Chapter 2
‘So come on then. Why did you mysteriously disappear when you saw that the lovely Tom was at our table? Dish the dirt!’ Michelle handed me a mojito as we sat on the terrace to where she’d summoned me on their return.
At times, she could be incredibly impatient and when I first met her it grated on me a little, but I realised that we all have quirks and people who truly loved you accepted them instead of trying to change them.
I did love these girls dearly, even though I hadn’t known them for a very long period of time.
Michelle and I both lived in properties on Jo’s land and the terrace outside of Jo’s gorgeous recently refurbished cottage was where we came together every Friday for cocktails, otherwise known as ‘cocks on Friday’.
The sun was just setting over Sandpiper Shore and we sat looking out over the sand dunes to the beach beyond where the sea twinkled in the distance.
Our once-weekly early evenings had become a sacred ritual, and a therapy session for the soul.
I always felt like I could take on the world when I spent time with these two inspiring women.
I looked out to sea. Since I’d got back, I’d got so many thoughts swirling around my head.
Tom was someone who, along with all the feelings and emotions that were stirred up if I did think about him, I’d shut in a box, never to surface again.
That’s the trouble with boxes though. The lids can always be prised open.
‘You’re making it all so mysterious that you will have to spill the beans now.’ Jo put her hand on my arm. ‘Surely you know by now that you can trust us both?’
Maybe these feelings that were churning inside me now would be better if they were out in the open. They always said a problem shared was a problem halved. But once the Tom box was open, could I close it again?
I hid my face behind my hands.
‘Promise you won’t laugh.’
‘Of course we won’t laugh. Well, we’ll try not to, won’t we, Chelle?’ Jo giggled. ‘I’m only joking, Em. We won’t. We promise.’
When I took my hands away from my face, I noticed that Michelle had her fingers crossed. She laughed and uncrossed them as soon as she saw me clock this.
Blurting it out seemed to be the only way to stop me dithering. ‘We were in a play together.’
This time it was Jo’s eyes that showed surprise.
‘ A play ? What sort of play?’
‘ Romeo and Juliet , if you must know.’ I put my glass down on the table in front of me and folded my arms defensively.
‘When was this?’ Jo asked, her eyebrows slowly returning to normal.
‘When we were at college.’ There, I’d said it now. ‘That’s it. Nothing more to tell.’
Jo and Michelle shared a look and Jo raised her eyebrows.
‘Why the big fuss then? Why did you hide from him?’
‘Oh, God, this is like the Spanish inquisition. You can stop interrogating me, you know.’ I laughed. I loved them both dearly, but they were so persistent at times.
‘Absolutely not until you tell us the truth. Come on, Emma, we do know you and we also know that you wouldn’t have done what you did today for someone you were just,’ she made air quotes, ‘in a play with.’ Michelle was right, they did know me and could see straight through me.
‘What are you not telling us?’ Jo asked.
I shrugged my shoulders and took a deep breath.
‘We were together.’
Michelle’s eyes widened. ‘ Together , together?’
I sighed again. ‘Well, so I thought.’
My mind drifted back to my time at college. I was a na?ve seventeen-year-old who had met Tom and fallen head over heels.
‘I thought we were in love. He clearly didn’t. That’s the end of the story really.’ Reaching for my glass, I took a big swig and gulped as it caught the back of my throat, making me cough.
‘And…’
‘That’s it,’ I replied.
Jo raised her eyebrows at me, knowingly.
‘OK. Will you stop asking about it if I tell you the whole truth? And again, you need to promise not to laugh.’
‘Maybe…’ replied Michelle, grinning.
‘I can’t promise…’
I batted Jo with the nearest cushion. While I knew they were jesting, it was through kindness. They wanted sharing to feel lighter for me. They had been such good friends. So I decided to tell them the truth.
I took another deep breath and ploughed straight back in.
‘I was an army child, as I’m sure I mentioned before, and didn’t make friends easily.
We moved around from one place to another and never really put down any firm roots.
I was always the new kid and I didn’t put any effort into making friends because as soon as I did, we’d move again, so there wasn’t much point.
It just hurt too much if I formed attachments.
’ I swallowed as there was a lump looming in my throat which was in danger of going either way, while talking about these memories. Luckily, it went away.
‘Mum and Dad were both strict parents. It wasn’t the greatest childhood, to be honest, even though I know they loved me in their own way.
But the one thing I adored doing more than anything in the world was amateur dramatics so after school I went to drama college to study performing arts.
I loved acting because I could be someone else, someone completely different.
I didn’t really like myself at that time of my life, to be honest.’
‘Gosh, that must have been tough. I’ve never really thought about how it might be for the child of an army family.’ Jo’s expression was sad.
Michelle looked surprised. ‘I can’t even think about you like that, Emma. You always seem so full of confidence with your shit together. You’ve gobsmacked me.’
This was one of the reasons why I never really told anyone. I didn’t want their pitying looks.
‘Tom and I were chosen to do the lead roles in Romeo and Juliet . We practised together outside of college. He came to my house when Mum and Dad were away and I went to his. His parents were very different to mine. They were lovely.’ I smiled as I remembered Mrs Sullivan and how she always used to bake the most delicious cakes and send me home with food parcels.
And Mr Sullivan used to either make sure that Tom walked me home, or he would give me a lift.
‘Tom and I became close. I really liked him. He was the only real friend I’d ever had.
After weeks of spending tons of time together as friends, we became even closer still; we kissed and it was wonderful.
’ I stared out to sea, remembering my very first kiss.
It was dreamy; his tender lips; the feeling that it gave me in my heart.
‘So, you snogged his face off and then what?’ Michelle sat forward in her chair, eagerly waiting for more. ‘Give us the juicy part of the story.’
I smiled, my mind drifting to another place, another time.
‘We spent a whole summer together and I thought he liked me as much as I liked him. That we were boyfriend and girlfriend. I was a seventeen-year-old girl with a body full of raging hormones and a jumble of emotions. The night before the play we were rehearsing and when he kissed me, I told him I loved him. He told me he loved me back. We planned to do the play and because my parents were away on the night of the play and couldn’t come, he was going to stop over at mine for the first time and we were going to, you know… ’
‘Oooh, nice!’ Michelle grinned.
‘On the day of the play I overheard someone at school, a girl called Julie Cartwright, talking about me. She had been a bully all the way through school, and even though I was only there a year she made mine and lots of other girls’ lives a misery.
She continued to behave the same way through college and that day she walked onto the stage set and told everyone that he only spent time with me because he felt sorry for me.
Said everyone called me “Fatty”, including him, . ..