ I meant it. The way Kat was putting herself out for me was a revelation. She must have had far better and more lucrative things to do with her time, but whenever I needed anything she dropped everything to help out. Because, apparently, that’s what friends did.

  Kat is a bit like her namesakes. She both loves physical displays of affection and hates herself for loving them, so she let me do it for a second then squirmed in my arms.

  ‘Okay, get off me.’

  I kept a tight grip. ‘No. I want to say thank you.’

  ‘You can buy me a drink,’ she said, shoving me off and laughing. ‘No manhandling allowed.’

  ‘Spoilsport.’

  After she left, I spent a couple of hours happily pottering around the kitchen area. After much agonizing, I’d decided on a Thai theme, with a starter of fish cakes with a chilli dipping sauce followed by a coconutty, lemongrassy prawn curry with fluffy steamed rice and sea-bass fillets. But first I make a distinctly non-Thai cheesecake with a salted caramel sauce to drizzle over the top. I turn the radio on to eighties hits and Oscar plonks himself on the arm of the sofa opposite my work station and stares at me languidly, occasionally licking his lips as if to say, ‘If you even think about turning your back on that for a second it’ll be your own fault if I eat the lot.’ It’s a sunny day; even the tiny sun patch has expanded to fill most of the front room, and I risk opening the bottom and top of the nearest sash the tiniest fraction to let a warm breeze in. Singing along loudly to ABC, not caring who can hear, I realize I feel happy. Truly happy, for the first time in a long
time.

  Even though it’s still light, I have gorgeous-smelling candles burning when Simon arrives (it’s just as well I have a cat and not a dog, because I’m not sure a dog’s sensitive nose could cope with the variety of scents I’ve flooded the place with today. Even Oscar looks as if his eyes are watering) and Nova Amor are playing softly on my phone.

  I’m wearing a floaty floral summer dress and my feet are bare other than pristine stone-coloured polish on my brown (fake-tanned) fingers and toes.

  ‘It’s looking great in here,’ he says, handing me a bag with a bottle of champagne in it, despite me insisting that I was providing everything. It’s cold, so I open it straight away and pour two glasses.

  ‘No champagne flutes, I’m afraid,’ I say, handing him a large wine glass.

  ‘Thank God. I hate those things.’

  ‘Me, too. One swig and it’s gone.’

  He flashes a big smile. ‘I just meant they were awkward to drink out of.’

  ‘Oh, yes, that too.’

  He’s looking cute in a faded red T-shirt with some kind of inexplicable logo and jeans. I’m relieved to see that, even though it’s hot out, he didn’t turn up in Birkenstocks. I have a thing about men in open-toed shoes, and it’s not a good thing. It’s a ‘run for the hills’ thing.

  I fuss around, making him sit on the sofa while I take the bedside table through to the other room and put it in place, wittering on with a running commentary while I do it. I don’t know why I’m so nervous. Looking at the bed doesn’t help, so I back straight out again into the other room. There’s something about second dates that’s so much more nerve-wracking than first ones. You’ve pretty much filled each other in on your whole life histories – what else are you going to talk about? I always find myself either tongue-tied or blathering on about nothing. I say ‘always’. Obviously, the last second date I went on was with Jack, five years ago. But before him, I dated a lot. And it was usually the second time of meeting someone, once the initial excitement and anticipation had died down, that I realized I had nothing in common with them (and they with me, I’m sure, on many, many occasions). And then you’d have to get through a whole evening with long, awkward silences, knowing you had no intention of taking this any further, even if the other person wanted to.

  ‘If you feel at any point that this isn’t working and you want to bail out early, even before the food, just say so,’ I blurt out as I take the fishcakes from the fridge. ‘I won’t be offended.’

  ‘Whoa!’ he says, laughing. ‘Where did that come from?’

  ‘I just know how these things go. There’s nothing worse than being trapped on a date once you’ve decided there’s no point being there.’

  ‘Well, there is. Lots of things are worse than that. Most things, really, in the bigger scheme of things. I mean, no one ever died from a bad second date. Or did they?’

  ‘Shit, that came out all wrong. I just meant … well, you know what I meant …’

  ‘Come and sit down,’ he says, patting the space on the sofa next to him.

  ‘I need to …’ I say, vaguely indicating the food.

  He holds a hand out to me. ‘This is much more important than fishcakes.’

  ‘I’ve spent all afternoon making those, I’ll have you know,’ I say, smiling.

  I take my drink and go and sit next to him. He puts his arm around me and I lean back. He smells of limes and a hint of fresh sweat. I almost make myself laugh thinking I need to add those to the already too-long list of things my flat smells of.

  ‘So,’ he says, taking my glass from my hand and leaning forward to put it on the coffee table. I catch a glimpse of the smooth, tanned skin of his back above his belt where his T-shirt rides up. ‘We need to find a way to relax.’

  He takes my chin in his hand, looks meaningfully into my eyes. I wait for a feeling of panic, or revulsion, or even indifference, but all I feel is that I want to kiss him and I want to do it now. So I do.

  Five minutes later, or it might be ten, I am definitely feeling relaxed. So relaxed that I am horizontal, Simon half on top, half beside me. The pair of us crammed on the too-small sofa with our legs hanging over the end. If I feel this good while we still have all our clothes on, I can only imagine what might happen later.

  He runs his hand up my thigh, under my dress, and I shudder with pleasure.

  Then he looks up, distracted. Laughs out loud.

  ‘Is your cat supposed to be doing that?’

  I wriggle around to look at what he’s seeing. Oscar is sitting on the kitchen table, proudly licking his front paw and dragging it over his face in a way that says, ‘Just cleaning up after a lovely dinner.’

  ‘Oh shit. Get down!’

  I push myself up, shoo my cat away from the half-eaten fishcake. ‘Bad boy.’

  ‘You might as well let him have it now,’ Simon says, sitting up.

  ‘Well, yes, that’s true.’ I flick the uneaten half into Oscar’s bowl. ‘There’s one left. We can share.’

  ‘Perfect,’ he says. ‘I’m starving.’

  26

  I’ve had friends who’ve come out of long-term relationships and they’ve told horror stories about sex with a new partner. The self-consciousness. The awkward clashing of two shapes that don’t yet fit. I’d always thought it sounded intimidating at best, absolutely terrifying at worst.

  Pia once told me a story about how she’d undressed in front of a new boyfriend – after her four-year relationship with her childhood sweetheart had ended – and he’d pulled a disgusted face and said in a voice a toddler might use when being presented with a plate of Brussels sprouts, ‘What on earth are those?’ ‘Those’ being a couple of faint stretch marks on her thigh. He was in the year below us and had, she thought, never seen a real-life naked woman before. I remember she laughed and said she thought she might have scarred him for life.

  Pia was always good at laughing at herself. Not that I’ve heard from her in twenty years. Not that our friendship ever recovered from the tidal wave of destruction that was Mel.

  Anyway, I can’t lie, I was nervous before Simon arrived. All those insecurities I’d been incubating since I found out my boyfriend had gone off with my skinnier, objectively hotter, friend. But when it happened, it was the newness that made it so exciting. There was no time to worry about sucking my stomach in because my whole body was a quivering wreck in seconds. And anyway, I didn’t care any more. All that mattered was that he keep on doing what he was doing to me.

  Now we are lying in a tangle of duvet on my bed and I’m fighting the urge to fall asleep. Whoever made up the cliché about it being men who just want to pass out after sex had obviously never met a woman who’d had a really good time. I allow myself to give in to it. I assume he feels the same, and what’s the worst that can happen? One of us is raring to go again any minute and has to wake the other one up? Or we both sleep through until morning? I’m not working tomorrow anyway.

  Later, I don’t know how much later – an hour, two? It’s still dark – I become aware that he’s gently shaking me awake. I force open my eyes and he’s sitting on the bed, jeans on.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Only about quarter past eleven. I have to go. I’ve got to be on a site down in Richmond at half six in the morning so it makes more sense for me to sleep at home.’

  You’d think I would be disappointed but, actually, I like the idea of waking up on my own. Being able to lie in bed for as long as I want, reliving the evening. I reach out and run my hand up his leg.

  ‘Right now, or can you stay another five minutes?’

  He gives me a smile. ‘Maybe four.’

  I pull him towards me. ‘Four’s enough. For me, anyway.’

  ‘You old romantic, you.’

  ‘I could probably manage it in three if you get a move on.’

  Afterwards, we agree to speak in the morning and I marvel at how uncomplicated this seems, how natural. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not thinking the first man
I met after my relationship broke down is going to be the love of my life. It’s unlikely. Statistically. We barely know each other and so I’m almost certain that at some point he’ll do or say something that’s a deal breaker. Or I will for him – who knows? But at the moment I’m struggling to see what that might be. I snuggle back down under the duvet, wait for Oscar to nestle in next to me and I’m asleep within minutes.

  During my second and third years of college, Mel and I probably saw each other less than at any time before or since. That’s not to say we didn’t speak all the time, both on the phone and by email. At first, anyway. We were just so busy, both of us. Me with my studies and acting every spare minute I could muster. Her with her new course and its full schedule of classes and rehearsals and, no doubt, lessons in how to form ringlets and smile inanely.

  In some ways, I envied her, being able to dedicate herself solely to her passion. I was finding it harder and harder to care about History, my chosen subject. I did just enough coursework to enable me to stay on, and no more. I knew I was heading for a third at best, but it didn’t really seem to matter.

  The first year we were in the house, Pia and I shared the big attic bedroom while Tom and Alistair had a much smaller room each on the floor below and Kieron nabbed the former living room for himself, because, he argued, it had been his connections that had got us the house in the first place. I didn’t care. I was just happy to be there.

  Pia was the polar opposite of Mel. For someone who could have just stepped off a catwalk (well, one where they were using tiny versions of models, almost child-sized), she seemed to have no ego about the way she looked. I theorized to Mel once that maybe because her looks were so obviously astonishing she didn’t feel the need to draw attention to them. There was simply no arguing with the fact that, whether or not you found her attractive, she was a stunning girl.

  Mel had scoffed. ‘She’ll grow out of them. Her eyes are too big for her face, really. And if she ever puts on any weight she’s in trouble because she’s so short.’

  This was one of Mel’s favourite games, spotting the ways in which gorgeous young women were going to age badly.