by Beth O'Leary
There’s a knock on the door. We both jump.
‘Hello?’ I say, a bit more nervously than I’d like.
‘Hey, it’s us,’ Dylan says.
I glance at Deb. ‘Come in.’
Dylan blinks at us as he and Marcus head inside.
‘Are you guys all right?’ he says.
‘Where’s Rodney?’ Deb asks them.
Marcus starts emptying his pockets on to the side table – change, phone, wallet.
‘He took the car and drove to get a sleeping bag from a shop nearby,’ he says.
‘He what?’ Deb and I shriek.
Marcus stares at us. ‘He drove to a shop. What’s the matter with you two?’
‘Rodney has the car?’ I ask.
‘What’s wrong, Addie?’ Dylan says.
‘Oh, is this about the insurance?’ Marcus says, rolling his eyes and kicking off his shoes. ‘It’s a ten-minute drive, Addie.’
‘You’re telling me that Rodney has driven off. In our car. Alone.’
‘Yeah, pretty much. Why? Is that a problem?’
THEN
Dylan
When the sun first breaks through in April, Luke and Javier have a week in the UK, so we take a trip to West Wittering Beach – me, Addie, Marcus, Grace, Cherry, Luke and Javier. Things with Addie have been different lately. Ever since I told her I was going to stay with Marcus at the log cabin instead of moving in with her family, she’s been distant, staying at work late, shrugging away sometimes when I move to touch her. I wish I could take the decision back.
Marcus is in a bad place again – now we’re living together I see the evidence of his drinking, and every time Addie comes to the cabin, he’s surly and childish, acting out. I hardly know how to navigate it all, and behind the drama at the log cabin is the drama with my father, whose position on my career plans has – unsurprisingly – not shifted in the slightest.
So it feels glorious to escape for a while and lie on the salt-scented sand with Addie beside me. She’s deep in conversation with Grace, who’s busy lathering Cherry in sun cream; Grace has to keep snagging Cherry by the arm and saying, No, I’m not done yet, darling, because Cherry has the sea in her sights and is clearly struggling not to immediately jump into it.
I try not to find Addie’s friendship with Grace unnerving. I’m not proud of how I behaved with Grace; I was a different person then, and sleeping with the same woman as my best friend had seemed edgy and interesting, when in reality it was quite disturbing and probably not healthy for any of us. Whenever I think of that time I feel ashamed, so naturally I try to think of it as little as possible.
‘Ads? You coming?’ Cherry says, once Grace lets her go. She’s bouncing on her toes; I squint as she sends a shower of sand in the direction of my face. The beach is packed with sunseekers who all seem to have an extraordinary level of kit: there are lobster-patterned windbreakers, innumerable sand buckets, carefully arranged deckchairs, parasols impaled lopsidedly in the sand.
Addie sits up on her elbows. ‘Dylan?’ she asks.
‘I’m reading,’ I say, pointing to my copy of Byron’s Complete Works. ‘Maybe in a bit?’
Cherry drags Addie up. ‘Forget Dylan, he’s boring. You’re not boring,’ she says to Addie, who’s resisting. ‘Come! Swim! Swim!’
Addie caves and they stumble towards the water. I watch Addie, her dark ponytail bouncing, the neat lines of her beautiful body framed against the sea.
‘You’re an idiot,’ Marcus says from beside me. He has his hat over his face to block the sun and his voice is muffled. He’s already drinking, but Luke, Javier and Grace are too, so I try not to worry about it.
‘Oh?’ I say, turning my head to look at him.
He doesn’t move the hat. ‘Do you know how easy it would be for someone else to take her off you right now?’
‘What?’
I glance back to Addie in the water. She’s riding on Cherry’s shoulders, arms waving as she tries to keep steady. Beside me Grace shifts on to her side, towards Marcus, listening, probably after more material for that book of hers. Javier and Luke are making out behind her, wrapped in Javier’s towel; they roll over and gently knock Luke’s beer over, letting it glug into the sand.
‘Oh, you go have fun without me, Addie,’ Marcus says, in a mocking voice. ‘I will just sit here and be boring with my book on the first nice day we have had together in several months.’
Something curdles quietly in my chest as the bad thoughts settle.
‘I thought you would have wanted me to screw this up,’ I say, and I try to keep my tone light, but I’m angry, I think, and surprised at myself. I’m not often angry. ‘I thought you said she was all wrong for me.’
Marcus throws his hat aside as he sits up. ‘Sometimes,’ he says, ‘it is really, really hard to be a good friend to you. I have been a paragon of restraint and you haven’t a bloody clue, have you? Well, fuck it.’
He heads for the water, shucking off his T-shirt as he goes, and I watch as he dives in, swimming up to Cherry and Addie. They shriek when he lunges for Cherry’s legs, and then they’re all in the water, seawater flying up and catching golden in the sun, and I watch Addie swipe her hair out of her eyes, laughing.
Beside me Grace lies back with a yawn.
‘Is it just me,’ I ask, ‘or did nothing he just say make any sense?’
Grace reaches across to pat me amiably on the arm. Her ribs are showing through the fabric of her designer swimsuit, and I frown – she’s getting thinner, too thin maybe. She’s got a modelling job now, and her hair is an uncharacteristically sensible brown: more commercial, apparently. She spends much of her time at coke-fuelled parties in either London or LA; her Instagram grid is full of photos of her draped around billionaires or sunning herself on yachts. She’s not posted about her book on there for a while. I should check in with her more, but Grace is one of those people who I never think to worry about; she’s always been the adult in the group.
‘Marc doesn’t understand himself, let alone you and Addie,’ she says. ‘Ignore him, darling. You’re doing just fine.’
But I can’t shake off the melancholy for the rest of the day. Marcus’s words go around and around in my mind, like wasps circling something sticky and sweet, and I feel it again, the sense of wrongness, as if an object in the scene has been moved between takes.
Do you know how easy it would be for someone else to take her off you right now?
‘If you keep insisting on this, Dylan, you won’t see another penny from us,’ Dad says.
This is the very last horror looming ahead, the final expression of my father’s disapproval. Even Luke still gets a monthly stipend, and he now runs a string of gay clubs in New York.
I square my shoulders. We’re standing in my uncle Terry’s flat in Poole, staring at the roiling grey sea through the floor-to-ceiling windows. I’ve managed to avoid going home since the awful visit at the end of January, but I couldn’t dodge Terry’s fiftieth birthday party. Terry personally hounded me for an RSVP. In the end I accepted, having discovered that Addie would be away on a hen do – I know she has to meet my family eventually, but Christ, not like this. Everyone here thinks poor people aren’t trying hard enough; there’s an enormous swan-shaped ice sculpture in one corner and a string quartet in the other, and I am fairly confident the musicians have been hired because Terry is hoping the violinist will have sex with him.
‘Do you hear me, Dylan? Going back to university isn’t an option.’
If my father stops sending me money, I’ll have to pull out of the flat purchase I’m midway through; I’ll have to fund myself through the Masters degree. It means . . . I’m not even sure I know what it means. As much as it pains me to admit it, I’ve never not had money coming in from my parents.
It’s the last step to freedom, letting go of that money, but I know too
that my father’s money is freedom, and by giving it up, I’m signing up to some of the toughest years of my life.
‘Cut me off, then,’ I say, watching the waves crash. ‘I’ll earn my way.’
The next weekend Addie and I meet for a walk in the Bishop’s Palace Garden beneath a dusting of Maytime drizzle. Addie’s wearing a grey cap and Lycra – she ran here from her parents’ house, and her cheeks are still dappled pink from the exercise, and I love her so much I suddenly feel desperate with it.
‘Move in with me,’ I say.
She’s a few steps ahead of me – we’ve stepped into single file to allow a man with a buggy past. She turns slowly on her heels to stare at me.
‘You don’t mean . . .’ Her eyes flick uncertainly from my face to a couple passing by us, hand in hand. ‘You mean at the log cabin? With Marcus?’
‘No, no,’ I say, moving towards her, taking her hands. ‘Our own place.’
Her eyebrows draw together in confusion. ‘Not the flat? Are you not buying that flat any more?’
I haven’t told Addie about the money yet; the one time we talked about financials ended in an enormous and very uncomfortable argument, and these days when I mention my parents her face turns shuttered, so I’ve stopped bringing them up.
‘It was a stupid idea, investing in a flat. I’m only twenty-two, for God’s sake. Let’s rent somewhere. Somewhere that’s mine and yours. Near the school, so you don’t have such a long journey on the bus . . . and near the university.’
Her smile grows slowly, and as she squeezes my hands and beams at me I feel as though I’m better, as if I’ve been in pain and it’s lifted at last.
‘You’re serious?’
‘I’m serious.’
‘You’re going to do the Masters?’
‘I’ve decided to do it part-time, and work. Maybe bar work, I was thinking, or tutoring.’
Her smile gets even broader. ‘Really? You’re going to work?’
I feel a twinge of something like shame. ‘Yeah, of course – no more dicking around on my eternal gap yah.’
She laughs. ‘Dylan . . . are you sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
She hugs me tight and I spin her around.
‘Is this what you wanted?’ I ask her, pressing my lips to her cap. ‘Why didn’t you say?’
‘It’s not what I wanted,’ she says, burrowing her face into my coat. ‘I mean, it’s not like I had an idea of what I wanted in my head, I just want you to do what’s right for you. But I’m happy, yeah. I’m happy I’m in your plan.’
You are my plan, I want to say.
‘Shall we find a café? Get on Rightmove?’ I ask instead, bundling her in beside me as we start walking again.
She nods, still smiling.
‘Have you told Marcus?’ she asks.
The glow of happiness dims a little at that. ‘Not yet. But I will, soon. He’s not – he’s not totally on board with the idea, so . . .’
I trail off. Addie says nothing.
‘He’ll come around,’ I say.
Addie still says nothing.
‘You OK?’
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Just . . . I got excited for a minute there.’
‘And then . . . unexcited again?’
‘Well, if you’ve not told Marcus yet, it’s not – I’m just not sure you’ve totally made your mind up.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Don’t be mad. It’s just usually when you say yes to something before you’ve chatted to Marcus about it, you end up changing your mind.’
I slow. ‘Do I?’
‘It’s fine – I just won’t start planning moving out quite yet,’ Addie says, looking up at me with an effort at a smile. ‘Sorry. Have I upset you?’
‘No, no,’ I say, though I’m not sure. ‘And you know Marcus is only . . . he just has my best interests at heart.’
‘Of course he does,’ Addie says. Her tone is strange.
‘Addie?’ I slow again, shifting my arm from around her so I can see her face. ‘Addie, are you annoyed with Marcus about something?’
‘No, no! It’s fine.’
‘You said that already, and it’s even less convincing this time.’
‘It’s fine, Dylan. How about that café? Dad says they do really good carrot cake.’
‘Addie.’
She presses her hands to her face and lets out a little noise, half-growl, half-groan. ‘Please don’t, Dylan, I don’t want to talk about this.’
‘What’s this? What are we even talking about? Marcus? Has he done something to upset you?’
‘Has he . . .’ She comes to a standstill and pulls away from my arm. ‘Have you honestly not noticed?’
‘Noticed what?’ I’m going cold now; it feels like the moment in the horror film when you know something is about to jump out, and you’re just waiting for that sickening jolt in your stomach.
‘He has some kind of . . . problem with me,’ she says. ‘He ignores me, half the time. He hardly ever even looks at me, actually. And lately he always makes these little comments when we’re all together. Things about how I’m bad for you, and stuff like that.’
I swallow, remembering the night when Marcus had told me Addie was messy, raw, pacing back and forth with that foaming beer in his hand.
‘And he was so desperate to get you to go and live with him in that weird cabin in the woods at the bottom of his parents’ garden . . .’
‘That was incredibly kind of him,’ I say, frowning. ‘Offering me somewhere to live.’
‘I know, I know, but it was also – oh, never mind,’ she says, walking again. ‘I wish I’d never brought it up.’
‘Don’t do that, hey,’ I say, jogging to catch up and snagging her arm. ‘Hey, slow down, Addie! If you’re upset, we should talk about it.’
‘But how does it sound? It sounds awful. It sounds like I’m trying to get in between you and your best friend, and – and that’s probably exactly what he wants you to think I’m trying to do, and now I’m playing right into his hands, and . . .’
‘Ads, you’re not making any sense. He’s not playing anything. This is Marcus. I’ve known him since I was a kid. He’s like a brother to me. He’s . . . he’s Marcus,’ I finish weakly. We’re at the café now, standing outside, looking in.
‘Are you telling me you honestly thought he approved of me? I’m not buying it, Dyl. I bet he’s always on at you to break up with me.’ Her face is flushed again, this time with emotion.
‘I . . .’ I look away from her. ‘He’s had some concerns about us in the past, yes, but I thought – sometimes the two of you seem to get on really well. I thought you might be getting used to one another.’
She snorts. ‘Yeah, I think that from time to time too. Then he’s a dick again.’
‘I know he can be a lot, but . . .’
‘He’s your Marcus. I know. I get it now, believe me,’ she says. ‘He’s part of the package.’
I almost snap at her. If I didn’t like Deb, would I ever make that awkward for her, the way she’s making this difficult for me?
Her expression changes, just a flicker, and I have the strange sensation that she knew what I was so close to saying.
‘I’m going to head home,’ she says, ‘I need to shower.’
‘What about carrot cake?’ I say, looking towards the café.
‘Another time,’ she says. She’s already running.
I stand there and watch her go, that grey cap bobbing as she weaves between passers-by, and I feel as if something’s stretching, a bungee rope, some kind of cord that holds us together. Does she want to live with me? Or not?
I slouch down on the sofa, the furry white cushions tickling at the back of my neck. They’re somewhat less white than they used to be after five months of Marcus and me
living in the log cabin.
‘And then she literally ran off. How are we meant to move forward when she always does that?’ I say, picking at the label on my beer bottle. ‘Lately every time I try to get closer she pulls away.’
There’s a loud bang from the kitchen; Marcus is cooking, which usually involves an extraordinarily complicated recipe, a trip out to a large number of supermarkets for ingredients such as lemon basil and tamarind paste, hours of intense focus in the kitchen and an eventual Deliveroo.
‘She said I have a problem with her?’ he says.
‘Hmm? Yeah. Something like that.’
I wait, but there’s no response, just more banging and clattering.
‘You’ve not said anything to her, have you? Like . . . the things you said to me, you know, that night before I moved in here?’
‘I avoid her wherever possible,’ Marcus says grimly.
‘Not all the time,’ I point out. ‘The other night you guys watched a film together while I was working on the Masters application.’
‘Yeah, well,’ Marcus says, and I hear him crack open a new bottle of wine. ‘There’s been the odd lapse. It’s not easy being consistent.’
I roll my eyes. ‘If you don’t like her, why would you watch a film on the sofa with her?’ I ask patiently.
‘Good question, my friend. And if you do like her, why do you spend so much time sitting on that very sofa complaining about her?’
‘I don’t,’ I say, frowning.
‘You do. Half the time you’re in agonies over what she’s thinking. She’s always keeping you on the edge, playing games.’
‘She’s not playing games.’
Marcus appears in the kitchen doorway, his eyebrows drawn together. ‘You’re too busy lusting after her to notice. But don’t you think everyone gets that vibe off her?’
‘What – what vibe?’
‘The dark, sexual energy thing she’s got going on. I hate to break it to you, Dyl, but that’s not just for you. She gives it out in spades.’
‘I have no idea what you’re saying.’ But my heart is suddenly beating sickly and hard, because in truth I do know what he means. There’s this total honesty to Addie, an openness, a rawness; she’s so sexy. I suddenly remember how she looked in that bar when I came home, how effortlessly that tight dress had clung to her, how she’d known it. I think of all the times we’ve walked into a pub and I’ve caught a man’s gaze drawn her way like she’s something magnetic.