Chapter 77
Josh
I’ve been debating going into hiding ever since Emma – for reasons best known to herself – began talking about throwing Rachel and me ‘a big fuck-off party’ for our fifty-eighth birthday.
Quite why she’s decided now is the time to jump-start our social lives I have no idea, but Rachel thinks it was after she mentioned to Emma that she’d been thinking of joining the National Trust.
Fortunately, Polly ends up thwarting Emma’s sociopathic intentions by inviting the three of us to her middle son Fred’s wedding, that same weekend.
On top of my general aversion to birthdays, I’m not normally a fan of large social gatherings where more than a few people know me. Someone usually feels the need to single me out and remark upon how young I look, or tell me how much they hated the ending to one – or all – of my books or TV shows.
But, given there will be cake, champagne and – if all goes to plan – a party atmosphere, I decide to accept the invite. Mostly in order to get Emma off my back.
It’s surreal sometimes, spending time with Rachel’s daughter.
She probably doesn’t remember that, growing up, she used to be my little buddy.
I could lift her up with one hand, make her squeal with laughter just by pulling a stupid face.
I have read to her, done jigsaws with her, let her eat Nutella from the jar with her fist. Taken her swimming, pushed her on countless swings.
Now, though, biologically, we are only five years apart. The dinner and speeches are over, which is a relief for all one hundred and fifty of us, because Fred’s best man – who’s old enough to know better – seemed only to be familiar with jokes that stopped being funny in the eighties.
In front of us they’re setting up a dance floor, which I fully plan to ignore, because there’s one thing that pill never fixed, and that’s being afflicted with worse co-ordination than your average newborn foal.
‘Well, here’s to you both,’ Emma says, raising her glass. We are drinking champagne, Emma having insisted on buying a bottle from the marquee bar. ‘How does it feel to be fifty-eight?’
Rachel sips her drink and smiles. ‘Better if you stop saying fifty-eight.’
‘Am I going to see the pair of you up on that dance floor later?’
‘Nobody wants to see that,’ Rachel and I say, at exactly the same time.
We chat for a while longer, then Rachel says, with an oddly conspiratorial smile, ‘Hey, do you reckon anyone here thinks you’re my daughter and son?’
‘Jesus, can we not,’ I say urgently.
‘Or maybe they think we’re boyfriend and girlfriend,’ Emma says, throwing me an exaggerated wink.
I pretend to check my phone. ‘They said carriages at three, yes?’
Rachel laughs and squeezes my arm. ‘Sorry, sorry.’ She turns to her daughter. ‘How about you tell us about your actual boyfriend?’
‘Mum, we’ve been through this. George isn’t my boyfriend.’
‘Oh, sorry. Of course. What would you call him, then?’
‘An acquaintance. As in, a solicitor I quite like and occasionally sleep with.’
Rachel makes a pleading face. ‘Can I meet him?’
‘Absolutely, if you’re arrested for a crime. Be sure to call Morton and Whittaker and ask for George Holdsworth.’
Rachel sighs, defeated.
Predictably, Emma turns to me. ‘How about you, Josh? Anyone you’re occasionally sleeping with?’
‘Nope. Too tired for all that now.’
‘Tired?’
‘Up here.’ I tap the side of my head.
‘I thought your brain hadn’t aged a day in nearly three decades.’
‘No. But I’ve lived every one of them. It’s mental, not physical.’
‘Isn’t that why you do yoga and wash exclusively in cold water?’
I smile, tempted to remind her there are some types of tiredness that exercise and ice baths can’t touch. But that’s the kind of defeatist talk she likes to tell me off for.
‘If Josh is tired, then I should definitely be feeling my age,’ Rachel says.
‘Should, bollocks.’ Emma tips back some champagne. ‘You feel how you feel. And you feel great, don’t you?’
Rachel shrugs. ‘Yes, mostly.’
‘Good,’ Emma says. ‘Then let’s talk holidays. It’s looking as if I might have a window towards the end of the year.’
A few months ago, Emma officially mooted the idea of the three of us going away together.
Rachel has turned down the last couple of trips I’ve proposed, but, once I extended the invitation to Emma too, she seemed more open to the prospect.
In the end, though, Emma’s work calendar transpired to be blocked out for the foreseeable future.
Since securing tenancy last year she hasn’t had a break that’s lasted longer than five minutes, as far as I can work out.
I asked her once when she’ll be allowed to take her foot off the pedal, whereupon she shot me a withering look and said, ‘When I retire.’
‘Where do you fancy?’ says Rachel.
Emma turns to me. ‘Any ideas, globetrotter?’
As nicknames go, it could be worse. I have been travelling a fair bit lately, ever since I caved and paid someone dodgy for a passport with a birth date that finally tallied with my face. ‘Wherever you like. I’m easy. You decide.’
‘Hmm. I don’t know. Maybe somewhere like . . . Aruba?’ Emma says.
She got it out of me, once. That Aruba was a place I’d wanted to go with Rachel.
I shoot her a stop it look. But she just beams at me.
Thankfully, Rachel appears not to notice, and the moment moves on.
I sit at the edge of the dance floor until well into the evening.
Rachel and Emma come and go, mingling and catching up.
Fortunately, aside from the odd exchange of pleasantries, I’m largely left alone.
Maybe people don’t make the connection with the fifty-something geezer I should be when they see me.
Or maybe they do, and have no idea what to say.
The band switches tempo to something slow. A step back in time, to nineties-era Westlife. A blast from a golden past.
As the music kicks in, Rachel appears in front of me, her hand outstretched.
There are nearly thirty years between us tonight, but I think – not for the first time – that she looks beautiful as ever.
She’s teased a curl through her hair, which is short now but still blonde, albeit slowly greying along the crown.
Her dress is a medley of fuchsia and peach, pleated from the waist, and her lips are a riotous pink.
She is, as she always has been, dazzling.
Still. No need to kill the moment with a dance. I smile at her, shake my head. ‘Ah, no. We scare people on dance floors, remember?’
‘Don’t worry.’ She returns my smile. ‘They’re bound to look at the two of us and blame me.’
And so, as sunset submits to dusk, and the canopy of lights flares gold, I follow Rachel on to the dance floor. The outdoor air is perfumed with dampening grass, slumbering rose bushes.
I pull her close, wrap my arms around her back.
The kite-high pleasure of being close to her like this is something I’d filed into the deepest recesses of my memory.
I’m not really ready for what it does to me.
She lays her head on my shoulder, and I feel loss blow through me, sharp as a winter wind.
‘Love you,’ I whisper, into the soft folds of her hair.
‘Love you too,’ she whispers back.
As the music plays on and we slowly turn around together, I catch sight of Emma watching us, her phone lifted to capture the moment.
She brushes something from her cheek, and I shut my eyes.