This time it was Inga that let out the ‘wow’ and she looked at Meredith with the simpering cow eyes that told her that she would be able to have the dress for free.
‘You really are beautiful, M.’
Meredith appraised her reflection critically. There was something missing. She looked at her shoes, scruffy Adidas trainers, and then down at Inga’s shoes, which were brand new Dolce and Gabbana pumps. They looked like her size.
She smiled at Inga.
4
Meredith sipped her gin and tonic and tried not to look too bored.
The view from the open-air pool and terrace at Soho House was picture-postcard Barcelona. If she looked to her right there was the statue of Columbus pointing out across the Mediterranean – with the mountain of Montjuïc, the place of civil war torture and atrocities, looming above. To the left, she could see Port Vell with its row upon row of oligarch’s taxis moored next to each other. She often speculated what heinous crimes and evil deeds must take place on these yachts but tonight it seemed like a lot of the occupants were sharing this terrace with her.
The cosmopolitan crowd around her were already drunk by the time she arrived. Despite the cooling mist that was pumped from the pipes strung around the terrace perimeter, most of the people here, particularly the guiris, were red-faced, and their clothes, Chanel, Gucci and the rest, hung from them like peasant’s rags. Barcelona in August could do that to you.
A couple next to her, he a vegan architect, she a vegan media manager (she had heard themselves loudly introduce each other by declaring these aspects of their identity) were cooing over the view. Meredith followed their gaze down Moll de la Fusta towards Montjuïc, seeing things that they did not see. There on the corner of Carrer Nou de Sant Francesc was the café from where the Moroccans ran their retail heroin operation, and opposite on the pavement, the spot where she had seen two homeless men plunge knives into each other during an argument about a shopping trolley full of plastic.
‘You know, it’s not called ‘the Paris of the South’ for nothing. Just smell that air, straight from the Sahara,’ said the architect, and he breathed in deeply through his nose.
The woman winked at him. ‘That reminds me, time for a cheeky one!’ She tapped her nose and wandered off towards the bathroom.
As soon as she was out of sight the architect turned to Meredith. ‘So–’
Meredith raised her hand to cut him short and walked off towards the bar. One of the reasons she hated parties, events and particularly gatherings of those who considered themselves the elite, was the constant harassment and assumption that she was lucky to have fallen within the ambit of their charms. So tedious.
She ordered another gin and tonic and this time asked the barman to hold the hibiscus flowers. Richard had told her to arrive at 8pm and she had, making her way up to the terrace as instructed, but now it was nearly 9pm and of Richard and the rest of them there was no sign. Meredith’s plan seemed ridiculous now. These people, the global elite, the media types, the self-styled creatives, bored her so much that a numbing pain was forming behind her eyes just overhearing the self-aggrandising talk disguised with a false modesty that passed for their conversations. It was just one long series of advertisements, with the question ‘So what have you been doing?’ being the big red button that launched a thousand self-promotional missiles.
She had decided to have this one last drink and then leave. She wandered over to an uncrowded part of the terrace and looked out across the port, past the Senegalese selling ‘top manta’ – counterfeit goods – on their blankets that covered the walkways like a patchwork quilt, and further to the horizon and beyond it, Africa. She wanted to go there one day. Perhaps, once she had finished this drink, she should just pack up, jump on a ferry and head south. It would beat listening to vegans telling each other they were vegans.
Meredith put her glass down and decided to leave. Lying in her single bed listening to an audiobook beat the shit out of this.
She headed towards the exit from the terrace but was suddenly blocked by the architect who she had shown the hand to earlier. His pupils were dilated and he looked angry. Meredith had seen this type of coked-up rejected male before and she knew what was coming. He would have been confused by her rejection of him. Nobody rejected him and even if they did, they would usually have pretended to be interested in his self-serving bullshit, listening long enough for him to believe they found him as fascinating as he did.
He held his palms up, indicating he meant no harm. ‘Listen, we got off on the wrong foot. My name is Matt and–’
She tried to step round him but he moved to block her again.
‘I’m just trying to have a friendly conversation here. Listen, I’m a nice guy. I’m an architect, I build things, man. Talk to me, yeah?’
He leered at her and leaned in so close that she could smell his expensive cologne that was failing to block the baser notes his body was producing. It was all an act.
‘Get out of my way,’ she said.
‘Just talk to me, yeah, you’re being a–’ She never got to hear what she was being. Instead, Meredith shoved him hard and his expression changed from one of expectation and assuredness to helplessness as he toppled into the pool.
Other guests cheered and clapped. Meredith didn’t look back. She would have been happier if the pool hadn’t been there and she could have shoved him right off the terrace to the street below.
As she reached the door that led to the staircase out came Richard. He had bloodshot eyes, a rash-red complexion and it was obvious to Meredith that he had been crying. ‘Oh, Nancy! Thank God!’
He threw his arms around her and buried his head into her shoulder. Meredith’s instinct was to push him away immediately. She was not comfortable with such an invasion, and still struggled with the customary double kiss on the cheeks she had to put up with in Catalonia, often instinctively jerking her head back when someone she didn’t know moved in for the peck.
‘Are you okay, Richard?’
He blubbered something she couldn’t hear into the fabric of her Stella McCartney dress. She gently pushed him away and looked down at her shoulder. There was the unmistakable outline of a sweaty face on the dress. She resisted the urge to push him down the stairwell.
‘It’s been so awful, they’ve been fighting again, I hate it when they fight it’s just too much and even Adam can’t stop them, it just gets worse and worse. I hate it!’ All the words banged into each other and Richard had the look of a plaintive child whose parents have been arguing over the dinner table.
‘Calm down, Richard, who is arguing?’
He looked up at her with surprise. ‘Amy and Olivia of course.’
Meredith thought about the audiobook and her bed. It would be so easy to just fade into the Barcelona night and wake up tomorrow and sell wine to tourists. But the truth was that even if she didn’t like the people on this terrace, she liked this terrace, this dress and even the hibiscus flowers in her gin and tonic hadn’t bothered her too much. ‘Calm down Richard, it will be fine. I was just leaving, but why don’t you take me to them.’
Richard seemed to brighten up but there was no apology for leaving her alone to wait for an hour. ‘Come on, maybe they’ve stopped arguing now.’
Even before Richard pushed open the door of the hotel room, they could hear, above the sound of bass-heavy dub music, the raised voices of a man and a woman shouting at each other and the lower-pitched Australian drawl of a man repeating the phrase, ‘Can everyone just chill out!’
Richard produced a key pass and the lock turned green.
They entered the room, a large suite full of people scattered on the various sofas and beanbags. In the centre of the room Meredith recognised Amy. She was older but her skin looked younger than it had ten years before. It was glowing with a chemical urgency, and her body, which had been slim and youthful, was now gym-hardened and enhanced. Her hair and make-up were of a standard that Meredith expected cost more than her mon
thly rent and she looked like a beautiful picture come to life, an Instagram-filtered vision of herself, which of course, she was. Meredith couldn’t help being blown away by the transformation. Equally surprising was that this girl, who had been quiet and reserved, well until the drugs kicked in, was now clearly the centre of attention.
‘I will not be talked to in this way and I will not wear this thing!’ She threw a pale green shirt on the floor. Amy was shouting at a woman who sat, with her feet tucked under her, in a large green leather armchair. Meredith recognised Olivia.
‘No one is suggesting you like this, but it’s what has to happen. You have a contract. Adam, will you help us out here?’
A man in his mid to late forties, tanned and wearing a white shirt open at the chest, and sporting a large gold wristwatch, circled Amy. In between taking hits on a vape pen, he shot out staccato phrases in a cockney accent.
‘H&M.’ He took another hit and let out a cloud of smoke which hung around him like rainclouds around a volcano summit. ‘Edwin.’ He jabbed the vape pen in the air. ‘Carhartt. We’ve got contracts to consider.’
Amy paid him no attention. Olivia leaned back in her chair. Meredith got the sense that this was not an unusual event and that well-rehearsed roles were being performed.
‘Amy, darling, whatever you need, you know we all love you and will make this work.’
‘How can it? I can’t wear this at all.’ Amy threw her head back dramatically and then stormed off into an adjoining bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
‘Well, did you try the yellow one? Dylan!’ She directed this at a buff young man with blond hair who was sitting on a beanbag looking at his phone. ‘Can you fetch Amy the yellow Fendi top.’
Dylan sighed, and muttering, ‘Can everyone just chill out,’ followed Amy into the other room.
Olivia, who until this point had not acknowledged Richard and Meredith’s entrance, now stood up and walked across to them. ‘I see you’ve stopped blubbering, Richard. You really shouldn’t take these things personally. You know what she can be like.’ She looked Meredith up and down. ‘Who’s your friend? Nice dress, by the way.’
Seeing Olivia again brought back further memories. Olivia high-handedly ordering drinks from waiters with disdainful waves. Olivia laughing at the Australian tourists for their unsophistication. Olivia constantly mentioning how things had been better years back when she first came to Thailand. Olivia had been a bitch then and it seemed nothing had changed.
Meredith turned up her smile to ten. ‘Olivia, you don’t remember me, but I remember you. I am so stoked to meet you again. You haven’t aged a day.’
Olivia’s eyes narrowed: it was clear that she didn’t like being at a disadvantage. She put a hand on her hip and then pointed at Meredith. ‘Yeah, I remember you, Ko Pha-ngan yeah? Amy had one of her crushes on you. Well, well, well, where did Richard drag you up from?’
Meredith had needed a story to explain her lack of social media presence and she was glad now that she had picked one that had no link to fashion or anything that could be considered a threat to Olivia. She could see that Olivia wouldn’t wear competition well. Meredith laughed, ‘Well, there was a few more years partying, if I’m honest.’ This was true. ‘But then I sobered up in China and started doing some NGO work, ended up in South Sudan. And now I’m writing a book about the independence movement here.’ All fiction but it would, hopefully, explain her poverty and lack of searchable content.
Olivia nodded approvingly and then smiled back. ‘Well, great to see you again and welcome to the madhouse. Come on, let’s see if Amy remembers you. Just remind me, what was your name again?’
Meredith held out a hand. ‘Nancy.’
Olivia linked her arm with Meredith’s. ‘Amy has changed a bit. She’s a star now, don’t you know.’ Olivia waved her hand airily and laughed.
‘I met her in one of those squares in town, I knew it was her, I remembered,’ said Richard.
Olivia turned her back on Richard. ‘Fascinating. You can tell us later.’ They stepped over some people sharing a spliff. Olivia whispered conspiratorially in Meredith’s ear, ‘He’s such a little bore, always whining. He needs to be careful or Amy will get tired of him.’
They entered the room that Amy had disappeared into.
Amy was on a pile of clothes astride Dylan. She heard them come in, turned to them and winked mischievously, and then without any embarrassment, rolled off Dylan and propped herself up on an elbow.
‘Fuck, Amy,’ said Dylan, who busied himself trying to cover up his groin as he shuffled off to the bathroom, a task made difficult by his boxers, which were caught around his ankles.
Meredith stared at Amy. She couldn’t believe that this was the same girl she had known, briefly, in Thailand. This Amy was confident and controlled and so very different from the shy, gauche girl from her past.
Meredith wondered whether she had changed as much as Amy seemingly had in ten years. She was still scrambling around to find her place in the world, to make a living, find somewhere she fitted in, and here was Amy, with the same friends, but who had somehow transformed herself from a peripheral player to the centre of her galaxy, with a lucrative career, handsome boyfriend, and an enviable identity. Meredith watched, appalled, fascinated and admiring.
‘Well, fuck me. If it isn’t Nancy from the Full Moon parties!’ She spoke with a strange cockney-Jamaican accent which was very different from the public-school accent she had had when Meredith knew her.
‘Hi Amy, how are you? I’m so stoked to see you again!’
Amy patted the bed next to her. ‘Oh my God! I love your Californian accent! I remember how adorable it was. Get over here and give me a hug right now.’
Meredith obeyed and joined her on the bed. Amy was just in her knickers and a clean white T-shirt, but she glowed. Her skin had the lustre of moonlight and her scent was expensive and made Meredith feel small and weak. She wanted to have that scent more than anything she had ever desired.
How had Amy achieved this transformation?
Amy hugged her and without prompting immediately began to tell her. Everything had been triggered apparently by ‘that post’ and Amy didn’t explain it, assuming Meredith must know. There was before ‘that post’ and ‘after that post’ and everything ‘after that post’ was ‘just crazy’. There had been product placements, then sponsorships – only ethical ones, of course. Amy had to watch Adam because he was always trying to get her to sign up for something that wasn’t woke, just for the dollars. But her fans trusted her and she wasn’t going to sell them out for anything. It was her brand, her trust, and once you lost that you had nothing. Didn’t Nancy agree?
Nancy did agree.
Olivia sat in a chair in the corner of the room and observed the conversation. Meredith got the impression that it was a conversation she had heard many times before.
Meredith steered the conversation back to ‘that post’.
Amy played with her hair a little. It was as though remembering the time before she became an influencer was remembering something traumatic, the time before fame and success.
‘It was kind of weird. At one point I felt strange doing it. It was like almost guilt, you feel me? But he deserved it.’
Meredith nodded. She understood now. She had googled Amy earlier that day and read about an incident when she was a student. A professor, male, white, and stale, had accused her of plagiarism and she was going to be chucked out of university. But it turned out he had also been stalking her on social media and befriending her on Facebook, but using a sock puppet account and a fictional identity. She had posted the messages he had sent her on Instagram and YouTube with a video she had made where she confronted him at his home, in front of his wife and kids, about the messages and the sock puppet account. And although the messages were of the infatuated admirer kind, rather than those of a sexual predator, he had quickly felt the full force of the online mob. He had lost his job and his marriage.
As far as Meredith could work out the claims of plagiarism had never actually been disproven but she thought it importune to mention that now.
‘Everything just took off after that. I was asked to do loads of YouTube stuff and my own channels were getting pounded. I started out with the political stuff and transitioned into fashion, both areas which you’ll remember I totally love.’
Meredith had a memory of Amy’s fat ass hanging out of a too-small bikini at a Full Moon party. ‘You betcha I remember.’ The smile always accompanied a big lie.
‘So, it was a natural progression. Everything is political now anyway, everything. Talking of which, you being a local, you have to tell me all about this independence thing going on. I am just loving the yellow ribbons and the flags. You know yellow is so on-trend. And the guys, oh my God, Catalan guys, dark eyes, dark beards, so romantic.’
She grabbed Meredith’s arm and laughed.
Meredith wondered if Amy was still attracted to her, or indeed women at all. Amy had seemed like a lost soul when she knew her, just wanting anyone to pay her attention, for anything, and misinterpreting any attention for sexual interest. It would be useful, though, if Amy was still interested.
Meredith held Amy’s gaze and Amy didn’t look away. Meredith had the upper hand and then smiled, the smile that always awakened desire. Amy cocked her head to one side and then started laughing. ‘Olivia, I knew old Nancy was a dyke. You go, girlfriend. We’ve all been there. You have to go with what makes your soul sing. Isn’t that right, Dylan?’
Dylan, who had come out of the bathroom and plonked himself down in an armchair, seemed to jerk awake even though he wasn’t asleep. ‘Sure is, babe!’
Amy smiled kindly. ‘Oh, I remember making a pass at you at a party. I was so off my tits! Do you have anyone special here in Barcelona?’
How to Kill Your Friends Page 3