Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
‘I love your top,’ Emily said, spreading our blanket out on the grass.
I put down the bag containing cans of lager and a pack of ice, which we’d picked up from the corner shop, and joined her, peeling off the T-shirt I had on over my bikini top and throwing it over for her to see.
It was the first time I’d properly caught up with Emily in a few weeks, and I’d missed her company, but at the same time being with her felt strange – almost as if the house on Damask Square was a different world, a kind of dreamland from which I emerged every morning for work and then returned to at night. It was a world where normal things like picnics in the park with friends somehow didn’t happen.
‘I picked it up in a second-hand shop,’ I told her. ‘Orla showed me how to cut off the sleeves and hem the edges, but I haven’t got round to that yet.’
‘Nice.’ She opened two cans of beer and handed one to me, tearing open a packet of crisps. ‘It suits you. This Orla’s turning you into quite the fashion designer.’
‘I don’t know about that. But she found me a dress that I wore on my first date with Luke, and I?—’
‘Yes, come on,’ Emily urged. ‘Less of the Vogue , more of the Just Seventeen . How’s it going with Luke?’
I turned over, propping myself up on my elbows, sipping Stella and feeling the sun on my back. It was a gorgeous summer Saturday, I was hanging out with my best friend and I felt perfectly happy.
‘He’s amazing,’ I said. ‘I mean, it’s early days. We’ve only been… you know…’
‘Shagging each other into early graves?’
I laughed. ‘Yeah, that. Sleeping together for a couple of weeks and not every night, because it would be weird to almost move in together when we’re already living in the same house. Kind of disrespectful to Orla, although she said she doesn’t mind.’
‘Not a lot she could do about it if she did, is there?’
‘Well, no. But – you know. Even though I really like him – like, really, really like him – I feel like it’s better if we still have some space. Did I tell you he’s an artist? Or he wants to be. All the handyman stuff is just to make money while he builds a portfolio. He showed me some of his work and it’s amazing.’
‘Smitten.’ Emily smiled. ‘I knew it when you couldn’t come to the Black Eyed Peas gig with me because you were “busy”.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t want to let you down and it wasn’t because of Luke. Just, I had an early meeting at work the next day and?—’
‘I’m only kidding. As it happens, you not wanting the spare ticket meant I could ask Josh from the office. I just gave you first dibs because you’re my mate.’
‘Josh from the office? Tell me more.’
She shook her head. ‘Long-standing crush. But he was awful that night. He got absolutely shitfaced and tried to snog me on the Tube home then vomited on the platform when we got off. So I’m officially cured.’
I made sympathetic noises and opened two more cans of beer and a tube of Pringles.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘Better I find out now that he’s a sleaze than six months down the line, right? But Luke – do you reckon it’s serious? Or going to be serious?’
I turned over again, stretching my pale legs out to the sun.
‘Depends what you mean by serious.’
‘Taking him home for Christmas level serious?’
‘Jesus, no. I’ve never taken anyone back to my parents’ place, not even you.’
‘Oh.’ Emily’s face fell. ‘I’m sorry. I forgot.’
‘Doesn’t matter. I try and forget too, only it doesn’t always work.’
‘So…’ she said, clearly trying to change the subject, ‘what about the other girl? Bernice?’
‘Beatrice.’ I flattened my empty beer can and twisted it from side to side. ‘She’s an odd one.’
‘Odd how?’
‘She’s all proper on the surface. Like she just stepped out of Heathers . But she’s a loose cannon.’
I gave Emily a brief recap of the Gary story. Beatrice had never mentioned it afterwards and neither had I. At first, I’d assumed she was ashamed of what had happened –snogging a man she couldn’t possibly fancy just because she was drunk and it seemed like a good idea.
But every time I remembered that evening – which I did often, because it had been the start of everything between Luke and me – it left me feeling strangely unsettled. It had shown me a side of Beatrice I hadn’t realised was there – a kind of wanton destructiveness, like a child breaking something precious without thought for the consequences.
‘So she gets pissed and snogs randoms with her beer goggles on?’ Emily offered by way of analysis. ‘I don’t see the problem – been there, done that.’
I grinned. ‘Me three. But she – I’m not sure she likes me very much.’
‘Do you think she fancied Luke too?’
‘I don’t think it’s that. I think it’s more – you know, like I said, Orla and I get along. And I think it’s that that Beatrice doesn’t like.’
‘She’s jealous of your landlady? Weird.’
‘It’s not like she even seems to like her. She just doesn’t seem to like her liking me. If that makes any sense at all.’
‘Not really.’ Emily pushed her sunglasses back and frowned up at the sky. ‘It all sounds a bit crush-on-the-games-mistress to me.’
‘Maybe that’s it,’ I agreed. ‘Beatrice is – well, she’s kind of young in some ways.’
‘Well, if she wants to sulk, let her sulk. And if she gets nasty, you can always sack the whole thing off and move in with me.’
‘So long as Luke can stay over.’ I grinned.
‘Course he can.’
But, I realised, that wouldn’t solve the problem, because it would mean leaving Orla behind with Beatrice. I couldn’t begin to tell Emily how that made me feel – how I felt about Orla. It was unlike anything I could have imagined feeling about a woman so much older than me, seemingly so self-possessed.
I felt protective. And what I wanted to protect her from was Beatrice.
‘The sun’s going in,’ Emily said. ‘Typical English summer. Shall we decamp to a pub before it pisses it down?’
‘Yeah, let’s.’ I stood up, pulling my top back on and rolling up the blanket. Strolling away through the park with my friend, I was able to put my unformed worries behind me for the moment.