Chapter 45
I wake up the next day with a series of texts from Vandi, each one getting more and more frantic. When I call her she doesn’t pick up and instead sends another text saying she can’t talk, but could I meet her in the café round the corner from her flat.
I find her at a corner table, far enough from a speaker so we can hear each other over the soundtrack of current hits that, depressingly, I’m getting too old to recognise.
‘Vand, you’re freaking me out. What’s going on?’ I ask, sliding into my seat.
‘Let’s get you something to drink,’ she says enigmatically.
She motions the waitress over, and I order a tea.
Once she’s gone, I try again. ‘Are you okay?’
She nods, then meets my eye. ‘I did something very stupid.’
‘What, worse than when you snogged Martin Thomas on our geography field trip to exotic Hindhead?’
She twists her cup of half-drunk coffee. ‘I slept with The Doll last night.’
My mouth drops open. ‘Oliver, your flatmate?’
She grimaces. ‘Yes.’
I can’t help it, but the first question I ask is: ‘Was it … delicious?’
‘This is no time for jokes, Nella!’
I try to hide my smile. ‘Sorry. You’re right, it’s not appropriate.’
‘I feel awful because he’s got a girlfriend – I wronged another woman – but we were both drunk and it just happened.’
I smart, because ‘it just happened’, was one of Rich’s lines.
Putting my own baggage aside, I try to say the right thing. ‘If he was getting cold feet about his girlfriend, that’s on him. Not you.’
‘I thought you’d hate me because of … you know.’
‘Me being a wronged woman?’ She nods. ‘Look, I feel for the girlfriend, but you’re my mate. I’ll always have your back.’
She squeezes my hand. ‘I’ve been dreading telling you.’
‘You’re human. You’re allowed to make mistakes.’
She drops her head in her hands. ‘The problem is, I have to stay out until he goes to bed because I can’t face seeing him.’
‘Come on, Vands, it’s still your home. Let him be the one too embarrassed to show his face.’
‘I’ve never done anything like this before. I don’t know how to behave.’
‘You’re going to have to put on your big girl pants and talk to him. Tell him it was fun, but it was a one-off, and that it would be better to go back to being mates.’
‘I can’t be mates with him now I’ve seen his O-Face. And he’s seen mine.’
‘You can be mates again, I promise.’
She narrows her eyes at me. ‘What am I missing?’
‘What do you mean what are you missing? I’m giving you my free Dr Praxitelis advice.’
‘How was Cyprus?’
‘It was nice, thanks.’
This is not the question she really wants to ask.
‘Your sister put up some interesting pictures.’
Still not a question. ‘Spit it out, Vand.’
She leans forward. ‘Frig me, Mark is still hot. Possibly hotter than when he was younger. He’s actually smiling in some photos. Photos you’re in, too, where you’re also smiling. At each other …’
This is news to me. Not that Tig has put up pictures because she has to catalogue everything, but that there are pics of me and Mark together, looking all … smiley.
‘What are you getting at?’
I won’t offer any information, but if she asks a direct question, I won’t lie.
‘Did you shag?’
I’m almost sorry I’m about to disappoint her. ‘No.’
She sighs. ‘Oh, I was so sure …’
I shrug. ‘My week hasn’t been quite as exciting as yours.’
‘All that sun, sea, and … not even a little action?’
I can’t keep my expression passive, and she sees it immediately.
‘Fudge!’ she exclaims, snagging the waitress’s attention. Vandi has a revolving selection of words she uses to avoid the F-word – frig, frick, feck, and fudge. The waitress, however, doesn’t know this.
‘Would you like fudge?’ she asks. ‘We have some in the back.’
Vandi grins. ‘That would be great, thanks!’ She looks back at me. ‘I need something to nibble on while you dish, although please feel free to start before it arrives.’
‘We got caught in an electrical storm and ended up taking shelter in a shed away from the main house.’
‘And did things get charged?’
I nod.
‘Was there nudity?’
‘A little.’
She puts her hands together like she’s praying. ‘Please, for the love of all that is holy, tell me one or both of you got off.’
I shake my head. ‘Afraid not. We got interrupted, which was probably a good thing.’
‘Why?’
‘I can’t be another notch in his bed-post – I couldn’t handle that right now. I’m too raw from the break-up.’
‘I used to think that about Oliver. I know he’s got a girlfriend, but I also know he plays away. And I hate that it makes him more attractive.’
‘I know.’
‘We should just embrace it and enjoy a Bad Boy Summer.’
I shake my head. ‘Just, hold on to your heart, Vand, yeah? Don’t let him break it.’
‘Don’t worry, I can keep my feet on the ground.’
‘Good,’ I tell her. What I don’t add is that I’m not sure I believe her.
Vandi gets the fudge to go, and we leave. I’m almost at the tube when she comes running back to me.
‘I forgot the most important question,’ she says, out of breath. ‘Are you in a position to confirm or deny that thing Courtney-with-a-C said?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I tell her, smiling.
I turn and resume walking.
‘Yes, you feckin’ do!’ she shouts after me. ‘Because you’ve never let me live it down!’
When we were fourteen, a girl in the year above us, Courtney-with-a-C, told Vandi that Mark was fat and that she knew this because she’d seen him naked when they’d done the deed at Kourtney-with-a-K’s party.
‘It’s weird, isn’t it?’ Vandi had said. ‘He doesn’t look fat. If anything he looks a bit skinny.’
‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘Maybe he wears flattering clothes or something?’ We had recently read an article about avoiding horizontal stripes and we’d cleared Top Shop out of all its vertical-striped clothes. Although, I didn’t recall ever seeing Mark in a stripy outfit.
‘Yeah, that’s what I thought,’ she replied. ‘What other explanation could there be?’
‘Are you sure she said fat? That was her exact word?’
‘Yep, she definitely said fat.’ She frowned. ‘She also said he was nice, which is weird cos nice isn’t the word that springs to mind, either.’
Realisation was dawning, but not for my sheltered friend.
‘Vand, is there any chance she said he was “nice and fat”?’
She clicked her fingers. ‘Yes! That’s exactly it.’
I burst out laughing. ‘That is completely different.’
Vandi started to grin but then frowned. ‘I don’t get it. What are we laughing about?’
‘You’ll work it out, eventually.’
Too right I never let her live it down.