Chapter 18.
Now
The idea of Lara has been shimmering at the back of my mind since our coffee last week. I can’t relax, knowing she’s just down the road. Over the years, there’s always been an outside chance of bumping into her without warning, given her parents still live in the area. But that risk has been minute, the odds reassuringly low. Not enough to keep me awake at night.
But now she’s back, and the unsettling thought keeps coming to me – I want to see her again . For so long, I’ve felt so angry with her, so certain I wanted her out of my life for good.
So when she messages to suggest we get together, just the two of us, the feeling is both wrong and right. It’s something I half want, but know I should probably steer clear of.
We meet at the picnic meadow at Whitlingham Country Park. Lara brings a hamper packed with M dark, cold regret for all the years we’ve missed out on. The experiences we might have had, the holidays we never got to enjoy. The nights out, the gossip and stories, the jokes and anecdotes we’d have carried with us into old age. I realise I actually don’t know very much at all about who she is now. What music she likes, her favourite food. How she celebrated her last birthday. If she cares about keeping fit. Her thoughts on getting older. Whether she can cook, or speak another language, or do a really solid impression of someone famous. If she knows anyone famous. I can’t even guess with much confidence which way she’d vote.
‘What’s Felix’s family like?’ I ask. A first attempt, perhaps, to get to know who she is today.
‘They’re amazing. Big. Loving. So loving. I feel very lucky.’ Lara’s sitting up now, fiddling with the picnic. She rips open a giant packet of crisps, then passes me a pack of chicken empanadas.
I take one, pushing away a dark flutter of envy, as I so often do when I encounter people with functional families.
‘How’s your mum doing?’ she asks, like she can still read my mind after all this time.
‘Same as ever. Dating and drinking and doing my head in.’ I bite into the empanada. It’s good, and I realise how hungry I am.
‘Does she still hang around with that guy... What was his name?’
‘Ralph.’
‘Ralph! That’s it. I often wondered if they’d get it together. He always seemed like he genuinely cared about her.’
‘I think my mother’s allergic to people who genuinely care about her.’
She smiles faintly in response, but I can’t quite read her expression.
‘Lar, what’s Felix like?’ The over-protectiveness I detected – suspected? – before is bothering me. I need to know more about him.
I shouldn’t care, but some instincts you can’t control.
‘In what way?’
‘Well, what’s he like ? I mean, how do you know... he’s the one?’
Lara nibbles on a single crisp. ‘Aside from the fact he’s insanely handsome and warm-hearted and has the body of a god?’
‘Yeah,’ I say, with a smile. ‘Aside from all that.’
‘Well, mostly,’ she says, after a few moments, ‘he’s a grown-up.’
I think about a boy she once dumped back in uni because he wanted to be a lawyer, which Lara decided was a bit of a red flag, personality-wise. ‘Remember Sam?’
She laughs. ‘Oh my God. The funniest thing. We’re back in touch. He’s an entertainment lawyer now. I’ve come across him at work a couple of times. Such a nice guy. Married, two kids.’
‘Small world. You don’t regret—’
‘God, no. Lovely guy, but you know... he’s no Felix.’
‘Tell me,’ I press, because she seems so certain, ‘what it is about him.’
She takes two tubs of pasta salad from the hamper, passing one to me. ‘Well, he was the first guy I’d met in ages who didn’t want to play games. I mean, a lot of guys say they don’t want to, because they think that’s what you want to hear, but Felix actually means it. I love that about him. He’s so self-assured. He knows what he wants from life. And he’s one of those people who just draws people in, you know? We were on the night bus once and by the time we got off there was this crowd of people just... wanting to talk to him.’
Showman? I think, but don’t say. Lara used to loathe guys like that.
But now, I can tell her eyes are shining behind her shades. ‘That he can draw people to him wherever he is, even on some random bus on a Tuesday night, that’s hot , Neve. But he cares a lot, too. He’s kind and generous and... careful.’
‘Careful?’ I say, through a mouthful of pasta.
‘With people’s emotions. Their hearts. He’s friends with all his exes.’
I’m still unsure, actually, as to whether I think that’s a great thing in principle, but decide not to voice this.
‘He’s perfect, then,’ I venture, because that’s essentially what she’s saying.
‘Well, no, obviously. But he’s perfect for me.’ She pushes the hair from her face, crosses her legs, adjusts her sunglasses. ‘Neve?’
‘Yeah.’ I think I know what’s coming next.
‘Are you... ready to talk about what happened with Jamie yet?’
She says this so cautiously. I don’t recognise at all this permission-seeking version of the girl who, as a teenager, once did her best impression of Riverdance live on the regional news for a dare, skipping ludicrously into the background of an outside broadcast as the presenter gabbled obliviously on.
‘No,’ I say, because even though there’s a part of me that wants to talk about Jamie – that needs to say his name and even tell her what I think might be going on with Ash – I don’t want to let those dark and complicated feelings eclipse this sliver of sunshine we’re sharing. I was so lost for so long after Jamie died, and I’m simply not ready to relive all that again.
‘I really want to,’ she insists. ‘It’s important. There are things—’
‘I . . . can’t. Not yet.’
She nods, Okay , then sips from her drink.
‘Will you marry Felix, do you think? Start a family?’ Maybe there’s a part of me that senses some transience in her. That I might get close to wanting to be her friend again, only for her to up and leave me for California, a world light years away from this one.
She takes a long while to answer. ‘I hope so,’ she says, eventually.
We both lie back and angle our faces to the dry blue heat of the sky.
‘I meant to say, I’d like to see Corinne.’
‘She’d love that. Thank you.’
She asks how it’s going with Ash. I tell her good, but that it’s still early days.
‘Hey,’ she says, ‘I don’t know if it would be too soon... but it would be great to have dinner. The four of us, sometime? I’d love you to meet Felix properly. And it would be really nice to get to know Ash, too.’
‘Yeah, maybe,’ I say. ‘I’ll have to see how it goes.’
We’ve hardly made a dent in the picnic. And there is so much still left unsaid. But for now, today, maybe this can be enough.